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Holy Club

Sermon Prep in Community

I think it was sometime in late 2011 that, while I was an Associate Pastor at Providence Church, we created a regular gathering time to discuss the coming Sunday’s sermon text. The meeting consisted of pastors and interns and functioned as something like “Sermon Prep in Community.”

And we called it “The Holy Club.”

A SERMON PREP SMALL GROUP

The name might sound rather pretentious, but it actually has historical precedent. We took our cue from the original 18th century Holy Club that included the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield.1 Their pursuit was largely one of external righteousness, but ours was one of understanding and applying the soon-to-be-preached-on passage of Scripture. Afshin Ziafat, the lead pastor at Providence, would tell us what text he was planning to preach from and his initial thoughts on the sermon. Then he would let other guys in the room give their observations about the text, consider potential objections within the text, and offer vital applications from the text.

For a variety of different reasons – and none of them very good – we have yet to institute our own weekly version of “The Holy Club” at IDC, but in the last few weeks I’ve felt a renewed sense of such a group’s importance. Let me give you three reasons, from my past experience, to consider instituting your own sermon prep small group at your church. These are in fact the very reasons I’m working on putting together our own IDC Holy Club.

3 BENEFITS OF COMMUNAL SERMON PREP

#1: Reception of diverse insights. If you prepare each week’s sermon in your own ivory tower you’ll run the risk of letting personal presuppositions or experience drive your sermonic construction. It’s wonderfully helpful to have other Christians give their initial observations and insights. Who knows, they may spot a particular phrase that seems plain to your mind, but is actually hard to unravel for most church members. What I’ve found to be most useful in these types of settings is the variety of applications other people bring out of the text. There can be a tendency in sermon preparation to universalize experience and thus your sermon gets pointed power through hearing and seeing how other people experience the text’s truth.

#2: Promotion of pastoral humility. You won’t seek out other thoughts on the text if you pridefully think yours needs no improvement. Doing sermon prep in community will give you multiple opportunities to humble yourself through recognizing another person’s insights as clearer, bolder, or wiser.

#3: Training of future preachers. Young and aspiring preachers learn the art of sermon delivery in the weekly worship gathering, but they also need to learn the art of sermon preparation. A sermon prep small group will go a long way in helping them discern how best to construct their own practice of sermona preparation.

AN EASY PLACE TO START

Don’t know where to start building your own Holy Club? Here’s a simple suggestion: start with your elders. Spend time at your regularly scheduled elders’ meeting(s) talking about the coming weekend’s text. Get their insights, wisdom, and experience from the text. Tell them what your main point is and how you intend to divide the text for clarity and comprehension. Or, if your elders meet early in the sermon process, use their remarks as something like a catalyst for the week’s preparation.

Or maybe you currently don’t have elders. Well, if you are being faithful to Paul’s injunction to Titus to appoint elders you should at least have couple men on your radar. Invite them into your preparation process. Who knows, it may end even up being something like informal elder training.

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  1. Click here for a summary of the original Oxford Holy Club’s activities. ↩
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Book Recommendation: For Pastoral Piety

0852346298mDr. Joel Beeke is the gentle giant of Reformed publishing. He is the edi­tor of Ban­ner of Sov­er­eign Grace Truth, edi­to­r­ial direc­tor of Ref­or­ma­tion Her­itage Books, pres­i­dent of Inher­i­tance Pub­lish­ers, and vice-president of the Dutch Reformed Trans­la­tion Soci­ety. He has writ­ten, co-authored, or edited sev­enty books, and over 2,000 to Reformed books, jour­nals, peri­od­i­cals, and ency­clo­pe­dias.

On top of all this Beeke is President of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary and a pastor at Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids. I often wonder how the man sleeps!

Today I want to point you to an oft-neglected treasure in The Trove of Beeke: Puritan Reformed Spirituality.

A PERPETUAL NEED

The older I get the more I am convinced, alongside Bonar and M’Cheyne, it’s not great talents God blesses as much as great likeness to Jesus Christ. If local churches are to see revival in our time what we need is ordinary pastors who are passionate about the means of grace and personal holiness. More than visionaries, pioneers, and innovators, the church needs pastors who walk in deep humility, love, and reverence before God.

