Here are some videos in preparation for next year’s Desiring God Pastor’s Conference.
(HT: JT)
Gerald Hiestand is pastor of Harvest Bible Church and Executive Director of The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology (SAET). Hiestand has been dedicated to reforming the misconception that theology is reserved for the realm of academics and not the local church. One of the difficulties he notes is distinguishing between “ecclesial theology” and “academic theology”. In his most recent post he compares and contrasts these two “theologies”. Read the whole post here. He is also encouraging any comments and thoughts you might have on this subject.
My article, “Pastor-Scholar to Professor-Scholar: Exploring the Theological Disconnect between the Academy and the Local Church” is now out in the current issue of Westminster Theological Journal (vol 70, 2008). In the article, I argue that the eighteenth-century transition from pastor-scholar to professor-scholar has had significant implications for North American evangelical theology, namely that evangelical theology has become too apologetically focused and has lost sight of distinctly ecclesial concerns. In the paper I argue for a resurrection of the pastor-scholar.
But “pastors writing academic scholarship” is not my vision of a pastor-scholar. Instead, I’m calling for a return to the sort of theological reflection done by past pastor-scholars such as Augustine, Athanasius, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, etc.–theologians who wrote from within the social location of the Church, whose reflection was driven by ecclesial concerns, and who were unashamedly Christian and prophetic. As Luther has said, theologians who are willing to “assert”.
Tullian Tchividijian presents this ”unfashionable quiz” in his upcoming book:
(HT: blog.worship.com)
Fred Sanders addresses the topic of Why Professors Blog at The Scriptorium daily. In this post he highlights scholars such as Scot McKnight and NT Scholar Andreas Köstenberger. It still amazes me how they keep up with blogging.
It’s easy enough to find horror stories of professors “fired for blogging” (just google the phrase), or job applicants who suspect their strong online opinions have rendered them less than hireable. But what I wanted was evidence that somebody had been hired for blogging, or promoted for it, or that professors were using new media activity to make progress on their professorial goals. Instead of just brainstorming about my own reasons, I interviewed a handful of my favorite academic bloggers in my own field, Bible and theology. Here are some of the most helpful remarks from Michael Bird, Scot McKnight, Andreas Köstenberger, and Peter Leithart. Some of these quotes you’ll find in the book, some didn’t make it through the final edit and are appearing for the first and only time in this post.
Another excerpt:
New Testament scholar Michael Bird, who blogs at euangelion and also at evangelical textual criticism, had some good remarks about how he thinks of his online work as counting toward his overall academic goals, and enthusiastic testimony about the opportunities it has afforded him:
I’ve included on my CV my contribution to the “Evangelical Textual Criticism” website because it is part of my academic activity in that it contributes to scholarship and is read by many leading scholars, authors, and post-grad students. I consider it a legitimate and noteworthy activity in terms of academic practice, but I am cognizant of (a) not everyone knows what a blog is yet (still), and (b) some have a distaste for them too. Also, I do not include my own blog “Euangelion” on my CV because it is a mixture of journaling, biblical studies experimentation, networking, and shameless self-promotion.
My blog has put me on the radar of several publishers and editors who have noticed my blog, liked what they read, and asked to meet with me and discuss possible projects that cohere with their publishing goals (which is currently bearing great fruit!). More obliquely, through blogging I’ve established several friendships and partnerships with other junior scholars like myself whom I have successfully roped in to various publication projects that I am undertaking. In this sense, starting a blog has been one of the best things I’ve ever done.
In terms of marketing for seminaries and colleges is a brilliant tool. A fair few people who have either applied or inquired about post-graduate study at my college have done so on the basis that they want to do a Ph.D with me given what they have seen me do on my blog. So blogging I think is a great way of attracting research students if you can establish a niche of some kind that draws in people to the kind of stuff that you’re interested in.
As we went back into the process of selecting the year’s best albums, some of the panelists expressed initial concern that there weren’t enough great releases in 2008. They quickly changed their tune after the nominations came pouring in and we whittled our way down from 40 albums to a top 12. Once again, it proved an interesting year as the final list includes a mix of relatively unknown independent releases and new bands making their national debut, as well as some more familiar names. Even our top choices are intriguing in that one of them released gradually over several months time, while another album released a couple years ago (and is still eligible for our consideration). Read on to learn more about our favorites from 2008.
