Did you know? It only takes 52 hours and 20 minutes — about 1 hour per week — to read the entire Old Testament (all 39 books) from cover to cover? 52 hours is actually LESS than the average American spends watching television each month!

At Trinity Wellsprings Church, 2021 will be the “Year of the Old Testament”. Download here the OT Bible Reading Plan.

The OT Bible Reading Plan: For five days/week, you’ll read approx. 3 chapters/day from either the Pentateuch, Historical Books, Wisdom Literature, or the Prophets. Plus, you’ll also read a Psalm or a chapter of Proverbs each day. By the end of the year, you will have read every OT book of the Bible once, the book of Proverbs twice, and Psalms 1-50 twice (you’ll read Psalm 51-150 just once). In addition, this OT reading schedule will loosely correspond to the TWC preaching schedule during the year.

Other Bible Reading Plans: There are lots of great plans to help you read the Bible in 2021. To see six different plans that I recommend, see this post.

Get a Plan, Develop a Habit: One of the best ways NOT to read the Bible is to never develop a systematic plan to read the Bible. Over the years, I’ve found that the seasons of life where I aimlessly think “I’m sure I’ll read some parts of the Bible” are precisely the seasons that I end up not reading much of the Bible. On the other hand, it’s the seasons of life where I’ve developed a plan — that I know what I’m reading each morning when I wake up — that end up the most fruitful for me.

So to develop a habit (like most other things in life), you need a plan. I pray that you develop the plan that is right for you this New Year!

The TWC 2020 Advent Devotional is here, highlighting “Names and Attributes of Jesus”.

(Pick one up at Trinity Wellsprings Church on Sunday Nov. 29th or sign up to receive daily devotionals during Advent or download the PDF or enable push notifications on the TWC Church App.)

One of the attributes of Jesus that stirs my soul is the portrait of Jesus as The One Who Wept from John 11:35. Here’s my own story with one of the shortest verses in the Bible, from Central Africa:

A one-day year old baby in Equatorial Guinea had died. A pastor’s family was grieving. The little lifeless body lay on top of the family room coffee table under a white cloth. The young men in the family joined with the family and friends in this small home, sweating profusely and visibly dirty from digging the grave out behind the house.

The grief was palpable.

Unasked questions ricocheted throughout the home. The cause of the death? Totally unknown. The baby had just…died. No explanation. No reason. Everyone felt, I think, a profound sense vulnerability and helplessness.

And, I was supposed to say…what exactly?

This was too early, way too early, for doing theological gymnastics. If I had tried to land a double back handspring at that moment (theologically-speaking, of course!) nobody would have been helped.

So in the midst of this grief, I preached softly on one of the shortest verses in the Bible: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

I had unanswered questions just like everyone there. My heart was in my chest like everyone there. Tears were welling up in my eyes like everyone else. Yet, two thousand years ago, Jesus had a friend. His name was Lazarus. And Jesus loved him enough to weep at his death.

Somehow, that matters.

Those tears profoundly affected the whole village of Bethany. The people noticed: “See how he loved him!” Those tears, I believe, were the most important human tears ever shed. The tears of Jesus give us license to feel profoundly, to hurt achingly, and to lament acutely. The heart of Jesus was big enough to weep because the heart of Jesus was big enough to love.

Today, your task is simple: can you ask — indeed plead — for God to give you that kind of heart, as you follow Jesus, The One Who Wept?

On my yearly fall trek to be with a pastor’s Covenant Group in South Carolina, I listened to several episodes of the Gospelbound podcast hosted by Collin Hansen. Collin’s conversation with Matt Chandler about family discipleship and how to raise gospel-centered children who follow Christ into adulthood is filled with practical wisdom for Christian parents.

You can listen here. I highly recommend this conversation to you! [Matt Chandler is the Lead Pastor of Village Church in Texas and author of two books that I recommend: The Mingling of Souls: God’s Design for Love, Sex, Marriage, and Redemption & The Explicit Gospel . His new book released this year: Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home Through Time, Moments and Milestones.]

Three Big Takeaways from this Gospel Bound conversation with Matt Chandler:

#1: Parents, don’t confuse behavior with belief.

