The Challies Interview

by Frank Turk

Well, Tim, it seems at least one of us has come a long way from being a mere channel rat in DrO's #prosapologian. In spite of my jealousy, after reading the book you've obviously done good here.

Since a lot of people have "blogged" you so far about your book, I'm going to try to ask you some unconventional questions. Bear with me as I work them out.

I started reading your book, got through 2 chapters, and turned back to the index with my highlighter to do an experiment. I highlighted all the names of theological “conservatives” in green, and theological “moderates” (or those farther left) in orange. My pages were mostly green and not hardly orange. What would you say to people who would call this kind of foundation for your book one-sided? Why not include some insights into “other kinds” of discernment, such as Rob Bell’s approach to Scripture or an Assemblies of God approach to spiritual gifts?

The easy answer here would be to simply state that some teachers both emphasize and model discernment while others do not. The reason some authors are “orange” or “red” (or whatever you’d use to indicate the category that comes after the moderates) is precisely because they lack discernment! In the resources section of the book I even mention John MacArthur as a teacher who always emphasizes discernment, mentioning that his books and commentaries never miss the opportunity to make note of the call of the Christian to spiritual discernment. I tended to rely on authors who have emphasized discernment in their ministries.

I can’t speak specifically to Rob Bell’s approach to Scripture or the Assemblies of God approach to spiritual gifts as they did not factor into the book. But I can say that I relied first and foremost on Scripture and, beyond that, on teachers who love Scripture and who seek to accurately convey what God teaches through it. I think you’d find that the “green” authors in the book are the ones who love Scripture and who skillfully teach it through the books and through their teaching ministries.

I think that’s an interesting answer, Tim, because it seems to me that “discernment” as you are defining it sort of presupposes a specific approach to Scripture. That is, the “greens” all seem to share a common hermeneutic, a common approach to the text. You’re not a theologian (neither am I), but would you consider other approaches to Scripture as viable approaches to developing spiritual discernment?

We’re probably walking a little outside my area of expertise here. While I’d acknowledge that these men (and women) do share a common hermeneutic, I guess I would see it as a better hermeneutic (or a biblical hermeneutic). Not all hermeneutics were created equal. Whether I’d consider other approaches to Scripture as viable would really depend on the approach a person took. It’s rather too broad a question to just assign a yes or a no, I think.

As I was reading your book, I was also reading a book by Larry Osborn called The Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God. I bring it up because it's a little more light-hearted than your book is, and it overlaps some of the same topics. How does seriousness of tone relate to your view of how discernment works?

To be honest, this is a question I’ve been thinking about for several weeks now. I do not remember putting a lot of effort into determining whether I would write in a serious or a more light-hearted tone (though, to be honest, it was almost two years ago that I began to write and I’ve got a poor memory. Putting those two factors together means I may have spent all kinds of time thinking about it but such thoughts have long since slipped my mind). But I do know that I did not expressly set out to create a book that was serious in tone. Rather, I set out to write a book that would share what the Bible says about spiritual discernment. At my blog I write from a personal perspective, often basing theological lessons on my own experiences and simply sharing things God has taught me. But when it came to discernment, I did not want to share my perspective on discernment, as if that would be of any value. Instead I wanted to share the biblical perspective.

I recently discussed this topic with my editor (as I begin to think about future writing projects) and her words rang true when she said that perhaps some of the feedback about stylistic issues came from people who were expecting “Tim in print rather than the need for and instruction on how to be discerning.” I did not want to interfere and did not want to inject too much of myself into the book. At the same time I did want to maintain a personal rather than a scholarly tone. How well I’ve succeeded in that will probably become more clear as I gain more feedback on the book.

Yeah, my problem, Tim, is that I like you. You’re always a little dry, but you’re relatable. How would you respond to the person who says that while your book may be useful, because it’s not relatable it doesn’t deliver what the average seeker, sitter or disciple really needs?

I would be surprised to hear that my book is not relatable. I was deliberate about writing in a way that was accessible and I often relied on what I think are helpful illustrations to try to give something memorable that they can hold onto. In fact, the whole Preface is nothing but a story for that very reason. If a person felt that I was not relatable, what could I say, really? I guess I’d suggest they read another book about discernment. Oh, wait…

Now, that said, here's the real controversy starter: here we are at the TeamPyro blog talking about your book, and we're sort of renown for being somewhat other than sober in tone – me personally for sure, but certainly Phil and Dan, and certainly the inimitable Pecadillo. We have taken some hits for it in some corners of the blogosphere. What's your take on the use of something other than a somber, pious tone in talking about spiritual matters?

I may have more to say about this when I post a review of the new book by Mark Driscoll. It is something I’ve thought about quite a bit, and especially so as I read his book.

I believe there is a time and a place for humor. I believe humor can be effective in teaching and in communicating even something as serious as theology and spiritual matters. Of course there are times when humor is inappropriate (as comedian Brian Regan has aptly pointed out, greeting card stores have no “humorous sympathy” section). I’m sure Jesus had a terrific sense of humor and I don’t know that He would have been truly human if He hadn’t shared some good belly laughs with His disciples on those long, hot and dusty walks. Yet our society, I think, has been prone to elevating humor and levity. After a while, it seems, we are no longer capable of taking seriously much of anything. So while there is a time for humor, and while laughter is a gift from God, there is also a time for soberness and a time to be serious. There ought to be a kind of gravity surrounding Christians, I think, that proves that they take life seriously and that they are aware of their own sin and aware of the state of the world around them.

