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The Entrance, Suffering and Sovereignty of Christ – Holy Week

This is the time of contemplation and remembrance in the church calendar when we consider the intentionality of Christ in pursuing the cross. The love of God is magnified and displayed in its brilliance at Calvary: the complete and total orchestration, pre-planning, ordering, and sovereign, loving providence surrounding the events leading up to and fulfilled in Christ’s incarnation, life, death, and resurrection on behalf of His people, unto the ultimate restoration of all creation.

Resources for this Good Friday

A Niebuhr Kind of Day

Update: To her credit, Rachel Held Evans has come out and apologized for jumping the gun and assuming the worst about John Piper’s motives. I still maintain this brand of evangelicalism is on the Downgrade, but it’s good to see her admit a wrong committed and seek reconciliation (based on a number of tweets to that effect). http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/forgive-me

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I fail to see how Rachel Held Evans theology (and others like her) escapes this assessment of liberal theology in the 19th and 20th centuries by H. Richard Niebuhr:

“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” – H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America.

The “universal acid” (Mohler) of skepticism and doubt eventually swallows up every doctrine of Scripture. Just ask Shelby Spong or Marcus Borg, they’ll tell you what they think. “Did God actually say ______?” (Gen. 3:1). This is the fundamental root of all sin, a doubting that God would actually speak clear truth in love toward us. What could be more loving than God giving us His words, preserved through centuries for our salvation? Maybe giving His own Son to suffer in our stead? Then again, penal substitutionary atonement is probably interpreted as “divine child abuse” (Chalke) to her. (Mohler)

For the postmodern, everything having to do with Scripture is vague or unclear and left to interpretation and therefore any interpretation is a go, or at the least entertainable, even though multiple ecumenical church councils over many centuries may have denied it, since that was merely their interpretation. But don’t worry, Rachel Held Evans and crew are here in their vast knowledge and research to rescue you from… Christianity, with its archaic, repressive doctrines and symbols that need a liberal, feminist, egalitarian, postmodern, 21st century makeover. James White is right to say that every generation must fight its own version of the Downgrade Controversy. This is ours and it’s here.

Interesting how the explanation of why Piper tweeted what he did and his response to what can only be described as cynical, hyper-emotional, unthinking criticism didn’t seem to make the presses though. But so goes Rachel Held Evans. Whatever fits the meme that Reformed people or conservative evangelicals in general are bad people, I guess. Smear the character, don’t actually engage the argument or the position. Sounds like far-leftist politics is invading the theological world. Eh, whatever gets blog hits right? Celebrity leftist evangelicalism at it’s finest, letting the Xian PR machine take over. Boy did this get her some traffic.

Also interesting to note is that Evans cites a sermon by open theist Greg Boyd after updating her blog post. Explains much. “Escaping the Twilight Zone God

Evans represents a brand of evangelicalism that sits atop shaky ground; building a house on the sand. It’s been a long time coming and looks to be giving way. In my absolute frustration at what I read from her and other likeminded individuals is utter sadness. Once emergent theology started blending more with average evangelical churches, it was only a matter of time and tilt of the slope. Unfortunately it won’t end well.

Douglas Wilson gives Rachel Held Evans a well-deserved response for such sloppiness and avoiding the glaring problem that remains: http://dougwils.com/s16-theology/rachel-held-evans-denies-the-cat.html. Don’t miss it.

Together for the Gospel (T4G) 2012 – Audio and Video

I’ll be posting audio and video from the Together for the Gospel Conference as it becomes available.

1: The Sustaining Power of the Gospel – C.J. Mahaney (MP3)


2: The Power of the Articulated Gospel – Albert Mohler (MP3)


3: False Conversions: The Suicide of the Church – Mark Dever (MP3)


4: Will Your Gospel Transforms a Terrorist? – Thabiti Anyabwile (MP3)


5: Spirit-Powered, Gospel-Driven, Faith-Fueled Effort – Kevin DeYoung (MP3)


6: Divine Sovereignty: The Fuel of Death-Defying Missions – David Platt (MP3)


7: The Underestimated God – Ligon Duncan (MP3)


8: The Fulfillment of the Gospel – Matt Chandler (MP3)


9: Glory, Majesty, Dominion, and Authority Keep Us Safe for Everlasting Joy – John Piper (MP3)

T4G 2010 Audio and Video

Session 1 – Mark Dever – “The Church is the Gospel Made Visible”

MP3 Audio

The Book of Ruth: Reigning Providence

Sermons on Ruth – John Piper

In my yearly trek through the Scriptures, I have come today to the book of Ruth. I have read this book many times, but never studied it in depth. So I thought it would be good to look up a sermon series on this book and I came across some sermons by none other than John Piper, who preached on this book in four sermons in 1984. I really was taken aback by the first one in how he displays so clearly the beautiful providence of God in the midst of deep, bitter trial, designing and intending it for good. There are so many things I have missed in this wonderful little book. I highly recommend these sermons.

The Outrageous Love of God – R.W. Glenn

God’s Outrageous Love – R.W. Glenn (MP3) – HT: Justin Taylor

I honestly haven’t been impacted by a sermon like this in a while. Justin Taylor has already blogged about this, but I think it’s worth repeating. God’s Outrageous Love is a sermon R.W. Glenn gave at John Piper’s church, Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN a couple of weeks ago. It’s a message on Jonah 4 and how outrageous it is that God loves any of us. Here is a quote: “Until you’re outraged by God’s love, you’ll never think it’s outrageous; until you’re offended by God’s love, you’ll never be overwhelmed by it.” This was really convicting and yet at the same time pointing to the greatness of the mercy of Christ. Highly recommended!

Does This Sound Familiar My Evangelical Friends?

This is an excerpt from J. Gresham Machen, in his excellent concise work Christianity and Liberalism, chapter 2, first published in 1923. It is amazing how words from the past apply in the same manner to today’s evangelical movement. If the practice of our faith consists merely in our feelings, emotions and experience without knowing any spiritual knowledge or substance of our faith, it becomes non-moral, as Machen argues.

DISCLAIMER: this is not speaking of modern political liberalism, but rather modernist theological liberalism. However, it aptly applies to our day’s evangelical movement.

[Liberalism] is opposed to Christianity, in the first place, in its conception of God. But at this point we are met with a particularly insistent form of that objection to doctrinal matters which has already been considered. It is unnecessary, we are told, to have a”conception” of God; theology, or the knowledge of God, it is said, is the death of religion; we should not seek to know God, but should merely feel His presence.

For the Sake of My Family: Marriage – Piper and Taylor

Excerpt from What God Requires, Christ Provides by John Piper and Justin Taylor

I have a family to care for. My marriage must survive and thrive for the good of our children and the glory of Christ. God designed marriage to display the holy mercy of Christ and the happy submission of his church (see Eph. 5:21-25). Here the doctrine of justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ can be a great marriage saver and sweetener.

Marriage seems almost impossible at times because both partners feel so self-justified in their expectations that are not being fulfilled. There is a horrible emotional dead end in the words, “But it’s just plain wrong for you to act that way,” followed by “That’s your perfectionistic perspective” or “Do you think you do everything right?” or by hopeless, resigned silence. The cycle of self-justified self-pity and anger can seem unbreakable.

John Piper – TULIP Seminar – Part 1 – Introduction

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