Mark Driscoll at Desiring God 08 on God's use of tough words. Yes, it's long! Maybe you can do what I did and watch it in 15 minute bites. It's well worth it.



Quick outline: Driscoll says we should:

1. Feed the Sheep
2. Rebuke the Swine
3. Shoot the Wolves
4. Bark at the Dogs
5. Pray for the Shepherds

I will NEVER forget this message ever. Every minister and church leader should watch this.

God is love, and Jesus loves you, but neither one of them is always nice.

Over at another post, the comment thread is veering off the subject. I decided that this new discussion is worth it's own post. I want to share something I wrote with all of you and get your feedback.

By the way, what I'm assuming here is that you are looking for a new church because you moved, not because you are leaving your previous church for other reasons. That's the subject of a whole 'nother post. There are legitimate and illegitimate reasons for leaving a church. I'm assuming below that you had a legitimate reason for leaving your previous church.

Here's the advice I give to people looking for churches.

First, make a list of all the things that are important to you in a church. List everything you can think of. Spend some time on this.

Second, prioritize them. Spend several days on this. Pray about it. Talk to your spouse. Work on it.

Third, take the paper, and after number 3 tear the list off and throw away everything below. Go find a church that meets the top three, and don't worry about the rest. You'll never find a church that meets all your criteria, but if you find one that meets the top three, you're doing very well.

And never worry (or complain) about the other stuff again.

I know people always say, "I know there is no such thing as a perfect church." Then they proceed to look for one that's as close as possible.

People need to stop that. Find one that has what really matters, and then DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE REST. (Unless it is to help, with a humble attitude.)

What do you think?

With a nod from John Calvin, the Geneva city council in 1553 burned Michael Servetus at the stake. Servetus was a heretic who denied the Trinity of persons within the Godhead and denied paedobaptism. While Calvin preferred to give Servetus a quick death via decapitation, he had to compromise with the council who preferred to let Servetus burn to death.

On a related note, a few years earlier, Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli, and his council, persecuted Anabaptists by giving them their "third baptism": a death by drowning. Zwingli would later die by the sword, fighting Catholics in neighboring counties.

Sadly, the history of Christianity is rich with bloodshed. Thankfully, these days we don't kill guys like Joel Osteen and whoever the guy is who wrote The Shack, but I think the history of dealing with heresy should teach us that orthodoxy -- right thinking -- really matters. To be sure, I don't condone certain ways the church has dealt with heresies in the past; in fact, I find many of those ways appalling. While I'm not a pacifist, I tend to think that the Anabaptists had a lot of right ideas when it came to their aversion to violence.

Heresy is serious, and an appropriate response to heresy is something the evangelical church needs to grapple with in this age of pluralism, "tolerance," and sweltering anti-Christianity. As far as an appropriate response goes, violence is not the answer.

If this is intentionally awful, it is brilliant.

Macy (8) has a diary. She brought it to church last night and took notes. Here are a few lines:

Dad is preaching to the people. Dad said it is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings . . .

Those are God's words that Dad just presented to me. They will be treasured forever.

If you're anyone who's somewhat involved in facilitating men's ministry at your church, I'd like to offer my (hopefully) humble opinions on what men do and do not need from such a ministry.

Needs:

- JESUS.
- Solid teaching from the Bible on holiness, purity, repentance, faith, grace, and love.
- Doctrine. Good, orthodox doctrine.
- Consistent and real discipleship and accountability (this would involve making phone calls or sending emails in order to set up meetings).
- An in-your-face, grace-filled approach to the subject of sexual purity.
- Repeat.

Non-needs:

- A forced emphasis on "masculinity." This would involve showing videos of a bunch of guys with guns killing a lion; playing games that involve chugging root beer; grunting; excessive use of war and/or sports metaphors; et cetera.
- Anything that smells like bait (for example: camping trips, ball games, fishing excursions, and movies). The real bait is JESUS, the hook is the Holy Spirit. While extra-curricular activities are fun, they shouldn't be at the soul of any men's ministry. Let's reserve that place for JESUS.
- Any skit, story, or example that shows Christian men as buffoons. While to a large extent we are buffoons -- and buffoonish behavior is rampant -- we can't be expected to be heads of anything if we're constantly told we're inadequate, stupid clowns. Sitcoms do a good enough job at portraying us as foolish; the church doesn't need to pile on.

