A right way and a wrong way to be "careful"

by Dan Phillips

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Dan back in February 2012. He contrasted good ways and bad ways of being "careful" (or "nuanced" or "helpful") in our speaking and writing.

As usual, the comments are closed.

"Careful" has become a shudder-inducing word for me. Like "gay." In fact, very like "gay."

That's too bad, because it's a really good word in itself (like "gay"!; I'm going to stop saying that). It's a great word, in fact. Your kids are going on a hike, or to play touch football, or to the shooting range. "Be careful," you say. Right. Or I was chatting with a lady police officer the other day, and parted with "You be careful" and a prayer for her safety.

But lately the word has joined "nuanced" and "helpful" and "thoughtful" to give me the shudders. I don't think any of the words are irredeemable. But what I do fear is that all those words show up frequently in the writing of elites who think God's truth and damning error are nothing really to "get het up about," and certainly not worth passion or bareknuckled, plain-spoken, frontal, clear, and — let's just say it — masculine rhetoric. Not worth risking angering anyone, or being perceived as angry.

Isn't it good to be "careful"? To be sure, "careful" is a necessary and important adjective in many contexts. Don't we want to make careful distinctions between trinitarianism and tritheism,  between the Biblical gospel and libertinism, between inerrancy and bibliolatry, between elder leadership and totalitarian thralldom, and a hundred other things? If we preach on prophecy, don't we want to be careful, sticking to the text and avoiding wild conclusions and leaps or cowardly equivocations?

Of course we do. But as used in those contexts, "careful" means factual, warranted, clear-cut, concise, unambiguous, forceful. It is a servant of truth, an enhancer of truth. It serves to make the truth of (say) the Trinity and the Gospel clearer and more obviously distinct from error and false teaching.

So when is it bad? I think elites are sometimes — and I want to be careful here, haha — using the word as a code-word for "dainty" or "harmless" or "toothless." I think they are using it sometimes to mean "nobody (and no ruinous error) actually got hurt." I think they are using it to mean "false teaching and particularly its purveyors are treated with kid gloves." I think they mean "false teachers are treated with great respect." I think they mean "false teaching is described, but inoffensively." I think they mean "nobody is made to feel too bad about perpetrating or embracing heresy or ruinous idiocy."

Plain enough?

See, that paragraph is an example. It was plain, wasn't it? It also had necessary qualifiers and distinctives, didn't it? It wasn't unnecessarily inflammatory, was it? Isn't that being careful, in the best sense?

But no elite is likely to link to this as a "careful" post — any more than they ever do to any of my posts, whether they're about atonement in Proverbs or repentance in a false teacher or anything else.

Why? Truth is, I don't really fully know. And I am also pretty sure (being honest, not sugar-coating) that my very real shortcomings, which I'm trying to overcome but am still a work-in-progress, haven't helped.

But I've come to think that it's partly because they are deeply, deeply concerned that no one feel too bad or get too worked up about soul-damning or otherwise ruinous false teaching. Perhaps we might reluctantly be forced to conclude that some course or doctrine is unadvisable, but we don't want anyone too upset, and we want to protect the respectability of apostates and false teachers and their enablers. (For instance, we won't apply those labels; that wouldn't be careful.)

The question I think we are left with is: which best serves Christ and His church? Which more effectively alarms sheep against wolves, encouraging and admonishing and instructing the former while exposing and refuting and repelling the latter?

---

8 days later

by Frank Turk

Technically, I am still on hiatus.

You know, I have been at this for more than a decade.  I've been doing this since before there were hit counters, and before some people realized they could make careers (or at least: make up their own titles or become pastors) by saying things and doing things which, let's face it, would get them man-handled in person by actual men (if any could be found).

In that 10 years, I have personally be accused of being a monger for sensationalism.  I have been accused of making up controversies for the sake of driving the stats, and of course it's sort of a meme around here that we do everything for the sake of the traffic and the stats.  Sure: it's so absurd, might as well hug it like a long lost effigy, a rag doll filled with our old laundry so that our pets might mistake it for us while the torch and the pitch fork crowd do their worst.

Let me be clear about something that needs to be said: not once ever in the history of this blog have I ever climbed up on the dead body of the victim of a disease or a tragedy to make sure people were reading this blog.  I am sure I have said some things and done some things in the last 10 years which still sting some people, and once I am certain I spoke the meaning of Christmas into a tragedy so great that only God could be the answer, but not once ever did I use the death of a famous person to create traffic and stir up views for the sake of notoriety.

