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Archives For July 31, 2013

The wrath of God and your joy

Meredith Flynn —  August 8, 2013

pull quote_BURKCOMMENTARY | Denny Burk

Editor’s note: This column is reprinted with permission from www.dennyburk.com.

After the Presbyterian Church U.S.A decided to drop the hymn “In Christ Alone” from their hymnbook, I posted a note about the decision on my blog. Reports say that the song’s reference to “the wrath of God” was just too much for those making the decision. The songwriters refused to give permission to amend the language, so the PCUSA decided to leave it out.

I have to say that I have been quite surprised at the response to this short post – a response that is still ongoing. I am not surprised, however, that the topic still provokes strong responses from people – strong reactions on both sides of the issue.

In some ways, how one feels about the wrath of God reveals almost everything that’s most important about a person. How one feels about God’s wrath defines a person’s view of hell, of the nature of God, and even of the meaning of the cross itself. Thus to get God’s wrath wrong means to get almost everything else wrong as well.

On Sunday, I preached a sermon in my church about hell and the wrath of God. In this message, I make the case that every true Christian will one day lift up his voice in celebration when God bares His arm in judgment against His enemies (Rev. 18:20). In other words, your ability to rejoice in God’s wrath will one day define whether or not you know Him at all.

What we believe about God and about His Son Jesus is the most important thing about us. And yet countless people recoil at the God of the Bible and turn instead to a god of their own imagination. Any formulation of deity that excludes God’s justice and wrath against sin is not the God of the Bible.

A wrathless god shorn of His justice is no god worth worshipping. Nor is he a god able to convict and save sinners. When wrath is taken away, so is the gospel. And that is why this discussion matters.

Denny Burk is associate professor of biblical studies at Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Listen to his message on the wrath of God at www.kenwoodbaptistchurch.com.

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Tuesday Briefing: New LifeWay store, VBS statistics, and debating the ‘wrath of God’

Meredith Flynn —  August 6, 2013

LifeWay_storeTHE BRIEFING | Meredith Flynn

LifeWay Christian Stores opened its third Illinois location August 1 and will celebrate with grand opening festivities throughout the month. The Wheaton store, located in the Town Square Wheaton on South Naperville Road, is formerly a Johnsen & Taylor Bookstore operated by Tyndale House Publishers.

“I’ve heard from many individuals and churches who are excited about LifeWay Christian Stores being here,” said store manager . “We are grateful to see the continuation of the ministry started by Johnsen & Taylor.”

LifeWay also operates stores on the campus of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and in Carterville, Ill.

Other news:

‘Wrath of God’ too much for hymnal
The Presbyterian Church USA chose not to include the song “In Christ Alone” in their new hymnal, all because the song mentions the “wrath of God.” On ChristianCentury.org Mary Louis Bringle, chair of the committee that made the decision, wrote that the song propagates “the view that the cross is primarily about God’s need to assuage God’s anger,” and that view could be harmful to future generations of worshippers.

Southern Baptist leaders, including Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President Russell Moore, have weighed in on the decision. Read his commentary on The Washington Post’s On Faith blog here.

Most churches still do VBS
A Barna study found 68% of churches held a Vacation Bible School last year, including 91% of Southern Baptist churches. The research also found that churches in the South are most likely to host VBS, along with churches with larger budgets and more adult worship attenders. And churches with “Buster” pastors, those aged 30-48, are the most likely to participate in VBS, according to Barna. Read more findings here.

Street preaching resumes on Bourbon St.
The city of New Orleans has revised an ordinance that prohibited street preaching on Bourbon Street, ChristianPost.com reports. The ban, enacted in 2011, controlled preaching from sunset to sunrise and forbade individuals or groups from gathering “for the purpose of disseminating any social, political or religious message…” Several preachers are suing the city after being arrested or threatened with arrest for preaching during last year’s Southern Decadence Festival, an annual pro-gay event. Read the full story at ChristianPost.com.

Graham calls for prayer for Abedini

Franklin Graham is urging people to pray for Pastor Saeed Abedini (right), an American imprisoned in Iran since last September. Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham and president of Samaritan’s Purse, spoke to FOX News about Abedini’s plight and the prayer vigil scheduled for Sept. 26 – the one-year anniversary of his captivity. He also questioned President Obama’s response: “President Obama has been silent on the issue as an American Christian endures the horrors of Evin Prison,” Graham said.

“Many in the international community are expressing outrage over this blatant example of religious intolerance,” he said. “I ask that our government do the same and demand that Pastor Saeed Abedini be released and allowed to return home to his wife and family in the United States.” Read more on reporter Todd Starnes’ FOX News page.

 

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Your ‘moronic 2 minutes’

Meredith Flynn —  August 5, 2013

HEARTLAND | By Joe McKeever, on Baptist Press

Pastor, have you ever had a meltdown in the pulpit?

pull quote_MCKEEVERIn the news recently, two Atlanta radio jocks were fired for the on-air mocking they did of a New Orleans icon, former Saints football player Steve Gleason who has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s) and lives in a wheelchair and speaks through a computer.

They made fun of him, parodied his situation, and someone role-played Steve speaking of his coming death and such.

It was the ultimate in offensive.

In the article which ran here in New Orleans, one of the terminated men said, “What were we thinking?” The jocks apologized, and in a subsequent story, Gleason said he accepted their apology.

One of the men called it “a moronic two minutes.”

No argument.

I have had a few moronic two minutes in my long lifetime, and expect some of our readers have also.

I know a pastor who was so exasperated with his small congregation that in a Sunday morning sermon, he berated them for their laziness and unresponsiveness and, working himself up into a lather, stalked out of the service, leaving his people sitting there.

