Sharing the Gospel with the gay community

John Bell recently wrote an article on Tim Challies' blog. John is the pastor of a church plant in Toronto and has an active ministry with the local gay community. I found the article very insightful, not just showing what it looks like to have a ministry with those who have their identity rooted in homosexuality, but also for evangelism in general. The gospel really does break down walls, because the gospel tells us we all are equally in need of a Savior.

Here are two paragraphs from the article that I found especially encouraging:

"When I first meet someone at the coffee shop and they ask me what I do (which is a natural "in" to introducing the gospel) they assume that I must be a liberal gay Baptist minister, because otherwise what would I be doing in their coffee shop? (The first man I talked to had only just broken up with his boyfriend, a Methodist pastor.) I begin by asking them questions. I get them to do all the talking for the next 45 minutes. I ask them about their job, their background, their family life, their personal life and what they believe and why so I can get a picture of their epistemology and worldview. Needless to say, I frame my questions in an inquisitive, slightly naive, polite fashion, not in an interrogative, formal way. Gay men love to talk (at least the ones in this coffee shop seem to) and people in general today enjoy discussing "spirituality". Then, out of politeness, they will inevitably ask me what I believe. So I tell them the gospel, starting with Genesis 1, laying out for them the biblical storyline and worldview.

I have been able to share the gospel with many men over the past two years, even though I am saying things highly offensive to the gay lifestyle--which is actually their identity. I base everything I say on the authority of the word; that is, I make it clear to them that that is what I am doing, that I believe the bible is authoritative for all peoples in all cultures and times because it is God's authoritative revelation to human beings. I stress this emphatically. And I tell them that the Bible condemns me, it condemns everyone. It condemns me as an idolater, someone who is selfish and sinful, who has de-godded God and installed himself in the position of "The Ruler of John's Life." I have done things in my life that I am ashamed of and oftentimes what I am ashamed of the bible calls my "sin" (I have found that gay men can relate very well to shame). I do not zero in on their homosexuality (which is what they expect me to do) but rather the fact that they are sinners. Now, more often than not, they will push me and ask if practicing homosexuality is a particular expression of their sinful disposition and I will not hesitate to tell them "yes." When asked, I tell gay men that, personally, I have a "live and let live" approach to everyone's sex life, but my personal opinion doesn't count for anything if God, our creator, has declared otherwise. I tell them I know that I am sounding very intolerant and bigoted when I tell them that they are sinners and that their lifestyle is not pleasing to God. Who am I to tell another human being such a thing on my own authority? But then I explain that it is not on my own authority that I am saying these things. Rightly or wrongly, I am utterly convinced that the bible is the revelation of God. I am banking my eternal soul on it being so. It condemns me, but I have found salvation in Christ. It condemns you. I am here to tell you about the salvation that I have found in Jesus, that I believe you need, that the bible says he needs."

Read the whole thing

Books: the perfect technology

After having the Kindle for about a year, Tim Challies explains why books are the perfect technology:

...I came to see that all of the things that frustrated me about the Kindle were things that made it not like a book. It's book-like qualities were it's best qualities; it's non-book-like qualities were the ones that got to me. All of the things that annoyed me were the things that made the experience more like operating a computer and less like reading a book. Pages took too long to turn; I could not splash yellow highlighter on the pages; I could not skim through the book looking quickly for a word or phrase or note; I could not scrawl notes in the margins. Sure, there were a few advantages--the notes I did take (saved in a text file on the Kindle) could be exported to my computer simply by plugging in a USB cable; books were less expensive and instantly added to my collection; hundreds of classics were available for free. But overall, the Kindle experience paled in comparison to the happy, familiar, comforting experience of sitting down with a book. Everything I wanted the Kindle to do, a book could do better.

I don't own a Kindle and I think this pretty much sums up why I doubt I'll ever prefer electronic reading to book reading.

