M. Scott Foster is a former youth pastor and church planter. He currently is studying pastoral theology at ClearNote Pastors College in Bloomington, IN. You can contact or follow him on Google Plus.
An Honest Read of Our Evangelistic Methods
Pastor Tim Bayly wrote an excellent post entitled, “Go for the men and the women will follow…” In the post, he relates some great advice his father gave him on how pastors are to reach people with the gospel. He then contrasts it with some of the “evangelistic strategies” churches and para-churches often employ…
Young Life: Go for the leaders and the nobodies will follow.
Child Evangelism Fellowship: Go for the children and their parents will follow.
F-V: Go for the children and the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren will follow. Continue reading
Posted in Biblical Sexuality, Evangelism
We need prophets…
“Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.” – A.W. Tozer
Posted in Authority
The Christian life is warfare…
War is inescapable for the Christian. To be converted to Christ is to be enlisted in his army. Listen to the words of Pastor Spurgeon :
“Life is indeed a ‘warfare;’ and just as a man enlists in our army for a term of years, and then his service runs out, and he is free, so every believer is enlisted in the service of life, to serve God till his enlistment is over, and we sleep in death. Our charge and our armor we shall put off together…. Continue reading
The Life of the Truly Reformed
What does it mean to be truly Reformed? Most would answer this question with a list of doctrines or solas. They would be at least partially correct. However, there is another way to come at answering this question that is much more helpful. Consider the words of James Buchanan:
“It may be safely affirmed that the whole spiritual character and experience of a believer who receives the doctrine of the Reformers, will differ from that of a man who is imbued with Antinomian opinions. The former is fitted to produce and sustain—a profound reverence for the divine law,—a deep and abiding sense of sin,—a broken and a contrite spirit,—a godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation,—an habitual dependence on Christ for pardon,—a holy fear of offending God, and incurring His fatherly chastisement—such as cannot be expected to flow from Antinomian opinions, in so far as they are opposed to the generally received creed of the Protestant Church.” The Doctrine of Justification pg. 160
This is the spiritual experience that truly Reformed ministry should bring into the life of a believer. Arguments about the time and mode of baptism matters. But your position on baptism doesn’t matter one bit if there is no holy fear of offending God, no daily dependence on Christ, no abiding sense of sin, or reverence for the divine law. Being Reformed, by which I mean being biblical, isn’t just about believing “by grace alone” or even subscribing to a entire collection of carefully nuanced doctrinal positions. Being Reformed is about being spiritually alive. We can be assured that if we lack the experience that Buchanan describes we are neither truly Reformed or alive. God give us this Reformed life!
Posted in Reformed Theology
Tim Keller Endorses a Woman Pastor’s Book
Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer PCA has endorsed a book by a woman claiming to be a pastor. Here is her biography as provided on Amazon dot Com:
“Adele Ahlberg Calhoun (M.A., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) currently copastors Redeemer Community in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with her husband, Doug. She was formerly Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Illinois.”
“A trained spiritual director, she has taught courses at Wheaton College and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. In the early 1970s she helped pioneer student work with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. She has also worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in New England and Canada and with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in the West Indies and South Africa.”
More details here.
Posted in Feminism, Local Church
Keller, Censorship, and the Wisdom of Stott
Tim Keller has removed a comment my pastor posted on his blog. You can read my pastor’s reasoning for posting it here. I’ve decided to repost the comment under my name on the Gospel Coalition and take a screenshot of it in case they decide to censor it once again (Update: They did remove it and banned me from further commenting). You can see the screenshot at the bottom of this post. This situation reminds me of an excellent quote from John Stott. He wrote…
Continue reading
Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts…
A simple search on Google will show just how popular the subject of spirituals gift are in the Evangelical world. You will find thousands of websites dedicated to this subject alone. You will find sermon series after sermon series by pastors on the spiritual gifts. Sadly, the Christian’s quest to discover their particular set of spiritual gifts typically represents nothing more than a thinly veiled form of self-actualization. One popular website offering a “Free Spiritual Gifts Analysis” explains the value of their test:
“Discovering and exercising your God-given spiritual gifts allows you to experience maximum fulfillment with minimum frustration in your Christian life and ministry. For that reason, we are pleased to introduce you to the nation’s best-selling Spiritual Gifts Inventory!”
Did you take note of their reasons for supplying you with a best-selling Spiritual Gifts Inventory? It has nothing to do with building the kingdom of God, serving the people of God, or magnifying the glory of God. Quite to the contrary, it is all about you experiencing your life and ministry to their absolute fullest. They are promising nothing more than a variation of the “Best Life Now Christianity” that dominates the church in America. This, of course, is diametrically opposed to the teaching of Scripture. Paul says,
“There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” 1 Cor. 12:6-7
Why has the manifestation of the Spirit been given to us? It is given for the common good of the saints in the local church. It really isn’t about you and your desire for fulfillment. God has endowed us with gifts for his glory and the church’s good. We must keep this in focus as we seek to serve him in the local church. If we aren’t careful our deceitfully hearts will be quick to seize the search for spiritual gifts as an opportunity o turn our eyes inward instead of outward and upward. Continue reading
Posted in Local Church
Preachers need to live well…
“It is a palpable error in those ministers that make such disproportion between their preaching and their living, that they will study hard to preach exactly and study little or not at all to live exactly. All the week long is little enough to study how to speak two hours; and yet one seems too much to study how to live all week…We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well.” – Richard Baxter
Posted in Local Church, Pastoring, Preaching
The Lord’s pruning-knives
My wife and I read a few pages from the Puritans for “devotions” every couple of days. Tonight we were greatly comforted by the words of Thomas Brooks regarding the good that God brings from afflictions…
“A gracious soul secretly concludes, “As stars shine brightest in the night, so God will make my soul shine and glisten like gold while I am in this furnace, and when I come out of the furnace of affliction.” “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).
….Surely, these afflictions are but the Lord’s pruning-knives by which He will bleed my sins, prune my heart, and make it more fertile and fruitful! They are but the Lord’s potion by which He will clear me and rid me of those spiritual diseases and maladies that are most deadly and dangerous to my soul! Affliction is such a healing potion as will carry away all soul-disease better than all other remedies (Zec 13:8-9)!”
James was right. All trials are blessings from God.
