The Week-est Link, August 16, 2008: The Death of Death

1. Have you read J. I. Packer's classic introduction to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ? If not, you should. It's illuminating and expanding. (HT: Monergism)

2. The Southern Seminary fall chapel calendar is up. Note the Darrell Bock Gheens Lectures in early November. (HT: Blake White)

3. Interesting Mark Driscoll video on the Bible's use of harsh language. This is a tough issue, particularly on matters of personal application.

4. McCain and Obama are at Saddleback Church, the church that Rick Warren pastors, for a discussion of issues of faith and humanitarian concern. The New York Times has noticed.

--Have a refreshing weekend, all.

Maureen Dowd, a Catholic Priest, and Marriage: It's Actually Pretty Helpful

This post is, I mean. It's entitled "An Ideal Husband" and it's written by notable (and single) columnist Maureen Dowd and published in today's New York Times. In the piece, Dowd cites at length the wisdom of a 79-year-old celibate Catholic priest who speaks annually to groups of schoolgirls on the subject of the ideal husband. If this all sounds a bit strange and irony-laden, it is: a Catholic priest who's never been married giving advice on marriage in a column written by a single (and very untraditional) columnist. Somehow, though, it works.

Here are some thoughts to chew on from Father Pat Connor:

“Never marry a man who has no friends,” he starts. “This usually means that he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands. I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends. Since, as the Hebrew Scriptures say, ‘Iron shapes iron and friend shapes friend,’ what are his friends like? What do your friends and family members think of him? Sometimes, your friends can’t render an impartial judgment because they are envious that you are beating them in the race to the altar. Envy beclouds judgment."

“Steer clear of someone whose life you can run, who never makes demands counter to yours. It’s good to have a doormat in the home, but not if it’s your husband.

“Does he have a sense of humor? That covers a multitude of sins. My mother was once asked how she managed to live harmoniously with three men — my father, brother and me. Her answer, delivered with awesome arrogance, was: ‘You simply operate on the assumption that no man matures after the age of 11.’ My father fell about laughing.

“A therapist friend insists that ‘more marriages are killed by silence than by violence.’ The strong, silent type can be charming but ultimately destructive. That world-class misogynist, Paul of Tarsus, got it right when he said, ‘In all your dealings with one another, speak the truth to one another in love that you may grow up.’

In sum, I think that Father Pat has a number of things right. He blasphemes (and undermines his religion's teaching) when he calls the apostle Paul a "misogynist", but it's clear that he has keenly observed marriage over the course of his life. It is indeed difficult to trust a man, or a person, who has no friends. Some people are shy, but after a while, you have to wonder if there's something deeper going on. Either the person is too picky to actually befriend anyone, or they don't want to be known on a close level that will invite helpful scrutiny. That's not a good trait, and Christians of all people should be known as those who open up their lives to others for analysis and examination.

When the priest mentions that a man who can be dominated is no good, well, that's also common-sense, itself derived from "biblical-sense", to invent a phrase. I'm guessing that for some women, it sounds good to marry a guy you can control. Sooner or later, though, you realize that this is not such a good thing, particularly when some sort of character is required in life (as it is once or twice in the course of life).

Having a sense of humor seems very helpful for navigation of the ups and downs of life. There are times in a marriage, I would contend, when nothing but laughter will help. Husbands and wives who take themselves too seriously end up crashing and burning on a relational level. The ability to laugh at oneself--and the situations one ends up in--signals the presence of humility. If you want to marry a certain guy, and he can never laugh at himself, think hard before you marry him.

Even more important than humor is communication, and specifically, communication that comes out of a desire to create a marriage that fits into the Creator's cosmic plan for this world and reflects the love of Christ for the church. It's good, after all, to talk things through, but it's way better to talk things through from the perspective of a redeemed heart. When God has saved us, we are freed up by the power of the Spirit to not simply say what's on our mind, and get communication going (which is much better than silence on the part of either or both husband or wife), but to communicate lovingly, carefully, helpfully. I don't know about you, but I often laugh--not unkindly--at the way cultural media often depicts marriage. It defines marital love almost exclusively in terms of sex and marital communication almost entirely in terms of total honesty. This is simply not realistic on either front. Communication has to be a careful blend of honesty, thoughtfulness, desire to edify and build up, and love. Leaving one of these aspects out will result in a blend that, like a poorly mixed cake, means well but tastes bad.

Father Pat has some good insights, and I'm glad when anyone out there wants to strengthen and ennoble the institution of marriage. But for a truly strong marriage, one has to turn to the Bible, not out of religious arrogance, but out of genuine desire to know the mind of God for the betterment of one's life, one's home, one's marriage.

The Importance of Bible Memorization, or, the Miracle of the Bible Applied to the Mind

Dr. Andy Davis of the First Baptist Church of Durham, North Carolina recently spoke at the 2008 National Founder's Conference on "The Importance of Filling Your Life with Scripture." Dr. Davis is a very faithful pastor who emphasizes the theme of Scripture memorization for spiritual growth. I did not attend the conference but enjoyed reading through Timmy Brister's live-blog of the message (which is essentially a word-by-word reproduction of the talk itself). Here are some parts of the message that I found convicting and helpful:

The Bible is a miracle--"I hold in my hand a miracle. The Bible is a miracle, and I challenge you to give me any definition of a miracle that our Bible does not qualify. It was the Word God sent, for faith comes by hearing so that we might be saved. James 1:17 - God chose to give us birth by the word of truth. The Scriptures are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15)."

Feeding on Christ--"You need to meditate on Scripture, not as water through a pipe, but pause and let the words sink into your life. Feed and give food to your inner man. The first and greatest duty is to get your own soul happy in the Lord first by study and second by prayer. Let God speak to you first and speak back to Him in prayer. The goal is personal feeding on Christ."

The Word is like Microsoft (vice versa, maybe)--"I say to you that memorization is the most efficient way to do all of this. Why should you memorize Scripture? God is commending Scripture memory to you, but He is not commanding it. If I was in 1985 offering you a million shares of stock in Microsoft, you would buy it. Memorizing Scripture will make you rich."

Answers to objections to memorization--

"1. I don’t have a good memory. You have a better memory than you think you do. Think of all the numbers and names you know.

2. It will take up too much time; I am too busy. This is the most efficient use of your time. It will bless you in everything you do. Invest your life in the Word of God.

