A Real God

To minimize God's wrath is to minimize God's love. One grows, and wanes, with the other.

Religion cannot be made joyful simply by looking on the bright side of God. For a one-sided God is not a real God, and it is the real God alone who can satisfy the longing of our soul.

This is why liberalism is so dangerous!

John MacArthur on Knowledge

Knowledge is essential, but its not sufficient.

Honeysett on Discipleship and Training

I find it so much easier to prioritise skills and activities in Christian leadership than to deliberately work at my heart. To watch doctrine more closely than life. For those of us who train others it is similarly easy to allow activity and skill to outweigh concentration on life and heart because it is easier to measure. We think it is much easier to teach someone to preach Isaiah than how to be a preacher who exemplifies humility and a spirit of forgiveness.

For the first years I ran preaching trainings they were almost exclusively dedicated to expository accuracy and skill. Because that is the result we want to produce, right? Accurate word handling is, of course, absolutely crucial. But with the eyes of hindsight I am shocked at what we didn’t teach our preachers. What we simply assumed.

We didn’t teach them:

* How to fast and pray over their preparation, worshipping over the Bible
* That understanding is for the purpose of close application to life which in turn is for the purpose of adoration
* How to have hearts that are steadfast in pursuing happiness in God
* How to be disciples who walk in repentance and faith when the subtle traps that are peculiar to preachers emerge to trip them up
* How to not put themselves on pedastals and to avoid the cover up that accompanies thinking that our job depends on an appearance of sinlessness
* How to lead out a heart of forgiveness
* How to marvel and wonder and adore. I taught that the Bible was for spiritual education rather than gospel transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit
* Most importantly I didn't prioritise training them in godly character

These days whenever I am training preachers and leaders we begin everything with how to live in the love of God, how to receive his grace, the importance of humble character and servanthood. These foundations subsequently undergird everything else we teach, all the way through, like letters running through a stick of rock. We want to train people to be preachers who are full of the Galatians 5 fruit of the Spirit, who radiate love.

You might think “well can you train in that?” Yes, you can because 2 Tim 3:16 says the word trains us in righteousness and Titus 2:12 says that grace teaches us to say “no” to all ungodliness.

I have a nasty suspicion that it led to John 5:39 Bible reading rather than Acts 17 Bible reading. “you diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.” Rather than “receiving the message with great eagerness and examining the scriptures every day to see whether it is true.”

Here is the heart of the problem: we had taken a great means of grace and a critical support for life and faith and the crucial tool of our ministry – Bible understanding – and had turned it into the end, rather than the means to the end. We told ourselves we were mature Christians because we were educated rather than because we delighted ourselves in the Lord. We turned our devotions into comprehension exercises.

We thought we were good preachers because of knowledge and technique. Lack of knowledge and technique do not a good preacher make. However, knowledge and technique alone do not a good preacher make because they tempt us to do ministry in our own strength. When God says “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.” We had stepped out of a God-centred spirituality into a man-centred one. When you train yourself and others to preach, can I ask whether you spend more time on your skills or on your love?

Bruce Ware on Manhood

The handout alone is one of the most helpful documents I’ve seen on what godly manhood looks like.

1. Love. 1) Loving God increasingly w/ all my heart, soul, mind and strength; loving Christ and the cross; loving the gospel — these are the foundation for all else. Drawing from God all I need to be the man and husband God has called me to be is my strength and hope. 2) Loving my wife as Christ loves the Church — this is the umbrella principle for marriage; everything else flows from this responsibility and privilege (Eph 5:25ff).

2. Leadership. Biblical manhood involves cultivating, embracing, and exercising leadership initiative, especially spiritual leadership initiative. This is a principle that applies to young men and adult single men just as well as to married men. Cultivate, embrace, and exercise spiritual leadership initiative. In marriage, my love for my wife involves and requires that I exert leadership in our relationship. My headship of my wife means I’m responsible for her spiritual growth and well-being. And as a father, I’m responsible in ways that my wife is not for the spiritual development of our children (Eph 6:1-4). And again, to do this, I must be seeking God and growing personally. Only out of the storehouse of my own soul’s growth in God can I assist my wife to grow spiritually.

3. Example. Lead by example as much as by admonition and instruction. Set the example in: consistent times in the Word and prayer; in sacrificial service for your wife, children, church family members, and community needs; in giving faithfully, generously, and regularly of your finances; in humble admission of wrong-doing along with confession, asking forgiveness, and repentance. Fight pride, fight defensiveness, fight carnality before others.

4. Authority. All three points above imply and invoke the concept of male-headship. Yes, God has given special authority to husbands and fathers. Learn, though, the correct expression of healthy, constructive, upbuilding, God-honoring, Christ-following authority. Resist and reject the sinful extremes of 1) harshness, bossiness, mean-spirited authoritarianism, and of 2) laziness, apathy, lethargy, negligence, and abdication of authority to the women in our lives. Learn to blend firmness with gentleness, truth with grace, a firm hand with a warm smile.

5. Acceptance. Each of us is unique as God has made us. We should accept others’ differences w/o thinking ourselves to be either superior or inferior to others. In marriage, my wife is unique, and so in many ways, she is not like me. I need to accept who she is, prayerfully and sensitively seeking to assist her in changing what is sinful and needs to be changed, and accepting what is “just different.”

