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Archives For August 2011

All Teaching is Application

August 19, 2011 — Leave a comment

When I teach that the persons of the Trinity live in eternal perichoretic unity, I am not merely making an ontological, first-order claim about the nature of reality — though I am doing that. I am not teaching “timeless truth” that has to be “applied” to the ever shifting realities of an historical community. Rather, I teach the Trinity as a way of regulating the language and practice of the Church, especially her language and practice in worship. Properly, all teaching is application.

-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 44.

In Against Christianity
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Against Theology Too

August 18, 2011 — 1 Comment

The Bible never mentions theology. It does not preach theology, nor does it encourage us to preach theology. Paul did not preach theology, nor did any of the other apostles… Theology is gnostic, and the Church firmly rejected gnosticism from her earliest days.

-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 43.

In Against Christianity
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TeamPyro on Driscoll (& Moscow)

August 17, 2011 — 3 Comments

Some of you may have seen this post by Phil Johnson from the TeamPyro blog on Mark Driscoll. Johnson claims that Driscoll’s position on what he calls the “gift of discernment” is actually some kind of “pornographic divination” and that Driscoll is really more part of the charismatic movement’s “lunatic fringe” than really Reformed.

As it turns out, Driscoll has been invited to Moscow by our sister congregation, Christ Church, for their upcoming Grace Agenda Conference, so there might be a few questions out there about what this is all about.

Here are a few, brief thoughts on the TeamPyro post and our connection to Driscoll.

First, I read Driscoll’s Confessions of a Reformission Rev last year and found it overwhelmingly helpful and encouraging. With a few qualms, I would heartily recommend it, especially to pastors. In Confessions he refers to some of the sorts of things that Phil Johnson points out, but my takeaway from Driscoll’s accounts was quite a bit different from Johnson’s post. Continue Reading…

In Church, Culture, TRC
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Cowardice Renamed Courage

August 17, 2011 — Leave a comment

Christianity is institutionalized worldliness, worldliness accepted in principle, worldliness not at the margins but at the center, worldliness built into the foundation. Christianity is worldliness that has become so much our second nature that we call it piety.

Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 17.

In Against Christianity
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Christianity as Compromise

August 16, 2011 — 1 Comment

Culturally, modernity is characterized by “value pluralism,” which entails the privatization of religious institutions and religious claims. . . Politically, modernity is shaped by “liberalism,” the political system dedicated to the one proposition that political systems must not be dedicated to one proposition. Though it has roots in the patristic period, Christianity in its more developed form is the Church’s adjustment of the gospel to modernity, and the Church’s consequent acceptance of the world’s definition of who we are and what we should be up to.

Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 17.

In Against Christianity
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Ninth Sunday after Trinity: Second Commandment 2: Ex. 20:4-6

August 15, 2011 — Leave a comment

Introduction
We said last week that the Second Commandment has everything to do with the image of God. You become like what/who you worship, and idolatry always results in deformities. When broken images carve images to worship, there is always a downgrade. At the same time, God has not left this world image-less; He is not faceless.

Worship Replicates Images
The question is not whether but which kind of images. Images are inevitable: there will be children, children who bear an image and likeness. There will be children who bear the iniquities of their fathers to the third and fourth generations or there will be children who bear the mercy of God to thousands of generations. Within the Second Commandment one kind of carving is prohibited because it results in images marred by sin and the iniquities of their fathers. But another kind of carving is implicitly commanded which results in images of mercy. And the difference is grounded in worship. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Exodus, Sermon Outlines
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Not the Lions Club

August 15, 2011 — Leave a comment

Christian community, by the same token, is not an extra “religious” layer on social life. The Church is not a club for religious people. The Church is a way of living together before God, a new way of being human together.

-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 16.

In Misc
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The Trustworthiness of Beards

August 12, 2011 — 1 Comment

 

 

 

 

Click to enlarge.

Via Maurilio Amorim

In Culture
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Faith that Stretches

August 12, 2011 — Leave a comment

The Church is not a people united by common ideas, ideas which collectively go under the name “Christianity.” When the Bible speaks of a people united by faith it does not simply mean that we have the same beliefs about reality. Though the New Testament does use “faith” to refer to a set of teachings (e.g., 1 Cor. 16:13; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 4:7), “faith” stretches out to include one’s entire “stance” in life, a stance that encompasses beliefs about the world but also unarticulated or inarticulable attitudes, hopes, and habits of thought, action, or feeling.

-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 14.

In Against Christianity
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Radical Together

August 11, 2011 — Leave a comment

David Platt writes:

The gospel begins and ends with God. He is the holy, just, and gracious Creator of the universe who has sent His Son, God in the flesh, to bear His wrath against sin on the cross and to show His power over sin in the resurrection so that everyone who believes in Christ will be reconciled to God forever. And this is the gospel that we proclaim in evangelism.

So how do we best lead and shepherd God’s people to evangelize? By giving them a grand understanding of God. In preaching, we unfold the character of God: His holiness, His justice, His grace, and all of His other breath-taking attributes. As we magnify His Word, people behold His glory. And they believe, deep within their minds and their hearts, that God is great and greatly to be praised. In the process, this becomes the ultimate motivation for evangelism. The more the people I pastor see God’s worth, the more they want to make His worth known in the world.

So week after week after week, as I stand before them with God’s Word, I want to show them God’s worth. As they hear His Word and they see His worth, they will lay down their lives to make the good news of God’s grace and glory known to the people around them and people groups around the world. God-centered, gospel-saturated preaching is great fuel for Christ-honoring, world-embracing evangelism.

Read the rest of the interview with Trevin Wax here.

In Evangelism, Justice & Mercy, Pastoral Theology, Preaching, Worship
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