Character Is Everything

Finally finished the excellent biography of "Matthew Henry His Life and Influence" by Allan Harman of Australia. Aside from being a loving husband and father (his own plus adopted children), pastor, friend, bible expositor and writer of many books he is best known for his six volume "Commentary on the Whole Bible." It is interesting to note that his books were accepted and loved by many in his day ( and now 300 years later) because of the example of Henry's godly character. When he was mentioned in writings of others, "...all references are to his integrity of character and the graces that he displayed." (Pg 201)

Leading with Passion

In studying the book of Titus, it is evident that a spiritual servant leader cannot effectively lead without passion for Christ and His ministry for His glory. If you are a leader of a mission/ministry do you pray and work hard at effectively improving and growing the work? Do you seek to expand the work nation and worldwide, build up a team of prayerful team and volunteers, serve as a shepherd of your team, speak during the week and weekends; in other words practices passionate leadership? Or do you just float alone, simply managing the office, not leading but dictating, looking forward to retirement, building a "yes" board and holding on to your position of comfortable directorship? May the Lord give each of use a zeal to lead for the glory of Christ!

5 Great Reasons to Memorize Scripture Today

by Tim Challies

There are few areas of the Christian life where there is a wider gap between what Christians want to do and what Christians actually do than in this area: memorizing Scripture. We all know that we should, we all have some appreciation of the benefits, and we would all love to be released from the guilt of doing it so little. Here, courtesy of Donald Whitney and his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (now in a brand new edition), are 5 great reasons to memorize Scripture today.

Memorization Supplies Spiritual Power. “When Scripture is stored in your mind, it is available for the Holy Spirit to bring to your attention when you need it most.” No wonder, then, that David write, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” “A pertinent scriptural truth, brought to your awareness by the Holy Spirit at just the right moment, can be the weapon that makes the difference in a spiritual battle.”

Memorization Strengthens Your Faith. “Memorization strengthens your faith because it repeatedly reinforces the truth, often just when you need to hear it again.” But it can only reinforce truth that you have already committed to memory.

Memorization Prepares Us for Witnessing and Counseling. “Recently, while I was talking to a man about Jesus, he said something that brought to mind a verse I had memorized. I quoted that verse, and it was the turning point in a conversation that resulted in him professing faith in Christ. I often experience something similar in counseling conversations. But until the verses are hidden in the heart, they aren’t available to use with the mouth.”

Memorization Provides a Means of God’s Guidance. David wrote, “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” “Just as the Holy Spirit retrieves scriptural truth from our memory banks for use in counseling others, so also will He bring it to our minds in providing timely guidance for ourselves.”

Memorization Stimulates Meditation. “One of the most amazing benefits of memorizing Scripture is that it provides fuel for meditation. When you have memorized a verse of Scripture, you can meditate on it anywhere at any time during the day or night.” Then you can be like David who exclaimed, “Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day.”

Here is a final call to action:

The Word of the Word is the “sword of the Spirit,” but if there is no Bible physically accessible to you, then the weapon of the Word must be present in the armory of your mind in order for the Spirit to wield it. Imagine yourself in the midst of a decision and needing guidance, or struggling with a difficult temptation and needing victory. The Holy Spirit enters your mental arsenal and looks around for available weapons, but all He finds is a John 3:16, and Genesis 1:1, and a Great Commission. Those are great swords, but they’re not made for every battle.

The only solution is to commit to memorizing the Word of God. For God’s sake, as an expression of your desire to be used by him, fill up that arsenal.

Source: http://www.challies.com/quotes/5-great-reasons-to-memorize-scripture-today

Was Adam an Historical Person?

 by Guy Waters

“In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” So begins the New England Primer, which taught generations of early Americans to read. In introducing our forefathers to the letter A, the primer was also administering a generous dose of biblical theology. As Paul puts it crisply in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Through Adam, sin and death entered into the world. By Christ, sin and death were conquered. Adam forfeited life by his disobedience. Christ achieved life by His obedience. These simple, basic truths, Paul tells the Corinthians, are the very structure and content of the gospel.