Even while we do laugh and have fun, our humor must be sanctified. We can use humor to point to what is ridiculous and can use it just for the sheer enjoyment of laughing, but we must be careful that we do not make light of sin. This is, I think, where many Christians abuse humor. When we laugh at what God has forbidden, we make light of sin. So let’s laugh and let’s have fun and let’s be something other than somber and pious when necessary, but let’s be careful all the while that we take seriously what is important to God.

I said something similar this week at my blog about Pastor Mark’s Q&A relating to the theology of sex & procreation – that some things just require us to take them seriously rather than crack jokes that allegedly make a point. A laugh is a serious thing in the larger sense, I guess.

You have a blog? Anyways, it just so happens that I listened to Mark’s sermon and Q&A this afternoon, before you sent me this comment. I think you’re right—some things are very easy to laugh about but could probably be treated with a bit more seriousness. Issues regarding sexuality definitely fall in this camp. It is easy (very easy, even) to get laughs when it comes to sex. But I think we might do better to treat the subject with a bit more soberness at times.

Quick lightning round – top-of-mind answers only:

* Favorite TeamPyro Post/Series, – I guess I’d probably vote for all those Emergent Demotivation posters as my favorites. They weren’t the most edifying things you guys have ever produced, but they were good for some laughs.
* Favorite TeamPyro Contributor (Doh!) – Darlene (by far!)
* Most puzzling criticism of your book – Even I was taken aback by the level of some of the criticism lodged against me because of my lack of credentials. The early comments were fairly innocuous, but as people got warmed up, the comments got pretty dark. It bothered me far less than it surprised me.
* Best reason to live in Canada – There is almost no such thing as evangelical politics up here—at least not compared to what goes on in the U.S.
* Favorite place to eat in Toronto – I don’t actually live in Toronto proper and rarely eat out. But if I do venture downtown and get a bit hungry, I generally grab some of Toronto’s finest street meat from a hotdog/sausage vendor outside Rogers Centre (where the Blue Jays play).

Challies is on a blog tour for his new book.

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Preaching the Good News? Part One

by Dan Phillips

Tell me what you can surmise about the church that left the card from which I excerpt this, on my doorstep:
NOTE: if locals know the answer, please refrain for now.

I mean to unveil the truth and develop this Thursday.

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I'm Fallen, and I Can't Get Up!

by Phil Johnson

Later this week, I'll follow up on last Friday's post and the question of what it means to glorify Christ in all we do. Since I was mostly missing in the comment thread, I want to give my response to the comments in a new post on the issue. But I'm too fatigued from the weekend to crank that subject up again first thing, so it'll just have to wait. In the meantime, here's an introductory post on another tough issue I want to deal with over the next week or two:

t seems the doctrines that pertain to human sin are generally some of the hardest doctrines for people to understand and embrace—particularly the doctrines of original sin and universal depravity. Of all the doctrines taught in Scripture about the nature of humanity, the one doctrine that comes under attack more than any other is the Bible's teaching that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that we inherited a sinful nature from Adam, and that it means we are completely helpless to redeem ourselves from the condemnation of God.

To paraphrase Mrs. Fletcher, we're fallen, and we can't get up.

Those ideas run counter to every other religion man has ever devised. People want to believe they are basically good, that they can be good enough to please God, and that if they just set their hearts and minds to do good, they can redeem themselves from their own sin.

People don't want to believe that Adam's sin put the whole human race in a spiritually hopeless state. They don't want to admit that they are sinful to the very core of their beings. They don't want to admit that their most basic desires, and even the private imaginations of their hearts are utterly and hopelessly sinful, and they are powerless to change themselves. By any standard, these are hard truths.

And yet every bit of evidence we examine confirms all these things. Scripture clearly teaches that there is none that doeth good. There is none that seeketh after God. No, not one. Human experience confirms this. G. K. Chesterton once wrote that the doctrine of original sin is the easiest of all the doctrines of Scripture to prove. Evidence of human depravity is all around us. No one in all our acquaintance is sin-free. Proof that the whole human race is fallen is everywhere, in the daily newspapers, on the evening news, and clearly evident in every life we encounter.

Most of all, if we're honest with ourselves, the most persuasive proof that the human race is hopelessly depraved is inside our own hearts.

And Chesterton said if we don't believe this doctrine, which we have abundant empirical evidence to support, how can we possibly believe the truths of the Bible we're required to accept by faith?

The Bible's teaching on original sin and human depravity is vital to orthodox Christianity. Every movement in Christianity that has rejected these truths has gone badly astray. The fundamental error of the Pelagians lay in Pelagius's rejection of the doctrine of original sin. The liberalism of the Socinians basically hinged the same error. This is a vital doctrine, and those who reject it place themselves in eternal peril and make shipwreck of the faith.

One significant fact that strikes me in Scripture is that the most godly men on the pages of Scripture all had a deep sense of their own sinfulness. David was a man after God's own heart, yet in Psalm 52:5 he confessed that he was sinful from the moment of his conception. Isaiah was perhaps the greatest prophet in all the Old Testament, and yet in Isaiah 6:5, he wrote, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." The apostle Paul, the figure who towers over the early church, representing perhaps the ultimate example of godly scholarship, wrote in Romans 7:18: "In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing." In verse 24 he wrote, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Again and again in Scripture, we see that the people who are the prime examples of godliness had the keenest perception of their own sinfulness.

The same principle holds true throughout Church history, too. Augustine spent years in frustration, coming to grips with the reality of his own sin. Martin Luther was so obsessed with his own sin that before his conversion he used to spend hours in the confessional booth, confessing long laundry lists of things that made him feel guilty. Charles Spurgeon spent several years of his childhood secretly wrestling with the terrifying realization that sin had so infected his heart that he was worthy of nothing but divine wrath.