The deacons — I think the church had three — went to him that afternoon to try to bring him to his senses.

Later that day, in the evening service, the pastor apologized to the church and kept on talking. Big mistake. The more he tried to explain why he did what he had done, he slipped into that same rant and once again, walked out of church, leaving the members stunned.

You will not be surprised to learn he was fired that week.

An uncontrolled display of the flesh by an undisciplined minister has aborted many a ministry.

Impulsive humor is often repulsive humor.

Impulsive anger has caused a zillion problems. (Just the other day, I heard of a man who owned racehorses growing exasperated because a prize stallion kept fading in the stretch and failing to win. In a burst of anger, the owner took a shotgun and killed the horse on the spot.)

Impulsive buying by a husband or wife has ruined many a marriage.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is … self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

When Margaret and I were young marrieds, we moved 350 miles with our 1-year-old son to enroll in seminary. This was the first time Margaret had ever lived away from her hometown and I was trying to learn subjects like Hebrew and Greek while holding down a part-time job. The stress on our marriage was considerable.

On one occasion during one of our frequent arguments, I was so angry, I put my fist through the wall. Granted, it was only sheetrock and that’s not hard to do, but the sight of that — and the humiliation of having to go to the campus housing office and report it so it could be repaired — got my attention.

More and more, as I prayed about my temper, Galatians 5:22-23 kept returning to my mind. The solution to my anger, I realized, was not working on anger issues. It was to be filled with the Spirit and let Him bear His fruit through me.

As I grew in Christ, the temper — and everything else — came more and more under His control.

What to do after your moronic two minutes

I apologized to Margaret for the display of the flesh. She forgave me, then said, “I was goading you into it.” Her taking part of the responsibility helped me deal with it.

When any of us have such a meltdown, there is no substitute to the basic Christian steps all of God’s people are asked to do when they sin:

1) Repent.

2) Confess.

3) Apologize to our victims and the spectators.

4) Restore or repay, to the extent you can.

5) Learn from it.

6) Now, get up and try again. Do not park by your failures, do not grovel in your failings and do not camp out on your weaknesses. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, including overcoming this failing.

7) Put it behind you now and be proactive for the future. Anticipate moments and situations that could be stressful, and prepare. Pray!

You are not perfect and never will be in this life. But the Lord deserves servants who strive to please Him in all we do.

“Set a guard upon my mouth, O Lord. Keep watch over the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3).

Uncontrolled and undisciplined anything is always unworthy of Christ-followers.

Joe McKeever, on the Web at http://www.joemckeever.com, is a Baptist Press cartoonist and columnist, a former longtime pastor and former director of missions for the New Orleans Baptist Association.

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Recommending the trustworthy

Meredith Flynn —  August 1, 2013

pull quote_ADAMS_augustCOMMENTARY | Nate Adams

This month two important committees will meet at the IBSA Building here in Springfield. Each typically meets only once per year, but when their jobs are done well, hours of preparation and follow up buttress those single meetings.

I’m referring to the IBSA Committee on Committees and the IBSA Nominating Committee. And it’s those hours of prayerful preparation prior to the meetings that deserve the attention and involvement of every one of us that understands what it takes for a thousand Baptist churches to work together here in Illinois.

You see, when IBSA churches cooperate, they give more than $6 million annually through the Cooperative Program, and they steward more than $9 million in annual resources through the IBSA budget. They provide a staff of around 40 to assist churches throughout the state in hundreds of different ways, and provide funding for dozens of church planters and other missions personnel.

Each year those churches provide the services of the Baptist Foundation of Illinois, and of Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services. They facilitate the operations of two statewide camps. They determine how much of their missions giving should go to the ministries of the national Southern Baptist Convention and how much should go to work here in Illinois.

And while the above only scratches the surface of their financial stewardship, IBSA churches work together to steward much more than money. They also steward the doctrinal and missional criteria for what it means to be a faithful, cooperating IBSA church. They set the riverbanks for how member churches will work together procedurally. They both preserve our history and seek to protect our future.

I could write much, much more about all our churches do together, but the more I would write, the more the question would emerge, “How do they do all that? How do a thousand diverse, geographically dispersed, busy churches of all sizes and styles work together to accomplish so much?”

As unglamorous or even mundane as it may sound, the answer to those questions, and the genius of how so many diverse churches are able to work together, is rooted in responsibilities like those of the Committee on Committees and the Nominating Committee. Year in and year out, these committees select trustworthy leaders who work within well-established processes to facilitate the near-miracle of cooperative missions among autonomous Baptist churches.

Have you guessed yet the point, the appeal, toward which I’m writing? This Great Commission system of cooperative missions depends on IBSA churches putting forth their most trustworthy, mature, and dependable members as candidates. The quality and effectiveness of our work together rises or falls on the servant leaders you recommend, whether from your church or from another.

This year’s deadline for submitting recommendations to these two important committees is August 9. You can download nomination forms quickly and easily from the home page article on http://www.IBSA.org. And you can read more there about the specific requirements of each IBSA committee or board. Or call Sandy Barnard at (217) 391-3107 for help submitting your nominations.

It’s been my privilege to work with some wonderful committee and board members over the past few years. But I’ve also observed that the number of churches supplying leaders for our committees and boards is fewer and less representative than it could be, and that each year we have far fewer recommendations than we have vacancies.

Between now and August 9, please consider recommending the most trustworthy servant leaders you know to serve on an IBSA committee or board. And be ready to say yes if you learn that someone has recommended you.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.

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