A Letter I’d Love to Receive

Posted on 1 March 2013 by Seth Meyers

The following letter is from William Carey’s mission board in London in 1801 upon the conversion of the first Indian, Krishna Pal. Nearly seven years had passed from Carey’s arrival until Krishna’s baptism.

Dearly loved in the Lord,

The joy of our hearts was great, when the news of your [Krishna’s] conversion reached us. In you we see the first-fruits of Hindustan, the travail of our Redeemer’s soul, and a rich return for our imperfect labours, to which the love of Christ constrained us. Now, we beseech you, stand fast in the Lord.

To unite with the church below is to be akin to that which is above. Satan divides men from God and one another. The Gospel makes us one. You were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Put off all that is evil; put on Christ’s new man. Abhor every kind of idolatry. Lay your account with persecutions. This was the Master’s lot, and must be yours. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. Let your chaste and holy conversation, your uprightness and gentleness, your firm adherence to the Truth continue to refresh us. Pray and strive for the salvation of your fellow countrymen. Recommend to them the Gospel by your long-suffering and love.

Andrew Fuller

A letter of this caliber would encourage both the missionary and the new convert.

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The Unity of the Covenant of Grace?

Posted on 1 March 2013 by Seth Meyers

If a group of Reformed brothers were enjoying a repast and the question was posed to them as to how best to summarize the unifying theme of Scripture, it is fair to say that the term “covenant” would be high on the list of probable answers. The argument consists of this reasoning:

  1. Before the Fall, God entered a covenant with man based on his works.
  2. Man failed that test by breaking that covenant.
  3. After the Fall, God entered a covenant with man based on His grace.
  4. Believers through the ages have been a part of that covenant of grace from Adam down to the present time. (Yes, some try to argue that the Abrahamic covenant began the covenant of grace, but those some authors also argue that the covenant of grace unifies all of history so it works out to the same thing.)
  5. All biblical covenants from Genesis 3 onward are essentially the same in their gracious character and provision for man.

Here’s a sampling from Berkhof, but similar quotes can be found by many others.

The covenant of grace, as it is revealed in the New Testament, is essentially [emphasis mine] the same as that which governed the relation of the Old Testament believers to God. It is entirely [emphasis mine] unwarranted to represent the two as forming an essential [emphasis his] contrast, as is done by present day dispensationalism.

The covenant of grace is seen as a singular, monolithic covenant that contains within its purview the vast majority of redemptive history (everything outside of Genesis 1-2).

Enter Jeremiah 31:31-34.

31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

On the surface at least, there appear to be several essential differences between the old (Mosaic) covenant and the new covenant that Jeremiah is talking about.

  1. It is specifically said to be different.
  2. It is named the new covenant.
  3. The law will be monergistically written on the believer’s heart.
  4. The knowledge of God will be universal making teachers unnecessary.
  5. The believer’s sin will be forgiven.

If those differences are validly deduced and weighed then Scripture presents at the very least a two-covenantal structure for understanding the history of redemption. But of course, traditional Covenant Theology holds to the unity of the covenant of grace throughout God’s purposes with man from Adam to the present. In light of a careful examination of Jeremiah 31:31-34 such a unity is difficult to defend.

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Sin is Inconsistency

Posted on 11 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

For both believers and non-believers, though in different ways toward each group, sin is a kind of inconsistency.

The believer claims to love Jesus Christ, yet at the moment of sin, his heart is set in opposition to Christ. If I were asked at the moment I yield to temptation whether or not I loved Jesus, I would invariably answer that I do. How can I have two master affections both living and breathing in the same heart? I’m just being inconsistent with my deepest commitments.

And aren’t we all like that? I love my spouse, but there have been times when I contradicted myself (and my t-shirt) by acting rudely toward her. The same is true when a generally “good” kid disobeys his father. In each instance, one appropriate way to describe what has happened is to call it inconsistency between the most basic principles in the heart.

