Celebrity Pastors And The Gospel Of Grace

It may seem fitting that the mighty TBN ministry is in crisis right now, given the false prosperity gospel upon which Jan and Paul Crouch, undeniable the most celebrated ministers in the country, have built their empire. Given the current discussion of celebrity in the reformed church, it is timely, if nothing else to ask if this drift towards self-destruction is the direction that all celebrity pastors end up taking. All of the discussion seems centered on the celebrity of the Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald types, but is not limited to just them. They beg the discussion because of their current book tours, and their high profile at the last Elephant Room conference where they seemed to blur the lines between solid gospel understanding and heretical preaching by their inclusion of word/faith pastor TD Jakes in their very public conference, even though the conference was designed to bring different views to the table.

Still Mired In Clay?

So the conversation has begun. Just how much tolerance are we to have concerning questionable associations between pastors when one pastor has been thought to be in doctrinal error? Judgments abound about the controversies between the mega pastors, to the point where even just being a mega pastor has been frowned upon.

DA Carson, in his book, The Intolerance of Tolerance, points out that the very meaning of tolerance has changed over the years. It used to be that you could disagree with someone, even strongly, but not be accused of intolerance. This left the discussion open for civil discourse on what the differing issues are, and look for common ground where you can then proceed to explain/persuade your opponent of their possibly errant ways. He was mostly speaking of issues between the church and the secularized world. But the new definition of intolerance is that if you disagree with someone, you are intolerant. This causes the discussion to be shut off, and no further conversation is possible since each side of the argument has turned into condemnation of the other person, not just the issue. His book is worth reading!

So how does this affect the Christian to Christian dialog, which it certainly has? The reasonable discussion of issues is virtually stopping, and the possibility of understanding another’s point of view, with or without an aim to correct, vanishes. This cannot possibly be good. For instance, John Piper is still being condemned for inviting Rick Warren to speak at the Desiring God conference last year. Rick Warren is being condemned

Christian Justice and National Security vs Freedom

"The NSA has become the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever" from Wired Science.

Many see the governmental take over of the health care system, with mandates for all to purchase insurance they can't afford, as a loss of freedom, just as is seen the imposing of health care rules on both religious organizations and people that find those rules to be against their morals, a loss of religious freedom, all of which is supposed to be protected by our constitution; and the jury is still out on where all of that will go. But there is no doubt that the current administration, including the congress, is making the largest power grab in history. 

The president has taken over the auto industry, the health care industry, the oil industry (preventing new leases), and countless other industries like the insurance industry by regulations and loans, and the housing purchasing industry by the same methods (note: when one has regulated something to the point that they are coming to you for money with strings attached, you have successfully taken them over), and now, as possibly the largest assault on privacy and freedom, the NSA will not just be scanning the internet "chatter" for terrorists anymore, and studying secret transmissions between governments, they will be reading, reviewing, analyzing, studying, and using as they wish, YOU.

Much More Like A Ball

How much grace is too much grace? You've heard the arguments. To say that it really is finished, to say that the Gospel of Christ really is the main thing, is to invoke the usual skeptics who insist that there really is a balance that needs to be struck between the Law and the Gospel. The result of this controversy, this tension between Law and Gospel as it were, has been a church awash in legalism, powerless evangelism, and saved Christians unprepared for the inevitable storms of life on one end, and on the other end, people seeking refuge in hopeless versions of the gospel that promise selfish rewards for faith (what the Gospel actually frees us from), as if grace were a commodity to be bought and sold. The church really needs to answer the question, "What is the Gospel?", and truly articulate that answer to all those who profess to follow Christ, and to those that need Him.

Fortunately, many authors are standing up to address this tension, and redefine the gospel in an understandable way that truly unleashes the gospel into the believing Christian's life. One such book is Jared Wilson's Gospel Wakefulness, wonderfully capturing the truth of the Gospel, how obedience is from the gospel, not our part in it. For instance, in his chapter Chief Spiritual Rhythms, Jared likens the Gospel to a ballroom dance:

    "The Christian not wowed in gospel wakefulness may move like the frightened victim in an old Western, shuffling his feet frantically as the law, demanding he "dance!" fires a six-shooter at his toes. There is compliance but no heart, no rhythm. But the gospel-wakened Christian dances because he's at the ball. He hears the music of the gospel and cannot help but dance!" 

Reading the book, it being totally comprehensive in approach, one can truly be awakened to the Gospel and all the real peace and blessings it contains, enabling the Christian to enthusiastically take part in the evangelism and mission of the church.

