Category: Authors

All of the author’s on this site have a few things in common – they are evangelical; have a High view of God; believe in the literal bodily resurrection and future return of the Lord Jesus Christ; adhere to the inerrancy, authority, and sufficiency of the Scriptures; hold to the vicarious and substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ; hold to the solas of the reformation – sola gratia; sola fide; sola scriptura; solus Christus; and soli deo gloria; and love the Church for whom Christ died. Almost all of them adhere to the “Doctrines of Grace”

How To Lead Secular People To Christ by *Tim Keller

The Implausibility Structure of a Culture

Defeater beliefs – Every culture hostile to Christianity holds to a set of ‘common-sense’ consensus beliefs that automatically make Christianity seem implausible to people. These are what philosophers call “defeater beliefs”. A defeater belief is a Belief-A that, if true, means Belief-B can’t be true.

Christianity is disbelieved in one culture for totally opposite reasons it is disbelieved in another. So for example, in the West it is widely assumed that Christianity can’t be true because of the cultural belief there can’t be just one “true” religion. That doesn’t seem implausible at all. Rather there it is widely assumed that Christianity can’t be true because of the cultural belief that American culture, based on Christianity, is unjust and corrupt. (Skeptics ought to realize, then, that the objections they have to the Christian faith are culturally relative!) So each culture has its own set of culturally based doubt-generators which people call ‘objections’ or ‘problems’ with Christianity.

When a culture develops a combination of many, widely held defeater beliefs it becomes a cultural ‘implausibility-structure.’ In these societies, most people don’t feel they have to give Christianity a good hearing – they don’t feel that kind of energy is warranted. They know it just can’t be true. That is what makes evangelism in hostile cultures so much more difficult and complex than it was under ‘Christendom.’ In our Western culture (and in place like Japan, India, and Muslim countries) the reigning implausibility-structure against Christianity is very strong. Christianity simply looks ludicrous. In places like Africa, Latin America, and China, however, the implausibility structures are eroding fast. The widely held assumptions in the culture make Christianity look credible there.

Dealing With the Implausibility Structure Today

Many books on reaching post-moderns today give the impression that people now need virtually no arguments at all. The ‘apologetic’ is a loving community, or the embodiment of social concern. I couldn’t agree more that post-modern people come to Christ through process, through relationships, through mini-decisions, through ‘trying Christianity on.’ They are pragmatic rather than abstract in their reasoning, etc. But the books that are against any arguments at all seem to miss the fact that the extreme pragmatism of non-Christians today is part of a non-Christian world-view. Our post-enlightenment culture believes what has been called expressive individualism. That is – ‘it is true if it works for me.’ This obviously is based on the view that truth and right-or-wrong is something I discover within my own self and consciousness.

What then of the claim that “post-modern people don’t want arguments – they just want to see if it works for them”? All right – as with any form of contextualization, let us as evangelists enter – adapt partially – to the culture of expressive individualism. Let us show them the reality of changed lives. Let us use narratives rather than long strings of logic. But at some point, the idea that “it is true if and only if it works for me” must be challenged. We have to say: “Ultimately that is correct – in the very, very long run, obeying the truth will ‘work’ and bring you to glory and disobeying the truth might lead to ostracism, persecution, or other suffering.

There have been many times in New York City that I have seen people make professions of faith that seemed quite heart-felt, but when faced with serious consequences if they maintained their identification with Christ (e.g. missing the opportunity for a new sexual partner or some major professional setback) they bailed on their Christian commitment. The probable reason was that they had not undergone deeper ‘world-view change’. They had fitted Christ to their individualistic world-view rather than fitting their world-view to Christ. They professed faith simply because Christianity worked for them, and not because they grasped it as true whether it is ‘working’ for them this year or not! They had not experienced a “power-encounter’ between the gospel and their individualistic world-view. I think apologetics does need to be ‘post-modern.’ It does need to adapt to post-modern sensibilities. But it must challenge those sensibilities too. There do need to be ‘arguments.’ Christianity must be perceived to be true, even though less rationalistic cultures will not demand watertight proofs like the older high-modern society did.

A ‘Sandwich’ Approach to Sharing the Gospel

 There are two parts to sharing the gospel. What this means now is that there are two parts to sharing the gospel in a particular culture – a more ‘negative’ and a more ‘positive’ aspect.

The more negative aspect has to do with ‘apologetics’ – it consists in deconstructing the culture’s implausibility structure. In short, this means you have to show on the cultures terms (that is, by its own definitions of justice, rationality, meaning) that its objections to Christianity don’t hold up.

The more positive aspect of sharing the gospel is to connect the story of Jesus to the base-line cultural narratives. In short, you have to show in line with culture’s own (best) aspirations, hopes, and convictions that its own cultural story won’t be resolved or have ‘a happy ending’ outside of Christ.

A sandwich of three layers — I think the overall best way to ‘present the gospel’ is a kind of ‘sandwich’ approach to these two parts. The following assumes there is a process and a series of conversations between you and the person who doesn’t believe.

Brief gospel summary. First, the gospel must be presented briefly but so vividly and attractively (and so hooked into the culture’s base-line narratives) that the listener is virtually compelled to say “It would be wonderful if that was true, but it can’t be!” Until he or she comes to that position, you can’t work on the implausibility structure! The listener must have motivation to hear you out. That is what defeaters do – they make people super-impatient with any case for Christianity. Unless they find a presentation of Christ surprisingly attractive and compelling (and stereo-type breaking) their eyes will simply glaze over when you try to talk to them.

Dismantle plausibility structure. Alvin Plantinga wisely asserts that people avoid Christianity not because they have really examined its teachings and found them wanting, but because their culture gives huge plausibility (by the media, through art, through the expertise and impressive credentials of is spokespersons) to believe a series of defeater beliefs that they know are true, and since they are true, Christianity can’t be. The leading defeaters must be dealt with clearly and quickly but convincingly. Defeaters are dealt with when the person feels you have presented the objection to Christianity in a clearer and stronger way than they could have done it.