We thus need, alongside the word and prayer, weapons for our pursuit of godliness. And it’s here that Puritan Reformed Spirituality steps up to the stage.

BIBLICAL SPIRITUALITY DONE RIGHT

In the foreword Beeke says,

The problem with most spirituality today is that it is not closely moored in Scripture and too often degenerates into unbiblical mysticism. In contrast, Reformed Christianity has followed a path of its own, largely determined by its concern to test all things by Scripture and to develop a spiritual life shaped by Scripture’s teachings and directives. Reformed spirituality is the outworking of the conviction that ‘all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness’ (2 Tim. 3:16). In dependence upon the Holy Spirit, it aims to achieve what John Murray called ‘intelligent piety,’ wedding scriptural knowledge and heartfelt piety.

Amen. Intelligent piety is our target and Puritan Reformed Spirituality will help you see how spiritual giants of days gone by have aimed for and hit that target’s bull’s-eye.

This book something of a “Best of Beeke” as most of the chapters were previously published in various edited volumes or journals. Therefore, you can read at random and will not lose anything by way of flow or argument. Read all of it, but I’ve found the following chapters unusually challenging:

  • “Calvin on Piety”
  • “The Puritan Practice of Meditation”
  • “The Life and Writings of John Brown of Haddington”
  • “Willem Teellinck and The Path of True Godliness“
  • “Cultivating Holiness”
  • “The Lasting Power of Reformed Experiential Preaching”

In these pages you will also learn at the feet of William Ames, Thomas Boston, the Erskine brothers, Witsius, and Frelinghuysen. Beeke’s book is a model of how to wed historical theology to practical ministry. Tolle lege!

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A Place to Pray

Pray Persistently

The real estate agent’s mantra of, “Location, location, location,” has an unexpected correlation to the pastor’s life of prayer. For when it comes to extended times in private prayer, location is everything.

And we know this because of our Lord’s practice.

JESUS AT PRAYER

The gospels bear witness not only to Christ’s commitment in prayer, but also how Jesus went about devoting himself to pray. And one common theme is His departure to a quiet place for the purpose of prayer:

  • “And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place.” – Luke 4:42
  • “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.” – Luke 6:12
  • “And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives [to pray].” Luke 22:39
  • “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.” – Mark 1:35
  • “Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” – John 6:15

As under-shepherds who are to model their ministry after the True Shepherd, we pastors need to make extended prayer an increasingly normal part of our work. But if we are ever to persevere in this labor we need to each find a regular place for what the old divines called “closet prayer.”

FIND A CLOSET

Thomas Brooks, in his gem entitled The Secret Key to Heaven: The Vital Importance of Private Prayer, says, “Christ choosing solitude for private prayer, doth not only hint to us the danger of distraction and deviation of thoughts in prayer, but how necessary it is for us to choose the most convenient places we can for private prayer. Our own fickleness and Satan’s restlessness call upon us to get into such places where we may freely pour out our soul into the bosom of God [Mark 1.35].”

When I first read Brooks’ book a few years ago one of the first changes I made was to find a dark and quiet place to pray each day. The church I was serving at back then was replete with classrooms that fit the criteria for solitude in prayer. Unfortunately, about nine months later we left to plant a church, a church with no building or office space. My greatest fear, seriously, about planting our church was, “Where I am going to pray in solitude now?” Well, I took the old Nonconformists literally and decided to go into the closet. And I now have a new found love for walk-in closets. Once the door is closed and my ear buds are playing sound deafening white noise I know I have arrived to my desolate place.

And then I am able to get down to the business of extended closet prayer without worldly distractions and interruptions. I very much feel the health of my ministry depends on such time. When I find discouragement and lethargy reigns in my pastoring I can be sure I haven’t darkened the closet door as I ought.

Do you have a place of solitude for extended prayer? If not, consider a closet. Opportunities for persistent prayer awaits.