I'll summarize what I've been talking about: JESUS is good for Christian men, and anything else is just noise.

The Nicene Creed was born this day in 325. One of the oldest and most widely used confessions of the universal Christian faith, the Nicene Creed was formulated at a time when the heresy of Arianism threatened orthodox Christianity with the denial of Jesus' deity. Thus the strong Christology in the creed.

I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost
of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again
according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory,
to judge both the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life,
who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son];
who with the Father and the Son together
is worshipped and glorified;
who spake by the Prophets.
And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.

Element's statement of faith credits the affirmations of the Nicene Creed.

I just can't get over this.
It's a book called Have a New Husband by Friday: How to Change His Attitude, Behavior, and Communication in 5 Days. There is more than one way this makes me nauseous.

The idea behind this book is pretty much the antithesis to grace.
It takes what happened in the garden after the fall -- the blame shifting -- and says, "Yeah, let's go with that."

It turns a woman's spouse into a project, a problem, not a person made in the image of God to be loved and given the gospel in word and deed to. It is legalistic, basically.

Did I mention this is from a Christian author and publisher?

And it's gross. It plays on the stereotype of men as children who need wives to make them better, more suitable and acceptable.

There's also a kid version: Have a New Kid by Friday. Ugh.

BUT! I seriously doubt there will be a Have a New Wife by Friday: How to Change Her Attitude, Behavior, and Sex Drive in 5 Days. THAT would be too insensitive, I bet. That title would receive complaints for chauvinism and misogyny.

But everyone knows husbands are stupid creatures and the reason your marriage is not all it should be. Marriages will definitely be strengthened if wives could successfully make their husbands into different people. Blech.

Abraham Piper says it well:

Self-applying the term Jesus follower for accuracy or lexical variety is good.

Doing it to distance yourself from other Christians is cowardly.

Why is flaunting your body in a bikini on national TV not a big deal for evangelical Christians?

Why are people like James Dobson so obsequious to a certain beauty contestant simply because she (rightfully) took a stand against homosexual "marriage," despite the message of superficial beauty and sexuality she communicates to thousands upon thousands of Christian girls?

Welcome to the new Christianity. We've got everything the world has -- bikini-clad babes, rock star musicians, and political rock stars -- plus we get a feel good JESUS who wouldn't dare put a standard of Puritan holiness on us. Thank God.

I'm not a huge fan of CCM. I used to be huge into it in my youth. These days I do listen to the local CCM station from time to time, but I couldn't tell you who sings what. A lot of the bands sound the same to me. I don't mean that as a criticism necessarily; just an observation, or how they strike me. In any event, I'm trying to point all that out to say that I have defended both CCM from criticism I don't think is warranted and the Christian retail establishment from same. (Yes, acknowledging that "Jesus junk" is icky.)

In any event, I mean to point out two things with that lengthy introduction:
a) I'm not a drooling CCM fanboy
b) Neither am I some "CCM must die!" roaring lamb

But I think this criticism from a contributor at the CCM forum might have some traction:

I've been doing music for most of my adult life, but I never broke through in any big way. After a while, I had to simply accept the fact that it was not God's will for me to be the "next big thing" in Christian music, so I settled into a life of simply staying busy making music, without the perks that come with fame.

But I got to thinking...why WOULD you want to make it big in Christian music? Because when you consider it....Christian music is the one genre that virtually erases it's older artists from history.

Think about it....when I was in college in the late 80's, the biggest names in Christian music were bands like Petra, DeGarmo & Key, White Heart, Mylon LeFevre, etc. Ask any ten teenagers you care to find today about those bands, and if you're real lucky, one or two of them MIGHT have heard of Petra...and that's about it. Likewise for any of the artists popular back in the day. And as we get further away from the decade of the 90's, most of those artists have likewise fallen into oblivion.

Where is the "classic" Christian music? Why doesn't radio acknowledge these older groups or songs? Our local Christian FM refuses to play anything more than five years old, with the possible exception of "Awesome God" by Rich Mullins. And the closest Gospel Music Channel comes is in the form of short snippets of older performances on the "Best Of The Doves" program. Why don't the record labels re-release some of those titles from the 80's and 90's?

