Yesterday's Grace

Christians should never be satisfied with yesterday's grace. It is a shocking thing for Christians to have to admit that they have grown little in their knowledge of Jesus Christ.

~Basics for Believers by D.A. Carson pg 89-90

Preaching from the Gospels

The challenge of preaching from the Gospels is, in part the challenge of preaching from narrative.  The best of Western seminaries and theological colleges reinforce the cultural bent toward the abstract, and fill students' heads with the importance of grammatical, lexicographical exegesis. Such exegesis is, of course, of enormous importance. But in students who do not have a feel for literature, it can have the unwitting effect of so focusing on the tree, indeed on the third knot of the fourth branch from the bottom of the sixth tree from the left, that the entire forest remains unseen, except perhaps as a vague and ominous challenge.

I am so glad that I have been reading this commentary by Carson.  I absolutely know that I could easily miss the forest for the trees, so to speak. My tendency is to drill deep on each verse and attempt to figure out what that verse is about.  I love the wealth of information that can be found in each individual sentence.  I don't want to miss any small bit of divine inspiration, and I don't want anyone else to miss it either.  But I think that he makes a very good point in his recommendation for John.

I want the people at Edgewood to see the forest.  I know that they might miss a tree or two along the way, but if they would but see the big picture.  Carson adds to this by saying,

Rightly done, preaching from the Gospels enables a congregation to put its Bible together, and then to find the Bible's deepest and most transforming application emerging from this vision.  To put the matter another way, John's stated purpose in composing the Fourth Gospel is not that his readers might believe, but that his readers might believe that the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus, and that in believing they might have life in his name.

Adding more to his advice on preaching through John, he adds this final bit of opinion, that I am seriously taking to heart:

...those who set out to expound John's Gospel, as opposed to one of the Synoptics, often find themselves enmeshed in 'vain repetition'. John's vision is more narrowly focused than that of the Synoptists. For all the wealth of his presentation of Jesus, his own application, made again and again with driving force, is that his readers should believe. Many a preacher has begun a series on this book only to find that his application is becoming boring even to his own ears, and abandoned the series at ch. 7 or ch. 9 or the like.

He goes on to say that the series should go on to " ... focus on Jesus himself, on the fathomless Christological wealth bound up  in this Gospel."

I would be the preacher enmeshed in vain repetition.  I know I would. I hope to avoid that by heeding this godly advice and focusing on the forest even though my brain loves gazing at the trees.


The Gospel According to John (Pillar New Testament Commentary)

Is God Glad Osama Bin Laden is Dead?

I wanted to do a blog post about on this topic, but once again someone else beat me to it and did a way better job explaining than I would have... or could have.

Here is a link to John Piper's answer to that question. (Found it via Randy Alcorn's quoting of it.) Piper's article begins with these statements:

In response to Osama bin Laden’s death, quite a few tweets and blogs have cited the biblical truth that “God does not delight in the death of the wicked.” That is true.
                                 
It is also true that God does delight in the death of the wicked. There are things about every death that God approves in themselves and things about every death that God disapproves in themselves.

There is much more to the article, but you will need to click through to see is explanation and Biblical support.

Another great resource on this topic is Andy Naselli's blog post titled Don Carson on Osama Bin Laden.  (Don Carson is one of my favorite writers/speakers.)  In this blog post Andy Naselli, of the Gospel Coalition, discusses a portion of the book Love in Hard Places by Don Carson.  This post ends with this conclusion:

Therefore, in the present struggle, even while we must try to prevent the terrorists from doing more violence, we must eschew a vendetta mentality. Love demands that we do not demonize Osama bin Laden. He is a human being made in the image of God. He is an evil man, and he must be stopped, but he is a man, and we should take no pleasure in destroying him. Vengeance is the Lord’s alone. Do not offer the alternative, “Should we weep for Osama bin Laden or hold him to account for his genocide and prevent him from carrying out his violent intentions?” The right answer is yes.

The rest of the article builds into this conclusion, so you should read the whole thing.  Also, if you go there, they are offering a free downloadable copy of the book!

Scandalous: Review

Scandalous is a book by one of my favorite authors and speakers, D.A. Carson.  I own this book in print and I also just finished listening to it via Christian Audio.

I really enjoyed this book.  I feel that D.A. Carson always brings to essential elements to the table that work together at drawing me into the topics that he is discussing.  The first element is his deeper understanding of scripture.  Now, I want you to know that I use the word "deeper" purposely.  You see, it isn't that he has a deep understanding of scripture, it is that he has an understanding of scripture that is always a step deeper than where I am at, and it is always driving me deeper into the Word.

The book itself is about the truly scandalous nature of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus.  The two chapters that had the most impact on me were the first chapter, dealing with the deep ironies of the cross as told in the book of Matthew.  The other chapter that I really enjoyed was the chapter dealing with the scandalous actions of Christ in association with the death and resurrection of Lazarus.

It was an excellent book and I really enjoyed the audio version.  The voice talent even reminded me a little of D.A. Carson's speaking style.   Swing on by Christian Audio to check out this book.

Good Listening

I just finished downloading a series of 14 messages by D.A.Carson.  He is one of those guys that I would probably listen to anything that he had to say.  I am posting this simply to recommend downloading these messages.

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