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Visible Godliness

Job Title

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

AN INTRODUCTION OF GREAT GODLINESS

We don’t know who wrote the book of Job, but whoever did had a very specific intent with the book’s first five verses. The main point of the text is that we see Job’s character is one of unimpeachable integrity. We won’t be able to make sense of what happens in the conversation between Satan and God and then what falls upon Job if we don’t see the fullness of his faithful character. A character which other parts of sacred Scripture herald. In Ezekiel 14:20 Job is mentioned, alongside Noah and Daniel, as “righteous.” Then Jesus’ half-brother James, in a passage we read earlier tonight, commends the steadfastness of Job. Character always counts, uniquely so in this story.

JOB’S GODLINESS

1:1 says, “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.” And this first sentence gives us a few key elements to the story: who and where. The Hebrew literally reads, “A man there was . . .” So this is a story about a human being, who lived in “the land of Uz.” Uz was probably next to Edom, near modern-day Jordan, which was outside the original promised land, reminding us that God is the Lord of all nations. One thing we are not told is when this story takes place. As best we can tell he was a contemporary of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. Which is why many scholars believe that Job was one of the first books in the Bible to be written. So what’s this man like?

Notice how 1:1 continues by saying, “that man was blameless.” To say he was “blameless” is not to say he was perfect, but it speaks to personal sincerity and integrity. It’s important for us to grasp, right from the outset, that blamelessness of Job. For a central theme of Job’s worthless counselors will be, “Your suffering is a result of your sin.” What Bildad proclaims as, “God will not reject a blameless man.” But we know something they do not: Job is blameless. So sin can’t be the cause of his suffering.

Additionally, Job is “upright”, a word which is closely related to righteousness and literally means “straight.” It gives us a sense of how he deals with people, fairly and justly.

Thirdly, Job is “one who feared God.” Here is the characteristic above all others, from the earliest of Bible books, which reflects the right tone of a sinner’s relationship to God. The fear of God has always been a preeminent feature of the people of God. It consists of reverence, awe, and submission and acknowledges God as the only supreme sovereign of the universe and thus everything must be done in reference to His greatness. I wonder what lies at the “affectional” center of your relationship with God. Do you have a central place in your life for the fear of God, for affectionate reverence as one old writer called it? If not, might you have lessened the great holiness of our Lord? Or, might you have lessened the heinousness of your sin against which God’s just holiness burns with an all-consuming fire? If that lessening of sin is true, let the final characteristic of Job challenge you, notice how 1:1 ends, Job also “turned away from evil.” To turn away from sin is to repent, so it appears as though Job walked through his days on the two spiritual feet of faith and repentance. Thomas Watson said faith and repentance are the two wings on which we fly to heaven.

GODLINESS SEEN BY ALL

This coming Saturday night, Lord willing, Emily and I will head out to Breckinridge, Colorado for our first vacation in about three years. We will head north up to Wichita, Kansas and then head due west for Denver. If you’ve ever driven that way you know western Kansas and eastern Colorado represent little more than the barrenness of Middle American plains. But in time distinguishing mountains burst forth on the horizon letting one know they’ve come to the Rockies.

The same thing is true of our life in Christ. God’s word says there are distinguishing marks of person who has been converted, when you see those marks you know you have come to a life redeemed by God. The genuine religion and righteousness of Job are revealed by his towering life of blamelessness, uprightness, fearing God, and shunning sin. If a good friend or loved one were to look at your life, what characteristics would they say are most prominent? If someone came to our church, what characteristics stick out in our fellowship? May it increasingly be true that they first notice, like we see here in Job, fruits of godliness.

This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “A Servant Named Job,” on Job 1:1-5.

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A Series Worth Serious Investment: Vol. 4

Pastors and Reading

A few years ago Joel Beeke and Michael Haykin quietly began editing a series from Reformation Heritage entitled, “Profiles in Reformed Spirituality.” Oh how I wish more people know about this series. Each book is like a stick of dynamite for pastoral piety.

AD FONTES!

In their introduction to the series the editors write,

Charles Dickens’s famous line in A Tale of Two Cities—“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”— seems well suited to western evangelicalism since the 1960s. On the one hand, these decades have seen much for which to praise God and to rejoice. In His goodness and grace, for instance, Reformed truth is no longer a house under siege. Growing numbers identify themselves theologically with what we hold to be biblical truth, namely, Reformed theology and piety. And yet, as an increasing number of Reformed authors have noted, there are many sectors of the surrounding western evangelicalism that are characterized by great shallowness and a trivialization of the weighty things of God. So much of evangelical worship seems barren. And when it comes to spirituality, there is little evidence of the riches of our heritage as Reformed evangelicals.

