In our digital age, Christian leaders are increasingly called to be a “curator of resources”. Here are five resources that I believe will challenge you, sharpen your life in Christ, and generally bless you as you seek to follow Jesus:  

The Question of Marriage

The first resource that I heartily recommend (and thus place it at the top of this list) is a lengthy podcast about marriage from Tim and Kathy Keller. So many nuggets of wisdom. You could listen to it twice and be blessed both times!

Podcast: “Marriage and Our Culture” ~ Tim & Kathy Keller from the “Gospel in Life” podcast.

The Question of “I love Jesus but Not the Church” Posture in America

An interviewer gives John Piper a scenario very much alive in 21st century American religiosity.

Interviewer: What about the scenario - “I’m not walking away from Jesus, but I’m done with the church.”

John Piper: “If you do that, you’re walking away from Jesus” 

See the video here: https://twitter.com/brmorris/status/1713087443849593238

Trevin Wax explores this dynamic in a blog post entitled “Prone to DeChurch, Lord I Feel It”.

“While not ruling out the choice of a believer to walk away from a particular congregation, Piper stressed the impossibility of thinking someone could follow Christ and leave the church altogether. ‘To walk away from the church is to walk away from Christ,’ he said…..if you zoom out of our contemporary Western setting, you find that Piper’s comments about following Jesus and belonging to the church are standard fare for nearly all Christians around the world today, as has been the case for nearly all of church history…

We can go back even further, to the New Testament itself, to see this connection between following Christ and belonging to his people. The church is the body of Christ (Rom. 12:4–5; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:24). It’s impossible to cling to the head of Christ without doing the same to his body…

…An unchurched Christian, as John Stott pointed out, is ‘a grotesque anomaly’. . . . The New Testament knows nothing of such a person.” ~Trevin Wax

What is the Factor of Why Most People Attend Church?

The answer may surprise you, especially if you went through the “worship wars” of the 1990s or you have recognized the relational poverty that characterizes our era, where people are desperate for community and connection. The answer to “Why Do People Come to Church” is this:

A Gallup poll indicates that it’s neither the music (38%) nor community (49%) nor the kids or youth ministry (64%) as the leading number one reason of why people come to church. That distinction belongs to preaching (75%). As Brandon Hilgemann argues: “Three-quarters of the people come to church because of the preaching.”

Check out Brandon Hilgemann’s blog: “Fact: Preaching is Why People Attend Church”.

Check out the Gallup Poll entitled: “Sermon Content is What Appeals to Most Churchgoers”.

The Question of “Do you actually know the Scriptures”?

I recently recommended the best long answer essay that I know on infant baptism was written by Dr. Gregg Strawbridge. A staff member sent me this vignette written by a mentee about Greg Strawbridge himself:

“When I was first ordained, Gregg inserted himself onto my examination committee with the primary intention, I am convinced, of giving me a good-natured ritual hazing. One of the questions he asked me has now become something of ecclesiastical lore in my old communion. “How important would you say the Psalms are to the life of the Christian?” Gregg asked. I immediately began extolling the Book of Psalms as the prayerbook of the church, a model for both personal devotion and public worship, even a divine hymnal of sorts. I spoke of its role in spiritual warfare and how it prophesied the messiah. All very high and pious-sounding stuff. “Ok, great answer,” Gregg said. “Now I wonder if you could just work through each of the psalms, giving us a one or two sentence summary of what they say.” I laughed, wondering if the question was serious or not. But here we all were, on the floor of my ordination exam. This was on the record. “They don’t have to be exact quotes,” he smilingly reassured me. So, I tried to get started and made it to about Psalm 3 before sputtering out. “Oh that’s ok. You know, for some people it helps to jog their memory if they work backwards. Maybe you could try starting with Psalm 150.” On this second try, I made it through Psalm 148.  There was a sort of playfulness to this, for sure. But Pastor Strawbridge also wanted to make a point. It’s all well and good to have strong theology and good ideas about the Scriptures. It’s another thing entirely to know the Scriptures.”

The Question of Moral Proximity

“Proximity and Plausibility: Why Do People Behave Contrary to their Beliefs?” by Samuel D. James:

Samuel James: Why do self-described pro-life people still get abortions? Freddie Deboer’s recent piece isn’t interested as much in answering this question as simply pointing out the fact that there are, indeed, people who do this. Freddie observes that abortion rights are a “revealed preference,” meaning how people actually behave in the marketplace—i.e., what they consume/buy/obtain for themselves—is a more accurate indicator of who they are than their stated political views.