Longer explanation of the person and work of Christ. Now, if people find you have at least undermined the defeaters in a listener’s mind, you can now return to talking at greater length about creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. If you try to do apologetics before you pull off a quick, attractive presentation of Christ, people’s eyes will glaze over and they will become bored. But if you try to do a very lengthy explanation of the meaning of Christ’s cross and resurrection before you convincingly deal with the defeaters, they won’t listen to you either.

Summary of the approach:

The attractive gospel – Brief gospel connected to baseline narratives

Why Christianity can be true – Dismantling doubts and defeaters

The Biblical story of the gospel – A more thorough telling

The Process:

The gospel connected to baseline cultural narratives

The doctrines of creation, sin, grace, and faith must be presented in connection with ‘baseline cultural narratives’ – Jesus must be the answer to the questions the culture is asking. Don’t forget – every gospel presentation presents Jesus as the answer to some set of human-cultural questions, like ‘how can I be forgiven?’ (Western moral individualism) or ‘how can I be free?’ (Post-modern expressive individualism) or ‘how can we over come evil forces in the world?’ (Contemporary Africans) etc. Every gospel presentation has to be culturally incarnated, it must assume some over-riding cultural concern, so we may as well be engaged with the ones that we face! Christianity must be presented as answers to the main questions and aspirations of our culture. Two of the over-riding concerns are:

Cultural concerns. First, a concern for personal freedom and identity. Contemporary people ask: Who am I? I’m not completely sure – but I do know I have to be free to create my own identity and sense of self. Whatever spirituality I have, it must leave me free to experiment and seek and not be a ‘one size fits all.’

Second, a concern for unity in diversity. Contemporary people ask: How can we get past exclusion and exclusivism? How can we live at peace in a pluralistic world? How can we share power rather than using power to dominate one another? How can we embrace the ‘Other’ – the person of a sharply different viewpoint and culture?

Gospel resources. Gospel resources for personal freedom. Kierkegaard depicts sin in The Sickness unto Death – as ‘building your identity on anything but God’ which leads to internal slavery and narrowness of spirit. This is a gospel presentation that connects well today. (Kierkegaard, like Nietzsche and other great thinkers, was a good century ‘ahead of his time.’) Kierkegaard also deconstructed mere religion and moralism and contrasted them with the gospel. (See his Three ways of life: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the spiritual.) Building your identity on any finite created thing besides God leads to the idolization of that factor and the demonization of anyone who lacks it.

Gospel resources for living at peace. If you build your identity mainly on your class, or race, or culture, or performance you will necessarily vilify and disdain anyone who lacks what you consider the cornerstone of your own significance. Therefore, building your identity on God leads to hatred of the other, to social conflict and oppression. Jonathan Edwards (again, a man ahead of his time) recognized that if your highest love is based on your nation, your family, your career, even your religious performance, then you will disdain other nations, families, classes of people, and other religions. If anything but God is our “highest good” (i.e. if make anything an idol) then we have to demonize or at least exclude some part of creation. But if God is our ultimate good, then we are free to develop deep love for (what Edwards calls) “Being in general.” If we truly made the Lord our ultimate beauty and Savior and good – we would have an equal love and joy equally in all creation, all individuals, all people groups, even in all nature and created things.

In any case, there is no religion with a more powerful ground-motif for accepting enemies and the ‘Other’ than Christianity. We are the only faith that has at its heart a man dying for his enemies, forgiving them rather than destroying them. This must be presented to our culture as an unparalleled resource for living in peace in a pluralistic society.

Summary

As we said above, people’s eyes will ‘glaze over’ if you start your presentation with ‘reasons Christianity is true’. Christianity must be attractive to people before they will sit still for a presentation of intellectual credibility. A person must come to the point where he or she says, “that would be great if it were true – but is it?” Then and only then will they sit still for a discussion on why Christianity is true. So Christianity has to first be presented attractively and compellingly. We must show post-modern western culture – with its aspirations for personal freedom and unity in diversity – that its ‘Story’ can have a ‘happy ending’ in Jesus Christ. Then we can deal with the main objections (the ‘defeaters’) in our cultures that make it hard it hard to believe that Christianity is true.

Here is an example of a brief gospel presentation:

Why we are here. The one God is community – a Trinity of three persons who each perfectly know and defer to one another and love one another and therefore have infinite joy and glory and peace. God made a good, beautiful world filled with beings who share in this life of joy and peace by knowing, serving, and loving God and one another.

What went wrong. Instead, we chose to center our lives on ourselves and on the pursuit of things rather than on God and others. This has led to the disintegration of creation and the loss of peace – within ourselves, between ourselves, and in the nature itself. War, hunger, poverty, injustice, racism, bitterness, meaninglessness, despair, sickness, and death all are symptoms.

What puts the world right. But though God lost us he determined to win us back. He entered history in the person of Jesus in order to deal with all the causes and results of our broken relationship with him. By his sacrificial life and death he both exemplifies the life we must live and rescues us from the life we have lived. By his resurrection he proved who he was and showed us the future – new bodies and a completely renewed and restored new heavens and new earth in which the world is restored to full joy, justice, peace, and glory.

How we can be part of putting the world right. Between his first coming to win us and his last coming to restore us we live by faith in him. When we believe and rely on Jesus’ work and record (rather than ours) for our relationship to God, his healing kingdom power comes upon us and begins to work through us. Christ gives us a radically new identity, freeing us from both self-righteousness and self-condemnation. This liberates us to accept people we once excluded, and to break the bondage of things (even good things) that once drove us. He puts us into a new community of people which gives a partial, but real, foretaste of the healing of the world that God will accomplish when Jesus returns.

