Thursday Theology : Love of God

There have been times when Christians found it easy to believe in the justice of God, but found it difficult to believe in the love of God. In most of the Western world, this is no longer the case. If people believe in God at all, they assume he is a God of love, but often presuppose largely sentimental conceptions of love, with little space for holiness, justice, or wrath. Moreover, believers have often embraced only one of the several ways the Bible speaks of the love of God, and read that one pattern into every biblical text that speaks of God's love, unwittingly producing some astonishingly nonsensical theology. This workshop by renowned New Testament scholar D.A Carson, attempts to explore some of the different ways the Bible speaks of the love of God, how they function, how they are integrated, and how they are related to all of the perfections of the God of the Bible.

OUTLINE

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Introduction

(1) Some ways in which the Bible speaks of God's love:

     (a) God's intra-Trinitarian love

     (b) God's providential love

     (c) God's yearning, inviting, love

     (d) God's electing love

     (e) God's covenantal, conditional, love

(2) Some theological implications

(3) Some ethical implications for Christians

Conclusion

The Love of God    Listen  |  Download

Tuesday Trainings : Diaconal Ministry - 1

Deacons are a gift from the exalted Savior to the Church. Their work is to take care of the practical needs of the flock so that the pastors may “devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.” (Acts 6:4)[1] They are to oversee the deeds of mercy both to the church and the community around the church.  It is the only other holy office in the New Testament church in addition to the elder.  The diaconal ministry of the church frees the church's teaching and preaching, it validates the church's teaching and preaching, and it accompanies the church's teaching and preaching. [2] It is thus a very important office of the church. As George C. Fuller puts it, "To denigrate the high office of deacon is practical heresy". [3]

In part 1 of his diaconal ministry training, Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian, well known for his books on the diaconate like Resources for Deacons and Ministries of Mercy, develops a theology of mercy ministry. He begins by considering the well known passage of Scripture dealing with the story of the good Samaritan. Keller makes some initial observations on the text like the overarching category for all that the Samaritan did, namely, mercy, noting down the deeds of the Samaritan as deeds of mercy, namely, meeting medical needs, financial needs and providing shelter, and finally noting the common thread among all the needs he ministered to, namely, human or felt needs.

With this introduction, Keller begins to lay a theological foundation for mercy ministry. He begins by defining diaconal ministry as the meeting of felt human needs through deeds and word in the power and love of the kingdom.  Keller defines a need as a dependency distorted and aggravated by alienation from God. He then goes to Genesis 3 to show the four levels of need due to four levels of alienation that resulted from the Fall. Firstly, we are spiritually alienated from God (Gen 3:8), resulting in psychological alienation causing guilt and shame (Gen 3:10), leading to social alienation from each other (Gen 3:7, 12), culminating in physical alienation (Gen 3:17-19). He moves onto show how the gospel heals every level of need, partially in this age and completely in the age to come. This healing is the essence of the kingdom of God and spreading it is the ministry of the church. The diaconal ministry is crucial in spreading this healing, though partial, especially in the needs arising from the physical alienation caused by the fall.

Diaconal Ministry - 1  Listen  |  Download 

Footnotes  

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[1] Deacons, Heritage Baptist Church, Owensboro

[2] Ronald Pearce, God's Gift of Deacons

[3] Timothy J. Keller, "The High Calling of Deacon", Resources for Deacons, Pg11

Friday Features : Women and The Word - 2

Elsie Newell will be our featured teacher through out this month on Fridays, as she teaches the importance of the Word of God, especially for women. She comes to us with a wealth of experience, a true heart for the Lord, and a desire to help women understand the importance of loving, studying, and teaching the Word of God. She has been in ministry for over 30 years; teaching and leading Bible studies. Currently she teaches a weekly study to the women in her church, another to drug addicted women at a local shelter in Anderson, and a third to teenage girls. She has also written a number of small group Bible studies, one of which was published in 2008, The Amazing Promises of God. Elsie has been married to Newt for 50 years, and has 3 children and 12 grandchildren, who she helps home school. She is a member of Christ Reformed Church in Anderson, SC.

Deeply practical, she speaks from a rich experience of knowing God through the Scriptures. Her main thrust is on the discipline of meditation. In the first part, she introduced the discipline of meditation with an emphasis on the wondrous end of meditation, namely knowing the wonderful God of the Scriptures. In this second part, she turns her attention to 2 Peter 1:3, specifically on God's promises and how to apply them in our lives.