3. I am too lazy, and it’s hard work. The secret to memorization is repetition over time. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat over months. It is hard work, but it is worth doing.

4. I am not very interested; it seems boring. Could the word of God really be boring to you if you are justified by faith? You haven’t seen the glories of the word of God."

There is much more to read at Timmy Brister's blog. Go over there and read the whole thing. You may not immediately begin to memorize massive chunks of Scripture, but Dr. Davis's message will encourage you to think hard about incorporating such a practice into your life. He certainly has challenged me on this matter.

Applying What We Know About Our Internet Usage to Our Spiritual Lives

Just had a few thoughts from yesterday's piece that covered the Atlantic Monthly article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The article is, I think, a good wake-up call for those of us who frequently browse the Internet. In particular, I think that it encourages us not to compartmentalize our lives. By this I mean that we should not think that our Internet usage is cordoned off from our spiritual lives. What does this mean on a practical level? Let me share.

Yesterday's post touched on a number of other concerns that I have regarding constant Web use by Christians. Today, though, I want to zero in on the problematic question of how our devotional life is affected by the Internet. Put simply, if in our usage of the Web we are training ourselves to concentrate in ten-second bursts, we're going to struggle, I think, to sustain a meaningful devotional life. Devotions are not essential to being a Christian. That is, you don't have to have a thirty-minute time set aside each day for prayer and Bible study to be a Christian. However, most Christians throughout the ages have found that in order to walk closely with God on a daily basis, it is quite helpful to set aside time for these things. In our devotional time, we seek to focus for a period of time on God and His influence on our spiritual lives. Contemplation and thoughtfulness are thus at a premium when it comes to devotions.

Every Christian who has ever tried to do devotions knows that it's hard to do them. Your attention wanders, your concentration drifts, and sooner than you can know it, you're miles away from your church's weekly prayer requests, or Jeremiah's lamentations. How important, then, that in all of our lives, we cultivate mental habits that train us to focus, and not to flit. If you are constantly surfing the web, nibbling on content, I am guessing that you will find it challenging to dig into the Word. If you check email every ten minutes, I would venture that your concentration will easily shift from prayer to distracted thought. Why should it be otherwise? You're training yourself to do just that--to shift.

In seeking to be wise, discerning, disciplined Christians, then, we've got to think hard not just about what we take in, but how we take it in. Most Christians are quite aware of the need to avoid bad Internet content. Few of us, I would guess, are aware of the need to avoid a bad approach to the Internet. As in many areas of life, we simply consume it like the masses around us, thinking little about its effect on our lives.

We should not allow the Internet to shred our devotional lives. If we do surf the Web and check email, we should do so carefully, such that we are capable of deep reflection and sustained attention. Our devotional lives can only be rich if we develop such abilities. Also, though, how can we expect ourselves and others to pay attention to sermons and hymns if we're constantly trafficking in information? If our personal devotional life will suffer from overexposure to the Internet, so too will our congregational participation as members of churches. We'll check in and out of sermons, tune out of the very songs we're singing, and generally regard church with a glazed-over boredom, all the while unaware that it is not church and its offerings that are the problem--it is us and the attention spans we have trained to flit and flicker and fade in and out that are the problem. Shame on us for so often blaming the church and the pastor when it is almost solely we who are to blame.

Do you exhibit these symptoms? I know I do at times. If so, train your senses. Re-think your Internet consumption. Carve out within yourself the ability to focus and think deeply. Your spiritual life--and your church life--can only benefit as a result, and God can only be glorified as another area of one's life opens up to the transforming power of God's Word.

Comments on God Delighting in Small (New England) Churches

From Paul Buckley in Methuen, MA (check out his excellent, Christ-exalting blog)--

"I pastor a Sovereign Grace Ministries Church in New England, King of Grace Church. Thanks for your encouraging post! Pastoring in New England has been a wonderful adventure of learning to glory in Christ and the precious folks he does give us and not in our relative church size. It is one thing to say I am pastoring for God's glory, it is another to be tested with small success yet still labor. There are many here as Josh said who have labored faithfully for years (far beyond mine). They are my heroes.

I trust their faithful prayers and labors will indeed be answered in time with new converts, new church plants and a region full of disciples who will surpass them in zeal, knowledge and faithfulness. We intend to labor for Christ and His glory regardless of outcome yet we continue to ask for a greater harvest."

From Mike Freeman in Ohio (formerly of Maine)--

"Having grown up in a Maine small church, I agree with Owen. Additionally, I have labored as a lay youth leader for the past six years at at a church in southwest Ohio. I can say with certainty that the folks in Maine, by and large, "get it." In Ohio, the bible belt, many people go to church because that's what you are supposed to do- even fundamental evangelical churches. In Maine, most people don't go to church; the ones that do come actually seem to want to be there."

Are there other pastors out there who want to comment on the original blog I wrote? I would love more testimony on what it is like to pastor a small church and how you handle it.

To my knowledge, this subject is not often talked about. Small churches are something of the elephant in the room in many evangelical circles. We all know they're there (in large numbers), but as our environment is suffused with notions of success and grandiosity, we don't want to talk about them much or really even acknowledge they're around. We'd much rather talk about the "success stories" than the churches who are, in their quest for faithfulness, achieving a certain numerical mediocrity.

This (extended) blog is no attempt to demonize large churches. Far, far from it. I give thanks to God for large churches that are faithful to the gospel. God often uses them in special ways. God blesses many, many people through them. For Bethlehem and Covenant Life and other churches of similar size and gospel focus, I am thankful to God. But we must not think that these churches alone are faithful and glorifying to God. If our definition of God's glory is measured along metric lines, we are surely off. If faithfulness must in some way equal numerical prosperity, we are certainly wrong. The very message of the Bible is that God takes pleasure in the few. God, unlike men, does not need recognizable size and prosperity--in terms of His followers--to be delighted. The message of the Bible is that God loves His people. He loves the few. He loves the remnant. He delights in the faithful, self-sacrificial lives of His people. It is not massive size that He searches the earth for. He searches it for faithfulness.

The Bible is rife with stories that support this basic idea. Try it out--test this theme out. Read through your Bible, and see how often God delights in a people who are small in number but great in devotion. See how little emphasis there is on the mere size of things. Tiny Israel, puny David, Gideon's 300, the faithful remnant, the mustard seed, the scattered disciples, the overmatched apostles, the slain martyrs--this is just a tiny selection of biblical matters that show with clarity the joy God takes in the few. In so many of these things, in fact, it is God's explicit design for His numbers to be small.

