Well, how do you?
In less than 15 words...how do you demonstrate God's character?
I've decided to make this a weekly feature rather than daily. It wasn't daily much anymore anyways.
Is anyone else getting sick of this? Baptist Press trashes Driscoll. Numerous people have already responded. I think Alvin Reid might have done about the best.
Carl Trueman has a great piece on technology and a great quote about Facebook: “…the church should show this generation of text and web addicts where real friendship and community lie, not with some bunch of self-created avatars on Facebook but with the person next to them in the pew on Sunday, with the person next door, with the person they can see, hear, touch and, of course, to whom they can talk, and who is created not in webworld but by the mighty Creator.” (HT: Tony)
Great quote here by Jared Wilson: Why, God?
It seems a little extreme but I agree. Russell Moore discusses cellphones, children, and the gospel. I would absolutely love for our teenagers to STOP TEXTING EVERY 2 MINUTES!!!
Kevin DeYoung, author of Why We're Not Emergent
Bill Mounce tells us what to do with metaphors in Bible translation.
Be sure to read the article that goes with the HT:
(HT: DeYoung)
Author: William Still
Pages: 152 pages
Publisher: Rutherford House
Price: 4.89
Genre: Pastoral/Preaching
Quick Summary:
The Work of the Pastor is a compilation of five addresses given by William Still in the 1960’s. The fundamental cry of Still’s heart is that the pastor might see his work as feeding God’s sheep the Word of God. It sounds rather obvious and yet it is a much neglected practice. The pastor can be tempted to be about the business of many “good” things but neglect the most important—caring for the sheep.
What Still is aiming at in all five of these messages can be summed up by this quote, “If you think that you are called to keep a largely worldly organization, miscalled a church, going, with infinitesimal doses of innocuous sub-Christian drugs or stimulants, then the only help I can give you is to advise you to give up the hope of the ministry and go and be a street scavenger; a far healthier and more godly job, keeping the streets tidy, than cluttering the church with a lot of worldly claptrap in the delusion that you are doing a job for God. The pastor is called to feed the sheep, even if the sheep do not want to be fed. He is certainly not to become an entertainer of the goats. Let goats entertain goats, and let them do it out in goatland. You will certainly not turn goats into sheep by pandering to their goatishness. Do we really believe that the Word of God, by His Spirit, changes, as well as maddens men? If we do, to be evangelists and pastors, feeders of sheep, we must be men of the Word of God.” (9, 10)
Everything else that Still says in this book stems from the fundamental statement—“The pastor is called to feed the sheep, even if the sheep do not want to be fed.” Throughout this work Still shows exactly what he means by feeding sheep. He shows what this means inside the pulpit as well as outside the pulpit.
What I Liked:
I had never heard of William Still or his ministry prior to picking this book up off of Monergism for under five bucks. I actually assumed it was written in the seventeen or eighteen hundreds, and because of Still’s focus on the Word it very much feels as if it was. Because the Word of God is always relevant this booklet by Still is always relevant—calling pastor’s to do their job of feeding the sheep.
William Still “brings it” in these five messages. He does not shy away from confrontation or mince words. He tells it as it is. As Still tells pastors to “preach the Word” he is giving us a visible demonstration of what he means, throughout these five addresses Still brings us the Word of God. At times it cuts like a knife. At other times it comforts and encourages. What an excellent little book this is.
What I Disliked:
At times I think Still might be a tad prone to simplism. It is true that the Word is sufficient, but the Word must be handled correctly. This is, perhaps, not a knock on Still’s addresses but rather our fallen condition—we are prone to simplistic answers. And “only preach the Word” can be a license to the lazy or self-protecting pastor to not engage the difficulties of the pastorate.
Another difficulty in this book is its language. Still is, I believe, a Scotsman. And as such he speaks as a Scotsman. The lengthy quote above reveals the sometimes difficult and jam-packed language that Still uses. Yet, this is also one of the books great strengths. It is poetic and beautiful but sometimes the wording trips you up.
Should You Buy It?