OK: so how can you know you did this? It's a fair question your readers ought to ask you, and of course the most dastardly response is, "well, they're not allowed to judge my heart." As true as this might be, they can judge your actions, and I think here are some guidelines for that:

• How often in the last 18 months have I mentioned or opined on Robin Williams' career or life in this blog? How relevant has he been to my on-going content?
• How often have I written about suicide and depression in the last 18 months? Am I qualified to do so?
• Did I wait for the initial findings to come out to see if this was a suicide, or did I simply reach my own conclusions before there were any facts (that is: did I write my post before there was any disclosure about what happened)?
• Did I think about this subject as it appeared in a list of trends which I follow? Was my point to make a sport of being miserable, or was it to bring comfort, especially in a Gospel-centered way?

If this was not you, great: nice work.  if it was?  Please read below.

Anyone who has done that in the last 8 days needs to apologize for it, and repent.  That sort of thing is so ugly, it borders on the kind of idolatry only found at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia and in the deepest, darkest parts of the Old Testament.

It's a good thing my Hiatus is not over for 3 more weeks.  Otherwise I'd be naming names.

---

The sting of sending a sluggard: Preaching a single verse from a chiasm in Proverbs

by Dan Phillips

I'm coming to the end of preaching the first ten chapters of Proverbs verse by verse, hoping to help my folks be able to win any ¿Quien es mas macho? competition among pastors. Well, that, and other things.

So as I shared, Duane Garrett helped me see that the last section of the chapter (10:19-32) breaks down into a chiasm. That helped me a lot in figuring out how to preach it. First, I preached on the first four verses, focusing on speech; then on the next four verses, dealing with security. So much for Section A and Section B.

But what to do with the single, lone verse making up Section C? What of verse 26, dealing with Sloth?

Obviously, there were three main honest choices (skipping it is not an honest choice):

1. Group it with the preceding section, on security.
2. Group it with the following section on, once again, security.
3. Preach it all by its lonesome.

At first glance it made the best sense to pick 1 or 2... except when I thought about it. It would either be, "This about security, and this about security, and this about security, and this about security... oh, and a thought about the sluggard." Or it would be "A thought about the sluggard. Now, to four verses about security."

Against the law? Immoral? Heretical? No; but awkward. And not really doing justice to the genius and intents of Solomon, nor to those of the inspiring Spirit.

But could this single verse bear the weight of a whole sermon? I'd already preached very emphatically on the sluggard from chapter 6; what to add? It is a moral crime to make the Bible boring. How to avoid that?

I also was pressed by the fact that Solomon had emphasized this verse. He was the one who did a cluster on speech, a cluster on security; then a mirror-cluster on security and a mirror-cluster on speech — and put that one long verse on sending a sluggard in the middle. Wasn't he emphasizing it?

So, out of respect for Solomon (and the Spirit who inspired him), I looked more closely, prayed, thought, listened closely to my smarter friends. And it came to me.

At first read, it seems painfully simple, to the point of banality. No one likes smoke in his eyes or acidic drink on sore gums, and it's like that to send a sluggard. Sending sluggard = bad. Got it. Thanks.

But as I've said before, every time Solomon seems banal it's a signal to look closer.

So: why did Solomon pick vinegar and smoke, and why a sluggard? Why not vinegar and smoke, and a fool, for instance? What's special about a sluggard?

Then I started realizing: as a rule, nobody wants smoke, and nobody wants sour wine (which is what "vinegar" usually means in the Bible). In the first case, what one really wanted was fire; and in the second, a nice drink of sweet, refreshing wine. Ah, but ouch and yuck, instead he got smoke stinging his eyes, and acidic sour wine stinging his gums. What a disappointment. What a failed promise. What a letdown...

And there it was. The sluggard specializes in being a disappointment, a letdown. He majors in staring opportunity in the face, and taking a nap, or manufacturing excuses, and otherwise letting it go to ruin.

And that's bad enough when it's only himself he effects (which, strictly, is never); it's worse when it's my message, or my job that he's letting go to ruin.

That seen, it all opened to me. The first application of this proverb, and a host of other applications: to Solomon, to Israel, to Christ, and to each and every one of us.

And there I had a scorcher of a sermon.

The key was respecting the text and its signals, and seeing the mind of God revealed in its formation.

---

"Tell them that again"

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from Sermons Preached on Unusual Occasions, pages 189-190, Pilgrim Publications.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:8

Of the things which I have spoken unto you these many years this is the sum. Within the circle of these words my theology is contained, so far as it refers to the salvation of men. I rejoice also to remember that those of my family who were ministers of Christ before me preached this doctrine, and none other. My father, who is still able to bear his personal testimony for his Lord, knows no other doctrine, neither did his father before him.