Again and again we see that those who have embraced these truths of original sin and human depravity have been used by God in tremendous ways, while those who have resisted or rejected these truths have made shipwreck of the faith.

So this is a very crucial issue. And since I know that so many struggle with it, we'll examine it biblically in a series of posts yet to come. Fasten your seat belts.

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How the Church Should Be Different from the World

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "The Lord’s Own View of His Church and People," a sermon first published in 1887.

he church is a separate and distinct thing from the world. I suppose there is such a thing as "the Christian world"; but I do not know what it is, or where it can be found. It must be a singular mixture. I know what is meant by a worldly Christian; and I suppose the Christian world must be an aggregate of worldly Christians. But the church of Christ is not of the world. "Ye are not of the world," says Christ, "even as I am not of the world."

Great attempts have been made of late to make the church receive the world, and wherever it has succeeded it has come to this result, the world has swallowed up the church. It must be so. The greater is sure to swamp the less.

They say, "Do not let us draw any hard and fast lines. A great many good people attend our services who may not be quite decided, but still their opinion should be consulted, and their vote should be taken upon the choice of a minister, and there should be entertainments and amusements, in which they can assist." The theory seems to be that it is well to have a broad gangway from the church to the world: if this be carried out, the result will be that the nominal church will use that gangway to go over to the world, but it will not be used in the other direction.

It is thought by some that it would perhaps be better to have no distinct church at all. If the world will not come up to the church, let the church go down to the world; that seems to be the theory. Let the Israelites dwell with the Canaanites, and become one happy family. Such a blending does not appear to have been anticipated by our Lord in the chapter which was read just now: I mean the fifteenth of John. Read verses eighteen and nineteen: "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."

Did he ever say—"Try to make an alliance with the world, and in all things be conformed to its ways"? Nothing could have been further from our Lord's mind. Oh, that we could see more of holy separation; more dissent from ungodliness, more nonconformity to the world! This is "the dissidence of Dissent" that I care for, far more than I do for party names and the political strife which is engendered by them.

Let us, however, take heed that our separateness from the world is of the same kind as our Lord's. We are not to adopt a peculiar dress, or a singular mode of speech, or shut ourselves out from society. He did not so; but he was a man of the people, mixing with them for their good. He was seen at a wedding-feast, aiding the festivities: he even ate bread in a Pharisee's house, among captious enemies. He neither wore phylacteries, nor enlarged the borders of his garments, nor sought a secluded cell, nor exhibited any eccentricity of manner.

He was separate from sinners only because he was holy and harmless, and they were not.

He dwelt among us, for he was of us. No man was more a man than he; and yet, he was not of the world, neither could you count him among them. He was neither Pharisee, nor Sadducee, nor Scribe; and at the same time, none could justly confound him with publicans and sinners. Those who reviled him for consorting with these last did, by that very reviling, admit that he was a very different person from those with whom he went.

We want all members of the church of Christ to be, manifestly and obviously, distinct persons, as much as if they were of a separate race, even when they are seen mingling with the people around them. We are not to cut ourselves of from our neighbors by affectation and contempt. God forbid. Our very avoiding of affectation, our naturalness, simplicity, sincerity, and amiability of character, should constitute a distinction. Through Christians being what they seem to be, they should become remarkable in an age of pretenders. Their care for the welfare of others, their anxiety to do good, their forgiveness of injuries, their gentleness of manner—all these should distinguish them far more than they could be distinguished by a livery, or by any outward signs.

I long to see Christian people become more distinct from the world than ever, because I am persuaded that, until they are so, the church will never become such a power for blessing men as her Lord intended her to be. It is for the world's good that there should be no alliance between the church and the world by way of compromise, even to a shade. See what came to pass when the church and the world became one in Noah's day: when "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair," and were joined with them. Then came the deluge. Another deluge, more desolating even than the former, will come, if ever the church forgets her high calling, and enters into confederacy with the world.

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Land of 1000 Dances

by Phil Johnson

Throwing both caution and long-established protocol to the winds, I'm going to import part of a debate from Frank Turk's blog (where these intramural squabbles really belong) to PyroManiacs (where we almost never argue amongst ourselves). I'm doing this to try to extract the question of whether it's good to turn the church into a discotheque from the more volatile and not really essential question of teetotalism. So the latter subject is off limits in this thread, and let's be nice in the meta.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2).

n the topic of church activities, Christian testimony, and our collective influence on the world, I wanted to point out that the message we send with our lifestyle is to a very large degree subject to the interpretation of the observer anyway.

Let's concede (for the sake of argument) that if some quixotically missional church advertises cigars and poker as the centerpiece of their men's ministry, that may very well be all it takes to convince some spiritually-naive, intellectually-stunted biker type that Christians really aren't just stuffy prudes whom he could never relate to. But it seems just as likely (much more likely, really) that relegating "men's ministry" to the smoke-filled room would offend many more than it would "reach." I'll go further: that approach is likely to derail some men for whom a man-sized dose of Jerry Bridges, J. C. Ryle, or the apostle Paul would be a thousand times more edifying than another stogie.

(Yes, I know: Spurgeon smoked. Not during church meetings, though.)

o I grew up in a modernist church where we had dances all the time. It was the default activity for our youth group. And if you think church dances are a novel idea, you've been wading in the shallow-evangelical end of the pool for too long. In fact, the most famous incident regarding a church dance I can think of occurred in 1949.

