Praying Through Scripture Resource

Tonight we talked about some theology for prayer. If you were hoping for some practical help on growing in this discipline, check out Don Whitney's article on "Praying Through Scripture" located at his website.

The Cosmological Argument

Dr. Ware shared with us about three evidences for the existence of God last Friday night.

• The Cosmological Argument
• The Teleological Argument
• The Moral Argument

In case you missed it, or just want a review, below is a video about the cosmological argument (note: this is not from Dr. Ware but William Lane Craig).
(HT: Challies)

Are You Living The Radical Christian Life?

There has been a lot of talk about doing big things for God or being a radical Christian. In many ways this a good thing. We need to "stir one another up to love and good deeds." We need to challenge the cultural Christianity that promotes a dead faith.

That being said, we do need to be careful not to assume that radical Christianity is the equivalent of selling everything you own and going on the mission field.1 There is nothing wrong with that (and there is a lot that can be right about that). But, it is not the definition of living for Christ (though it may be a good application of that command). If it is, then what are we saying about the faithful Christian mother who devotes her energy not to reaching an unreached tribe in Africa but to reaching the unreached people group living in her home. And what are we saying about the Christian man who lives a life of faithful, steady plodding at his job and in his home for the sake of God's kingdom. If done to the glory of God, such living is radical, for it necessarily involves dying to self and living for Christ. What's more,

So, in that sense, radical Christianity is simply biblical, faithful Christianity. It is loving Jesus more than anything else. It is trusting in him when life is difficult and confusing. It is obeying his commands instead of living by my varying emotions.

Clearly, when we live this way it will look radical to the world around us. We will give and serve and pray with fervency. We will kill sin in our lives and put on righteousness. We will make no provision for the flesh to indulge its desires. We will carry out the "one another" commands of the New Testament. In short, we will have a true, living faith.

This does not mean we will be doing all those things perfectly. But, we will, by faith, cling to Jesus when we see that we fail, and we will cling to him for strength to obey.

To summarize, here is a helpful excerpt from a blog post by Barnabas Piper on being a radical Christian.

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. That’s so far outside of reality it sounds more like the twilight zone. No — reality is simply clinging to what I do know of God, His Son, and His faithfulness and just not letting go.  

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

- See more at: http://www.barnabaspiper.com/2013/08/all-radical-i-can-manage.html#sthash.Rr71JjXI.dpuf

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. That’s so far outside of reality it sounds more like the twilight zone. No — reality is simply clinging to what I do know of God, His Son, and His faithfulness and just not letting go.  

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

- See more at: http://www.barnabaspiper.com/2013/08/all-radical-i-can-manage.html#sthash.Rr71JjXI.dpuf

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. ...

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

So, if you are struggling just to trust and obey, keep up the fight of faith. It isn't a waste, and you are not a lame.


1. Note: I am not saying any specific author is saying this. I have not read the books that are promoting radical Christian living. I am just saying I have seen some think this way whether it is a result of something they actually read or something they merely misunderstood.

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. That’s so far outside of reality it sounds more like the twilight zone. No — reality is simply clinging to what I do know of God, His Son, and His faithfulness and just not letting go.  

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

- See more at: http://www.barnabaspiper.com/2013/08/all-radical-i-can-manage.html#sthash.Rr71JjXI.dpuf

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. That’s so far outside of reality it sounds more like the twilight zone. No — reality is simply clinging to what I do know of God, His Son, and His faithfulness and just not letting go.  

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

- See more at: http://www.barnabaspiper.com/2013/08/all-radical-i-can-manage.html#sthash.Rr71JjXI.dpuf

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. That’s so far outside of reality it sounds more like the twilight zone. No — reality is simply clinging to what I do know of God, His Son, and His faithfulness and just not letting go.  

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

- See more at: http://www.barnabaspiper.com/2013/08/all-radical-i-can-manage.html#sthash.Rr71JjXI.dpuf

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. That’s so far outside of reality it sounds more like the twilight zone. No — reality is simply clinging to what I do know of God, His Son, and His faithfulness and just not letting go.  

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

- See more at: http://www.barnabaspiper.com/2013/08/all-radical-i-can-manage.html#sthash.Rr71JjXI.dpuf

The push to be radical, on mission, a world-changer can seem like a crushing weight. Sometimes life is just too hard and stuff is too broken. It’s all I can manage just to keep my world from flying to bits, let alone change anyone else’s. That’s so far outside of reality it sounds more like the twilight zone. No — reality is simply clinging to what I do know of God, His Son, and His faithfulness and just not letting go.  

Maybe this is radical in its own right. It refuses to be a flight of fancy or a passing whimsy. No emotion drives it and therefore it won’t fall apart when the emotion ebbs. Faith in these crumbled, crushing times is radical because of its single-minded, iron-willed determination to hold on tight. It is the radical work of a man clinging to a life preserver instead of the radical achievement of the one who built the ocean liner, the one that is heading to the sea floor.

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

- See more at: http://www.barnabaspiper.com/2013/08/all-radical-i-can-manage.html#sthash.Rr71JjXI.dpuf

Sinners and Sociopaths - Thinking about The Ariel Castro Case

At his sentencing hearing, Ariel Castro, the man who kidnapped and kept three girls as sex slaves for 11 years, said, "I am not a monster. I am a normal person. I am just sick." Dr. Al Mohler has some very helpful thoughts on how we should think, as Christians, about Ariel Castro and people like him. Is he just sick? Is he a monster? Why are we so repulsed by his particular crimes? I encourage you to read Dr. Mohler's article.

"Are You Free NOT to Drink?"