In the modern world, skeptics have long questioned or denied the historicity of Adam. Neo-orthodox theologians added their voices to this chorus in the last century. More recently, and under the pressure of evolutionary theory, some prominent evangelical voices have as well. One prominent evangelical Old Testament scholar has argued that “it is not necessary that Adam be a historical individual for [Genesis 1–2] to be without error in what it intends to teach.” Another well-known evangelical Old Testament scholar denies that “a literal Adam [was] the first man and cause of sin and death.” Even so, he continues, we may retain “three core elements of the gospel,” namely, “the universal and self-evident problem of death; the universal and self-evident problem of sin; the historical event of the death and resurrection of Christ.”

It may help to pause and review what the issues in this particular debate are and what they are not. The issues do not concern the age of the earth and of the universe. Neither do they concern how we are to understand the days of Genesis 1. Reformed evangelicals have disagreed on these issues for generations, all the while affirming their common belief that Adam was a historical person.

We may frame the issue in the form of two related questions. First, does the Bible require us to believe that Adam was a historical person? Second, would anything be lost in the gospel if we were to deny Adam’s historicity?

In answer to the first question, yes, the Bible requires us to believe that Adam was a historical person. Some of the clearest testimony about Adam comes from the New Testament. When explaining Genesis 2, Jesus clearly speaks of the first man and the first woman in historical terms, and of the institution of marriage in historical terms (Matt. 19:4–6). The Apostle Paul, in referring to Genesis 2, speaks of Adam and Eve in terms equally historical (1 Tim. 2:12–14).

In 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5, Paul places Adam and Jesus in parallel relationship. Paul calls Jesus the “Second Adam”—there is none between Adam and Jesus (1 Cor. 15:47). He also calls Jesus the “Last Adam”—there is none after Jesus (v. 45).

This relationship requires Adam to be a historical person. Paul compares Adam and Christ in terms of what each man did. Paul speaks of Adam’s one trespass in eating the forbidden fruit, and of Christ’s obedience unto death and resurrection unto life. For the comparison to hold, Adam’s actions must be as fully historical as Christ’s actions are historical, and Adam must be as historical a person as Christ was and remains.

So then, the Bible requires us to believe that Adam was a historical person. Now, taking up our second question, what are we to make of the argument that nothing in the gospel would be lost if we were to deny Adam’s historicity? May we uphold universal sin and death while discounting the way in which the Scripture says sin and death entered the world? The answer is no. The Bible does not give us that option. It clearly teaches that sin entered the world through the one action of one historical man, Adam (Rom. 5:12). If we reject the Bible’s account of a historical point of entry for sin into human existence, then, as Richard Gaffin has rightly observed, sin is no longer a matter of “human fallenness.” It is a matter of “human givenness.” It is just the way that human beings are.

This understanding of our plight upends the gospel. Absent a historical fall, the Bible’s account of redemption through the Second and Last Adam, Jesus Christ, makes no sense at all. How can it at all be meaningful to say with the Bible that God, in His sovereign and infinite mercy, has recovered and restored what was lost in the fall? To deny the historicity of Adam is no trivial matter. It has radical implications for the way in which we look at human nature, evil, and redemption.

The second lesson of the New England Primer, teaching the letter B, is “Thy life to mend / this Book [the Bible] attend.” Having clarified our human problem in biblical terms with its lesson on the letter A, the primer then articulates the solution in equally biblical terms with its lesson on the letter B. Wise counsel indeed. And what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/was-adam-historical-person/

Four Moments I'm Preparing Students to Face

by Cameron Cole

Ministry to children and youth for both parents and church workers focuses on cultivating followers of Christ with sustainable faith. Basically, we want the faith of our young people to stick when they leave our homes and churches to live as independent adults.

As I listen to and observe the faith journeys of former students and young adults, I often see pivotal moments along the way that constitute “make or break” tests of their faith. Discipling my students, I am preparing them for these four moments. Read more ...

Ann Coulter and Our Mission

by Russell Moore

In recent days, Donald Trump and Ann Coulter have kicked up a lot of social media dust about the Christian missionaries being treated for Ebola. Trump essentially patted missionaries on the head, saying its great if you go overseas to do stuff, but you pay the consequences. Coulter was, per usual, even worse. She argued that American Christians shouldn’t even be going to Africa. “Can’t people serve Christ in America anymore?” she asked.

Many Christians were horrified because they rightly understood that Coulter’s comments are a repudiation of the gospel and the Great Commission. Read more ...

