Prayer is Essentially Corporate

In Opening To God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer, David Benner argues that,

Prayer should never be simply a private me-and-God matter. Such a view of Christian spirituality is far too egocentric. Recall the patter...in the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father. Our prayer may feel like our own, but we offer it as part of a community who address God collectively as "Our Father." (127)

This could be revolutionary to your prayer-life; it has been for mine in recent days.  Benner's argument is echoed in John Stackhouse's sermon on the Lord's Prayer which he preached at Regent College this past January.  I recommend Benner's book and Stackhouse's sermon (available for free download) as excellent resources on the praying-life.

Prayer is Essentially Corporate

Dispatches from the Front - Volume 6 Available

I'm in!  I watched the preview months ago, I've read a handful of recommendations of this series, so, finally, I just bought this set.  I recognize that I need to keep the burden of missions before me as much as is possible.  Reading missionary biographies is one way to do this.  Now, I can watch these videos with my family and also share them with our church.

I'm very appreciative of the folks at WTS Bookstore who are offering these DVDs at hugely, discounted rate.  I'm looking forward to watching these!

If you're interested (and I hope that you are), please follow these links to purchase either Episode 6 alone or the entire Set.  May God continue to extend His kingdom!

Watch this preview video:

 
About Dispatches From The Front from Frontline Missions International on Vimeo.

Dispatches from the Front - Volume 6 Available

With God in the Workplace

We undertake experiments of everyday life in which we are learning to be with God. And the stuff of our day-to-day experience is the place where these experiments go on. This with-God life takes no time, yet it occupies all our time. When we go to work, we go to work with-God. At work we are learning how to bless those who curse us, how to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice, how our very presence can be a joy to others. And the experiments are numerous and varied: "Today, Lord, teach me somehow to bless every person I meet. Show me the preciousness of each individual. Fill my mind with creative new ideas and show me how to break the horns of cruel dilemmas."

[Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe, Longing for God: Seven Paths of Christian Devotion. (IVP Books, 2009), p. 25]

With God in the Workplace

Bookstore and Journal Pages Updated

Here's just a quick note to highlight two of our growing lists located on the sidebar:

• Best Brick-and-Mortar Bookshops and also, 
• Theological Journals

Thank you to the readers who have kindly informed me of possible additions to these pages.  I know that there must be many more bookshops that offer new and used theological books around the country.  Please send me the names and locations of your favorites.

Blessings,

Jason Button

Bookstore and Journal Pages Updated

Tony Reinke's Lit! is Discounted for 24 Hours Only

Here's a deal I didn't want to pass up.  I've heard so many good things and read excellent excerpts.  I'm glad to now own at least the digital copy and am looking forward to learning from Tony, who is a very discerning reader.
 

Tony Reinke's Lit! is Discounted for 24 Hours Only

"You...received me as Christ Jesus"

I am currently reading Sermons in Solitary Confinement by Richard Wurmbrand.  This books was recommended to me by a missionary friend and I have been, at times, overwhelmed by the pathos of these sermons.  Being a lay-preacher in the Presbyterian Church, this little story told by Richard Wurmbrand caught my attention. May we (regardless of our denominational affiliation) never become disinterested in Christ!

I was once looking for the Presbyterian pastor in a certain town. I went to the church, but the caretaker told me that he lived some distance away. Some boys were playing in the churchyard. Overhearing our conversation, one of them offered to show me the pastor's house. While we were walking along, I asked him if he believed in Christ. The boy, aged fourteen, decidedly answered: "No." I asked him why. He replied in his childish manner: "I believe that if God created this good and meek and loving Jesus of two thousand years ago in Palestine, in whom we are meant to trust, he must have created some little Jesus in every generation in every place, so that in looking at the little Jesus we may believe in the big one. But I have never met a little Jesus. I am a poor child. My father is a drunkard and beats me. My mother is a washer-woman and has no time for me. I have never had a good suit. Nobody has ever bought me chocolate or sweets. I have had no toys. If God is almighty, why did he only make Jesus once? An almighty God could make many Jesuses. Then it would be easy to believe." I asked him again: "But isn't your pastor a Jesus?" The answer was as decided as the first: "No." 

