Happy 500th Birthday John Calvin

Today, July 10, is 500 years since John Calvin was born. Within Protestant theology, few have had the scope of influence this man and his writing continues to have amongst those, that nowadays, call themselves “Reformed”.

John Piper has an interesting read on Calvin.
NB: this was written in 1997. There’s bound to be an update sometime this week.

Excitement and Idolatry

Today I finished up my IT job. In 2 weeks time I officially commence as a full time pastor of the Kogarah English Congregation at Grace Chinese Christian Church.

I’ve always had aspirations to full time ministry. As a young Catholic boy growing up in an Italian Australian neighborhood I often dreamt about joining the priesthood. However that changed significantly, when in 1985, for the first time that I recall, I heard a plain and clear explanation of the gospel:

I am a sinner by nature and deed, deserving of God’s just punishment, yet in his generosity and grace, God has given Jesus to fulfill all righteousness and then endure the full force of God’s justice through his death on the cross. Upon rising from death Jesus has purchased my pardon in full and provided full inheritance to God’s love, grace, blessing, forgiveness, restoration, redemption, and eternal salvation. There is nothing I can do to add to his perfect work, whether through good actions, participation in rituals, or the like. The completeness of Jesus’ act on my behalf means that there is nothing that will separate me from him. I am now truly free to worship and live as God intended and designed us to live – in relationship with him as father and Lord.

In 1988 I heard Bob Jones II speak on ‘Men of God’, he gave a challenge for the youth listening to give serious consideration to entering full time ministry training in Bible College. I was excited about the opportunity to serve using my abilities and gifts as a teacher and the prospect of spending life in the ministry drove me to pursue Bible College immediately upon graduating High School. College gave me many things! Knowledge, opportunities to preach, exposure to a variety of teachers and ministries, a wife (!) and a huge ego!

Before finishing college I was serving in an assistant pastor capacity and even had a 3 month night-watchman stint as interim pastor while the senior pastor was away raising sponsorship support. I then joined a larger ministry as an Associate Pastor and led the teaching ministries of a Church (Small Groups etc). All the time thinking, “Well, anytime now and I’ll be doing this full time and will reach the zenith of ministerial achievement”!

In each of my ministries, I learnt a considerable amount about techniques, leadership, theology, people, marriage, customs, culture, language etc. But I also was placing or measuring my satisfaction by involvement in ministry. If you had asked at the time, I probably would have been ignorant of the fact, but in hindsight, I was seeking to be justified by doing ministry. Ministry had become an idol and full time (paid/employed) ministry became the most desired of idols. It took several years to unlearn that dependence on myself, my abilities and achievements and recover that initial “first love” and excitement about serving God as Lord and enjoying Him and resting in his generosity, goodness and greatness.

Why do I want to be “in ministry”? Because I love God. A man’s gift makes room for him and the best use of my abilities is not in IT or business management but in the area of serving the local Church by teaching the Bible. “Ministry” doesn’t mean “I’ve arrived”, rather it means, by God’s grace, he has ordered my steps and brought me to a position, where I have the privilege of serving Him and his people as their pastor. And that makes me very happy!

Willy Wonka: But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he he always wanted.

Charlie Bucket: What happened?

Willy Wonka: He lived happily ever after.

(per IMBD)

Goldcrown and Bill Cosby

Early in 2007 I had a restorative crown put onto one of my back teeth. During the process, a temporary crown was installed for 2 weeks, but it broke off when having lunch one day. When I returned to have the permanent, gold, crown installed, the Dentist had said that the cement used is much stronger etc etc so eating steak etc would be OK. However crushing ice or chewing hard caramel might not be such a good idea. Nevertheless, I had quite a surprise last week when enjoying a Fantail and suddenly feeling my crown rolling around in my mouth!

So it was off to the dentist to have it repaired and re-installed. Fortunately, the crown was undamaged and after a clean (the dentist called it “sand blasting”!) was successfully repaired. Whilst there I had an examination to check my other teeth and also a calcium scrape to clean them.Then today, saw this on Kevin DeYoung’s blog! It’s very accurate! Kind regards to my dentist (who is excellent by the way!) and my dentistry friends (hopefully you’ll still be my friends after this…)

Leading or Serving

There is no paradox or contradiction:

… shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” – 1 Peter 5:1-5

The shepherd leads by choosing to serve, regardless of the reward, through a humble example to other members of God’s flock.

The undeserved privilege

Ligon Duncan on 1 Timothy 1:12

A true gospel minister is thankful for the undeserved privilege of serving Christ and His people, and Paul, as he reflects on the fact that he’s not only been saved, but he’s been called to be an apostle, a preacher of the unsearchable riches of Christ, he is staggered by the thought that God would have allowed him, of all people, to be someone who preaches the gospel, who cares for God’s people.