When a church is small, then, we must not rush to feel bad for it, or wonder what has gone wrong, or contrive many ways to fix it. Perhaps change is needed. But it may well be that God is delighting in the small size of the congregation, taking joy in their gathered worship, smiling as they evangelize and celebrate His supper and struggle to fill an oversized room. Knowing God's character from the Bible, wouldn't it be just like Him to do so?

Preaching Christ from All of Scripture? Bryan Chappell Shows the Way

I came across a great link at a site I love, Monergism.com, which has just about anything and everything you could ever want related to reformed theology. Turns out that Dr. Bryan Chapell has had Covenant Seminary post all of his lectures (with PDFs!) on Christ-centered preaching. Here's the blurb on the lectures, which are free (!):

"Dr. Bryan Chapell explores the unifying principle of grace that binds all Scripture together. He outlines and demonstrates the principles and practice of sermon crafting and delivery to illuminate the message of grace in each passage, and to submit it to God's Spirit for the transformation of lives through preaching."

It sounds like this is Covenant's preaching class; I could be wrong on this. If there's a Covenant Seminary student out there who has chanced upon this blog, please feel free to comment and let us know. Whatever the case, I think that you'll find this a manifestly helpful resource in figuring out how to preach the Bible per the conditions Christ gave in Luke 24:44-47. This is not an easy subject to figure out, and one can easily go overboard in one's typology (identifying shadow images of Christ in the people, ideas, institutions, and things of the Old Testament), and so it is great to have a gifted, godly expositor like Dr. Chapell dig deeply into this matter. I hope that these links help you to preach Christ from the Word.

Also, Chappell has authored a very fine text on preaching. Click here to order Christ-Centered Preaching. I've worked through it and found it quite helpful on this subject. There are lots of drawbacks to the Internets, but there are also many clear strengths. Having great resources like this out there for free is most definitely one of the strengths.

The Spirituality of Sin: Flattery

Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

--Psalms 12:1-2

Recent days have prompted thought on the nature of sin. What is it, exactly, that induces us to obey our sin nature and to commit transgression against the Lord? I've attempted to think about this in relation to sins that plague my own heart.

Before I go any further, let me first say this: I am a flatterer. The language we choose to describe our sin shapes the way we understand that sin. Instead of saying, "Sometimes I flatter" or "I can sometimes be a flatterer", I have found that I best target the sin of my heart by identifying myself by my sin. Sometimes I commit the sin of flattery; therefore, I am a flatterer. That's it. That's all there is to it. Labeling myself in this way helps me to avoid compartmentalizing my sin (though I still fall prey to compartmentalizing--ergo, I'm a compartmentalizer, too!). I'm not this pristine person who occasionally slips into flattery. I'm a sinner through and through whose sin takes shape in the form of flattery.

I find that admitting this to myself is helpful in turning away from my sin. I can't simply jump to consideration of the wonder of Christ's atoning work when I am justly shamed for my sin. No, I need to allow myself to feel the weight of my sin, to offer confession whenever possible to the Lord. In seeking humility and restoration, it is of course best to give the fullest, most heartfelt confession possible. This necessarily involves me calling myself what I am--a sinner whose sin takes definitive shapes and forms. I'm not merely a sinner, after all; I'm a sinner with certain predilections and weaknesses. If all we ever own up to is "being a sinner", then we're not going to get very far in the way of honesty and humility and true confession and gospel restoration.

With all that said, let me say that I think that I flatter people because I don't trust God's providential power. In other words, I flatter people because I think that in order for good things to happen in my life, I've got to make them happen. One of the best ways to make things happen and to get ahead in the world is to heap praise on people who are in positions to help you. It's not a real complicated matter, and it's as old as stone. Smooth things out with the tongue so you walk an easy path. This is a common practice among sinful man, to disingenuously push himself forward by the power of his "flattering lips" and "double tongue" as the Psalmist so evocatively puts it in the above quotation. Sadly, even when people become Christians, they still sin against God by heaping unnecessary praise on others for the purpose of saving their own skin and beating others at their own game.

This is especially true in today's Christian celebrity culture, replete with famous authors and speakers and professors and presidents. For the smooth-tongued among us, it's easy to lie--however gently--to get ahead, to cozy up to people in order to jump off of their backs. Instead of trusting God to direct our paths and bestow what blessings he would give us, many of us talking types drop praise every chance we can get in order to make good and get ahead. It's sad to see others do this, and I have seen a good bit of it in my young years. It's even sadder to catch oneself doing it, and to realize, "I am a flatterer." Those are harsh words. Harsh because they're true.

So what do you do if you're a flatterer? Well, it's pretty simple. You trust God. You live a godly, assertive life but you live it without constantly keeping an eye on yourself and your peers. You try to discern as best you can from Scripture, prayer, counsel, and your intuition what it is that you should do in life for God's glory, and then you do it. But you do so without fretting over all the blessings your friends and fellow workers are getting. You do so without constantly taking stock of your life and then allowing yourself to slip into anxiety because you're not where your ambition tells you you should be. You live assertively and wisely, attempting to take what dominion you can in the world, but you do so with your foot on the brake, staying ready to stop yourself if you sense anxiety and a lack of trust in God to take you where He wants you to go.

The funny thing about all this is that it seems to me that God often lets us flatter and sin to get what we want. Just because you don't do things the right way doesn't mean God doesn't still bless your life. But this kind of achievement pales in comparison to that which is had through trust and faith. If you live aggressively, with sinful ambition fueling your flattery and other trustless acts, you may still get a lot. You might "win" in the game of life, and you might do so as a Christian. But you'll do it in your own strength, on your own time, and at the end, you'll celebrate with your own self. In your planning, God was left behind a while ago. The rewards of the works of your hands didn't come through steady trust and persevering, patient faith. They came through flattery and ambition, the same tools the faithless man of Psalm 12 uses to get ahead in this alien world.

I'm not writing to get anyone specifically, except myself. I know by the grace of God that I'm a flatterer. I know that I often don't trust God to bless and lead me and my family. I can see these things, and increasingly, I can see their ugliness. I'm not backing away a hair from godly assertiveness and kingdom ambition, but I want to distance myself by a thousand miles from my double tongue and the double-minded heart that engineers it. Perhaps you're like me. Perhaps you can see this sin in yourself and the lack of trust that propels it. If you are, pray for yourself and your fellow Christian flatterers. At every chance you get, trust God to lead you. We'll all struggle sometimes to balance godly assertiveness and ungodly ambition, and that's okay. That's how life is--decisions don't come gift-wrapped with five-step directions.

