Turning Guilt to Action

Jim Elliff shares some helpful ideas on A More Spontaneous and Genuine Evangelism. Here is one of the points he makes:

We have not trained ourselves well in three important areas. It is important to work together on: 1) the content of the gospel, 2) how to converse and build relationships, and 3) some apologetic issues. Interestingly, these are largely untaught. Rather than teaching a block plan, why not study these three strategic aspects of the gospel and its presentation as your training approach?

Teach the content of the gospel itself, not just a set of phrases about the gospel. A man can talk for hours about a car if he understands what's under the hood. A woman can spend the day talking about decorating the home when she has concerned herself with learning the philosophies and combinations that are involved. But when a plan is learned and there is not much biblical and theological knowledge behind the phrases spoken, the presenter is unsure and uncomfortable. He has memorized a few statements and transitions, but what does he actually know? It is no wonder the believer does not want to venture out. "What if someone asks a question?" he thinks. It is the person that knows the most theology that can answer the best and has the least fear.

Learning how to converse provides a wonderful practicum for the group also. My common way of evangelism is to ask questions. I just keep probing until I discover the person's philosophy concerning root issues. It doesn't take a lot of brains to ask the questions. I've learned to get into the thinking of the person. They appreciate that. I respect them as I converse, but I keep probing. Sometimes I say, "That's very different than my view, but please tell me more." I don't explain my view yet; I'm just salting the conversation. I don't mind asking personal questions either. In turn, they eventually ask, "So what is your view about this?" This provides an excellent way to present what I believe about the problem and the solution in Christ. It would do the church well to study the simple art of having a meaningful conversation.

Basic apologetics provide another field of preparation. Although simply understanding the theology of the gospel will take most people a long way, learning how to address certain questions and/or objections that might arise with sound biblical apologetics is also very useful. I am more philosophical in my approach to apologetics, but am not without some interest in hard evidences as well. When you don't have a ready answer, you can just say so. Perhaps you can arrange for another meeting to discuss the issue further, or get the person's address and send him a book on the subject. It's OK not to know everything. Nonetheless, it is part of our improvement in evangelism to have some understanding of apologetics.

Prodigals

I talked to someone yesterday whose son has rejected Christ. I've known many parents who have gone through a similar anguish. Abraham Piper (HT: Nick Kennicott) recounts briefly his "prodigal" story, and offers some "suggestions to help you reach out to your wayward child so that they, too, would wake up to Christ’s amazing power to save even the worst of us." His first and final encouragement are the same: "Point them to Christ."

This can’t be stressed enough. It’s the whole point. No strategy for reaching your son or daughter will have any lasting effect if the underlying goal isn’t to help them know Jesus.

The goal is not that they will be good kids again. It’s not that they’ll get their hair cut and start taking showers; it’s not that they’ll like classical music instead of deathcore; it’s not that they’ll vote conservative again by the next election. The goal is not for you to stop being embarrassed at your weekly Bible study or even for you to be able to sleep at night, knowing they’re not going to hell.

The only ultimate reason to pray for them, welcome them, plead with them, eat with them, or take an interest in their interests is so that their eyes will be opened to Jesus Christ.

And not only is He the only point, but He’s the only hope. When they see the wonder of Jesus, satisfaction will be redefined. He Himself will replace the money, or the praise of man, or the high, or the sex that they are staking their eternities on right now. Only His grace can draw them from their perilous pursuits and bind them safely to Him—captive, but satisfied.

God will do this for many. Be faithful and don’t give up.

Bible Translation

The past few years I've had the opportunity to do some Bible studies with those who speak English as a second language. It's raised a greater awareness of Bible translation, which is partly why I found this article by Karen Jobes on Bible Translation as Bilingual Quotation (pdf) to be very interesting (HT: Kirk Wellum).

As for what I use: I grew up with the King James Version. My first memory verses were learned in the KJV, and on a few occasions I still revert back to some of its words and phrases. But mostly now I find that reading the KJV is like reading a foreign language. For almost all of my adult life I have used the New International Version, and I currently memorize from it. But I'd still like something simpler, especially when studying with those who have a hard time with the English language.

