The SBC and the 21st Century

I should begin by admitting two things, firstly I got this book for free from B and H academics, I don't have to give a positive review. Secondly, I got this by mistake I thought it was a book about Southern Seminary. The picture on the cover looked to be like Southern, I was initially somewhat disappointed, especially when  I started reading Thom Rainer's chapter dealing with statistics about parts of the Southern Baptist Church that I had never heard of. Yet even in this chapter Rainer hits home hard, 'While programmatic evangelism may have lost its luster in our churches, we must find ways for our members to be intentionally involved in sharing their faith in today's culture'. This isn't just an issue in the SBC or even in the wider American evangelical culture, it seems it is a western problem. As Baptists we often argue for the priesthood of all believers but then expect the minister to do the work for us. 

My father in law loves Billy Graham and people of that generation, I found the history of how Billy Graham was involved in Al Mohler's call to Southern encouraging. In a similar way I was surprised to find Carl Henry being a driving force in getting Mark Dever to Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Two ministries I have been greatly blessed by, it is true that one generation commends the work

David Platt's chapter on mission was passionate and heart warming, reminding us that 'mission must not be our life. Instead, Christ must be our life and missions must be the overflow of lives that exist to exalt him'. He goes on to say with the same passion that the call to mission isn't for the select few it is for every Christian, it isn't an extra option but a command that must be obeyed. However this flows out of a heart that is devoted to Christ. Again this isn't just an issue for the Southern Baptists but for every denomination we are far to comfortable with our vast resources that God has given us to fuel mission rather than keep buying stuff. A big challenge! 

As a non American,  I have heard of the SBC for years and as a Baptist it's always been interesting to hear about this large Baptist denomination. This interest has grown as my in laws are part of a SBC church and I've gotten to preach in one, albeit in the basement.

This book is well worth a read for anyone interested in the history, present and future direction of this great denomination.


God Bless
Stephen

John Flavel- favourite Puritan

Reading John Flavel this morning, it isn't for nothing that he is my favourite Puritan:

'Mercy runs nimbly to help, when souls are ready to fall under the pressure of sin'

'Grace never appears Grace until sin appears to be sin'

'Christ is not sweet till sin be made bitter'

'If once God wounds the heart of a sinner, with the stinging sense of sin, then nothing in the world is so precious, so necessary, so vehemently desired and panted for as Christ Jesus'

All in just one page of John Flavel, Method of Grace sermon 9.

Engaging and faithful

I'm not long back from a men's breakfast and it set me thinking, I knew of the speaker, he is from the local Charismatic church. I didn't know he was the speaker or I probably wouldn't have gone. He stuck to type, he quoted some sociological study, a Franciscan monk  and a couple of quotes from the Bible. He didn't have an open bible or expound any passage.  He reminded me of a quote from John Stott in his Contemporary Christian book, that some churches try to be relevant but they never open their bible's so are not actually relevant. Stott rightly though points out the reverse is also true, there are churches where the word is opened but not applied so they are faithful. I left with the challenge that I think about often, how to be confessional, or if you prefer biblical faithful and yet engaging. I desire in my preaching to be bang up to date culturally and  faithful to the Word. I suppose Stott again is helpful in this in his lecture on crossing the bridge from the world of the Bible to our world it's easier said than done though.

Seeking to be faithful and relevant


God Bless

Stephen

Keeping The Name Evangelical

I've heard a few presentations recently where the speaker has suggested the term Evangelical is redundant as a word because it has lost all meaning. I understand that, in many ways I agree with it as its used to speak of charismatics who are in no sense evangelical in their theology but are united by a common experience with continuatists/charismatics who are. Similarly it can be used in the media to refer to church going people who like modern music. Most worrying for me is people like Steve Chalke who have abandoned an evangelical understanding of the Atonement, Scripture and Christian Ethics but want to keep the name Evangelical because they see themselves as "good news people".

So why do I want to keep the term?

 

Part of the reason is something similar to what a Church of England vicar said when I asked him how he could remain in the CofE, his reply was, well its our church, the creeds are ours not the liberals.

So similarly I want to keep the term because it truly applies to me rather than to the people it is misapplied too.

 

More importantly, its a biblical word, the word Gospel is an English word but the Greek word euangelion and its various forms point to the word evangelical, it sums up for me the message of Jesus which is the good message that evangelicals love.