One Basic Requirement for Leadership -- Humility

1. Do you eat with the common folk? Do you associate with the insignificant and ordinary on your team, ministry, or church?
2. Do you manage by “walking the floor”? Does everyone in organization know you? Do you spend time with them? Do you check on their work for encouragement and challenge, not for criticism? 
3. How much time do you spend pastoring your team? Are you concerned about their marriage, walk with God, their children? Do you make an effort to assist them? You may think this is not necessary, but in a Christian ministry, each leader is responsible under God for their people. Your job is not just a 9 to 5 job, but a constant involvement with your team.

Character is King by Tim Challies

Gallons of virtual ink have been spilled over the weekend as people have discussed the latest news in the ongoing saga of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church: both he and his church have been removed from Acts 29, the church-planting network he helped establish. This is only the latest incident in a long, steep, and very public decline. The news has been reported in Christian outlets, all over the local Seattle media, and as far afield as Huffington Post, TIME, and the Washington Post.

As the situation comes into focus through scandal after scandal, it becomes increasingly clear that there are, and always have been, systemic issues at Mars Hill. Many of those issues are directly related to the sins and weaknesses of the church’s founder and leader.

I am much too far outside the situation to comment on the particulars; there are many places you can go to get caught up and to learn details, with Wikipedia as good a place as any to begin. One area that I haven’t seen anyone explore yet is what the news means to the wider movement that has come to be known as New Calvinism. I want to think about how it pertains to the majority of us who know Driscoll only by association as a prominent voice in a movement we share. What should we learn from it?

The first I heard of Driscoll, at least to my recollection, was after the publication of his first book, The Radical Reformission. This—late 2004 or early 2005—was the time when most of us first heard his name, and when we began to read his books, to listen to his sermons, and to look him up on YouTube, even if only for sake of curiosity.

As I read his book in 2005, and followed it with     in 2006, I felt both admiration for what Driscoll taught and concern for how he taught it. I loved most of his theology, but was concerned about his coarseness.

In 2006 Driscoll was more formally introduced to the New Calvinism with his inclusion in the Desiring God National Conference and even then he was a controversial figure. When Piper invited him again in 2008 he recorded a short video to explain why he had extended the invitation. These words stand out: “I love Mark Driscoll’s theology.” While Piper did not deny the concerns, he loved Driscoll’s theology and loved what the Lord was doing through him.

Many of us felt the same way. We didn’t quite know what to think about the man, but we loved his theology. We loved what he believed because we believed most of the same things.

Bear with me as I artificially divide Driscoll’s ministry into three parts: theology (what he said), practice (how he said it) and results (what happened). So many of us had genuine concerns over the second part, but were willing to excuse or downplay them on the basis of the first and third. Yes, he was crude and yes, he sometimes said or did outrageous things, but he never wavered in publicly proclaiming the gospel and both his church and his church-planting movement continued to grow. We were confused. We did not have a clear category for this. We had concerns, but the Lord seemed to be using him. So we recommended his podcasts, or bought his books, even if we had to provide a small caveat each time.

In retrospect, I see this as a mark of immaturity in the New Calvinism, in what in that day was called the Young, Restless, Reformed. It was the young and the restless that allowed us to be so easily impressed. To large degree, we propelled Driscoll to fame through our admiration—even if it was hesitant admiration. (You can read an article I wrote in 2008, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mark Driscoll?, to see how I did this; reading it today, it seems awfully naive and immature, doesn’t it?)

In those early years I traveled to quite a few conferences and had the opportunity to hear from several of the church’s elder statesmen—men who have had long and faithful ministries within the church. At every conference Q&A someone would inevitably ask, “What am I supposed to think about Mark Driscoll?” I heard many answers, but time and again I heard mature leaders express concern. Many of them were convinced he did not meet the biblical qualifications to be a pastor and, therefore, should not be in ministry. Some of them said, with regret, that they were convinced his ministry would eventually and inevitably explode into scandal at some point.

At the time I was tempted to take this for pessimism or a curmudgeon’s spirit. But then Driscoll’s ministry exploded into scandal. Now I have to see it as wisdom—wisdom that comes from many years of observation and many years of searching the Scriptures. These men knew what we overlooked: Character is king.

