Trinity Church Blog

The antidote to our pride and sloth

2012-01-19T13:53:00.002-06:00

"The more sinful you discover yourself to be, the more you realize the radical nature of God's grace. The more radical you see His grace, the more you are freed to recognize your weaknesses and shortcomings without fear. And the more you see those, the sweeter grace becomes and the more you want to boldly live and share it. Thus the gospel creates in you an increasingly intense humility and confidence in God. Without the gospel, humility and confidence only increase at each other's expense. But in the gospel, humility and confidence increase together."

- Tim Keller, Church Planter Training Manual, p. 189

Insight into Adam's sin

2012-01-18T09:09:00.002-06:00

"Adam's failure in the task with which he was commissioned includes his permitting entrance into the garden to an antagonistic and unclean being. Although Genesis 2-3 does not explicitly say that Adam's 'ruling and subduing' task was to guard the garden from the satanic snake, this is likely conceptually in mind in light of the following two considerations: (1) the commission in Gen. 1:26-28 to subdue and rule over every creature that 'creeps on the earth'; (2) Eden was a temple in which Adam was placed as a living image of God and as God's priest who was to guard the sanctuary from unclean creatures. Thus, Adam did not rule well because he did not guard the garden, allowing entrance to a foul snake that brought sin, chaos and disorder in to the sanctuary and into Adam and Eve's lives. He allowed the serpent to 'rule over' him rather than 'ruling over' it and, as an obedient priest, casting it out of the garden."

- Gregory Beale, New Testament Theology, pp. 45-46

A comment on commentaries

2012-01-17T07:50:00.002-06:00

As a Christian grows in his or her knowledge of Scripture, a desire to mine the wealth of the biblical text often compels one to read beyond the text itself, searching out commentaries written by the most theologically accurate and scholarly keen minds. The array of Bible commentaries available for each of the Bible's sixty-six books is dizzying. How to know which to read? Which are most reliable? Which are a worthwhile investment?

Recently, a new website providing answers to these questions emerged which I've found personally very helpful. Hopefully, you will too. You can find it here.

Preaching at Trinity

2012-01-14T09:59:00.002-06:00

These days you never know what you're going to find in a sermon when you visit a church. Some are mostly inspiring stories designed to motivate mere behavior. Others may be dry, theological lectures which rarely connect with people's real lives. Some sermons reference the Bible frequently, and others may give it a nod but little more. Some thoughts by Ed Stetzer, I believe, capture how we seek to approach preaching here at Trinity and what our listeners can expect:

"For a sermon to be genuinely biblical, the text [of the Bible] must set the agenda as the foundation of the message. Scripture should be central. Expository preaching [i.e. preaching based on a biblical text] does not make statements and then look to the Bible for support; it begins by examining the Scriptures." (Planting Missional Churches, p. 272)

I agree. A sermon is not biblical unless the Bible itself sets the sermon's agenda. But that is not all. After the biblical text is explained, it needs to be illustrated, helping those listening understand what the God-driven truth its revealing 'looks like' in their world. Finally, it needs to be applied in a compelling way which both unmasks our sin and drives us in hope to Jesus for forgiveness and holy power to more fully embrace His glorious purpose in making us.

When these three components converge: explanation of a biblical text, illustration of the text in contemporary terms and application of the text's gospel truth to our lives, then you have a truly biblical sermon.

Becoming spiritually legible in 2012

2012-01-03T09:09:00.003-06:00

As the father of growing sons who are presently learning to read better than write, on a number of occasions they have written me a note or card which I simply can't decipher. They want to communicate in English, but based on the piece of paper before me, they might as well be from Borneo due to the illegibility of their hand-writing.

Though we all want to be able to communicate by way of our language, as Christians we should be even more concerned to 'communicate Christ' through our lives. Ralph Venning, in his book The Sinfulness of Sin, reminds us that one of sin's dementing effects is how it makes us spiritually illegible to those around us. He writes, "Righteousness and holiness were stamped on man's soul, but sin has blotted this image and superscription, which once told from whence it came, and to whom it belonged, so that man is fallen short of the glory of being God's." (45)

In other words, when God originally made Adam and Eve, prior to the Fall, they were untarnished mirror images of God in which it was easy to 'read' God's glory stamped on them. The Fall 'smudged' God's glorious image stamped on us, making it harder to read. But, by God's grace, regeneration (new life through faith in Christ ) begins the work of cleaning up the smudge of sin so that our lives once again become spiritually legible to the glory of God.

The ultimate work of 'divine legibility' in us is God's, but there is an active role each of us is called to play as well. Every time we choose to sin, we are re-smudging the image of God, making us spiritually illegible to a watching world. But, every time we trust God and live by His righteous Word, we partner with the Spirit in His supernatural work of clearing away the smudge of the Fall so we become increasingly 'legible', allowing others to easily read us as Christ's ambassadors on earth, trophies of His grace.

I don't put much stock in New Year's resolutions, but as 2012 begins, let's pursue greater spiritual legibility by saying 'no' to sin and 'yes' to righteousness. Perhaps you can think of some specific patterns of sin which which made your life in 2011 less spiritually illegible. Today is a new beginning to partner with the Holy Spirit and make choices which will make the label 'Christian' be more legible than ever. Then, not only will God be glorified as we more clearly mirror His glory as we were designed, others will be able to read the gospel stamped on our lives, inviting them, too, to become living signposts pointing to heaven in clearly legible script for all to read.

Gifts for the serious Christian reader

2011-12-21T13:54:00.008-06:00

Still need a Christmas present for a thoughtful Christian in your family or circle of friends? Let me suggest a few. On Sunday I mentioned John Owen's master-work equipping Christians to fight sin well: Overcoming Sin and Temptation. Similar, but more accessible, is Ralph Venning's The Sinfulness of Sin. Both are unparalleled in helping us understand sin, hate it and go after it to put it to death.

In the world of theology, some excellent books have been written this year. Two 2011 books I would highly recommend are Michael Horton's The Christian Faith. It is similar to Wayne Grudem's famous work but more integrated and personally written. Greg Beale also recently released A New Testament Biblical Theology. Beale's work, more than any other, has shaped my understanding of Revelation and how Old and New Testament eschatology fit together. I just started this book and am loving it.

Finally, if your friend loves books about the Cross and the gospel, let me recommend George Smeaton's The Apostle's Doctrine of the Atonement. Smeaton was a Scotch theologian in the 19th century and plumbed the depths of the atonement themes in the New Testament more than any other I've seen. If you don't take my recommendation for it, just consider that this is Jerry Bridges' favorite book. Enough said.

Happy reading!

Prophetic interpretive clues

2011-12-20T12:58:00.002-06:00

Last Sunday's presentation of the picture of covenant blessing poured out on and through God's people in Micah four may have presented a new way of reading Bible prophecy for some of you. Though we may initially be inclined to interpret the image of a more glorious Temple (4:1), for instance, in terms of a literal, future building in the Middle East, reading such prophecies covenantally reveals a much richer fulfillment not only through Israel's return from the exile but also Christ's first and second comings as well as the ministry and mission of the church.

In his commentary on Micah, Bruce Waltke provides six interpretive clues for helping us understand and apply Old Testament prophecies of covenantal blessing. Hopefully, you'll find them helpful in your own study of Old Testament prophecy.

1. The NT taught that such prophecies found their fulfillment in Christ and His church (Luke 24:44, Acts 3:24, I Peter 1:10, etc.)

2. Prophets represent the new age under the symbols of the old age. Prophecies about events prior to Pentecost find a material fulfillment. With Christ's ascension from earth to heaven and the outpouring of his Holy Spirit from heaven to earth, and with the transformation of his body from an earthly physical body to a heavenly spiritual body, the earthly material symbols were done away and the spiritual reality portrayed by the symbols superseded the earthly shadows.

3. The plain, normal meaning of Old Testament worship primarily had in view the eternal heavenly realities behind the symbols. For example, the tabernacle was a pattern of the heavenly (Exodus 25:9, Hebrews 8:5) and through the pattern the priestly nation participated in the heavenly. In light of such passages as John 4:21-24, the Christian will set little value on the geography and regard it as a cultural adornment to a deeper and universal truth.

4. When Christ lowered heaven to earth, first at his advent and then at Pentecost, the otiose [obsolete] symbols were forever done away, leaving the reality unveiled - which was so much greater than the symbol (Hebrews 8:13, 9:26, 10:9).

5. To show the exceeding greatness of the future, the prophets supercharged the old symbols with larger-than-life imagery.

6. There is a temporal multidimensionality to these prophecies. They embrace a beginning of fulfillment in Israel's restoration from the exile, a victorious fulfillment in the church age stretching from Christ's first advent to his second coming and a consummation in the eschatological new heaven and new earth when Christ's Kingdom becomes coextensive with creation. [Some would add a future, Millennial reign of Christ and His church to these dimensions of biblical fulfillment].

- Bruce Waltke, MICAH, 678-679

Learning to fight well

2011-12-14T08:03:00.004-06:00

In Romans 6:12 Paul says that based on Christ's death and resurrection in our place we have both the power and incentive to make double war against sin and temptation. He writes, "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions."

All of us can think of temptations which seem to dog us, enticing us to sin against God again and again. We may make some show of sorrow, regret and resolve not to do it again, but often, before we know it, we're back embracing that hateful sin.

According to the Puritan theologian, John Owen, our weak warfare, in part, lies in the fact that we fail to war against the very root of the sin. He writes,

"A man may beat down the bitter fruit from an evil tree until he is weary; while the root abides in strength and vigor, the beating down of the present fruit will not hinder [the tree] from bringing forth more fruit. This is the folly of some men; they set themselves with all earnestness and diligence against the appearing eruption of lust, but, leaving the principle and root untouched, perhaps searched out, they make but little or no progress in this work of [sin] mortification [i.e. killing]." - Of The Mortification of Sin, p. 76.

What kind of war are you making against the lusts of your mind, heart and flesh today? Are you merely going after the superficial fruit (e.g. resolving to stay away from Christmas goodies for fear of gluttony or the movie theater for fear of mental lust), or are you going to the root of your temptations (confessing your deep-seated rage at not being God and not having a world which revolves around your self-gratification)? In our fight against sin, let's target the source, make war against the root and apply theological herbicide to the temptations which lure us from the heart of God.

A testimony of God's grace

2011-11-29T16:36:00.003-06:00

This week I will be quoting briefly from JC Ryle, that great English preacher of the 19th century whose few published books are worth more to me than a room full of gold. In his Autobiography, Ryle looks back to the days of his conversion in his early 20's and writes these inspiring words:

"It may interest my children to know what were the points in religion by which my opinions at this period of my life became strongly marked, developed and decided, and what were the principles which came out into strong, clear and distinct relief when this great change came over me … Nothing I can remember to this day appeared to me so clear and distinct as my own sinfulness, Christ's preciousness, the value of the Bible, the absolute necessity of coming out of the world, the need of being born again and the enormous folly of the whole doctrine of baptismal regeneration. All these things … seemed to flash upon me like a sunbeam in the winter of 1837 and have stuck in my mind from that time down to this. People may account for such a change as they like; my own belief is that … it was what the Bible calls "conversion" or "regeneration". Before that time I was dead in sins and on the high road to hell, and from that time I have become alive and had a hope of heaven. And nothing to my mind can account for it, but the free sovereign grace of God."

May it be the same for us.

Facing suicide in God's family

2011-11-12T07:34:00.002-06:00

Tragically, one of our brothers in Christ last night took his own life. Trinity Church, and Minot Air Force Base, is in mourning and the Kingdom of God on earth is bereft of a precious friend. Since the information may not yet have been released to his family, I am keeping his name in confidence. Nevertheless, you who knew him likely know of the loss. How are we, as believers, to think through and process the suicide of a fellow believer? It's a situation for which we are rarely prepared. One of the most helpful responses to the suicide of a believer was written more than twenty years ago by John Piper. I reproduce it here in full. For you who grieve today, may it bring you insight, peace and hope.

We need firm biblical ground under our feet at a time like this. And so I want to try to take the Bible, God’s Word, and unfold five truths that I hope will give you a firm place to stand in the coming days.

Saints sometimes feel so bad that they want to die.
It is sin to fulfill that desire by taking your own life.
The only way sin can be forgiven is in our relationship to Jesus Christ by faith.
Saving faith can be so weak that the heart gives way to grievous sin.
Therefore let this death not be in vain: let it make us utterly committed to overcome the weakness of faith that cost him his life.

1. Saints Sometimes Feel So Bad That They Want to Die

Moses was under tremendous pressure from the people to take them back to Egypt. They were dissatisfied with his leadership. And God himself had sent fire against the people. Moses says, “I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness” (Numbers 11:14–15).

Elijah had just endured the incredible strain of single-handedly opposing 400 priests of the idol Baal and the people of Israel and the king. God vindicated his faith, and he ran exuberantly for miles in front of the king’s chariot. Then he heard that the king’s wife, Jezebel, vowed to kill him. In his fear and exhaustion he went into the wilderness, sat down under a broom tree, and said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).

The prophet Jonah displayed one of the most selfish attitudes of all the prophets in being irritated that God had mercy on the pagan city of Nineveh. And God rebuked him with a desert wind. “When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live’” (Jonah 4:8).

Listen to the account of a young Christian graduate student.

Although I have always been reasonably healthy, insomnia has plagued me from adolescence until now. Only those who are unable to sleep at night can appreciate the distressing toll this ailment takes on one’s life: the omnipresent sense of fatigue, the susceptibility to irritation, and the grossness of an unrefreshed mind. All through the university I struggled against a never ending torpor, mental and animal. Each night the disquiets of mind prevailed over weariness. And the more the tensions of graduate work mounted, the more I fought off the effects of insufficient sleep. One Friday afternoon, as I prepared for the spring language examinations, I emotionally exploded. Having lost sleep with such regularity, I lacked courage to face the future. My mind was like a mass of live rubber: continually expanding, it threatened to divide down the center. This would leave me powerless to cope with responsibilities in the university . . . Everything I conceived became a burden; every anticipated obligation threatened to impale me. Even so ordinary a responsibility as conversing with others overwhelmed me with consternation. Nor dare I conceal that fact that even suicide took on a certain attractiveness.

This graduate student went on to become a great professor of theology. He wrote books that are among the most penetrating and moving I have ever read. But in the end he was found dead of an overdose of sleeping pills. The coroner wrote, "I find death undetermined whether Accidental or Suicidal." But those closest to him conceded that there was an addiction to the sleeping pills and that this was connected to his mental condition and "that dependency finally proved his undoing." If this beloved professor intentionally took too many pills, it would not prove he was unregenerate.

Saints sometimes feel so bad that they want to die.

2. It Is Sin to Fulfill That Desire by Taking Your Own Life

Committing suicide is sin. For three reasons:

First, it is disobedience to the command of God, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). And disobedience to God’s commands is sin.
Second, it is presumption upon God’s sovereign prerogatives to give and take life. God alone can create a human person, and therefore personhood belongs to God. We have no right to dispose of ourselves or others as we please. The Lord has sole rights over what he has made. Murder and suicide intrude on the sacred ground where God alone is the giver and taker.
Third, it is failure to trust in God for the help needed to survive and cope. And the Bible says that whatever is not from faith is sin (Romans 14:23).

Therefore, we are on firm biblical ground when we say: it is sin take your own life.

3. The Only Way Sin Can Be Forgiven Is in Our Relationship to Jesus Christ by Faith

Every one of us is a sinner. It doesn’t matter how many “good” things we do or have done. We have dishonored God by the meagerness of love to God and the shallowness of our trust in God and the inconsistency of our obedience to God. If we don’t find a way for our sins to be forgiven, we will be cut off from God forever, because God is holy and cannot look with favor on sin.