(HT: Z)
Matthew Blair over at The Foolish Galatian has mentioned that he has just started a photo blog centered on showcasing Bibles from photographs around the web. You’ll just have to check it out for yourself to see what I’m talking about. I am a fan of photography for it captures many of the God given blessings of life that we seem to overlook everyday with our eyes. I think you will be encouraged and moved by these photos. I know I have for the ones he has posted so far. Below is an excerpt from his “About” page:
I’m starting this blog sort of as a photo blog showcasing photographs from around the web of interseting snapshots into the lives of the bibles I love so dearly. While some photos are wonderful, others tell a different story all together. Some photos show how the unbelieving world neglects and abuses Gods holy word and shows it no respect or honor whatsoever. It is my plan to show both sides here…for better or worst. I don’t want to have a lot of commentary into these pictures. I would like the photographs to stand alone and speak for themselves. If I feel the urge to say something about a certain photo, I will make it as short and sweet as possible. You will also notice below each photo is a “source” link. This is a link back to the original location where I found the photo along with other pertinent information.
To date, I have well over 200 different links to various photographs I plan on using here and would like to post no more than one or two a week.
No unwelcome tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till tomorrow.
It is only when they are behind us and done,
that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards,
and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant.
Accomplished, they are full of blessing,
and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us.
Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility,
and hindering our communion with God.
If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink,
go straight up to it, and do it at once.
The only way to get rid of it is to do it.
-Alexander MacLaren (1826–1910), Scottish preacher
(HT: JT)
Tim Challies offers ten suggtions on how to effectively read more and better. From what I understand Tim Challies is a pretty avid reader based on how often he spits out book reviews on his site. Great advice from Mr. Challies!
This presentation was given at Willow Creek’s 2006 Easter service. Very creative stuff…
(HT: Think Christian)
Okay this is probably one of the most amazing graphics I’ve ever seen not necessarily because of the image itself but what it points to. You’ll just have to see it yourself to know what I’m talking about.
OK, so this is just cool. Like, give-you-goosebumps cool.
Christianity Today has posted an image of biblical cross references:
When Christoph Römhild, a Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, Germany, sent Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student Chris Harrison a list of 63,779 cross-references between the Bible’s 1,189 chapters, the two became enthralled with elegantly showing the interconnected nature of Scripture. Each bar along the horizontal axis represents a chapter, with the length determined by the number of verses. (Books alternate in color between white and light gray.) Colors represent the distance between references.
I’m surprised by how the graphic affects me. Seeing a visual representation of a deep truth is beautiful on many levels. How can you look at that and maintain that the Bible is contradictory?
The graph won an honorable mention in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Science journal.
X-mas is coming I mean Christmas…WATCH YO BACK!
Johnathan Bowers over at The Fool’s Gold has listed three different types of bloggers. See his thoughts here. Which type are you or are you all three?
Sharon Hodde has some wise counsel for the single woman on the topic of submission especially for those in route to marriage.
Submission is a discipline that you must work on cultivating now, as a single woman. Think about it this way…
It really is no wonder that the transition from the single life to married life can be so rocky–they generally encompass two completely different mindsets! As a single woman, you learn to be independent and look out for yourself. But then you get married and you’re supposed to let someone else take care of you.
You go from being independent to dependent. What was once a virtue becomes a vice. A practice that once guarded your lifestyle can now sabotage your lifestyle. What are we to make of this discrepancy?
The problem here is that the predominant mindset of single women today is in direct conflict with the Christian life. The idea that single women are somehow independent and must fend for themselves is a mindset that conflicts with the sovereignty of God. If we profess Christ, then there is no independent. There is no “fend for yourself.” And there is no “I am in control.”
On the contrary, it is God who is in control. God takes care of you. To be Christian is to be dependent on Him.
An unhealthy independence is easy to hide when you’re on your own, but it quickly becomes apparent when your life is intertwined with another. It is a mindset that short-circuits your ability to trust others because it is founded upon a trust in yourself alone. That said, if you have thoroughly ingrained in your heart and mind a spirit of independence, then you set yourself up for failure in all relationships, not the least of which is your relationship with God.
With all of this in mind, an inability to trust a husband in marriage is not necessarily a marital problem. It is a spiritual one. It comes from years and years of not trusting God to provide and take care of you. When you live in the knowledge that God is in control, it takes a lot of pressure off of trusting others. A trust in God makes all other forms of trust possible.
Interesting study on the correlation between happiness and watching television. The sum of the findings reveal that television produces addictive tendencies. Do you prove this study to be accurate?
An extensive new research study has found that unhappy people watch more TV while those consider themselves happy spend more time reading and socializing.
The University of Maryland analyzed 34 years of data collected from more than 45,000 participants and found that watching TV might make you feel good in the short term but is more likely to lead to overall unhappiness.