Be accountable to your church, pray for growth, and wherever you can, flex the muscle of faith. Let that double tongue go limp. Maybe then you and I will bring back the faithful to the land--the faithful, of course, being not someone else, some other sinner, but ourselves.

Hong Kong Travelogue, Day One: Discovery and Jetlag

I'm in Hong Kong with the Henry Center, my employer, as we're hosting an international conference on evangelical identity. I'll be blogging about the conference on the Henry Center blog and will cross-post here.

The Henry Center has gone international. Director Doug Sweeney and Managing Director Owen Strachan (the author) are hosting an international conference in Hong Kong, China this week that covers the topic of Christian identity in diverse situations. A number of faculty from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL are joining, as are scholars from Westmont College, Beeson Divinity School, Christar in India, Alliance Bible Seminary of China, Evangel Seminary in Hong Kong, and China Graduate School of Theology. Students from TEDS and local seminaries will attend, as will area pastors and interested laypeople. The conference will be on May 29-31 (see here for more details), but most of the conference speakers are here.

It is my privilege to give you just a little taste of this exciting event through a blog series. I don't have a lot of time, and there's a great deal going on, but my posts should give you a window into what we're doing. We are really excited by this conference, as it's not common for Christians from East and West to gather together for such meaningful and productive fellowship. This is a very unique part of the privilege it is to labor for Christ in a world of increasing connection.
Without further ado, my humble little travelogue.

Day One (and Two): Discovery and Jetlag

(Sunday) 9:00am--Say goodbye to wife. Brave the wilds of O'Hare Airport. Check-in goes surprisingly well.
9:30am--11:35am--Wander O'Hare in search of vitals. Debate on which magazine to buy when confronted with 13,000 choices.
11:35am--Board plane for flight to Hong Kong. Sit for an hour. Am aware of what it is like to be a distinct ethnic minority. Think to myself that this experience is going to be very good for me.
12:35pm--Fifteen hour flight to Hong Kong commences. Ponder the fact that I've only once been on a flight longer than eight hours. Begin reading book (one).
1:15pm--First movie (of five!) begins screening.
3:45pm--Start reading book (two).
6:45pm--Lunch is served. A little plate of noodles and chicken with a microwaved roll never tasted so good.
1:15am--Both seatmates are asleep, as is most of the plane. I'm staying up so that I can sleep once we arrive in Hong Kong (we will arrive at 4:30pm their time--HK is 13 hours ahead of Chicago time (CT)). Realize that this means I have to stop reading. Commence watching of "27 Dresses."
1:25am--End watching of "27 Dresses."
2:30am Chicago Time, 4:30pm HK time--Arrive at HK. Connect with fellow TEDS folks. Find our escort. Drive into Hong Kong.

I'm going to break in here and talk for a bit about my first impressions of the city. For those who don't know, it's a port city. In addition, though the city stretches over many miles, the terrain is quite hilly, even mountainous. There is not a great deal of actual real estate in the city. Thus, there are skyscrapers everywhere. The roads are narrow. The city is very clean. It is utterly baffling to be in such a tightly constructed area. Not a spare inch is wasted. After we arrived at our hotel, we went out for a bite to eat. Along the way, we entered a mall whose ceilings could not have been higher than 7.5 feet. Little tiny shops proliferated, and people were almost back to back. I noticed a number of real estate shops--places advertising apartment housing. The rooms in these apartments boggle the mind, as they're nothing less than tiny. Yet if one wants to live in the city, it appears that this is standard--less than 800 square feet for whole families is quite normal. For many Americans (outside of New York), such an apartment would be quaint. Here, it is standard.

The city is crawling with red taxis. At one stoplight, roughly thirty cars were stopped. Over half were taxis. Big rectangular buses swoop in from out of nowhere and park on a dime. It's interesting to ponder what it would be like to live in a city like this all of one's life. One gets used to simple things like seeing thousands of people per day. In general, people seem to move in their own isolated trajectories with little sense of the larger flow of others. Chinese pop music is everywhere. It throws me off, because I expect to hear American voices. In just a few blocks, we pass five banks. The market here seems to be exploding. Little noodle shops are also everywhere. Some smell good to my American nose, others hint of strange foods I've never encountered and couldn't imagine.

I have never felt like more of an outsider in this world than these moments. I don't say this in a negative sense, as if I think that people are excluding me. No, I mean more what is cold, hard fact: I am an outsider. All around me are people speaking words I can't understand. Language appears now more of a unifier than ever before. Walking along, I yearn to be able to connect with others through language. It is perhaps the simplest means of communication, one we take for granted, and I have no access to it, and am thus something of a shadow in the city, a passing presence who might as well not be there.

Back at the hotel, we ready for rest. We're all flagging, and jetlag is working its stupor-inducing magic. Before I fall asleep, I look out my window. A place like this reminds one of the bigness of God. He oversees all of this, all of the madness, the controlled chaos, the billions of people who live and walk and buy noodles in places just like this. I am overwhelmed by this city--though I've seen probably 1/50th of it--and discover that it is in places like this, places that overwhelm the senses and boggle the mind, that God's sovereignty and presence becomes very real. In a natural sense, there seems to be no center, no common point around which this all coheres and takes shape. Life is anonymous, moving at light-speed, insignificant. With God, though, there is a center. Better than this, there is a personal center. God is here. He is ruling. He is caring for His people and His world. To eyes struggling to take it all in, His transcendence emerges clearest. It is not simply in the pastures and meadows that we find God, and our need for Him. It is in the city, walking on sidewalks, surrounded by ten thousand people who do not know my name, do not speak my language, and do not even know I exist.

That concludes day one (and two). I put this all under day one because our flight and arrival was of a piece, though it stretched over two days. The value of this experience will, I know, be immense, and I am thankful for the opportunity to be here, to go outside of myself, to fellowship with fellow Christians of foreign background, and to learn lessons of faith in a new land. Tomorrow, I'll give you a snapshot of our sightseeing, and the next few days, I'll take you into the conference, and give you some highlights.