Nor can he sweep sin under the rug as though the dishonoring of his holy name by our sin were of no consequence. It is of infinite consequence. And that’s why God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to die for sinners.

The prophet Isaiah foresaw this great sending of the suffering Messiah.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4–6)

Jesus Christ came into the world and fulfilled this great Jewish prophecy by dying on the cross and becoming a curse for those who trust in him. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

His apostle Peter said, “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). So the issue for every one of us is: do we have a relationship of faith with Jesus Christ so that our sins are forgiven? It is the most precious gift in the world. And there is no other way for a sinner to get to God than through the shed blood of God’s Messiah, Jesus Christ—by trusting in his name.

No amount of good works can earn God’s salvation. And no amount of bad works disqualifies a person from God’s converting grace. A thief hung on a cross next to Jesus as he was dying. His life was one total waste of sin and unbelief. And in that last moment his eyes were opened and he threw himself on the mercy of the King of the universe and said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus, with all the sovereignty of one who would not be defeated by death, said, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42–43).

In the eleventh hour a lifetime of sin and unbelief can be forgiven by faith in Jesus Christ.

4. Saving Faith Can Be So Weak That the Heart Gives Way to Grievous Sin

Or to put it another way, those who are truly forgiven for their sins and accepted by God forever can give way temporarily to temptation and fall into sin.

The biblical evidence for this is:

The seventh chapter of Romans describes how Christians struggle with the remaining corruption in our lives: Romans 7:15: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Philippians 3:12: “Not that I . . . am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
1 John 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive we ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
In Matthew 6:12 Jesus says we should not only pray for daily bread but for daily forgiveness too: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.”

Saving faith can be so weak at times that the heart gives way to grievous sin.

But this does not mean that the saving relationship with Christ goes in and out of existence with each of our sins. When a believer yields to temptation, his faith in Christ is weak and the enticements of sin and the power of Satan get the upper hand. But there is a great difference between Satan getting a temporary upper hand and Satan being the Lord of life. There is a great difference between yielding with resistance to an evil that I hate to do, and doing that evil as part of the usual pattern of my life.

The evidence of the Master’s hand is the warp and woof of the fabric, not the snags in our thread.

In the years of your friend’s unbelief he was like a captive in a concentration camp far behind the lines of Satan’s territory. Like all of us at one time or another, he had given himself over to the side of the enemy by refusing to trust in Christ. The result was a kind of numbness toward spiritual things.

Then one day, it appears that Jesus set himself to penetrate the lines of Satan’s territory, break through the fences of the concentration camp, and shock him out of his stupor of unbelief.

But as they were leaving the concentration camp, the sirens went off, the ensuing combat was fierce. The sword was knocked out of his hand and the shield slipped on his arm. And the deceptive dart of temptation sank so deep into his heart that he fell in the combat.

And where was Jesus? We believe he caught him when he fell and carried him home.

And if we say to Jesus, “You should have protected him while he was escaping,” I think he would say, “My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. You can no more grasp my wartime strategies than a child can read the graphs of the Chief of Staff. And remember, if I hadn’t broken through the prison of his unbelief, you would have never seen him again.”

5. Therefore Let This Death Not Be in Vain: Let It Make Us Utterly Committed to Overcome the Enemy That Brought Him to the Grave

Give his death worth and meaning by letting it make you hate sin and Satan and unbelief.
Let it make you blood-earnest about spiritual things.
Let it strip you of unbelief.
Let it be his last loud cry against the dangers of the powers of darkness.

What could honor him more than to let his death be a covenant between you and him, sealed with his own blood,

that you, from this day forth, will fight with all your might the enemy that brought him to his grave;
that you will wear the whole armor of God; and
that you will take the sword of the Spirit, the Bible, and practice with that sword so regularly, so diligently, so earnestly that you become valiant for the Savior who did not leave him blind, broke the prison walls of his unbelief . . . and caught him when he fell.

Eve's pain

2011-11-11T17:16:00.002-06:00

We're all familiar with the curse God placed upon Eve and all women who followed in her path. Genesis 3:16 says, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children." Almost exclusively, we think about Eve's curse in terms of physical pain. Indeed, every mother will testify to the reality of that. Still, could there be more in this curse? I think so.

One doesn't have to read far beyond Genesis 3 to discover more feminine pain bound up with Eve's curse. Chapter four showcases her eldest son's jealous heart inflicting its vengeance on his brother in fratricide. A mother's pain in childbirth may be great, but it is minimal compared to the agony of witnessing her children's sins - sometimes chronic sins that go on for decades and rip the family apart. How ironic: the sin which tasted so delicious (the forbidden fruit) came back to bite Eve - and all mothers ever since - perhaps most of all.

Praise God, therefore, for the promise found in Genesis 3:15 implicit in God's curse upon the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between her offspring and your offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Eve received the just desserts of her punishment in motherly pain, but in grace Christ (the ultimate Child) came to reverse the curse. One day every tear will be wiped away (Revelation 21:4) and every redeemed woman (we trust Eve included) will say 'good-bye' to her motherly pain to the glory of God.

The key to vibrant prayer

2011-11-09T08:12:00.004-06:00

We are not desperate to pray because we are self-deceived. We are blind to our depravity. We don't see ourselves as we really are. Do you want to learn to pray more? Learn of your sin. Ask God to show it to you, to give you a glimpse of your need. Ask him to show you what your sin cost him. Look at the cross again and again until you can say, "Lord, I'm so sinful, so weak, so deceived. Please, God, don't let a day go by without reminding me of this. Make me dependent."

Then, in faith, draw near knowing that you have needed cleansing but have been cleansed. Know that you have deserved wrath but have been fully loved. Sit down with your Beloved and hear him speak to you. Unburden your heart before him. Have fellowship with your heavenly husband. Be fully assured; he loves you when you pray, and he loves you when you don't. You're his bride when you hide from him, when you ignore him, when you think he doesn't really care. Run, now, to the lover of your soul.

- Elyse Fitzpatrick, Comforts from the Cross, pp. 129-130

Goodbye self-improvement

2011-11-05T16:30:00.003-05:00

The desire to change [is good] but it isn't exclusively Christian. Everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, wants to change. That's why bookstores are filled with self-help books and meeting halls are filled with people trying to overcome addictions to everything from gambling to pornography to shopping....But there's a problem here for us: self-improvement isn't a Christian construct; death and resurrection are.

Paul wrote, 'For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.' (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

God isn't interested in [our] self-improvement regimens. He isn't impressed by our resolutions to do better, to get those devotions in, pass out tracts, cut down on our online time by fifteen minutes every day, or fast from the shopping channels during Lent. In fact, he isn't impressed with us at all. He's impressed by his Son. He's impressed with the perfect life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus the Christ, his beloved Son.

Here's the crux of the matter: you shouldn't hope to be impressed with yourself. Dead people don't worry about impressing others. They don't worry about anything. We need death and resurrection. We should be utterly and entirely impressed with only this: Christ died and was raised. His love was so powerful that he bent under the cruel tree, rested himself upon it, submitted to the hammer and spikes, swallowed his Father's bitter wrath, relinquished his life, and then by the power of the Spirit was raised again. All this for us! Now there's something to be impressed with!...We will not be able to fight victoriously against our sins unless we fight under the banner of the gospel and thereby detach ourselves from our hedonistic plans for self-improvement.

- Elyse Fitzpatrick, Comforts from the Cross, pp. 120-1221.

'Engaging' pornography

2011-11-03T11:30:00.003-05:00

Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, occasionally receives searching questions on Christianity and ethics from his students and parishioners. The following question by a distressed bride-to-be caught my attention. What biblically/theologically-informed advice would you give a woman in such a situation?

Dear Dr. Moore,

In the middle of my premarital counseling with our pastor, I found out that my fiance has had, what he calls, ongoing struggles with pornography. I was kind of floored by this because I hadn’t known anything about it until now. One of the things that drew me to this man was his call to gospel ministry....Can you help me know what to do? Should I just go forward, or what? How will I know that this is sufficiently addressed? And I don’t have much time because the wedding is right around the corner.

Sincerely,
Engaged and Confused

Listen and rejoice

2011-10-20T07:02:00.002-05:00

Yes, we are sinful, but Christ's blood runs deeper than our sin.

Race matters

2011-09-30T10:10:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago the film The Help hit American movie theaters. It's the story of a young, intelligent, unprejudiced, Caucasian woman in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60's who becomes a voice for the many disenfranchised African-American housekeepers in the South by writing an expose of their lives and oppressive culture. One thoughtful, critical review of the film can be found here.

In spite of The Help's valiant attempt to promote positive race relations by bringing us up close and personal with the plight of mid-century, Southern, African-American housekeepers, the film ultimately falls short of its fence-mending aspirations as it seeks to weave in Disneyesque, cutsey moments and humor which detract from the film's serious content. Also, numerous aspects of the film are simply historically implausible, like a book critiquing Southern white culture ever being carried and promoted in Jackson bookstores in 1964 (as the film displays). The Help also comes off as very two-dimensional, portraying the lead character as a freedom fighter who has completely left her racial prejudices behind (or never had any). Yet, as Christians we know too well the baggage, racial and otherwise, we all carry and use to subvert racial harmony. This film lacks the depth, complexity and seriousness which American race relations actually entails. Sadly, the result, I fear, is that many of my Southern, Christian friends who may need to apply the gospel more deeply to their racial prejudice, will see this film as just another attempt of ignorant, Northern, Hollywood-types trying to stick their noses in an issue they know little about. In that way, The Help, may in the long run do more harm than good.

Rather than a superficial, entertainment-driven film about race, what we need is a thoroughly biblical, honest and theologically robust treatment of racism from a Southern born and bred Christian who's been surrounded by bigotry, felt it in his own heart and stood on the other side as the white father of an African-American daughter. That's exactly what John Piper gives us in Bloodlines. In this just released book, Piper tells his own story of growing up in a Christian home in South Carolina in the 50's and 60's. He also takes us into the pages of Scripture to see how God's great story to create for Himself a pan-racial church from every tribe, tongue, people and nation has the gracious power both to expose our hidden (or not so hidden) racism, and redeem our racially prejudiced private stories. Whether you were born in Scandinavian Minot and think you have no racial prejudice or come from the deep South and think you're beyond it, if you're a Christian in America, you need this book. So do I.

One nation under God?

2011-09-21T10:24:00.003-05:00

This week's sermon is going to briefly touch on the danger of Christian syncritism, particularly our dangerous penchant to 'Americanize/patriotize' the church. I'll be giving some examples, but consider the accompanying painting called 'One Nation Under God'. Jesus holds the US Constitution and is supported by the likes of our soldiers, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and JFK. As an American and a Christian, what are your thoughts of this painting in particular and 'Christian art' which paints the church in distinctly red, white and blue colors in general?

A taste of Covenant Theology

2011-09-16T12:55:00.003-05:00

Over the centuries, Bible scholars and theologians have recognized various ways of putting together the larger story of the Scriptures. One common way is distinguishing between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Another is distinguishing between the eras of Israel and the church. Back in June we surveyed the entire biblical story-line and broke it down into four 'acts' of the biblical drama: creation, fall, redemption and restoration.

A very similar way to think about the entire biblical story-line is built upon the various covenants found in Scripture. Most of us are familiar with the five most prominent covenants, those God made with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and the New Covenant made by Christ. Sunday's text in Hosea 6 hints about a sixth foundational covenant which stands in contrast to all which follow it: a 'covenant of works' which God made with Adam in the Garden of Eden. This covenant may be new to some of you, so I'm making available a one page overview of the covenant of works for you to read through in preparation for Sunday's message. You can access it here. Hopefully, it will prove helpful to better understand and appreciate your place in the New Covenant in which we stand today by grace.

Two words for the guys

2011-09-13T07:20:00.002-05:00

In the light of last Sunday's strong challenge from Hosea 4-5 for us men to boldly take up the mantle of responsible, spiritual leadership in the church and family, consider two opportunities:

1. 4:6 challenged us to deepen our knowledge of spiritual truth. For some of you guys, that means working hard to become a reader of the best books - books which really challenge your mind and help you fully grasp biblical truth. Let me commend to you the best book I read in preparation for my Hosea series: Love Divine and Unfailing by Michael Barrett. It is not a traditional, text by text commentary. Rather, it is a thematic and theological overview of Hosea which helps explain the covenantal connection between Israel's sin and God's grace. Barrett also helpfully explains how Christ is front and center in Hosea. It is not a long book, but it is rich and beneficial. I think this book could give us men the tools we need to most helpfully explain and apply Hosea to our families and/or small groups.

2. Taking spiritual responsibility for the women and children in our lives also means that when leadership needs are present in the church, it should be us men rising up and taking our places at the front of the line to serve. Among other places of service, that should be true for children's Sunday School. Out of our six classes planned for this fall, we only have teachers for three; and out of the eight teachers or helpers who will be dedicating their time to teaching, only one is a man. I'm thankful for the women leading our children, but where are the men? Guys, it's time to rise up, take responsibility and lead to the glory of God. If you're interested, please contact Wade Talley at wade.talley@med.und.edu or 721-2757.

Wondering about pagan cult prostitution?

2011-09-09T14:12:00.004-05:00

No, that's probably not what's been on your mind lately. Nevertheless, this week's sermon in Hosea 4-5 brings it up. Particularly, 4:14 indicts young, Israelite women and men for their participation in that depraved practice. Due to time constraints (and wanting to be sensitive to the younger audience among us on Sunday morning), I thought it best to briefly explain here on the blog what ancient, pagan cult prostitution was to help you better understand it whenever it comes up in Scripture - which, in the Old Testament, is rather frequent.

The pagan nations surrounding Israel were polytheistic, i.e. they worshiped multiple gods. The most prominent gods worshiped were those believed to control fertility (human and agricultural) since their sustenance (via food) and continuance (via children) depended upon it. Two examples of pagan fertility gods with which Israel had contact were Ba'al (male) and Asherah (female).

Ancient, pagan fertility cult prostitution worked like this: A formal shrine/temple or informal 'high place' or 'sacred tree' was set apart as 'holy' by the pagan priesthood. To the place of worship people would bring offerings (food, wine and sometimes children). These gifts were brought in order to compel the fertility god or goddess to bless the land and wombs of the worshipers with fertility. It was believed that the fertility of the earthly land and human womb depended upon the sexual activity of the gods. The more sex Ba'al and Asherah enjoyed in heaven, for instance, the more rain would fall, the more productive the ground would be and the more fertile human wombs would be.

Consequently, pagan, fertility worship became bound up with encouraging the gods to 'get it on'. How to do that? So was born the belief that the gods were encouraged toward heavenly sexual activity by the corresponding earthly, human sexual activity between a worshiper and a priest/priestess/cultic prostitute. By the time of Hosea, pagan shrines were commonly equipped with a selection of young women or men who both received a worshiper's food/drink offering and made their bodies available for 'cultic sex' through which the worshiper could manipulate the gods to sexual activity which turned their fields/animals fertile as well as their wombs.

So, in simple fashion, cult prostitution followed the following process:

1. One's earthly fertility depended upon the gods' heavenly sexual activity.

2. The gods' sexual activity was generated by sexual activity with a cult prostitute.

3. Cult prostitution became a necessary part of creating a rich harvest and a full household.

Of course, such cult prostitution not only exploited young men and women, leaving a wake of emotional, physical and relational trauma, it degraded marital sexuality and mounted a frontal assault against the worship of God alone, which looked positively boring and restrictive in comparison. The devil always has his substitutes. They often taste tantalizing, but once swallowed their poison runs deep and deadly.