Deconstructing the Implausibility Structure

What are the dominant defeaters in contemporary Western civilization? These are the dominant defeaters discovered in a recent survey I did of young under 25 year olds NYC who are not Christian. Below six ‘defeaters’ are stated and answered in a nutshell. Why Christianity can’t be true because of:

The other religions. Christians seem to greatly over-play the difference between their faith and all the other ones. Though millions of people in other religions say they have encountered God, have built marvelous civilizations and cultures, and have had their lives and characters changed by their experience and of faith, Christian insist that only they go to heaven – that their religion is the only one that is ‘right’ and true. The exclusivity of this is breath taking. It also appears to many to be a threat to international peace.

Brief response: Inclusivism is really covert exclusivism. It is common to hear people say: “No one should insist their view of God is better than all the rest. Every religion is equally valid.” But what you just said could only be true if: First, there is no God at all, or second, God is an impersonal force that doesn’t care what your doctrinal beliefs about him are. So as you speak you are assuming (by faith!) a very particular view of God and you are pushing it as better than the rest! That is at best inconsistent and at worst hypocritical, since you are doing the very thing you are forbidding. To say “all religions are equally valid” is itself a very white, Western view based in the European enlightenment’s idea of knowledge and values. Why should that view be privileged over anyone else’s?

Evil and suffering. Christianity teaches the existence of an all-powerful, all-good and loving God. But how can that belief be reconciled with the horrors that occur daily? If there is a God, he must be either all-powerful but not good enough to want an end to evil and suffering, or he’s all-good but not powerful enough to bring an end to evil and suffering. Either way the God of the Bible couldn’t exist. For many people, this is not only an intellectual conundrum but also an intensely personal problem. Their own lives are marred by tragedy, abuse, and injustice.

Brief response: If God himself has suffered our suffering isn’t senseless. First, if you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have to (at the same moment) have a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. (You can’t have it both ways.) Second, though we don’t know the reasons why he allows it to continue, he can’t be indifferent or un-caring, because the Christian God (unlike the gods of all the other religions) takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he is willing to get involved with it himself. On the cross, Jesus suffered with us.

The ethical strait jacket. In Christianity the Bible and the church dictate everything that a Christian must believe, feel, and do. Christians are not encouraged to make their own moral decisions, or to think out their beliefs or patterns of life for themselves. In a fiercely pluralistic society there are too many options, too many cultures, too many personality differences for this approach. We must be free to choose for ourselves how to live – this is the only truly authentic life. We should only feel guilty if we are not being true to ourselves – to our own chosen beliefs and practices and values and vision for life.

Brief response. Individual creation of truth removes the right to moral outrage. First, aren’t there any people in the world who are doing things you believe are wrong that they should stop doing no matter what they believe inside about right and wrong? Then you do believe that there is some kind of moral obligation that people should abide by and which stands in judgment over their internal choices and convictions. So what is wrong with Christians doing that? Second, no one is really free anyway. We all have to live for something, and whatever our ultimate meaning in life is (whether approval, achievement, a love relationship, our work) it is basically our ‘lord’ and master. Everyone is ultimately in a spiritual straightjacket. Even the most independent people are dependent on their independence and so can’t commit. Christianity gives you a lord and master who forgives and dies for you.

The record of Christians. Every religion will have its hypocrites of course. But it seems that the most fervent Christians are the most condemning, exclusive, and intolerant. The church has a history of supporting injustices, of destroying culture, or oppression. And there are so many people who are not Christian (or not religious at all) who appear to be much more kind, caring, and indeed moral than so many Christians. If Christianity is the true religion – then why can this be? Why would so much oppression have been carried out over the centuries in the name of Christ and with the support of the church?

Brief response. The solution to injustices is not less but deeper Christianity. First, there have been terrible abuses. Second, in the prophets and the gospels we are given tools for a devastating critique of moralistic religion. Scholars have shown that Marx and Nietzsche’s critique of religion relied on the ideas of the prophets. So despite its abuses, Christianity provides perhaps greater tools than the other religions do for its own critique. Third, when Martin Luther King Jr. confronted terrible abuses by the white church he did not call them to loosen their Christian commitments. He used the Bible’s provision for church self-critique and called them to truer, firmer, deeper Christianity.

The angry God. Christianity seems to be built around the concept of a condemning, judgmental deity. For example, there’s the cross – the teaching that the murder of one man (Jesus) leads to the forgiveness of others. But why can’t God just forgive us? The God of Christianity seems a leftover from primitive religions where peevish gods demanded blood in order to assuage their wrath.

Brief response. On the cross God does not demand our blood but offers his own. First, all forgiveness of any deep wrong and injustice entails suffering on the forgiver’s part. If someone truly wrongs you, because of our deep sense of justice, we can’t just shrug it off. We sense there’s a ‘debt.’ We can either (a) make the perpetrator pay down the debt you feel (as you take it out of his hide in vengeance!) in which case evil spreads into us and hardens us or (b) you can forgive – but that is enormously difficult. But that is the only way to stop evil from hardening as well. Second, if we can’t forgive without suffering (because of our sense of justice) its not surprising to learn that God couldn’t forgive us without suffering – coming in the person of Christ and dying on the cross.

The unreliable Bible. It seems impossible any longer to take the Bible as completely authoritative in the light of modern science, history, and culture. Also we can’t be sure what in the Bible’s accounts of events is legendary and what really happened. Finally, much of the Bible’s social teaching (for example, about women) is socially regressive. So how can we trust it scientifically, historically, and socially?