How Technology Relates to Permanence, and What That Means for Christianity

In Canada, the Guardian reports today, people are using their Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for all sorts of things--estimating travel times, for example. Nowadays, it seems, you don't need a directional sense, really, and maps are becoming obsolete. Instead, you just turn on your handheld device and go from there.

Have you thought deeply about the changes the technological impetus has wrought? Many of us are so technologically linked that we could scarcely imagine life without our cell phone, our PDA, our GPS, our laptop, our television. The technology-driven society has changed the way we think about many things. We conceive of time in an entirely different way than did our grandparents. Our grandparents knew much slower, well-paced styles of life. When you can chop up every minute, and squeeze a conversation out of every idle stop, though, your conception of time changes. We also think of convenience in a new way. Our grandparents were not conditioned to think of every error, every malfunction, as an inconceivable imposition, but rather as a way of life. They did not have customer service, to put it bluntly.

In 2008, we are so used to constantly improving products, to around-the-clock gadget help, that when the Internet signal drops for even a couple of minutes, we throw up our hands, as if the world had just ended. What little connection we have with the American agricultural past, where a chink in the farm equipment could easily deprive even the most industrious farmer of hours of his workday. Though we are thankful for technological advances that do improve certain aspects of day-to-day life, we are also reminded with even the quickest comparison of the past that changing standards in technological production have changed not only our capabilities, but our attitudes.

There is so much more that we could say on this matter, so many more comparisons we could offer that reveal that the technology revolution is not one-sided, with only positive results, but is multifaceted, presenting our society with significant weaknesses as well as great strengths. One wonders in a more serious way about the relation between technology and faith. Reading David Wells's stunning new book The Courage to Be Protestant stimulated some of these thoughts, I think, though this is a subject that previous texts like Neil Postman's Technopoly and some of Wells's earlier writings caused to bubble up in my mind. The love of technology is fundamentally a love for a market, a realm, that is constantly shifting and reinventing itself. In this realm, new is the new new. That is to say, the technological sphere is obsessed and driven by lust for newness, new creations, new gadgets, new ideas. This mentality is good at stimulating thought and creativity, two gifts of the Creator to mankind. Everyone who likes and benefits from their cell phone, who finds email a useful means of communication, who enjoys a good movie once in a while, derives satisfaction from the technological drive.

But in yielding to the lust for newness, or even dabbling it, we expose ourselves to the negative edge of this blade. We also acquire an innate love for what is new and a subsequent disaffection for that which is outmoded. Sure, we balance these emotions; after all, aren't we constantly observing society celebrate that which is now "retro"? Yes, we do. But note that the window for "retro" items and personalities extends only about thirty-forty years back of where we currently reside. Things older than this span can qualify for "quaint" status, yes, but they are often simply passed over and forgotten. Other than a quick clip or two, most people have no interest in watching "The Ed Sullivan Show", for example. No, if we're in the mood for something "ancient", we'd rather watch a Beatles concert, or a seventies film, or music videos from the eighties. The technological drive, then, seems to sap us of a love for the past.

More significantly, the technological drive seems to push us away from appreciation of what is permanent. Because our current interest is constantly shifting and transferring itself to whatever is new, and hot, and sleek, and better, we gradually lose our appreciation for permanent things. We come to esteem not that which is tried and true but that which is novel and new. Faced with the choice between the hot idea, the cool trend, and the permanent principle, we're very much tempted by the technological drive to choose the former. This can have deleterious effects on one's approach to life, broadly, and one's theology, specifically. Though we might never intend for this to happen, we can transfer our love of impermanence and newness from the technological realm to the theological realm. Though we're scarcely aware of this transfer, though we had no explicit wish to make this so, we can make it with ease, and end up transforming our whole approach to theology, and life, and--dare one say it?--God.

In saying this I don't intend to say that anyone who likes cool gadgets is automatically paganized. Far from that. Rather, I'm saying that we should think about technology and how it relates to the Christian faith. We shouldn't simply think about which movies have swears in them or which video games our children should avoid. We should think about the very nature of technology itself. We may well remain engaged with it, and use it, and even enjoy it, but we should do these things while remaining aware of not only what we are doing to it, to the gadget or program itself, but to what it is doing to us.

Beyond this, we can say at ground-level that where we can discern a restlessness within our souls that conflicts with love for the ancient, permanent, unchanging principles of God's Word and the faith that flows from it, we must check ourselves, and take action against technological lust. If we find ourselves gravitating to theological trends simply because they're new and cutting-edge, we need to watch out. Some trends are helpful, but many are not. If we find ourselves bored with the Bible, and bored with theology, we need to watch out. If we yearn for something fresher and more glamorous than the local church, we should take care. In such instances, we may well be allowing instincts cultivated in an impermanent, impatient, restless culture to be directing our theology and our spiritual decisions. Our theology, despite what we might think (or what we might not realize, alternatively) is not cordoned off from the factors and influences of this world. It is connected to them--sometimes far too much for our spiritual health.

Enjoy your gadgets, then; use the incredible medical care available to many of us in this age; benefit from the advances that sprout up every day in our world. Use your GPS to find that elusive movie theater, your iPhone to order subs, your computer to find the Bible verse for your sermon, the email list to urge prayer for foreign missionaries. But do all of these things aware that you must shape your approach to technology, and that you must let permanent things, things originating beyond the age of the earth, to direct your life. Otherwise, it will not only be our gadgets that are impermanent. It will be, perhaps, our faith.

Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and the Catholic Church: Strange (but Happy?) Bedfellows

I became Catholic because of Dorothy Day and Flannery O’Connor.

Thus begins "Becoming Catholic," a personal essay written by Sarah Vanacore in a recent InterVarsity email newsletter. Vanacore, a grant writer and resident of an inner-city religious community, writes her story to share the reasons she left evangelicalism and embraced Catholicism. I want to briefly analyze her article and its placement in the IVCF newsletter. In doing so, I'm not throwing stones at Sarah Vanacore. I am writing out of concern for the direction of InterVarsity, a group I was involved with for four years as a student at Bowdoin College. IVCF seems increasingly cozy with Catholicism, and I am very concerned by this.

I want to make this post as concise as possible. I'm going to excerpt the most important parts of this piece. Here, then, are the reasons Vanacore became disenchanted with evangelicalism:

"By the time I entered college, I was disenchanted with the Christianity that I knew, with the rampant individualism that seemed to leave no room for the communal aspects of the Christian faith; with the reduction of things like Communion and baptism to symbols; with the splintering of the Protestant churches that I knew; and with the over-spiritualization of Jesus’ words."