Where is your focus?

2011-09-07T09:29:00.009-05:00

As Christians, we typically think we're doing well when we're focusing on 'Christianity.' But what we mean by that is our experience of Christianity. Elyse Fitzpatrick states it well when she writes,

"I tend to focus my thoughts on my Christianity - how I'm doing, what I'm learning, how my prayer time was today, how I avoided that pesky sin or fell into it again. I think about what I'm supposed to accomplish for Christ, and I interact with others on that same works-oriented ground. But this day isn't about me at all. It's about Him: His sinless life, death, resurrection, ascension and reign and the sure promise of His return. It's the gravity of His life that should attract me toward Him." - Comforts from the Cross, pp. 16-17

Though we all need times of self-assessment (e.g. 2 Cor. 13:5), often we run into problems when we go through life looking in the mirror - even the mirror of our Christian walk. When we do that, then when we're doing well, we're tempted toward pride; and when we're doing poorly, we're tempted toward self-pity and despair. We need the wisdom of Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...."

So, where's your focus today? Make it Christ alone. Then, if you do well today, He'll get all the praise; and if you fall, His grace will be your hope.

Who does God help?

2011-09-01T15:21:00.002-05:00

"I need help!" Over the past three months those words have been spoken by people in Minot perhaps more than any other. As one in need of skilled help with the reconstruction of my house, I know that feeling as well as anyone.

The Bible is clear that even more than help from other people, we need God's help. Hebrews 1:2-3 reminds us that Christ is the One through Whom God made the world and upholds the universe by the word of His power. Therefore, our need for Him is ultimate and constant. Without Him we would have no life, no breath, no purpose, no friends, no food, no joy and no hope. For all things we need God's help.

If you're a growing Christian you know that need, and you want God's help. You want Him to help you fight sin and learn to hate it. You want Him to protect you and care for you and your family and church. You want Him to help you live wisely and walk in the Spirit and bring Him glory. You want His help.

Will he help you? According to 2 Chronicles 16:9 we discover how to secure God's help with certainty: "For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward Him." Who will God help? Those whose hearts are blameless toward Him. But Jeremiah 17:9 says that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick...." Hmmm. What are we to make of that?

If our hearts are naturally depraved and extensively so, then for whom are God's eyes searching to help, to strengthen and support since none of us qualify? I Corinthians 1:30-31 may give us a clue: "He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'" The gospel comes to our rescue here since we are unable to fulfill the standard which God set in 2 Chronicles for those He's looking to help. We are not blameless, but Jesus was. Not only that, Jesus was blameless in our place, covering us with the robe of His righteousness.

I arrive at two conclusions from this:

1. God is eager to strengthen and help those who delight in the blamelessness of Christ on their behalf. God helps those who remember, speak, live and feel passionately about the gospel.

2. Since every Christian - even when we're not delighting in the gospel - IS irrevocably covered by the blamelessness of Christ, God the Father blesses us with the fruit of His help (the promise of 2 Chronicles 16:9) based on our faith in His Son.

For a forgiven sinner like me, who needs a lot of help every day, that's very good news.

John Wesley's generosity

2011-08-26T06:52:00.007-05:00

All mature Christians share a high value for generously sharing God's resources, which have been entrusted to them, with the church for the advancement of the gospel. Sometimes, we're positively challenged in our kingdom generosity by the example of others. John Wesley, the 18th century English evangelist, is a man to inspire us. As his ministry and fame spread, his annual income increased - but so did his generosity to the church and the poor in monumental ways. The following chart tracks Wesley's increasing percentage of giving (altered from English pounds into American dollars):

Income Living expenses Giving

1st yr. $30 $28 $2 (7%)

2nd yr. $60 $28 $32 (53%)

3rd yr. $90 $28 $62 (62%)

4th yr. $120 $28 $92 (77%)

By the end of Wesley's life, he was making $1,400 annually while living on $30 and giving away $1,370 - 98% of his income.

Reflections on sovereignty

2011-08-19T08:18:00.004-05:00

The longer I'm a Christian, the more I realize how peace comes to our souls in direct proportion to our love and trust of God's sovereign working - saying 'yes' and finding joy in what is rather than shaking our fists at 'what is' or longing for what is not. If we're honest, great joy in God's sovereign administration of our lives in the hard and barren times is rare. Yet, according to Romans 8:28 (and, indeed, the united testimony of the entire Bible), joy and peace are found nowhere else. He really is working out all things for our good. The following quote by Jean Pierre de Caussade alerts us to the danger of doubting that fact:

"You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies - though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is."

By God's grace, let us recognize the hard, disappointing moments for what they are: gifts from a good Father, driving us back to greater dependence on Him and greater satisfaction in Christ, our true Treasure which no circumstance can tarnish or threaten.

Praying the gospel

2011-08-17T13:00:00.003-05:00

Back in April at the Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago, Terri and I attended a breakout session on prayer led by Scotty Smith, pastor to such notable Christian musicians as Stephen Curtis Chapman and Michael Card. Scotty embodies what we've been after here at Trinity in recent years - moving in an ever more gospel-driven, Cross-centered direction in which our sin humbles us and Christ's grace gives us hope. The gospel, we've been discovering, isn't merely the way into the Christian life - it was meant to define all of it.

A few years ago, Scotty began preaching the gospel to himself each morning as he started his day by writing out a Christ-centered prayer based on the portion of Scripture he was reading that day. He began using some of these prayers as a means to help his friends - emailing them out daily. Today, Scotty's gospel prayers have become a blog hosted at The Gospel Coalition website and are available for all of us to read daily. You can access it here.

Baker Books has also just released a compilation of Scotty's gospel prayers in book form. It's called simply Everyday Prayers. Whether through the blog or his book, I highly recommend Scotty Smith's biblical prayers as a means of stirring up hope in the Cross each day.

Standing on the other side

2011-08-11T08:02:00.002-05:00

In March of 2010 my world was rocked as I read the book When Helping Hurts on a flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi. If you've been around Trinity for the past year or so, you know what the book's about. It's authors compellingly make the case that in order to properly help people around the world (or around the block), those seeking to help need to keep straight whether those on the receiving end are in a true emergency needing relief (e.g. they need immediate outside aid to get clean water, basic housing, food, sanitation, etc.) or are not in a true emergency, but need coaching in development (utilizing their own available resources to better their living situation with decreasing dependence on others).

In late June 12,000 of us here in Minot suddenly became those in a true emergency due to our historic flood. Our housing was gone and easy access to food, water, sanitation, etc. was limited. We needed relief. Thanks to friends, the Red Cross, churches and other agencies, our immediate needs were supplied. At present, the only aspect in which we continue to need relief is for housing, which is being supplied soon through FEMA trailers. All this to say, we are no longer in a relief situation. We are entering the development phase.

At the center of relief are outside agencies/individuals coming to the rescue of those in a true emergency. In the development phase the center of attention shifts away from 'rescuers' toward those in need taking stock of their available resources to begin the rebuilding process. As When Helping Hurts rightly emphasizes, development is only successful when relief agencies begin weaning those in need off outside resources and when those in need begin taking ownership of their own development. The person in development may still need help from the outside, but that help must come in forms which require of him greater ownership and responsibility as grants transition to loans and doing for him transitions to doing with him as well as teaching him new skills so he can begin helping others.

For more than a year, I've been 'preaching' the vital distinction between relief and development. I taught a Sunday School class on it last fall. I believe in it, but now that I'm on the other side of the equation, it's time for me to live it. As one who is currently transitioning from relief to development, I can testify that that transition is easier said than done. Honestly, I want to be rescued. I want agencies and individuals to come in and restore my pre-flood world for me. I want relief to continue, even though I am entering a situation of development. Moving successfully through this process on the receiving end requires a great amount of self-control, maturity, foresight and sanctification. All of us who now need to wave 'good-bye' to relief need a great measure of God's grace.

In light of this, I have two words of counsel:

1. For those on the receiving end: Trust God and move toward development sooner rather than later. Don't wait for outside agencies or people before you move forward. Even if you're often on your own, go ahead and work on your house, start planning your future, start saving your money and strategizing your own recovery plan. If others continue to help you, great! But don't depend on them. Also, increasingly try to utilize others as teachers and advice-givers rather than workers and donors. The long road of development (and it is long) requires taking stock of your present resources, saving for future resources and getting to work.

2. For those on the giving end: Trust God and begin to help those in your world who are no longer in an emergency situation to strategize their own long-term recovery plan. Guard against doing things for them which they could do for themselves. Move increasingly from a worker role into a coaching, praying, encouraging, support role in their lives. Give them less money and more relationship as you provide care for their souls to help them take stock of their resources and begin the long process of development. Shifting from a rescuing to a coaching/support role requires great self-control and may be more challenging (as long-term relationship is always more time-consuming and messy than just showing up to swing a hammer for an afternoon), but in the long run it will be much more helpful to your friend in need.

Warnings to the wise

2011-08-05T10:43:00.004-05:00

Here in Minot it continues - the fatiguing fight against the effects of the flood. At the same time, there is a fatiguing fight inside us - a fight for righteous thinking and living which wars against our presently tired and stressed instincts. So, for those of us who are need-deep in the mucky work of gutting, cleaning, drying out and trying to figure out how, when or whether we're going to rebuild, here are some words of caution to guard our hearts in the coming weeks:

1. Don't discard primary practices of grace. It's tempting for those of us who seem to have every minute of our time taken up with getting our houses in order - let alone time to work our jobs and spend time with our families - to start letting daily practices of grace slide - like soaking in the truth of God's Word, casting our cares on God in prayer and gathering with God's people in weekly worship. These means of grace were given to us by God to build up our souls - to feed them. It would be tragic if we added self-imposed spiritual malnutrition to our current challenges. If ever our souls needed daily/weekly strengthening, that time is now.

2. Don't give in to self-pity's seductive voice. Around Trinity Church it's common to hear people reply to the question, "How are you doing?" with "Better than I deserve." Good theology - but easy to forget when folks around you are angry at the injustice they feel from the effects of the flood or are heaping sympathy on you. It's tempting to start humming a 'poor me' tune in your heart and even become resentful of those who seem to have survived the flood unscathed. Self-pity is especially spiritually dangerous, for it portrays us as innocent victims who deserve the spot light of pity, thereby diminishing God's centrality and sovereign purpose through the flood. Self-pity also calls God's trustworthiness into question. Beware!

3. Keep a proper perspective. Here, two things need to be said. First, it is easy to get overwhelmed when thinking about all the work and planning that needs to be done and decisions which need to be made to get our lives back in order. I am a big-picture planner and have felt the fears and stress mount as I've tried to strategize every step of what it's going to take to get our lives back to normal over the coming years. Though some foresight may still be needed, I've found it helpful simply to step back from the big picture and just focus on the next thing I need to do, whether it be calling an electrician, power-washing my basement or calling FEMA one more time. I can't do everything today. I can't even know what I'm going to need to do next month. But I can do the next thing that's right in front of me and trust God with the rest. There's peace in that.

Secondly, we need to keep the grand picture of history in mind as we work through this. I find comfort in remembering that other believers have faced other - even much harder - tragedies in the past and they've made it through and come out better and stronger. Sometimes I say to myself, "If my friends in Sudan can watch their family members killed before their eyes, spend twenty-two years in a Red Cross camp and rebuild their villages from nothing, I can get through this." We're also helped by remembering the Bible's guarantee that what is ahead for us is so much better than the best of life before the flood, so we should have hope. In Romans 8:18 Paul writes, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Good reminder. Imagine the worst case scenario with your flood situation playing itself out. It almost certainly won't, but if it did, better times are coming in heaven than your best case scenario on earth. Future glory infuses hope in suffering Christian hearts. The right perspective - a biblical perspective - makes all the difference for folks like us, knee deep these days in flood muck. Stay hopeful.

The beauty of reconciliation

2011-08-03T09:46:00.004-05:00

David spent much of his life in conflict with other men - not least, fellow Israelites like King Saul and his son Absalom. That gave him a special pleasure in brotherly unity to which he gives voice in Psalm 133

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity! It is like precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the LORD has commanded blessing, life forevermore."

Many of us as believers in Christ know the painful tension of division with another brother or sister in Christ. The path to the joyful blessing David mentions in Psalm 133 is usually through a proactive process of humble listening and confession in the pursuit of godly reconciliation. One of my living heroes, CJ Mahaney, recently took that costly step with an old friend and partner in ministry, Larry Tomczak, from whom he'd been estranged for years. Larry talks about the healing and joyful power which CJ's recent pursuit of reconciliation is having in his and his family's life in a letter you can read here.

Let's not just thank God for CJ's courage and humility in reconciliation. Perhaps there's a brother or sister in Christ needing you to take that step of faith today. Blessing will meet you there.

Dear John

2011-07-27T18:05:00.003-05:00

Today the worldwide evangelical church said 'So long' to one of its greatest leaders, writers, preachers, pastors and mentors: John RW Stott. In the 1940's, 50's and 60's he stood nearly alone as an exponent of biblical truth in the Anglican Church. His mid-century evangelistic campaigns on university campuses ushered hundreds into the Kingdom, including a young South African student named David Wells. His influence was pivotal in Billy's Graham's historic Harringay meetings in London in which so many came to a saving knowledge of Christ. He was the architect behind the Lausanne movement for world evangelization and founded the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Stott wrote many New Testament commentaries and has been my personal model of exegetical faithfulness. Perhaps most of all, John Stott personally mentored evangelical leaders in India, South American and Africa and could be called the grandfather of the developing world church. This man's use by God for the expansion of the Kingdom and maturation of it are simply unparalleled. As he passes to his great reward, a reward bought with the blood of Christ, let us thank God for men like John Stott whose ministry influence reached far beyond his London congregation.

EFCA article about Minot and Trinity

2011-07-14T21:15:00.001-05:00

http://www.mnnonline.org/article/15967

Contemplating His kindness

2011-07-11T08:19:00.003-05:00

Yesterday my family and I had the privilege of worshipping with friends at a church in Minnesota. At one point in the service we responsively read Psalm 145. In the midst of the reading, I was struck by v. 17, "The LORD is righeous in all his ways and kind in all his works."

For those of us on the receiving end of Minot's flood and the concomitant loses and challenges it's causing, this verse is poignant and challenging. Read it again, "The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works." Few in Minot would quickly point to the summer of 2011 as a season in which God is proving kind to us and our city, but the Psalmist sets us straight. Somehow, in the mystery of God's eternal plan, the evacuation which has left many of us homeless is a mark of God's kindness. The destruction of our houses, goods and neighborhoods is a message to us spoken by a kind Sovereign. There is kindness in our lack of clean water and a functional sewer system. The cancellation of summer sports, the state fair, the swimming pool and life as we usually know it is a clarion call of kindness from heaven. Psalm 145:17 brooks no exceptions, "The LORD is righteous in all (not just some) of his ways and kind in all (not just some) of his works."

As the magnitude of loss for some of us sets in over the coming weeks, we may be tempted to direct our anger at God or get emotionally bogged down in disillusionment. We need to make Psalm 147:17 our best friend and constant companion and trust that no matter what we find when we finally get into our waterlogged houses and no matter how long it takes to rebuild our city and lives, the Lord IS righteous in all his ways; He IS kind in all his works.

Thankful?

2011-07-06T09:15:00.007-05:00

For those of us in Minot, the challenges keep mounting as Alan Walter, city public works director, recently spoke with our city council about the monumental task of restoring our water and sewer systems. In the valley where houses like mine are still under water, restoration of utilities could take months. With winter just months away, that leaves many question marks about long-term housing, etc.