I am led to remember this by the fact that a somewhat singular circumstance, recorded in my memory, connects this text with myself and my grandfather. It is now long years ago. I was announced to preach in a certain country town in the Eastern Counties. It does not often happen to me to be behind time, for I feel that punctuality is one of those little virtues which may prevent great sins. But we have no control over railway delays, and break-downs; and so it happened that I reached the appointed place considerably behind the time.

Like sensible people, they had begun their worship, and had proceeded as far as the sermon. As I neared the chapel, I perceived that someone was in the pulpit preaching, and who should the preacher be but my dear and venerable grandfather? He saw me as I came in at the front door and made my way up the aisle, and at once he said, “Here comes my grandson! He may preach the gospel better than I can, but he cannot preach a better gospel; can you, Charles?”

As I made my way through the throng, I answered, “You can preach better than I can. Pray go on.” But he would not agree to that. I must take the sermon, and so I did, going on with the subject there and then, just where he left off. “There,” said he, “I was preaching on ‘For by grace are ye saved.’ I have been setting forth the source and fountain-head of salvation; and I am now showing them the channel of it, through faith. Now you take it up, and go on.”

I am so much at home with these glorious truths that I could not feel any difficulty in taking from my grandfather the thread of his discourse, and joining my thread to it, so as to continue without a break. Our agreement in the things of God made it easy for us to be joint-preachers of the same discourse. I went on with “through faith,” and then I proceeded to the next point, “and that not of yourselves.” Upon this I was explaining the weakness and inability of human nature, and the certainty that salvation could not be of ourselves, when I had my coat-tail pulled, and my well-beloved grandsire took his turn again.

When I spoke of our depraved human nature, the good old man said, “I know most about that, dear friends”; and so he took up the parable, and for the next five minutes set forth a solemn and humbling description of our lost estate, the depravity of our nature, and the spiritual death under which we were found. When he had said his say in a very gracious manner, his grandson was allowed to go on again, to the dear old man’s great delight; for now and then he would say, in a gentle tone, “Good! Good!” Once he said, “Tell them that again, Charles,” and of course I did tell them that again.

It was a happy exercise to me to take my share in bearing witness to truths of such vital importance, which are so deeply impressed upon my heart. While announcing this text I seem to hear that dear voice, which has been so long lost to earth, saying to me, “TELL THEM THAT AGAIN.” I am not contradicting the testimony of forefathers who are now with God. If my grandfather could return to earth, he would find me where he left me, steadfast in the faith, and true to that form of doctrine which was once delivered to the saints.

---

Some here, some there — August 15, 2014

by Dan Phillips

The argument could be made that bloggers condition loyal readers to expect to receive high-quality product at zero cost. Is that the case? Hm.

Well, relax and enjoy. But don't be ridiculous about it.

BTW, it's the nature of this kind of post that it will likely expand through the day. You should check back at day's end, or tomorrow. For instance, I've been pointed to some posts, but they were long enough that I haven't been able to read them yet. Perhaps later?

• Your kid's school sometimes has mice running around? Yeah, I guess that'd be scary to some people. Here in Texas, we have gators.

• It was a little more harrowing for a tourist swimming in Mexico.
• Leading inevitably to this TeamPyro Important Safety Tip:

• I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that turning a Jack Chick tract into a movie is one of the signs of the apocalypse. Well, not the apocalypse... but some apocalypse
• Highlighted from Kindle:

• Did anyone else think it was weird to see RAANetwork plugging a 1+ year-old piece about Bryan Loritts firing at Doug Wilson? First, whenever I see the name Bryan Loritts, I think of this, and I really think everyone (including RAANetwork) should, until it's righted. Second, no acknowledgement or apparent awareness of the absolutely magnificent discussion that ensued between my friends Wilson and Thabiti Anyabwile (here's the wrapup). I just don't get the objective, here.
• From race-relations to music...
• I don't know from Vicky Beeching, but I am beginning to see why some people don't want to sing anything by anyone who's still alive.