6. Listening. One of my wife’s biggest and most real needs is my attentive and respectful listening ear. She loves to share her experiences, thoughts, ideas, feelings, concerns, hurts, joys, etc. I can minister to my wife more than one might think by offering her caring, responsive, and respectful listening and interaction. Learn to listen sympathetically w/o rushing to “fix it” solutions. Connect first heart to heart, then later heart to head. Establish regular times of mutual sharing (yes, mutual), keep short accounts, and act on what you hear and learn.

7. Understanding. I need to live with my wife in an understanding way (1 Pet 3:7), to learn her needs, her sensitivities. I should seek to know the desires and felt needs of my wife and, when appropriate and possible, fulfill these. I need to discover her “language of love” and make every effort to love her in ways she feels loved.

8. Work. A man’s main sense of identity, responsibility, and purpose is found in his work. Wives want to take pride in their husbands, and taking pride in their work is an important part of this. Women are not meant to bear the financial weight of a marriage or family, so husbands must work hard and responsibly. As important as work is to a man’s identity and fulfillment, we must not allow work to overshadow our commitment to and time with our wives first, and also to our children. Work hard, work well, work to the honor of Christ, and then put work to rest.

9. Sexuality. My wife is my only legitimate sexual experience, and I am hers. So, learning to love sexually with increasing skill and pleasure is vitally important to the satisfaction and intimacy of our marriage. See human sexuality for what it is — the good gift of God to be experienced in marriage, as God has designed.

10. Home. She cares much about our home. The “honey-do” list is far more important to her than she is likely to let on. In love for her, I must pay attention to her requests and treat them as important. But more important even than this is cultivating the “culture” and “ethos” of our home. Develop an atmosphere of appreciation, respect, kindness, service, holiness, happiness, gratefulness, contentment, forgiveness — all as expressions of our love for God and one another.

David Murray on Listening

What makes a man a great preacher? Not sure if "being a great listener" would be among the top answers. Yet, that's what Burk Parsons persuasively argues in The Wisdom of Listening:

In fact, the greatest speakers, the greatest teachers, and the greatest preachers are the greatest listeners. Often, it is assumed that in order to be a great preacher one must merely be a great speaker. However, it must be understood (especially by men who are training for future pastoral ministry) that the greatest preachers, the most consistent, steadfast, staunchly biblical preachers are the greatest listeners.

Burk says that great listening produces great preachers because "they have earned the right to be heard." Years of listening and learning have produced wisdom that's worth hearing. Burk's focus here is on the head: great listeners are great learners.

I'm going to "piggy-back" on Burk's insight and also add a focus on the heart: great listeners are great lovers. Let me quickly explain what I mean. Passionate love produces passionate listening. One of the best ways to communicate "I love you," is to communicate, "I'm listening to you."

When people feel listened to, they feel loved, and respond with loving listening. When people sense that their pastor is carefully and prayerfully listening to them in their homes on a Thursday evening, it's so much easier to listen to him on a Sunday morning. His great listening in their homes produces great listening in the church. In fact, his great listening transforms him (in their hearts and minds) into a great preacher.

Martin Lloyd-Jones on Knowledge

It is possible for a believer who . . . sincerely recognizes the Bible as his sole authority, and desires to submit himself wholeheartedly to its evident meaning?it is still possible for such a man to go astray by becoming purely theoretical in his attitude towards this precious knowledge. It can happen to all, but I emphasize again that it is the particular danger of those who have keen minds, and who desire to understand and to grow in knowledge. The devil knowing us as he does, always suits the particular form of temptation to our exact mentality. At this point I am not referring to people who do not read the Scriptures, or indeed little else, and who say, ?I am interested in nothing but my experience?. The devil does not trouble such people in this way, but to those who truly long to grow and develop, he comes and says, ?Of course, you are quite right; what you need, and what everyone else needs, is more and more of this knowledge?. But he presses the thought so far that in the end they get into a condition in which their whole relationship to truth is purely theoretical and academic. And this involves the terrible danger of becoming more concerned about, and more interested in, our intellectual knowledge of Christian truth than in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and if the devil with all his wiles can beguile us into this condition he is more than satisfied. In other words, it is the failure to realize that the ultimate end of all knowledge is to bring us to a knowledge of the Person Himself.

Philip Jakob Spener on Pietism

As a response to the dry orthodoxy of 17th Century Lutheranism, Spener penned these six points:

1. The Word of God must be more widely stuidied by the people. To this end he proposed discussions under the pastor's guidance.

2. The universal priesthood of all believers needs new emphasis. All Christians should exercise this privilege by testifying, instructing and exhorting each other.

3. Mere head knowledge is not Christianity, but such knowledge must be translated into action.

4. More love and gentleness between the Christain denominations is needed in polemics.

5. The schooling of the clergy must include training for personal piety as well as intellectual knowledge.

6. Sermons should be preparaed with less emphasis on rhetorical art and more on the edification of the hearers.

Calvin on the Church

My love for the church and my anxiety about her interests carry me away into a sort of ecstasy, so that I can think of nothing else.

Steve Timmis on Love

God has made us to be lovers?lovers of God and lovers of others!

Robert Murray McCheyne on Pastoring

He loved his flock more than he loved his fame.