I am not an engineer, and I don't have answers to the practical questions which loom before us. I am a pastor, and the Bible has many answers for the state of our hearts in the midst of uncertainty. This morning I was reading Colossians 3:12-17, which constitutes God's assignment for our hearts ever day as believers in Christ:

12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 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. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

There are many heart-prescriptions for us in this passage. Paul wants us to live every day proactively putting off our pre-conversion attitudes and actions and clothing ourselves with Christian grace. He also wants us to give close attention to our relationships. The character qualities in vv. 12-13 "kindness, humility, meekness and patience...bearing with one another and forgiving each other" are all relationally oriented examples of holiness. Peace ruling in our hearts is a third prescription from v. 15, and joyful song in v. 16 sets a Christian apart from an unbeliever according to Paul. All these should shape how we respond to life when it's not going our way.

In my opinion, though, all of the above prescriptions for holiness are secondary to the major theme in this passage which is thankfulness. Paul brings it up three times. Look at the end of verse 15, "...and be thankful." Again, in the end of v. 16, "...singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God." And then in v. 17, "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." I've read this passage many times before, but I've never before noticed this theme of thankfulness. Sometimes we notice biblical truths when we need them the most.

I'm currently in Sparta, Wisconsin spending time with my family and my parents. Here life is easy. I've been struck by the beauty of the tree covered hills. The creek behind my parent's house is well within its banks. This morning I took a long bike ride and couldn't help think, as I drove by house after house, "Those houses aren't under water. Those families aren't in crisis. This city isn't in chaos." As one whose basement is full of water, whose family is homeless and whose city is in chaos, I could contemplate the placid setting of others with bitterness or jealousy. Instead, God invites (more, commands) my heart into a posture of thankfulness - knowing that in doing so, He is helping my heart stay free from the unseen prison of sin.

Thankfulness in troubled times calls us to trust God and acknowledge - whether we can easily see it or not - that He is good and what He gives and withholds from us is perfect. It was providential that during my morning bike ride I began to spontaneously sing,

Praise to the Lord
Who o'er all things so wonderfully reigneth
Shelters thee under His wings
Yea, so gladly sustaineth
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth.

There's the key to thankfulness when life gets complex and losses mount: a confidence that our desires - our true and lasting desires - are always granted in what God ordains. Yes, even in a city without water, in a neighborhood without a sewer system, in a house that's still under water.

The flood - a humbling means of grace

2011-07-02T09:34:00.004-05:00

Now that the Souris River in Minot is beginning to recede, another flood is rising: the river of heroic effort as neighbors help neighbors and friends and agencies from outside our city come to our rescue. This historic flood has put us who are displaced with homes under water in a uniquely vulnerable position. Many are forced to admit their inability to push back the destructive effects of the flood singlehandedly. I will not be able to empty my basement of dirty river water, clean it out, extract mold and mildew, tear out and replace drywall, wood trim, kitchen cabinets and recover or replace my hardwood floor by myself. The job before many of us in the coming weeks and months is monumental and help from others will be needed.

Our relative helplessness is God's gift. We have a unique opportunity to humble ourselves and come face to face with the mortifying fact that we are limited and desperately dependent creatures. As Christians we should welcome such humbling experiences, for they position us for alignment with God's heart and our sanctification in a unique way as our pride is torn apart. As James 4:5-8a & 10 reminds us, "Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?' But he gives us more grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you....Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." In God's economy, the way up is down. Sometimes, the way to greater spiritual strength comes through the painful wake of destructive floodwaters. We should thank God for that.

A note from Ezra Black

2011-07-01T17:06:00.002-05:00

A personal flood timeline, part three

2011-07-01T15:47:00.001-05:00

Sunday June 26th
• We woke to a beautiful Sunday just after the 1561.72 crest which occurred in the early morning hours.
• 9 am worship at Trinity Church was sparse as expected on site, but other members gathered for ‘north site’ worship on the Air Force Base and others tuned in via Livestream – some in other states and countries.
• The service was memorable as we sang about God’s providential faithfulness and opened the floor for folks to share relevant texts of Scripture that had carried them through the week or ‘God stories’ of His power in action. Many shared – some with tears and others with surprising joy – all giving glory to God and proclaiming their trust in Him. I preached briefly from Psalm 29:10-11: “The LORD sits enthroned over the flood.” It encouraged us to trust His sovereignty and hope in Him to bless us with supernatural peace through the gospel in the face of earthly loss. Then we shared the Lord’s Supper together, as we do each week, reminding ourselves that in the midst of chaos and change, the cleansing of the Cross symbolized in the bread and wine do not change. In that is our hope.
• The big surprise of the morning was having a crew from CBS News show up at the end of our worship service. I thought they were just visitors, but I soon found myself (along with Josh & Angela Hawkins) being interviewed for the national news. As I expected, they edited out my attempts to shine the spotlight on Christ in the midst of the flood. Still, the exposure was helpful as people around the country soon knew about Trinity Church and our role in the flood fight.
• Our family spent the rest of the day with our small group at the Talley home – always a refreshing connection. I was pretty candid there about some of my fears in light of having no flood insurance. We all prayed for each other. Sandy Sanders’ joy there spoke to me, since her house is in far worse shape than mine.
• After small group we drove down to the river’s edge near the Minot Library, the old depot off Central Avenue and on 9th street near the Coke plant (the closest point of access to view our neighborhood). The small lakes formed over the floodplain are astonishing when seen in person. We were surprised to see so many vehicles up to their roofs in water which their owners failed to rescue. One glimpse into my neighborhood showed me just how far off my conservative calculations were of what this flood would become. The water is likely well up on our first floor.

Monday June 27th
• I checked the river levels, monitored Facebook entries about the flood and helped ensure that our church folks were all high and dry. On a tip from a friend who is anticipating building supply shortages in a couple of months, I called Minot Lumber and ordered 50 sheets of drywall for my house (but had them delivered elsewhere ☺).
• That evening our family joined the Wagner’s small group (since we’re living in their home) which was very encouraging as we discussed the flood, honestly shared our fears and spoke of the good, sanctifying work God is doing in unmasking our sin in the midst of this tragedy. We also celebrated Pam Hopkins’ birthday and enjoyed her birthday cake in her absence since she couldn’t get to the Wagner’s due to road closures and congestion on the Hwy 83 bypass.

Tuesday June 28th
• I came to church early to begin preparations for 5+ messages I’m due to give at Cooperstown Bible Camp in July. I spent the morning dialoguing with Josh Hawkins who had by this time taken on the responsibility of crisis response point person for Trinity. Numerous churches from North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Vermont and Connecticut contacted us wanting to help in some way. Glen Stevens, a native of nearby Burlington, which has been hit particularly hard by the flooding, senior pastor of Salem EFC in Fargo, has taken a particular interest in praying for and helping with our recovery efforts.
• Around 11 am I made further attempts to work on my camp messages but could feel the effects of sleeplessness, fatigue, stress and servant-performance-pressure begin to break me down. As I made my way over to the local phone company to pick up a free phone for my wife (lent to those temporarily without our land lines), I got lost, though I know the area well. My brain was starting to shut down. Back in my office I became rather petrified with the thought that I would be unable to preach the Bible camp messages, yet I felt as though my family needed that week away at camp. My wife called around noon and, without really knowing why, I began sobbing uncontrollably. I had hit an emotional/physical/mental wall. I posted as much on Facebook and soon was inundated with kind remarks and prayer from friends. Wade Talley, a fellow TC elder, was soon in my study, encouraging me to set some limits for myself (as a helper in a situation where I myself needed significant help). Together we came up with a moderate plan for my Bible camp speaking responsibilities and he encouraged me to begin handing off my responsibilities to others for the rest of the week before I leave town to spend time in Wisconsin with family. He prayed for me as well. Later Kevin Burckhard showed up with a bucket of Kroll’s chicken and rice soup (my favorite) and prayed for me. Josh prayed for me. Everybody prayed for me. While my wife and kids were away overnight at a friend’s, I went back to Des Lacs where I had a very helpful conversation with the Wagners who then left to celebrate Doug’s birthday. I closed my evening watching My Fair Lady and, strangely, found it quite medicinal to my suffering soul and non-functional brain. I went to bed before 11 pm for the first time in over a week (my normal bedtime is 9 pm).

Wednesday June 29
• I began the day more slowly as my need for rest was becoming clear. After arriving at church, I began to modify my Bible camp messages from five full sermons into three shorter messages about the flood and what I’ve learned in the past week about God’s sovereignty, my sin and limitations and His unfathomable grace. My friend, Ben Leuthy, one of the pastors from the Devil’s Lake EFC, agreed to take two of the five Bible camp messages so I could spend much of my time in Cooperstown resting and enjoying my family. The bonus is that Ben’s family will now be with us for three of the five days we’ll be there. What a providential blessing! But it wouldn’t have happened without hitting the wall of my limitations and having Christian friends step in to help me.
• At 6 pm the Trinity Church elders met and began discussing the big picture plan of what our flood relief involvement should look like. Many challenging questions began to emerge which we’ll need to answer soon as we mobilize for what will likely be several years of relief, reconstruction and relational ministry to those in our community who’ve been affected by the flood. Mark Lewis, director of TouchGlobal (the crisis ministry arm of the Evangelical Free Church of America) joined us by Skype and walked us through some of the basic issues we’re going to be facing not only as a congregation with displaced members in crisis but as a church with a unique ministry opportunity to significantly impact our city with the gospel.
• After two days (Monday and Tuesday) in which the level of the Souris river dropped two feet, it began to level off at around 1560 feet above sea level. It would be days until it began to precipitously drop again.

Thursday June 30th
• My day began with Caleb Rodgers transporting our sons down to his parents farm where they would spend the next three days to free up Terri and me to attend to the many needs around us.
• In addition to working on some of my Bible camp messages, I fielded phone calls from churches wanting to help us and individuals needing personal crisis counseling.
• At noon I took a friend from church out for lunch to discuss his future college prospects before using Ron Molzahn’s binoculars to try to get a peek of the water level in my neighborhood and house (first from the top floor of the Milton Young tower – too many trees; next from the top floor of the Medical Arts Building – again, too many trees, finally from ninth street near the Coke plant – no view of my house, but I could tell that the water had receded significantly since Sunday).
• I spent a relaxed evening at the Wagner’s (who are out of town for a few days) packing for our trip to Wisconsin and enjoying my wife’s company. I love my sons, but what a blessing to have a quiet evening alone with my wife. Thank you Janet Rodgers!

Friday July 1st
• Josh Hawkins and I began our day doing breakfast with Mark Lewis (who flew into Minot on Thursday night and stayed with the Talleys) and Daryl Thompson (EFCA Northern Plains District superintendent), beginning to discuss the details of what Trinity’s relief effort might look like. Mark made it clear that our crisis response might be much longer and more involved than we might think, especially given our church’s focus on gospel-directed relationship-building with those in need.
• At 10 am the four of us joined about 15 other pastors, denominational leaders and crisis relief leaders at Our Redeemer’s Church where we began to discuss what city-wide relief will look like. I was encouraged by the scope of outside help which some faith-based groups will be bringing to Minot. For instance, the national Adventist church has already established a warehouse outside of town where donated cleaning and construction supplies needed by volunteer work-teams are beginning to be stored. The Assemblies of God ‘convoy of hope’ has established north and south locations for water distribution and tents for Wednesday and Friday family friendly activities for displaced families to be staffed by churches across our city for the rest of the summer. It is clear that Minot will recover from the flood and that we will rebuild and move on. The churches of our city will play an indispensible role in making that happen. What Mark warned us about when we left the meeting was our need to work hard to maintain our church’s gospel-focused mission in our relief efforts. He memorably said, "We must not be satisfied with putting spiritually dead, displaced people back into their homes." Therefore, as church leaders we now begin the process of defining Trinity’s unique mission/vision and desired outcome for our relief efforts and the leaders, systems and resources needed to make that happen.
• On Friday afternoon Trinity became an official city distribution point for free, bottled water – thanks to the folks at Bethel EFC in Fargo who sent us a semi full to use to bless our city (which remains without clean water).

The time is now 3:14 pm on Friday. I could continue posts in this flood diary over the coming weeks and months. Instead, I will end my diary here, having tried to give a subjective but clear sense of what our historic flood in its most cataclysmic time has been like for one going through it and caring for others affected. On Sunday I will be leaving for some needed time away in Wisconsin with family, and then it’s on to speak at Cooperstown Bible camp. Stay tuned to our blog as more stories, biblical/theological reflections and pictures of grace in the face of the flood with continue in the days to come.

A personal flood timeline, part two

2011-06-30T11:10:00.001-05:00

Monday June 20^th

v Mayor Curt Zimbelman announces that six inches of rain which fell in already saturated Saskatchawan would fill the Souris and Des Lacs Rivers to historic proportions which the preventative dams and reservoirs built north of Minot after 1976 would be unable to contain. The largest flood in Minot’s history was coming.

v Terri and I spend Monday cleaning out our basement. I spend Monday night painting a room in our basement to seal out leaking groundwater.

v In the evening our friend Dan, a plumber, comes over to help us re-hook up our washer and dryer and ends up helping us move them (and a refrigerator and freezer and water softener) out of our basement to our main level. Dan replaces our oatmeal-filled sock with a professional plug in our basement drain.

Tuesday June 21^st

v I go to church to begin work on my weekly sermon, having not yet heard about the Mayor’s announcement about the imminent flood. Facebook and the news is jumping with activity as a second mandatory evacuation is announced for Wednesday night.

v At about 9 am Howard Rodgers (a wise church leader) calls and tells me to go home to help my family prepare for the coming flood. I go home, prepared to move the rest of the stuff out of my basement, confident that flooding would only affect houses immediately adjoining the river channel (we live four blocks away).

v As the magnitude of the coming flood begins to hit home for me, I spend the late morning finding available friends to help us move everything on our main floor either out of our house or to our second floor and attic. 10+ friends help us at different points of the day to move half our furniture to church Sunday School classrooms (our church building is high and dry), our garage stuff (which hadn’t even gone through my mind until a friend mentioned it) to our former youth building at church and everything else up to higher ground in our house. Janet Rodgers carefully wraps up all our dishes, china and food and stows them in our attic. Around midnight Greg Bledsoe and his brother Aaron remove all the electrical outlets and devices from our basement.

v Wade and Dawn Talley graciously take our sons (ages ten and six) to live with their family for two days (joining their family of 10) while Terri and I focus on our evacuation.

v Colin and Shannon Lovdahl, again, temporarily adopt our dog Lexie and take her to live with them on their farm in Palermo. Hundreds of pets would be homeless soon as makeshift animal shelters are set up.

v Minot has a sudden rush on cardboard boxes and Rubbermaid bins. Menards is sold out. I procure the last seven available from Walmart. Most evacuees do not have sufficient containers or time to carefully pack their belongings for movement and storage. Things are hurriedly piled and/or transported pell mell.Finding all our belongings after the evacuation lifts will itself require Herculean effort.

v Terri packs up and hauls out clothes for our family sufficient for a couple of weeks. I remember to take my best suit in preparation for a wedding happening in four days. Two days before the wedding, I realize that I forgot to pack my black dress shoes. Knowing that I can’t recover them in time, I put out a Facebook plea for size 10 black dress shoes and within hours have many pairs to choose from. Mike Milkey’s become the chosen pair and prove so comfortable that I threaten to keep them after the flood.

v At about 2 am Terri and I arrive at church, exhausted yet still running on adrenaline. Terri sleeps under one of our son’s blankets on the couch in the church library. I sleep on the couch in the counseling room under a blanket which smells like livestock and motor oil that had been used to cushion furniture for the move.