Concerning other translations and paraphrases: On the more literal end of the spectrum, I've read through the Bible in the English Standard Version. It's a good translation, but I would recommend it more as a study Bible. On the freer end of the spectrum, the Message's use of "contemporary" words and phrases really got my attention when it first came out. But these days when I read the Message, it just seems to be filled with catch-phrases and cliches.

Book Recommendation: Toward an Exegetical Theology

Nathan Williams reviews Walter Kaiser's Toward an Exegetical Theology. Kaiser is one of my favorite writers. I especially like what he has written about the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Williams' review begins:

Toward An Exegetical Theology is a foundational book for understanding how to practice expositional preaching.

The word foundational is appropriate for a couple of reasons. As this book approaches its 30th anniversary, it still speaks to the greatest need of the Church today, sound expository preaching. Despite being over a quarter century old it still reads in a fresh manner that could lead one to believe it was written in the past year.

Another reason to think of this book as foundational is that many men who have been trained to preach expositionally have been influenced by the method laid out in Toward An Exegetical Theology, whether they realize it or not. This book provides the starting point for the discussion concerning methods of exegesis.

Inspiring Fathers to Be Fathers

A summary at the DG blog of Gregg Harris' Strategy for Fatherhood includes this advice about what pastors can do to inspire fathers:

Harris offered one main answer: Be the kind of fathers you want the fathers in your church to be (1 Pet 5:2-3).

Be authoritative, not authoritarian. Authoritarian leaders appeal to their office to get their way. Authoritative leaders, on the other hand, gain their credibility by how they live. They don’t pull rank; they show themselves to be worthy of following because their own life serves as an example of the value of what they are teaching.

A pastor should only be a pastor if he is looked to as an example of how to live. Again, it is a false humility to avoid being an example for your flock.

Harris noted that one way to become the kind of father you hope to be is to take your own advice. What would you counsel a father in your church to do to strengthen his relationship with his son? Do that. We will be surprised how wise we are. We know a lot that we don’t put into practice.

Am I Concerned?

I'm doing a Bible study with a guy who recently professed faith in Christ. The other day we got talking about hell. As we talked, I wondered about my concern for the lostness of the lost. It's what Dan Edelen writes about in his post 4,212.

I don’t like what our American culture has done to me. In fact, I despise it. Because when I look deep into my own soul, I see a nearly total lack of caring about the eternal state of other people. I may say I care, but I don’t care enough to make the changes needed to my life to ensure I’m living for Jesus. And living for Jesus means that I no longer live for myself.

The power of the American lie casts a spell over us, doesn’t it? That lie takes Christ off the throne and enthrones that pretender, self. It’s the lie of “God wants you happy!” instead of the truth that God wants you obedient to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Now we may say that we’re sold out to Christ, but we aren’t. We lie to ourselves and keep playing the happy card, that selfish, devil-filled mantra of self-fulfillment no matter at whose expense that happiness comes.

Because when we get right down to it, we’re so preoccupied with self-fulfillment that we’re willing to gamble the lives of two out of every three people to ensure it, 4,212 people each hour, so that we can keep on living for whatever pleases us, even if that pleasurable pursuit wracks the heart of God.

Church Vital Signs

Acts 2:42 describes four "vital signs" (I'm using this expression from Mark Lauterbach's post on The Spirit and the Church) of a Spirit-filled church:

1. Commitment to the apostles’ teaching: Today the “apostles’ teaching” is preserved for us in the inspired writings of the New Testament. In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul spoke of the church as “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” A Spirit-filled church is passionate about guarding and communicating the truth as revealed in the Bible.

2. Commitment to the fellowship: Generally speaking, fellowship has to do with sharing something in common. Specifically, it can mean sharing our financial resources with those in need. I think that is the meaning here, and that Acts 2:44-45 illustrates this fellowship. Thus “the fellowship” is our partnership with fellow-believers and responsibility to care for each other in practical and material ways. In a Spirit-filled church, believers sacrificially take care of one another.