Don't think, "Is it biblical?" Instead, think, "Will people like it?" Asking the right question will help you avoid offending people.
— Fake Liberal Xian (@FakeLiberalXian) August 9, 2014

• Aimee Byrd chirps about courtship, dating, all that.
• Our feeling was that our daughter could begin dating when she turned 34, and then only if Dad could come along.
• Here's a dandy little short discussion on the place of evidences in apologetics, involving Scott Oliphint, David Powlison, and Kevin DeYoung. It only leaves me asking, "Show me how." (Its labor in that very vineyard is what I liked about Nate Busenitz' book.)
• I love Denny Burk enough — just barely enough — to forgive his use of "impact" (A) as a verb and (B) not referring to colons or wisdom teeth. For so he surely did in his essay How will gay marriage impact [sic!] your marriage? 
• BTW, if anyone, in this connection, says "But everybody's using 'impact' that way, and it's now gotten into the dictionary!" the universe may collapse under the unintended irony.
• FWIW, five years ago I put on my turban, got out my crystal ball, and foresaw some of the bumps we'd encounter slipping down this slope. I also traced out some of the ramifications, last year, of forcing everyone to redefine a well-known word/institution, here (briefly) and here (less so, and parabolically).

Someone just sent me a @Phil_Johnson_ sermon. When I got to the part about pastors who are "fops & milksops" all of my garage doors opened.
— JoelNotJoel (@JoelNotJoel) August 13, 2014

• Now to a more somber note.
• The sad occasion of self-murder by the prodigiously-talented Robin Williams elicited much comment, most of it repetitive. Here are some notables: Matt Walsh spoke a great deal of needed truth, intended to de-glamorize the ugly reality of suicide. However, he left out the most important truth: the Gospel. (An avalanche of vitriol moved Walsh to post a well-written follow-up, which was clarifying, but still had no Gospel.)
• Jordan Standridge over at Cripplegate served better in that regard, in a very well-written essay titled RIP? The Gospel can also be found in an earlier post on the occasion of yet another celebrity's self-murder. 
• Somewhere in the middle, Erick Erickson made a perfectly valid point about not rushing to say hard truth in an insensitive way. My only "but" to Erickson's point is that in this situation. so many were rushing to say so much that ranged from the sentimental and untrue to the positively harmful, that to fail to respond was probably also a disservice.
• It should be noted that Pyromaniacs has had a wealth of posts about depression as well, over the years.
• Hm. No Resurgence conference this year. Cancelled.

I guess canceling the conference was a better idea than calling it Desurgence.
— Church Curmudgeon (@ChrchCurmudgeon) August 15, 2014

• Now for something(s) completely different...
• Did you see where Kevin Halloran listed >250 free online seminary resources? Value will vary, of course, — but, still! Schreiner, Moo, Barrick, Vlach, Frame, Duncan? Duuude.
• Fifty cents? Bloggers do it for free:

• If Cornelius Van Til were blogging, he'd definitely use a picture from the "Thriller" music video.
• I can understand why people believe in all sorts of things I don't believe in. I can understand believing in a local Flood, in varying views of the days of creation, in varying dating for the Exodus, in varying dating for Galatians... heck, I even understand why some people spatter water on babies and think it means something spiritual! But the hardcore KJV Only position exists in a world where facts, rationality, and logic cannot thrive. Fred Butler — a man of great learning and patience, who himself specializes in responding to such — points to a two and a half-hour conversation between an advocation and an apologist. If you want that sort of thing.

---

Teaching Sound Doctrine, Adorning the Gospel

by Frank Turk

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Frank in the first of a two-part post back in July 2009. Frank discussed Paul's primary focus in his letter to Titus.

As usual, the comments are closed.

But as for you,teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. (Titus 2:1-10)

The thing about this letter is that it just wells up in the reader. I think a lot of people miss that for their own reasons -- most of them not intentional -- but here the stuff that ought to stick to your ribs, theologically and practically, is simply so obvious that I think most people read past it.

The reason I say that is this: it's somewhat astounding that Paul doesn't here break into doxology, doesn't break into Eph 1-2, doesn't publish a digested book of Romans.

To Titus, who is sent to put things in order, and who must raise up elders, and is in a culture that is, frankly, as far from the Gospel as the most unchurched city in the ancient world could be, Paul tells Titus, "teach people how to adorn the Gospel." Teach what accords with sound doctrine because these people need to adorn the Gospel.

This passage is astonishing for one reason only: it says unequivocally that the church ought to be training itself up in such a way that the word of God will not be reviled. That is: it ought to be teaching people how to live after they know the Gospel is true.

The doctrine in this passage is shoe-leather doctrine. It says that those of us who are in the church must act like the church -- that it is necessary and not optional. And in that: we have to be building each other up. The older must teach the younger -- not merely systematics but pragmatics, like how to love one's husband and be submissive to him, how to be a self-controlled young man, how to grow old with dignity and sound in faith.