HT: to James White for what follows. I spent all day Tuesday with him. (That, of course, was before the current flap arose. We were no doubt conspiring to commandeer Technorati for the "TR blogosphere," or something like that.) In the course of our conversation, James reminded me of the following true story.

In 1948, Sayyid Qutb was part of an early wave of privileged middle-eastern Muslims who came to the west to study. He spent a couple of years at the State College of Education in Greeley, Colorado—taking classes toward a master's degree in education. Displaced from his own culture and relatively isolated in middle America, he viewed almost every aspect of American society with a jaded eye. He found American jazz melodramatic and distasteful, American sports crude and primitive, Americans themselves materialistic and shallow. But above all, he was utterly appalled by how self-centered, "distant," worldly, and utterly unspiritual American religion looked from inside a typical place of worship.

Where'd he get that impression? Well, it seems someone invited Qutb to a dance at a Methodist church in Greeley. Here's an excerpt from Qutb's own description of that evening, taken from his book The America I Have Seen:

After the religious service in the church ended, boys and girls from among the members began singing hymns, while others prayed, and we proceeded through a side door onto the dance floor that was connected to the prayer hall by a door. . . Every boy took the hand of a girl, including those who had just been singing hymns! The dance floor was lit with red and yellow and blue lights, and with a few white lamps. And they danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire. When the minister descended from his office, he looked intently around the place and at the people, and encouraged those men and women still sitting who had not yet participated in this circus to rise and take part. And as he noticed that the white lamps spoiled the romantic, dreamy atmosphere, he set about, with that typical American elegance and levity, dimming them one by one, all the while being careful not to interfere with the dance, or bump into any couples dancing on the dance floor. And the place really did appear to become more romantic and passionate. Then he advanced to the gramophone to choose a song that would befit this atmosphere and encourage the males and the females who were still seated to participate. And the minister chose. He chose a famous American song called "But Baby, It's Cold Outside" . . . and the minister waited until he saw people stepping to the rhythm of this moving song, and he seemed satisfied and contented. He left the dance floor for his home, leaving the men and the women to enjoy this night in all its pleasure and innocence!

Sounds pretty tame by comparison to the kind of things that are happening today, doesn't it? But to Sayyid Qutb in 1949, it was a shocking sign of superficiality and an impertinent lack of proper reverence. He saw it as proof that Christianity is not a faith to be taken seriously—because it isn't even taken seriously by "believers." That night was a major turning point in Qutb's thinking, and it was one of the main reasons he later gave for rejecting Western values and the Christian religion altogether.

Qutb went back to Egypt seething with outrage and contempt against the West's unbridled materialistic selfism, and he began to produce a body of writings that became the manifestos and chief handbooks for today's Islamofascism. Qutb was chief mentor to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who in turn mentored Osama bin Laden. One of bin Laden's closest friends reported that bin Laden read Qutb's works intently and considered him the most important influence in the rise of radical Islamism in the current generation. (See Dinesh D'Souza on Sayyid Qutb.)

Anyway, before someone accuses me of being sympathetic with Qutb's values, let me just say I'm advocating no such thing. I'm not suggesting his perspective of Americans or Christians in general was fair and accurate. It clearly wasn't, and Qutb belongs in a hall of shame alongside Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot as some of the twentieth century's most demented megalomaniacs.

Also, I'm not suggesting (as some of our more zealous fundamentalist brethren might want to) that the club atmosphere in that one Colorado church is directly to blame for the fall of the World Trade Center towers.

But the Greeley church dance episode certainly does illustrate that not all the world is charmed by worldly religion, and the apologetic value of "Disco Night in the Sanctuary" is by no means a given. In short, taking pains to demonstrate how hip and liberated we can be in our places of worship might not always be the finest "missional" strategy.

That's one reason I personally don't find such arguments persuasive. Those who want to turn the church into a dance hall really ought to try to find more legitimate biblical support for what they are advocating. And if they can't (which, BTW, they won't,) they should reexamine the strategy.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God (1 Corinthians 10:31-32).

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:13-16).

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).

by Phil Johnson

"No Statement of Belief"

by Phil Johnson

watched the following video last April or thereabouts, and I intended to link to it on our blog. But I can't find any reference to it in our archives, so I rather suspect it hasn't yet got the sort of attention it deserves from Pyro-readers.

There are lots of sound bites here worth singling out. I'll let you discover them all for yourselves. My favorite is the remark made by the woman at about 4:20.

As a matter of fact, lots of the people in this video emphatically assert in unvarnished terms some of the very things I have cautioned are dangers in the post-evangelical drift. Invariably, when critics suggest this is what you'll find on Main Street in Emergent Village, we're accused of exaggerating. Watch for yourself:

PS: If that left a bad taste in your mouth, here's an Altoid for you:

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The right balance (negatively put)

by Dan Phillips

Philippians 1:10-11

Neither to be a church that makes for full notebooks and empty hearts, correct opinions and barren lives;
Nor a church that's all about warmth and experience and wonderfulness with spines of goo and brains of congealed gravy.

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The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment

by Frank Turk

(for the record, my Challies book graphic there is the worst ever, but my Photoshop computer is unavailable as I type)

I've known Tim Challies for a long time, in internet time. As I think about it, I think I have known him for about 4 years, dating back to the first time I ran into him at James White's #prosapologian chat channel. And frankly, since I have met him, I have been mostly jealous of Challies.

I mean, Tim's a nice guy. I mean "nice" in a kind of 21st century Ricky Nelson sort of way, except he doesn’t pretend to know how to sing. Ridiculously nice. And he works in an industry which I find fascinating – the internet. And he has a blog – he was actually my inspiration to start blogging, so if you're looking for someone to blame ... anyway, Challies and I go way back – and now he's written a book, so now I'm really jealous of him.