3. Commitment to the breaking of bread: Some see this as just an ordinary meal, but I think it refers to the Lord’s Supper, which originally involved a full meal as well as the remembrance of Christ’s death. It implies the regular gathering of God’s people. These meetings are centered on the gospel (on Christ and the cross), and marked by joy and sincerity (cf. Acts 2:46). The Lord's Supper is prominent, not as a ritual, but as a God-ordained expression of cross-centered praise.

4. Commitment to the prayers: These are not private prayers but corporate prayers. When the early church met together, it wasn’t just to connect with one another. It was to connect with God. They were God-dependent; they were focused on God; they sought God. A Spirit-filled church is mobilized to pray together. It is ever mindful of the supernatural nature of the church. We exist for God’s glory and so we look to God to work in and through us.

Prayer and Fasting

Fasting is not a discipline that I have practiced very often, but Fred Sanders' post on Biblical Fasting was a reminder of its importance. He includes this quote from Andrew Murray:

And prayer needs fasting for its full growth… Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting, the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible. […] Prayer is the reaching out after God and the unseen; fasting, the letting go of all that is of the seen and temporal. While ordinary Christians imagine that all that is not positively forbidden and sinful is lawful to them, and seek to retain as much as possible of this world, with its property, its literature, its enjoyments, the truly consecrated soul is as the soldier who carries only what he needs for the warfare. Laying aside every weight, as well as the easily besetting sin, afraid of entangling himself with the affairs of this life, he seeks to lead a Nazarite life, as one specially set apart for the Lord and His service. Without such voluntary separation, even from what is lawful, no one will attain power in prayer: this kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer.

A Spiritual But Material Resurrection

Darrell Bock has reposted the key parts of three past blogs to review the historical and biblical details of What Kind of Resurrection we're talking about when we speak of the resurrection of Jesus. His short answer "is a resurrection into a spiritual but material body, what the church has called a bodily or physical resurrection, but not simply a reproduction of mortal flesh."

Missional Church Planting

David Fitch shares his observations about church planting in Canada over the past three decades. He sees a shift in how missional leaders are planting churches:

The landscape of post-Christendom demands we think about church planting with a new eye for faithfulness, truth and integrity. Among the new missional leaders, church is the name we give to a way of life, not a set of services. We do not plant an organized set of services; we inhabit a neighborhood as the living embodied presense of Christ. Missional leaders now root themselves in a piece of geography for the long term. We survey the land for the poor and the desperate, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. We seek to plant seeds of ministry, kernels of forgiveness, new plantings of the gospel among "the poor (of all kinds)" and then by the Spirit water them, nurture them into the life of God in Christ. We gather on Sunday, but not for evangelistic reasons. We gather to be formed into a missonal people sent out into the neighborhood to minister grace, peace, love and the gospel of forgiveness and salvation. The biggest part of church then is what goes on outside gathering. If the old ways of planting a church were like setting up a grocery store, now it is more like seeding a garden, cultivating it, watching God grow it amidst the challenges of the rocks, weeds and thorns (I owe this metaphor to my fellow co-pastors at Life on the Vine).

The Cultural Mandate in Discipleship

Jonathan Dodson takes a look at Missional Discipleship. He delves into the biblical commissions in Genesis and the Gospels, in order to show that discipleship is more than "spiritual disciplines" or an evangelistic program. He concludes:

Retaining the cultural impulse of Genesis, the Gospels call us to a missional discipleship that entails creation care, cultural engagement, social action, and gospel proclamation. Missional disciples will not content themselves by preaching a culturally irrelevant, creation indifferent, resurrection neglecting message. Instead, they redemptively engage peoples and cultures through Christ for the renewal of his creation.

By digging deeper into the great commissions, we have unearthed a wealth of cultural and theological insight. This rereading of familiar evangelistic texts has demonstrated that God in Christ has called us not to mere soul-winning, but to distinctive discipleship, to heralding a worldly gospel of a fleshly Christ who humbly accommodates human culture and understands the human condition. These commissions call us to missional discipleship — to redemptive engagement with all peoples and cultures.