And this makes perfect sense, given what Paul has already said about raising up elders: if elders ought to be men who are clinging to the word of God, and are formed by the word of God, bearing fruit by the word of God, somehow the church has to be the place where these kinds of men are grown.

We're going to come back to this again next week, but think about this, dear pastor reader: somehow good works adorn sound doctrine. Somehow, the facts about God ought to be adorned with a people who are a "model of good works". And it's your job to preach doctrine and the consequences of those doctrines -- that is, how to live now that this is true.

---

A Preview of Things to Come

by Frank Turk

Happy Wednesday.  I spent the day yesterday working and raising kids and helping a couple in my care group at church decide to buy a house.  I engaged in efforts to save my employer 10x my salary in the next 90 days, and it looks like it worked.

And: I was assaulted for accusing another blogger of participating in click bait for making the death of a celebrity into a reason to read his blog/magazine.

Let me say this about that:

One Tweet for Robin Williams: We must see in tragedy the necessary implication that there is something wrong with the world. Usually: Us.
— Frank Turk (@Frank_Turk) August 12, 2014

More to follow on or around 15 September 2014.

---

Pastoral ministry: a call for Biblical thinking

by Dan Phillips

(See what I did there?)

The notion that pastor's are "called" to ministry is so enmeshed in evangelical culture that it is common for writers not even to bother attempting a Biblical demonstration of the idea. Consider this article as an example, with its list of categorical statements attended by nary a single warranting verse.

As I've already shown, the "call" model is without Biblical warrant. Not that the Bible says nothing, it just says something perfectly clear and quite different. Though I thought that article was clear enough, some of the same questions keep being asked, so we'll try to clear them up here, in two steps.

The Biblical model. "Pastors and teachers" are listed among the gifts of the ascended Christ (Eph. 4:11), though that passage gives no further clues about identifying pastors. The fullest treatment comes in 1 Timothy 3:1ff., which actually tells us all we need to know. It gives three lines of qualification.

1. Desire. Paul uses two verbs to denote the desire a gifted man has in 1 Tim. 3:1. They combine to indicate that the man will yearn for the office, will strongly desire it. He'll be driven from within — not because he's idle, not because his dad did it, not because it looks like fun, but because he needs to do it. The first pastor who trained me said something I dismissed at the time, though later I came to see the wisdom in it. "Gentlemen," he used to say, "if you can be happy doing anything else, do it."
2. Doctrine. Desire isn't enough. The man has to know his stuff. Unlike a deacon, the overseer must be able to teach (1 Tim. 3:2). Paul expands in writing to Titus, saying that an overseer must be able to identify and shut down false doctrine, and must be able positively to teach sound doctrine (Titus 1:9ff.). Not only must he be doctrinally sound, he must be doctrinally authoritative, in representing the Word of God and in guarding against error.
3. Devoutness. Desire and doctrinal knowledge must be adorned by a godly character. Only so does the man show that he understands and believes what he teaches, and can serve as a faithful, reliable overseer for others. Both 1 Timothy 3 and Titus give the particulars.

So there it is: an internal motivation on the level of desire, confirmed by theological soundness and holiness of character.

Why not just call that a "call"? One good brother said it doesn't matter what we label it, we end up the same place. I couldn't agree less, for two reasons:

1. Sufficiency of Scripture. The contrary position amounts to "Okay, okay, the Bible doesn't exactly teach the pastoral 'call'... but we've always called it that, so what's the diff?" Well, the "diff" is that God has given us everything for which we need a divine word in Scripture, and we are supplementing it as if He did not. We're improving on a Scripture that doesn't need our improvements. It's a bad idea, it sets a bad precedent, and sends a bad message.
2. The mystical mystique. Introducing the unbiblical notion of a "call" takes us out of the Biblical realm of desire tested by discrete evidences, into the realm of the God card. If an authority figure (another pastor) imagines that he hears another man's "call," he could push him into preaching, unqualified — of which I've heard story after story after story. Or the man (or woman!) can insist that the divine call takes precedence over everything else, and on that strength step into an office to the ruination both of himself and of his hearers.

In close, let me just do that thing I do. I know, as sure as Obama's already planning his next vacation, that people will have read this, will have no specific Biblical response, and will say "I just don't see any reason not to call it a 'call.'" 

To that, I can only reply, "Well then, you can't object if I call it a hamburger."

You're welcome!

---

How to live

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from Speeches at Home and Abroad, pages 68-69, Pilgrim Publications.

"Oh, that we could all live in the light of our last hour."

The old scholars, as we read sometimes, put their candles in a strange candlestick—in a death’s head, where it was held in that memorial of mortality. It might serve for a very beneficial purpose.