Escaping Anonymity

Tim Challies wrote a great article for TableTalk recently about the increased level of anonymity these days. He points to technology as playing a big role in this (centered around the Internet) and looks to the danger of life with decreasing levels of accountability. At one point in the article he says that "We are anonymous, impersonal people in a largely anonymous, impersonal world." Here's a key paragraph:

"In days past, anonymity was both rare and difficult. People tended to live in close-knit communities where every face was familiar and every action visible to the community. Travel was rare and the majority of people lived a whole lifetime in the same small geographic area. Os Guinness remarks that in the past 'those who did right and those who did not do wrong often acted as they did because they knew they were seen by others. Their morality was accountability through visibility.' While anonymity is certainly not a new phenomenon, the degree of anonymity we can and often do enjoy in our society is unparalleled in history."

Read the whole thing

Should the falling home values be stopped?

Here's a quick, insightful jab at the logic of wanting to stop the falling prices of homes. This is the opening line:

"Here's the big problem with almost all the current rhetoric about the housing crisis: It presumes that the goal should be to get house prices rising again. The problem with that idea is that, even after a 25% decline, house prices are still way too high."

(HT:Tim Challies)

The Audience of One

Roy spoke Sunday about community. He said that community a sense of belonging and that it's crucial that we first make sure we're living before God, our Audience of One. If we don't belong to Him first and foremost, our relationships become strained because we'll never be completely satisfied with the community we have. We'll always seek to gain maximum approval from others. And we'll always seek to find the "perfect" community in which there are no problems because everyone is all about us. He even cited Adam and Eve's perfect community and how they weren't ultimately satisfied with it. They wanted to be God. And in a sense, we act the same way we don't allow ourselves to live solely before and belong to the Audience of One.

Tim Challies also recently blogged about this idea here. He mentions it regarding leadership and takes a look at Os Guinness's book, The Call. He points out really interesting stories of celebrities who go to extreme measures to make sure they are praised by others. He says this of the book:

"In The Call, Guinness discusses narcissism in the context of audience. Christians are to be motivated to serve and to please an audience of One. We are to called to seek the pleasure of God."

I appreciate Roy and Tim discussing this idea. For me, this concept of living before an Audience of One has been my chief aim over the last five years. Back in 2003, in the midst of struggling with anxiety that was rooted in self-absorption, God revealed to me in various ways how the key to freedom was living before Him alone. I think there were two key books that I read that year that helped me start moving towards this kind of freedom. The first was In the Shadow of the Almighty which is mainly journals and letters penned by Jim Elliot. In the book, he has a chapter entitled "AUG" or Approved Unto God. To see him focus his efforts there, as a student at Wheaton, was a powerful thing for me to see.

The second book is Humility by Andrew Murray. In it, I began to discover the true freedom of getting outside of myself and being caught up with who I was in Christ. The quote that has had the MOST profound impact on me outside the Bible comes from this book. It says:

"It is indeed blessed-the deep happiness of heaven-to be so free from self that whatver is said about us or done to us is lost and swallowed up in the thought that Jesus is all.""

That is what I seek.

Unhappy people watch more TV

An extensive new research study has found that unhappy people watch more TV while those consider themselves happy spend more time reading and socializing...

'TV is not judgmental nor difficult, so people with few social skills or resources for other activities can engage in it,' says the study. 'Furthermore, chronic unhappiness can be socially and personally debilitating and can interfere with work and most social and personal activities, but even the unhappiest people can click a remote and be passively entertained by a TV. In other words, the causal order is reversed for people who watch television; unhappiness leads to television viewing.'

Read the whole thing

(HT:Tim Challies)

Submitting Ourselves to Divine Surgery

This post speaks to the similarities between going through a "routine" surgery and dealing with our own sin. The author basically goes in for what he considers a routine surgery. He is surprised to find out that more equipment and more staff are there than he would have thought to be necessary. Here's his conclusion:

"Deeply entrenched sin can only be taken care of with a full surgical team. Dignity must be laid aside; others must be allowed into your shame. There can be no self-surgery with such sin—no way around the humiliation of exposing yourself to others in a less than flattering way. We cannot have both dignity and repentance; both self-respect and freedom. Would you be released from the burden of sin? Then you must lose your pride and submit yourself to the divine surgery, knowing the attending nurses in God’s operating room will be—quite awkwardly—your brothers and sisters in the Lord. It’s uncomfortable, humiliating, and the only way."