Like I said, why would you want to make it big in this business, when chances are you'll be forgotten in ten years (if that long)?

There is a hint of "Man, the older stuff is so much better than the new stuff" bitterness here. (And I think the older stuff is better than the newer stuff, personally. :-) But I think he has a point.

With a few exceptions, CCM artists have a very short shelf-life.

The only pushback I can think of is that it's not like lots of mainstream 80's and 90's stars are burning up the Top 40 charts either. With exceptions like Madonna, Janet Jackson, and U2, "older" artists aren't likely to end up on MTV or the like these days either. (Remember in the early years of MTV when Tom Petty and George Harrison -- who were old even back then -- might show up in videos between The Bangles and Depeche Mode? Those were the days, eh?)

But in any event, if we're going to have a Christian subculture of the arts, shouldn't it be somewhat different?
The more I think about it, the more I think this is the most glaring sign that CCM culture is just an aping of the values and spirit of the world. Except in this case, maybe we're worse.

For the first time in 1.5 years, Element message audio is available. :-)
We're gonna try to get all 5 weeks of this current series -- God vs. Suburbia -- available for public consumption (and for at least one member of our community who is on tour for the next month).

First one is up:
Spiritual Rhythms in Suburbia

Covers Acts 4:23-35 and Jacob wrestling Jesus in Genesis 32.

Two apologies:
1) It's longish. I normally clock in 30-40 mins. But this one kicks off the series and I was feeling a little rambunctious. :-) Intro has a 30 min. story.
2) Several rants ensue. Contra "virtual community" included.

If you listen, I do hope it edifies you.

A commenter friend at my solo blog relates the leaders at his church saying this to him about his concerns:

We respect where you're coming from with your focus on the gospel and the cross and all that, but our church is just in a different season right now.

The harvest season, no doubt. Where they'll be scythed up as tares and thrown in the furnace.

(Only slightly exaggerating.)

Once upon a time, my family made the very difficult and emotional decision of breaking fellowship with a church for several reasons, but the most important one, and the one that would have done it by itself, was the persistent neglect of gospel-centered teaching. Since I've begun publicly urging the evangelical church to reclaim the centrality of the gospel and re-form its discipleship culture around the gospel, I have heard from many others in the same boat.

Gospel deficiency is the biggest crisis of the American church. It has been replaced by many things, most commonly a therapeutic, self-help approach to biblical application. Bible verses are extracted to enhance calls to self-improvement and Jesus is preached as moral exemplar (which of course, he is, but then again, so is Mother Theresa). The result is a Church that, ironically enough, preaches works, not grace, and a growing number of Christians who neither understand the gospel nor revel in its scandal.

There are lots of good reasons to reclaim the centrality of the good news of Jesus in our preaching and teaching and writing and blogging, and I've come up with four basic arguments for (what I'm calling) The Gospel Imperative, but perhaps defining our terms is in order. It's no good going on about making the gospel the center of our worship and discipleship if we are not on the same page for what the gospel actually is.

Like many others, I affirm that the gospel is big. I favor a robust gospel, a good news proclamation with many facets and ramifications. It is everywhere in the shadows and in the light of the Old Testament Israelites' desert wandering, and it encompasses the brilliant kingdom landscape of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. It is in God's gracious covering of the freshly fallen Adam and Eve (and in the cursing of the serpent) in Genesis, and it is in the awesome return of the tattooed, sword-wielding Jesus 65 books later in Revelation. I agree with Tim Keller, who argues that the gospel is "both one and more than that." It is certainly "more than that." But it is also "one," which is why I, along with many others, hold that Jesus' substitutionary atonement is the sharp edge of the gospel. I nutshell this sharp edge with the simple compound "sin/grace." This is my way of signaling that the central point and sharp edge of all that the gospel holds is the basic transformative truth that "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).
So while acknowledging that the gospel is about the kingdom setting a fallen world back to rights, the gospel I am speaking about here, then, is the essential gospel, which is that Jesus has died and risen bodily and has thereby murdered sin and conquered death.

