The Language of the Debate (2)

The Christian media urgently wants Christians to stop believing — and even more importantly, to stop circulating — what it calls “conspiracy theories”. I previously came across and responded to one of the earliest of these calls to cease and desist back in September of last year, and lo and behold, here are a whole bunch more folks writing almost exactly the same thing Aaron Brake wrote at Stand to Reason, and maybe even more so.

Interfaith Now says Christians “have to do better”. Christianity.com says, “Let’s unite together in spreading God’s truth, not rumors!” Relevant magazine argues that Christians only believe in “conspiracies” because they need to feel like they are in control. Christianity Today insists, “Gullibility is not a spiritual gift.”

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

My youngest son has an amazing memory for detail. If you play him a song he’s familiar with, he can tell you when he first heard it — year, month and sometimes day — where we were and what we were doing at the time, and probably what video game was released that week.

I, on the other hand, can go back into the ComingUntrue archives, read a two-year-old post, and wonder “Who wrote that?”

It was usually me.

Anonymous Asks (111)

“How often do you need to say ‘amen’?”

This is kind of a different question, because it’s really more a matter of etiquette than morality.

Amen is one of those weird words that is exactly the same whether you’re looking through a Greek or a Hebrew concordance. It’s a Hebrew word that Greek-speaking Christians in the early church picked up and used to mean the same thing it meant within Judaism. In the King James it is often translated as “verily”. It is an affirmation of agreement. It simply means “indeed”, “so be it” or “absolutely”. Sometimes it means Yeah, me too. I feel that exact feeling, I think that exact thing and I want exactly that to happen. “Amen” is convenient shorthand for all that.

Time and Chance: The Post-Game Show

The heavens declare the glory of God and God’s invisible attributes have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made; our Old and New Testaments are in absolute agreement on this. Even if the Creator had never uttered a word to his creatures, men would be without excuse.

We would also be hopelessly confused, frustrated, and conflicted, grasping for an explanation of meaning and purpose that forever eludes us, feeling the pull of eternity in bodies destined only for the grave.

Time and Chance (54)

We have arrived in our study of Ecclesiastes at what the Preacher calls “the end of the matter”. The matter under consideration, if you have a long memory, was this: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” What is the point of man’s existence? Why are we here? This was the question he set out to answer.

Through twelve chapters, the Preacher has undertaken the task of examining the experience of being human from every possible angle in hope of gaining insight into its meaning and purpose, always using only what he could observe and infer from the input of his senses. What he discovered was that when you approach the big questions of life in that way, the experience is frustrating and the answers elusive.

Too Hot to Handle: After COVID

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Immanuel Can: I’m noticing a very common theme springing up in news organizations and on the internet right now. There are lots of articles talking about the changes to society that will persist after the COVID-19 crisis is over. For instance, ABC says the major things that will remain different will be: more automation and more work-from-home options in employment, increased telemedicine, stricter travel regulations and precautions, and more virtual education. Another media source predicts masks everywhere, no more handshakes, loads of anxious parents, closer cliques, more centralized government control, smaller cities ... and a whole bunch of other things. All that’s speculation, of course. But some of it’s probably going to turn out to be right.

It seems what’s missing from such articles, Tom, is any reflection on what all the shifts will do to local congregations of Christians. Of course they will be subject to the same changes as anyone else, for starters. But are there any special concerns that Christians should take note of? What trends do you see as either opportunities or ominous possibilities for Christians after COVID?

Three Reasons to Get Going

The most recent version of this post is available here. 

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (13)

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

The commendably-honest Sarah Frazer acknowledges she once believed this familiar promise in Psalm 37 meant “I can have anything I want.” If so, that would be quite a promise, but it would reduce God to a mere term in a larger equation, where if you treat that term a consistent way, you can always expect a predictable outcome.

Nice deal if you can get it, but quite a comedown for the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe to be reduced to a component of your personal math problem.

Let’s suggest that might not be the verse’s intended meaning!

That Guy Outside Starbucks is NOT Jesus’ Brother

God bless the poor.

In fact, I don’t even have to ask him: we’ve been told he will; at least inasmuch as their poverty is primarily one of the spirit.

But we should pray for the poor, of course, and share as we are able. We should care, we ought to avoid partiality and we need to act. Our faith does not amount to much if it does not make us compassionate in a very practical way toward those in need, and toward those who may have started life at a huge disadvantage, or have encountered trials and troubles we have never experienced.