Here is what specifically attracted Vanacore to Catholicism:

"Then I started reading Flannery O’Connor. I was attracted to O’Connor’s vivid, stark imagery that contrasted completely with the schmaltz with which I’d stocked the shelves at my high school job at a Christian bookstore. And I loved Dorothy Day’s commitment to the poor, to social justice, and to hospitality. I was spending most of my Saturdays hanging out with the Philadelphian homeless, and I was convinced that to be Christian, one must not just care about the poor, but know them as well.

So the Southern gothic writer and the fiery co-founder of the Catholic Worker drew me in. At the same time, I found that some of my friends were on the same journey toward Catholicism, and they encouraged me to look more closely at what I believed. What I found most compelling was the Eucharist: that the bread and wine were not simply symbolic of Christ’s body and blood but actually became them. On top of that, I loved the liturgy; far from stifling my faith, I found the liturgy gave it its full expression while still allowing for cultural and musical differences."

Here is Vanacore's current position:

"I live now in an intentional community, which in itself is a study in denominational reconciliation: we have Catholics (both cradle and converts), Mennonites, and some post-evangelicals who haven’t quite felt at home anywhere. I do believe that Catholics and Protestants can work together, that we can reconcile and stand together on our core beliefs. I believe we must, in order to cause any sort of change in this world."

Let us now examine these statements. Looking first at the reasons for Vanacore's disenchantment, one can understand them. Evangelical Christianity can definitely be much too individualistic, the ordinances of Christ can easily become rudimentary and unimportant to us, and Christians can certainly unnecessarily divide over silly things. All of these weaknesses can and do happen. Now let's consider Vanacore's reasons for embracing Catholicism. She writes that evangelical literature left her cold and that she loved the commitment of certain Catholics to helping the poor. Many evangelicals I know would resonate with these sentiments. So far, Vanacore's reasons don't seem to be deep doctrinal quandaries, but rather personal frustrations that many evangelicals share. These are the not the matter of which a departure from evangelicalism--from true, biblical Christianity--should be made.

From there, Vanacore does register a few doctrinal discrepancies with evangelicalism: she likes the Catholic view of the Lord's supper and she likes the liturgy. At the end of her article, she indicates that she wants to be a part of a movement of change. That, then, comprises her reasons for her departure from evangelicalism. Now that we've laid these things out, let's analyze them a little closer.

As I've noted, I think it entirely understandable that an evangelical grow dissatisfied with church splits and cheesy Christian books. I also think it's understandable to be frustrated with poor conceptions of key scriptural doctrines, like the Lord's supper, or with shallow, me-centered, poorly executed congregational music. All of these frustrations, however, do not in any way merit an embrace of Rome and its teaching. Evangelicals all across the country have reacted to the frustrations Vanacore posits by digging into their local churches and by seeking to change them for the better. There's a whole movement of young evangelicals, called the emerging church, which addresses many of the concerns Vanacore registers. One need not smile brightly at the prospect of reading schmaltzy Christian books to be a biblical Christian. Beyond this, though, I'm concerned by the worldview that seems to fuel Vanacore's decisions. She seems to understand faith as a pick-and-choose proposition in which, if one does not like certain aspects of a given religion, one is eminently justified in simply switching teams, as it were. Though it does not appear in this garb--no, it comes in the garb of "seeking ancient, authentic faith" or something like that--it's really just postmodernism with a good dash of American consumerism thrown in. If you don't like the Christian faith, just leave it. Don't do any deep doctrinal searching, don't have extensive theological discussion about the matters of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants, no, simply switch your flag. This is very poor--and very dangerous--worldview thinking. It treats the Bible as a malleable book one may read with self-directed glasses. At no place does Vanacore quote Scripture or reveal any deep doctrinal thinking about her decision. She simply posits what she didn't like about Christianity, notes what she liked about Catholicism, and seems to expect us to commend her--or at least, understand her--for her choice. I, for one, do not; I, for one, cannot. I tremble for her, because the Catholic Church does not teach the biblical truth on salvation, it teaches a false gospel.

One does not simply switch religions because one likes a certain musical style or bookseller list better. One does not simply observe which religion is most doing what one perceives religions should do and then take up that faith. One carefully studies the Bible, the Word of God, to see what God wants, to see what God teaches, and then carefully discerns which religion most fits that vision. Yet nowhere in this article do we have any sort of careful study noted. This really concerns me about IVCF. They have published this article. Why? It does not promote good worldview thinking, it does not show a concern for what God, not man, wants, and it tacitly--no, explicitly!--encourages evangelicals to rethink their commitment to evangelical Christianity based on their personal religious preferences. This is very troubling. This article suffers from a deficient understanding of Scripture, of evangelical Christianity, of current movements among evangelical Christians, and of man. We do not choose our religion based on what we like the most. We seek to discern what God wants and teaches, and we humbly, obediently, even fearfully conform to His will. I'd love to read Flannery O'Connor, and I hope to take Vanacore up on that proposition, and I'd love to develop a greater heart for the poor, but I fundamentally want to know what it is that God requires of me and then do that. That, and not any personal preference, is what must drive my thinking, my decisions, my very life.

Let us pray for IVCF and students like Sara who it seems to be influencing in a way of grave danger.

New Series at Said at Southern: Seasons of a Seminarian, Part One

I'm itching to write a number of things this week, but I first want to tell you about a series of articles I'm writing at Said at Southern, the SBTS metablog, about seminary. If you've ever wanted a kind of overview of the seminary experience from a student's perspective, you might find this series interesting. It's nothing special, but in it, I do seek to tell the seminary "story" generally, though I do so from my own experience, mixing in my own anecdotes and memories. I think it does a reasonable job of recounting the average seminarian's experience. Though I tell it from my own personal history, one need not have gone to Southern to resonate with its ideas and happenings.

Here is a paragraph from the first part of the three-part series.