It has historical precedence, it was a term used in derision of the first Protestants, the Lutherans. It speaks of their good message of faith without works through the saving work of Jesus in contradistinction to the Roman Catholic understanding that salvation is through Christ, a works righteousness and the words/ceremonies/church of Roman and the extra grace of the Saints.

Of course in the UK the word has been used in a variety of ways, in the C18th it was used of Anglicans whose theology was like the Whitefield's and the Wesleys. Only later applying to those with the belief in the New Birth and who held to a high view of Scripture. The term has been used slightly different in the UK than in the US but there is no some crossover.

 

However if I/we are going to keep the term as it has stretched beyond meaning we probably need to add words to it, I use conservative evangelical.

 

God Bless

Stephen <><

The Challies Challenge

Last year a number of my friends took Tim Challies challenge to read either 50 or 100 books in a year. I knew I couldn't do 100 so I aimed at 50 which I changed to 52 but reached 55. I learn't some important stuff about myself, I often quote C S Lewis about reading books from previous centuries but found that I read mainly living Americans, predominately Gospel Coalition or T4G types (I realise that is really only one type). Very little British stuff and very little things from previous centuries. I decided that as soon as I hit my target I would go back to reading bigger books and so in the middle of November I started reading Andrew Fuller's works, its the bigger book I own. This year I am aiming a lot lower, a few books from previous centuries and a couple of commentaries. 

My top 5 books this year:

1) John Flavel Works volume 1- loved this as each sermon is focused on Christ, its saturated. Currently on volume 2.

2) Dangerous Calling - Paul Tripp- I had to keep putting this book down to pray- that's got to me a good thing,surely. He beat me up a lot and I loved it.

3) Thomas Schreiner's The King in His Beauty- a truly biblical theology that concentrated on one theme throughout. I like his writing but wanted him to go deeper, I shall definitely try his commentaries. 

4) Fool's talk by Os Guiness- a young girl invented a word that summed this up- thinkative, some great quotes in there but he just stretched my mind. Never read him before but I shall be reading him again.

5) Centre Church, Tim Keller started the year with this and loved it, Keller always approaches something with a different slant, challenged my thinking and my theology, helped my preaching and increased my desire to do ministry in either a council estate or a large city. 

Shalom

Stephen Barton <><

An evangelical's journey

I have just finished reading 1966 and all that, An Evangelical Journey by Basil Howlett, it is very much his journey into ministry and the great influence that Martyn Lloyd Jones made to Basil's life and indeed to British Evangelicalism at large. My first response is that I owe an apology to the late Martyn Lloyd Jones, especially in regard to 1966 and his passionate plea for evangelicals to come out of their denominations. I've never been part of the established church since not long after conversion through reading Scripture I was convinced of non-conformity and only spent a brief time in a Baptist Union Church, as it was liberal throughout. Yet I've been influenced by what others have said and that as coloured my perception. Basil Howlett has no doubt that MLJ's address was used of God, not only in his own life but in the lives of other gospel men in mixed denominations. Howlett takes us on a journey of how God used Basil Howlett and how his ministry prospered outside of the denomination. This led me to stop reading and start praying thanking God for the work He did then and asking Him to do a work afresh in me.

I was moved by how God worked so that the building they were forced out of was replaced with a gifted building for the church to meet in. I was amazed and in awe of how God used Basil in ministering to lost people not only in the UK but further afield. Indeed one of the most moving chapters is his chapter on mission, having been freed from soley considering missionaries from his own denomination which were sometimes good but often bad, making no mention of God, Christ or the gospel, Instead he was free to see a whole host of evangelical mission societies, getting to see valuable gospel missionaries from around the globe, not only that but to partake in that mission himself.

Thank you for the encouragement Basil.

God Bless
Stephen

The Worth of a Soul

I've been reading quite a bit of John Flavel recently, I've loved the way he as a Calvinist outlines the worth of a soul and the extent of the atonement in the same thought.

'If the death of Christ satisfied God, and thereby redeemed the elect from the curse: then the redemption of souls is costly; souls are dear things, and are of great value with God....The whole creation sold to the utmost worth of it, is not a value for the redemption of one soul. Souls are very dear; he that paid for them found them so: yet how cheaply do sinners sell their souls, as if they were but priced commodities! but you that sell your souls cheap, will buy repentance dear.' 

He goes on to say in a later sermon that in Christ's death his blood that was shed is of such a value that it is enough for all of us, even if there were other worlds filled with people, the infinite value of Christ's blood would be enough for all. The price is paid for our sins by Christ, to God be the Glory for ever and ever. 

Shalom

Stephen