God’s Precious and Magnificent Promises  Listen  |  Download 

Thursday Theology : Understanding Charismatic Theology -2

In the past 50 years, the Charismatic movement has made much progress, in terms of expanding all over the world, being the most popular form of Christianity in the wider culture, saturating the media of satellite television and of course, of having congregations with stupendous membership. In spite of all these seemingly great advances, it is the firm conviction of conservative Evangelicals around the world that this movement is a misleading one and many a times, very dangerous too.  In the first part of our analysis of the Charismatic theology, we turned to Dr. Trevor Craigen, Professor of Theology at Master’s Seminary, for his overview of the experience-driven theology of this movement

In our second part, Dr.Richard Mayhue, Senior Vice President and Dean, of Master’s Seminary will speak on gaining a biblical perspective on Charismatic theology. He believes, all experience must submit itself to the Scripture’s test for authenticity. He enlists four essential theological elements in the neo-pentecostal or charismatic movement - 1) continuing revelation, (2) Spirit baptism subsequent to salvation, (3) tongues, and (4) healing. Without these features, the charismatic brethren would not exist as a distinguishable element of Christendom. For each of these features, he offers a biblical analysis, to help us gain a biblical perspective of the whole movement. 

Combating Charismatic Theology   Read  |  Download 

Tuesday Trainings : Redemptive-Historical Preaching - 3

Redemptive-historical preaching is preaching every passage of Scripture, in light of its redemptive-historical context, showing how each passage relates to the grace of God which is ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ. This Christ-centered approach to preaching is much needed if one desires to see gospel-centered ministries flourish in our day and age. 

In his first part, Dr. Bryan Chapell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary, spoke about the necessity of Christ-centered preaching, if we are to be true to Christ’s own hermeneutic. Then, last week, he began to talk about how that Christ centeredness can be excavated from all the Scriptures. He talked particularly about that grace message in its various forms that either prepares for or predicts or reflects or results from the work of Christ. Dr. Chapell also discussed macro-interpretation and micro-interpretation. A “macro” way of looking at the text would be when we ask where a text fits in the grand scheme of Genesis to Revelation. “Micro” ways of looking at the text involve when we ask whether there is a doctrinal statement there that is reflective of the grace of God or whether there are relationships, either of God toward His people or them toward one another, relational reflections of God’s grace that will ultimately be more fully represented in the work of Christ.

In this third part on Redemptive-Historical preaching, Dr.Chapell moves to the issue of using redemptive principles in the application of Scripture in order to provide biblical motivation and enablement.  Dr.Chapell explores the many dominant themes that come from the excavating the grace from all of Scriptures and discusses how the Bible motivates believers to obedience and holiness. He discusses at quite a good length, what could rightly be described as a Christ-centered theology of change. Very insightful and beneficial for preachers to preach Christ-centered sermons with powerful application of Scripture that is inline with redemptive principles.

Christ-Centered Interpretation for Redemptive Application Read |  Listen  |  Download 

Friday Features : Women and The Word - 1

Elsie Newell will be our featured teacher through out this month on Fridays, as she teaches the importance of the Word of God, especially for women. She comes to us with a wealth of experience, a true heart for the Lord, and a desire to help women understand the importance of loving, studying, and teaching the Word of God. She has been in ministry for over 30 years; teaching and leading Bible studies. Currently she teaches a weekly study to the women in her church, another to drug addicted women at a local shelter in Anderson, and a third to teenage girls. She has also written a number of small group Bible studies, one of which was published in 2008, The Amazing Promises of God. Elsie has been married to Newt for 50 years, and has 3 children and 12 grandchildren, who she helps home school. She is a member of Christ Reformed Church in Anderson, SC.

Deeply practical, she speaks from a rich experience of knowing God through the Scriptures. Her main thrust is on the discipline of meditation. In this first part, she introduces the discipline of meditation with an emphasis on the wondrous end of meditation, namely knowing the wonderful God of the Scriptures. She wants this and this alone to be our motivation behind our meditation of the Scriptures. Her warmth, wonder and even her wittiness are so evident in this presentation, revealing her humble, genuine and joyful godliness, grown out of years of knowing God through the Scriptures.

The Importance of God’s Word   Listen  |  Download 

Thursday Theology : Understanding Charismatic Theology -1

In the past 50 years, the Charismatic movement has made much progress, in terms of expanding all over the world, being the most popular form of Christianity in the wider culture, saturating the media of satellite television and of course, of having congregations with stupendous membership. In spite of all these seemingly great advances, it is the firm conviction of conservative Evangelicals around the world that this movement is a misleading one and many a times, very dangerous too. 