Ultimately, all sins could be traced backward to a kind of illogical, self-contradicting confusion. Maybe that is part of the meaning of Malachi 3:6, “I am the Lord, I change not.” He has thoughts which he does not change and which never internally meet any opposition.

But I sometimes say to myself, “I hate laziness,” while I am also saying, “It is not the case that I presently hate laziness.” If I could only be mastered by a never-failing imitation of God’s immutability, I would have ceased from all sin. And here theology’s practical side really begins to shine. Bad logic is thinking two thoughts that contradict, and bad living is acting in life according to two opposing heart commitments. Which is another way to say, inconsistency.

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25 Questions to Ask the Text

Posted on 11 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

To strengthen my eyes’ ability to see the text, here is a list of 25 questions I am in the habit of asking when I am preparing to preach.

  1. Who is speaking?
  2. To whom is this verse written?
  3. Is this verse a question, answer, sermon, description, story, etc?
  4. Where does this passage come in the book? Where does it come in the Bible?
  5. What ideas are being discussed in the verses just before this verse? Just after this verse?
  6. How many people are mentioned in the verse?
  7. What are the adjectives and adverbs?
  8. Grammatically, what is the subject of the sentences? What is the verb?
  9. What is the tense of the verbs?
  10. Are there any negatives? Are they universal or particular negatives?
  11. Are there any adjectives, adverbs, or other modifiers? What is being modified and how?
  12. Does this verse start with a conjunction? How is it linked to the previous verses?
  13. Who is doing the action?
  14. Is this a common verse and why or why not?
  15. What does this verse say?
  16. Does this verse teach any doctrine? If so, which ones?
  17. Does this verse have any key repeated words?
  18. Are there any difficult or disputed theological terms or concepts?
  19. Does this verse list results, consequences, reasons, attributes, or activities?
  20. Are there any contrasts or comparisons?
  21. Is this a controversial verse? Why?
  22. What does this verse teach about man?
  23. What does this verse teach about God?
  24. What does this verse teach about salvation?
  25. What is (are) the main word(s)? Why did the author choose them?

Extended time in observation is a must for an expositor. He must resist the temptation to plunge immediately into commentaries and other study helps. Nothing can replace firsthand observation.

John MacArthur

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A Sampling of Common South African Christianity

Posted on 6 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

In Louis Trichardt on Wednesday 22 August 2012, my bakkie needed some help. I struck up a conversation with a man from Thohoyandou who was also waiting at the workshop. The man had a job and a nice car. Not five minutes after this conversation, I jotted down the dialogue as exactly as I could remember it on paper in my bakkie.

Man: Just seconds after meeting me, he asked me if my church gave me a lot of money.

Seth: “You haven’t even known me for two minutes, and you are already asking me about money.”

…

Seth: Some comment about how we must love Christ more than money.

Man: “My pastor loves money too much.”

…

Man: “At my church, they cast out demons every week.” He went on to tell me about the miracles that their church does because Jesus said we will do greater works than His.

Seth: “The greater works are people leaving their sin and turning to Jesus Christ in faith. At my church, we only have about 30 people, but they truly love Jesus more than money. The real greater works are when a young 21-year old man who is committing fornication and looking at pornography, gives it up because he loves Christ more. That is the greater works.”

Man: “That [referring to young men genuinely leaving their sins] is impossible.” He repeated this line with “No, no, no.” several times.

…

Man: “At my church, if you miss one month of not paying your tithe, they will phone you. They will come see you.”

Seth: “That’s because they love money more than anything else.”

…

Man: “You should tell your people at church to pay the tithe. They will give you money.”

Seth: “But I don’t want their money, I want their souls to be saved. I don’t love money.”

Man: “You must love money.”

…

Seth: “1 Timothy 6:12 [I got the reference wrong while talking to him, it’s actually 6:10] says the love of money is the root of all evil. But I’ve heard a pastor saying that we should love money. Who is right: the Bible or the pastor?”