But that guy outside Starbucks who invades your space — the one with the tatty green or brown jacket, bad breath, body odor and uncomfortable social habits — while he may be made in the image of God and deserving of whatever we are able to do for him for that reason alone …

Sorry, that guy is just not Jesus’ “brother”.

Anonymous Asks (110)

“What should a believer do before he dies?”

Some denominations prescribe rituals to be administered by the church in a man or woman’s final moments on earth, and perhaps this week’s question is coming from someone with that sort of ecclesiastical background.

If religious routines are what the dying are calling for, we would not wish to rob them of their comfort, but I should probably point out that we do not find any commands at all about “last rites” in our Bibles. The Christian is neither obligated to perform them nor to have them performed. It may even be that the practice encourages a false sense of security about one’s relationship to Christ and one’s eternal destiny.

That would be very unfortunate indeed. In any case, it’s not the sort of preparation we are going to discuss today.

Act Like What You Are

Clean living requires an act of the will, and acts of the will require a changed mindset — at least if they are going to stick for any length of time. Down through the centuries, men and women who sought to control their natural appetites have attempted to “live clean” with different goals in view.

Plato taught the suppression of fleshly desires in order to free the soul to search for knowledge. The Stoics disciplined themselves to manage their emotions in order to uphold what they believed was the essential dignity of human nature. Kant advocated moral asceticism in hope of cultivating virtue. Monks of various religious orders idealized poverty, fasting and celibacy as ways of expressing devotion to their gods.

Time and Chance (53)

With the advent of the internet, we have become all too used to people sharing their opinions with us.

Editorializing is far from a new activity — human beings have engaged in it for millennia. What’s new is the sheer scale of useless bloviating made possible through social media. More information is fine, but information bereft of both authority and coherence is not worth the effort it takes to process.

Back in Ecclesiastes, the Preacher is about to tell his readers something similar.

Too Hot to Handle: The Christian Globalist

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Inbox: Was Christ Actually ‘Good’?

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If It Happens Again I’m Leaving

Doug Wilson is not the only Christian blogging about the phenomenon of people leaving a church over the issue of compulsory mask-wearing, but he’s probably more quoted on the subject than most. Responding in a recent post to questions from believers frustrated by the stand their own elders have taken over the issue, Doug has (perhaps inadvertently) opened a larger can of worms than the mask issue itself, which is the authority of elders to bind the consciences of those under their care over matters about which scripture is silent.

And the mask issue is certainly that.

Inbox: ‘Systemic’ Racism

Israel had the greatest system in the history of our planet.

God gave a plethora of laws to Moses on Sinai, yet they did not make for a perfect society because people are not perfect. Individuals observed those laws from time to time, and in doing so, benefited from them. But on a national level, Israel would not — nay, could not — follow those laws, notwithstanding the fact that they were morally excellent, decent, orderly, and taught lessons humanity absolutely needed to learn, not to mention they pointed to Christ. So God gave them, man received them, and the result was systemic failure.

Or was it?

Anonymous Asks (109)

“If God loves the world, why does he make people choose between loving him back or spending eternity in hell? That sounds more like an ultimatum than love.”

I agree: that choice does sound a bit like an ultimatum. The Bible also frames it as a command.

Why is that? Why is there no third option where God simply leaves me alone to do my own thing, and I leave him alone to do his? Surely a policy of benign indifference would be more loving than condemning millions of people to a lake of fire.

I wonder what simply leaving humanity to its own devices would look like ...

Semi-Random Musings (21)

Most of our readers would not be aware that I have been at the office almost non-stop these last few weeks as a consequence of a plethora of COVID-related staff absences. That’s not because even a single employee of hundreds across the globe has contracted the coronavirus — so far as I know, they are all healthy as horses — but because almost nobody currently working from home has any enthusiasm about returning to work in the current environment, and the corporate powers that be are even less enthusiastic about ordering them to do so. The vast majority of my co-workers seem content to hunker down in their basements doing not too much of anything until sometime in Spring 2021.

Yeah, sure … that’ll be the end of it. Right.

