20 Directions for New Believers

Mike Leake 2 Comments

After years of desiring its possession I have finally secured a copy of A Christian Directory written by Richard Baxter. It has proven a great help thus far. In one section Baxter gives twenty directions for new believers. I have modernized these and make them available for your benefit:

  1. True grace over novelty. Make sure that it is true grace that is captivating you and not simply that the gospel has become “the next best thing” in your life. Time will tell this as those not truly captivated by grace will end up bored with the gospel and/or will run away once suffering and discomfort come.
  2. Knowledge AND practice. Give equal attention to knowledge and practice as the two are intimately joined together.
  3. Theological Triage. Truths have a dependence on one another. Some are more significant than others. Doing the lesser truth at the expense of the greater truth is a sin. A solid catechism helps with this.
  4. Slow to controversy. Do not be hasty to jump into controversy. If/when you do be sure to keep these lesser matters in their place.
  5. Thankful but not arrogant. Be grateful for the grace you’ve been given but do not get cocky. Remember that you are but an infant in grace.
  6. Do not be discouraged with your humble beginnings. Again remember you are an infant in the faith. Some things that seem almost impossible now will be second nature later.
  7. Sound preaching. If at all possible be certain to sit under the ministry of a sound gospel preacher. This would include pursuing counsel outside of his pulpit ministry as well.
  8. Beware of factions. Love Christians as Christians. Be very cautious of developing a “party” spirit. (Not the spirit of someone that likes to drink a bunch of Jack Daniels and dance on tables in a bar—though that too should be avoided. A “party” spirit means be careful of following too closely to one particular brand of the Christian faith—ex. the Young, Restless, and Reformed).
  9. Grounded in Trials. Don’t let persecution embitter you and make you less than your profession. Do not be shocked when the world hates you or embittered to them when they do.
  10. Balance. When running from one error be careful not to go off into the other extreme. New believers will have a tendency to take new information and make as much of an error out of it than the opposite error that they just escaped from.
  11. You Could Be Wrong. Do not be overly confident in the “disputable matters” or religion. Remember you are an infant in the faith. Be confident in the substantial matters of the faith but know that you will likely change your mind on many of these disputable issues.
  12. Stay on the sidelines in controversy. If there is controversy in your area look for common truths and do not pick a side yet. Pursue unity.
  13. Godliness=Happiness. Joy is found in holiness not in sin. Though Satan, the world and your own flesh might try to convince you otherwise know that true rest, peace, and happiness is found in a life of godliness.
  14. Mortify. Be diligent in mortifying the sin and lusts in your life. Get to know your diverse temptations and seek to avoid them and mortify their lusts. (Mortify is an older Puritan-type of word that means “to kill).
  15. Watch Your Companions. Be careful of your teachers and your company. This is not to say avoid unbelievers, but do not make your choicest companions those that do not treasure the Lord.
  16. Watch Your Library. Be careful what books you read. You do not have to avoid all unsound books but be cautious in everything that you read.
  17. Freedom isn’t License. Do not fall into libertinism. Free grace should not lead to carnal security and sloth. Jesus Christ is a promoter of holiness and not sin.
  18. Counterfeits are Tricky. Watch against obvious decays of grace but also counterfeit and carnal affections. The tempter will be happy to have you practicing Christianity outwardly and making a fine show of it all the while inwardly you are withering away.
  19. Life is a vapor. Do not promise yourself a long life. Life is but a mist, live your life as if this is true—because it is.
  20. Be God-centered. In everything that you do make sure that the Lord and His glory is your aim. Your pursuit and your prize is the Lord Himself.

Today in Blogworld 01.15.13

Mike Leake

Why I Wish Giglio Had Not Withdrawn

Thabiti Anyabwile is sad that Louie Giglio withdrew from the presidential inauguration. He explains why.

We Are Raising a Generation of Deluded Narcissists

Dr. Keith Ablow, writing for Fox News, argues that we are giving our children a huge false sense of pride. “Using Twitter, young people can pretend they are worth “following,” as though they have real-life fans, when all that is really happening is the mutual fanning of false love and false fame.”

Where Have All the Positive Americans Gone?

David Murray wonders why “American Christians are leading the way in joyless, smile-less despair” and gives a few ways that we can be “counter-culturally optimisitc”.

