Life Here and There

I’ve always believed in an age of accountability for sin. Children and babies who die don’t go to hell, period, and John Piper does a wonderful job of explaining why in ultra-simple terms.

In my last post, I talked about how God sees deeper than the skin and today, I want to carry that thought further (based on my message from last Sunday) about how God sees beyond today.

I’m busy today. I have a lot of things up in the air that are all happening at once. Your day is like mine, isn’t it? Catching up isn’t really an option. And maybe catching up isn’t what it’s cracked up to be anyway. After all, if we were caught up, we wouldn’t be necessary in the moment. So we keep living by the clock… tick, tock, tick, tock.

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I love church planters and I love cutting edge, innovative ministry. I’m encouraged by the growth of a kind of Christianity that calls us back to the New Testament model of worship and ministry as we head into the turbulent waters of this next decade. But I’m concerned with what I perceive sometimes to be youthful arrogance, and this concern includes myself.

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I learned today that Dr. Ron V. Mitchell has ended his battle with cancer, going home to be with his Savior. This news floods my mind and heart with fond memories of the short time that I knew Dr. Mitchell. First, some biographical information, via the Baptist Trumpet…

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I’m convinced there is a vast shower gift conspiracy operating in our culture. Think about it. For a wedding shower, she has all the fun. Nobody buys the sweet “couple” golf clubs or pocket knives. And then the babies, the poor little babies. They don’t get anything fun – it’s all about Mom! What a sham!

Here’s the funny thing… God is behind this conspiracy! The Bible says that every believer has been giving some special ability by the Holy Spirit, and that we are given these gifts not so that we can look or feel good, but wholly for the benefit of… others! I hope you sense my sarcasm. This is the nature of God’s gifts, and if you want to enjoy life, you’re going to have to forget about all the benefits you want to receive and start thinking about your relationship to other people.

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One of my favorite websites is The Daily Spurgeon where my friend Nick spends a lot of valuable time culling the pages of Spurgeons sermons and works to offer up a daily couple of paragraphs from one of history’s greatest preachers. Today, Spurgeon echoed something that has been on my mind lately about Loving the Brethren.

Basically, we can stand against what we interpret to be biblical error, we can expose falsities, and we can disagree strongly, but we ought to love the brethren and the sistren (my own word). I disagree with many modern movements and emphases and I’ll mention those errors in my teaching, but I love godly people who seek the glory of Christ. Just a thought. We ought to love each other even when we disagree – pretty simple.

For the record, I’m not a Calvinist. For the record, I’m not threatened by Calvinism and some of my greatest heroes are/were Calvinists (W. A. Criswell, Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield). And for the record, I’m definitely not an Arminianist either.

If you haven’t heard, Time Magazine has declared “New Calvinism” to be third on it’s list of 10 world-changing movements. (Mark Driscoll explains the differences between old and new Calvinism. I like Mark Driscoll, John Piper, and Al Mohler, all of whom the article names as leading voices among modern Calvinists who definitely have a heavy influence in modern evangelical thinking.

I don’t want to use this post (or the comments) to debate the theological issue of Calvinism itself. Rather I wanted to offer some of my own personal reflections on this movement in the form of what I appreciate about it and what annoys me. Feel free to disagree. I’ve already said I will love you anyway.

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I’m a Baptist with a long history of defending the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. Nothing has changed there. I simply want to point out something that James says. (I am studying through James in my personal quiet time because I need His truth-telling.) He basically says that works justify faith.

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Prayer seems like a simple subject on the surface, but in reality, it’s the deepest of all subjects related to the Christian life. I was going about my daily routine today, chomping through my lengthy to do list and making great progress on things that really aren’t that important when I was stopped in my tracks by an email from someone who is currently struggling in their faith.

They asked me a simple question… “why should I keep praying when God doesn’t answer my prayers?” Suddenly the simplicity of my own theology is challenged and a deeper answer is demanded. I hope to address the issue in a lesson, sermon, or article very soon, but my initial research led me to a great answer from Ann Graham Lotz over at Lee Strobel’s site. Rather than embed the video here, I’ve posted a link below. And Brenda, I’m praying for you as I post this!

Go here to see how Ann Graham Lotz talks about unanswered prayer.

I just finished reading C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity for the first time (I’ll be perusing it again in the future). Until purchasing the book, I had little idea just how much influence the book has had on modern Christianity. I was amazed at how many conversations my copy of the book started. Once in a hospital waiting room, in my office, and in a church camp college class, I met all sorts of people who had not only read the book, but who were deeply impacted by it. In fact, just yesterday I was reading in the appendix of R. Kent Hughes’ book The Disciplines of a Godly Man where he surveyed 35 of today’s greatest Christian leaders and thinkers. Ten listed Lewis’ epochal work as one of the most influential they had ever read (it was mentioned more than any other book, second was Calvin’s Institutes).

Now that I’ve completed it, I must agree with all of them. Surprisingly, Lewis never quotes Scripture or refers to the works of other theologians at all. There are no references, citations, or endnotes. Instead, Mere Christianity is a collection of informal, conversational “talks” given over the radio waves. Lewis compiled the transcriptions together, edited them for print, and the world was changed.

The book is as much a philosophical treatise as a theological one. Lewis gives to us the thinking of a man who has not grown up in Christianity. His theology is practical, gritty, and brutally honest. He raises questions that nonchurchgoers are bound to ask, and he tackles them without hesitation. Many within the Christian faith today are threatened by the possibility of such questions being hurled at the faith, but Christianity, since it is true, will stand every test.

I wish that I could recall all of the particular lessons I gleaned from Lewis’ thoughts. This book, however, has a surprising effect. Rather than being a simple outline of truthful points and principles, it is a book that simply works your mind over. You can’t get it out of your head during the day and you end up working its words into your thought patterns.

I would highly recommend that every young person entering a life of ministry read this book at the outset. It took me far too long to stumble upon it. I would also highly recommend every Christian layperson to obtain a copy and see how the world around us thinks, and how to answer them. It will certainly help prepare us to “give a reason of the hope that is in us.” And I certainly recommend the work to anyone seeking truth, who wants to know why it is that we can’t ever earn God’s favor on our own.