Time and Chance (52)

Just this week, a friend of mine took his three-and-half-year-old grandson hiking through a local terraced cemetery. As they climbed, they stopped to read a gravestone together at every level. Recognizing the shape of the recurring word forms, the little boy soon began to repeat phrases like “In loving memory” and “beloved wife”.

When the two returned home to tell Grandma what they had been up to, her agitated response was, “I hope you didn’t tell him what the numbers mean.”

Yeah, those numbers …

Too Hot to Handle: The Chosen

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The Chosen is a largely-crowdfunded, independent, ongoing video series which debuted on YouTube in April 2019 with the goal of retelling the gospel stories mainly from the perspective of their minor characters and emphasizing the life-changing nature of their interactions with the Lord Jesus. In the words of Josh Shepherd at Christianity Today, its creators aimed for it to be “faithful to the biblical text while gritty in tone”.

Tom: Hmm. In my opinion, the grit is definitely visible, but not necessarily off-putting.

Who Your Friends Are

“You are those who have stood by me in my trials.”

In my youth I had two friends with whom I was particularly close. Both were highly talented, creative, driven and smart. It was only a matter of time until both made good in the world and became successful, wealthy and celebrated.

But when I met them all that was yet to come. It wasn’t apparent yet that they were going anywhere. They were in a high-risk career line, trying to catch that key break that many folks thought might never come. “Get a haircut, and get a real job” was the advice they heard a lot.

Too bad for the naysayers. Both hit the big time.

Inbox: What’s Right with It?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

A Sheet of Glass

Now and then when I’m unable to write a new post for one reason or another, I’ll recycle something from our archives, generally without comment. But I couldn’t help but notice that this end-of-2014 post about the suddenness with which change comes to our world was definitely NOT inadvertently prophetic. Not one bit. Really.

Last week, Matt Drudge linked to an article in The Guardian that informs us “we are safer, richer and healthier than at any time on record”. In “Goodbye to one of the best years in history”, Fraser Nelson wraps up 2014 by reminding his readers that while it may have escaped our notice:

• our lives now are more peaceful than at any time known to the human species;
• global capitalism has transferred wealth faster than foreign aid ever could;
• global life expectancy now stands at a new high of 71.5 years;
• traffic deaths are down by two-thirds since 1990; and
• there has never been a better reason for people the world over to wish each other a happy and prosperous new year.

While Mr. Nelson may have overlooked one or two little atrocities here and there in his glowing report on the human condition, he makes an effort to substantiate his claim that relatively at least we are doing pretty well as a species.

Terrific for us, until things change. And change is coming.

Anonymous Asks (108)

“Why do we follow some Levitical laws and not others?”

Whenever we associate living the Christian life with following the Law of Moses, we run the risk of becoming very confused. Surprisingly, the relationship between Christianity and Old Testament Judaism is still much misunderstood today, even though the matter was conclusively sorted out very early in church history. It’s a situation made worse today by systems of theology that conflate the church with Israel.

But if we have our theology right, we will find Christians do not “follow Levitical laws” at all.

Incidentally …

An idle remark made in passing may tell us considerably more about its speaker than listening to him lecture for an hour on a prepared topic.

Likewise, it is often the case that the little “asides” made by the writers of the New Testament in the process of teaching are as interesting as — and sometime even more interesting than — the subjects themselves.

Nothing in scripture is simply there to fill up space. Even incidental comments are full of important truth.

Time and Chance (51)

Ah, vanity. That expression again.

As I have mentioned on more than one occasion during our study of Ecclesiastes, the list of things its writer characterizes as “vanity” in his thesis is lengthy. Over thirty different features of human existence are so described, a partial list of which you can find here, from hedonism to workaholism to discontentment and entropy.

Too Hot to Handle: The Peasants Are Revolting

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Merged into the Mob

The most recent version of this post is available here.

No Standing

The argument may be made that John Glover Roberts Jr. is the most powerful man in America.

As the 17th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, when Roberts says no, even the current president reluctantly backs down. For that matter, lower court judges have blocked, delayed or nullified Mr. Trump’s initiatives over the last four years on any number of fronts.

Surprising, no?

Fake Piety

Fake piety is usually fairly transparent. Sadly, the fakely pious are the only ones who do not know it.

Christians sometimes caution one another to be careful what we confess, and this is not always a bad thing. A personal testimony full of interesting and semi-scandalous details can serve as a source of enticement to those who have little life experience, whose parents have sheltered them from the evils in the world.