The issue of alcohol has always been an issue for faithful Christians. The main issue centers around what is Christian freedom. Brett McCracken has written a helpful article on the issue at Mere Orthodoxy entitled "Are You Free NOT to Drink."   He notes that alcohol is not inherently sinful, but he also states his concern with the increased movement in young, Christian circles to celebrate alcohol:

What worries me is this question: Are we so embracing our Christian liberty to partake of alcohol that it threatens to become less a “liberty” and more a shackling legalism–something we can’t, or won’t, go without? As my pastor Alan often says, are we as free to abstain from alcohol as we are free to enjoy it?

He goes on to list a few other questions to consider that are quite helpful:

• Is alcohol a “nice to have” or a “must-have”? Can we go out to eat without ordering an alcoholic beverage? Attend a party and only drink soda? Dare to not have some booze in our house for a stretch of time? 
• Are we mindful of those around us, and if they struggle with alcohol in any way are we willing to abstain for their sake? Drinking alcohol may be a perfectly biblical, perfectly Christian thing to do. But if for others in our community it is a hardship or a temptation, then shouldn’t we abstain? As Christians, the ascetic call to deny ourselves perfectly good things for the sake of a community or a commitment is a worthy pursuit. 
• Do we wear our freedom as a badge of honor, as “proof” that we are under grace and thus can drink and party to our heart’s content? If so, we should check ourselves, because reducing grace to a sanctioning of pleasure is tragic; furthermore, if we are talking about freedom under grace, then what about the freedom to deny ourselves and go without? Grace makes this possible too. 
• Do we have a serious-enough understanding of how dangerous alcohol can be? Alcohol has a long and tumultuous history as an addictive wrecker of lives. We all know people who’ve been ruined or nearly ruined by it. We must be careful that our incremental habituation of it in our lives doesn’t become a controlling idol. Alcohol is not something to be trifled with.

He then gets to the heart of the issue when it comes to alcohol and all other sorts of "good" things. The dangers of turning enjoyable things into ultimate things. McCracken notes:

There are all sorts of good items and activities in culture that we are free to enjoy in moderation. Food, fitness, movies, music, travel, sports, gaming, and on and on. But the minute any of this becomes something we can’t live without, or something we excessively consume to the point that we need it more than we enjoy it, we should be concerned. 

Because ultimately, the goodness of something that we might consume is at its most good when we enjoy it in a God-centric way rather than a me-centric way. That is: when we see it as a gift from God and something to reflect glory back to him, rather than something that serves us and our needs.

(HT: Patrick Schreiner @ http://patrickschreiner.com).

"Ten Things Every Christian Should Know about Islam"

Here is a short list of things you should know about Islam by Zane Pratt.It's a quick read and, while not anywhere near exhaustive, it will help you better understand one of the fastest growing religions. I pray this helps equip you to evangelize Muslim friends, classmates, and coworkers.

Two Difficulties of Holding to an 'Old Earth' View of Creation

In a talk entitled "Why does the universe look so old?", Al Mohler discuss two main concerns with "old earth" views- namely a historical Adam and our understanding of the consequences of the fall into sin.  Below are excerpts.

Historical Adam

 The first is the historicity of Adam. In Romans 5:12 we read, “Therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men because man sinned.” Paul bases his understanding of human sinfulness and of Adam’s headship over the human race on a historical Adam. A historical fall. Adam may be—indeed I believe really is—the most pressing question: the historicity of Adam and Eve and the historicity of the fall. An old earth understanding has serious complications because the old earth is not merely understood to be old. The inference that it is old is based upon certain evidences that also tell a story. The fossils are telling a story. And the story they are telling is of millions and indeed billions of years of creation before the arrival of Adam. But the scientific consensus of the meaning of that evidence goes far beyond that to suggesting that there were hominids and pre-hominids and there were hundreds of thousands of hominids and there were... It is possible to hold under an old age understanding to a historical Adam, to the special creation of humanity, but it requires an arbitrary intervention of God into a very long process, billions of years in which at some point God acts unilaterally to create Adam and Eve. Eve out of Adam.

It comes with very serious intellectual entanglements. It is actually difficult and that is reflected by the fact that the contemporary conversation in terms of the age of the earth is requiring a redefinition of who Adam was. Interestingly as I’ve looked at this question I’ve been surprised quite frankly to see how many older evangelicals had already seen this and come to terms with it. In his commentary on the book of Romans, John Stott actually suggests that Adam was an existing hominid that God adopted in a special way, and out of Homo sapiens God implanted his image, and made Adam particularly in his image by ensouling him, and creating in Adam not only Homo sapiens but Homo divinus. Let’s just imagine for a moment what that would theologically require. It requires that there were Homo sapiens who were not the image bearers of God. It requires an adoptionistic understanding of Adam, rather than special creation of Adam. 

The Fall

We understand from Genesis 3 and from the entire narrative of scripture from texts like Romans 8 that what we know in the world today as catastrophe, as natural disaster, earthquake, destruction by volcanic eruption, pain, death, violence, predation—that these are results of the fall. We end up with enormous problems if we try to interpret a historical fall and understand a historical fall in an old earth rendering. This is most clear when it comes to Adam’s sin. Was it true that, as Paul argues, when sin came, death came? Well just keep in mind that if the earth is indeed old, and we infer that it is old because of the scientific data, the scientific data is also there to claim that long before the emergence of Adam—if indeed there is the recognition of a historical Adam—and certainly long before there was the possibility of Adam’s sin, there were all the effects of sin that are biblically attributed to the fall and not to anything before the fall. And we’re not only talking about death, we’re talking about death by the millions and billions........ What sense does it make to point to the kingdom and the consummation as when the lamb and the lion shall be together and lay together, if indeed there was predation before the fall.