Man: “The pastor is right.”

Seth: “You’re contradicting the Bible.”

…

Seth: “When Jesus comes back the second time, 2 Peter 3:10-12 says that He will destroy the earth with fire. That means that your nice car and my bakkie will all be destroyed. So we must live for eternity, we must not love money. Everything we do should make us happier in eternity, not here on this earth.”

Man: “There is no life after this. This life is all there is.”

Seth: Some expression of shock and total disagreement.

Man: For the second time standing not one meter from me, “There is no life after this. This life is all there is. [Pause.] No, I’m lying.” He then turned and began walking away without another word.

I have had similar conversations numerous times, though admittedly not all are as openly outrageous as this one.

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Treating Hell the Way it Deserves to be Treated

Posted on 6 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

When the judgment of God is discussed in academic literature, it typically centers around why the account of Lazarus and the Rich Man is a parable about “social justice” or some other milder interpretation which requires a lengthy and heavily footnoted explanation. However, for centuries, God’s people have read of the wrath of God in Scripture and come away with fear like Joseph Alleine communicates below.

While the quote is lengthy, the compounding lines are necessary to begin to pull our hearts out of our own worlds. And of course, since it is a Puritan, you will find no gamesmanship here, no jockeying for position to be published, and no concern to protect someone else’s interpretation.

In an era of triteness that is loath to carry a weighty thought, may God grant the fierce doctrine of eternal punishment to move our souls toward salvation or evangelism.

The furnace of eternal vengeance is heated ready for you. Hell and destruction open their mouths upon you; they gape for you; they groan for you (Is v 14), waiting as it were with a greedy eye as you stand on the brink. If the wrath of men be ‘as the roaring of a lion’ (Prov xix 12), ‘more heavy than the sand’ (Prov xxvii 3), what is the wrath of the infinite God? If the burning furnace heated in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery rage, when he commanded it to be made seven times hotter, was so fierce as to burn up even those that drew near to throw the three children in, how hot is that burning of the Almighty’s fury! Surely this is seventy times seven more fierce.

What do you think, O man, of being a faggot in hell to all eternity? ‘Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee?’ (Ezek xxii 14). Can you abide the everlasting burnings? Can you dwell with consuming fire, when you shall be as glowing iron in hell, and your whole body and soul shall be as perfectly possessed by God’s burning vengeance as the sparkling iron with fire, when heated in the fiercest furnace?

How then will you endure when God shall pour out all His vials, and set Himself against you to torment you, when He shall make your conscience the tunnel by which He will be pouring His burning wrath into your soul for ever, and when he shall fill all your pores as full of torment as they are now full of sin, when immortality shall be your misery, and to die the death of a brute, and be swallowed in the gulf of annihilation, shall be such a felicity as the whole eternity of wishes and an ocean of tears shall never purchase?

Now you can put off the evil day, and laugh and be merry, and forget the terror of the Lord. But how will you hold out, or hold up, when God casts you into a ‘bed of torments’ (Rev ii 22): and makes you to ‘lie down in sorrow’ (Is 1 I1); when roarings and blasphemies shall be your only music, and the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation, shall be your only drink (Rev xiv 10)? In a word, when the smoke of your torment shall ascend for ever and ever, and you shall have no rest day and night, no rest in your conscience, no ease in your bones; but you shall be an execration and astonishment, and a curse and a reproach, for evermore (Jer xlii 18)?

Oh sinner, stop here, and consider. If you are a man, and not a senseless block, consider. Think where you are standing – upon the very brink of destruction. …

Know from the living God that here you must lie; with these burnings you must dwell till immortality die and immutability change, till eternity run out and omnipotence is no longer able to punish, except you be in good earnest renewed by sanctifying grace.

Joseph Alleine, A Sure Guide to Heaven (1671)

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Help With Consistency

Posted on 4 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

“As you think and write, keep asking how someone might find fault with what you say. This simple process–really only an outworking of Christian humility–will help you to avoid invalid arguments and inconsistencies.”