Jared incorporates the very interesting story of his pastoral move from a bible-belt southern church to a northeastern church, and the surprises and similarities he encounters preaching gospel wakefulness along the way. He is the author of several books, including Your Jesus Is Too Safe, another "must read". Wilson's blog, The Gospel Driven Church is parked at The Gospel Coalition, and should be one of your regular stops.

ER2- Enough Already!

Let's name her "Grace."


For those of you not familiar with the "Elephant Room Crisis," you might need to get caught up by reading one post from Vodie Baucham at Grace Family Baptist Church to ingest the whole controversy. In (very) short, Elephant Room founder and mega pastor James MacDonald invited controversial figure T.D. Jakes to join in their moderated discussion on church differences before a large online audience, thus presumably giving acceptance to his prosperity gospel ideas, and allowing him to weakly gloss over his differences on his Oneness Trinity beliefs. They did treat him as a brother in Christ, propelling James MacDonald to (behind the scenes) resign from his board position with the Gospel Coalition, before the event even took place, whether by force or consent. We don't know. The appearance was that it was a mutual decision. Needless to say, the internet erupted at the conclusion of the event condemning all who were involved, all who even knew any of the participants, and it still goes on and on.

The Gospel Coalition, a mostly Reformed group of church leaders, movers and shakers, in the current "gospel-centered" movement, were bludgeoned the most, for their seemingly slow response to the controversy, and now pastors even remotely connected with the group are being attacked for merely pointing out their friendship of, and support of, James MacDonald and his christian philosophies. In short, Christians are shooting Christians.

Here's how far this has gone, and my "quick take" on what is happening in this aftermath, using as few names as possible-

Mega church Pastor Matt Chandler, one of the most humble and honest men of God leading in the Body of Christ, recently tweeted that he was "baffled and appalled" that anyone would consider James MacDonald a "heretic", and hashtagged it under "crazytalk".

I Doubt It

Lately I have been dwelling on Thomas' doubt of the risen Lord. Hardly a Christmas story, I know. But since I can't get it out of my head, I must make the obvious observations. Many times this story has been used to explain our doubts about God. How much faith is still faith when we also harbor doubts? How can our doubt strengthen us? One can hardly go through church life without encountering these interesting discussion questions in a bible study.

But is that really what this story is about?

The Gospel According To Me

Michael Horton pens "The Gospel and the Sufficiency of Scripture", a feature this month in Modern Reformation magazine. In it he quotes the best-selling Habits of the Heart, where Robert Bellah and fellow sociologists surveyed religion in the United States. They concluded that it is best described as "Sheilaism," named after one person they interviewed who said that she follows her own little voice. Bellah proposes that every American is the founder of his or her own religion, following the dictates of his or her own heart.

Horton's (very meaty) article wants to focus on the integral connection between the sufficiency of Scripture and the sufficiency of the gospel, but must begin with the reality that the American church is basically millions of different ideas of what scripture and the gospel mean. To the average Christian, Christianity is just the relative way they see Christianity.

Where I Have Been

Pew Warmers In The Grace Of God

"A graceless Calvinist is a guy who knows how a car works but who's never driven through the countryside in the warm spring air with the top down and the wind blowing through his hair." -Jared Wilson, The Gospel-Driven Church, in response to a pastor's remark about some folks getting sucked into "that Reformed theology."

Jared "gently" concludes his argument about graceless Calvinists, "The problem is not the Reformed theology, as many free-willers suspect, not the Calvinism. No, the problem is gospel wakefulness (which crosses theological systems and traditions). Or the lack thereof."

In my service as a worship leader, much discussion is had about the perpetual pew warmer. Pastors want to "fire them up" and get them contributing to the life of the church in one form of service or another. The pastor is sure they are believers, and can't figure out why they never help in anyway at all. Even with inspiring worship and preaching, nothing seems to get through to them. Isn't this all the same problem?

Are You Ready?

One need only spend a short time watching or listening to Christian broadcasts to learn that many believe this mountain of Megeddo will soon be a very busy place. Of course, the cinemas are depicting the end times as the year 2012, rapidly approaching, which is the end date of the Mayan calendar; as the Mayans read the alignment of the planets with the galactic center of the Milky Way. It is certainly a great achievement of the Mayans to understand the rotation of the planets and the wobble of the earth on it's axis. That alone should cause everyone to take notice of their ingenuity. Few people even understand how early civilizations could grasp something as difficult as the planetary rotation cycles in relation to the galactic center.