Anonymous Asks (107)

“What does the Bible say about capital punishment?”

The law of God received by Moses at Sinai gave instructions to the leaders of Israel concerning the conduct of Israelites and the foreigners who chose to travel and live alongside them. The penalties for religious and criminal violations of the Law were identical for both nationals and foreigners.

Your Church Building is NOT the House of God

I’m hearing it all the time now in public prayer: “We thank you, Father that we are able to freely gather in the house of God” and other similar thoughts, where the words “house of God” are unquestionably being used to describe the building in which we are sitting.

A similar misconception is given voice by people who insist upon referring to the auditorium in which a church meets as a “sanctuary”, as in (from mother to child), “Don’t run in the sanctuary! Don’t make noise in the sanctuary!”

These are not new Christians. It makes me wonder if they really know what the house of God is or what the term sanctuary means. I think in many cases they do, but have through inattention lapsed into language that is potentially misleading.

Time and Chance (50)

Almost a year ago we started this weekly study in Ecclesiastes, and here we are in the penultimate chapter. I have been poking along a verse or two at a time, because it seems to me that this 3,000 year old treatise on the meaning of life deserves our concentrated attention and rarely gets it.

Hey, Christians and unbelievers alike quote from Ecclesiastes all the time. There’s some great stuff in there for funerals. But when was the last time you heard even a single sermon on the book, let alone a series? I can remember maybe two in my entire life.

Too Hot to Handle: Which Beer Do Christians Drink?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Everybody’s favorite political football Bristol Palin has written a column on the subject of the Guinness Beer Company and its Christian origins.

Tom: This is not the first time I’ve come across this story, Immanuel Can. In another generation, a Christian brewer turns out to have been the voice of moderation and societal self control. But in some evangelical circles today, Arthur Guinness would be taken to task for corrupting the faithful. I mean, he sold alcohol for a living!

Is there a less cartoonish and more biblical position to be taken on the subject of alcohol consumption, IC?

Who’s Holding the Scales?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Resetting our Defaults

If only it were as simple as pushing three keys ...

What does your church do on Sunday mornings?

I’ve been thinking about platform ministry. Each church has its own default set of practices observed week after week (with the exception of churches that meet in living rooms and basements and don’t have platforms) and, other than in the case of brand new churches, the choices that go into how teaching and preaching get presented are rarely conscious ones. They are more often the result of time, tradition and imitation of formats perceived to be successful in other churches.

So I’ve been questioning a few of our defaults.

Recommend-a-blog (30)

Alan Shlemon at Stand to Reason has written a thought-provoking piece called “How 2020 Is Taking a Toll on Your Soul” about the effects of the internet in the last five months on society in general and Christians in particular. To nobody’s surprise, in COVID lockdown we have been spending record amounts of time online. In the UK, the highest percentage increase in time spent online is among those over the age of 54.

As a result, I’ve felt it and I’m sure you have too: that indefinable malaise and “inordinate pressure to say the right thing”. Shlemon argues it’s partly a consequence of the false sense of omnipresence and omniscience social media inspires.

Anonymous Asks (106)

“How can Christians say their religion is the only true one?”

Over fifty years ago, a Muslim who happened to hear my father preaching asked him a question very much like this one. After listening to Dad for a time, he inquired, “Are you actually telling us that Jesus is the only way to God?”

Ouch.

In a Bit of a Bind

My father was in a bit of a bind in that he was at the time a guest in a foreign country. His ability to continue freely preaching and teaching there depended to a certain extent on not rocking the boat unnecessarily. However, this was one of those questions that cannot be evaded, ignored or put off to a more convenient time when there might be fewer witnesses or a less potentially hostile environment. Faithfulness to his Master demanded a straightforward answer, and Dad gave one.

Acknowledging the Obvious

Why do we give God glory?

It’s a good question. I was introduced to the Christian faith as a small child, so the notion of people gathering together to sing praises to God, to raise their hands in the air, to pray fervently to someone they could not see, and say complimentary things about him to one another did not seem weird to me at all. It was what I was used to, and when I was old enough to know how to imitate what these folks were doing, I joined in too, even though at that point I had no personal knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It was expected, so we did it.

Time and Chance (49)

Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon

It is said that every virtue carried to extremes becomes a vice, which is probably true. Every good thing indulged in to excess does much the same.