Brief response: The gospels’ form precludes their being legends. The Biblical gospels are not legends but historically reliable accounts about Jesus’ life. Why? First, their timing is far too early for them to be legends. The gospels, however, were written 30-60 years after Jesus’ death – and Paul’s letters, which support all the accounts, came just 20 years after the events. Second, their content is far too counter-productive to be legends. The accounts of Jesus crying out that God had abandoned him, or the resurrection where all the witnesses were women – did not help Christianity in the eyes of first century readers. The only historically plausible reason that these incidents are recorded is that they happened. The ‘offensiveness’ of the Bible is culturally relative. Texts you find difficult and offensive are ‘common sense’ to people in other cultures. And many of the things you find offensive because of your beliefs and convictions, many will seem silly to your grandchildren just as many of your grandparents’ beliefs offend you. Therefore, to simply reject any Scripture is to assume your culture (and worse yet, your time in history) is superior to all others. It is narrow-minded in the extreme.

Two Final Notes on Dealing with ‘Doubts’ and ‘Defeaters’

First, it is critical to state these defeaters in the strongest possible way. If a non-Christian hears you express them and says, “that’s better than I could have put it” then they feel that they are being respected and will take your answer more seriously. You will need to have good answers to these defeaters woven in redundantly to everything you say and teach in the church.

Second, our purpose with these defeaters and doubts is not to ‘answer’ them or ‘refute’ them but to deconstruct them. That is, to “show that they are not as solid or as natural as they appear” (Kevin Vanhoozer). It is important to show that all doubts and objections to Christianity are really alternate beliefs and faith-acts about the world. (If you say, “I just can’t believe that there is only one true religion” – that is a faith-act. You can’t prove that.) And when you see your doubts are really beliefs, and when you require the same amount of evidence for them that you are asking of Christian beliefs, then it becomes evident many of them are very weak and largely adopted because of cultural pressure.

Steps Into Faith

What about the positive? If you are ready to move toward the exploration of faith in Christianity, you must be:

Deconstructing doubt. Your doubts are really beliefs, and you can’t avoid betting your life and destiny on some kind of belief in God and the universe. Non-commitment is impossible. Faith-acts are inevitable.

Knowing there’s God. You actually already believe in God at the deep level, whatever you tell yourself intellectually. Our outrage against injustice despite how natural it is  (in a world based on natural selection) shows that we already do believe in God means the world is not the product of violence or random disorder (as in both the ancient and modern accounts of creation) but was created by a Triune God to be a place of peace and community. So at the root of all reality is not power and individual self-assertion (as in the pagan and post-modern view of things) but love and sacrificial service for the common good.

Recognizing your biggest problem. You aren’t spiritually free. No one is. Everyone is spiritually enthralled to something. ‘Sin’ is not simply breaking rules but is building your identity on things other than God, which leads internally to emptiness, craving, and spiritual slavery and externally to exclusion, conflict, and social injustice.

Discerning the difference between religion and the gospel. There is a radical difference between religion – in which we believe our morality secures for us a place of favor in God and in the world – and gospel Christianity – in which our standing with God is strictly a gift of grace. These two different core understandings produce very different communities and character. The former produces both superiority and inferiority complexes, self-righteousness, religiously warranted strife, wars, and violence. The latter creates a mixture of humility and enormous inner confidence, a respect for ‘the other’, and a new freedom to defer our needs for the common good.

Understanding the Cross. All forgiveness entails suffering and that the only way for God to forgive us and restore justice in the world without destroying us was to come into history and give himself and suffer and die on the Cross in the person of Jesus Christ. Both the results of the Cross (freedom from shame and guilt; awareness of our significance and value) and the pattern of the Cross (power through service, wealth through giving, joy through suffering) radically changes the way we relate to God, the world, and ourselves.

Embracing the resurrection. Because there is no historically possible alternative of the rise of the Christian church than the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if Jesus was raised from the dead as a forerunner of the renewal of all the material and physical world, then this gives Christians both incentive to work to restore creation (fighting poverty, hunger, and injustice) as well as infinite hope that our labors will not be in vain. And finally, it eliminates the fear of death.

*TIMOTHY KELLER was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and educated at Bucknell University, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Westminster Theological Seminary. He was first a pastor in Hopewell, Virginia. In 1989 he started Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan with his wife, Kathy, and their three sons. Today, Redeemer has more than five thousand regular attendees at five services, a host of daughter churches, and is planting churches in large cities throughout the world. He is the author of KING’S CROSS, COUNTERFEIT GODS, THE PRODIGAL GOD, and the New York Times bestseller THE REASON FOR GOD & the forthcoming CENTER CHURCH (August 2012).

10 Reasons Why I Am Thankful for the God-Breathed Bible by John Piper

*Just a Few Reasons Why Reading the Bible is SO Important!

1. The Bible awakens faith, the source of all obedience.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

2. The Bible frees from sin.

You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. (John 8:32)

3. The Bible frees from Satan.

The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)

4. The Bible sanctifies.

Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. (John 17:17)

5. The Bible frees from corruption and empowers godliness.

His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

6. The Bible serves love.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. (Philippians 1:9)

But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Timothy 1:5)

7. The Bible saves.

Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. (1 Timothy 4:16)

Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. (Acts 20:26)

[They will] perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:10)

8. The Bible gives joy.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:11)

9. The Bible reveals the Lord.

And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord. (1 Samuel 3:21)

10. Therefore, the Bible is the foundation of my happy home and life and ministry and hope of eternity with God.

*John Piper is the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and studied at Wheaton College, where he first sensed God’s call to enter the ministry. He went on to earn degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary (B.D.) and the University of Munich (D.theol.). For six years he taught Biblical Studies at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in 1980 accepted the call to serve as pastor at Bethlehem. John is the author of more than 30 books, including Desiring God, The Pleasures of God, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, What Jesus Demands from the World, and Don’t Waste Your Life. DesiringGod.org provides a huge selection of God-centered resources from the prolific ministry of John Piper with free sermons, books, conference teachings, and articles like this one.