He’s right about this. Freddie makes this observation in the context of celebrating legal abortion, but the same point is made by Christian professor David Ayers in his recent book After the Revolution: Sex and the Single Evangelical. The entire book is a compendium of research showing how American evangelicals say they believe sex is sacred, meant only for marriage, but behave as if they don’t. In fact, in the introduction, Ayers mentions that when he was teaching at a small fundamentalist school, he was told by the director of a local crisis pregnancy center that several students from the school had recently visited the center but decided to get abortions.

So here’s the question: When people who engage in pro-life activism, sign student covenants, and assent to traditional Christian teachings have premarital sex and get abortions, are they proving that they really don’t believe that? Certainly this is possible. There are lots of reasons why someone would feign certain convictions; pressure to conform, wanting approval from parents, etc. Absolutely, that happens. But I think Freddie’s concept of the “revealed preference” is insightful here. I wonder if in many cases, these people really do believe that abstinence until marriage is best and that unborn babies are human persons. But these convictions are connected to thick plausibility structures which can get suddenly, and forcefully, challenged. And the further away a person finds themselves from that conviction’s plausibility structure, the less likely they are to actually make life harder or less pleasureable for themselves for the sake of it.

Abortion makes this very obvious. As Freddie points out, a pro-life woman who gets an abortion will almost certainly reason that her particular situation is exceptional. She might even admit that it’s wrong. But the alternative to the abortion is so unthinkable, so impossible to contemplate, that she simply absorbs the moral offense. What is that alternative? Having a baby. Thus, for some who ascribe to pro-life worldview, the plausibility structure of their convictions is life without an unprepared-for child. When that structure fades, the conviction doesn’t go away, it just feels much further away.

Same thing with premarital sex. There is obviously a big difference between saying you are waiting for marriage when you live at home, have no car, and little realistic opportunity to sleep with somebody. Thus, the plausibility structure of sexual abstinence could be life without an urgent sense of desire and/or opportunity. In a college dorm, this plausibility structure disappears. Again, it’s not that the person stops believing something, or that they never actually believed it in the first place. It’s that putting conviction up against a hot and heavy moment of desire and opportunity is, for the vast majority of people, an unfair fight. It’s not about what they believe; it’s about what they prefer.

For a couple years now I’ve been fleshing out the idea that proximity creates plausibility. In other words, the place you’re at, the moment you inhabit, the people and words and objects around you—these are all live wires jolting your soul. People are not robots whose convictions are uploaded into their motherboards from age 0 to 18, who then go through life pre-programmed. Rather, human nature is constantly responsive to our situations. We believe, but we also feel, and these feelings are deeply contextual and in turn shape our beliefs. Behaviors can make more sense to us the more we watch them, the more we give our attention to them. Ideas can commend themselves to us the more time we spend contemplating them—actually, the more time we spend around them.

The key text for this idea is Proverbs 7. Have you ever wondered why Solomon goes out of his way to describe in great detail the encounter between a foolish dude and an adulterous woman? It seems at first glance that Solomon takes a long time to tell a very simple story. But I think Solomon belabors the details—the time of day the boy goes by her house, what she’s wearing, and what she says—because he wants us to feel just how powerful this moment is. Every aspect of this interaction builds up a plausibility structure of illicit desire, to the point that not even the boy’s best logic can resist. For Solomon, the lesson is clear. He concludes not with, “Resist her charms” or “counter her lies,” but: “Do not stray into her paths.”

I’m sure many people will read this and think, “Well that’s 15 minutes of my life I can’t get back.” All of this may sound very obvious to you. But let me push back on that for a minute. In the age of the Internet, how obvious is the relationship between proximity and plausibility? How intuitive is it actually? I don’t think it’s intuitive at all. I think the digital age has made this concept deeply counter-intuitive. All of us feel in control of our input. All of us feel in command of our virtual worlds. And yet all of us have instantaneous, un-filtered, completely private access to every single behavior, idea, or identity imaginable. Everything, all of the time. We literally inhabit a digital universe that possesses the power, every second of the day, to conjure up any image, any scenario, any how-to, any bigotry, any kink, any manifesto, any truth-claim…..anything we want. “Desensitized” is too small a word for our imaginations in the computer age. We are constantly on the precipice of human (and nonhuman) imagination, every, single, day.