What will money do for us when we lie at the gate of death? What will fame or learning do? What reward can we have but souls we have won for Christ? They cannot pave the way to heaven, but they can be goodly company on the road. When the judgment comes, when we rise from our graves, in what light shall we then look upon our lives?

Oh, sirs, some even of our recreations may not bear to be thought of. Certainly, if we have been unfaithful in our ministry—if, as rich men, we have held to our wealth instead of following the mind of God—if we have lived contrary to his mind and will the light of the day of judgment will reveal these things to us.

Another General Assembly will then be held, and you and I shall there appear. Let us then live earnestly, live fast, live hard, live thoroughly, live prayerfully, live like Christ, for no other sort of life will bear inspection in that last great day.

There is another argument. Our Saviour has said—“Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” I beseech you, men and brethren, fathers and sisters in Christ, work hard for him. If he stood here, and asked you to help him, your purse-strings would be loosened, because your hearts would be loosened by his glorious presence.

But I need not say that spiritual minds do not need eyes to see Jesus. In your loving hearts you hear him speak to you. “If ye love me, keep my commandments; and one of my commandments is, ‘Go ye into the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.’ If ye love me, you will reply by obeying; if you do not love me, you will not help and obey.”

---

Some here, some there — August 8, 2014

by Dan Phillips

It is possible for a high-traffic blog to become an echo-chamber for others on the A-list. My vision is otherwise: I'd like to alert you to worthy material that may or may not be from the Top Men or their friends. So if you know of any low-profile, excellent, pithy and pointed material, email it to me. I'd love to expand the tent.

Such as...

• One who should be far better known and read than he is is my friend Fred Butler. Check out this narrative of his encounters (including a dinner) with Mormon missionaries. (And now I love his wife, too, though I've never met her!)
• Professor and pastor David Murray offers excellent tips for hospital visitation. Anyone could profit; particularly elders and deacons.
• Humor-pause:

• As he is wont to do, Carl Trueman poses a question many won't want asked, let alone answered.
• The problem, of course, is that what Trueman raises won't be dealt with seriously as long as there are enough "Leave Brittany TGC alone" types to shout down and vilify those asking even the most earnest, proactive, timely, brotherly questions.
  
• But some hope murmurs softly. When an article titled in part Why Collectively Ignoring Mark Driscoll Isn't an Option is greeted by some bright lights as if that suggestion has never been made, and must now be taken seriously... well, the tardiness may be irksome, but "late to the party" is still at the party. And that's something. Right?
• Some others think it's a big deal, too.
• So let me just say my one main and only point: the tardiness issue has such a grip on me because "a word in season" (Prov. 15:23) spoken years ago by those with Mark's ear, might have pointed a very gifted man in a direction that would have spared him and others a lot of heartbreak, pain, and regret, and been good for the Gospel. That being the case, I'd like to see lessons learned to prevent The Department of Redundancy Department from descending on us all again to do what it does. Understood?
• New topic!
• Despite it being on CT, here's a really good, touching, thought-provoking piece from sister Trillia Newbell on why she remained in a predominantly white church.
• Related reminders: we've weighed in here previously on racism from both directions, on the whole notion of deliberately-targeted-ethnicity Christian churches, and on how to think Biblically when walking into a church that seems not to be big on one's own comfort-zone. That last features the story of a man (Bill) who found himself in a situation similar to Trillia's.
• I'll admit my heart did a happy little leap when professor Mark Snoeberger (in a great little article) spoke appreciatively of "Pastor Phillips" and his clear writing on the relation of the Gospel to sanctification. Yay, someone is showing how TWTG anticipated and speaks directly to the grace-and-sanctification kerfuffle! Ah, but the good doctor meant the very fine post-length treatment by Rick Phillips, not the book-length treatment in TWTG by that other Phillips. That the truth is spreading, I rejoice, and I love Rick's writing.
• Jared Moore helpfully tackles 10 myths about lust. Seriously, that would be a great read after TWTG, as it's premised on a robust grasp of the transformative power of the Gospel.
• But then again, this is all some folks will be talking about. Properly so.

Programming note: I think my Hiatus will officially end 14 Sept 2014 Mark it down.
— Frank Turk (@Frank_Turk) August 8, 2014

• Two (non-contradictory) ways of responding to "But the Bible was written by man" dodge: Timothy's, and NEXT!'s. At least one of those should help you if you run into it.
• Finally: during my brief stint as an occasional church drummer, there was a song or two that I really didn't love ("Breathe" being the chief). So I compensated by trying to figure out an interesting way to accompany, that did adorn the song but also was more interesting to do. Is that at work here, in the mind of the drummer for one of the worst pagan-paean songs ever?

