H.B.log

Get to know a theologian: Graeme Goldsworthy

I generally rank my favorite teachers in two lists: a "dead guys" list and an "alive guys" list.  Among the living, I have to put Graeme Goldsworthy in my top-five.  I've never met Graeme (never met most of my favorite teachers).  Hailing from Sydney, Austrailia, he might as well be from "parts unknown" (ala Kamala the Ugandan Warrior and other assorted villans from my youth).  However, through his writing, I feel like I've learned at his feet for the past few years.

Goldsworthy specializes in a discipline called "biblical theology" which is the study of how the different parts of the Bible fit together to tell a unified story.  He's been my primary guide to this field, and it influences ALL of my preaching and teaching.  His two books that have impacted me the most are According to Plan and Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture.  The former is a great place to start for any thinking person who wants to really "get" the Bible.  It doesn't even have a place on my bookshelf; I read it so often that I just leave it sitting by my desk chair.

Why do I bring this up now?  Because I discovered a great interview with Goldsworthy over at the Buzzard Blog.  You can read it here.

HT: Kevin Cawley

Wither Christian Masculinity?

Men are sorely missing in America's churches.  Some of them are really not there (i.e. not involved at all).  Others are not really there (i.e. teeth-gritting Sunday attenders because it is useful for maintaining good relations with a wife or girlfriend).  In neither case are men actually involved in the life and leadership of the church.  In response, a cottage industry of pundits has rushed in to help reverse-vasectomy the Church.  "Sing masculine songs and don't wear pink shirts" these sages tell us.  But are they really recovering Christian masculinity or just helping the Church to be more market savvy? 

Al Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, throws some on-target jabs in a recent article: "Thank God for Testosterone? Confusion About Christian Manhood."  He writes:

"Christian manhood is not about beating chests and celebrating testosterone -- it is about showing up and doing what real Christian men do. Real manhood is demonstrated in the fulfillment of a man's assigned roles as husband, father, leader, servant, teacher, protector, and provider. Real manhood is in doing what men do, not endless talk about how great it is to be a man. Real Christian manhood is evident in taking up leadership in the home and in the church..."  Read the whole article.

HT: Kevin Cawley

Other Resources:
Kevin Cawley has an excellent post on this subject that first pointed me to Mohler's article.

I am forever grateful for Robert Lewis' series "Quest for Authentic Manhood" where he lays out a memorable theology of masculinity: "Reject passivity.  Accept responsibility.  Lead courageously.  Expect God's reward."  You can check it out at Mensfraternity.com.  Unfortunately, you'll need about $300 and 24 hours to get through the DVDs.  (Robert: PLEASE WRITE A BOOK!) 

    

Advent Blog - Wednesday 12/20

Why do we need to repent?

"Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2, 4:17).  That is the answer given to the above question by both Jesus and John the Baptist, which raises another question: Why does the kingdom of heaven's arrival require repentance?  The answer/story goes like this: God created the world to be a place that reflects his perfect beauty and order, his kingdom.  But there was a rebellion against God in the world when his prime ministers who were to help bring his kingdom started fighting for a guerrilla cause.  The entire creation was "subjected to futility" (Rom. 8) as a reflection of the fissure between King and PM.  Now, God has a plan to restore the kingdom to earth, but in order to complete it, he'll have to subdue all rebels because you can't have an exhaustive kingdom if some of the people are still paying loyalty to a puppet imposter king.  And how do you subdue rebels?  By force...by the sword.

So if we are all, in some sense, rebellious against the true king of the world (Romans 3:23), then the arrival of his kingdom should cause us to shiver and tremble.  We're deserve the cold sword.  But before bringing the sword, God comes offering a truce.  Jesus comes first in humility to bear the punishment that was ours and offer peace.  He'll come again with the sword to subdue all of God's enemies who keep on fighting.  And so, we should repent.  We should accept the peace agreement.  "Unless you repent, you will likewise perish" (Luke 13:3).      

Advent Blog - Tuesday 12/19

What is repentance?