Pretty powerful stuff, ain't it? And yet many of our churches will barely touch on it even in an Easter service!
Here are four basic reasons for evangelicalism's reclamation of the gospel:

1. Because We Are Forgetful

Forgetting God's goodness is part of our fallen DNA. The Bible demonstrates this vividly. Studying the Gospel of John with some friends recently, we puzzled initially over the way the disciples believed in Jesus after his turning water to wine. Now, of course that would be cause for belief, but John's Gospel tells us just one chapter earlier that Jesus' self-attestation and his ability to know them (he reads Nathanel like a book) cause them to believe in him. Which was it?
Well, it's both. Certainly Jesus gives us endless reasons to worship him as Lord, but I am convinced that he does this graciously as we endlessly "forget" his Lordship. In the Old Testament, God sets the enslaved Israelites free in a mighty act of deliverance (that whole Red Sea parting thing) and one day later they're complaining about not having anything to eat. And that's just the beginning. God keeps providing; the Israelites keep grumbling.

Friends, we have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. We are fickle, self-righteous, forgetful people. Yet we serve a steadfast, gracious, faithful God. Many preachers are fearful of highlighting the gospel every time they speak for fear of it appearing stale. But gospel redundancy is a good thing! We need it. We need the gospel every day (His mercies are new every morning) because we forget it and we sin every day.
Do not aid your community in its forgetfulness by relegating the gospel to the periphery of your proclamation. We need to be reminded of it constantly.

2. Because It is the Power to Save

We all want to grow the kingdom, right? We all want to seek and save the lost, right? We all want to lead as many people as possible to salvation, right?
Then, why, for the love of God, do we preach all manner of behavior modification, none of which could save a single one of us, when only the gospel saves?
Paul writes in Romans 1:16, " I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes."
Yet if we could label our churches with the Nutrition Facts found on your can of soup, I reckon many would say in the fine print, "Not a significant source of gospel." Are we ashamed?
If the gospel is the power to save, shouldn't it be the meat of the message, not saved for the add-on invitation or for a special service every few weeks?

3. Because It is of First Importance

If holding the gospel as the power to save doesn't push us toward greater gospel-centeredness, certainly Paul's claim that is of "first importance" (1 Cor. 15:3) should do the trick. But, again, we hold off on the gospel. We make it occasional or half-hearted, thereby ascribing it lesser worth than our very important and self-devised Six Steps for Successful Living.
In a recent White Horse Inn podcast, the fellows warned listeners to beware the preacher who says, "Well, of course the gospel." The point here is that they are highlighting so much of what they do that is not the gospel and then when asked about the gospel's absence, they say, "Well, of course the gospel." In such churches the gospel is implied. Which means it is an afterthought.

The gospel should not be implied. It is of first importance. It should be the clearest, most prevalent message and theme of all a community's worship and focus.

4. Because It Glorifies God

The gospel is not advice. It is news.
It is not "Do more, be more, try more." It is the message that the work is done.
The gospel does not say "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps." It says "It is finished!"

Our flesh hates this contrast. We hate it because the gospel says to us "You can't do it; you are unable; you are deficient." And we don't like to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that we are incapable of saving ourselves, that in our insidest insides we are broken and cannot repair ourselves.
But this is what the gospel forces us to admit. And because it forces us to admit we are sinners deserving punishment with no inherent means of rescue, it forces us to admit that only God can save us, which forces us to reckon with the gospel truth that salvation is God's work, not ours. God gets the credit. Grace means getting what we didn't deserve, and the gospel of grace announces that "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).

When we insist on preaching about our efforts and making the gospel an afterthought, we have begun glorifying our works, glorifying ourselves. But when we center on the gospel and revel in its proclamation, we are glorifying God, because we are holding Christ's finished good work more important than our insufficient good works.

The gospel is the hope of the world. It is my hope and it is yours. It should be our prayer and our humble insistence, then, that the people named for the gospel -- "evangelical" is built on the word "evangelion," Greek for "gospel" -- live and preach true to their name once again.

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church as "Dude, Where's My Gospel?")

I have long said, and wholeheartedly believe, that the Bride of Christ is beautiful. But I don't mean that in a physical sense, but rather because I believe her destiny, and her current, emerging¹ reality, is great beauty. Perfection.