“The pattern for daily TV use is particularly dramatic, with ‘not happy’ people estimating over 30% more TV hours per day than ‘very happy’ people,” the study says. “Television viewing is a pleasurable enough activity with no lasting benefit, and it pushes aside time spent in other activities — ones that might be less immediately pleasurable, but that would provide long-term benefits in one’s condition. In other words, TV does cause people to be less happy.”
The study, published in the December issue of Social Indicators Research, analyzed data from thousands of people who recorded their daily activities in diaries over the course of several decades. Researchers found that activities such as sex, reading and socializing correlated with the highest levels of overall happiness.
Watching TV, on the other hand, was the only activity that had a direct correlation with unhappiness.
(HT: Challies)
In a recent post by John Piper titled “How I Approach God When Feeling Rotten” he writes:
Nothing changed until I began to get specific about my sins. Crummy feelings can be useful if they lead to conviction for sins. Vague feelings of being a bad person are not very helpful. The fog of unworthiness needs to take shape into clear dark pillars of disobedience. Then you can point to them and repent and ask for forgiveness and take aim to blow them up.
Justin Buzzard has some great advice for both current and potential Facebook users. He lists “9 Potentially Negative Uses/Dangers of Facebook” and “6 Ways to Love God and Love Others through Facebook.”
IV. We Are Looking for Men Who Are Already Recognized as “Elderly”
- We want men who are known, because they attend.
- We want men who are known as a person of love.
- We want men who are known as a person of wisdom and knowledge and confidence
- Discipling others, serving faithfully.
- Putting the church’s interests above his own.
- All this makes you a center of gravity in the church. Not a loyal opposition center-of-gravity, but a person whom the people of this church are already gravitating to as a pastoral figure.
- We want to say, “How could we not recognize this person as an elder?”
Voddie Baucham is currently preaching pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, TX . I have recently found out that he runs a blog called Truth in Love. I first heard Baucham preach on the Passion 2000 DVD and actually come to think of it, it was around the same time when I first heard John Piper (Boasting Only in the Cross) preach since he was also one of the speakers. Ever since hearing them both I have greatly looked up to both men for their stand for truth and their knack for crossing denominational fences.
Well, if you didn’t know Voddie Baucham is a proud Southern Baptist one of whom I am pleased and excited to see in the SBC. In a recent post Baucham gives his perspective on Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention in light of the recent John 3:16 Conference. He is a bit forward and comical at some points and to my worthless opinion I think he is right on in his assessment. I hesitated to link this at first as I did not want to add to the apparent tension within the SBC, even if I do not get much traffic on my site, but I thought it would be worth while to get another perspective from one of the “rising leaders” among the Southern Baptist denomination. Sorry, I try not to use that type of “rising leader” vernacular but I couldn’t think of anything else. I have pasted a couple of excerpts from him below. Be sure to read the whole post.
Voddie Baucham:
However, neither of these constituted fatal infractions. I co-sponsored an education in 2004, but preached at the SBC in 2005. I stood against YM for years and while many were uncomfortable, I was still part of the gang. That is, until I came out of the closet. No… I’m not gay. It’s far worse than that. I’m a Calvinist! That’s right, I’m a fire-breathing, TULIP believing, five-point Calvinist. That, my friends, is the unpardonable sin in contemporary Southern Baptist life (unless your name is Al Mohler and you’ve been President of the flagship Southern Baptist Theological Seminary since you were in your early thirties and happen to be the most intelligent, articulate, winsome public face the Convention has).
Another excerpt:
Calvinists can be an easy target when it comes to evangelism and baptism. Never mind names like Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Adonirum Judson, William Carey, Charles Spurgeon, Richard Baxter, Matthew Henry, John Bunyan, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Arthur Pink, Boyce, Andrew Fuller, Luther Rice, J.L. Dagg, Daniel & Abraham Marshall, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, J.I. Packer, Ian Murray, D.A. Carson, John Piper, James White, Tom Nettles, Tom Schriner, Tom Ascol, Timothy George, Mark Dever, and Al Mohler. The strawman (who doesn’t believe in evangelism because he believes in election) that was beaten about the head and shoulders at the John 3:16 Conference is a much easier target. Can you imagine that conference with the living members of the aforementioned list sitting there defending themselves? I’d pay a pretty penny to see that!