Some parents, when examining the belief structure of their children (do my children believe the gospel? does my child know the Lord?) often confuse behavior with belief. This can work in two directions:

The child who is more strong-willed and constantly is in the crosshair of parental discipline can seem like a total pagan unbeliever to the parent. Yet, personality or birth order or family dynamics or school issues might be influencing the problematic behavior just as much (or more) than an apparent “lack of belief”. Parents need to discern wisely before simply conflating bad behavior with an outright rejection of Christian belief. Parents can continue to pour in grace, truth, and love into the strong-willed child. Play the long game. Don’t give up.

Conversely, the child who is more eager to please mom and dad doesn’t mean that this child knows and loves and cherishes the gospel. It just might mean that the child is eager to please and knows how to “say the right things” in order to garner parental accolades. This child, too, needs intentional instruction on doctrine, scripture memory, and age-appropriate teaching. Parents shouldn’t assume that the child will always be so pliable. Parents should continue to instruct and disciple in the home even when the child seems “already to know it all”.

#2: Parents, worship with your children in church. Sit with them.

It’s not enough to come in one car and then go to different parts of the church. The Fuller Youth Institute has been sharing this research for a long-time now: “Nearly half of all young people raised in Christian families walk away from their faith when they graduate from high school. That’s the bad news. [More precisely, I’d say these young people walk away from church or never believed the gospel, because I don’t believe people “lose” their faith.] But here’s the good news: research shows that parents are one of the primary influences on their child’s faith.”

The Fuller Youth Institute’s research shows that children who worship God with their parents in church services are more likely and more motivated to continue church attendance into adulthood.

The latins called this a “habitus”. The fact of the matter is that spiritual habits form us in powerful ways. And these habits are learned at a young age.

#3: Parents, Enter the Fray. Start Slow. Build new Family Habits.

The bar for parental satisfaction is often too low. Many parents settle for “behavioral modification” in their children (i.e. if I can only get my children “to act in a certain way”, then I’d be happy). At the same time, parents often get excited and distracted by many “good things” while neglecting to pass on the “best thing”.

Matt Chandler gives parents a simple nudge to enter the fray in family discipleship. You don’t know where to begin? So what? Neither has the majority of Christian parents throughout the history of the church! It might be as simple as reading scripture over the dinner table and praying together (start with the Gospel of Mark or the practical letter of James or the joy-filled epistle to the Philippians).

The Carter family is in the midst of reading through “Foundations: 12 Biblical Truths to Shape a Family”. The book is practical, engaging, and only takes a few minutes to implement over dinnertime. (In the past, we’ve journeyed with “Our 24 Family Ways: A Family Devotional Guide”.)

Enter the fray. Get engaged. Start a new habitus. You’ll be glad you did!

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Other helpful and interesting Gospelbound podcast conversations include:

The Future of Christian Marriage.

Tim and Kathy Keller Share the Secret of a Great Marriage.

America’s Secession Threat.

The Rise of Politics as Religion

The decline of Christianity in American has coincided with the rise of the Messiah complex in American politics. "I alone can save you," says politicians on both the right and the left. The Christ-shaped vacuum left empty in the soul of America is being replaced by politics. Politics is the new religion.

The Elements of our New Religion

With any religion, liturgy is needed. The recent political conventions (RNC & DNC) play the part nicely, as carefully orchestrated liturgical expressions of America’s new religion. They represent a high-water mark akin to Easter.

With any religion, worship is needed. Amid the decline of church attendance and bible reading, our new (political) Messiahs stride confidently to the pulpit. There is even a hint of Pentecostalism spilling forth into our political gatherings. Instead of “arms raised to Jesus”, there is political emotionalism gone mad, a Pentecostalization of political enthusiasm wherein each candidate whips into a religiously-charged political fervor their adoring fans. 

With any religion, transcendence is needed. People long to be part of “something greater” than their own small lives. Politicians ride into Jerusalem on modern donkeys (limos and private airplanes) with their political base waving palm branches (political signs). The Messiah will give you 90 minutes of a transcendent experience, replete with enthusiastic chants (more liturgy) coupled by the belief that you have taken part in a historic moment.