As it was at the time of the Reformation, when the watchword was ad fontes—“back to the sources”—so it is now: The way forward is backward. We need to go back to the spiritual heritage of Reformed evangelicalism to find the pathway forward. We cannot live in the past; to attempt to do so would be antiquarianism. But our Reformed forebearers in the faith can teach us much about Christianity, its doctrines, its passions, and its fruit.

SOME WELL-KNOWNS AND LESSER-KNOWNS

One of the series’ greatest assets is how each volume masterfully distills one man’s teaching on and practice of holiness into a bit-size book. In many ways, these titles would be great supplements for morning devotions. There are currently twelve volumes in the series, with more on the way. Here are four titles I’d recommend checking out first; two towering giants of theology and two lesser known, but profoundly gifted pastors.1

asweetflame_front__61096__73835.1294352920.1280.1280A Sweet Flame: Piety in the Letters of Jonathan Edwards. A Sweet Flame introduces readers to the piety of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Dr. Haykin’s biographical sketch of Edwards captures the importance the New England minister placed on Scripture, family piety, and the church’s reliance upon God. The remainder of the book presents 26 selections from various letters written by Edwards, two written by family members at his death, and an appendix drawing upon Edwards’s last will and the inventor of his estate.

habitual_front__18033__88878.1294354106.1280.1280A Habitual Sight of Him: The Christ-Centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin. Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) was a faithful pastor, Westminster divine, advisor to Oliver Cromwell, and president of Magdalen College, Oxford. In this book, Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones acquaint the reader with Goodwin through an informative biographical introduction. The remainder of the book, 35 selections from across the works of Goodwin, displays Goodwin’s constant attention to Christ in his various theological engagements. You will learn much about the life and works of this influential Puritan, and perhaps, be strengthened with a habitual sight of Christ.

yuille_trading_and_thriving__46266__96212.1294352921.1280.1280Trading and Thriving in Godliness: The Piety of George Swinnock. George Swinnock (1627–1673) was a gifted English Puritan, known for his vivid illustrations of biblical truth. In “Trading and Thriving in Godliness”, J. Stephen Yuille highlights Swinnock’s conviction that godliness is the primary employment of every Christian. Yuille’s introductory essay analyzes the influences on, groundwork for, and expressions of piety in Swinnock’s life and thought. The book also contains fifty selections from Swinnock’s writings, exemplify his teaching on the foundation, door, value, pursuit, nature, means, and motives to godliness.

devoted__59751__88595.1294352920.1280.1280Devoted to the Service of the Temple: Piety, Persecution, and Ministry in the Writings of Hercules Collins. While largely forgotten in modern times, Hercules Collins (1646/1702) was highly influential among the late 17th and early 18th century Calvinistic Baptists of London. Through a biographical sketch and 35 sample selections collected from Collin’s writings, Michael A.G. Haykin and Stee Weaver introduce us to the vibrant spirituality of this colossal figure.

Click here to see previous entries in the “A Series Worth Serious Investment” series.

  1. Book descriptions taken from the publisher. ↩
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An Old Path to Know

Sanctification

The recent sanctification debates in the broader Reformed world have taken us well back into the 16th century. It’s there where much of our discussions on a law/gospel hermeneutic, union with Christ, and three uses of the law find respective historical beginnings.

But I’ve wondered if our focus on the Reformation and Puritan eras have led us to neglect another era’s teaching on sanctification and its [largely negative] impact on today: Keswick Theology.

THE “W” IS SILENT

Have you heard of Keswick? From 1875-1920 Keswick Theology1 was a major force in the evangelical world. While you may not have heard “Keswick” before, odds are you’ve encountered its effect in American evangelicalism. And it’s usually unhelpful.

The movement’s hallmark is a chronological separation between justification and sanctification. This paradigmatic truth is evident in how many Christians recount their testimony: “I was saved at the age of seven, but it wasn’t until I was sixteen or seventeen that I fully gave myself to the Lord.”