Wednesday June 22

v In the morning I arrive back at the house to hurriedly move the rest of our things up to the second floor and pack some needful items for the evacuation. It is announced that the 10 pm evacuation time has moved to 4 pm. Mid-morning I intend on going over to help move final things out of Sandy Sander’s house (which would later become almost completely submerged in the flood) when I hear that the evacuation has been moved to 1 pm. I call Bob Hargrave (who the previous day removed our new boiler and hot water heater from our basement) who comes over and, with tears in his eyes, removes the breakers from our breaker box.

v Still confident that our house can stay dry, I drive to B & D Grocery (which is closed) then to the Broadway Miracle Mart to buy bleach (which they have) and duct tape (which they don’t) in order to seal my lone basement window. There I meet Josh Hawkins (our church I.T. director who later would become our flood recovery point man and whose house also became inundated with water) who I take back to my house so he can move one of our vehicles to get it out of the path of the flood. I tape up my window to keep water out of the basement, empty two gallons of bleach on our basement floors (to counteract the bad water which the river would bring in) and help Terri pack up the last of our temporary clothes. At 1 pm the evacuation sirens sound and we head to the church.

v In the evening, we pick up our boys from the Talleys and travel about twenty miles out of Minot to Des Lacs to take up residence with the Wagners – again.

Thursday June 23

v Reports all morning come in of flood waters exceeding the height of the city’s levees. Burlington, to the west of Minot, is the first sign of serious flooding. Their citizens continue round the clock sandbagging in an attempt to save parts of their city. Eventually, they would lose that fight.

v Throughout the day, water levels on Minot’s northwest side rise precipitously. Despite the valiant attempts to keep businesses like Harley’s Conoco and Arrowhead shopping center and churches like Christ Lutheran, Little Flower Catholic church and Bible Fellowship church dry, they all take significant water. Eventually Longfellow Elementary school is moderately flooded, Lincoln Elementary is flooded beyond recovery and the fight to save Ramstad Middle School with a massive dike proves futile. Flood waters border Minot State University on the north and are held from inundating north Broadway with a massive north-south dike (for which many homes west of Broadway are sacrificed).

v At church I begin work on a revised ‘flood focused’ worship service to include testimonies of God’s grace in the midst of loss, fear and suffering and a shortened message highlighting God’s sovereign power and heaven as our true home in light of the flood.

v During the day a friend calls me and tells me how my house could be sacrificed in the aftermath of the flood to create a new, wider flood plain for the city. Without flood insurance, the prospect of being financially ruined through this ordeal hits home. I call Terri and honestly share with her the grim possibilities. In tears she says, “But my mom’s portrait!” – referring to a large, beautiful painting of her deceased mother which hung in our dining room and was still in the house.

v In the late afternoon, I drive into my neighborhood (still dry at this point), enter my house and with lightening speed find the picture and retrieve an heirloom glass which has been in my family for more than a century and make my way out.

v I drive to Des Lacs, pondering on the way that my house, since I sealed off the window, could present too much resistance to the current if the water rises quickly and be moved off its foundation which would rendered it condemned. (I’m not an engineer. These were simply the thoughts going through my head.)After consulting with a few friends, I meet up with Doug Wagner back in Minot and we make one last excursion into my house to open the basement window and secure Terri’s jewelry and address book.

Friday June 24^th

v Flood waters top the dikes to the north and east of my neighborhood and slowly flood Eastwood Park. By day’s end I am confident that my basement is full of river water, and I pray that it does not go so high as to destroy my new kitchen cabinets. Most agonizing of all is not being able to get near my neighborhood to see the effects of the water on my house. The unknown (which would continue for weeks) is torturous and continues to stretch our trust in God. Unlike other natural disasters like a hurricane or tornado where the damage can quickly be surveyed, floods keep one in suspense for weeks.

v At church I work on the wedding I’m performing at Trinity the following day. In the afternoon, Lindsey, the bride to be, shows us with her family to decorate the church. Corey, the groom to be, has to make the difficult decision about whether or not to evacuate his house which is on the edge of the evacuation zone. Looking south down the street from his house, he can see the water rising.

v At 5 pm I lead the wedding rehearsal at church. The original rehearsal dinner is cancelled due to restaurant closures. Pizza Ranch remains open, so the wedding party heads there to celebrate.

Saturday June 25^th

v River levels continue to rise to historic proportions, by-passing the 1881 record of 1558 ft. above sea level. By Sunday the river would crest at 1561.72. Preparations for the wedding engross the morning.The city announces that Minot’s drinking water supply may be contaminated. Breaks in the city’s submerged water pipes begin to occur. At 3 pm the wedding commences and proves to be a wonderful distraction to the flood. After the wedding we tape off our sinks and water faucet and hang ‘contaminated’ signs on all church water receptacles in preparation for the service the next morning.The wedding reception is suddenly interrupted by a tornado siren as a massive thunderstorm rolls over Minot and expels a downpour on our already waterlogged city, adding insult to injury. As if the week wasn’t exciting enough already.

v Due to the water situation and driving restrictions in Minot (since flood dikes have cut our city in half leaving only one, congested north-south route) our church elders decide to hold our service the following morning in two locations: a small service in the Wamhoff home on Minot Air Force base for all north side families and a larger service at our church facility for all south side families. Additionally, Sunday would be the first time we would video-livestream our service on our website. Due to over crowding, we’d been talking about multi-site as an option for some time. Now the flood would give us an opportunity to test it out.

A personal flood timeline, part one

2011-06-29T15:26:00.002-05:00

Before posting thoughts about God's work in and through this flood, it seems wise to provide some basic information regarding the flood itself. The best way for me to do that is not posting bland statistics but by telling my own timeline story. For those of you who are involved in the flood, this timeline might prove helpful as a framework for processing your own unfolding story. For those of you not in Minot, it will give you a picture (albeit a very subjective one) of what our experiences here at Trinity and in our city have been like. Again, this is just my story, but it is characteristic of thousands of other stories being written by the finger of God in the face of the flood. Part one will give you some background to the flood, documenting the first evacuation which we experienced during the first week of June.

The Minot Flood – a personal timeline

Winter 2010-11 – record snow falls on already saturated ground

Spring 2011 – wet snow and rain in March, April and May

Evacuation #1

Saturday May 28th
• The city of Minot alerts its residents of an impending storm sewer backup due to high river levels and the break of a pump on Minot’s east side.
• A colossal line forms outside MAC’s hardware with customers looking to purchase drain plugs.
• Since we couldn’t find drain plugs to fit our basement drains, the Perrys plug their drains with the homemade remedy of oatmeal filled socks. I’d been wanting to get rid of those 20 year old socks anyway.

Sunday May 29th
• A drain plug exchange takes place after our worship service in an effort to ensure that people had the right size plugs.

Monday May 30th
• As an Army veteran, I played a role in Minot’s Memorial Day ceremony and then took my family to the annual chili feed at the local VFW. Dan Offerdahl, a friend from church who’d joined us for lunch, left the VFW to help fill sandbags at the Minot Public Works. Sandbagging began around low-lying buildings. Sandbags were made available to residents for personal use.

Tuesday May 31st
• I went into church as usual to work on my weekly sermon.
• Facebook becomes all abuzz about the rising river.
• 11 am - Jason Skjervem (our local Campus Crusade staffer and fellow church elder) needs help clearing out his basement. His house is adjacent to the main river channel.
• 11:30 am - While heading out the door to help Jason, Doug Wagner, our church chairman, calls letting me know that my neighborhood was under a mandatory evacuation order.
• Early afternoon - I helped Terri (my wife) clear the larger things out of our basement. I secured five sandbags from Minot Public Works and placed them over my various basement drains. Knowing we would be losing electrical service to our house, Kevin Burckhard, Jay Wahlund and Jane Kelly help us get our frozen food to other freezers around the city.
• Mid afternoon I helped a group from church move stuff out of Casey and Michelle Ellis’s basement to higher ground.
• Late afternoon, that crew decided (with Terri) that we needed important things from our main level higher and put our furniture and piano on blocks and sawhorses in our living and dining rooms. Our basement appliances were moved into our kitchen and dining room. I downplayed the emergency, explaining that the real threat was storm sewer backup, not an outright flood of the city by the river. I told my friends that I thought their work was unnecessary. Most of us thought we were well out of harm’s way.
• By 10 pm a mandatory evacuation order compelled all citizens within short reach of the river out of our homes. We were graciously welcomed into the home of Doug and Diane Wagner. Other Trinity families found refuge in area homes. Only one, to my knowledge, at that point, left the city entirely.

Wednesday June 1st through Monday June 6th
• Hundreds of citizens fill sandbags at three area locations to raise the dikes around Minot and the nearby town of Burlington. Area restaurants feed the sandbaggers and other workers for free. The National Guard begins patrolling the evacuated area and takes charge of sandbagging/dike-building efforts. Minot State, Minot Air Force Base and other area businesses allow their workers to take time off to fill sandbags and build dikes.
• Local contractors and state and city workers begin excavating massive amounts of local clay to build up the dikes along the Souris River and successfully stop an impending flood.

Friday June 3rd
• A citywide prayer meeting put on by the city’s evangelical churches is held at First Baptist Church.

Friday June 3rd through Monday June 6th
• Minot’s 10,000 evacuees are allowed to return to our homes. I compensate the Wagner’s for things one of his sons broke in their home.
• Basement drains remain plugged due to continuing worries about storm sewer backup in light of the high river volume.

Flood info

2011-06-29T13:16:00.002-05:00

Though our blog has been silent in the past ten days due to Minot's historic flood, beginning today that's changing. First of all, for those of you who are looking for information relating to how the flood has, is and will affect Trinity Church or are eager to help in some way. You can find it here. I will soon begin posting personal reflections regarding our flood, how it's affected us and how to think/live biblically in light of this unique moment in our history.

Don't look back

2011-06-18T15:54:00.004-05:00

In Philippians 3:12-14 Paul famously writes,

"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

When the Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts by grace, He sets us on a trajectory toward increasing Christlikeness and hope in Him. Though our lives will have ups and downs, and though the focus of the Christian life is not our great performance, but Christ's performance in our place, His supernatural power in us should change us - the inner compass of our lives is forever pointed to True North from now until heaven.

Earlier this spring Bob Huggins led his West Virginia University basketball team to new heights of success for a relatively small and unknown program. After one significant win, when the team was one step from the Final Four, Huggins was asked about how he felt. Here's what he said, “I never look back. I’ve just never been that way.” Then he told a story. “When I was a kid growing up in West Virginia, one day while hitching for a ride, I got in a pickup truck in Midvale with a guy and I noticed that he didn’t have a rearview mirror. I said to the guy, ‘Hey, there’s no rearview mirror.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Boy, we ain’t goin’ backwards.’ That’s the way I’ve lived my life."

That seems to have been the apostle Paul's attitude, too. He had many choices in his past to regret; many chapters of his life he would have liked to live differently. He could have wasted mental and emotional energy brooding over his past sins and letting them cripple his present, but he did not. A future with the gospel at its center propelled him forward - onward - with little reference to the rear-view mirror of his life. He allowed his past sins to grow his humility, but that was all the power he was willing to give them. "Forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on...." May it be so with us. Don't look back.

'Dads, wake the hell up'

2011-06-17T10:17:00.007-05:00

I know - that's bit of a shocking title you don't expect to find on this blog. Yet, it well communicates what some of us Christian men may need to hear to get ourselves more actively engaged in the lives of our kids - and wives. An intriguing article by that title - written by an unbeliever - can be found here.

By the way - most of the Christian guys I know are working hard to live out the author's admonitions - and, moreso, the Bible's. As Father's Day approaches, be sure to take time to encourage and show your thanks for the fathers in your world who are striving to bless their families.

The blessing of the law

2011-06-15T09:47:00.002-05:00

This week in our effort to take in the Bible's entire plan of redemption, I will briefly be noting the blessing which the Mosaic Covenant (which gave rise to the Mosaic Law) was to God's OT people. I believe, with Luther and Calvin, that the Mosaic Law continues to have great relevance and blessing for God's people today. The commonly spoken of 'three uses of the law' are enumerated below for you to ponder and apply.

1) The civil use. That is, the law serves the commonwealth or body politic as a force to restrain sin. (e.g. Romans 13:1ff.) Though our political/legal context is different from that of the theocracy of ancient Israel, the divine principles in all Mosaic legislation remain relevant as we define, debate and establish laws in our land today.

2) The pedagogical use. That is, the law also shows people their sin and points them to mercy and grace outside of themselves.

3) The normative use. This use of the law is for those who trust in Christ and have been saved through faith apart from works. It acts as a norm of conduct, freely accepted by those in whom the grace of God works the good.

Note: In this model, Christ appears as the end of the law, both in the sense that the pedegogical use leads to Christ as to a goal and in the sense that the normative use has become a possibility for man only because Christ has fulfilled the law in himself. In other words, in both the pedagogical use and the normative use Christ is central as the one who has saved his people from the law’s demands and the one who has merited the gift of Spirit-wrought obedience.

Thanks to the Reformed Reader Blog from which some of this material was borrowed.

The fallen

2011-06-09T16:01:00.002-05:00

This week we come to Act Two of the divine drama of the Bible: the Fall. I'll have much to say about how sin lends insight into the rest of the biblical story-line (and into our lives). For a more comprehensive and keenly thoughtful exploration of human sin, I recommend Neil Plantiga's book Not The Way Its Supposed To Be. Here's just a taste:

"Sin is a parasite, an uninvited guest that keeps tapping its host for sustenance. Nothing about sin is its own; all its power, persistence and plausibility are stolen goods." - p. 89

"Due to sin, we've become an ego-centered culture where our wants become not just our needs but our duties. In such a world, the self replaces the soul, and human life degenerates into the clamor of competing autobiographies." - p. 83

Marriage is grounded in the covenant

2011-06-07T09:28:00.002-05:00

Last Sunday we saw in Genesis 1-2 just how foundational marriage is to God's plan for humanity. We live in a day of disposable, optional marriages - sadly, even in the church. In this brief video Don Carson, John Piper and Tim Keller remind us of its divine sanctity.

Piper, Carson, and Keller on Sustaining the Covenant of Marital Love from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

The flood and God's faithfulness

2011-06-02T07:03:00.003-05:00

This week many of us who live in Minot's floodplain have witnessed God's faithfulness through the quick work of friends to get us high and dry, to house us and our pets (and our frozen food) and through the collective efforts of countless others, including the Corp of Engineers, the National Guard, the City Public Works, volunteer sandbaggers, etc. We've seen God's faithfulness.

That's all true, and yet it may be that God wants us to use this flood to focus on a greater example of His faithfulness. Genesis 6-9 documents the global flood of Noah's day in which only eight people survived. No natural disaster even approximates the devastation and loss of life which Noah saw. Yet his account ends with God's covenant of promised preservation and the rainbow put in the clouds to remind us that God will never again destroy the earth with a flood - or any natural disaster prior to the second coming of Christ. So, as we face the challenges of this week and behold small examples of God's faithfulness all around us, may they remind us of God's greater faithfulness: His promise to never again wipe humanity out with a flood and to save eternally all who put their hope in Christ alone. When seen in that light, our present, small adversities become a song of praise.

Novel dangers?

2011-05-31T07:22:00.002-05:00

The Christian community is really good at providing subculture substitutes for objectionable but enjoyable entities in the world. One of the most prominent is the Christian romance novel, which has become staple reading for millions of church-going women. Though superficially innocuous, could such books be harmful to one's spiritual and relational health? In an insightful post, Russell Moore helps us think through this topic for our good. You can find his article here.