Instead, guys like White get hammered for not believing in evangelism while out doing evangelism! Good thing we’re protecting the Convention from the likes of him. If not we might start having bus tours with slogans like “Everyone Can”. Convention leaders with churches that boast memberships of 10,000 when their actual attendance (resident, participating, regenerate, ‘real’ members) is well under 2,000. Or fire engine baptistries to coax children into the sacred waters (Paige Patterson called this “blasphemy” right before calling Southern Baptists “some of the worst paedo-baptizers there are”). If we don’t rid ourselves of guys like White, we may end up adding a category in our baptismal reports for “Under Age 6,” or have a pastor join the Youth Ministry at the beach and have himself and staff ‘re-baptized’ in an effort to ‘prime-the-pump’ and get the baptismal numbers up for the annual beach retreat (true story!). Or who knows, if the likes of James White are not stopped, we may have non-Trinitarians like T.D. Jakes come and teach at our conferences.
(HT: Hammer and Nail)
During a reading break I was on Facebook and saw that Dr. Russell Moore was mourning the loss of his iPod (status bar). Someone added a comment and linked this hilarious video. I have an old skool iPod, I’m talking first or second generation (very brick like) and fortunately for me it’s still running strong although the battery life is getting pretty weak. My “doom seed” must be still dormant….
Favorite lines:
or keep it simple ’cause less is more;
put it in a shoebox in the back of a drawer
then 50 years from today
your grandkids will find it and say:
“you listened to music on this!? you mean when you were a kid, you didn’t have music uploaded directly to your brain?! and you’ll say “nah, we just had iPods.”
I am sorry for the lack of posts lately. School has been keeping me pretty busy as the semester is coming to a close. With that said I will not be posting as much for the next three weeks. As soon as finals are over I should be up and running as usual. Thanks for taking the time to stop by! 
Grace and Peace,
Jonathan
Desiring God gets creative with their 08-09 winter Don’t Waste Your Life catalog. Although the concept isn’t new I think the new design of the catalog will appeal to more people. Not sure if the gospel is laid out in the catalog but hopefully the catalog will compel people to buy the material. Great stuff!
Desiring God will be giving out 100 copies of This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence to 100 readers of their blog. If you are currently not a subscriber you can still participate by subscribing and then sending them a response with your address. This applies internationally as well. Click here for details.
This kid is awesome! I wonder what he’ll think looking back at this when he is older?
We snuck out into the middle of Broad Street to snap a pic in front of City Hall and all the crowds. When Will raised his hands for the picture, cheers erupted. So he continued to repeat the gesture, getting wild response from the crowd on both sides of the street up and down the street as far as we could see. We couldn’t have planned this if we practiced and practiced. I wish the video was longer.
(HT: Neatorama)
In general, the proud love humility in others and often try to sell it to them. Then, in one of the tragic ironies of sin, the humbled sometimes reply by usurping the very pride they had hated. They reach for proper self-respect but end up overreaching– as in the case of oppressed people who revolt against tyranny and then become tyrants or the case of certain feminists who respond to the pride of dominant males by searching for God in themselves and somehow end up believing that they, or their abilities, are actually identical with God. In sin as on ice, people coming out of skid tend to oversteer.
-Plantiga, Cornelius; Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin
Collin Hansen reports on the perpetual phase of adolescence within young men in the church today.
“For whatever reason, adolescence appears to be the young man’s default state, proving what anthropologists have discovered in cultures everywhere: it is marriage and children that turns boys into men,” Hymowitz writes. “Now that the SYM [single young male] can put off family into the hazily distant future, he can—and will—try to stay a child-man.”
Certainly this challenge requires a missionary response from our churches. If these men will not come and join our worship services, we must go and seek them. This imperative seems to inspire the current “missional” rage among evangelicals. Evangelistic appeals grounded in felt needs won’t do the trick with these men. What good is this approach when we see no evidence that these young men feel the need to change? And if we adjust our beliefs and behaviors in order to attract these men, we run the risk of peddling the gospel and precluding God-given transformation.
No, there must be something different and demanding about the gospel if we expect these men to abandon their self-concerned lives. Thankfully, that’s exactly the gospel we proclaim, Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus himself set the standard for discipleship. “If anyone would come after me,” he said, “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25). Jesus calls his followers to entrust their anxieties to him and devote themselves fully to serving God and his kingdom. These are difficult words, but we cannot survive the wrath of God unless we heed them. Seeking first the kingdom means nothing less than abandoning ourselves for the refuge of God’s grace.
(HT: blog.worship.com)
Paul Washer talks about his testimony, family, ministry, revival and more in this brief video (16:20). Paul Washer hits it right on the head when referring to revival and prayer:
Revival is a work of God’s providence and I believe the first fruits of revival and the means through which God brings revival is the praying community.
Recent Comments