The issue is primarily a theological one. Growing out of Pentacostalism, which was a wild child of Second-Blessing teachings of Holiness movements, Charismaticism, true to its legacy has very little to do with the sufficiency and efficacy of the First Blessing – The Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is only when there has been a serious lack of understanding of the perfections of Christ’s work for His people, that people seek after second and subsequent blessings. Had they realized the sufficiency of Christ’s work and how our first and only blessing is the gospel, there needs no discussion for any blessing subsequent to salvation. The Bible knows no blessing that a believer ought to seek, subsequent to his salvation. The newness of the New Covenant is the great blessing of the indwelling of the Spirit in all believers, which  they receive at their conversion and only (in the sense, exclusively) because Christ gained it for them. If it is asserted that, even after Christ gained the promise of the Father and poured it onto His church at Pentecost, individual believers subsequent to their conversion, are to follow some "steps" to get filled by the Spirit, then it is a clear denial of the efficacy and sufficiency of Christ’s work for the church. This is the linchpin argument against Pentecostal and Charismatic theology. However Charismaticism goes beyond this issue. Issues dealing with ongoing revelation, ongoing apostolate, ongoing signs and wonders etc are also crucial to this whole discussion. 

In the first part of our analysis of the Charismatic theology, we turn to Dr. Trevor Craigen, Professor of Theology at Master’s Seminary, for his overview of the experience-driven theology of this movement. Dr. Craigen notes the need for this overview as follows, “The burgeoning of the Charismatic Movement [C.M.] in the last decade together with the publication of its own theological literature mandates at the very least an overview of its significant theological breakpoints. By breakpoint is meant that which makes this movement break from traditional evangelicalism--although, really, it never was ‘in.’ For sake of an overview, no distinction is being drawn between Pentecostalism and the C.M.”  His presentation gives a detailed overview of each of the significant and unique theological convictions of the Charismatics. He organizes these into four basic questions which frame the major emphases of this movement. In addition to this overview, he gives a five-point theological response to these emphases of the Charismatics.  Though not exhaustive, these preliminary considerations make up an excellent initial response to the theological emphases of the Charismatic movement.

Charismatic Theology  -  An Overview   Read  |  Download 

Wednesday Word : Jesus and The Fourth Commandment

The fourth commandment to observe the Sabbath is one over which Christians are divided. Some believe in a literal observance of it as a day, while others believe it is the spiritual meaning of it that we should understand and observe. Perhaps the group of Christians who were best known for their defense of a literal observation of it  as on the Lord’s Day were the Puritans. All forms of Puritan religion – Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregational and Particular Baptist, unanimously confessed the Lord’s Day as the Christian Sabbath, a day for remembering not only the rest the Lord took when He completed creation but also the deliverance of His people in Christ.  It is a day for taking rest from all other work, to delight in the finished work of the Lord, both in His creation and redemption. However this understanding of the Lord’s Day has been criticized by many as mere Puritan legalism. While acknowledging that some lesser known of the Puritans did write very legalistic works on Christian Sabbath, which even Puritan giants like John Owen detested, if properly understood, Puritan Sabbatarianism does have biblical grounds.

To explore this, the pertinent question to be asked is what was the relationship of our Lord Jesus Christ to the fourth commandment. For invariably, the argument of those who oppose Puritan Sabbatarianism is that Jesus Christ did not keep the fourth commandment literally. Moreover, they argue, He was displaying the need to keep it only spiritually, by His many healings on the Sabbath day. Is this argument an exegetically valid one? Was our Lord teaching His people to not keep it literally, but only spiritually? Is the Sabbath merely a type or shadow of the eschatological rest in Christ, which His believers have a foretaste of even now? Would Jesus view Sabbatarianism as legalism? Did Jesus Christ repeal the Sabbath?

Dr. Robert R. Gonzales Jr., the academic dean and a professor at Reformed Baptist Seminary, expounds Matthew 12:1-14 to explain what Jesus Christ really taught about the Sabbath. He demonstrates how Jesus Christ not only upholds the fourth commandment, but also demonstrates the true significance of it and restores its intended purpose.

Jesus and The Fourth Commandment  - 1  Listen  |  Download 

Jesus and The Fourth Commandment  - 2  Listen  |  Download