I love the church.

I also think iMonk makes a great point about a big problem in the market-driven church in America:

Appalachia has a lot of ugly people. We produce a bumper crop of them, and you’ll find plenty of them in church, in Gospel singing groups and on local Christian TV.

Southeastern Kentucky hasn’t yet heard what most of evangelicalism lives by: Keep the beautiful people up front.

Good looking hunky preacher boys. Gorgeous babettes on those worship teams. Authors, speakers, teachers: good lookin’ and keep ‘em looking better all the time. (Thank God for moder enhancements of the human body. Amen?)

Every see an ad for an evangelical church? Any Tom Pettys or Susan Boyles on that commercial?

Church web site? Oh my. Don’t use your own people. Use professional models. I want my senior adults to look like the happy consumers of various enhancement products. Smile Bob! Your hair may be gray, but the rest of you is 25.

And Contemporary Christian Music? Susan Boyle types….your phone is NOT ringing.

No, evangelicalism may not come out and say it, but God really does prefer his people looking good.

¹ I used the word "emerging" here but this has nothing to do with the faddish Emerging/Emergent church moniker.

In The New York Times yesterday Bono, in his usually poetic way, recounted his Easter experience and compared it to his inclination toward "economic redemption" (as seen in debt relief to Africa).

Christianity, it turns out, has a rhythm — and it crescendos this time of year. The rumba of Carnival gives way to the slow march of Lent, then to the staccato hymnals of the Easter parade. From revelry to reverie. After 40 days in the desert, sort of ...

It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need. Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of “a peace that passes understanding” as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads. Whatever your religious or nonreligious views, the chance to begin again is a compelling idea. . . .

Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt. Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.

Not all soul music comes from the church.

Read the whole thing, if you're so inclined.

Dan at Cerulean Sanctum asks a great question, which is counter-intuitive in the current culture of angst about the feminization of the American church: Is the American Church too Macho? An excerpt:

I was part of a church at one time that had about 3,500 attendees. That church had a fairly level ratio of men and women. At that time, the church had groups for motorcycle-riding, gun-shooting, and many others with a “just for the fellowship” emphasis that would appeal to men. Fine by me—I’m all for fellowship groups. The only problem was that this same church had one men’s Bible study and about a dozen women’s Bible studies. I was painfully aware of that inexplicably lopsided ratio too. Why? Because I was the men’s Bible study leader. When I asked why there was only one men’s Bible study group, the answer I usually got was that they’d not been able to maintain more than one or two for any length of time. (What made it even nuttier was about half of the ten or so men that filtered through my group on a regular basis didn’t even attend the church.)

It seems to me that men will show up for church stuff when they have a chance to show off their machismo, but flex some spiritual muscles? Not so much.

So I don’t think it’s as much of a case of the Church being feminized as it is a case of men surrendering their God-appointed roles as spiritual leaders within the Church. They’d rather watch March Madness than bow their knees at a 24-hour prayer meeting for the soul of the nation. Meanwhile, elderly grannies are keeping the devils at bay.

So the next time I hear some guy whimpering about how women are taking over the church, maybe a swift kick to the ‘nads will get him to wise up.

Or some spiritual equivalent.

See? This is what I've been on about.

Guys, we need to man up. But keep the pointy sticks at home.

[Hat tip: Transforming Sermons]

I truly believe that the first step toward surrender to God is repentance. John the Baptist preached it. JESUS proclaimed it. Peter said to do it before you're baptized. Paul hammered on it. And, finally, the Lord again reiterated it multiple times in the book of Revelation.

I recently listened to a debate between a Trinitarian and a proponent of Oneness theology. The Oneness guy (a Pentecostal preacher), I believe, lost the debate, but he made a valid point at the end of the exchange. He said he thought there should be a heavier emphasis on repentance among evangelicals in general. He explained that repentance isn't merely saying you're sorry for your sin, but a deep, gut-wrenching understanding that you are despicable, an offense to God's holiness, and deserving of eternal separation from His presence. It's a rock bottom realization that you and your sin are filthy rags, and that you are in need -- dire need -- of a Savior.