Let us grant that proximity creates plausibility. Let us also grant that the modern, 5G-connected person is proximate to just about anything, from violent pornography to kinism to “how to make a bomb.” What kind of plausibility structure is arising out of this? Just how far out are the limits of our conscience expanding? And why don’t we seem to talk about this more?

Any framework for Christian witness in the 21st century—much less any framework for political theology or the wielding of power—must account for this. Any framework that doesn’t cannot comprehend the modern situation.

You can subscribe to Samuel James’ “Digital Liturgies” online.

Recently, one of our church’s Life Groups sent me a barrage of theological questions. These were the (slightly edited) questions and answers touching on a host of various topics. Enjoy!

1. What is Reformed Theology?  

Reformed Theology simply means the theology stemming from the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century and beyond.  In Presbyterian circles, Reformed theology is often associated with the name of John Calvin.

The best succinct expression of Reformed theology in its historical context is to acknowledge the “five solas” of the Reformation [solas = Latin for “alone”]. Salvation is by grace alone (sola gratia) through faith alone (sola fide) based on the finished work of Christ alone (solus Cristus) as revealed by Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) to the glory of God alone (soli Deo gloria).

2.  The five points of Reformed view of salvation (The 5 Points of Calvinism) have historically been summarized by TULIP: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. What’s the difference between a 3-point, 4-point, or 5-point Calvinist?

Historically, many good Presbyterians would say: “There’s no such thing as a 3-point Calvinist!” That’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it gets at the point that the whole interconnected theology of salvation expressed in election/sin/cross/grace/glorification are intimately and organically connected to one another. In addition, we are living in super-duper Arminian times such that people are automatically programmed to believe by our culture that “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul”. That sounds well and good…but does it make for good biblical doctrine?

Reformed theology politely pushes back: “That’s a great classic line of poetry, but it makes for terrible theology.” The Bible is our baseline.  

In my experience, most Presbyterians do not have any real issues with Total Depravity. The Bible calls us all “slaves of sin” (Rom 6:20) based on the truth that “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom 3:10-12). Our Savior indicates that the entirety of our flesh is enslaved to sin (John 8:34). The effects of sin is total – affecting every faculty of the human – the heart, the soul, the mind, the emotions, and the will.

Most Presbyterians celebrate the truth of Irresistible Grace. Jesus says:  “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will” (John 5:21). That’s grace. Jesus says: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). That’s grace. Jesus says: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44). That’s grace. The apostle Paul writes: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph. 2:8-9). The Father draws to the Son by the Spirit of God anyone who is given the gift of God’s irresistible grace. The Holy Spirit regenerates anyone whom the Father choose to save, enabling them to believe in Christ for salvation.

Perseverance of the Saints is a comforting doctrine that communicates God will bring you to your eternal home. Paul communicated the truth like this: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6). The so-called “Golden Chain of Salvation” in Rom. 8:29-30 assures us that there is an intimate link between the beginning and the end of our salvation because God is the author of salvation from first to last: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30).

Yet, in the modern era, two points of TULIP have become contested in the uber-Arminian age that that live in: Unconditional Election and Limited Atonement.

For Unconditional Election, see my blog post on election and the sermon entitled “The Father’s Purposed” based on Ephesians 1:4-6.

Instead of “Limited Atonement”, most Reformed theologians prefer the moniker Particular Atonement. This brief 500-word essay on Particular Atonement by Kevin DeYoung provides a helpful overview of the doctrine from the classic Reformed understanding.

Another helpful resource which provides helpful definitions (of both Reformed and Arminian positions) and a plethora of scriptures is entitled “T.U.L.I.P., The Canons of Dort”.

3. Can you join Trinity Wellsprings Church as a Covenant Partner and be less than a 5-point Calvinist?

Of course! Becoming a Covenant Partner at Trinity is solely tied to confessing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We are a Christ-centered church, Gospel-saturated church that likes to keep “the main thing, the main thing” – Jesus lived the life I could never live and he died the death that I deserved.

4. What is the role of free will in the salvation of a person?

First, read the sermon on election exegeting Ephesians 1:4-6 entitled “The Father’s Purpose.”

Second, in summary: You are free to sin but you are not free to “choose God” salvifically out of your own free will.  Why? Because you were dead in your sins and trespasses (Eph. 2:1: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”). How can a dead man choose life?

God, not your free will, made you alive: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-6).