Piper and Warren

2011-05-28T08:11:00.003-05:00

If you have ever wondered where Rick Warren stands on some major doctrines, and if you were perplexed at John Piper's invitation for Warren to speak at the Desiring God conference two years ago, here is a very helpful and edifying interview recently recorded of the two men in discussion.

The most important discipline

2011-05-27T09:31:00.004-05:00

Though there are all kinds of daily disciplines which a growing Christian should give attention to (e.g. prayer, Bible reading, evangelism, generosity, quiet reflection, confession, acts of service, etc.), I am more and more convinced that one should rise above the rest: preaching the gospel to ourselves. It is the simple practice of beginning (and, I would recommend, ending) each day by briefly recalling the sins you've committed recently (to remind yourself of how much you need Christ's grace) and the certain forgiveness you have in Jesus' perfect life, atoning death and victorious resurrection.

Jerry Bridges, in Bookends of the Christian Life, presents his own model for daily preaching the gospel to himself. It is a three-step process:

1. Each day he begins with a standard text which reminds him of his need for Christ. He has chosen Luke 18:13, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

2. Next, Jerry remembers sins he's recently committed and is still feeling convicted about and applies to them, in the form of a prayer, a gospel-proclaiming text. Here are his daily prayers:

Monday: Micah 7:19, "Lord, I know that you will again have compassion on me; Because of Jesus' life and death in my place, You will tread my sins of (fill in blank) underfoot. You will cast all my sins in the depths of the sea."

Tuesday: Romans 4:7-8, "Lord, I am blessed because my sins of (fill in blank) are completely forgiven, and my sins of (fill in blank) are completely covered; blessed am I against whom You will not count my sin. Christ has paid for them all!"

Wednesday: Romans 8:1, "Lord, I know that there is, because of Christ's life and death in my place, now no condemnation for me, for He has cleaned me of (fill in blank)."

Thursday: Colossians 2:13-14, "Lord, I have sinned by (fill in blank). Yet, I who used to be dead in my trespasses and sins, and the uncircumcision of my flesh, You have made alive together with Christ. You have forgiven me of all my trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against me with its legal demands. This You set aside, nailing to the cross. It's gone! The accuser's voice is silenced. I'm cleansed. I'm forgiven!"

Friday: Psalm 103:12, "Lord, As far as the east is from the west, so far have you removed my transgressions of (fill in the blank) from me through the merits of Jesus Christ. Though You still know them, You will never hold them against me."

Saturday: Isaiah 1:18, "Lord, my sins of (fill in blank) are like scarlet, yet in Christ I am white as snow; though they are red like crimson, His cross makes me clean and pure like wool. His death and resurrection guarantees it."

3. Finally, Jerry finishes preaching the gospel to himself daily with the victorious words of John 19:30, "It is finished! Father, thank You that in Christ my forgiveness is a done deal, yesterday, today and forever."

As your pastor, I'm pray that as you mature as a Christian you increasingly fill your life with many godly, biblical daily disciplines. But never forget that only one is supreme and indispensable. Don't forget to preach the gospel to yourself.

Who is the Bible about?

2011-05-25T11:59:00.001-05:00

Tim Keller shows us.

True & Better from Peter Artemenko on Vimeo.

Duncan on Camping

2011-05-22T06:22:00.003-05:00

Yes, by now its official: Harold Camping, the May 21 prediction prophet, is a fake. Not surprising, given the fact that he previously predicted the Rapture in 1994 and was wrong. Just how misled and dangerous is this California church leader and radio personality? Ligon Duncan provides an excellent, detailed assessment here.

Showing Jesus to our kids

2011-05-20T17:11:00.003-05:00

As Trinity has sought to become more and more a gospel-centered church in all we do, one of the trusted authors we've found so helpful is Elyse Fitzpatrick. In the attached video clip she discusses parenting in a gospel-driven way. May it inspire us to help us show Jesus more clearly to our kids. You can watch it here.

Seeing red?

2011-05-14T10:17:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow I'm preaching on the Word of God, and one of the points I'm making regards the equal value of the entire Bible for Christians today. Sometimes we can unwittingly slip into gravitating in our Bible reading to some parts of Scripture more than others or even think that some parts are more relevant or important than others, but that is not true. Though I personally own a 'red letter' Bible, sometimes such publications which highlight certain words can have the same eroding effect on our view of Scripture. An excellent, short article exploring that can be found here.

Biblical joy

2011-05-07T08:16:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow we get to dig into three of the Bible's shortest but most significant commands: "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all things, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (I Thes. 5:16-18)

Here's a foretaste: What is biblical joy? It is a state of deep, unshakable, inner satisfaction and optimism in Who God is for us in Christ. Think about that. Does that define you? If not, why not?

What stingy giving reveals

2011-04-28T07:47:00.002-05:00

It is commonly reported that in even the most ardent, evangelical churches, most members/attenders regularly give only 3-4% of their income to further the cause of Christ. I'm sure if such people were polled, they would be quick with many excuses. Proverbs 15:8 gives a clear but sobering assessment of the root behind much stingy giving. It says, "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to Him."

Why is material sacrifice compared in this text to prayer? To highlight how both are statements of faith in God or lack thereof. How generously we give and how ardently we pray both unmask our true understanding of God. Is He trustworthy? If so, then it will show in displays of material generosity and a robust prayer life. If we don't believe He's trustworthy, then both our giving and prayer lives will be stunted and shallow. Both are clear statements about what we believe about God. One writer puts it this way, "The wicked offer lame sacrifices because they don't really believe that God will meet their needs." If we think God is stingy, then we will be stingy too. Only when we've understood and been impacted by the immeasurable riches of Christ's grace (Ephesians 1:3-10), will our hearts long to live lavishly toward others - including Christ's church.

We can give all kinds of excuses for our meager giving, but according to Solomon, it likely comes down to hearts which haven't really understood Who God is, felt the deep joy of His grace and learned to trust Him for tomorrow.

Machen on holy jealousy

2011-04-27T11:19:00.003-05:00

"Why should we be indignant about slanders directed against a human friend, while at the same time we are patient about the basest slanders directed against our God?"

- J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, p. 55

Garbage and the glory of God

2011-04-25T07:56:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, in my sermon one of the points I made in showing forth Christ as our King was His kingly commission in Genesis 1:26-28 to exercise godly dominion over the earth. That takes all kinds of forms, and not just overtly spiritual ones. Since beauty, order, public hygiene and stewardship of the earth is part of His commission, Christians should accept a special responsibility for putting trash in its place.

I thought about that this morning as I walked our dog with one of my sons. Now that the snows have melted, a long winter of trash litters our neighborhood gutters and boulevards. I have a choice of response. I can self-righteously become indignant about the folks who irresponsibly littered throughout the winter, or I can see the trash as a positive opportunity to pass on God's commission to my sons by going on a 'trash safari' today, seeking to represent our King in our neighborhood by taking one aspect of what has become wrong and making it right. We'll probably make a contest of it, seeing who can fill up their bag with the most pieces of trash, to make it extra fun.

In God's economy, litter is not just litter. It's an opportunity to engage the world responsibly and push back the dark effects of the Fall in a small but significant way, right where we live to the glory of Christ.

CRU dessert

2011-04-23T06:58:00.003-05:00

At Trinity we've tried to become intentionally focused in our missions support to ensure maximum theological affinity, on-going relationship and mutual commitment. One of the ministries we support is our local Campus Crusade for Christ chapter, led by Trinity members Jason and Kassidy Skjervem, who actively minister at Minot State University and smaller, regional colleges like those in Bottineau and Devil's Lake. Our new IT and connections guy on staff here at Trinity, Josh Hawkins, also works part time with CRU, doing IT support.

God's been at work through CRU's ministry this year in some very exciting ways. Some students have recently become Christians while others have grown deeper in their faith. We all have an opportunity to hear more about it at their upcoming annual dessert on Monday May 9th at 7 pm at MSU's Student Center. The CRU staff and students will be sharing about what our Lord is up to in extending His Kingdom on campus, and we'll also have a chance to support this important arm of our missionary/evangelistic ministry financially.

Space is limited, so if you plan on attending the CRU dessert, please RSVP Kassidy at 720-0521.

A Good Friday musical meditation

2011-04-22T21:36:00.002-05:00

“Thy Will Be Done” Craig Courtney

Our cup was filled with darkness; our cup was fi lled with death.
Christ took our cup and drank it and gave us life and gave
us hope, gave us himself. “My Father, let this cup pass from me,
yet not my will, O Lord, but thine be done.” In blackest night
we hear him in dark Gethsemane, pleading with the Father
for one more way, for one more hope, for one more day.
“My Father, let this cup pass from me, yet not my will, O Lord,
but thine be done.” Then they took our Savior and led him
to a tree and there they broke his body, poured out his life,
put him to death to rise again! “My Father, let this cup pass
from me, yet not my will, O Lord, but thine be done.”

Christ in the Old Testament?

2011-04-21T08:05:00.005-05:00

If Genesis 3:15 really is the 'proto-gospel,' after which everything in the Bible is one grand story of good news anticipating our coming Redeemer, then we should expect to be able to discover anticipations of Christ throughout the Old Testament. One major way God inspired the biblical writers to do that was through 'typology'. Unless we understand typology, much of the Old Testament will remain either useless ancient history or a perpetual mystery. So, what is typology? One of the best explanations is given by OT scholar Michael Barrett:

"...typology is not an interpretation technique arbitrarily imposed on the Old Testament in an effort to rescue it for Christian relevance. Rather, it is a method of divine revelation. Let me put it simply in terms of 'x' and 'y'. If x is the picture and y is the truth, God was saying to look at x in order to understand something about y. Much of what we read in the Old Testament is God's using x's to teach ultimate truths about y. The principle thing to remember is that x does not equal y. So x is the type, the object lesson [e.g. the Tabernacle] that foreshadows or predicts the actual, future realization of the pictured truth. Y is the antitype, the future realization to which the type points [e.g. Christ, the ultimate Tabernacle of God's atoning presence. See John 1:14]. The type represents and resembles the antitype. This does not mean that x loses its significance or usefulness in [its original context, but it points beyond itself to something far greater]. The key point is that Christ is the ultimate reality: He is the Idea behind - or perhaps I should say above - all the visible impressions."

- Michael Barrett, Love Divine and Unfailing, p. 11.

Gospel Coalition Links

2011-04-20T11:40:00.004-05:00

Terri and I were deeply blessed to be at the Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago last week. The Gospel Coalition is a team of like-minded Christian leaders building bridges across denominational lines to wave the banner of precious biblical truths we hold in common:

- The glory of God as the chief goal of all things

- The sovereignty of God in our salvation

- The centrality of expository Bible preaching to the health of the church

- The mission of the gospel of Christ's grace as the only solution for our broken world

Click here for a link to the conference audio so you too can drink deeply of the rich messages which so encouraged us.

Protestants going over to Rome?

2011-04-06T09:16:00.004-05:00

Yes, it's true. The past decade has seen a notable rise of disaffected evangelicals leaving their suburban megachurches to become Roman Catholic. What's the allure? Carl Trueman gives some reasons here.

Leading with humility

2011-04-02T10:30:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow Paul's going to talk to us about developing godly relationships with the spiritual leaders in our lives. Among other things, that includes an openness to correction and admonition. While it's never easy to be corrected, it's even harder to be the one doing the correcting. How can we grow in our ability to biblically admonish other believers with humility? In the following video clip, CJ Mahaney provides some wise advice for us all.

Nurturing wise kids

2011-03-26T09:20:00.002-05:00

Last year our study of Proverbs helped us all learn more about what it means to be biblically wise. Now a book is out uniquely designed to help our kids embrace wisdom. Paul Tripp has this to say about it:

"Ruth Younts has produced a wisdom character manual like I have never seen before. Forget that it was written for children, I need it! I wish I had been given such a fun, street-level and Christ-centered tool when my children were still at home. By the way, Ruth isn’t able to talk about wisdom with such practicality and grace because she did graduate work in wisdom. No, Ruth has spent years at the feet of her Heavenly Father listening. She knows that he is not only the source of all true wisdom, but is Wisdom himself."

You can find the book here.

Building decisions

2011-03-15T08:10:00.003-05:00

As most of you know, on Sunday our elders made a proposal to suspend our present plan to add-on to our church facility and pursue selling our property so as to make purchasing and remodeling 1st Baptist Church possible. If you haven't read the actual proposal, which answers many questions, we'd encourage you to stop by the church office to pick up a copy. For those of you who have read it, what do you think? We'd like to use our blog to foster healthy discussion about the pros and cons of this potential opportunity to greatly enlarge our meeting space debt free. Leave a comment here to get in on the discussion.

Good thoughts about the 'M' word

2011-03-12T09:28:00.005-06:00

I might as well say it: 'masturbation.' Tomorrow the apostle Paul will help us assess and address our sexual temptations through our study of I Thessalonians 4:1-8. Right in line with Paul, Jeffrey Black has this to say about masturbation:

"The goal of pornography and masturbation is to create a substitute for intimacy. Masturbation is sex with yourself. If I'm having sex with myself, I don't have to invest myself in another person. People who are 'addicted' to pornography aren't so much addicted to lurid material as they're addicted to self-centeredness. They're committed to serving themselves, to doing whatever they can to find a convenient way not to die to self, which is the nature of companionship in relationship."

- Quoted in Josh Harris, Sex Isn't The Problem, Lust Is, pp. 105-106.

Pray and go

2011-03-09T08:44:00.003-06:00

This morning as I was praying for various African countries, I felt an unusual burden to pray for Somalia - that east African nation which has devolved into anarchy and piracy. Though it may be the most unsafe place in the world to live at the present time, especially for women and children, its problems could be used by God to stir in the hearts of its Muslim citizens a longing for a Savior. How will Somalis hear about Jesus? Here are some ways you can pray:

For the very few Christians in Somalia (only 200 by some reports) to courageously share their hope in Christ and teach the Bible to others

For Christians in nearby nations (like Kenya and Ethiopia) to courageously find inroads into Somalia toward evangelism and strenthening the tiny Somali church

For Christians in Minneapolis, and other major cities of the world to which Somali refugees have fled, to compassionately minister to the Somalis who God has sovereignly brought into their neighborhoods not only so they might know Jesus but spread a passion for His glory to their relatives and friends still in Somalia

In addition to prayer, we need to go. The vast majority of missionaries are working in countries with stable churches which are growing. That is needed, but there is an urgent need for career missionaries going to the dangerous and unreached nations of the world like Somalia. Who will go?

When porn filters are unhelpful

2011-03-03T15:11:00.004-06:00

I don't have to convince you - especially if you're a man - that pornographic sin has escalated thanks to the internet. Net porn is epidemic and precious few teenage boys and men who are regularly on-line are immune to it. How pervasive is its reach and power? Check out some stats I saw today:

"According to compiled numbers from respected news and research organizations, every second $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography. Every second 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography. In that same second 372 internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the U.S. And it’s big business. The pornography industry has larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined."

So, it's logical for a godly guy to rush to put a smut filter on his computer. There are loads of them available, many are free and they're easy to use. Perhaps even more effective are programs which forward your viewing history to your spouse or accountability partner to help you think twice before surfing in dangerous territory.

How should we think about internet filters? On the one hand, we should praise God for them. I have two young sons and I deeply want to protect their minds from sensually titillating images which could lead them to lust - and worse. I need to be especially vigilant as they approach the teenage years when images, which they would have ignored at age 5, suddenly stir up sinful urges. I think internet filters can be very helpful, and I think we need to use them wisely in certain contexts with those under our care who are especially vulnerable.