When the Bible lays out qualifications to ministry, it is character that rules every time. The Bible says little about skill and less still about results. It heralds character. And from the early days, Mark Driscoll showed outstanding natural abilities which led to amazing results. He knew and proclaimed sound theology. But he also showed an absence of so many of the marks of godly character. A hundred testimonies from a hundred hurt friends and former church members shows that what we saw from the outside was only a dim reflection of what was happening on the inside. The signposts were there, but we ignored them.

The young and the restless are, I hope, growing up and settling down. A young movement responds eagerly to things a mature movement does not. I doubt we will see another Mark Driscoll anytime soon—someone known equally for crudeness and for gospel preaching. We get it now, I think. The two are incompatible.

It is my hope that an enduring lesson for the New Calvinism is that character matters. As Christians and as a movement, we need to allow this example to put to death any lingering pragmatism that judges the means by the results. Numerical growth and shared theology are wonderful, but insufficient. It is character that qualifies a man to ministry. God’s Word could hardly be clearer in this regard. Let’s allow this tragic situation to cause us to look with fresh eyes at the biblical qualifications for a man who would be a leader within the church. That would be the healthiest outcome for a movement that prides itself on health.

Source: http://p.feedblitz.com/t3.asp?/5575/4105342/4805939/feeds.feedblitz.com/~/71637699/0/challies~Character-Is-King?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=5575&utm_campaign=0

The Need for Church Bookstores

by Dr. James Emery White

As someone relatively familiar with the publishing industry, having just published my twentieth book, I read Philip Yancey’s recent article in Books and Culture with great interest. Titled “Farewell to the Golden Age,” it is an informed and insightful analysis of the end of publishing as we have known it.

Beyond just analyzing the rise of e-books and self-publishing and the demise of bookstores and back catalogs, Yancey explores what has been lost. Here are a few of his points, along with some of my own.

From Pastor Joe

Dear family & friends,

Thank you for the love, support, and words of encouragement. On Sunday, I shared with the congregation of Living Hope Bible Church about my recent health condition. After experiencing some problems with my vision, I saw an ophthalmologist who wisely sent me to have an MRI. Their suspicions were confirmed that I specifically had a pituitary tumor in my head. The good news is that it was treatable, benign in the vast majority of cases, and there was a top-notch team at Swedish Hospital that specialized in the treatment of this tumor. The tumor, however, is large and wrapped around my one of my major arteries.

I met with the primary surgeon today and I was very encouraged. It was quickly determined that I should have surgery and one has been scheduled for this Wednesday around 9 AM. The majority of the tumor can be removed safely in only an hour, but because of the risk involved with bleeding, the portion around the artery would not be removed. It should not pose any danger to me and I am encouraged because the surgery itself is very often successful with only small risks involved. Medication and monitoring will be a part of my long-term treatment.

Your prayers and love are very much appreciated. Isaiah 26:3-4 has been an encouragement to me and God has given me great peace and joy over the future: The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, For in God the Lord, we have an everlasting Rock." God's grace is and always will be sufficient.

Overall, my family and I are doing well and I am so very thankful. Scriptures have filled my mind and songs have filled my heart. May the Word dwell richly in you as well (Colossians 3:16).

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.

For His Glory,

Joe Lum

Pastor

Pray for Pastor Joe Lum, Living Hope Bible Church

Our Pastor Joe Lum has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The following info was written by a member of Living Hope Bible Church, Issaquah, WA for prayer:

Pastor Joe will be meeting with a team of doctors at Swedish Hospital, where they will discuss the next course of action (most likely, surgery very soon).

I had a tough time writing this email, as I've known Pastor Joe for over 20 years. I, as with many of you, have been blessed to have been able to work alongside him on several projects and for several years. He's been not only a great friend and brother, but also a first-rate pastor who truly love people and has a heart for the lost. I was very saddened to hear the news, but I know that God has a purpose for this.

I ask that you all please pray fervently for our pastor (every day). It is probable that he will undergo surgery very soon. Please pray for wisdom for the doctors, sure-handedness for the surgeons and that it would be God's will that Pastor Joe make a full recovery. Please pray that The Lord would provide strength and comfort to him and his family. Most of all, please pray the The Lord would be glorified through this time of trial. May Pastor Joe be able to use his circumstance to share the love of Christ and the hope we have in The Lord.

In His loving hands,
Vicky Wu
Living Hope Bible Church
"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have it's perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4