To help you get a simultaneous handle on Keswick’s aberrant understanding of the Christian life and a biblical understanding of sanctification we turn to a living expert: Dr. Andy Naselli.

A DOUBLE DOCTOR

20100515_118.bw_.pngAndy Naselli serves as Assistant Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Bethlehem College & Seminary. He teaches courses primarily at the seminary-level on Greek exegesis, New Testament, biblical theology, and systematic theology. He loves to study and teach how the theological disciplines (exegesis, biblical theology, historical theology, systematic theology, and practical theology) interrelate and culminate in doxology.

Andy earned two PhDs before he turned thirty: a PhD in theology from Bob Jones University and a PhD in New Testament Exegesis and Theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School under D. A. Carson. He served as Carson’s research assistant from 2006 to 2013 and continues to work with him on various projects, including the theological journal Themelios, for which Carson is editor and Andy is administrator.2

It’s that PhD from Bob Jones we are concerned about because it is a masterful analysis and critique of Keswick Theology. The 100,000 word dissertation was published in 2010 as Let God and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology. If you have the time and cash money to grab a copy, I’d highly recommend it. Rick Phillips says,

If you are seeking a biblical understanding of the Christian life, read Andy Naselli’s Let Go and Let God? If you wish to avoid sidetracks that can absorb years of your life in fruitless confusion, then pay attention this careful study of the Bible’s doctrine of sanctification and searching critique of the Keswick theology. With this book, Naselli has provided an important service to many Christians who have been or might be led astray by well-meaning but false teaching on the Christian life.

If reading the dissertation sounds daunting, don’t worry, there are two other mediums to get the substance of Naselli’s work.

KESWICK CLIFF-NOTES

In 2008 Naselli gave the William R. Rice Lecture Series at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary on Keswick Theology. In the course of three lectures he distilled his dissertation down to about 20,000 words . . . a much more manageable count for most pastors! So grab the lecture PDF or mp3s below and grow your understanding of this stream of teaching on sanctification. And your appreciation for a more biblical model of how to grow in Christ.

You can download all these resources and more on Naselli’s website.

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  1. Pronounced “KEH-zick” and named after a small English town. ↩
  2. Bio taken from BCS. ↩
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3 Books Every Pastor Should Read: On Jesus Christ

Books are some of the best friends a pastor can have. How to know which friends to have is quite difficult, for as the inspired Preacher said, “Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). Every so often I recommend three books for pastors on a given topic, hoping the suggestions might hone your book budget.

Today I want to consider resources on Christ, the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge reside. If we are to rightly preach Christ we must know and experience His glory. As Owen said, “On Christ’s glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes and I will be more and more crucified to this world.”

I pray these suggestions will help you fix your gaze on the Savior seated at the right hand of God.

9781857924749mThe Glory of Christ by John Owen. Mark Jones once wrote, “There is little doubt that John Owen stands head and shoulders above his British contemporaries. It isn’t even close. Rutherford, Sibbes, Twisse, Goodwin, and Manton, for example, are mere peons compared to the man with Spanish leather boots.” Sinclair Ferguson would agree, for he says, “To read John Owen is to enter a rare world. Whenever I return to one of his works I find myself asking ‘Why do I spend time reading lesser literature?’ . . . If we can persevere with his style (which becomes easier the longer we persevere), he will not fail to bring us to the feet of Jesus.” The Glory of Christ has to be the Mt. Everest of Christology in the Reformed tradition. It is Owen’s final work, published posthumously, and represents a lifetime on meditation on the Savior he loved most. As with any Owen work, you will need careful patience. But after making it all the way through you will, I think, find yourself opened in fresh ways to the vistas of Christ everlasting glory.

0830815376m0830815325m The Person and Work of Christ.Yes, this single recommendation contains two volumes, but let me count them as one. For while publishers are free to do it, we pastors can never separate Christ’s person and work. I’ve found these volumes to be fantastically compelling; lucid argumentation with biblical/historical/theology awareness permeating each page. While you probably will not agree with every jot and tittle, Macleod and Letham will help sharpen your thinking of who Jesus is and what He’s done.