The previous few verses of Ecclesiastes 10 contrast a kingdom run by self-indulgent drunks and gluttons with a kingdom administered by wise, self-controlled princes and officials who know the proper place for leisure and pleasure in their own lives. Obviously the citizens of the second kingdom will have a better time of it than those of the first. The Preacher then comments that attending to only your own desires rather than the objective needs around you will end in disaster.

Too Hot to Handle: Religious Scrupulosity

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Fake News

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Two Psalms

The Psalms are not only richly poetic but deeply personal. That may be one reason so many Christians relate to them on an emotional level. When saying goodbye even temporarily to someone we love, the natural instinct is to reach for a psalm. Psalms touch our hearts in ways much of the rest of God’s word may not.

Let me be very honest about that: I suspect much of the time the Psalms touch us so powerfully because we don’t really understand what they are about to any great extent. Figures of speech will do that; they universalize thoughts that may actually be quite specific. So we feel free to grab bits and pieces of the Psalms here and there to apply to our own experience without worrying too much whether we are violating some principle of exegesis.

They just feel right, and so we are at home with them. Even if at one level they are not really ours.

Knowing Our Limitations

A few days ago we ran a post about the will of God and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the process of researching what God’s will meant to the Lord Jesus and his apostles, I came across a verse that initially perplexed me, then later seemed to provide some interesting insights into the subject. I did not bother to mention it in the COVID post because it was one of those theological rabbit trails, heading off through the forest from where we were at the time to somewhere entirely different. But the questions raised by the verse certainly merit a full post’s worth of consideration, and then some.

I’ve been mulling it over ever since, so let’s lay out the problem that occurred to me and see where it takes us ... carefully, of course.

Anonymous Asks (105)

“What are the differences between a pastor, a priest and a preacher?”

If I were to discuss all the different ways some of these words have been used throughout history and all the ways they each are misused throughout Christendom, this might turn into a five-parter. So let’s keep it simple and just try to highlight what the Bible teaches about each as they exist in the church today.

Now It’s Personal

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Time and Chance (48)

Many years ago I had an older Scottish boss. Unstereotypically for a Scot with an accent so thick you could make peaks in it with a spatula, he had no problem with his staff reading a book, chatting, or idling away our shifts — but only under one condition: all the work in the shop must be finished and out the door first. If our salespeople failed to keep us busy, that was their problem. If we failed to deliver their work on time, it was ours.

So play by all means, but play after you work.

Too Hot to Handle: Christians and Mental Health

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Universal Human Rights: The Christian Legacy

Okay, let me say it right away:

There is only one reason we have human rights: God.

And it was a Christian who first discovered this and explained it to the world.

Eh?

Now, you might ask yourself this: if this is true, why was I not told? Why didn’t my teachers in high school, my instructors at college or my professors in my undergraduate explain this? Or if it’s true, then why is not every Christian trumpeting the fact from the rooftops?

The answer’s simple: Christians don’t know it, and other people don’t want to hear it.

COVID-19 and the Will of God

“It was God’s will.”

Ah, the magic phrase. You hear it said by devout people at funerals, usually with palpable resignation. “He was taken before we were ready, and we’re all hurting, but somehow we know — though we can’t quite see how it might be since he was such a great guy and will be so profoundly missed — that his untimely and painful death was God’s will.”

So that’s all right then. Even if it isn’t, really.

Marching as to War

“... making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel ... that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”

This is not the only time Paul asks for prayer specifically for himself and for the work he was engaged in. Colossians 4 contains a similar request, as do both Paul’s first and second letters to Thessalonica. We may take it this was an apostolic custom. The writer to the Hebrews does the same.

I wonder why.

Anonymous Asks (104)

“Why is sexual purity so important?”

This is an excellent question for young Christians to resolve in their hearts and heads before it becomes emotional and personal, especially in a cultural climate where we are repeatedly told that pre-marital sex is not only not sinful, but healthy, normal human behavior. Chaste teenagers are currently considered more than a little defective. Heaven help you if your dedication to sexual purity lasts into your twenties.

So why have Christians always taught that sexual purity is so important?

Thank You for the Failures

God wants to save “all people”, or so we are told.