It’s usually forgetting those simple little details that make us face plant:

The Summit of Love

Mike Leake

The church at Ephesus was a doctrinally solid church. It also had endured a great amount of hardship. They had remained faithful in the midst of false teachers. In our wishy-washy lite on truth society the church at Ephesus would have been a welcome sight. Yet, in the eyes of Jesus they were missing the mark:

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (Revelation 2:4 ESV)

Scholars debate whether this is love for the Lord or love for one another. I agree with those that believe it is probably a combination of both. Biblically speaking the two often go hand in hand. You can’t love the Lord and hate his bride. Likewise you aren’t going to be lacking in love for Jesus but exploding in love for his broken bride. The doctrinally sound church at Ephesus was missing an awe of God. Perhaps they had gotten to a point where they equated believing correct doctrine with treasuring correct doctrine.

Jesus tells them that the prescription for this lack of love is to remember, repent, and to get back to doing the works that they did at first. In this statement in verse 5 I find something very interesting. In verse 5 Jesus says, “remember therefore from where you have fallen”.

That tells me something about correct doctrine and endurance; namely, they aren’t the summit. Love is. (Or at least love is higher than both of those). Otherwise their lack of love wouldn’t have been a height from which they could fall. Love is not optional to correct doctrine. It’s not the icing on the cake of having sound theology. If you don’t have love then your whole cake is jacked up. 

Why does doctrine matter?

From such a truth some have erroneously concluded that doctrine really doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is love. To this I say “poppycock”. Or at least I would if I said things like “poppycock”.

In Paul’s prayer for the Philippians he prays that their “love may abound more and more” and that it might do so “with knowledge and all discernment”. (Philippians 1:9) In other words Paul prays that they might have a growing love that is grounded in the truth.

You do not get to the summit of love without correct doctrine to fuel you upwards. Your love for Jesus grows when your grasping of the truth of Jesus grows. The argument from many of Paul’s letters is that there is an intimate link between our seeing and beholding Christ (doctrine) and our treasuring of Christ and His people (love).

You cannot treasure what you have little knowledge of. My son thinks that baseball is pretty cool. But he also still will sometimes run to second base before first base. Or he’ll think that the goal of the game is to tackle the pitcher after you’ve hit the ball. It’s a pretty cool version of the sport, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t understand baseball and therefore he doesn’t rightly know how to treasure it. It’s the same way with Jesus. Correct doctrine fuels love. Or at least it ought to…

What does this mean for the local church?

I would like to also ask, “what does this mean for seminaries”, but because I have about as much influence on seminary life as Justin Bieber does on making solid music I will stick to the local church. I will say though, that I believe many seminaries err in training pastors how to have correct doctrine but seldom challenging them to learn love.

In the local church we must disciple people not only with correct doctrine but with a heart that treasures Christ. At the end of the day this is all the work of the Spirit. Even being able to swallow, embrace, and treasure correct doctrine is a work of the Spirit. How much more then is it the work of the Spirit to cause people to respond to correct doctrine with worship and and a life of love?

How does the church keep from churning out theological dolts and/or loveless theology nerds? I believe it’s by continually exposing them to the word of God while modeling humility and pushing them towards that. When discipling others we must value truth and excel in love.

Some need to be reminded that they haven’t arrived simply because they can win games of Bible trivia or go toe to toe in theology discussions with a seminary professor. They need to be reminded that doctrine truly embraced will express itself in worship of God and humble and loving service in a local church.

Others need to be reminded that if their doctrine is shallow more than likely so is their love. They ought to be congratulated that they are excelling in love but spurred on to make that love more grounded in the unchangeable truth of Jesus.

Both must, through the power of the Spirit, aim for the summit of love.

Week Without Google Day One

Mike Leake

Today I was out of the office for a good portion of my day. Therefore, it probably was not the best barometer of how much or why I actually use Google. Nonetheless, I did find myself wanting to do a few searches. Each day this week I will attempt to answer three questions in my summary.

Stuff I will probably go to bed without knowing that I would have Google Searched

  • What year did Bill Mazeroski (wait…was it Bill Mazeroski…) hit the shot heard round the world?
  • What were the top news items of 1958.
  • Some dude left a snarky comment on a blog I follow. I wanted to know if he ever wrote anything of his own or if he just sniped people.
  • Chapter outlines for Mark Dever’s book 12 Challenges Churches Face. (For a series on 1 Corinthians…I’ll just look at the book on my shelf).

How this Google-fast as helped

  • In an effort to write an article for our church in relation to our church constitution and church covenant I wanted to do a quick search for others that have had this task. I would have went to Google too soon. I was forced to slowly think through the issue on my own.
  • There is a good amount of worthless information that I would have spent my time on. As an example I probably would have wasted 15 minutes checking out snarky-comment-guy’s blog. Now I have no idea.

How this Google-fast as hurt

  • I struggle with remembering web addresses. Often I just type in what the site is to Google and get it quickly. This has proven difficult.
  • After writing that document for our church constitution on my own, I would have liked to have compared it with a few similar ones.