Jesus makes it clear in the gospels that he doesn't want us to be unaware of the end times, as does Paul. But one must wonder what difference it is actually supposed to make in our lives. It is almost a given that at the conclusion of any "end times" broadcast the question will be asked, "Are you ready for the Lord to return?" Is this the reason we have been taught about the end times?

God Is In Control???

Home-grown terrorist Nidal Hassan stunned the country this week with the carnage at Fort Hood Army Base. How can a sovereign God allow this type of carnage to exist? Is God really in control, or is man's free will an irritation that God has to work around? For that matter, how can a loving God allow events like Katrina, the tsunami, 9.11, and now this horror in Texas, to even happen. It hardly seems that the "Kingdom" is at hand. What possible good can come from these events? It would seem that God is taking too many days off, and the efforts of the saints to declare Christ are only hampered by these events. Kingdom building seems set back every time God drops the ball and something ungodly happens.

Modern Warfare

"Prayerlessness is an expression of our meager confidence in God’s ability to provide and of our strong confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves without God’s help." - Kevin DeYoung, The Gospel Coalition

Kevin tugs at the very crux of Gospel living. Do we really see how we need a savior every day? To be self absorbed, self sufficient, independent, is to be our own savior, the most deadly of sins.

Grace, First and Decisive

John Piper posted this a couple of days ago at Desiring God. It's just too good for a link. (In it's entirety), Piper writes:

Sometimes readers of the Bible see the conditions that God lays down for his blessing and they conclude from these conditions that our action is first and decisive, then God responds to bless us.

That is not right.

Proof of Grace

Faith is often thought of as "believing in something we cannot see," or "believing in God." That's almost become the textbook definition, even to an unbeliever. The discussion gets interesting though, when we talk about "saving faith" being more than just believing something exist. We've heard it a thousand times, that even the devil believes there's a God. So the manuscripts lead us to the word "believing" meaning trusting, relying in Him.

But we were talking about faith. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and conviction of things not seen." (Heb 11:1) Things that we hope for; the empty tomb, eternal life, transformation to glorification, having peace in a fallen world, and more, are all a done deal. We are certain. We are sure. There's no doubt. End of story.

So is there such thing as "saving faith?" I think "faith" covers it all. And it was free. A gift from God. (Rom 12:3) Proof of grace to all who have it.

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

In John 13, Jesus washes the feet of His disciples, sits down for the Passover Feast, predicts his betrayal by Judas, as well as Peter's failures, then we read in 14:1, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me" (or "You believe in God, believe also in me".) He continues on with the beautiful 'many mansions' teaching, and His "Way, Truth, and Life" teaching, and much, much more. Verse one has slipped by so quickly it almost seems dwarfed by the rest of the chapter, and the passion chapters to come, but it is imperative that the disciples "get" vs. 1 if they are going to understand His teachings and be able to cope with Jesus' departure from the scene. And it's where we find ourselves in this present age, too.

Wesley comments, "14:1 Let not your heart be troubled - At my departure. Believe - This is the sum of all his discourse, which is urged till they did believe, John 16:30. And then our Lord prays and departs." Jesus spends 3 Chapters convincing His disciples to believe in Him, just as they believe in God. Why was it so crucial at this point for them to finally "get it?" Jesus was about to gift the world with the greatest love ever given it, and they had to know who it was giving it.

Living the Gospel means understanding that apart from knowing the love of Christ, our hearts are indeed troubled. The Gospel of Mark uses the words "fear not" scores of times. As little children, our parents raised us to one day be able to handle life on our own, take care of ourselves, get married and raise our own family. But no matter how successful we might think we are at life, inside we are all afraid, all insecure, and forever throwing up defenses to the world to try and protect that wounded spot in our heart. Growing up and coping with life tends to mean: How well can we hide our insecurities and not let them interfere with our lives? We use defenses like control, anger, selfishness, and pride. We so desperately want to feel good about ourselves. We do anything and everything looking for something, but we don't know what we are looking for. We'll buy anything that Madison Avenue says will make our life better, because we know there is something better to life. Even born-again Christians fall prey to this type of thinking, if not presented with a gospel that says "Live me everyday!"

