Read THIS blog. An amazing perspective. 

I read this this morning on my professor's blog. Definitely worth passing along.

Life is too short to be an apologist for anything but the Gospel. That thought came to mind yesterday when I was asked to grant permission to someone to republish something I had once written on constitutional politics. My initial instinct was to give it. After all, the DBO byline reads, "Restoring our biblical AND constitutional foundations." I have long been a keen student of American politics, its process of development, as well as its relationship with biblical Christianity. Indeed, not too long ago I would have considered myself an "apologist" for the Constitution Party. Anyone who reads this website site knows that I have written very little lately on this subject.

Why?

The more I read the New Testament the more I see that it would have us hold tightly to Jesus Christ, to whom we must accord preeminence, and hold every other loyalty loosely, including our political affiliations. I have come to see that any political movement, perhaps especially one supported by Christians, is a part, not of Christianity, but of Christendom, which itself is a very complex mixture of truth and error. The tragedy is that this connection is not always acknowledged, and the resultant impoverishment has often made Christianity prone to syncretism and to an unwarranted and shameful triumphalism.

In order for the church to fulfill her glorious worldwide mission, its structure must be a global structure. This means that the church is essentially a trans-national body, centered in the Great Commission of her Lord and in the spiritual life and mission of its total priesthood of all believers, regardless of their political views or national loyalties. In this way our churches can be revolutionized by a partnership of grace in which every member has his or her own contribution to make and function to fulfill. No doubt when we begin to look at the Body of Christ universally we will find ourselves acting less and less like "apologists" for our own brand of national politics.

Truly, life is too short to be an apologist for anything but the Gospel.

- Dr. David Black

I've been thinking a lot about this sermon lately. It raises a lot of good questions.

T4G 2010 -- Session 4 -- Thabiti Anyabwile from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

I know I've got one person who reads this blog and I don't know if they can watch the video so I'll include my notes too.

Culture: What is it? On what level do we engage culture? How do we do it, what is the result of our engaging culture? What are our objectives in engaging culture? Are these even the right questions for pastors/the church to be asking?

Outline of session: Based on Colossians 1:24-3:4 1) Paul's pastoral purpose 2)Paul's cultural philosophy 3)Paul's practices derived from his philosophy 4)Paul's pastoral Perspective

1) Paul's Pastoral Purpose: - Col 1:24,28 - Paul is a minister to make the word of God fully known so that he can present his hearers mature in Christ totally conformed to the image of Christ.

- Is this our singular passion in pastoral ministry? *Before engaging the culture we must be gripped by this purpose*

- Col. 2:4 - Reveals the danger of false teaching/doctrine and its ability to lead the people away from the goal and purpose defined above. The irreducible minimum of ministry: people repenting and believing in the message of the gospel.

- Moving to language of culture engagement or changing the culture signals a mission shift, a move away from the gospel to a focus on culture.

2) Paul's Cultural Philosophy

- Col. 2:6-8 - The people should be taken captive by Christ.

- v. 9-10 - being rooted in Christ begins in the Gospel. We are filled by Christ. We need nothing more, no new philosophy.

- The gospel fills, circumcises/changes, forgives through the nails of the cross (v. 14). Have the Gospel as your main philosophy.

- Are we captured by Christ? Or are we captured by the world's philosophy and ideas. Verse 8 wipes away worldly philosophy from having any base in the church. Paul puts worldly philosophy against the gospel. Worldly ideas are the biblical antithesis. Engaging culture is not neutral ground.

- *Noteworthy* Van Til's quotes on Christians not realizing that they are living in a world of sin being continuously deChristianized. As the world is consumed more accommodations with the world are made. If we adopt the philosophy of the world we choose new ground and we are not firmly rooted in Christ.

3) Paul's Practices:

- Col. 2:16,18 - Provide warning. We must think of ourselves in light of the judgment of the gospel. Not the judgments of other people or practices. Anyabwile asserts that every human culture is fundamentally apostate.

- When we push our members up into Christ we are leading them to shed the skin of their culture and put on the new clothing/culture of Christ. We come out of various cultures into the culture of God to be the people of God shaped by and rooted in Christ.

- When we hear the word church we need to think of people as multi-ethnic, multi-national but never as multi-cultural because as Christians we have entered into the culture of God.

4) Paul's Pastoral Perspective

- Col. 3:1-4 - Be absorbed with Christ in our perspective. We set our minds a living for that world to come, longing for the world where Christ lives.

- If we don't engage the culture with this perspective we will live for the lives discussed in 3:5-11.

- Our goal as pastors, ministers is to push people to Christ. He is our purpose, philosophy and perspective. The gospel is Christ.

"Faith is not believing in something you can't prove, as so many people define it. It is, biblically speaking, reliance. A rock-sold, truth-grounded, promise founded trust in the risen Jesus to save you from your sin."

- Greg Gilbert. What Is The Gospel? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 74.

Short book. Well worth your time. Follow this one up with What Is a Healthy Church Member? by Thabiti Anyabwile.

Quick update. I finish up seminary in 2 weeks and Christine and I are headed back to Nashville to start serving. I'm going to start reading the books I got at Together for the Gospel as soon as I'm done with classes and I'm thinking I might provide some short summaries/reviews of them on here. Hopefully this will keep me disciplined in my reading.

Mourning Christian! why weepest thou? Art thou mourning over thine own corruptions? Look to thy perfect Lord, and remember, thou art complete in Him; thou art in God's sight as perfect as if thou hadst never sinned; nay, more than that, the Lord our Righteousness hath put a divine garment upon thee, so that thou hast more than the righteousness of man--thou hast the righteousness of God. O Thou who art mourning by reason of inbred sin and depravity, remember, none of thy sins can condemn thee. Thou hast learned to hate sin; but thou hast learned also to know that sin is not thine--it was laid upon Christ's head. Thy standing is not in thyself--it is in Christ; thine acceptance is not in thyself, but in thy Lord; thou art as much accepted of God to-day, with all thy sinfulness, as thou wilt be when thou standest before His throne, free from all corruption. O, I beseech thee, lay hold on this precious thought, perfection in Christ! For thou art "complete in Him." With thy Saviour's garment on, thou art holy as the Holy one. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Christian, let thy heart rejoice, for thou art "accepted in the beloved"--what hast thou to fear? Let thy face ever wear a smile; live near thy Master; live in the suburbs of the Celestial City; for soon, when thy time has come, thou shalt rise up where thy Jesus sits, and reign at His right hand; and all this because the divine Lord "was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

- Charles Spurgeon. Morning and Evening. April 4th