What Your Pastor Wishes You Knew About Him

Repost from Andy Naselli

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is a good start

1. Bible college and seminary weren’t enough.
2. Good sermon preparation takes time.
3. His family is important too.
4. Be kind if you have a criticism.
5. Give your pastor time to grow.
6. Your pastor probably views you differently than you view him.
7. Pastors sometimes find it difficult to have friendships.
8. Your pastor may well be different out of the pulpit than when he’s in the pulpit and that doesn’t necessarily make him a hypocrite.
   (i.e. there’s more to him than what you see in the pulpit)
9. Your pastor has bills too.
10. Your pastor loves the work of the ministry!

Take the time to read through the original posts by Dan Burell to see how these are fleshed out. (Part 1 & Part 2)

Significance of Baptism

A concise explanation of Baptism from Phillip Jensen:

We are not baptized to testify to our belief, though it is a testimony to the fact that we are believers.  We are baptized in repentance that we may find the forgiveness of God in the death of Jesus on our behalf.

Hyper-Spiritualising of Decisions

Christians have a knack for speaking and acting as though they are superior for sitting around doing nothing. I may have even made this excuse for my own laziness and disobedience on occasion! We are not called to ‘rest on our laurels’ but to take up the cross of self-denial and service.  Kevin DeYoung un-packs and exposes this attitude:

Passivity is a plague among Christians. It’s not just that we don’t do anything; it’s that we feel spiritual for not doing anything. We imagine that our inactivity is patience and sensitivity to God’s leading. At times it may be; but it’s also quite possible we are just lazy. When we hype-spiritualize [sic] our decisions, we can veer off into impulsive and foolish decisions. But more likely as Christians we fall into endless patterns of vacillation, indecision, and regret. No doubt, selfish ambition is a danger for Christians, but so is complacency, listless wandering, and passivity that pawns itself off as spirituality. Perhaps our inactivity is not so much waiting on God as it is an expression of the fear of man, the love of the praise of man, and disbelief in God’s providence.

Francis, Granny and the Gospel

Whilst in Homiletics (preaching) class in 1989 my professor, Sam Keller, repeatedly challenged us to always “preach the word” not “granny scriptures”. A “granny scripture” is something “granny” has said so often that we take for granted must be in the Bible.

e.g. “God helps those who help themselves” or “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” – neither of these are found in any translation of any book of the Bible.

In the age on instant mass communication we need to beware adopting or accepting “granny scriptures” as truthful. As recently as 2 weeks ago Shane Fitzgerald played a prank on journalists by inserting a false quote about Maurice Jarre into Wikipedia. The same quote was used by multiple media outlets as fact, demonstrating the gullibility of those who accept something as true just because it appeared on the Internet.

A popular quote attributed to St Francis of Assisi is frequently quoted by Christians to defend, justify and support ‘lifestyle evangelism’.

“Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.”

The problem as pointed out by Mark Galli in Christianity Today is that Francis probably never said this and certainly there is no historical evidence that he lived according to this cliche.

Contrary to his current meek and mild image, Francis’s preaching was known for both his kindness and severity.

…

The point is this: Francis was a preacher. And the type of preacher who would alarm us today. “Hell, fire, brimstone” would not be an inaccurate description of his style.

…
“Preach the gospel; use words if necessary” goes hand in hand with a postmodern assumption that words are finally empty of meaning. It subtly denigrates the high value that the prophets and Jesus and Paul put on preaching. Of course we want our actions to match our words as much as possible. But the gospel is a message, news about an event and a person upon which the history of the planet turns. As blogger Justin Taylor recently put it, the Good News can no more be communicated by deeds than can the nightly news.

We can avoid the sentimentality and appeal of “cliche-Christianity” by being grounded in scripture.

“Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed …” Acts 17:11-12

So we can still love “granny” and enjoy the Internet, but we are charged to proclaim/publish/preach/speak the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation. My life will demonstrate the reality of my faith in Christ, but my life isn’t going to save anyone – only Jesus can do that.

Ida Not Missing Link – Hoopla

Chris Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, sorts through the hoopla:

Ida is not a “missing link” – at least not between anthropoids and more primitive primates. Further study may reveal her to be a missing link between other species of Eocene adapiforms, but this hardly solidifies her status as the “eighth wonder of the world”.

Instead, Ida is a remarkably complete specimen that promises to teach us a great deal about the biology of some of the earliest and least human-like of all known primates, the Eocene adapiforms. For this, we can all celebrate her discovery as a real advance for science.Read the whole thing.

This is a repost from JT.