Many of this week's passages focus on repentance, a word that doesn't get a lot of airplay in modern churches.  In our service last Sunday, we looked at how John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus' coming: "Bear fruits in keeping with repentance."  This command was soon on the lips of Jesus too.  "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mt. 4:17).  "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3).  And I know it's a provocative word for many.  Just what is repentance?  Why do we need to repent?  How is repentance related to the gospel of grace?  Though a blog is not the best forum to write complex theological pieces, I'll try to briefly deal with these questions this week as we sled uphill toward Christmas.

Sometimes it's easiest to describe something by what it is not.  Repentance is not nodding your head at Daddy and promising to straighten up and fly right so Santa will still visit next week.  It's not just "confess your sin" or "change your behavior" or "be a good boy or girl."  Those things might result from repentance, but repentance itself is much deeper.  Most linguists agree that the Greek word translated "repent" (metanoeo) literally means "change of mind."  It is an inward turn, a new way of looking at God and the world, a change of perspective.

We might even go a step further to say that repentance is a radical change in perspective - so radical that it begins to show up in your life.  Confession: Since moving to Denver, I have tried to become a Broncos fan, but I haven't really repented of other allegiances.  How do I know?  Because I have another sporting love, the Arkansas Razorbacks, and my life is much more oriented toward them than the Broncos.  I'll fly half-way across the country for a Razorback game; I haven't once driven the two miles from my home to Invesco Field on a Sunday afternoon.  I will cancel all social engagements when the Hogs are on TV; I'll run errands during Broncos games and check the score later.  I own Razorback caps, t-shirts, car decals, and Christmas tree ornaments; I just bought my first piece of Broncos paraphernalia last week, a $10 stocking cap (youth size XL).  I haven't repented from the Hogs to embrace the Way of Elway.

No, repentance is a radical change of mind and heart.  It's not confession and change of behavior, but it begins to produce those things.  Again, John the Baptist: "bear fruits in keeping with repentance."  So, here is a nuance that is extremely important: Fruits (confession of sin, change of behavior) are not the same thing as a repentance (radical change of mind and heart), but they always follow from it.  The nuance is important because it tells us this: It's impossible to repent and not see evidence, but it is possible to fake the evidence and not repent.  It's possible to buy a Broncos stocking cap without really being reoriented toward the Broncos.  But it's impossible to truly embrace the Broncos and not want to watch their games on TV, go to their games in person, and hate the Raiders.  It's possible to give Jesus grudging service and half-hearted praise and occasional attendance at one of his boring churches.  But it's impossible to truly repent of sin and embrace Jesus without confessing sin and bearing fruit.  Repentance is a radical inward change - so radical that it determines how we spend our time, invest our money, treat our bodies, have sex, treat the poor, and relate to Jesus' other quirky annoying followers. 

Vintage or Retrofitted Christianity?

My colleague Dave Morlan and I have hosted several coffee shop seminars and open forums on the "historical Jesus" and certain themes keep popping up: Everyone loves Jesus and wants to claim they're on his side; he might have been cursed in Jerusalem, but in pluralistic America he's warmly tolerated as one of the good guys.  Thus, the key question is not "do you accept Jesus" but "which picture of Jesus should you accept?"

There is a subtle temptation to not press that second question.  Many people would like to gather around the generic name Jesus and not get into particulars.  "Doctrine divides" is often the mantra.  But if we do press it, there are two general ways of answering the question.  One way insists that Jesus is who the Apostles and classic Christian creeds say he is: Eternal Son of God who became flesh and dwelt among us, God and man in one person, resurrected from the dead, Lord of heaven and earth, returning to judge the living and the dead.  The other way would say something like, "I'll take a gentle, humble, peace-loving rabbi who drove a Volkswagen, but hold the God, Lord, Judge part."  From these two competing Christologies, people derive different versions of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

For a while, I've struggled to describe these two approaches in a way that doesn't kill the conversation.  "Orthodox" and "Heterodox" would be historically accurate, but these terms are not tolerated kindly by the tolerant.  So how can we talk honestly yet winsomely about these two very competing Jesuses?  Mark Roberts suggests "Retrofitted Christianity" for the more liberally minded version, which I suppose would make the orthodox one "Vintage?" 

Read Mark's very interesting series of posts on "Retrofitted Christianity" as he interacts with uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan's notions of Jesus and Christianity.