Some readers understand that concept very broadly. They see that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”, and conclude from it that God would prefer it if every single human being on the planet were to turn from sin and self to Christ, who is God’s only way of salvation.

This may very well be true, though I don’t think it’s exactly what Paul was telling Timothy.

Time and Chance (47)

Not all fools are avowed atheists.

All serious foolishness begins with the assumption “There is no God.” But there are different ways of denying the existence of God in one’s heart. One way is to do it like Richard Dawkins, who says it with a lot of pseudo-scientific bother and fuss. He can’t stop thinking about it and trying to prove it. Then there is the functional atheist. He never tries to talk anyone out of their belief in God, and he certainly doesn’t write books about God’s non-existence. He may even concede that God might possibly exist, but he lives every moment of his life as if God does not.

Either way is foolish, but at least a Dawkins recognizes the existence of God as a problem for his worldview and is working away at coming to grips with it. The other fellow is perhaps in a worse state, as he never thinks about God at all.

Too Hot to Handle: No-Fault Separation

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Blessed are the Hated

The most recent version of this post is available here.

On Knowing and Being Known

“But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

To really know someone and to be known by them is one of the greatest pleasures a human being may experience in this life.

It is also absolutely terrifying.

Praying for Catastrophe

Etymology is a really cool thing. It simply means the history of the development of a word. An etymological study of language is one that investigates how the words we use came to mean what they mean today: where they originated, what they meant back then, and when and how they changed, expanded, diluted or sometimes even reversed their meanings to become what we understand by them when we use them today.

Lately I have been thinking about catastrophes. Did you know that originally a catastrophe was not necessarily a bad thing?

Anonymous Asks (103)

“What is one way you can worship God without using music?”

Must I pick only one?

Okay then, but first, a word about music as worship.

I’m very glad someone actually asked this question, because it hints at just how many evangelicals think of worship almost exclusively in connection with congregational singing, and have not given much thought to whether there are better ways to worship God than in the middle of belting out a cheesy modern melody and waving your arms around ... or worse, pummeling your drum kit.

David’s Covenant and the Resurrection

On Tuesday we looked at the first six public messages in the book of Acts to consider how one’s audience ought to determine the content of a gospel message, a pattern well established by the apostles in their preaching.

It seems obvious that the apostles did not simply memorize a few key points to preach about in every situation. They did not utilize a predictable series of Old Testament proof texts. They were not merely checking boxes, but responded to the needs of the particular audience to whom they were preaching.

So now here we are in Acts 13.

Time and Chance (46)

All productivity comes with a certain element of risk.

This is true for code monkeys, spot monkeys and everyone in between the two extremes (the code monkey being a computer programmer at his keyboard; the spot monkey, a professional wrestler whose specialty is flying through the air and landing on people without killing them). Too much time pounding the keys can ruin your wrists, which everyone who has carpal tunnel syndrome will tell you is very painful and not easy to get rid of. Then again, a 360 off the top rope that ends on the ring apron instead of its designated target will probably break your neck, so maybe there are worse things than sore wrists.

For me the big job hazard is paper cuts. Lots of paper cuts. First world problems, I know.

Too Hot to Handle: Coalition of the Unwilling

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The Gospel Coalition is an evangelical colossus, with close to 8,000 affiliated congregations across the U.S., 65 million annual website pageviews, regular live events, a full slate of in-house blogs and other media promoting its theological checklist.

Tom: But one very slightly unsettling feature of TGC’s ministry, Immanuel Can, is that they seem to have little interest in engaging in the exchange of ideas, as this Jonathan Merritt article very effectively documents.

You’re quite familiar with TGC. What do they stand for?

The Multicultural Road to Hell

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Gospel in Context

Ever preached from one of these?

Anybody who has browsed my Bible Study series is familiar with the conviction (not uniquely mine) that context may well be the single most significant tool for determining meaning available to English students of scripture. It has certainly been the most useful to me.

This is not about that. It’s about the importance of a different sort of context: situation and audience.

A few weeks ago Immanuel Can and I had occasion to discuss the subject of the gospel and what it actually is. The four Gospels themselves (of course) record the beginnings of the “good news”, but necessarily cannot fully elaborate on all its implications. It requires the rest of the New Testament to do that, but a very good starting point is a study of how the apostles actually preached it from the very beginning (up to and including Acts 13, at any rate, which is as far as I’ve currently gone in my study).