(HT:Tim Challies)

The expression of love on the cross

In my philosophy class, I've been learning that philosophy is all about dissecting thought and pointing out distinctions. Tim Challies makes an important distinction about whom the expression of love on the cross was primarily directed towards, us or God. I think his answer is correct and important to think through. May it humble us.

"So what we miss in the "I love you this much" story of the cross is that Jesus' death was not primarily an expression of love for us, but for his Father. It had to be this way. Jesus greatest love is not for us, but for his Father. His sacrificial death was not first for us, but first for his Father, so that he might ransom those whom his Father loved. Though there is no doubt that the cross is an expression of love for us, it is first an expression of love for the Father and an expression of obedience to the Father. There is abundant proof for this in Scripture. Jesus said, "I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father" (John 14:31). So that the world may know I love you? No, so that the world may know I love the Father. It was this love and obedience that sustained Jesus, even on the cross. Early in his ministry he had said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work" (John 4:34). Addressing his disciples shortly before his death, Jesus said, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love" (John 15:9-10). The Apostle Paul says the same: "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8). In all these things, and especially in his obedience, Jesus expressed a heartfelt love to his Father."

He then asks a question regarding the song "Above All."

'Crucified, laid behind a stone
He lived to die, rejected and alone
Like a rose trampled on the ground
He took the fall, and thought of me above all.'

Did Jesus think of me above all? Or did he think of his Father above all? Were Jesus’ last thoughts on the cross of me or of his Father?"

Is morality an imposition on legislation?

Tim Challies answers a question from a reader regarding the extent to which Christians should impose morals upon legislation. This question stems from the issue of abortion, so most of the article is about that issue.

Here's a good distinction he makes between morals and values:

"I feel that another aspect of this reader's question deserves a response. He asked "to what extent, then, can we impose Christian values by law?" Here I think we need to pause to distinguish between values and morals. It used to be that we spoke of morals--truths that were applicable to all people. Societal morals were built upon a Christian foundation so that society widely accepted that homosexuality was wrong, that abortion was forbidden, that truth was a virtue, and so on. These morals stood above society, giving structure and imposing themselves on all people. But in recent decades, coasting in alongside a naturalistic worldview, morals have been diminished and have been replaced by values. Where morals are absolute, values are inherently subjective. Each of us may have our own sets of values. Society dictates that you are required to respect my values while I am required to respect yours.

So to what extent can we impose Christian values? Well, in a sense we do not seek to impose Christian values at all. Instead, we seek to impose Christian morals. We affirm that the Scripture gives us absolute standards of right and wrong and we seek to live within these boundaries. Again, these morals stand over and above us and call us all to obedience. They are vertical rather than horizontal. So we do not face our society with an attitude implying that we both hold to values and I hope that you will accept mine. Instead, we face society with the conviction that God's morals are good and absolute. We can impose these morals on others without fear. Were a national leader to find himself in a position of being able to eradicate abortion, he could do so from a moral standpoint and do it without regret or hesitation. In such a case he has no need to concern himself with another person's subjective values."

He concludes this way:

"Abortion is so awful, so despicable, so abhorrent that I have to think it will, indeed, be abolished some day. It is my hope and even my conviction that we will someday regard it as we now regard slavery. We will shake our heads and wonder how we could ever have lived in such a society. Children will learn in school of society's ambivalence to so great an evil and express proper shock and disgust. And I hope and pray that Christians will lead this fight and ascribe all glory to God when the battle is finally won."

Read all of it

The Pornification of a Generation

This article is extremely sad. It's was written by Jessica Bennett of Newsweek and discusses the extent to which porn and the perversion of sexuality has invaded young adolescence.