With any religion, a devil-figure is needed. The opposition plays the part perfectly. Blessed are you if you can brand your opponent “the next devilish coming” of Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro or the KKK, for your angelic halo awaits you in heaven. After all, your opponent is destined for the Lake of Fire.

With any religion, apocalyptical images frame an end-time scenario for planet earth. A vote for the oppositional devil-figure takes us closer to this (religious) brink. Your devotion (you are told) is all that keeps the apocalypse at bay.

With any religion, hope is needed.  With the “Audacity of Hope”, you can reclaim the American dream. Do you have enough hope to make America great? An eschatological (postmillennial) hope of realized blessings (in the form of economic prosperity) is just around the corner. Can’t you sense the Spirit working through your favorite political Messiah who will inaugurate a glorious end-times prosperity? The promises (of prosperity) and doomsday scenarios (of demise) are spoken with the cadence of sermonic blessings and woes to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

With any religion, fellowship is needed. Who needs the ekklesia (church) composed of many different parts forming one body? Better to align your life with a political tribe where you can live safely within an echo chamber. Rallies, protests, riots, and parades are now the foyers and fellowship halls of this new American religion.

The Only Worthy Messiah

People were created to worship. People were created to experience transcendence. Substitute religions (like the new religion of politics) offers Christ-less worship and shallow experiences only simulating transcendence. I dare say that the rise and fall of American Christianity hangs in the balance with this recognition. Christ is still our only Messiah.

I’m convinced every American Christian should watch this film: American Gospel: Christ Alone. Here’s why: the prosperity gospel (aka: “the name & claim it” movement) is spreading like wildfire in American Christianity.

Thirty years ago, prosperity gospel preachers represented a small fringe element on the outskirts of Christianity. Not so today.

A Times magazine article in 2006 surveyed Christians and found:

• That 43% of all Christians agreed that the faithful receive health and wealth.

• That 2/3 agreed that God wants people to prosper.

• That 31% agreed that God increases the riches of those who give.

• That 17% of all Christians surveyed identified themselves with the prosperity gospel or the name and claim it movement.

A Pew Survey found that 3 out of 4 latinos across all denominations agreed with the statement: “God will grant financial success and good health to all believers who have enough faith.” (Statistics from Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, Oxford University Press, 2013.)

Prosperity Gospel preachers like Joel Olsteen (“Your destiny is calling out to you; it’s time to start living large”), Kenneth Copeland (“I declare you debt free, saith the Lord”), Benny Hinn (“It’s as easy to get healed as it is to get forgiven”) and others pedal a substitute gospel that is really no gospel at all.

American Gospel: Christ Alone goes into greater detail, but let me briefly mention three serious errors with the Prosperity Gospel:

(1) A Faulty Notion of the Object of Faith

Whenever the object of faith does not squarely rest on Christ, we can begin to talk about a sub-biblical form of Christianity. For the prosperity gospel movement, faith becomes a sort of magic wand that is waved over our lives to secure our heart’s greatest desires in life (health, wealth, victory, feel good-ism, etc.).

Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen and their tribe will encourage you to say, “I am blessed. I am prosperous. I am healthy. I am victorious. I have the abundant life.” And they will tell you to claim it by faith.

In the Prosperity Gospel movement, faith is twisted into “faith in my faith”. Faith becomes weaponized to secure whatever you set your heart and mind upon. Yet biblical faith has one sure and solid object: Christ is always the object of our faith.

(2) A Faulty Understanding of the Cross

Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Joel Osteen are fond of scriptures like Isaiah 53:5 (“by his stripes you are healed”) and 1 Peter 2:24 (“by his wounds you have been healed”).

Joyce Meyer says this about the cross: “By his stripes I was healed. Healing belongs to me. I was healed two thousand years ago by the stripes that Jesus bore. By His stripes I was healed, I’m not trying to get healing; I’ve already got healing, because by His stripes I was healed.”

For Joyce Meyer, faith becomes a magic wand to appropriate this healing which is available through the cross of Christ: “My faith puts that power in active operation in my body…that power is flowing in me and I am whole. I am free. I am entirely free from sickness and disease…my faith has made me whole” (J. Meyer).