"We come to seminary from a wide range of backgrounds. Some have worked in campus ministry, some in local churches, some have been missionaries, some were accountants or lawyers or investment bankers in past times. This is part of what makes seminary a profitable experience: the wealth of diversity accrued to a campus that pursues a common goal, namely, training for the ministry of the gospel. I came to Southern after an action-packed year in Washington, DC, where I interned at Capitol Hill Baptist Church and the U. S. Department of State. Like many seminarians, I had thought it best to take a bit of time off from school following college graduation, as I was a bit weary of books and quizzes and papers and classes. After a year in “local church bootcamp” (I assure you, an affectionate moniker for the CHBC internship and church experience), I felt ready for the Christian academy. Like many prospective seminarians, I knew some theology and had read through the Bible, but I had little sense of the bigger picture behind it all. I wanted to really know the Bible, to be able to read it for myself in the original languages, and to learn the history, philosophy, and theology that it birthed. I was old enough to know a little, but young enough to be aware of the same. I was young and hungry, and seminary was the answer."

I'll have more on this series in days to come.

Things Christians Overlook: The Detail of the Bible

This post isn't as theological as the previous two. Here, I'm simply trying to point out the following idea, namely, that the Bible has a great deal of textual detail that is rich and rewarding to study. In this way, it is like a piece of rich soil just waiting for one to come and dig and unearth its treasures. Too many of us are asleep in the shade, I think, when we should be digging.

I'm not going to give a ton of examples of this point, because there are so many one could give. I'll simply say that close study of the biblical text yields untold rewards. It is wonderfully true that a person of the simplest mind can pick up the Bible and grasp its basic ideas. Yet we must allow a right understanding of the clarity or perspicuity of Scripture to undermine a doctrine of the depth of the Word of God. The Word is easily comprehensible, but it is also a storehouse of linguistic, exegetical, textual, and theological treasures. For example, I recently preached a sermon on Samson. In my study of Judges 16:21-31, I discovered a number of really cool insights about the text. For example, there is allusion to Samson's fortunes in the geography of his trip to Philistine territory--he was "going down" to there. There is significance in Samson being forced to harvest grain in a Philistine grainery--Dagon, the Philistine god, was the god of grain. Samson was thus acting out in a physical, tangible way the defeat of his God by the Philistines. Now, I didn't see these things myself--commentaries helped me out a great deal here. However, I have from time to time seen things in the text due to my own search for detail, as many others will also have experienced. In addition, my training in the languages has really helped in this area. It is not essential to know Greek and Hebrew in order to be a faithful preacher of the Word--not by a long stretch--but it does not hurt, either, and can only help the student of the Word. If you want to be a preacher, and you can't take any other classes, take language classes. You can read theology, study philosophy, and search history on your own terms, but rare is the man who can teach himself an ancient language. If you don't have linguistic training and want to pick up overlooked details in the text and thus preach the Word with a richness and depth your people will eagerly drink up, acquire commentaries that can guide in a close study of the original text.

In my opinion, this is one of the most overlooked components of evangelical preaching. So much preaching that I hear is right and true and faithful and boring. Let's just speak honestly here. Do you resonate on any level with this opinion? This is not said to denigrate evangelical preachers. Preaching is hard work, and we need to hear the plainest truths on a regular basis simply to live and sustain our faith. With this said, we should not confuse faithfulness with sleepiness. We should exegete the text, dig into the text, and leave our people fascinated by the Word of God. That is a carefully chosen word--fascinated. The Word of God isn't simply true. It's downright remarkable! It possesses a level of detail that has sustained centuries of scholastic inquiry, inquiry that has utterly failed to exhaust the Scripture's riches. Think about it. There are tons of things that even the most astute scholars of God's Word have not figured out. This is a rich book indeed that we are dealing with. Now, how about we Christians start digging into these details? Forget preaching--in our own personal study, we can obtain a commentary and use it to illuminate our study of the Word. Or think about small group studies. Why would we ever study passages of Scripture based only on our own intuition when godly, gifted men have literally given their lives to search out the riches of that text? This is a fool's proposition--and one that we sometimes make, sadly.

Let's make a commitment, then, to studying and unearthing the untold riches of the Bible. Let's dig deeply into the Word, and as Christians, whether laymen or preachers, let's bring these riches to others and think together about them. The result? A faith that is deeper, more enlightening, and way less boring than a faith dependent on the same cliches, the same maxims, that we know--and need--but that become inestimably more powerful when rooted in the detailed "soil" in which they were given.

Things Christians Overlook: The Bible Has a Thesis (Hint: Christ)

I want to do a brief series on some key biblical things that I and other Christians have overlooked and do overlook. Today's topic is on a pretty simple but incredibly under-recognized idea, that the Bible has a thesis, and that this thesis is Jesus Christ.

I have talked about this before on this blog, and I'm sure I'll talk about it again, because it is incredibly important. I think that many Christians of the past century were taught to read the Bible rather flatly. That is, there is no peak in the canon which all preceding materials foretells and all following material explores. But there is such a peak: it is none other than Jesus Christ.

Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Luke 24:44-46"These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead...

John 1:45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

John 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me...

These are some of the texts that point us to find the Bible's thesis in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Preachers are not being fanciful when they attempt to connect their sermon text to the person and work of Jesus Christ; they are being faithful. One can pick up a book of Scripture and read it in its context and take away lots of important information and context and content. This is, in fact, how many Christians read the Bible. They read a given text--say, Esther--and they come away encouraged by it, understanding more of God and man and how the two interact and what ancient Judaism looked like and how God triumphs over evil and things like this. Let me be clear: these are immensely important things. However, this Christian is missing the Bible's thesis, the richness of a thesis-driven reading of Scripture, and is in some way disobeying Christ and His explicit command to read the Bible in terms of a theological argument. I once read the Bible in this way, and though I am sure that I and others who did (and do) are not seeking to disobey Christ's direct teaching, it is clear that we are.

This post is not okaying any and all interpretations of Scripture so long as they purport to point to Christ (as if I can okay anything). No. We must be responsible Christocentricists. We can acknowledge that some texts foreshadow and disclose Christ's coming and work more clearly and fully than others. We can at times confess, both to ourselves and to our congregations, that the Christocentric connection is rather abstract due to a lack of clarity on our part (thus emphasizing our exegetical weakness and the Bible's mystery more than its lack of anything). With these caveats stated, whether you are a preacher or a politician, a teacher or a tradesman, a homemaker or a teenager, you are called to read the Bible as if it has a thesis, namely, the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament foreshadows Christ, the New Testament discloses His person and work in fullness (see the above texts). Thus, every text of the Bible in some way relates to the gospel of Christ, and every Christian must learn to the read the Bible with this rich, invigorating, glorious thesis. God in His wisdom wrote the Bible through men, and He did so with a distinct thesis in mind: He wrote the Scripture to tell of Himself, to illuminate the character of men, to record a history of His dealings with men, and most significantly, to point to Christ and His work as the center, the apex, the pinnacle, of the Word.