Challies and I have had our moments, however good-natured they usually are at the root. At one point, his mom was worried that I was really mad at him, so we had to lay off for a while. And these days I can admit that Dan and I are little, um, vexed about Tim's general reluctance to link to or mention the TeamPyro blog – but you know what? That's life.

I say that to admit something, or to give full disclosure at least: the dust that got kicked up at Justin Taylor's blog last week over "who is this Challies that he can write a book on discernment" really lit me up.

Tim has apparently been hard at work on a book which clearly has a ton of research invested in it, and the topic is "discernment". You'd think the Baptist separatists, internet puritans, and church purists would be salivating for such a thing, but it turns out that they don't have to read a book to heap criticism on it – they may merely say "ecce homo" in a sort of disapproving way and be done with it. No sense reading a book by (hrmph) "Challies", my dear brother: "Challies" is merely an anagram for "lach lies", which is of course Scottish for "lake of lies". And when you play the audio book backward, you can clearly hear the reader say, "sing hymns to the devil". "Challies"? Whatever good could possibly come from "Challies"?

To be fair to these who were not fair, Steve Camp did apologize for his part in the unfortunate series of events, but you know what? I have said this privately to others and I'll say it publicly here: that looks a lot more the tithe on the discern-mint and the civility cumin than it does like making right with Challies and, frankly, the long list of those who endorsed the book who were "reproached" (that's a nice way to say it) by people who frankly have little or no accountability for what they are willing to say in public.

We review that piece of recent history and my association with Challies to say this about his book: it all unravels to show exact how badly a book on the Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is needed today. It turns out that there are frankly armies of people who need some kind of instruction on this topic because they don’t have grounding in their local church or their educational training. A book on the Discipline of Spiritual Discernment which people have read and implemented in their own faith-lives would have put the brakes on things like impugning the reputations of men like Al Mohler, John MacArthur and Mark Dever, and on throwing rocks at Challies for not being "certified", "qualified" or otherwise "acceptable" to write this book.

Challies vindicates himself from the charge "not qualified" almost immediately in his work here by demonstrating, above all, that he takes the philosophy (or dare we say "theology") of his book serious enough to employ it in the work itself. For example, in his first chapter, not only does he outline the negative example of those who do not have spiritual discernment, he emphasizes the positive examples of what spiritual discernment means to one's spiritual health -- from scripture. And let's be clear: he doesn’t merely drop in verse numbers and give a cursory affirmation. He gives thoughtful exegetical consideration of the texts he employs, seeking to catch the context and the finer points for the reader to consider.

Before I extol the virtues of Challies' book, I did have a few complaints – mostly aesthetic. Personally, I'm a reader – I like to read, and I like to think about how a writer says what he says. Stylistically, Challies' book is written rather stoicly – maybe purposefully so. I mean, I know Tim, and this book is like the serious, cautious, very formal, somewhat-characterless version of Tim Challies. It seemed to me as I read this thing that Tim was really working overtime to make sure "he" didn’t say anything – that is, he wanted to speak in a way which was intentionally impersonal.

And for a guy writing his first book, and that book being on the critical subject of how to tell your left hand from your right, spiritually, maybe he deserves credit for being that reserved. But it's sort of a tough read not because it's so academically dense. It's a tough read because I felt like I was getting the android version of Challies telling me about the things the human Challies programmed him with. No offense Tim – it's a stylistic choice, and when you write your next book you can be more, um, like you.

But that said, one of the great strengths of this book is that it's not written at the grad-school level. It's written at the popular level in spite of its high-brow attributes of subject and scripture indices. Its vocabulary is accessible and frankly simple. Tim's examples from history and current events are intriguing and his use of one in particular to sort of weave the themes of the book together was really good and useful – it makes your brain engage the subject matter in a "apply to me" way and not just a "apply to them" way. You know: you can read this book, no matter who you are. The question is whether you will read this book.

At this point, I feel like I need to dump a bunch of teasers into the bandwidth here so that you get a taste of Challies' work first-hand so you can sort of taste and see – because summarizing his chapter headings and giving you an outline is merely an encouragement to sort of "get" his point and then skip the book as something for people who have a less-mature faith than your own.

I'll give you one blurb, and then my unadulterated endorsement:

Understanding and obeying God’s will is not instantaneous. Because discernment is not given immediately and in full measure, understanding and obedience will require dedicated effort. Thankfully, as we have seen, the power and ability to discern are given at the moment of conversion, so we can have confidence that with effort even a new Christian can be discerning. All Christians must seek to understand and obey God’s revealed will. We are not to concern ourselves unduly with the secret will, for we will never be able to know it fully or finally. [as Dave Swavley has said,] “We should not be concerned with the sovereign will of God when we face a decision (except that we need to be ready to accept whatever the Lord has planned).

The guidance we need for our choices does not have to be somehow mined from the mysterious and unknowable plan devised among the Holy Trinity in eternity past. Rather it is a relatively simple process of finding out what the Bible says and doing it.” We cannot and should not expect God to make known the full details of his plan before we follow in humble obedience. Obeying God’s will is a relatively simple process of uncovering the truths of God so we might do the will of God.

When Tim says "all Christians" and "guidance we need", he doesn’t mean "the other ones who are off the apple cart": he means you and me, reader. And he's right.

You should read this book. Especially if you think you're already qualified to turn the tables over in the temple. Next week in this same space on my normal Wednesday, I'll publish an interview with Tim as part of his "blog tour" promoting his book. Stay Tuned.