You no can no more choose God in the deadness of your sin than you can resurrect your own body at the end of your life after death.

All of our human faculties were affected by original sin and the Fall in Genesis 3. Humans are fallen in body, mind, spirit, heart, emotions, affections, desires, and yes, even “the will” – that from which you choose – was also affected by the Fall. In his little book entitled The Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther convincingly argued that even the will is “bound” by the Fall and unable to choose God. I highly recommend it!

5. Why do we baptize babies, who are too young to understand Jesus?

Short answer: because Presbyterians believe in Covenantal theology.

Short answer: it’s a beautiful portrait of the gospel of grace.

For the best long answer essay, see Dr. Gregg Strawbridge’s article entitled Infant Baptism: Does the Bible Teach It?

6. The practice of baptizing infants…does it lead to a sense of false belief that someone is “saved” when they have not actually professed Christ or accepted God’s free gift of grace?

No.  Because in healthy churches that teach the doctrine with clarity, neither the church nor the parents let the children assume that they are “saved” because of their baptism but faithfully raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord so that one day they will confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior thereby confirming their baptism.

7.  Can I lose my salvation?

No. Paul Washer once said that if anyone could lose their salvation, everyone would lose their salvation. God will always bring you home in glory.

The saints – chosen by God and sustained by God – are always brought home by God. The Golden Chain of salvation (Rom. 8:29-30) is unbreakable. God holds tightly on to you unto eternity, bringing you to your final glorification.

8. Is there a good teaching on egalitarian ministry from a biblical perspective, the doctrine that holds that both men and women can serve in ministry as elders/pastors?

In 2017, Rev. Dr. Jim Singleton taught on egalitarian ministry at the ECO National Gathering here.

9. What is happening to the mainline Presbyterian denomination that Trinity Wellsprings Church left in 2012?

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been experiencing a precipitous decline in church membership: between 2000 and 2015, it lost over 40% of its congregational membership and 15.4% of its churches.  

Theologically, you be the judge with this recent prayer to “The God of the Pronouns” from a PCUSA pulpit in Iowa. Yes, Iowa!

10. Does Trinity believe the scriptures are the authoritative, inspired, and infallible Word of God?

Yes, that’s exactly what Trinity Wellsprings Church believes as well as our denomination ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.

See my blog post entitled The Word of God – S.C.A.N. where I briefly describe and summarize the Sufficiency, Clarity, Authority, and Necessity of the Word of God.  

With respect to the Word of God, ECO’s Essential Tenets of Faith declares:

We glorify God by recognizing and receiving His authoritative self- revelation, both in the infallible Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and also in the incarnation of God the Son. We affirm that the same Holy Spirit who overshadowed the virgin Mary also inspired the writing and preservation of the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit testifies to the authority of God’s Word and illumines our hearts and minds so that we might receive both the Scriptures and Christ Himself aright. 

We confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience, but this freedom is for the purpose of allowing us to be subject always and primarily to God’s Word. The Spirit will never prompt our conscience to conclusions that are at odds with the Scriptures that He has inspired. The revelation of the incarnate Word does not minimize, qualify, or set aside the authority of the written Word. We are happy to confess ourselves captive to the Word of God, not just individually, but also as members of a community of faith, extending through time and around the globe.

Happy reading! That should keep you busy as a theological bee can be!

What the Sabbath is NOT:

Sabbath is not simply “a day off”.

As Eugene Peterson once remarked, “A ‘day off’ is a bastardization of Sabbath-keeping.“

Sabbath is not solitude and silence.

Those are distinct spiritual disciplines. The Sabbath might include those elements but cannot be reduced to them.

The Sabbath is not a private affair.

Family, friends, and the family of God can and should be involved.

The Sabbath is not a solemn affair.

Traditionally, there was no fasting on the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is worth celebrating - break out a bountiful table, eat succulent food, laugh & play with friends and family.

The Sabbath: What is it?

Sabbath is ceasing, celebrating, and communing with God in community.

• Ceasing…from work

Your pattern of work and rest is embedded in creation. This is who you were created to be.

• Celebrating…your redemption

You are not a slave to work nor the inner compulsions that drive you towards non-stop production; the Sabbath is a day to celebrate your freedom. You were liberated! You were redeemed! By Christ! You celebrate those realities in your life! You celebrate freedom, life, creation, your humanity, and the goodness of God on the Sabbath.