On the other hand, as a biblically-minded Christian, I have to acknowledge that internet porn filters can be bad - really bad. How so? Well, what is such a filter accomplishing? It's guarding a person's eyes and mind from an opportunity to sate his or her lust. What's it not accomplishing? It's not allowing the reality of that person's sinful heart (which is lustful whether he's looking at porn or not) to be dealt with. It may be wise for an alcoholic to steer clear of the local bars, but doing so doesn't force him to face his true problem: idolatry (satisfaction in something which is not God). An internet filter superficially masks lustful idolatry which is lurking in the heart. If a man chooses not to have a filter on his computer, then he has to depend upon the power of the Holy Spirit when he surfs the web, he has to nurture deep love for his wife in order to say 'no' to his flesh's lustful appetite and when he does look at smut, he is in a position to confess to his Christian brothers that he's an idolater who's desperate for their prayers and the grace of God in his life.

An internet filter might help a man avoid smutty websites, but it won't help him face his own sinful heart and it won't drive him in desperation to the Cross. Like a child needing training wheels, my sons need an internet filter when they're young, unwise and unable to protect themselves. But if they intend to grow spiritually, one day the training wheels will need to come off. The glory of Christ in their lives and their desperation for the gospel depends on it.

Good and angry

2011-03-01T13:14:00.002-06:00

"Jesus died not only to free you from your anger, but to enable you to take up His righteous anger....He died so that you would not be a captive to the self-absorbed anger of your claustrophobic little kingdom. He died so that you would be angry with sin and the way it has harmed you and everyone around you....

Sarah is very angry, but she looks anything but angry. She isn't easily irritated. She isn't known for being loud and argumentative. But Sarah is angry. She is angry that so many elderly people are institutionalized and alone, so she spends each Sunday afternoon going room to room at the retirement home in her neighborhood. She is angry that in our highly educated culture many inner-city children do not learn to read, so she tutors children on Tuesday nights. She is angry that so many friendships end in unreconciled conflict, so she works to be a peacemaker whenever she can. Yes, Sarah is angry, but it's not the self-focused anger of the little kingdom. No, her anger is the anger of the big Kingdom and it propels her to look for ways to do good."

Paul Tripp, A Quest for More, pp. 191-92.

The perils of protesting

2011-02-23T09:32:00.006-06:00

One of the blessings of our republic is our freedom to demonstrate in protest when we disagree with a given governmental direction or decision. Right now such demonstrations are taking place around the world in nations like Libya, but they're also taking place in the city of my college alma mater, Madison, Wisconsin. I don't know enough about public employee collective bargaining laws to comment intelligently on the protests in Madison. The protests may be legitimate.

At the same time, being a university town, Madison lends itself to protests. As a student there I'll never forget one Saturday being surrounded by a mass of conservative humanity as we swelled State Street and made our way to the state Capitol building where we demonstrated against Roe vs. Wade. It was heady stuff being a part of a 'cause' complete with cheers, songs and signs. There is a place for peaceful protest, and I'm glad of it. At the same time, as writer Paul Tripp makes clear in the following quote, protests often imperil a clear view of God, self and others.

"Did you ever wonder why protests are so attractive to a human being? When I participate in a protest over some issue, I am able to say that this particular problem somehow exists outside of me. And since I am not the problem here, I get to point the finger at you, publicly exposing your wrongs that are affecting me and others. What makes protesting so exhilarating and intoxicating is being righteous. For once I get to say, 'I am innocent here, and frankly outraged at the wrong that you are doing!' If you invited people to two events, one to protest something and the other to confess some [sin], which gathering do you think would draw the bigger crowd?"

- Paul Tripp, A Quest for More, p. 156

Trueman on Gaga

2011-02-22T13:16:00.003-06:00

"Despising the modern pop scene, and having more important things to do on Sunday evening, I did not see the Grammys, though I was struck yesterday when I saw a clip of this ghastly Lady Gaga person being carried on to stage in one of those plastic pods that were apparently left over from the set of This is Spinal Tap. I laughed at the latter; indeed, I laughed at the former -- until the portentous arty commentary indicated that LG was making an artistic statement.

Yet vacuous pop stars are soft targets when it comes to mocking the theologising of self-importance. They look and sound ridiculous because we can all hear what they say, see what they wear, and smirk at their assumption that, because they can entertain, what they have to say about everything is somehow important, unique, and, indeed, coherent. My guess, however, is that more than a few of us in the church also fall for the `God has a special purpose for my life' line. This is often simply a way of saying `I believe myself to be uniquely important and indispensable.'

Actually, we are not; none of us are. There is always somebody else who could do our jobs better; and let us not kid ourselves -- there is probably somebody else who could have married our spouse and made them just as happy, if not more so. God's love for us is exceptional, not because we are unique, but because we are not so; not because he needs us; but because he does not need us at all."

- Carl Trueman on Ref 21

Welcoming Michael

2011-02-18T07:45:00.003-06:00

This coming Sunday we'll have the priviledge of hearing from and spending time with our missionary in Toulouse, France, Michael Gibbons. It's an exciting time to be planting churches in western Europe! More than ever before, European cities are being inundated by immigrants from all parts of the globe, creating transition points which God often uses to compel people to consider who they, why they exist and Who made them. The Gibbons have been building a truly international team of workers to reach out to the masses streaming to Toulouse, which is the fastest growing city in Europe. Not only that, Toulouse is host to nearlyl 200,000 university students - a seedbed for evangelism and church planting. It's an exciting time to be doing ministry in western Europe.

But it's also a challenging time. Much of western Europe is stridently atheistic and suspicious of organized religion. The EU is rife with debt and the tax burden of western European welfare states is beginning to catch up with them. Toulouse is a very expensive place to live. It's a challenging time to be doing ministry in western Europe.

All this means that we have reason to rejoice with Micheal and pray with and for him. Please join me in asking God not only to prepare his heart and ours as he comes to speak to us on Sunday. Ask God to do in Toulouse 'abundantly beyond all we can think or imagine' (Eph. 3:20) as the Spirit uses friends like the Gibbons to extend Christ's Kingdom farther and deeper to His glory.

True understanding

2011-02-15T07:31:00.002-06:00

Over the years Trinity Church has become known as a place where rigorous thinking is encouraged. We don't want to follow the path of anti-intellectualism which marked certain segments of the American church during the 20th century. God gave us good minds to be stretched by His truth for His glory. The pursuit of understanding matters to Christ.

That is all true, and yet I was struck this morning by some things Moses said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4 before they passed over the Jordan River into the Promised Land. There he defines for us what true understanding is - or, perhaps more accurately, he describes the necessary effect of true understanding.

"See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'" (Deuteronomy 4:5-6)

We will be known as God's 'wise and understanding people' not chiefly by what we know, but by what we do, that is, how we apply what we know. Wisdom and understanding only honors God and marks us as His people if it translates into holy, joyful, God-honoring obedience.

Toxic parenting

2011-02-10T17:28:00.002-06:00

On his Blazing Center blog, Stephen Altrogge posted some helpful advice today on parenting. Ephesians 6:4 says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." According to Stephen, here are 16 ways we often provoke our children sinfully which we need grace to avoid:

We can provoke our children to anger:

- By constantly criticizing them and not encouraging them. When they feel they can never please us enough.
- By having double standards. Expecting them to do things we don’t do, e.g. ask forgiveness, humble themselves, etc.
- By anger and harshness
- By a lack of affection
- By telling them what to do or not do without giving Biblical reasons (e.g., Do it because I said to do it, or because it’s just wrong).
- By being offended at their sin because it bothers us, not because it offends God.
- By comparing them to others (Why can’t you act like your sister?)
- By hypocrisy – acting like a Christian at church but not at home
- By embarrassing them (correcting, mocking or expressing disappointment in them in front of others)
- By always lecturing them and never listening to them
- By disciplining them for childishness or weakness, not for sin
- By failing to ask their forgiveness when we sin against them
- By pride – failing to receive humble correction from our spouses or our children when we sin.
- By self-centered reactions to their sin (How could you do this to ME?)
- By ungracious reactions to their sin (What were you thinking? Why in the world would you do that?)
- By forgetting that we were (and are) sinners (I would NEVER have done that when I was your age).

May God give us gracious, gentle, humble, affectionate hearts toward our children.

Amen!

Shrink-wrapped by sin?

2011-02-02T12:37:00.006-06:00

"What's wrong with me?" I asked my wife as I lay down to sleep after a day of grouchy-demandingness. The challenges of the day had exposed the idolatrous loves of my heart in ugly ways. What was wrong with me? Most fundamentally, what was wrong was the disease called 'self-deification'. King Jesus isn't good enough for me. I wanted to be king.

In his recent book, A Quest for More, Paul Tripp takes us on a biblically-guided tour of our self-deifying hearts and gives us the ammunition needed to fight our self-enthroning compulsions so that Jesus alone can take His rightful place on the throne in our lives. Here's a taste from the banquet table Paul spreads for us as he spells out just how fundamentally the Fall has warped our original relational orientation:

"Sin causes fundamental changes in the 'molecules' of my heart. No longer is my heart driven by a deep-seated love for God. No longer is my heart motivated by a genuine care for others. No longer do I carry around a sense of responsibility for the surrounding, created world. No longer is every decision I make shaped by a clear sense of what is morally right and morally wrong. No longer is everything I do shaped by joyful and thankful worship. The DNA of sin is selfishness, and it shrinks the size of my universe to the size of one. Sin creates the ultimate shrink dynamic. It causes all of us in some way to shrink our lives to the size of our lives. Sin shrinks my motivation, zeal, desire, care and concern to the contours of my life. In the shrunken kingdom of self, there is no functional room for God or others. It is humbling, but spiritually essential, to admit that sin has shrink-wrapped us all." (p. 86)

In your quest to let Jesus be Lord of your life, this book can help greatly.

Applying the gospel to your sinful child

2011-01-27T10:55:00.004-06:00

I recently wrote up a step by step outline to help Christian parents respond to the sins of their children in a way that takes them to the Cross and makes it a positive opportunity to praise Jesus' grace vs. a fight for mere behavior modification. I hope you find it helpful.

Bringing the gospel to bear on your child’s heart

A. When your child is not sinning

1. Thank God for giving him ‘obeying grace’.

2. Praise him and help him praise God for ‘obeying grace’.

3. Enjoy who God has uniquely made him, and don’t mistake immaturity for sin.

B. When your child is sinning

1. Control your reaction. Be calm and don’t be surprised by his sin.

2. Go to him and tell him that you need to meet with him privately.

3. Engage with the positive/hopeful attitude that this is a gospel opportunity.

4. Gently point out his sin. Use the Bible and be as specific as possible.

5. Help him understand that his sin offends God and hurts others and himself.

6. Help him feel the pain of his sin via corporal discipline or some other ‘pain’.

7. Help him understand his natural inability to please God without saving grace.

8. Pray with him (him praying too) with words of hope in Christ’s kind grace.

9. Do not harbor the incident in your heart or bring it up ever again. It is forgiven.

10. Thank God for your child often and enjoy the evidences of God’s grace in his life.

Ebook advantages

2011-01-26T05:55:00.005-06:00

Trust me, I'm not being paid by Amazon or Apple to promote their Kindle or Ibook electronic books, and perhaps you will always be old school in your reading methods and demand a hard copy in your hands. I sympathize with you.

Still, one profound advantage to taking the plunge into the world of ebooks is the veritible treasure trove of older books (many of which are more thoughtful and thought-provoking and sometimes life-changing than most new books) available either free or for very low rates. I may not be a shameless promoter of the Kindle Reader or Ipad, but I am a shameless promoter of the English Puritans, and their works, for the most part, can be had at incredibly low prices in electronic form. For instance, check out the difference between most of the books by the eminent Puritan preacher Thomas Watson in hard copy vs. ebook form sold on Amazon here.

I am not encouraging buying books if you, in all honesty, are not going to read them. Save your money - or donate it to someone who will. But if you are a lover of great books and are looking for the best books at the best possible price, consider the new wave of ebooks now available.

The logic of election

2011-01-25T14:47:00.004-06:00

This week in I Thessalonians 1 we're going to hear the apostle Paul glory in God's sovereign, electing grace, which gave him assurance the the Thessalonians' faith was real and would persevere. Many people have a hard time with the Bible's teaching that Christ only died for some and not for every single person in history. Though election challenges our modern notions of fairness, it is necessary for upholding God's justice.

The great Puritan John Owen explains it this way: If Christ died for all on the Cross (if He actually paid for their sins), but not all are finally saved, then those unbelievers who suffer God's condemnation at the final Judgment suffer unjustly, since they receive from God a second payment for their sins (the first having been paid by Christ on the Cross). The only way out of this scenario of unjust, double jeopardy is the biblical doctrine of particular atonement, that Christ actually died for some (the elect) and because the sins of the elect have been fully paid by Christ on the Cross, no future condemnation for them is possible.

Stop listening to yourself and find hope

2011-01-21T17:16:00.001-06:00

Thank God for the Fall?

2011-01-19T15:34:00.005-06:00

Have you ever found yourself wishing you could go back to the Garden of Eden before the Fall? Even a vacation there sounds good, doesn't it? Think again. According to Genesis 2:8-17, though prefall Adam lived in the Garden without the effects of sin, he lived under the continual condition of having to live up to God's law of prohibition regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. According to Romans 5:12ff., Adam did not merely live under the pressure of continual obedience to avoid death and God's wrath for himself but for all who would come after him. Adam's obedience before the Fall not only put such pressure to perform on him, his achievement (until he fell) made him an object of self-gained glory. Suddenly, life before the Fall doesn't sound too great.

In contrast, what a blessing it is to live on this side of God's gospel promise in Genesis 3:15 where Christ (the second Adam) perfectly performs in our place both fulfilling God's law and dying for our sins. And our current context, in contrast to life in the Garden, turns the spotlight of glory fully on Christ where it belongs.

So, the next time you wish you were in the Garden of Eden, think again. Life in this fallen world for those of us who enjoy God's grace isn't so bad after all. Heaven, though, will be best of all.

A global vision

2011-01-19T07:59:00.005-06:00

In about a month Michael Gibbons, our missionary in Toulouse, France will be at Trinity for a visit. This morning as I was praying for the Gibbons' ministry, I felt a rush of joy at how intentionally strategic they have become in recruiting Christian workers from non-western contexts to reach the diverse populations in Toulouse, which is the fastest growing city in Europe. For instance, three workers from Hong Kong are due to arrive in Toulouse this year to target the growing Chinese student population in the city's universities. Michael has been training other missionaries from Bulgaria, Mexico and Columbia to effectively assimilate into French culture in order to plant a biblically healthy church there.

Missions is changing. God seems to be raising up workers from all over the globe as American missionaries increasingly find themselves in leadership, training and support roles in order to unleash the young churches from the developing world on the mission field for maximum effect. I am humbled that we as a church get the opportunity to watch this exciting transition taking place before our eyes through the Gibbons' ministry. Take some time today to pray for God's work in and through them.

Pray for Sudan

2011-01-12T07:33:00.003-06:00

As Kevin mentioned on Sunday, the referendum (vote) for independence for Southern Sudan is taking place this week. Though here in the US it takes us just one day (most of the time) to hold an election, there it will take all week since many will have to walk or ride bicycles to distant polling places. Our missionary Tony Frietas has been in contact with the Sudanese pastors we work with and reports that the reforendum is going smoothly in the far south near Labone, but fighting has broken out on the border farther north. Please pray I Timothy 2:2 which instructs us to intercede for national leaders so the church might exist in peace and expand God's kingdom. If you'd like to read a first hand account of the referendum by a World Vision worker in Juba, Sudan, you can find it here.