And by the way, Happy New Year.

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Jesus' "dumb question" that wasn't (and isn't)

by Dan Phillips

Did Jesus ever ask a dumb question?

Given that everyone wants on the Jesus bandwagon, it's hard to picture anyone answering "Yes, you betcha: Jesus asked all sorts of dumb questions." Folks of every worldview enthuse about how wise and how wonderful Jesus was. "Dumb" isn't on the list of customary adjectives from thoughtful observers.

Yet surely I'm not the only one who raised an eyebrow the first time this verse came into focus:

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?"
(John 5:6)

You know who we're talking about. This was a disabled man in a society not particularly accommodating to the crippled — no handicapped parking, special doors, ramps, legal employment protections.

The man had been disabled in some way, unable to walk — and not for a week, a month, or a year. Not for a decade, or two decades, or even three. He had been crippled for nearly four decades, for thirty-eight years (v. 5).

We don't know whether his condition was static or progressive. We do know that he had been this bad for a long time. And we know that, at this point, if no one moved him, he didn't move much (v. 7). Most of the time, he seemingly had no one to help him.

How did he spend his time? What was his life? What were his days like? What were his hopes or aspirations, his fears or regrets? We're left to speculate, except for this: when we find him, he's simply hanging around a bunch of people just like him — helpless, and just next-door to hopeless.

He's apparently got some notion about getting into the pool...but what a cruel hope even that seems to have been: to get the most help, you had to need it the least!

So Jesus comes up, and what does He say to the man? Well, what would you have said, or what would I have said? Would we have even noticed him, as we strolled by on our strong, healthy legs with our little group of equally-mobile friends?

Jesus does notice the man, and He walks up to him, and He speaks to him. Oh, but what He says! I mean, honestly — isn't it about the last thing you'd have thought to say, unless you lost your mind for a moment? And (be honest), if you didn't know who was talking, and what was going to happen, wouldn't you say that about the dumbest thing to say to this man would have to have been —

"Do you wish to become well?"

Yet that's exactly how the Greek has it: are you willing — do you desire, do you wish— to become healthy (θέλεις ὑγιὴς γενέσθαι;)?

Now, I don't believe Jesus ever asked a stupid question in His life. Not when He was twelve (Luke 2:44-47), and not now that He's a grown man. On the contrary, I've often thought what a searching, probing, apposite, and divinely-wise question this was. As a result, I've wondered the same thing myself betimes, wanted to ask the same of some others in different "binds."

(Note: what I am about to say can be easily misunderstood, particularly by those wishing to do so. I shall try to speak precisely and with care.)

Much as you and I might recoil from another's state in life, that person might not share our revulsion. One can grow to identify with a condition, to find meaning and individuality and significance in something that of itself offers nothing desirable whatever. Whether it be a natural handicap or a totally different weakness, failing, misery, affliction or sin, we can come to think of ourselves as Noble Sufferers, as Tragic Victims, as Tormented Souls. So (pathetically and unhealthily) rewarding is this identification, that we unknowingly have no real desire to be parted from our badge of uniqueness, our gimmick, our shtick.

This is particularly the case in our American culture, where we have come to prize, seek out, cultivate, and luxuriate in the status of victimhood.

To be clear: I speak not of a healthy, positive God-centered attitude towards a difficult turn of Providence. I speak of an unhealthy and God-dishonoring embrace of an undesirable state or behavior.

Nor am I the first to see this in the passage at hand. Reynolds, in The Pulpit Commentary, thought that Jesus'

question implies a doubt. The man may have got so accustomed to his life of indolence and mendicancy as to regard deliverance from his apparent wretchedness, with all consequent responsibilities of work and energy and self-dependence, as a doubtful blessing. ...There are many who are not anxious for salvation, with all the demands it makes upon the life, with its summons to self-sacrifice and the repression of self-indulgence. There are many religious impostors who prefer tearing open their spiritual wounds to the first passer-by, and hugging their grievance, to being made into robust men upon whom the burden of responsibility will immediately fall.

You see, it's an axiom of human nature that we do what we think works for us. The most maladaptive person, who chooses to careen from one horrid relationship or situation to another, persists in doing so because he is getting something out of it.

And so Jesus asks — not the question you or I would ask, if we spoke to the man at all, but — that question. "Do you wish to become healthy?" Then He heals the man, and He warns him to change his life (v. 14).

Isn't this question just as probing and incisive today as it was when Jesus first posed it? Again, I've thought so time and again.

I've thought it of some folks who identify themselves with a dead-end, road-out sexual passion God condemns, who go on and on about how lamentable their lot is, how grandly they suffer from it. The only object that arouses more passion than, well, their passion, is any person or organization who dares to try to help them find freedom from their vices.

I don't dispute that theirs is a miserable and unhappy lot, and that such temptations are sheer misery. I just wonder, sometimes, of some of them: do they want to become healthy? Do they want freedom? Or would it shatter their cherished identity and threaten their status?

I've also thought it of some folks who make so much of the grays and the gaps and the question-marks, who luxuriate in any uncertainty they can magnify and exaggerate, who work so hard to blunt edges and blur lines, yet strike grand and dramatic poses as great and brave Pioneers of the Void. They invest a lot of energy into convincing us how agonized they are by their doubts and uncertainties — though not with quite the energy with which they scald and upbraid anyone who dares to try to help them find truth, certainty, and assurance.

And so I find myself wondering, of some such: do they want to become healthy? Do they want to know the truth God has revealed? Or would it ruin the image they've crafted so carefully, spoil their cherished public image, lose valued associations?