(HT:Tim Challies)

The ESV Study Bible - Received

The wait is over. I found it on the front porch yesterday. I was pretty stoked. I can't wait to get in there in the next several months and break it in. If you want more info about it, check out Tim Challies' review here.

Misjudging healthy relationships as homosexual

Tim Challies looks at the postmodern error of viewing close male relationships. He basically says that these days, any form of intimacy between two men is now considered to be homosexual in nature. And this creates a stigma among men to stay away from healthy, biblical friendships with each other.

Consider these verses that speak of the friendship between David and Jonathan: "As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." (1 Samuel 18:1) "And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul." (1 Samuel 20:17) "I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women." (2 Samuel 1:26)

Here's a couple paragraphs from Challies.

"Here is where it gets even more interesting and important. Says Esolen 'Open homosexuality, loudly and defiantly celebrated, changes the language for everyone. ...If a man throws his arm around another man's waist, it is now a sign--whether he is on the political right or the left, whether he believes in biblical proscriptions of homosexuality or not. ...If a man cradles the head of his weeping friend, the shadow of suspicion must cross your mind." Gone is the innocence that would allow us to see a man love another man without assuming that their relationship involved sex or at least the desire for sex. Men and boys, including Christian men and boys, are suffering the fallout. 'The sexual revolution has also nearly killed male friendship as devoted to anything beyond drinking and watching sports. ...The prominence of male homosexuality changes the language for teenage boys. It is absurd and cruel to say that the boy can ignore it. Even if he would, his classmates will not let him. All boys need to prove that they are not failures. They need to prove that they are on the way to becoming men--that they are not going to relapse into the need to be protected by, and therefore identified with, their mothers.' And so boys feel that they need to prove to their peers that they are not homosexual. They do so by recklessly pursuing sexual experience with girls and by distancing themselves from meaningful friendships with other boys. Those who fail in both accounts are labeled as 'fags' and subjected to the torment that follows. Boys have always had a lot to prove, but added to their burden today is proof of their sexual identify.

My mother has often remarked that men, and Christian men in particular, go through life lonely--forsaken by other men who should be their friends. And I think she is right. I wonder if we, too, bear the burden of perverse assumptions. Maybe we, too, from our early days feel the need to prove that we are not homosexual. And we do this by fleeing emotional or spiritual intimacy with other men, assuming that such relationships are unworthy of men--real men.

The societal prevalence of homosexuality is not going to lessen anytime soon. While Christians must continue to insist that homosexuality cannot be reconciled with Scripture (and you may like to read Dr. Mohler's book to learn more about why this is the case) we must also not allow it to usurp friendship and to reframe the way we, as Christians, and Christian men, view and understand friendship. We have far too much to lose."

Read the whole thing

God's sovereignty and our responsibility to evangelize

Tim Challies has a really good post dealing with the much debated issue of God's sovereignty in salvation. Should we evangelize if we believe that God is fully sovereign in bringing someone to Christ? Yes. Why? Read below:

"To be consistent with Reformed theology we must say that if a person is one of the elect, he will come to faith and repentance. It is divinely predestined that this will happen and it is impossible for it not to happen. But God has not shared with us two vital pieces of information. He has not told us just who the elect are and how they will be brought to repentance. He has decreed that we are to share the message with everyone, in every way possible (within the bounds He sets in His Word). Charles Spurgeon once said "if all the elect had a white stripe on their backs I would quit preaching and begin lifting shirt tails" (or something to that effect). God has not put a visible mark on the elect, so we are to treat all men as if they are among the elect, and are to share the Gospel far and wide. We need to share it with a sense of urgency...

It is not difficult for a Christian to know if he has, indeed, evangelized. He has done so if he has proclaimed the message of sin, death, Savior and forgiveness. If he has done this he has evangelized successfully. He cannot and must not evaluate his efforts in the light of who responds to the message. Don Whitney likens the evangelist to the mailman. The mailman has fulfilled the obligation of his job when he has delivered the mail to me. The measure of success in his job is to carefully and accurately deliver the message. How I respond to the letters I receive is none of his concern. And the same is true of the evangelist. He faithfully delivers the message and leaves the results to God.

