Light of the World, a City on A Hill
…thinking out loud about living missionally in the city of Sydney so that the city will come to know Jesus…Archive for Doctrine
Reading not Blogging
I have to admit, I have had little enthusiasm for blogging over the last few weeks. Not sure why…probably just been too busy.
Anyway, as always, I have been reading.
My current list is:
- Pierced for our Transgressions - Rediscovering the glory of penal substitution (Jeffery, Ovey, Sach)
- The Future of Justification: A response to NT Wright (Piper)
- Total Church (Timmis, Chester)
I am enjoying all three. The Piper book, which tackles the New Perspective on Paul, is pretty heavy going but good to stretch my brain.
Reformed Missology - Preface
As I have mentioned in a previous post, I intend to put some thoughts up on how a reformed theology might inform and shape our missiology. Before doing that I wanted to give some prefatory comments.
First, I am not intending on exhaustively defending a reformed theology - there are others much better qualified than I to do this. The validity of the viewpoint will be assumed.
I will not be suggesting that my conclusions are the be all and end all.
I will inevitably “contrast” against a more free-will orientated viewpoint, but will try to be as gracious as possible in doing so.
Here we go…
Can you handle the Truth?
I quite enjoy studying Biblical Doctrine. As I am not a bible college student, pastor or other “professional” this probably puts me in the category of eccentric weird guy.
I have particularly been meditating/reading/listening up on God’s sovereignty, particularly as it relates to salvation. This is a very weighty topic, but also very crucial IMHO.
Matt from Journey’s in between has inspired me to consider how a reformed framework/theology might shape our missiology, and I will post on this soon. In the meantime, however, I am wondering whether the teaching of doctrine has been somewhat neglected in our churches?
Mars Hill will start a 12-odd week series on Doctrinal basics this Sunday. This content will essentially replace their Gospel Class which they use for inducting people as members.
As evangelicals we are sometimes accused of being all about bible (in terms of knowledge anyway) and lacking in other areas like social justice. Now while this is in some ways true, I have become less convinced that we even have enough bible understanding.
No doubt experience will be different across the city. For me, I did the Moore College Introduction to the Bible correspondence course last year. Great course and I would recommend it. The thing is, I was embarrassed by the amount that I learnt form that course, particularly with respect to the Old Testament.
Perhaps I am isolated in my experience, but if not, should we be more intentional about teaching our people doctrine? Or do we think that the average punter can’t cope with it?
Christology, Missiology, Ecclesiology
I have been steadily ploughing through my recent Amazon haul of books and am finding them all really helpful.
I will post some more complete thoughts later, but for now I wanted to mention a line of thinking that has come out from a number of authors, and has resonated with me.
The view is that we first and foremost must understand and define our Christology (who Jesus is and what is the Gospel) and this in turn drives and shapes our Missiology (why are we here, what are we here to do) and then against the backdrop of our cultural context we form our Ecclesiology (what we do and how we do it).
Michael Frost explicitly spells this out in his “Exiles” book.
I think sometimes my faith tribe (and others like it) can be a bit “Pauline”, i.e. skewed toward the NT Epistles, and in turn de-emphaise the Gospels, reducing them to “Jesus died, rose, ascended,believe in him and be saved”.
I am now trying to re-discover the Gospels and perhaps move towards more well rounded view of ‘the’ Gospel.
Music that Ticks all the boxes
I am no doubt late to this party, but I am gaining appreciation for the music put out by the Sovereign Grace guys.I downloaded Valley of Vision last night (bargain price of US$6 for the whole album), which are songs based on some of the prayers of the Puritans.
I am very impressed. The music is well written, can be played without a full band (though would be better with one), is singable and is lyrically sound. In short it ticks all the boxes.
It seems music from Sovereign Grace is making an impact in a few places. Craig S comments on his blog that Annadale are using more and more SG stuff as well.
I would encourage anyone currently on a diet of Hillsong music to check out these guys. They are charismatic in style, yet reformed in doctrine and so show that lyrically good music does not have to sound like nails down a blackboard.
The Atonement - The Jewel of our Faith
I know I can be a bit of a Mark Driscoll apologist, but I have been listening through the “Christ on the Cross” series he did a while back, and have been finding it great.
Duck, Duck, Damn
Phil Johnson over at the Team Pyro blog has initiated a firestorm of commenting over his post on Total Depravity.
The concept of total depravity (which basically says that people left to their own device and will cannot turn to God) leads on to issues of spiritual regeneration and therefore election or predestination.
Growing up the whole topic of predestination has always been clouded in mystery and a sense of “don’t even go near it” and so it was always relegated to the too hard basket. Until recently (thanks to the ‘net) I’d never heard it preached on, and bible studies always glossed over any reference to it, let alone focus on understanding it.
This always frustrated me. I understand that this, like many doctrines, is full of tensions and mystery, but that is no excuse for not coming to as complete an understanding as is possible.
Anyway, this weeks installment in the Mars Hill Religion Saves and 9 Other Misconceptions series is where Mark Driscoll tackles Predestination (or Duck, Duck, Damn as he calls it). There is also a very comprehensive post by Pastor Mark here.
This is a hard doctrine, but one worth studying and understanding as best as we can.
Exam Report
So my Intro to the Bible exam is done and dusted.
I think I did OK (trying not to be too cocky). I certainly finished (20 min early) and I recall my answers seemed very sensible at the time.
My big essay question was on the theme of salvation from Genesis to Revelation. What an awesome topic. I even managed to throw in some big words like propitiation and proto-evangelion. No idea whether the markers from Moore will appreciate this or not? Oh and yes, I do understand what they mean!
Seriously though, I reckon this course (or something equivalent) should be compulsory for anyone calling themselves a Christian. It really was very good. And embarrassingly helpful.
I think I’ll hit New Testament 1 next, though Reformation Church history is also on offer and that would also be gold.
In the word,
Jeff
Am I Pre-mellennial/Post-Mellenniual/Amellenial/fundamentalist/post-Christian….
Thought it might be good to give a brief doctrinal stance out of the chute…
I have what’s sometimes called a two handed theology…
Closed hand - non negotiables:
- One God, three persons, Father, Son, Spirit
- He created the Heavens and the Earth, including people as male and female
- Jesus was incarnate as a man and belief in him and his work on the cross is the ONLY way we can be saved to eternal life
- Hell is real and it’s hot
- The bible is God’s inspired, infallible word and it alone has athuority over our lives
- Salvation of the elect was predestined by God, but urgent proclaiming of the gospel to all people is part of God’s sovereign plan for us
Open hand - up for difference of opinion:
- Eschatology - no one really knows what will happen and arguing about it is a waste of time
- Worship/liturgical styles - horses for courses (though I hate the organ)
- Charismatic gifts - tongues, prophecy etc…don’t have ‘em, but happy that others do
- Alcohol - if you can handle it and not get drunk, enjoy, if not go dry
There are other non-negotiables, but the above captures the main ones.
Jeff