What is Biblical Mentoring? By David P. Craig

Mentoring: What it is and Why it’s Practice is Crucial

“Mentoring is a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God-given resources.” – Paul Stanley & J.R. Clinton

“Discipling is a relational process in which a more experienced follower of Christ shares with a newer believer the commitment, understanding, and basic skills necessary to know and obey Jesus as Lord.” – Paul Stanley & J.R. Clinton

“A discipler is one who helps an understudy (1) give up his own will for the will of God the Father, (2) live daily a life of spiritual sacrifice for the glory of Christ, and (3) strive to be consistently obedient to the commands of his Master. A mentor, on the other hand, provides modeling, close supervision on special projects, individualized help in many areas—discipline, encouragement, correction, confrontation, and a calling to accountability.” – Ted Engstrom (The Fine Art of Mentoring)

“Mentoring is a process of opening our lives to others, of sharing our lives with others; a process of living for the next generation.” – Ron Lee Davis

“If you are planting for a year, plant grain.

If you are planting for a decade, plant trees.

If you are planting for a century, plant people.” – Old Chinese Proverb

  • More time spent with fewer people equals greater lasting impact for God. – Principle of Mentoring from the Life of Jesus
  • Some Biblical Examples of Mentoring: Moses mentored Joshua, Naomi mentored her daughter-in-law, Ruth, Ezra mentored Nehemiah, Elijah mentored Elisha, Elizabeth mentored her cousin Mary. Barnabas mentored Paul and John Mark, Paul mentored his spiritual son Timothy. Paul also mentored Priscilla and Aquila, who in turn mentored Apollos.

Mentor #1 – Who Is Your Paul or Elizabeth?

  • Do you have a spiritual mentor who is pouring his/her life into you the way Paul poured his life into Timothy or Elizabeth poured her life into her cousin Mary?
  • Do you have someone you can go to for wise counsel?
  • Do you have someone who is a godly example for you and a model worth imitating?
  • Do you have someone who lives out biblical values and spiritual maturity?
  • Do you have someone with solid skills that can help you improve where you are weak?

THE JOB DESCRIPTION OF A MENTOR

(Adapted from Ron Lee Davis, Mentoring, pp. 50-51, unfortunately out of print)

A willingness to spend the time it takes to build an intensely bonded relationship with the learner.

A commitment to believing in the potential and future of the learner; to telling the learner what kind of exciting future you see ahead for him or her; to visualizing and verbalizing the possibilities of his or her life.

A willingness to be vulnerable and transparent before the learner, willing to share not only strengths and successes, but also weaknesses, failures, brokenness, and sins.

A willingness to be honest yet affirming in confronting the learner’s errors, faults, and areas of immaturity.

A commitment to standing by the learner through trials—even trials that are self-inflicted as a result of ignorance or error.

A commitment to helping the learner set goals for his or her spiritual life, career, or ministry, and to helping the learner dream his or her dream.

A willingness to objectively evaluate the learner’s progress toward his or her goal.

Above all, a commitment to faithfully put into practice all that one teaches the learner.

“Be what you would have your pupils to be.” – Thomas Carlyle

“A mentor is not a person who can do the work better than his followers. He is a person who can get his followers to do the work better than he can.” – Fred Smith

“In truth, the deepest dimensions of the Christian life cannot simply be taught in a classroom or a book. They must be heard, seen, studied intently, handled, lived, and experienced in order to be proven and assimilated.” – Ron Lee Davis

Mentor #2 – Who is Your Barnabas?

  • Do you have someone in your life to encourage you?
  • Do you have someone to believe in you, support you, and guide you?

Encouragement: “is the kind of expression that helps someone want to be a better Christian, even when life is rough.” – Dr. Larry Crabb

“A person is never more like Christ than when full of compassion for those who are down, needy, discouraged, or forgotten.” – Chuck Swindoll

Lessons From Barnabas:

1)    He was generous with his finances (Acts 4:32-37).

2)    He reached out to Paul when everyone else was skeptical about him (Acts 9:26-31 & 11:25-30).

3)    He spent time with Mark when he had failed (Acts 15:36-39)

The Results of Barnabas’ Encouragement:  If it were not for Barnabas we would not have Paul’s epistles nor Mark’s gospel; nor the rapid spread of the gospel.

 Four Key’s to Barnabas’ Life (Acts 11:24):

1)    He was a man of integrity.

2)    He was a man full of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17, 26).

3)    He was a man full of faith.

4)    He was teachable. (Acts 13:43, 50)

#3 Mentoree – Who is Your Timothy or Mary?

  • Do you have someone in whom to invest your own life?
  • If married, you should look at your spouse, children, or grandchildren as “Timothy’s” or “Mary’s,” but is there anyone outside your family in whom you are investing?
  • You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others. –  2 Tim. 2:1-2

 What Mentoring is in a Nutshell?

Relational – The you in v.2 above refers to Timothy and the me refers to the Apostle Paul. People learn how to better love and follow Jesus in the context of a focused friendship.

Personal – The basics that Timothy learned from Paul were mediated through his unique personality, gifting, and style.

Theologically Grounded – Paul is faithfully delivering what he himself received from many witnesses or marturon (“martyrs”). In the first century a martyr denoted a public witness to the truth. The meaning of the word martyr into its present meaning is evidence that Christian truth-telling could be terminally costly. In the Greek the word entrust means making a secure run to the bank to deposit a treasure.

Intentional – All of us are involved in hundreds of unintentional relationships. However, in the case of Paul and Timothy we see a relationship that was established for a specific purpose.

Transformational – Mentoring involves study; reflection; action; and receptivity.

Reproducible – who will be able to teach others.

 The Power of Multiplication

(adapted from Keith Philips, The Making of a Disciple, p. 23)

Year                        Evangelist                        Discipler

1                        365                                     2

2                        730                                    4

3                        1095                                    8

4                        1460                                    16

5                        1825                                    32

6                        2190                                    64

7                        2555                                    128

8                        2920                                    256

9                        3285                                    512

10                        3650                                    1,024

11                        4015                                    2,048

12                        4380                                    4,096

13                        4745                                    8,192

14                        5110                                    16,384

15                        5475                                    32,768

16                        5840                                    65,536

 

*Keith’s chart compares the numeric difference between one person coming to Christ a day and one person a year being discipled to maturity. Catch the vision and start making disciples now!