Yet this is a theology of the cross based upon two texts taken completely out of context. Read the larger context of Isaiah 53:4-5:

“Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."

Is Isaiah the prophet talking about physical healing that you can claim by faith? The context makes it abundantly clear: Christ was pierced and crushed on the cross for our transgressions and for our iniquities. The healing that Christ enacts on the cross is a spiritual healing that grants us peace with God (Rom 5:1) and forgiveness of our sins (Eph. 1:7; cf Ps. 32:1).

Similarly, you only need to read the entire context of 1 Peter 2:24:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

Is the apostle Peter to be turned into a prosperity gospel preacher? Surely not! Peter is abundantly clear that Christ’s vicarious sacrifice was a sin-bearing substitute for the purpose of putting sin to death and living for righteousness. The healing is spiritual in nature. Peter is not imagining some accumulated “merit of physical healing” that we access by faith because of Jesus’ death. That is just plain putting novel, human-centered ideas into the text of scripture.

(3) A Faulty Understanding of the Mind and Human Words

Prosperity Gospel preachers will often tell you to make positive verbal and mental confessions to get the object of your personal desire.

The “name and claim it” teachers love to cite Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Yet again, look at the full context:

“From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” (Prov. 18:20-21).

Commenting on these verses, Old Testament scholar Duane Garrett writes, “The purpose of these verses is to warn against being too much in love with one’s own words. One should recognize the power of words and use them with restraint.”

In other words, believers must understand that there is a gigantic and qualitative difference between our words and God’s words. When God says, “Let there be light”, the universe is formed (Gen. 1:3)! Only God’s words do not return empty and accomplish precisely the creative purpose for which they were sent (Is. 55:11). There is a vast chasm of difference between the creative words uttered by the Creator and words uttered by creatures. In fact, the Scripture’s most common warnings about human words have to do with their destructiveness, not “speaking into existence” things that are not (see Mt. 12:35-37; Prov. 18:13, 21:23; James 3:5-10). Kate Bowler in her book Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel shows convincingly that prosperity gospel’s “mind over matter” rhetoric that brings peace, prosperity, and healing into your life is actually rooted not in scripture but in the “New Thought” movement of mind-power (which is an offshoot of Christian Science) which surged in popularity in America in the late nineteenth century (pp. 13ff).

Scripture never urges us to make “positive confessions” so that a general sense of well-being (therapeutic positivity) or health and wealth will be ours. Instead, Paul urges us to: “Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on the earth” (Col. 3:2) and “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). With so much emphasis on health, wealth, and victory, prosperity gospel teachers can scarcely hear these verses of the apostle Paul telling us what should truly be set before our lives as desirable.

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Alongside recommending American Gospel: Christ Alone, let me direct you to two other fascinating places to engage with the prosperity gospel:

(1) This video is an incredibly fascinating look at how America’s home-grown prosperity gospel is being exported around the world to places of poverty. I saw this hocus-pocus all the time in Central Africa and it made me sick to my stomach for the Cause of Christ. I encountered this intriguing video while attending the Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa in 2010.

(2) John Piper’s most viewed sermon clip of all time is a weighty and passion-filled attack on the Prosperity Gospel. This is the seriousness with which we need to take this substitute gospel which is really no gospel at all:

The Gospel Coalition has a fascinating “back story” of this inspired preaching rant entitled “The Story Behind John Piper’s Most Famous Attack on the Prosperity Gospel”.

Here is the sermon I preached on August 23, 2020. Its “longer-than-normal length” and “thicker-than-normal exegesis” was required because the issues of lust and purity as well as divorce and marriage are often misunderstood scripturally and culturally.

As I said in the sermon, “If we have stopped being shocked at the teachings of Jesus, we have never fully understood them.” This is no more true, I believe, than in the Sermon on the Mount.

It’s often been said that a preacher’s job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”. For preachers, Jesus is our plumb-line who was full of grace and truth (John 1:14). My prayer is that believers heard “truthful grace” and “graceful truth” even as we delved into one of the “more difficult” passages in the Sermon on the Mount.

Soli Deo Gloria.