Ultimately we need to understand that God has not seen fit to share with us exactly how human responsibility and Divine sovereignty interact in evangelism. While we need to always remember that God is the only one who can bring about salvation, He has decreed that we will be the instruments He uses to take the Good News to the world. And that is what we must do, all the while asking God to equip us to be worthy ambassadors for Him."

Read the whole thing.

The Shack revisited

I thought I was tired of hearing all the arguments for why I should or should not read "The Shack." I posted briefly about it a couple of months ago, after reading a pretty helpful review by Tim Challies. And over the summer have talked to countless people who have read it, all offering very strong arguments for why I should read it and why I should not read it.

On Friday, I listened to someone else talk about it. It was a sermon given by Michael Youssef, pastor at Church of the Apostles here in Atlanta, entitled "Uncovering the Shack." I was intrigued that he starting off by saying that this was only the 3rd time in 25 or 30 years of his preaching ministry that he interrupted a sermon series to cover a random topic. And it was clear over the entirety of the message that he was quite passionate about exposing some of the dangers of the book to his church, even though he knew he would probably be upsetting many.

To clarify, I still haven't read the book, and I don't plan to. That's because I could think of a thousand books that I would rather read for the literary quality or the theological sharpening. But I certainly don't condemn anyone who reads it and even likes it. My only hope with this post is to further encourage discernment.

Click here for the link to the sermon.

Ray Boltz and worldview

Tim Challies responds to this news article that reports on Ray Boltz coming out as being gay. Tim does an excellent job at pointing out some huge worldview implications for us:

"There are essentially two ways that humans can understand the world. The first way is the way we all understand the world until the Holy Spirit intervenes in our lives and gives us new eyes to see. This worldview is I-centered. I am the center of my own universe and the arbiter of all truth. I may not vocalize things in just this way and may not even think them quite like this, but it is ultimately what I believe. I believe that I am capable of looking at the world and understanding the way it works--who God is, who I am, the relationship between us, and so on.

The other way of seeing the world is God-centered. Here I acknowledge God as the center of all that exists and the arbiter of all truth. Everything that is true and everything that is knowable has its source in Him. Thus I can only interpret the world properly by rightly acknowledging God. This is, obviously, the biblical worldview. It is God who tells me who He is, God who tells me who I am and God who declares the terms of the relationship between us.

The first worldview allows me to acknowledge as truth only what I want to believe about myself; the second worldview requires me to acknowledge as truth what God says about me. The first worldview has to have as its premise that I am ultimately good while the second has as its premise that God is ultimately good. In the first view I sin against myself while in the second I sin against God. The contrasts could hardly be more pronounced."

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with someone about Reformed theology, and this idea came up. We often put our experience over what God's revealed Word says about reality. This can be very dangerous. Tim finishes his thoughts this way:

"Sadly, Boltz has an I-centered worldview. He declares without apology that he is gay and, digging a knife into God's back, says that it is God who has made him this way. He rejects God's assessment and instead assesses himself by his own standards and declares that he is good. He piles sin upon sin, accepting his homosexuality as good, rejecting God's declaration that it is sin, divorcing his wife, living that homosexual lifestyle.

The lesson to me in all of this is the importance--the life and death importance--of seeing the world not through my eyes but through God's. God has given us the Bible which allows us, like a pair of glasses that somehow illumines blind eyes, to see the world as He sees it. Through the Bible I find that I am not good but am instead utterly depraved. Incredibly and humiliatingly, I find that I have no ability to properly see and understand reality without Him. I find my desperate dependence upon Him to comprehend what may seem so plain and so obvious. I find that I need Him to interpret reality for me because, without Him, I'll get it wrong every time. I need God to teach me to see myself."

Read the whole thing.

My new iPhone

So, I was finally able to pick it up yesterday. After anxiously awaiting the July 11th release, and then having to order it and wait two weeks to get it...it's finally in my hands. I'm pretty excited at all the new possiblities that lie ahead in my productivity and entertainment with this little device. I spent most of the day yesterday setting everything thing up (which is a ton of fun for me) and getting everything I want on there.