Book Review: Gospel-Centered Discipleship by Jonathan K. Dodson

Brilliantly Integrating the Gospel in all of Life

In 2009 I took a core group of leaders with me from San Diego to Dallas, Texas for an Acts 29 Boot Camp. The highlight for all of us while we were there was hearing Jonathan Dodson give a Biblical Theology on the Person and Work on the Holy Spirit from the Old and New Testament. I knew great things were going to come from this man’s life upon hearing him speak.

I hope that this will be the first of many books that Dodson writes integrating the gospel with all of life. What he does in this book in a very cogent manner is demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses in “traditional” discipleship and shows how the gospel should not be bifurcated, but central to the pre-Christian and post-Christian’s understanding of discipleship. He makes a great case for the “Great Commission” becoming the “Gospel Commission” and shows how repentance and faith in the context of community are constants in the gospel-graced disciple of Christ.

Tackling discipleship biblically, theologically, and practically Dodson has given pastors, church planters, and all kinds of Christians a wonderful handbook for understanding biblical discipleship, and how to practically live out the gospel in the context of community.

The best part of this book is how it exalts the gospel of Christ by pointing to a grace based discipleship that doesn’t err toward the extremes of self-righteousness, nor of antinomianism, but simply living out one’s new identity in Christ. According to Dodson, discipleship is our identity in Christ and everything else we are is related to our distinct roles as a disciples of Christ.

Our new identity in Christ has three distinct aspects that are developed in the book: rationality, relationship, and being missional. He also demonstrates that we must not err on the side of being only vertical (pietistic), nor horizontally oriented (missional). We must seek to diagonally balance the vertical and horizontal aspects of our identity in Christ — the head, heart, and hands aspects of discipleship in the context of community.

I highly recommend this book as one that will increase your understanding of, and application of the gospel – no matter how long you’ve been a Christian. It is one of the best books on discipleship to come out in a long time.

*Jonathan K. Dodson (M. Div; Th.M, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. Dodson has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others.

Book Review: Am I Called? By David T. Harvey

Great Handbook For Helping You Confirm Your Calling to the Pastoral Ministry

 Dave Harvey has done a great service to the church-at-large- as well as for individual Christian men who are wondering whether or not God is calling them to serve the church in full time pastoral ministry. I finally have a book that I can hand out without any reservations to those who come to me and ask, “How can I know for certain that I have been called by God into the pastorate?”

In three parts: a) Approaching the Call; b) Diagnosing the Call; and c) Waiting, Harvey mines theological, and exegetically based advice with a plethora of helpful bullet points, questions to ask, evaluations, and practical steps to take as one wrestles with and pursues God’s vocational calling to the pastorate.

I especially appreciated how Harvey focused on applying the gospel to an individuals life and how he addressed key issues like character development, service and affirmation from the local church, and the importance of working with a plurality of leaders in the context of a local church – alongside the necessary theological training.

One of the highlights for me was reading the biographical stories at the end of each chapter on the pastoral calling in the lives of some well known and unknown pastors of history: Thomas Scott, Charles Simeon, Lemuel Haynes, Martin Luther, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, James Montgomery Boice, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, John Bunyan, and John Newton.

I highly recommend this book for young men who are wondering if they are called, those pastors who are struggling with their calling, and pastors and elders who are looking to invest in young men to develop as future pastors and church planters in the context of planting gospel driven churches around the globe.

Book Review: Loving the Way Jesus Loves by Phil Ryken

Jesus’ Loves Like No One Else – Perfectly! 

One of the biggest battles that we all face (if we are honest with ourselves) is that we are incurably selfish, self-absorbed, and idolatrous at the very core of our hearts. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he addresses this core reality that leads to all the problems or symptoms affecting the church due to this foundational problem – a lack of love for God and for one another. Phil Ryken has written a very convicting, and yet practically helpful book that exegetes from the context of 1 Corinthians 13 (Biblical Exegesis) but also walks you through the Gospels (giving a Biblical theology of love) and demonstrates how Jesus exemplifies the genuine love that is being described in Corinthians.

The reason that this book and applying this book and the Bible is so challenging is captured well by Ryken mid-way through the book where he writes:

“Unfortunately, many of our attitudes and actions are exactly the opposite of what they ought to be, and as a result, our hearts are constricted. This is one of the reasons why 1 Corinthians 13 is such a challenge for us. All of the things it tells us that love does are almost impossible for us to do, whereas all of the things it tells us that love never does are things we do all the time. This is because we love ourselves more than we love other people or even God.”

Ryken brilliantly and helpfully shows how Jesus does what we can’t do – love perfectly like Him. He shows how each aspect of love in 1 Corinthians 13 (e.g., patience, kindness, not envious, etc.,) is modeled from the Gospels in the life, death, resurrection, and future coming of Christ and how we can be receivers and reciprocators of this kind of love. Though the book is very convicting, it is also very encouraging because it demonstrates that in the gospel – even when we fail to love like Him – he never fails to love us in the deep ways described in 1 Corinthians 13.

I highly recommend this book in order to come to a deeper understanding of godly love, Christ’s love for us, and how to grow more in your love for God and others. Ryken has given us a Biblical Theology of love manifested in Christ, and reiterated in Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth – something we desperately need to apply in today’s church as well. One of the great features of the book is that it contains a very thorough study guide in the back of the book for discipleship or small group discussion.

*I received a free copy of this book by Crossway Publishers and was not required to write a positive review.

My Money or God’s Money?

*Treasure Principle Keys From Randy Alcorn

 Jesus, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Key Principle: “You can’t take it with you—but you can send it on ahead.”

Key #1: God owns EVERYTHING. I’m His Money Manager.

