15 Marriage Lessons I’m Still Learning After 15 Years
I’m still learning these lessons too.
Reading Through the Bible Has Fast as Possible
I love this idea.
Decision Making & “I Have Peace About It”
This is sound advice. God is blamed for so many bad and unbiblical decisions.
Wow. Such a helpful corrective. I pray that we lovers of 9Marks heed this advice as much as we do all the others.
You know it was a bad game when a guy running onto the field makes the most exciting part of the game:
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. (Galatians 5:2-3 ESV)
“You’ve got a healthy baby boy,” exclaims the nurse as she slaps your new child on the bottom. In no time you’ll be signing papers, taking a ton of pictures, and answering all sorts of questions. One of those questions—one you likely haven’t thought much about, is whether or not junior is going to be circumcised.
If you are Catholic and adhere to the Council of Florence you’d better not circumcise your son, as it “strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practice circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation.” Notice too that little part where it says, “whether or not they place their hope in it”. That is clearly saying that if your child is circumcised he is—as Paul argues in Galatians 5—cut off from Christ.
Now, this particular article has nothing to do with the particular merits or demerits of circumcision. My concern is with the way we interpret the Bible. Is Paul saying in Galatians 5 (or even Philippians 3) that if you are circumcised or have your child circumcised that you/they are cut off from Christ?
The key here is to consider the context. The Judaizers are arguing that circumcision is an eternal covenant. Therefore, if Christians want to be part of the family of God and receive the Abrahamic blessings (see Genesis 12:1-2) then they had better participate in the sign of the covenant. But this, Paul says, is contrary to the gospel. To receive circumcision—for the purpose of adhering to the law—would be to place oneself entirely under the law. Paul’s argument is that the Abrahamic blessing comes to those who are in Christ and not to those who are under the law, because you cannot fulfill the Law. Either Christ fulfilled the Law in your place or the full weight of God’s righteous requirements will crush you.
Paul extends his argument even further in Galatians 5. Even though circumcision and uncircumcision “count for noting” it does matter. If one accepts circumcision in the hopes to gain favor with God then he has severed Himself from Christ. In other words, you are either all-in in trusting Christ or not. You cannot hedge your bets, you either trust Christ alone or not at all.
So what Paul means in Galatians 5 has nothing to do with medical procedure. If you believe that it is medically beneficial for your child to be circumcised, then Paul doesn’t have you in his sights in this passage. But if you become circumcised or have your child circumcised because you believe it marks them off as the people of God—or because you believe it will add to their righteousness, then by all means you are forsaking the gospel.
Really Paul’s point in this passage is that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything”. You cannot boast in your uncircumcision either. That doesn’t make you any more righteous. But what does matter is “faith working through love”. This is another way of saying a faith which is firmly rooted in Christ and is showing itself through the fruit of love.
I’d actually argue that the Council of Florence is more in line with Judaizers than with Paul. They are actually resting in uncircumcision when Paul clearly said it doesn’t count for anything. They’ve missed the context of Galatians and Philippians and Paul’s larger point about salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. All this to say, you really shouldn’t circumcise or not circumcise your child based on any biblical reason. It’s a non-issue according to the gospel.
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Photo source: here
The Divorce of a Pastor’s Wife in 1860 Texas
This is an interesting historical piece.
Nathan Busenitz gives ten principles for interacting online.
10 Free Online Preaching Resources
Kevin Halloran has done us a great service by compiling these free preaching resources.
May this never be said of us.
Here is a sermon by MLJ:
In Lincoln’s Battle with God, historian Stephen Mansfield recounts the camp meeting revivals which were so prominent during Lincoln’s upbringing. Using Barton Stone as a source he writes:
There was the falling exercise, in which a person would “with a piercing scream, fall like a log on the floor, earth or mud, and appear as dead.” Then there was a phenomenon called “the jerks.” Stone insisted that in this manifestation a man’s head “would be jerked backward and forward, or from side to side, so quickly that the features of the face could not be distinguished . . . I have seen the person stand in one place, and jerk backward and forward in quick succession, their head nearly touching the floor behind and before.” There was also the dancing exercise, the barking exercise— in which “a person affected with the jerks, especially in his head, would often make a grunt, or bark, if you please, from the suddenness of the jerk”— and the laughing exercise. Understandably, there was the running exercise, in which “persons feeling something of these bodily agitations, through fear, attempted to run away.” -Mansfield, Stephen. Lincoln’s Battle with God: A President’s Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America (Kindle Locations 602-609). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
This type of “manifestation of the Spirit” as it is so often called, was not confined to the backwater regions or the time period of the American pioneers. One can turn on the television and find similar things on the televised Benny Hinn conferences. I’ve even been in a few churches like this where I’ve witnessed similar things.
Whether it be the falling exercises, the “jerks”, or screams, or laughing, one thing they all hold in common; namely, a belief that to be really in the Spirit is to no longer have self-control. The idea is that when the Spirit takes over the flesh gets out of the way. Folks falling at the wave of Benny Hinn’s suit coat is testimony that the Spirit is moving mightily as folks have no control over their ability to even stand up. The Spirit, we are told, is too powerful in that place for humanity to get in the way—He has his way with them and it’s evidenced by their utter lack of self-control.
But I see one massive problem with the idea that the evidence of the Spirit’s moving is an utter lack of self-control. It doesn’t jive with Galatians 5:22-23. According to that passage the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…(emphasis mine). How do you know when the Spirit is at work and not just fleshly desires? It isn’t because folks have lost control—it’s actually the opposite.
To be “drunk on the Spirit” isn’t to go around like you are drunk on wine. To be filled with the Spirit is to see the darkening and damning effects of the fall overturned in your life. Or to put that another way it is to be increasingly more loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and to have your self under control. John Stott says it well:
But it is a serious mistake to suppose that to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ is a kind of spiritual inebriation in which we lose control of ourselves. On the contrary, ‘self control’ is the final quality named as ‘fruit of the Spirit’ in Galatians 5:22-23. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit we do not lose control; we gain it. (Stott on Ephesians, 204)
So that’s why I don’t buy it. I don’t think the laughing, barking, jerking, and dropping stuff we see on television is really of the Spirit. I don’t buy it for one second that the reason why these types of “revivals” are almost always followed up by terrible dry periods is because man got in the way of the Spirit of God. As I read the Scriptures, I believe the problem is that this wasn’t a move of the Holy Spirit in the first place. Galatians 5 is also clear that dissension and strife is what you see when folks are running on flesh instead of Spirit. I don’t think its an accident that time after time we’ve witnessed exactly these things following on the heels of such “revivals”.
If you really want to see a movement of God don’t be waiting for something to come over you in such a way that you lose control. Instead be looking for a new power for obedience to God’s already revealed Word. You want to see a movement of God it will be a movement of holiness. It will be marriages healed, relationships restored, lasting repentance happening. And each of these will be grounded in what Christ has already accomplished for us. True biblical revival is gospel motivated and will show itself in lasting fruit which gives honor and glory to Jesus.
And I’m saying all of this because it pains me to see folks exchanging the precious gospel of Jesus for some silly little charade. It pains me to see people thinking they’ve tried Jesus and had an experience with the Spirit when all they’ve probably done is danced with a demon they’ve named Savior. I abhor the “burned over district” that is often left in the wake of this stuff, when people are now even more hardened to the gospel because that fleeting moment of ecstasy is what they now equate with the good news of Christ.
Just keep faithfully plodding along and preaching the unchanging gospel of Jesus and I’m confident the Spirit will attend your ministry. And you’ll see the real work of the Spirit and not this garbage that fits better as a Branson side show.
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Photo source: here