I don't think a need for repentance can be overemphasized. We must repent of our selfishness, our materialism, our sensuality, our vanity, our idolatry, our avarice, our apathy, our gluttony ... everything. Repentance isn't just for the unconverted; it's for believers too.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent . . .
-- Acts 17:30 (ESV)

Last night on the way home from small group I listened to the guy on the local Christian radio station give a ten-minute presentation of what he learned in church the previous day. It boiled down to an appeal to make Jesus our "role model." (Yes, using those words.)

There is no better role model than Jesus. You won't find me arguing against that to anyone. And wanting Jesus for his benefits but not for his cross is a serious problem in Christianity.
But there was zero gospel content in this presentation. It could've been delivered by the Dalai Lama. Richard Gere thinks Jesus is an awesome role model. The world thinks Jesus is a good role model, and in fact, most of them wish Christians acted more like Jesus (or at least, more like their perception of Jesus).

"Jesus as role model" is not the gospel. At one point in his spiel, the radio dude hat-tipped self-help books and advice columns, saying "We read all those things, but we never think to go to the Bible for God's advice!"
As if the alternative to advice from the world is more advice, albeit from the Bible.

The gospel is not advice.

This is yet another example of something I've been harping on in my last two years of writing: just because you dress casual, play rock music, and talk a lot about grace, doesn't mean you aren't a legalist. And in fact, the self-professed "culturally relevant" churches today are the chief proponents of legalism in Christianity. They don't think they are, because they equate legalism with fundamentalism, with rigidity and dourness, with suits and ties and organ-led hymns. They equate legalism with "don't"s.

"Do" isn't any less legalistic than "don't."
"Do"s and "don't"s are just flip-sides of the same coin. The gospel isn't "do" any more than it is "don't"; both are merely religion.

And a Church that is mobilized with a gospel of "do good" might make for good p.r. for our churches, but the gospel of "do good" cannot really scandalize a lost and broken world, because most people know how to do good without the help of Christianity. They don't need the Church to be "good people."

And so the hip church believes it is railing against legalism and oferring grace because it creates culturally relevant, casual, innovative environments, because it makes the message of the Bible one of practical stuff to do, because it is cheerful, because it takes WWJD? seriously, and all the while they still don't know the power of the gospel of Christ's finished work, sufficient for salvation and fit for proclamation.
Instead we get the gospel of busywork.

Should we do good? Absolutely! Hearers of the word who don't "do" are only fooling themselves and have not the Spirit within them.
But if the gist and bulk of our proclamation is "do," we aren't preaching the gospel, which Scripture also calls us to do.

Remember that the Pharisees were the religious leaders who missed the gospel because of their focus on do's and don'ts. Pharisaical legalism was just self-help without good p.r.
This is why today's Pharisees aren't the concerned folks in the pews worried about their discipleship (as they are so often accused), but rather the preacher on the stage whose message is always helpful tips on how to get better at being a Christian.

We are eager to hand over our sin to God; we are ever reluctant to put our righteousness on the altar.

Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works.
-– Robert Farrar Capon

Oh, for a recovery of the glory of the gospel!

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

Do we?

I've always assumed that most people who proclaim a faith in JESUS Christ consistently and actively read the Bible. I'm starting to think I may be terribly wrong about that basic assumption. I'm starting to wonder if Christians are as biblically illiterate as the rest of the world.

Even when I was in rebellion, I still had a love for the Bible. I would read it and it would resonate with me to my very core. Now that I, thankfully, try to walk in the light on a day-to-day basis, my love for the Bible hasn't changed, but my understanding of Scripture has grown by leaps and bounds. It's like scales have fallen off of my eyes. I still have a long way to go, and as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy, I am the Chief of Sinners. But if God can put a love for Scripture inside of someone like me, then there's hope for anyone.

The Bible is a treasure. Up until 500 years ago, and up until the general population became mostly literate, believers didn't even have an opportunity at the privilege of having a copy of the Holy Scriptures. Things have changed, thankfully. Much has been given to us.

Do you read it? Seriously, do you? If not, why not? Do you not know where to start? Does a lack of understanding frustrate you? Does it bore you? Do you feel that you need help somehow? (In any case, the Thinklings are here to help! Especially the pastoral guys like Phil, Jared, and Bill. Just leave a comment. I'd love to hear from anyone on this.)