Understanding the Pharisees

2011-01-06T16:26:00.004-06:00

It's pretty common in Christian circles for us to think of the Pharisees as religious folks who were too concerned and nit-picky about the Jewish Law, in contrast to Jesus Who came to wave the banner of grace. In the following brief interview with Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan (the teacher of my recent class at Reformed Seminary in Jackson, MS) helpfully clarifies how this common understanding misreads the Pharisees and leads us to unintentionally misunderstand the Mosaic Law. Very helpful stuff!

Singular femininity

2010-11-12T07:24:00.003-06:00

This week's message on wise womanhood will be easiest to apply for those who are or one day will be married women with children, since that is God's general design for most women and the assumption of Proverbs. But what about the single, Christian woman who would like to be married but isn't? Whether her singleness is just temporary or lifelong, a short article by Carolyn McCulley beautifully reminds us that God has a very intentional plan to use such a woman for His glory. You can read it here.

Wise Womanhood

2010-11-10T16:34:00.003-06:00

Ok, ladies. Now it's your turn. This week Proverbs unfolds the character and orientation of a biblically wise woman. To get a foretaste and go deeper in your embrace of biblical femininity, check out this message by Carolyn Mahaney.

Wise manhood

2010-11-04T10:49:00.002-05:00

This week's message will take us into the pages of Proverbs to discover what it means to be a wise man. A large part of that, for those of us who are or will be married, is loving our wives well to the glory of God. On that important topic I've found few messages as helpful as one by CJ Mahaney given a few years ago at a marriage conference at Covenant Life Church. You can download the message for free here.

Wondering about Halloween?

2010-10-31T06:18:00.002-05:00

If you're a Christian wondering how to approach today with biblical wisdom, the following article by John MacArthur may prove helpful. You can read it here.

The marks of a true Christian

2010-10-26T10:04:00.004-05:00

Have you ever been perplexed by a friend who claims to be a Christian but displays so little of it in his or her life? They've 'received Christ' but that seems to be about as far as it goes. I'm not talking about days or seasons of back-sliding sloth. All true Christians temporarily distance themselves from the lordship of Christ in isolated situations. I'm talking about those who claim to be believers but the overwhelming evidence long-term testifies that their loves are elsewhere. How are we understand such people? John Piper helps us when he writes:

"One way to describe this problem is to say that when these people 'receive Christ,' they do not receive him as supremely valuable. They receive him simply as sin-forgiver (because they love being guilt-free), and as rescuer-from-hell (because they love being pain-free), and as healer (because they love being disease-free), and as protector (because they love being safe), and as prosperity-giver (because they love being wealthy), and as creator (because they want a personal universe), and as Lord of history (because they want order and purpose). But they don't receive him as supremely and personally valuable for who he is. They don't receive him the way Paul did when he spoke of 'the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.' They don't receive him as he really is - more glorious, more beautiful, more wonderful, more satisfying, than everything else in the universe. They don't prize him or treasure him or cherish him or delight in him." - John Piper, Think, pp. 71-72

Will we love such 'Christian' friends enough to challenge them with the demands of the grace of the Cross?

Spiritual disciplines?

2010-10-19T15:53:00.003-05:00

In recent decades we've seen an upsurge in focus on practicing key spiritual disciplines toward a deeper walk with God and greater sanctification. Much good has been gained in the church and our lives as a result. At the same time, for performance-driven people like me, emphasizing spiritual disciplines has often caused us either to become proud of our spiritual accomplishments in keeping the disciplines well or become discouraged at our frequent failures. Tim Chester admirably helps address this issue when he writes the following:

"Some people call [such things as Bible reading, prayer, community, worship and service] spiritual disciplines. But I believe this is unhelpful terminology. It can make Christian growth seem like an achievement on our part. In reality, it's God who changes us through his grace. The only true spiritual disciplines in the Christian life are faith and repentance, actions that direct our attention to God's gracious activity. So I prefer the traditional term the means of grace. These are ways in which God is gracious to us and by which he strengthens his work of grace in our hearts. They are the means God uses to feed our faith in him. This is what sowing to the Spirit looks like in practice." - Tim Chester, You Can Change, p. 140

Well said.

Cult alert

2010-10-15T11:17:00.002-05:00

Ephesians 5:11 tells us, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them."

One of the less enjoyable but sometimes necessary duties of spiritual leaders is to alert the people of God to wolves in sheep's clothing. Sadly, that is necessary today due to the recent arrival in Minot of a group called The World Mission Society. They are a non-orthodox movement from Korea claiming to be a Christian church who most often target women, college students and youth. Their founder, Ahn Sahng-hong, claimed to be an incarnation of the second coming of Christ. His wife claims to be 'Mother God'. They bear the classic marks of a cult.

In light of this, I encourage you to do the following:

1. Educate yourself. You can learn more here.

2. Pray. Ask God to protect people in Minot from the unbiblical lies touted by this group and for
the Holy Spirit to awaken them to the bibilcal truth about Christ.

3. Engage. If you know of any Koreans in Minot - particularly at MSU - alert them and educate them about The World Mission Society. If you encounter folks from this cult, go out of your way to show them the love of Christ and lovingly challenge them with the truth of the gospel from Scripture. God may open their eyes to the truth. Let's pray He does.

Godly thoughtfulness

2010-10-07T08:44:00.004-05:00

John Piper's book Think was recently released, encouraging Christians to maximize our minds to the glory of God - toward very practical ends. I'm currently reading the book and not being disappointed. Why is a book like this important for American Christians at the beginning of the 21st century? Piper gives some cogent reasons:

"I hope this book will rescue the victims of evangelical pragmatism, Pentecostal shortcuts, pietistic anti-intellectualism, pluralistic conviction aversion, academic gamesmanship, therapeutic Bible evasion, journalisitc bite-sizing, musical mesmerizing, YouTude craving, and postmodern Jello-O juggling. In other words, I believe thinking is good for the church in every way." p. 17

The danger of obedience

2010-09-29T08:04:00.003-05:00

"Do not be fooled by people who say to you, 'You do not have to keep the law perfectly in order to be saved. You just have to be sincere. It is Jesus plus your own sincere obedience that will save you.' As attractive as those words might sound, do not accept them. They are a mask for a false gospel.

Second, remember the basic difference between the law and the gospel. It is not that the law requires perfect obedience, and the gospel just requires sincere obedience. Rather, the difference is this: the law requires doing, and the gospel requires not doing. The gospel requires believing for life and salvation. The 'terms of the deal' are totally different. They are not just different in degree: 'The law requires 100% obedience for your salvation whereas the gospel requires only 51% obedience for your salvation.' No! The terms are different in their very nature! The law requires 100% doing. The gospel requires 100% not doing. The gospel requires believing!"

- Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, p. 82

Gifts that hurt and heal

2010-09-28T14:44:00.002-05:00

"In Amos 4 God speaks of a gift he gave to his people: 'empty stomachs' (v. 6). He 'withheld rain' so that 'people staggered from town to town for water' (vv. 7-8). He struck their crops with mildew (v. 9). These might seem strange gifts! But God gives them so that His people might repent. The gifts are terrible things, but idolatry and its consequences are worse. God always seeks the best for His people, and that best is Himself. Famine and thirst are acts of divine love when their aim is to bring us back to God."

- Tim Chester, You Can Change, pp. 105-106

What's really important this fall

2010-09-22T07:29:00.008-05:00

Like most cities around our nation, Minot is slowly becoming blanketed with campaign posters for every office from US Senate to county sheriff. The next month and a half will only be more of the same. It is a privilege in our nation to be able to have a say in who leads us politically, so I support politics and we should support the candidates who demonstrate the greatest character qualities for service.

At the same time, politics is rarely as important as we think. It is of immediate but not ultimate importance. Isaiah 40 reminds of that.

Behold, the nations are like a drop in a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales....All the nations are as nothing before [God], they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. (vv. 15 & 17)

This morning the news was all abuzz about a conflict between China and Japan over who controls the fishing waters which separate them. According to Isaiah, they will soon be forgotten. How important is it that we as America retain our economic and military supremacy in the world? According to Isaiah, our 300 million people and two hundred plus year history and rise to dominance is 'less than nothing.' We're not as important as we think - nor are any of the political campaigns so strongly under way.

What is truly important? Isaiah continues,

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent...who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness....The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. (vv. 22-23, 28)

Even better, such a God is not just great, to us His people He is gracious. Listen to how Isaiah begins the chapter:

Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity (sin) is pardoned.... (vv. 1-2)

Our world is full of news, and some of it is important, but only the good news of God's greatness and grace to us in Jesus is ultimate. Let's put our greatest hope in Him this fall, the one 'Politician' who rules perfectly.

Thinking about sanctification

2010-09-11T10:47:00.003-05:00

Feeling hopeless about your struggle with a particular sin? Among other things, I would strongly recommend Tim Chester's book You Can Change which gets to the heart of sanctification by deepening our affections for the grace of Christ poured out to us through the Cross. Here is a quote which I recently found helpful:

"I used to think sanctification was a bit like pushing a boulder up a hill. It was hard, slow work, and if you lost concentration you might find yourself back at the bottom. But it's more like a boulder rolling down hill. There's something inevitable about it, because it's God's work, and God always succeeds. The sad thing is that often I try to push the boulder back up the hill. I say in effect, 'Don't change me yet - I like doing that sin.'" (p. 55)

Thinking Christianly about book burning

2010-09-07T13:03:00.008-05:00

Last week a Jewish friend of mine called me up to ask my opinion of Terry Jones, the Florida man planning on holding a Koran burning on September 11th. He stated that if any Jew promised to perpetrate such an outrageous expression counter to free speech - especially religious free speech - Jews from around the world would descend upon him to silence and marginalize him for the sake of all Jews (who are against book burning of any kind).

I told my friend that I believed Terry Jones would not receive the same response from global Christians for a number of reasons. First, unfortunately, many professing believers agree with him that such displays are the means to stamp out Islam. Second, unfortunately, the Christian world has become so large and so fragmented that any semblance of unity in response to someone like Terry Jones is very unlikely. At the same time, I expressed my sorrow to my friend that Christians - if Terry Jones truly is one - would stage such a display of thoughtless militance.

Professor Carl Trueman gives a level-headed response when he writes:

"Has book burning ever done anything other than make the object of the fire more interesting and sought after, and make the perpetrators look like mindless reactionary vandals? The Reformation is a great example of this: the Catholics burned Luther's books and, hey presto!, they became bestsellers, and the Reformers had, at least for a while, the public sympathy that comes with being victims. That's censorship for you. The same kind of thing happened in the sixties with the Rolling Stones: ban them from the airwaves and suddenly they are top of the charts. Book burning is entirely counterproductive because it only ever achieves the opposite of that which it intends. Luther understood this -- when Prierias published his criticisms of Luther in 1518, Luther did not burn the book; he republished it with a new, witty preface and a refutation. He understood the subtleties of polemic in a way that left his opponents playing catch-up.

This Koran burning is childish; it will at best only draw attention to the book and fuel curiosity; at worst, it could jeopardise young people serving their country. Christians would be better served spending the time praying for the conversion of their Muslim neighbours and reaching out to them with love and with God's true word, rather than with a box of matches and acts of counterproductive immaturity."

It is hard to square Koran burning with the way of the Cross. It reminds one more of Nazi tactics to suppress German minorities than Christian mission to win the world for Christ. Fighting for the truth this side of the Cross must take constructive, not destructive, paths.

Thinking Christianly about Glenn Beck and Co.

2010-08-30T11:56:00.003-05:00

Will America's hope for Christians like us be found in Fox News celebrities like Glenn Beck (and Sarah Palin) who's Washington rally last Saturday drew many thousands? Is their cause our cause? For a biblically wise assessment, read this by Russell Moore, theologian at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

We're not alone

2010-08-24T07:42:00.002-05:00

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10

"Just imagine crossing the street with a little three-year old. Although those sweet, little fingers are grasping your hand, you aren't relying on them to hang on to you. No, you hold his whole hand (and part of his arm) in your grip, and nothing will pry your fingers loose. That's a picture of what your heavenly Father is doing with you. He's holding onto you. And He's stronger than you could ever imagine. To put it in Jesus' words, "no one is able to snatch you [his sheep] out of the Father's hand" (John 10:29) - no, not even you. He's going to get his children across the street without any accidents."

- Elyse Fitzpatrick, Love to Eat, Hate to Eat, pp. 192-193

Godly ambition

2010-08-23T07:45:00.002-05:00

In light of our study on wise work from Proverbs yesterday, this Driscoll clip is more than apropos. Thanks to Jason Skjervem for supplying the link. If you want to read more about godly ambition, check out Dave Harvey's excellent book, Rescuing Ambition. You can find it here.

Humility in surprising places

2010-08-19T11:51:00.006-05:00

Of all the Christian marks of grace, humility may be the most rare. We find it rarely in Christian circles, let alone in the secular world. Therefore, it struck me all the more when I recently came across a great example of self-effacing humility in the world of 80's rock and roll.

As a 12 year old kid in 1982, one of the songs I heard most that summer was Toto's smash hit 'Rosanna.' The album that spawned it, Toto IV, went on to take the grammy that year for best record. Without doubt, the guys in Toto raked in heavy cash in 1982. The accolades for 'Rosanna,' which peaked at #2 for 5 weeks, were replete.

So what does this have to do with humility? Fast-forward in time from 1982 to 2008. It was then that I noticed a drumming instruction video by Jeff Porcaro, the drummer and founder of Toto. In the video, Jeff explains and demonstrates the unusually complex rhythm he developed for 'Rosanna.' Here's where humility comes in: the rhythm of the song - to the technically uninitiated - is sufficiently masked and subdued that his brilliant drumming is never front and center in the song. In fact, in my relatively uneducated opinion, what Jeff Porcaro pulls off in 'Rosanna' is far more difficult than many elaborate drum solos which wow the crowds to thunderous applause. For 'Rosanna' Jeff Porcaro personally received little applause. What it did produce is an unusually rich song which is much more technically complex than one might imagine. For Jeff it was all about Toto and producing a great song by a great band. It wasn't about him and his percussive genius. That's humility. There's something there, I think, for us Christians to imitate.

You can see Jeff's drum lesson here.

You can listen to 'Rosanne' here.

Can it be godly to own a great car?

2010-08-17T07:02:00.004-05:00

Personally, I don't care much about cars. Though I would love to drive a Mini Cooper someday (just because they're SO British and I'm a commited anglophile), most of the time I'd be happy with public transportation (which will never be feasible here in Minot, ND). Still, I very much appreciate my Ray Ortlund's perspective on car ownership to the glory of God. You can read about it here.

The sword of the Lord

2010-08-11T07:01:00.002-05:00

"Following the concluding prayer, the young king....left the Abbey and led the way to Westminster Hall where the coronation banquet was to be held. An anecdote has survived which gives clear evidence of the seriousness with which he viewed his new responsibilities. Carried before him in stately symbolism were three swords. Surprised, Edward stopped the procession and asked for an explanation. He was told that each was to represent one part of the kingdom: England, Ireland and France. 'One is wanting,' was his unexpected reply, 'the Bible. That book is the sword of the Spirit and to be preferred before these swords.' Quickly the Bible was removed from the lecturn [in Westminster Abbey] and at his insistence carried in front of the three swords representing his temporal kingdom."

- Faith Cook, Lady Jane Gray: Nine Day Queen of England, p. 56.