“We are the managers of the assets God has entrusted—not given—to us.”

Key #2: My HEART always goes where I put God’s money.

“Watch what happens when you reallocate your money from temporal things to eternal things.”

Key #3: Heaven, NOT Earth, is my home.

“We are citizens of a ‘better country—a heavenly one.’”

Key #4: I should live not for the DOT but for the LINE.

“From the dot—our present life on earth—extends a line that goes on forever, which is eternity in heaven.”

Key #5: GIVING is the only antidote to MATERIALISM.

“Giving is a joyful surrender to a greater person and a greater agenda. It dethrones me and exalts Him.

Key #6: God prospers me NOT to raise my standard of LIVING, but to raise my standard of GIVING.

“God gives us more money than we need so we can give-generously.”

*Adapted from Randy Alcorn’s Book “The Treasure Principle”

Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries, a nonprofit ministry devoted to promoting an eternal viewpoint and drawing attention to people in special need of advocacy and help. Randy was a pastor for fourteen years before starting this ministry and is a popular church and conference speaker. He and his wife live in Gresham, Oregon and are the proud parents of two daughters, Karina and Angela, and the grandparents of four grandsons.

A popular fiction author, Randy has held readers spellbound with fast-paced, gripping fiction infused with eternal themes. His books Edge of Eternity, Deadline, and Dominion, and Deception all point readers to the truth that the choices we make have eternal consequences.Lord Foulgrin’s Letters and The Ishbane Conspiracy tackle the subject of spiritual warfare and are meant to help equip Christians to recognize and resist the attacks of the enemy. Safely Home asks the question “Are you ready to die for your faith?”

Randy is also passionate about life and has written Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, a book that has been widely used to train students and adults to articulate the pro-life position in a secular culture. He often speaks on pro-life related themes and has included them in his novels.

Randy’s other books include The Law of Rewards, The Treasure Principle, The Grace and Truth Paradox, The Purity Principle, Heaven, and Wait Until Then.

Randy’s life emphasis is on 1) communicating the strategic importance of using our earthly time, money, possessions, and opportunities to invest in need-meeting ministries that will count for eternity; and 2) analyzing, teaching, and applying the moral, social, and relational implications of Christian truth in the current age. Visit Randy’s blog at http://www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com.

Paul David Tripp on What We All Hate: Waiting!

5 Reasons Why God Calls Us to Wait – By Paul David Tripp

In ministry you will be both called to wait and also find waiting personally and corporately difficult. So it is important to recognize that there are lots of good reasons why waiting is not merely inescapable but necessary and helpful. Here are a few of those reasons.

(1) Because We Live in a Fallen World

We are called to wait because the broken condition of the world makes everything we do harder. Nothing in this life or in your ministry really functions as originally intended. Something changed when sin entered the world, and in rebuking Adam, God summarized that change: “cursed is the ground . . . through painful toil you will eat of it. . . . It will produce thorns and thistles for you. . . . By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food” (Genesis 3:17-19). Sin brought friction and trouble and pain and sweat and a thousand other “thorn and thistle” complications to absolutely every aspect of life. We find ourselves waiting because everything in a fallen world is more laborious and entangled than it really ought to be.

Sin also put greed and fear and arrogance and jealousy and self-worship into the souls of all who live this thorn-and-thistle life. We must wait because, by being selfish, impatient, competitive, driven, anxious, and angry, we make life and ministry harder for one another in an endless variety of ways. This is why the seemingly easy leadership conversation becomes the full-blown conflict, why the once-sweet ministry relationship gets stained with hurt and acrimony, and why the church at times sadly functions as a tool of personal power rather than an instrument of worship and redemption.

Processes and people are all affected—everything and everyone has been damaged by the Fall. We must wait, because in a world that is broken, everything we do is harder and more complicated than it was ever meant to be.

(2) Because God Is Sovereign

We must wait because we are not writing our own personal and ministry stories. Life does not work the way we want it to, in the time we want it to. You and I do not live in the center of the universe. That place is forever occupied by God and God alone. Our individual stories and the stories of our churches are part of the great origin-to-destiny story that he alone authors. Waiting becomes immediately easier when you realize God is sovereign (and you are not) and when you further reflect on the reality that he is the ultimate source of everything that is wise, loving, and good.

Waiting, therefore, is not a sign that your world is out of control. Rather, it is a sign that your world is under the wise and infinitely attentive control of a God of fathomless wisdom and boundless love. This means you can rest as you wait, not because you like to wait, but because you trust the One who is calling you to wait.

(3) Because God Is a God of Grace

Waiting is one of God’s most powerful tools of grace. It’s important to realize in your ministry that God doesn’t just give us grace for the wait. The wait itself is a gift of grace. You see, waiting is not only about what you will receive at the end of the wait. Waiting is about what you will become as you wait.

In calling us to wait, God is even rescuing those of us in ministry from our bondage to our own plan, our own wisdom, our own power, our own control. In calling us to wait, God is freeing us from the claustrophobic confines of our own little kingdoms of one and drawing us into a greater allegiance to his kingdom of glory and grace. Waiting is more than being patient as situations and other people change. Waiting is about understanding that you and I desperately need to change, and that waiting is a powerful tool of personal change. God is using the grace of waiting to change us at the causal core of our personhood: the heart. Now, in ministry, that’s a good thing!

(4) So We Can Minister to Others

Waiting is central to any ministry activity. If you are truly committed to being part of what God is doing in the lives of others, you will be willing to wait. Personal heart and life change is seldom a sudden event. Usually it is a process. You and I do not determine when and how the winds of the Spirit will blow, and people do not often become what they need to become overnight.

This means that in ministry we are called to have the same conversation again and again. We are called to pick that person up after each failure, to be willing to forgive and forbear, to remind him or her once more of God’s presence and grace, and to be willing to have our lives slowed down and complicated in the process. People of grace and love are always people who are willing to wait.