---

Holiness: Our Highest Priority

by Phil Johnson

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following post was written by Phil back in April 2011. He reminded us that personal holiness should be our highest priority.

As usual, the comments are closed.

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 1:13-14)

Peter wrote those words to Christians living in exile (1 Peter 1:1) and suffering under the cruelest kind of Satanically-inspired persecution (1 Peter 5:8-9). Their lives were constantly in danger because of their faith; most had already lost all their earthly possessions. Their suffering was multilayered and relentless.

Yet Peter's first concern was their holiness.

He urges them to gird up their minds, and in so doing, he reminds us what spiritual warfare is all about. It is a fight against sin, and it is first and foremost a personal warfare against our own carnal desires. Although we are beset in this world by the enemies of truth and people who would persecute and abuse us, this world is our mission-field, not our battlefield. Rome, and Nero, and the rest of the pagan world are not our main enemies—our own carnal desires are. So that is where Peter focuses our attention.

Here's how Matthew Henry paraphrases verse 13:

You have a journey to go, a race to run, a warfare to accomplish, and a great work to do; as the traveler, the racer, the warrior, and the labourer, gather in, and gird up, their long and loose garments, that they may be more ready, prompt, and expeditious in their business, so do you by your minds, your inner man, and affections seated there: gird them, gather them in, let them not hang loose and neglected about you; restrain their extravagances, and let the loins or strength and vigour of your minds be exerted in your duty; disengage yourselves from all that would hinder you, and go on resolutely in your obedience.

Matthew Henry goes on to say, "The main work of a Christian lies in the right management of his [own] heart and mind; [that's why] the apostle's first direction is to gird up the loins of the mind."

So in the midst of all the dangers these Christians were facing, Peter's first and most important exhortation was a call to personal holiness. It was not that Peter was unconcerned for the temporal welfare of these exiles. The epistle is full of encouragement for them. But even in that, Peter takes the long view and encourages them by reminding them that this life's suffering is temporary while the hoped-for glory is eternal (1 Peter 1:3-4, 7; 4:12-13; 5:10). 

Persecution has a purpose, and it is to conform us to the image of Christ. The fires of persecution have a purifying effect, so Peter encourages these believers to rejoice in the midst of their trials. Note verses 6-7: "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

Pursue that end, he says, by cultivating holiness, starting with your own thought life. That's what the true Christian warfare is all about. 

---

Grin and Garrett

by Dan Phillips

In the past and more than once I've shared that the NAC volume on Proverbs (plus Solomon's other books) by Duane Garrett is...er... not my favorite. In fact, what I've said is that mostly it disappoints. Four out of five times when I've gone for help on a verse, Garrett may not even talk about the verse, or doesn't offer much.

All that to say this: Garrett has helped me a lot in approaching the last section of Proverbs 10. As you know, I'm coming to the end of preaching Proverbs 1—10. Despite (or because of) decades of studying Proverbs, the prospect of preaching through this section verse by verse was daunting, brimming with challenges and terrors. As I have drawn near each section, I've wondered how in the world I was going to preach it — but then, when I got under the hood, it's all falling together.

Or it had until I'd done verses 15-17, a triplet of verses on wealth, wisdom and life, tied together by concept and by tag-word. After that I found myself looking down the barrel of verses 18-32. What was facing me now? Fifteen separate sermons? Clusters? Any structure? Anything at all?

Bueller?

Various commenters said this, that, or nothing. But it was actually Duane Garrett whose approach fit the text best to me. He saw it as a chiasm:

A:  On the tongue (vv. 19–21)

B:   On personal security (vv. 22–25)

C:   On laziness (v. 26)

B´: On personal security (vv. 27–30)

A´: On the tongue (vv. 31–32)

You'll note Garrett starts with v. 19, because he emends the text of v. 18 and groups it otherwise. I'm not persuaded by the emendation and, that being the case, see it as obviously fitting just fine with the first cluster of verses on the tongue.

I was really grateful for Garrett's vision on these verses. It just remained for me to make it my own, and to adapt it for preaching. So I added verse 18 to the first cluster, and came up with this:

A:    Speech (vv. 18–21)

B:    Security (vv. 22–25)

C:    Sloth (v. 26)

B´:  Security (vv. 27–30)

A´:  Speech (vv. 31–32)

 The chiasm looks like this:

I preached the first section (vv. 18-21) last Sunday. Gazing at it, reflecting, praying after all my studying, I saw that the whole was connected not only by the topic of speech, but by the fact that each verse posed a paradox. So I preached it under the title Communication: Perilous Paradoxes.