John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, page 254.

And there are many more like that in this wonderful book.

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Right and Wrong Ways to Respect Your Pastor

Posted on 4 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

While I was speaking to a pastor on the Lord’s Day at the entrance to his church, a teenage girl came out, and bowed before him with her hands lifted up to receive. He obliged her pleading hands by dropping his keys, phone, and Bible into them. I was uncomfortable during this exchange as well as with her maiden-like departure from what appeared to be the king.

I was told by another church member that they once attended a church where the pastor received gifts on her birthday by each member approaching her, bowing down, and laying gifts at her feet.

On another occasion, a church—with the pastor’s knowledge—planned a birthday party for the pastor on Easter Sunday. Gifts and food were given in honor of the man of God

Possibly you have some stories like these from your own ecclesiastical pilgrimage.

Yesterday at our church, we began a series dealing with church culture. For about ten weeks we will take time to examine common cultural forms found in public gatherings of God’s people and work through the Biblical and logical aspects of each as well as common abuses in contemporary Tsonga culture. The first topic to be treated was pastoral authority.

(And I trust no reader will assume that because we started with a discussion of the form, we ignored the underlying basic beliefs, presuppositions, and Scriptural foundation behind it.)

Here’s two sections from our Lord’s Day meditation that I thought may be interesting.

Four wrong ways to respect a pastor

  1. To treat him as if he were not now, nor could he in the future, be a sinner.
  2. To depend on him as if he had intrinsically more power than the average Christian. As if the source of those powers somehow came directly from him.
  3. To give him glory that is not directed toward Christ.
  4. To love him more than we love Christ. If our respect, love, dependence, or joy stops in him, then we have sinned. That is idolatry. When we are traveling, we do not kiss the signs along the road. We are grateful for their presence and their help, but we move happily past them toward the destination.

Four right ways to respect a pastor

  1. We should imitate his faith, follow his example, and obey his teaching as he follows Christ and His Word. The greatest way to offer Biblical respect to a pastor is to base your entire life on the same structure that he is building on.
  2. We should pray for him to be free from temptation, wise, successful with his family, and filled with the Spirit. I am in my 13th year of pastoral service, and I didn’t have difficulty coming up with names of 6 men that I have known that have fallen from the ministry. It would be a wonderful statement of respect to invest time in interceding for the man or men who are called and gifted to teach the assembly by word and deed.
  3. We should thank him and strengthen his spirit with words from time to time.
  4. We should support him financially so that he is able to continue to doing good, all the while recognizing that the indiscriminate giving of money may lay temptations before any son of Adam.

In other words, you must respect your pastor in any way that will help you move past your pastor to Jesus Christ. And if he is a good pastor, he will want it that way.

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The Power of First Impression

Posted on 2 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

“We are ready to be carried away by that quality which strikes the first or the strongest impressions upon us, and we judge of the whole object according to that quality, regardless of all the rest; or sometimes we colour over all the other bad qualities with that one tincture, whether it be bad or good. …

When a poet, an orator, or a painter, has performed admirably in several illustrious pieces, we sometimes also admire his very errors; we mistake his blunders for beauties, and are so ignorantly fond as to copy after them. …

This sort of prejudice is relieved by learning to distinguish things well, and not to judge in the lump.”

Isaac Watts, Logic

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Incriminating Photos

Posted on 1 February 2013 by Seth Meyers

Here are a pair of photos I took near our house. My experience in the rural areas of southern Africa shows that this kind of “Christianity” is by far the predominant strain. So, when 74% of South Africans claim to be Christian, what does it really mean?

Check out the verse at the bottom.

Check out the verse at the bottom.

Popular Christianity Closeup

Notice the effort to make a theological statement by choosing to mix two verses.

Posted in Accounts of African Religion, Prosperity gospel | Tagged , | 2 Comments