Similarly, I think of a woman in a church I pastored. She complained bitterly about her husband, what a failure he was as a leader, how passive and unengaged he was. So I took her at her word, befriended her husband, and worked with him. Before long, he began to engage, and to exercise some relatively mild Christian leadership in the home.

Was she happy? It was, after all, what she said she wanted, and offered relief from what she very dramatically claimed to be the source of a lot of misery.

"Happy"? Good heavens, no. She was madder than a wet cat. You see (I came to realize, reluctantly) it messed with her shtick. What she loved was the status her "suffering" gave her, the opportunity to complain and grouse. She had no intention of giving up control. It served her too well. (I've since seen the same phenomenon for husbands with troublesome wives, by the way.)

Now, I think if any of us have as yet felt no singe from this reflection, we've not heard Jesus' question. That proneness to quick temper; to lingering too long over the wine; to clicking on the wrong links; to self-pity; to coldly rebuffing your wife; to belittling or shredding your husband; to faithless depression; to laziness; to selfish indifference; to cursory (or no) Bible reading; to hasty and shallow prayers — you and I lament these and more.

But do we want, do we wish, are we willing to be made healthy?

I'll answer the question with which I began. Jesus never asked a dumb question. This wasn't a dumb question at all.

In fact, it was (and remains) an uncomfortably, confrontively excellent question:

"Do you wish to become well?"

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The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

posted by Phil Johnson

f you think you know who said the following, leave a comment. I'm traveling today, with no time to write or answer comments. But unless weather (or worse) delays me, I'll be home by this evening. So if nobody's got it yet, I'll post the correct answer then.

"These are the things we have stood for: tolerance, an inclusive Church, the right to think religion through in modern terms, the social applications of the principles of Jesus, the abiding verities and experiences of the gospel. And these are right. I am not sorry we tried this experiment. It was worth trying. We have lifted a standard that no one will put down. We have stated an issue that no man or denomination is strong enough to brush aside. . . . They call me a heretic. I am proud of it. I wouldn't live in a generation like this and be anything but a heretic. But I carry some of you on my heart in ways that heretics are not popularly supposed to do. I want you to be Christians. I want your lives for Christ."

No Googling.

AFTERNOON UPDATE: Those who guessed (or googled) Fosdick were correct. Harry Emerson Fosdick, that is, not the Al Capp character.

Fosdick, one of the most militant modernists of the twentieth century, would feel right at home with both the views and the rhetoric of Emergent Village. The similarity of his ideas and the standard talking points at Emergent Village belies the utterly groundless claim that post-modernized "evangelicalism" somehow constitutes the abandonment of modernity rather than the further advancement of it. (One intrepid commenter at one of the post-evangelical trash-talk blogs recently accused me of misconstruing Spurgeon's position with regard to Emerging trends. Spurgeon hated modernism, this fellow reasoned. Therefore he surely would have embraced post-modernism, right?)

Fosdick's words refute such a notion. Sample any of Fosdick's books or sermons and you'll see that they read like an Emergent manifesto. Same arguments; same style of rhetoric; same appeal to "tolerance"; same revulsion for substitutionary atonement and biblical inerrancy; same tactics of decrying the militancy of conservatives while declaring war on conservative principles. If you want to understand the Emergent trajectory, read up on Fosdick.

Here's another excerpt. This one's from Fosdick's most famous sermon, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"

Just now the Fundamentalists are giving us one of the worst exhibitions of bitter intolerance that the churches of this country have ever seen. As one watches them and listens to them he remembers the remark of General Armstrong of Hampton Institute, "Cantankerousness is worse than heterodoxy." There are many opinions in the field of modern controversy concerning which I am not sure whether they are right or wrong, but there is one thing I am sure of: courtesy and kindliness and tolerance and humility and fairness are right. Opinions may be mistaken; love never is. As I plead thus for an intellectually hospitable, tolerant, liberty-loving church, I am, of course, thinking primarily about this new generation. We have boys and girls growing up in our homes and schools, and because we love them we may well wonder about the church which will be waiting to receive them. Now, the worst kind of church that can possibly be offered to the allegiance of the new generation is an intolerant church. Ministers often bewail the fact that young people turn from religion to science for the regulative ideas of their lives. But this is easily explicable. Science treats a young man's mind as though it were really important. A scientist says to a young man, "Here is the universe challenging our investigation. Here are the truths which we have seen, so far. Come, study with us! See what we already have seen and then look further to see more, for science is an intellectual adventure for the truth." Can you imagine any man who is worthwhile turning from that call to the church if the church seems to him to say, "Come, and we will feed you opinions from a spoon. No thinking is allowed here except such as brings you to certain specified, predetermined conclusions. These prescribed opinions we will give you in advance of your thinking; now think, but only so as to reach these results."

But the fundamentalists did win—at least in the battle against modernism. And today's evangelicals could learn a lot from that episode.

Although Fosdick insisted that those who believe in the truth of Scripture were evil aggressors destroying the unity of the church, and he decried the efforts of fundamentalists and evangelicals to drive liberals out of their denominations, in the end it was the fundamentalists and evangelicals who were driven out. Most liberals thought they had gained the upper hand. But virtually all the mainstream denominations declined drastically under liberal leadership, and some ceased having any kind of spiritual influence whatsoever. Moreover, the independent churches and institutions founded by fundamentalists and evangelicals grew pretty steadily in size, strength, and influence for most of the twentieth century.

But then fundamentalists and evangelicals went to war with one another. Fundamentalists turned their attention away from the fundamental doctrines of Christianity and spent a few decades fighting over secondary matters. And most evangelicals abandoned their evangelical principles in search of the world's friendship.