Let us read the Scripture accordingly--not as a book of sixty-six fascinating but loosely connected books, but as a collection of diverse authors and subjects who nonetheless speak a single central theme: the glory of God as revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Let us not ignore this matter; if we do so, after all, we're not disobeying a bunch of fanciful theologians who comment on the Bible. No, we're disobeying Christ, the One who wrote it.

Further reading: Dennis Johnson, Him We Proclaim: Proclaiming Christ from All of Scripture, P & R, 2007.

Bible Reading and Spirituality Are Connected

Sometimes I think that older Christians can get away from the basics. We've been in the faith for awhile, and we're coasting along, and life is busy, and we can let the foundational aspects of the faith slip away.

I've recently been convicted of the need to read the Bible more. I now have a graduate degree in theology, I've been in church my whole life, and I do regularly read the Bible, but I have recently been convicted of the need to read more of the Bible. I haven't arrived at this conclusion due to legalism; I don't think that reading more of the Bible is going to up my standing in heaven, at least not in any way I could myself discern; no, I just desire to take in more Bible. It's pretty simple, and I think (hope) it portends good things for my spiritual walk with Christ.

Adult life can be challenging, and as a fairly young adult, I know that there is much more in store for me that many other readers have already experienced. Even at this young juncture in my life, though, I can see the importance of going back to the Bible. Reading it for a textbook and studying it as a document can, over time, sap one's thirst for Scripture. I can see a distinct need in my own life for more. The Christian life isn't really anything that fancy, after all. With all our books, all our commentaries, all our training (all of which I support), we will never get away from the simple truth that reading the Bible--merely reading it on a regular basis--is transforming. I have a fresh sense of the truth of this assertion, and in the year to come, I hope to apply it, and to enjoy reading a good deal of the Bible each day in order that I would grow closer to God and holier in my own life.

For those who are interested in a year-long reading plan, my friend Tony Kummer has created a chart and has a plan all set up.

Just How Basic Is the Textual Theme of James?

These are serious time for your friendly neighborhood seminary students. We're in "reading week," and next week is finals week. I have just written my last seminary paper, and let me tell you, it feels incredible. Fellow seminarians, if you're wondering if finishing seminary really is all cracked up to be, consider this a news flash from me to you: it is. Riotous celebrating aside, here is an excerpt from my last seminary paper, an exegetical and theological look at the theme of James. My thesis is, to my knowledge, somewhat original, and I think that the paper is an interesting read. Email me at owendstrachan [at] yahoo.com if you want to read the whole thing.

"The book of James has long presented a battleground on which scholars have fought to determine what exactly the book means and whether James has a coherent message. Recent interpretation by scholars proves particularly interesting. Speaking generally, one finds that it breaks down into three schools: one group says that James has no message, another group emphasizes that James has a message, but that it is very basic and obedience-oriented, and a third argues that the letter deals with the rather focused theme of double-mindedness.

Though the first two schools have spoken loudly and have been received broadly, it is the purpose of this paper to argue that the book of James is written according to a clear, textured argument. James reveals that the community to whom he writes is filled with double-minded people who profess faith but fail to practice it consistently. His purpose in writing, then, is to expose this double-mindedness through numerous examples and illustrations and then to call for the salvation of these people, whose professed faith ultimately ends up being no faith at all.

This argument is based in the idea that James’s chief protagonist in this book is the dipsuchos, “double-minded man,” as introduced in 1:6-8. Of course, James is writing to this troubled soul even as he addresses the believing church body. He directly addresses the divided person but does so in the midst of a letter that is directed to true believers. James is thus seeking the salvation of some in the church who claim to possess a living faith but who in actuality possess a dead faith. The body of James’s letter includes the majority of this content, and his calls to salvation in 4:8 and especially 5:19-20 offer a fitting conclusion to the letter. Despite the fact that the body of the letter is less structured, and thus cannot be neatly grouped by theme, common themes of identity, action, and speech will emerge, revealing the double-minded man to be one who honestly thinks he is a Christian, but who in thought, word, and deed acts for himself and lives like the world, ultimately showing his profession to be just that: a mere profession, one that carries with it a sentence of eternal death."

The Duty of Every Preacher to Disclose Christ

"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."

I have observed a troubling phenomenon in theological circles. Many people today think that we don't need to preach how all the passages of Scripture point to the Jesus Christ, who is the center of the Bible. In preaching only the original point of a passage, we deprive God of glory and our preaching of the rich fullness it was intended to have.

Luke 24:27 is the key verse here (quoted above). The context is this: the post-resurrection Christ appears to two of His disciples, shocking them, and proceeds to teach them how all the Old Testament relates to Him. We have no record of this conversation, and thus we do not know exactly what Christ said to the two disciples. But we do know this: the Old Testament testified en masse to Jesus Christ. It was not a compilation of orthodox statements about God and God's people. It might have appeared to be this, but it was much more than this. Its various components spoke in various ways to the reality that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the deliverer of God's people, was coming. The Old Testament authors understood little of this; but when Jesus unfolded this truth to His two disciples, He changed the entire Christian hermeneutic (interpretive scheme) in one exhilarating conversation.

This verse is sometimes called the "hermeneutical key." It teaches us an essential--absolutely necessary!--interpretation in interpreting and understanding the Bible. It all points in some way to Christ. This can be overdone, of course. We can allegorize the Scriptures and make them mean things they do not. This is one error that some of the godliest men of church history made time and time again. Yet if over-preaching Christ in the Bible is an error, so is under-preaching Christ in the Bible. It is my belief that every passage, every unit, of Scripture reveals Christ in some way. Now, some passages are closer to a clear and understandable revelation of Christ than others. It is difficult to know how exactly Christ is found in the genealogies. But it is less difficult to know how He relates to David, or Abraham, or the bad kings of Judges, or Solomon, or the testimony of the Minor Prophets, or Job, or tons of other things in the OT. Yet all too often, our preaching veers into moralism. Or, when it's done more faithfully, it reveals the character of God. This is good, but it is not enough.

True biblical preaching that follows Luke 24:27 does something more, something that requires great care and reflection: it reveals Jesus Christ. Unless we do this in our preaching, I do not think that we can say that we have preached truly. Or, to flip it around, if we have not preached Christ, have we truly preached?