That done, I now need to decide whether what remains breaks down into four sermons, three... or something else. But I d have a structure to work within!

For which I'm happy to credit Duane Garrett.

---

First love

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from Speeches at Home and Abroad, pages 38-39, Pilgrim Publications. 

"Brethren, we must be earnest, because we are ourselves so greatly in debt to the rich, free, and sovereign grace of God." 

Let us recollect this morning that first hour when our sins were forgiven. It is fresh and vivid upon some of our memories. We remember when the burden fell from off our backs; when we saw the wounds of Christ, and knew ourselves to be his. Oh, that blessed morning!—that blessed morning!

What preachers we should have made if we could have been put into a pulpit there and then! What household visitors should we have been if we could have been sent at that very moment to go and tell to a family what Christ had done for us! And then, brethren, we were only in debt to Christ for one item; and now, the bill is so long we cannot measure it.

And do we love him less now than we did then? When he had only healed our iniquity we loved him; and now that he has been pleased not only to heal our diseases, but to satisfy our mouth with good things, so that our youth has been renewed like the eagle’s, shall we love him less? I say, God forbid!

And yet I query, brethren, whether any of us go to our work now as we should have done if this were the first day of our conversion. Come, I say now, recall the place where you were; think of the hole of the pit and the miry clay. Think also of where you are.

Put your foot down upon the Rock of Ages now, and feel that you are safe in Christ. Look at your covering now,—arrayed in his righteousness. Look at your sustenance now,—fed with the bread from heaven, and made to eat of the body and blood of Christ. Think of your end, and of that which has been provided for you,—the mansions of the blessed in the land of rest hereafter. And will not these things make you feel that you are drowned debtors to Christ—over head and ears in debt to him?

Oh, what do we not owe thee, Jesus,—what do we not owe thee! If we could give our bodies to be burned; if this flesh could be eaten of dogs and rent piecemeal from the bones, ‘twere small sacrifice for thee. And, could we give up heaven for thee; if we could be kept out of it for ages to preach, and teach, and suffer for thee, we might well be content, and think it two heavens to lose heaven for awhile if we might but the better show our love for thee.

If there be a man among you who is not in debt to Christ, this plea can have no power with you. If there be one among you who is not washed in his blood; if there be one among you who will be saved by his own merits, or by his own strength, you have no call to be in earnest; there is no need that you should give your heart to Christ. But such a man there is not; therefore spend and be spent each one of you: and may the Lord accept the sacrifice, through Christ, the great High Priest!

---

If I could give only one piece of advice to bloggers who want to be heard, it would be...

by Dan Phillips

...write less, but more often.

Oh, there, I gave away the punch-line without any buildup! And yet, you're still reading. Why is that? Probably three reasons:

1. Some: because you've learned you like my writing style. (Thank you! I appreciate you!)
2. Some: because the dialogue-style of this post has you engaged. And...
3. Some: because your peripheral vision tells you it isn't that long of a post, so a huge investment won't be necessary.

Now, there's a lesson in all of that. The first category has been earned, perhaps, by my ten-or-however-many years of blogging. I've built a readership. Again, thank you!

The second is something I've developed over the years.

The third is just the way it is. Unless your name rhymes with Zigon Zuncan or Xon Xiper or Pevin PeYoung or Qug Qilson or suchlike, you haven't earned the expectation that a huge time-investment in reading your writing would surely be rewarding. So don't write 30,000 word dissertations and ask everyone what they think. I'll tell you what they think: "That's too danged long!"

Seriously. I can't tell you how many times I've felt truly bad, because some good brother says "Please read this, tell me what you think." And, dutifully, I click over, and... my eyes go down, down, down, down, and yes once again, down. As they do, they glaze over, hope fades, my heart sinks, and I don't even want to start because I know I won't want to have to endure to the end to be saved.

So: you are bursting with a message. That's great. You want people to hear you. Of course you do! So write something snappy, to-the-point, and short. It won't say everything you want to say. But if you want anyone to want to hear what you have to say, you'll need to earn that. Start by respecting their time, and not overstaying your welcome.

After all, it's your blog. Today's a great day for Part One. Part Two can come tomorrow. Leave your readers wanting more, and they'll come back.

Put another way: use words like you have to pay for each one, instead of like you're paid for each one.

I'm done. See? Like that.

You're welcome.

---