Amidst all the excitement, I also understand some of the dangers ahead. With constant access to the internet, my email, calendar, and other random entertaining things, I can easily let it control my life. And sure enough, this morning I read a great article concerning this very idea by Tim Challies. Here are some of his thoughts:

"It seems to me that, as society continues to move in its current direction, and as we become ever more “wired,” Christians will have to be focused and deliberate about moderating and perhaps removing some of this ever-present background noise. If we are to be thinking people, people who think deeply and deliberately about spiritual matters, we simply cannot allow our lives to be overshadowed by the noise of technology.

Truthfully, I cannot think of anything that distracts us so fully and completely and consistently as technology. For too many of us, technology is a master and not a servant. It is our owner, not our possession. We let it run and rule our lives. We allow technology to determine the course of our lives, taking us where it leads. We determine our schedules with TV Guide in one hand, an iPhone calendar in the other. We invest countless hours in online friendships, many of which are shallow and insignificant, while ignoring people in our local churches and communities. Perhaps while ignoring even our own families.

Technology is a great servant but an evil master. Technology is proof of the greatness of God and something we ought to be thankful for. After all, He is the One who has endowed humans with the ingenuity that makes it all possible..."

Read the whole thing

Review of The Shack

Having not read the book yet, Tim Challies provides an excellent review on what the book is all about. Having read the review, I doubt I will venture into reading the book. I suppose you'll see why...

Brain McLaren's new book

Tim Challies recently reviewed Brian McLaren's new book "Everything Must Change." In the review, he mentions countless dangerous ideas held in the book.

For those of you unaware, Brain McLaren is the leader of the Emerging Church movement. Also associated with this movement are prominent leaders and pastors such as Rob Bell and Tony Jones. This is a recent movement that is encouraging others to value relationships over Truth, and is also revamping the traditional view of salvation in Christ. I realize some of my readers are at least somewhat involved in this movement, so please tell me if I am being too subjective here. And I would appreciate any feedback.

Moving on to the book, Mclaren states that:

"With no apologies to Martin Luther, John Calvin, or modern evangelicalism, Jesus (in Luke 16:9) does not prescribe hell to those who refuse to accept the message of justification by grace through faith, or to those who are predestined for perdition, or to those who don't express faith in a favored atonement theory by accepting Jesus as their 'personal savior.' Rather, hell--literally or figurative--is for the rich and comfortable who proceed on their way without concern for their poor neighbor day after day."

Tim summarizes views on heaven, hell, and salvation with this:

"Rather than being eternal realities, heaven and hell become states we create on this earth as we pursue or deny the kingdom of God. Because Jesus' message is not one of sinful men becoming reconciled to a holy God through an atoning sacrifice, those of any creed can seek and participate in the kingdom. People of other creeds may well be participating in it more fully and more purely than ones who claim to be Christians. Men and women of all creeds can be followers of Jesus living out the kingdom of God even if they have never heard His name."

Wow!!! Tim sums up the book with this statement:

"It seems increasingly clear that the new kind of Christian McLaren seeks is no kind of Christian at all. The church on the other side of his reinvention is a church devoid of the glorious gospel of Christ's atoning death. It is a church utterly stripped of its power because it is a church stripped of the gospel message. McLaren's new gospel is a social gospel, a liberal gospel and, in fact, no gospel at all. This Emerging Church has managed to do something remarkable--it has emerged into something the church has already seen, has already wrestled with, and has already defeated. The Emerging Church has gone suicidal."

The reason I point these things out is not to create arguments for arguments sake. The Truth is a very sacred thing, and I am interested in knowing God and the gospel as explained in the Bible. Obviously, some might point out that I have a skewed view because of my theological presuppositions, or just by the fact that I was born in the late 21st century. But as I explained in a recent post, my pursuit and understanding of Truth is only further confirmed by the history of the church throughout the ages.