(5) For the Increase of God’s Glory

Finally, we are called to wait because everything in life and ministry exists not for our comfort and ease but for God’s glory. The whole redemptive story is written for one purpose and one purpose alone: the glory of the king.

Waiting is hard for us because we tie our hearts to other glories. We so often are tempted to live and minister for the glory of human acceptance, of personal achievement, of power and position, of possessions and places, and of comfort and pleasure. So when God’s glory requires that these things be withheld from us—things we look to for identity, meaning, and purpose—we find waiting a grueling, burdensome experience.

Waiting means surrendering your glory. Waiting means submitting to his glory. Waiting means understanding that you were given life and breath for the glory of another. Waiting gives you opportunity to forsake the delusion of your own glory and rest in the God of awesome glory. Only when you do that will you find what you seek, and what you were meant to have: lasting identity, meaning, purpose, and peace in Christ. In this way waiting is is much more than a burden for you to bear; it is a precious gift for you to receive with joy.

Dr. Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization whose mission statement is “Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” Tripp is also professor of pastoral life and care at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, Texas, and executive director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care in Fort Worth, Texas. Tripp has written many books on Christian living that are read and distributed internationally. He has been married for many years to Luella, and they have four grown children. *This Article originally appeared on the Gospel Coalition Web Site on October 24, 2011.

Book Review: Three Candles by Will Corcoran

The Amazing Power of Love

 This book is primarily about the author growing up with tremendous verbal and physical abuse from his parents, and the lessons he learns as an adult about love from his son “Henry” who is living with an incurable disease. In reading the book you go through all kinds of emotions – sadness, anger, joy and laughter. The chapters alternate between the authors’ life as a child and as an adult. I think the main theme of the book isn’t about abuse, or an incurable disease. The main theme of the book is about choosing to live with love and a positive attitude and to make the most of your opportunities in life no matter what the obstacles happen to be.

The author is a wonderful writer – he is authentic and transparent and his prose flows effortlessly. He “hooks” you immediately and the only thing that kept me from reading the book in one day (I read it in two days) was the tug on your emotions. He is tackling weighty real life stuff. There is tremendous evil encountered in this book – countered equally by amazing benevolence. In the end you will be encouraged by the story. It will make you appreciate your life and inspire you to make the best of your situation. You will say if, “Will or Henry can survive and thrive with what they have been through then so can I.” It will fortify you for life and motivate you to boldly love those around you with words and actions.

In the end of the book Will gives some examples of how he has been able to keep going with the obstacles in his life. Will and Henry, his granny, his wife, and his other children are an inspiration. I wouldn’t doubt that this book will end up getting picked up by a major movie producer – it should. It would make for a very good movie, because good movies come from heroic stories. This is a heroic story that involves faith, hope, and love – and as the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13, “The greatest of these is love.” This is a great story ultimately about love – the most powerful thing in the universe outside of God himself, but only made possible because God is love.

Book Review – Three Free Sins: God’s Not Mad At You by Steve Brown

Why It’s Bad Trying So Hard To Be Good

I’m pretty sure I’ve read every book that Steve Brown has written and I love them all. So I was anxiously anticipating this new book with the “scandalous” title. Steve Brown is NOT a proponent of “cheap grace,” he understands justification by faith alone as well, or perhaps better than most theologians do. Steve Brown writes with his characteristic blend of humor and authentic seriousness about living the abundant life that Jesus came to bring us by helping the reader understand and apply two important truths related to the gospel stated by the late Jack Miller as follows:

“(1) Cheer up…you’re a lot worse than you think you are, and

(2) cheer up…God’s grace is a lot bigger than you think it is.”

These two truths are developed eloquently and cogently throughout the book. In typical Brown-like fashion this book is full of biblical principles, powerful illustrations, and practical examples that will help you become less of a self-righteous Pharisee, and more like Jesus – full of joy, freedom, laughter, and basking in grace and truth.

Some of the specific issues Brown addresses in this book are as follows: perfectionism, self-righteousness, legalism, anger, repentance, unity in the body of Christ, pride and humility, religiosity, honesty, freedom, grace, and truth.

In the very last chapter he specifically answers some of the questions he gets due to his many books, sermons, and speaking on freedom and grace through justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ:

(1) Are you crazy?

(2) Why do you persist in irritating everybody? Free sins? That’s outrageous! Why don’t you write and teach in a normal way?

(3) There are a lot of examples in the Bible that show God’s wrath, and yet you say that God isn’t angry at his people. Are you sure you haven’t gotten it wrong?

(4) What’s hermeneutics? (Brown relates this to question 3 above)

(5) Okay, but what about obedience?

(6) Is holiness and sanctification irrelevant?

(7) What about discipline? You very conveniently avoid Hebrews 12:7. It says in case you don’t know, “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

(8) You don’t seem to care much for excellence nor do you have a very high view of human nature. Don’t you think you’ve gone a bit too far?

(9) Okay, but where do you draw the line?

(10) What about right and wrong? You don’t seem to care about that.

(11) What about being missional? If Christians buy into what you’ve taught, won’t people stop going on the mission field, feeding the poor, and caring for those in need?

(12) Aren’t you a bit pessimistic about human beings?

(13) Doesn’t that lead to “wormology” and a bad self-image?

(14) What if you’re wrong?

As usual (when reading a Brown offering), I read this book and felt the full gamut of emotions – I laughed, and cried, got mad (not at Steve Brown) – but at myself and other Christians – for our self-righteous stupidity, and most of all praised God for His amazing grace and patience with the world, and especially with me! There is solid theological and practical food for the head, heart, and hands all over the place in this book. Once again, I was struck by God’s amazing grace to save a wretch like me. And once again I’m glad for all of humanity that I’m NOT God – and that Jesus is – and that He is my Savior – His righteousness in exchange for all of my many sins – covered by the Blood of the Lamb for all eternity by the sheer grace of God.