And so we arrived at the pastor's house. The boy left. I was alone with the pastor. I spoke with him about Christ. It was an uninteresting subject for him. Then I told him what the boy had said. The pastor exclaimed: "What an idiot!" wherewith I whole-heartedly agreed. Only I considered somebody else to be the idiot. 

(Richard Wurmbrand, Sermons in Solitary Confinement, Great Britain: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969, pp. 110-111)

Galatians 4:13-14 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

"You...received me as Christ Jesus"

on Christian Baptism

Jared Oliphint is to be commended for a very carefully argued and graciously stated response to the question of re-baptism. Please see his article posted on The Gospel Coalition blog on 2/6/13: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/02/06/you-asked-should-i-get-re-baptized-paedobaptist-answer/.

I have been studying the Scriptures with regard to the question of baptism since I have encountered it in preaching through Acts.  I wish that I was as well-organized with my thoughts as Jared is.  This is a very helpful starting point to addressing the question of Christian baptism.

Certainly there is more to the doctrine than what has been stated in this article.  This past week I worked through Understanding Four Views on Baptism. Counterpoints (Zondervan, 2007).  I found this resource to be very helpful.  The four views presented here are Baptist, Reformed, Lutheran, and church of Christ.  In my opinion, the best articles (and responses) are those by Richard Pratt (Reformed) and Robert Kolb (Lutheran).  These two writers tackle this issue from a use of both Old and New Testaments.  This is important, because it takes into consideration the grand picture of redemption, wrestling with both continuity and discontinuity between the testaments.  They also do well by way of connecting the discussion with the historic practices and creeds of the Christian Church, which is also important because we do not live in a vacuum but must (or, rather, we get to) regularly evaluate and build upon historic tradition and previous theological discussions.  

Also, a few years ago my wife and I watched a video produced by Third Millenium Ministries in which Dr. Richard Pratt explained the Reformed view of baptism.  This video is available online at Vimeo.

Why Do We Baptize Our Children? from Third Millennium Ministries on Vimeo.

If you are more of a visual learner, I highly recommend this video to you.

Finally, our home church provides a copy of John P. Sartelle's little booklet What Christian Parents Should Know About Infant Baptism which is a very handy and readable tool for distribution.

I hope these resources will help you to see the Christ-exalting beauty of the sacrament of Christian Baptism.

on Christian Baptism

on The Gospel Order of Understanding Who We Are and What We Do

I just finished listening to a three part series, How Grace Changes Men, taught by Bryan Chapell at the Grace & Men Conference which was hosted in Orlando, FL back in 2009, and I want to share this with those of you who follow this blog.  I began listening to these messages on my way home form preaching on Sunday morning.  My heart was deeply affected.  I so needed to hear these messages!  I grew up in the Christian Church but for the longest time, I understood all of this backwards. I still get it backwards from time to time (or better, very often).

This brief transcript is form Bryan Chapell's introduction to the third message in the series. It will provide you with a sense of the direction of this message, but I recommend that you listen to the entire message. He draws this truth out in greater detail with exposition and illustration that was very helpful to me. Here's how Chapell explains the gospel order of understanding who we are in Christ.

What we're trying to do is to fill people with hope so that the living out of the gospel is a natural (supernatural) response of their lives. It normally flows when they have understood how great is God's love for them.

And, if you flip that around; if what you end up saying is, "You need to do these things" (those are the imperatives of the Christian life)━"You need to do these things and then you'll know the joy of the gospel, God will love you, and you will feel his embrace.

If you ever follow that order, making the imperatives the foundation of their relationship with God (not just eternally, but even daily), then people will be burdened and battered.  There is an order to the gospel.  It is this: the imperatives are based on the indicatives (indicatives are what we are by the work of Christ).  The imperatives are based on the indicatives; and the order is not reversible. …

That's always the message. Always, God is saying, "Yes, there are things to do, but it's based on who your are.  Who you are is not based on what you do.  Sometimes people say it this way, "We just confuse our who and our do."  We think who we are is based on what we do; but the fact of the matter is, what we do is based on who we are.  And if you capture that it will change absolutely everything in your life.

This audio series has been made available at www.thegospelman.com/audio/index.html.

One other message that I would urge you to listen to is How Grace Informs the Devotional Life of a Man by Joe Novenson from 2008!!!