There are few better uses for a five dollar bill than this book. Even if this little book were ten dollars I would still recommend it. What Still has to say in this book needs to be heard by pastor’s today as much as it needed to be heard in the 1960’s. Buy a copy today.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
This guy is still in an unemployment line
The guy at the end is classic..."We may need emergency surgery in the studio"
Doubtless you have heard the story of former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia and the grandmother on trial for stealing bread. Apparently, one night La Guardia visited a night court in the poorest part of the city. As the night went on the mayor took the bench himself. At one point a case came before him of a grandmother that stole bread to feed her grandchildren. La Guardia said, "You are guilty, and I have to punish you. Ten dollars or ten days in jail." But he did not stop there. The mayor pulled the ten dollars out of his pocket and paid the fine. The story also goes that La Guardia fined everyone in the building for living in a city where a grandmother has to steal bread. As they passed the hat around the woman left the courthouse with her fine paid and some $47.50 in her pocket.
This is an excellent picture of the gospel. We are guilty and the story does not deny that; in fact it confirms it. La Guardia did not lower the standard he considered the grandmother guilty--just as we are before God. Yet, just as in the story the Judge Himself pays our fine. And it is not only our fine that is paid but he also blesses us abundantly. There have been few better sermon illustrations on the gospel.
Yet, I wonder if the story would be different in our culture? Instead of declaring the grandmother guilty and paying the fine; she would probably have just gotten off without punishment, left acquitted, but still had nothing in her pocket. In our culture we sometimes do a good job overlooking offenses...but we have little concept of justice. One thing missing from our culture is the idea that "The fine must be paid". And because of this we also miss the deep truths of grace.
Yesterday, my wife went to the shopping mall. While there she decided to get our son's hair cut. At the salon (little boy's should go to salon's should they?) my wife found a great deal on shampoo that she loves to use. It is normally pretty expensive, but this deal was two hugemongous bottles for $15. When she went to pay for it, I guess she read the sign wrong or something. It was actually going to be about $30. That would have definitely meant no shampoo. But the cashier decided to be nice and went ahead and sold it to her for $15.
Now, is this grace?
Yes, sort of. But really the cashier (who is only an employee) is only stickin' it to the man. That's not really her decision to make. The price has been set, it must be paid. If she really wanted to give grace then she would have gotten $15.00 out of her pocket and paid the other half. But instead she said, "oh, just call it even". And this is a missing element of the gospel in our culture. Without an understanding that "The fine must be paid" grace becomes cheapened and almost mandatory. And as we know grace that is mandatory is not really grace.
1. The chief end of all God’s actions is for the display of His glory.
2. This glory is made visible in Christ.
3. Christ is made visible through the gospel.
4. The gospel gathers individuals into a blood-bought community of redeemed believers, that
a. fosters growth into Christ likeness
b. ignites a passion for mission
5. When these are grounded in a vision of God’s glory it results in our ultimate purpose:
6. Worship: The creation of passionate worshippers that accurately reflects and rejoices in the glory of God.
I have been working on this and I have a 12 page document that goes with this that has a detailed discussion of each point. There is a purpose to it but that does not matter at this point. Without having the detailed discussion in your hand tell me your thoughts. Is it clear? Would you re-word anything? Did I leave something out?
I would tell you a secret but I am afraid you would hurt my business. Ok, since only a handful of people read this I'll share. EBay is often much cheaper than Amazon. Yet, some people prefer to use Amazon because it seems far more secure. You can take advantage of this. Here is how I do it. I buy Super Nintendo games on EBay then sell them on Amazon.
When I first started doing this I saw a game on Amazon listed for 49.99. On EBay I saw that some complete idiot was selling the game for 9.99. This is not 9.99 in an auction...this is Buy It Now 9.99. With my heart beating out of my chest I committed to buy. What a sucker! I quickly received the game and listed it on Amazon. I was even generous and listed it for 39.99. Somebody would be sure to buy it.
2 months later....Nothing. Turns out some games and books on Amazon will NEVER sell. Found out the seller rank for this game is like 2 million something. And to top it off some goober just put the same game up for sale on Amazon for 15.00. Turns out the "idiot" that listed it for 9.99 got another idiot (me) to buy a worthless game.
So, here is the lesson. I've had the same experience in theology. You know when you just cannot wrap your mind around what some idiot is teaching. He is obviously wrong because your Bible teaches something different. So, you even write a few articles and talk to a few friends about this ridiculous teaching.
A few months later...you wholeheartedly agree with the previous "ridiculous teaching". Turns out he wasn't the idiot you were. Stay humble and always remember you could be wrong. God gives grace to the humble but rejects the proud.
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Click to Buy for $9.99
Click to Buy for only $9.99