The answer is the rest of the vs., "Trust in God; trust also in me." When we are trusting God for not only our eternal security, but for our daily bread, we come out of ourselves, and open our hearts to Christ and the love He demonstrated. His love fills our troubled hearts, Jesus validates us like we never can, and life makes sense. And God does indeed provide our daily bread, and so much more. Our will becomes His will, out of our love for Him, and the daily grace of faith becomes more powerful then any nearby mountain. When we rely on God, not ourselves, the peace of Christ is a reality, not just a cliche, because we have no fear of failure. We learn through our experiences that all things really do work together for good for those that love the Lord. And worshipping Him, needing more of Him and His grace becomes a thirst. Such as a deer at the running brook, we know we cannot live without Him.

Worship and the Gospel; Christ Centered Worship

"ChristianityToday" online edition has a great interview with Bryan Chapell author of "Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice" concerning true Christ Centered worship and it's direct relationship with the gospel. Here's an excerpt:

What is—and is not—Christ-centered worship?

Christ-centered worship is not just talking or singing about Jesus a lot. Christ-centered worship reflects the contours of the gospel. In the individual life of a believer, the gospel progresses through recognition of the greatness and goodness of God, the acknowledgment of our sin and need of grace, assurance of God's forgiveness through Christ, thankful acknowledgment of God's blessing, desire for greater knowledge of him through his Word, grateful obedience in response to his grace, and a life devoted to his purposes with assurance of his blessing.

In the corporate life of the church this same gospel pattern is reflected in worship. Opening moments offer recognition of the greatness and goodness of God that naturally folds into confession, assurance of pardon, thanksgiving, instruction, and a charge to serve God in response to his grace in Christ. This is not a novel idea but, in fact, is the way most churches have organized their worship across the centuries. Only in recent times have we lost sight of these gospel contours and substituted pragmatic preferences for Christ-centered worship. My goal is to re-acquaint the church with the gospel-shape of its worship so that we are united around Christ's purposes rather than arguing about stylistic preferences.

Read the whole article here.

Grace And Works

From a comment I've read at Internet Monk comes this great explanation. There's no trackback link to contact the author, but I've a feeling she won't mind.

An easy diagram to explain (and picture) how grace and works go together is basically a circular diagram. If one starts out on the wrong part of the circle, we see how legalism works. But if one starts out on the right part of it, we see how it all works together.

Imagine a compass and the four cardinal directions. North is “God”, East is “Grace”, South is “Love” and West is “Perform”. In between are arrows pointing clockwise between the cardinal points.

The Legalistic understanding of the relationship of grace and works starts out on the West point with “Perform”. Thus, we try to “Do” or demonstrate our righteousness to curry God’s favor. This is self-righteousness. [As preached, it is the admonition to obey the bible, and thus be choosing grace.]

The gospel understanding starts at North with “God”. He declared us righteous through Christ. The arrow pointing from North to East “Grace” shows us that the act of justification is “Done” and we have “passive righteousness”. From Grace, an arrow points to South “Love”. Here we understand what Paul says that faith is by grace alone. But, we get to the South point and we see that Christ’s love for us compels us to perform for him. And as we follow the arrow from south to west we understand what James says about faith without works being dead. And so any righteous works we do are not to curry God’s favor, but instead are a response to the great grace we have received. I guess the bottom line is motivation. God is repulsed by the motivation of actions when they are self-righteous rather than motivations that are expressions of our love for the God who loved us first.

[So how can obedience to the bible (and the Lord) be preached? It needs to begin with the Gospel, not end with it. Worth noting is that in Al Mohler's article, Ray Ortland's article, Michael Spencer's article, and John Piper's article, all about legalism and gospel transformation, (all posted/linked below), little mention is even given to "obedience", but rather our natural reaction to God's awesome gifts in Christ.]

Transforming Grace

New Calvinists?

John Piper, Collin Hansen, and Carolyn James discussed “the New Calvinists” on September 11 at the Religious Newswriters Association’s annual convention. The panel was hosted by Julia Duin of the Washington Times.

Desiring God has footage of that panel in 4 parts: 3 sets of introductory remarks (one from each panelist) and the Q&A time with reporters that followed. As more becomes available, we'll link to it. What's so new about "New"? Find out.

How Grace Changes Us

Ray Ortlund relates this story:

Are we to continue in sin, that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1)

Johann Tetzel was a Dominican monk who went around sixteenth-century Germany selling indulgences. He used a little song: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs!" So a thief came up to him one day and asked how much it would cost for an indulgence to cover all his past sins. "A thousand gold pieces." "And how much to forgive all my future sins?" "Two thousand more." "All right, here's three thousand. Give me the indulgence." "Here it is. Thank you." "Now here's one of those future sins. See this knife? Hand back the three thousand."

Ray explains the grace in Romans 6 masterfully here.