See also http://howgracechangesmen.com/.

on The Gospel Order of Understanding Who We Are and What We Do

Happy Birthday Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Today, December 20th, is the birthday of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones who was born in 1899.  Just the other day I went out to the Marty Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust's online audio library and downloaded a few sermons to listen to over the Christmas holiday.  If you have not made use of this excellent resource, I recommend it to you.

The MLJ Recordings Trust is doing an excellent job.  Today, I found the below attached video which is a production of the Trust. It is well-done and fascinating, especially in that it includes a portion of a rare television interview with the Dr.



Also of interest: Iain Murray's Lloyd-Jones, Messenger of Grace (Banner of Truth, 2008).  It is excellent.

What is your favorite Lloyd-Jones work or sermon series?

Happy Birthday Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Harmony & Trinitarian Christianity

The Roman Catholic church remembers November 22 (yesterday) as St. Cecilia's day.  I had no idea about this and had never heard of St. Cecilia until a few weeks ago.  Apparently, St. Cecilia is the patroness of musicians and church music.

In his excellent, little book, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (IVP Academic, 2012), Michael Reeves illustrates the harmonious relationship between Christianity and music using John Dryden's poem, A Song for St. Cecelia's Day, 1687, which was later set to music by George Fredric Handel (1739).  I didn't catch the full power of this illustration until I heard Reeves introduce it and explain it in greater detail in the second of three audio lectures which are available online.  This is magnificent, and the point is clearly established.

Take some time and listen to the audio (at least the excerpt outlined below).  If you have about an hour to spare, I encourage you to watch the YouTube video listed below and follow along with a copy of Dryden's poem.  It is truly beautiful and a great example of theology leading into doxology.

Follow these links to the TheologyNetwork.org website in order to either listen online or download the audio files.

Enjoying the Trinity 1: A Delightfully Different God
Enjoying the Trinity 2: The Spreading Love
Enjoying the Trinity 3: This Changes Everything!

It is in the second lecture, "Enjoying the Trinity 2", that Michael Reeves speaks about "the sweet relationship between Christianity and music." He argues that this relationship is based upon the Trinity. The entire lecture is excellent, but here is an outline to his comments on music, harmony and Christianity:

At 21:34 he begins to address Christianity's relationship with music.
At 23:20 he contrasts the music of trinitarian Christianity with "less-trinitarian Christianity".
At 25:16 he introduces John Dryden and his A Song for St. Cecilia's Day.
At 27:01 he begins to play G. F. Handel's musical composition, Ode for St. Cecilia's Day. [The music ends at 29:35.]
At 28:25, while the music is playing, Reeves speaks of the NT description of the church as being made up of different members with different gifts yet constituting a harmony. This was also awesome.

A beautiful performance of this cantata can be viewed on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/UlVUVOCyyQs ~ Händel Ode for St Cecilia's Day Arts Florissants, P Agnew.

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687 
BY JOHN DRYDEN 

Stanza 1
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
               This universal frame began.
       When Nature underneath a heap
               Of jarring atoms lay,
       And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
               Arise ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
       In order to their stations leap,
               And music's pow'r obey.
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
               This universal frame began:
               From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
       The diapason closing full in man.


Stanza 2
What passion cannot music raise and quell!
                When Jubal struck the corded shell,
         His list'ning brethren stood around
         And wond'ring, on their faces fell
         To worship that celestial sound:
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
                Within the hollow of that shell
                That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot music raise and quell!


Stanza 3         
The trumpet's loud clangor
                Excites us to arms
         With shrill notes of anger
                        And mortal alarms.
         The double double double beat
                Of the thund'ring drum
         Cries, hark the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.


Stanza 4         
The soft complaining flute
         In dying notes discovers
         The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.


Stanza 5         
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains and height of passion,
         For the fair, disdainful dame.


Stanza 6
But oh! what art can teach
         What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their Heav'nly ways
         To mend the choirs above.


Stanza 7
Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place;
                Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r;
         When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd
                Mistaking earth for Heav'n.


GRAND CHORUS
As from the pow'r of sacred lays
         The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
         To all the bless'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
   This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
         The dead shall live, the living die,
         And music shall untune the sky.

Harmony & Trinitarian Christianity