Tough Questions

Stephen Altrogge reminds us that "godly friends help each other see their sin accurately by asking tough questions." The tough questions we should ask each other include:

• Have you had any conflicts with your wife lately?
• Have you been diligent in your pursuit of the Lord?
• What has been your biggest struggle lately?

In a follow-up post he shares another 7 Tough Questions To Ask Your Friends:

• Have you been consistently pursuing the Lord through scripture reading and prayer?
• Have you diligently pursued your wife/husband this week?
• Have you seen any persistent patterns of sin in your life recently?
• Last week you confessed struggling with [insert sin]. Have you taken steps to fight it this week?
• When you gave into [insert sin], what were you believing about God in that moment? What were you believing about yourself?
• What is the truth that you need to believe in this situation?
• When you had the conflict with [insert person], what were you craving at that moment?

Last week, Nicole Whitacre at Girl Talk also posted a list of Fellowship Questions. With a little tweaking (especially on the last one!), these questions could be used by men:

• Describe your current practice of the spiritual disciplines.
• What is a passage of Scripture you have been meditating on recently?
• What fruit of the Spirit are you cultivating?
• What sin are you seeking to weaken?
• How can I pray for you?
• Here is an evidence of grace that I observe in your life.
• How are you seeking to grow in expressing biblical femininity?

Restore Them Gently

Thabiti Anyabwile shares some quotes about Carefulness in Treating Sin from Mark Lauterbach's book, The Transforming Community: The Practice of the Gospel in Church Discipline. One of the paragraphs he shares:

We need to cultivate in our churches the expectation that people have a few spiritual friends, who keep an eye on them and vice versa! Then we need to coach them in how wisely to address a concern when they feel a drifting in someone's heart and a change in their behavior.

Four Ways to Pray

If there are four ways to live the Christian life, as Jerry Bridges says (see the link in my last post), then there are four corresponding ways to pray:

The way we live: "The first way is to attempt to do it entirely on our own, by our own effort and willpower" (Bridges).
The way we pray: Prayer is perfunctory at best, or we're too busy to pray.

The way we live: "We just 'turn it all over to the Lord' and allow Him to live His life through us" (Bridges).
The way we pray: Prayer is "letting go and letting God," without a sense of responsibility to act.

The way we live: "A third way is the 'Lord, help me' approach" (Bridges).
The way we pray: Prayer is to get God's help after we've made our plans or run into trouble.

The way we live: "The fourth approach to the Christian life is the abiding-in-Christ way."
The way we pray: Prayer is continual dependence on God.

What does it mean to continually depend on God? John MacArthur says about "Pray Without Ceasing":

To “pray without ceasing” refers to recurring prayer, not nonstop talking. Prayer is to be a way of life — you’re to be continually in an attitude of prayer. It is living in continual God-consciousness, where everything you see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep awareness of and surrender to Him. It should be instant and intimate communication — not unlike that which we enjoy with our best friend.

And here is a great post by Lee Irons on the Irrepressible Promptings of the Spirit to pray:

Follow Dabney’s encouragement and think of prayer as something that you already do without realizing it. Or, perhaps more accurately, as something that your regenerate heart wants to do, if only you would capitalize on those irrepressible promptings from the Spirit and turn them into conscious prayers. Instead of thinking of prayer as something arduous and requiring tremendous amounts of discipline and effort, see it as something easy. As soon as the thought, “I should pray about this,” pops into your heard, do it right then and there. Just talk to the Lord, even if for the briefest moment, even for a second or two (what I call “arrow prayers”).

Four Ways to Live the Christian Life

Thabiti Anyabwile shares a quote from Jerry Bridges on Four Ways to Love. Bridges says:

"The fourth approach to the Christian life is the abiding-in-Christ way. the believer who practices this approach knows that the self-effort approach and the 'let go and let God' approach are both futile. He has also learned that he needs God's help not just beyond a certain point but in every aspect of life. He doesn't pray for hep just during crises or stressful times. Rather, his prayer is, 'Lord, enable me all day long, for without You I can do nothing.'"