• Communion…with God

“Come to me,” says the gentle and lowly Christ. This is a gentle invitation is to find rest for your souls as you commune with God.

• In Community

Sabbath is not an individualistic pursuit but rather a communal endeavor. Celebrate the Sabbath with the family of God as well as your own family and friends.

“Because we do not rest, we lose our way.” (Wayne Muller) Try this self-evaluative diagnostic: “10 Symptoms of Hurry Sickness”.

Are you being drawn to a new rhythm of life? An ancient practice that is being re-discovered in the modern era?

“Remember the Sabbath” (Ex. 20:8).

I’ve developed two resources entitled: “Sabbath as Resistance”.

Sabbath as Resistance: A Six-Lesson Study Guide for Individuals or Groups

The Study Guide consists of six lessons to promote conversation (in groups) or contemplation (for individuals).  Each lesson covers a portion of scripture, covers a “bid idea” for the lesson, and provides engaging instructional questions.

Sabbath as Resistance: A Reading Guide

A Reading Guide represents a collated “best of the best” chapters from authors such as Ruth Haley Barton, John Mark Comer, Walter Bruggemann, A.J. Swoboda. In each lesson, participants can read a very manageable 15 pages per lesson.

A profound statement recently stopped me in my tracks: “A mature Christian is easily edified.”

This is, I believe, a proper and fitting goal of our Christian discipleship.

Because far too often, don’t you find yourself being:

• too easily offended (by others)

• too easily distracted (by technology)

• too easily frustrated (by the demands of the day)

• too easily stressed out (by the busyness of life)

• too easily irritated (by your family)

What exactly would a believer’s life look like who is “easily edified’?

A believer who is “easily edified” would be falling more in love with Jesus, amazed by the grace and mercy of God. “God has been so faithful to me!”

A believer who is “easily edified” would experience the full repertoire of “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19) as all avenues to worship: “God is so quickly praised and thanked in my life!”

A believer who is “easily edified” would drink deeply from the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation: “The full counsel of God is like living water to my desert-like parched soul!”

“A mature Christian is easily edified.”

Yet, what is true for our individual lives of discipleship is also true for living in community as the body of Christ:

• The critical spirit who likes things “my way” in the church would slowly be choked out.

• The church consumerism in all of us would slowly be wrestled down to the ground. 

An “easily edified” community of Christ-followers would begin to say things like: “You know what? I can be blessed by whoever is preaching. I can encounter God through whatever songs we sing today and whoever is leading worship.”

“You know what? I’ve learned that even though I don’t agree with every decision of the church’s leadership, I am becoming more generous in my praise than in my complaints. In fact, I trust that the elders and staff are seeking the mind of Christ, and I’d want to be shown the same level of graciousness if I was in their shoes. In the end, I am purposely refraining from gossiping about my church’s faults and shortcomings and intentionally finding more ways to celebrate the faithfulness of God in my church.”

“A mature community of Christ-followers is easily edified.”

Guest Post: Rev. Kristian & Lydia Eikevik

Hey church, how are we doing with marriage? The Bible speaks from its first pages of a spiritual institution between man and woman, a sovereign calling and place of worship. It’s fallen into some disrepair since we got kicked out of the Garden, but it’s made holy again by the blood of Jesus. And the Spirit longs to breathe life into it. For better and worse, the church always cooks in the pot of culture— and that culture disciples us every day. But praise God, for the Scriptures that don't change and a King who wants to bring us back to Himself in repentance and reverence. Check out the fuller sermon notes below and do a heart check. Does our marital life line up with our Sunday worship? What do the people around us see and hear? And how do we speak of it among ourselves and to the next generation?

Check out the Sermon Brief from “God’s Design for Marriage”.

It has been argued by anthropologists that there are over 50+ words for “snow” used by the Eskimos. Snow is important to Eskimo culture and fundamental to live as a human in the arctic environment.

In a similar way, Simon Dunn recently taught about the fundamental aspect of our existence: we are made to worship God. That is a fundamental reason for our created existence and the telos of where we are headed in the New Heaven and New Earth.

In Revelation, John sees a majestic vision of praise around the throne of God: .

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)

In Ephesians, Paul indicates that we are to be about “the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:12, see also Eph.1:6, 14).

Simon pointed out that, in the Old Testament, there are seven different words for “praise” with various nuances of meaning and connotations for our life of worship.

What snow is to the Eskimo so is praise to being human!

Let everything that has breathe praise the Lord! (Psalm 150:6)