CGThe Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth by Thomas Goodwin. The great Scottish theologian Alexander Whyte said Goodwin’s work is “always so simple, so clear, so direct, so un-technical, so personal, and so pastoral.” Many modern readers might quibble with the relative ease with which Whyte could read Goodwin. I mean, if anyone can rival John Owen for prolix discourse, it’s Goodwin. But Christological piety never met so fine an exposition as it does in this classic work on Christ’s love for sinners. We need books that not only help us apprehend something of the unsearchable riches of Christ’s glory, but also those that give us Jesus’ heart for His own. I suspect, should your read this book, Goodwin’s opening up of Christ will do something mighty in your heart.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Person and Work of Christ by B.B. Warfield. The Lion of Princeton roars in this one . . . you’ll want to listen.

Christian’s Pocket Guide to Jesus Christ: An Introduction to Christology by Mark Jones. How is it that an 84-page introduction to Christology gets so high on my list? Just read it and you’ll see. Jones’ work is also an excellent discipling resource.

Check out my past suggestions in the “3 Books Every Pastor Should Read” series here.

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Preaching on Job

Job Title

The advent of a new fall semester often means the advent of a new sermon series for many churches. So it is for us at Imago Dei.

At the end of June we completed a ten-month study of Mark’s gospel, and then took the next eight weeks or so to think specifically about the sufficiency of God’s word for His church. For Psalm 119 says the word is our life, so we considered six ordinary ways – preaching, reading, seeing, supporting, singing, and praying – the life of God’s word resounds into the life of God’s church.

A STUDY FOR OUR SUFFERING

This weekend we begin a study of the book of Job that will, Lord willing, take us right up to Christmas time. A series on Job is no small endeavor. It is a 42-chapter book and one that’s been held in the highest regard by literary scholars for centuries. The Victorian essayist Thomas Carlyle said Job is “the grandest book ever written with pen.” Selections from Job were actually required reading in one of my college English literature classes. The great Reformer John Calvin preached 159 sermons on Job and we are aiming to do it in fourteen weeks! A tall, yet glorious, task awaits.

Over the past few months I’ve told quite a few people that my desire was to preach through Job this fall and the general response has been something like, “Oh. That’s i n t e r e s t i n g.” Meaning, “Are you sure you want to do that?” After much prayer, study, and deliberation I can say, “Yes, I am.” And let me give you two reasons why this book is uniquely valuable for our lives:

  1. God is sovereign. I am convinced that, outside of the gospel of Jesus Christ and sufficiency of Scripture, precious few truths are as life-transforming as God’s sovereignty over every atom in your body and galaxy in the universe. Job is a book that offers a stunning, if at times uncomfortable, portrait of a God sustaining and governing His creation.
  1. God’s people suffer. Jesus assumes the Christian life will be one of cross-bearing, Paul announces that everyone who desires to live a godly life will suffer, James says to expect it, and you don’t need to look very far before your eyes will fall on someone enduring pain, hardship, persecution, or trials.

What we need then, and why we turn to Job in these days, is clear and biblical understanding of how God’s sovereignty relates to the suffering of His people. Piper is right to say, “Pain and loss are bitter providences. Who has lived long in this world of woe without weeping, sometimes until the head throbs and there are no more tears to lubricate the convulsing of our amputated love? But O, the folly of trying to lighten the ship of suffering by throwing God’s governance overboard. The very thing the tilting ship needs in the storm is the ballast of God’s good sovereignty, not the unburdening of deep and precious truth. What makes the crush of calamity sufferable is not that God shares our shock, but that his bitter providences are laden with the bounty of love.”1

Our study of Job, Lord willing, will comfort those in our church who are suffering, encourage those who minister to suffers, and prepare us all for future suffering.

COMMENTARIES ON THE SHELF

In case you ever preach through Job here are some commentaries I have used in preparation, force ranked in order of how useful they’ve been so far:

I can’t wait for this journey to begin. It wouldn’t surprise me if most Mondays this fall find me posting a sermon excerpt from our study in Job. I pray they will be useful meditations for us all.

  1. Piper, The Misery of Job and The Mercy of God, 9. ↩
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Sermon Prep 101

Alistair Begg and Mike Bullmore just might be my two favorite living preachers. I feel as though I’ve learned more from these man about preaching than any one else.