That's why the church today is weak, divided, and once again desperately seeking "relevance" by aping the world's fashions. We have we've come full circle, and the typical evangelical and post-evangelical of today have more in common with Fosdick than with their own spiritual ancestors. In the immortal words of Shirley Bassey:

It's all just a little bit of history repeating.

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On Bearing Reproach

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "The Peculiar Sleep of the Beloved," a sermon preached Sunday evening 4 march 1855 at Exeter Hall.

    have often admired Martin Luther, and wondered at his composure. When all men spoke so ill of him, what did he say? Turn to that Psalm—"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble; therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." In a far inferior manner, I have been called to stand up in the position of Martin Luther, and have been made the butt of slander, a mark for laughter and scorn; but it has not broken my spirit yet, nor will it, while I am enabled to enjoy that quiescent state of—"So he giveth his beloved sleep." But thus far I beg to inform all those who choose to slander or speak ill of me, that they are very welcome to do so till they are tired of it. My motto is cedo nulli—I yield to none. I have not courted any man's love; I asked no man to attend my ministry; I preach what I like, and when I like, and as I like. Oh! happy state—to be bold, though downcast and distressed—to go and bend my knee and tell my Father all, and then to come down from my chamber, and say—

"If on my face, for thy dear name,
Shame and reproach shall be;
I'll hail reproach, and welcome shame,
For thou'lt remember me."

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Weary of One-Way "Conversation"

by Phil Johnson

NOTE: From time to time we pull classic comments from an old thread's combox (or fish them up out of some other blog's meta). The text in the shaded box below is one of those. It's an amalgamation of two comments I wrote on the same day. Aside from splicing the two comments together, I've left the basic substance of my original remarks unchanged from the original.

he main substance of today's entry is something I originally wrote in 2006 in the comments section of another blog. A writer on that blog had complained that my criticism of the "Emerging Conversation" was insufficiently nuanced and unnecessarily nitpicky. He seemed to be suggesting that there are more good influences than harmful ones in the broad world of Emerging religion.

My reply deals with a topic I've thought about a lot recently, especially given the almost total lack of serious engagement we get from the Emerging fringe of the evangelical community. For the most part, Emergents and post-evangelicals don't really seem to care what our perspective is (unless we're doing parody at their expense). Nothing in my two-and-a-half -year experience in the blogosphere has given me any reason to think any of those who talk the most about "conversation" are really interested in having a serious one with anyone who is more certain about eternal truths than they are.

I've said before that the rules of postmodern engagement are fixed to make genuinely serious conversation about truly vital matters well-nigh impossible. People with solid convictions on any of several really weighty biblical truths are simply not welcome at the table.

Here's my perspective on the "conversation," including a brief summary of why I think it's a bad idea in the first place to think serious heresy should ever be answered by collegial dialogue. My view hasn't changed significantly since I wrote this comment more than a year ago:

You wrote: "My main point here is that it’s not helpful to point at heretics in the conversation and therefore stop engaging in it." I'll be candid. That's where I think we don't quite see eye to eye. The problem with the Emerging conversation is not that a handful of heretics are trying to horn in on an otherwise fruitful and beneficial conversation, but that people with unorthodox doctrinal agendas commandeered the "conversation" almost from the get-go. It's not realistic to imagine that any amount of "friendly persuasion" is going to make a change in the direction of the larger movement. There's a reason hospitals don't try to cure infectious diseases by unleashing healthy people among those who are already sick. Heresy, like infection, always works the other way around. (I don't know of an unorthodox movement in the history of Christianity that has ever gradually come around to orthodoxy through friendly dialogue with—or subtle infiltration by—sounder minds.) I see absolutely no warrant and no apostolic example for engaging in friendly conversation with heretical teachers. Second Timothy 2:23-26 tells shepherds how to deal with wayward sheep. That is not a recipe for how to handle wolves in sheep's clothing. On the contrary, it seems to me that there are lots of explicit commands forbidding us to cultivate partnerships, friendly relationships, or even academic comradeships with the purveyors of rank heresy. "Receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 10-11). A friendly dialogue with Kimball or Driscoll on an individual basis is one thing. The idea of joining the whole wide-ranging "Emergent Conversation" is quite another. Such a strategy strikes me as abominable. As a matter of fact, my first bit of advice to Driscoll in any private dialogue would likely be a direct quotation from 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 and a passionate plea for him to take the command in verse 17 very seriously. That would likewise be the heart of any message I think might truly and constructively "encourage the masses [in the Emerging mainstream] toward historical-orthodox Christianity." Do I sound like a hard-core fundie? Well, here's my assessment of that: dialogue with some of the more thoughtful old-line fundamentalists would probably be a thousand times more fruitful for mainstream evangelicals than playing footsie with postmodern fads. For every positive thing we "can learn from" the Emerging subculture, evangelical give-and-take with postmodernized religion would expose us to a thousand deadly pitfalls. On the other hand, I think there are still a few sensible fundamentalists out there who remember some important biblical truths evangelicalism as a movement has stupidly discarded—beginning with the biblical mandates for holiness and separation from evil influences. As far as the Emerging/Emergent mess is concerned, I'd rather be a voice from outside the movement itself. It seems to me church history shows a pretty consistent pattern on this: people who try to remain in an aberrant movement or a mixed multitude in order to be an "influence" ultimately have less influence than those who stand outside and try to minister appropriately to those still on the inside—distinguishing as carefully as possible between the convinced and the merely confused. See Jude 21-23.

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