It was with great joy that I saw Bullmore lead a TGC roundtable discussion with Begg and Bryan Chapell on “Sermon Prep 101.” It’s never a waste of time to listen to brothers, seasoned in ministry, ruminate on preparing to preach Christ crucified. So tune in, edification awaits!

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Recent Reads

I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

9780877846260mDynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal by Richard Lovelace. For years I’ve heard pastors I deeply respect recommend Lovelace’s classic book on spirituality. Tim Keller once said, “Anyone who knows my ministry and reads this book will say, ‘So that’s where Keller got all this stuff!’” After reading it, I totally agree. Many tenets of TGC spirituality we’ve come to know (gospel-centrality, the dangers of moralism, social and urban activism, among others) Lovelace articulated back in the late 1970s. While I think Lovelace is too kind to Pentecostal expressions of piety, Dynamics of Spiritual Life is, one the whole, utterly compelling. Few stones of spirituality are left unturned in this near 400-page work. The work’s unique values is the fact that it comes from the pen of a trained historian. Lovelace’s biblical and systematic theology is – in a good way! – nothing revolutionary, but he weds those disciplines to historical perspectives on revival and renewal I often found captivating. You probably won’t agree with every jot and tittle of Lovelace’s vision for renewal, but Dyanamics will nonetheless stir you to dream about biblical revival in your local church. So buy it, read it, and dream away.

TSOECTThe Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God by Robert Louis Wilken. Wilken, Professor of Historical Theology and Patristic Studies at Creighton University, aims to uncover – recover might be the better word – the spirituality of the Church Fathers in The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. He says the intellectual work of the Fathers was “at the service of a much loftier goal than giving conceptual form to Christian belief. Its mission was to win the hearts and minds of men and women and to change their lives.” Focusing primarily on Origen, Gregory of Nissa, Augustine, and Maximus the Confession displays how these theological giants of old were preeminently “spiritual giants.” There is much food for thought in this book, but some of it is overshadowed by some of Wilken’s conclusions, which come from his worldview as a former Lutheran who converted to Roman Catholicism. While one can quibble with his interpretations, one cannot but sing the praise of the man’s prose. Wilken wields a mastery of language that at times left me speechless in its grandeur.

CSChristian Spirituality: An Introduction by Alistair McGrath. “Textbook” is the right word for McGrath’s introduction to the history of Christian spirituality. Filled with charts, pictures, and various visual aids, Christian Spirituality deals with the types of piety that “ultimately flow from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” McGrath’s approach is broad and thus includes Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions of spirituality. Although I’ve still yet to read a textbook-ish introduction to biblical spirituality, McGrath’s volume is as fine an entry into Christian spirituality as you can read.

EXEvangelical Spirituality by James Gordon. When I saw the Table of Contents of this book I thought, “This is going to be a delightful read!” Chapters on giants of godliness like Edwards, Newton, M’Cheyne, Spurgeon, and Lloyd-Jones, alongside those focused on the lesser known Cowper, More, Dale, and Whyte looked magnificent. Well, let’s just say I was a wee bit disappointed. Gordon assumes too much from his readers; if your familiarity with an individual is only in name the author does little to help you gain additional familiarity. Evangelical Spirituality suffers greatly from a lack of cohesion, as many of the chapters read like a collection of quotes from primary and secondary sources with little care to coherent unity and transition. If you are in the academic pursuit of evangelical spirituality, this is a book to have on the shelf. If not, just move along.

PilgrimI Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. The cover of I Am Pilgrim proclaims, “The only thriller you will need to read this year.” I am something of a sucker for espionage thrillers, let alone ones with superlative reviews to such an extent that one major online magazine calls it “the best book of 2014 . . . so far.” So I jumped in with moderately high expectations. The plot is quite simple: the greatest living US intelligence agent, “Pilgrim”, is sent to find “the Saracen”, the most terrifying terrorist to ever threaten our country. Yet, the simplicity belies a rather complex thriller. An investigation into a shocking NY murder gets your attention and Hayes never really lets it go until the final page. The tale does wander at brief points, most usually when it focuses on the Saracen’s movements, but Hayes’ debut novel is a thrilling triumph.

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