Joy comes with the morning

From the Book of Common Prayer Lectionary for today:

Sing praises to the Lord,
O you his saints,
And give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment,
And his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night,
But joy comes with the morning.
[Psalm 30:4-5, ESV]

Trinity XI: By His grace

O GOD, who declarest Thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity; Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of Thy grace, that we, running the way of Thy commandments, may obtain Thy gracious promise and be made partakers of Thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[Thomas Cranmer]

BRETHREN, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed. [I Corinthians xv]

Behold what wondrous grace
The Father has bestowed
On sinners of a mortal race,
To call them sons of God!

A hope so much divine.
May trials well endure;
May purge our souls from sense and sin,
As Christ the Lord is pure.

If in my Father’s love
I share a filial part,
Send down Thy Spirit like a dove,
To rest upon my heart.

We would no longer lie
Like slaves beneath the throne;
My faith shall Abba, Father, cry,
And thou the kindred own. [Isaac Watts, 1707]

Renewing the building

My father was walking to church in Milton one very cold Sabbath morning early in the 1930s when he saw that the building was on fire. The sanctuary was being heated for the morning service and, apparently, a fault in the chimney set off the blaze. The building was destroyed. And then, in the middle of the Great Depression, the congregation proceeded to build this structure. From conception, to construction, to completion:

Architect's rendering of the proposed Milton SDB Church building

Using both contractors and the volunteer labor of skilled craftsmen and other workers from the church, one of the most beautiful church buildings in the denomination was completed and has served succeeding generations of Milton Seventh Day Baptists until this day.  This picture is from 1939:

The church recently sent out this appeal:

It was the middle of the Depression when the Milton Seventh Day Baptist Church burned to the ground. It was a time of unprecedented hardship when funds were tight and families didn't have much (if any) money to spare. However, the people pulled together to build a new church that has stood the test of time, serving the local SDB congregation for almost 80 years.

As time has marched on, however, the roof on the church has deteriorated and now is in need of major repair. Specifically, these are the areas that need to be fixed and an estimate of their costs:

Part 1 Bell Tower Pocket Restoration	$ 31,500
Part 2 West Chimney Restoration	$ 4,925
Part 3 Maintenance Work	$ 5,150
Part 4 East Bay Roof & Wall Flashing	$ 5,930
Total	$ 47,505

This is a steep and unexpected expense, and that is why we are coming to you, our church family, to ask for help. Please consider additional giving or a one-time gift designated toward the roof project. Checks can be made out to Milton SDB Church, write "Roof Repair" in the memo, and send it to Milton SDB Church, 720 E. Madison Ave, Milton WI 53563.

Obviously, we are sensitive to the fact that the past few years have brought financial hardship to many on a scale not seen since the 1930s, when our predecessors built the current church. But if you are able to give, we are hopeful that we can provide a roof repair that will serve our church for another 80 years.

Our only comfort in life and in death

Via Ray Ortlund:

Question: What is your only comfort in life and in death?

Answer: That I am not my own
but belong—
body and soul,
in life and in death—
to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to Him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for Him.

The Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 1.

Our Only Comfort Today and Tomorrow

People want a pastor

Matt Chandler, Tim Keller, and Michael Horton (a Baptist and two Presbyterians), two mega-church pastors and a theologian, discuss the inclination to involve every member in "ministry," and the particular role of pastor. The difficulties they discuss are not unique to very large churches.

It’s popular for evangelicals to say every member is a minister. But Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, and Tim Keller discuss in this video whether that idea truly reflects Scripture and the best interests of the church. Indeed, Horton argues that the office of the ministry is in trouble. ...

 People Want a Pastor from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

"The only sin which cannot be forgiven"

A long essay by Joseph Bottum, "God and the Detectives," considers the religious detective story. Among those that he finds successful are many of Chesterton's Father Brown stories and Melville Davisson Post's Uncle Abner stories. He also cites several detective novels, among which is one of my favorites, Marjorie Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke.

.... A detective story is religious if it superadds an awareness of redemption to the fallen world assumed by all mysteries. If it sees the chance of God's grace down in a universe of sin.

That's what makes Chesterton's Father Brown and Post's Uncle Abner more than just intuitive detectives who happen to use religiously gained knowledge in their pattern recognition. It's what makes Joel Townsley Rogers' The Red Right Hand so interesting, and P.D. James' Death in Holy Orders seem a thick narrative.

For that matter, it's what makes Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke the archetypal religious mystery novel, the story to which everyone should look for a model. The book owes more than a little to the thrillers of Graham Greene—those quickly written books he called his "entertainments." Stamboul Train (1932) and The Ministry of Fear (1943) are good examples: popular works that taught two generations of Catholic and High Anglican writers to indulge a kind of Christian moodiness, a brooding sense of original sin, and a not-entirely-happy knowledge of the metaphysical presence of God's moral law.

But as Allingham follows her tiger—Jack Havoc, a former commando on a crime spree as he hunts for a mysterious "treasure"—she sees more than just a world of sin. Oh, she opens her story in the fallen world of "the Smoke," which names for her both the London neighborhood through which Havoc rampages and the moral miasma that stains the city: "The fog slopped over its low houses like a bucketful of cold soup over a row of dirty stoves." And yet, even the tiger who stalks through that smoke is not purely malevolent. "Active evil is more incomprehensible in this two-part-perfect world than active good, and so it ought to be," Allingham wrote in an earlier book, and (as the reviewer David L. Vineyard has usefully noted) grace enters Havoc's murderous story through the conduit of a character named Canon Avril. He is a quiet churchman "with an approach to life which was clear sighted yet slightly off-center," and he tries to convince Havoc that he will eventually be destroyed by his belief that his luck allows him to do whatever he wants: "Evil be thou my Good, that is what you have discovered. It is the only sin which cannot be forgiven because when it is finished with you, you are not there to forgive."

In the end, when his luck at last runs out, Jack Havoc is offered grace one last time in the disappointment of the treasure, which proves not to be what he was seeking. The grace is one he refuses to understand or accept, but it's real nonetheless: a presence in the story, a deepening of the book, a thickening of the narrative. .... [more]

God and the Detectives | Books and Culture | A Christian Review

Tradition

Via Justin Taylor

“Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.”

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition (Yale University Press, 1984), p. 65.

Putting God and the Gospel first

Two Trevin Wax items this morning. First, an appreciative review of his recent book, Counterfeit Gospels: Rediscovering the Good News in a World of False Hope. The review includes this summary of the "gospels" too often substituted for the Gospel:

• The “therapeutic gospel” corrupts the Gospel Story by redefining the problem the Gospel solves, making it about me and my felt needs rather than about God’s remedy to restore a fallen creation.
• The “judgmentless gospel” corrupts the Gospel Story by redefining the Story’s conclusion, downplaying the seriousness of sin and evil and God’s commitment to put the world to rights.
• The “moralistic gospel” corrupts the Gospel Announcement by replacing Good News with good advice and making it about the works we do rather than about what Christ did in our stead and on our behalf.
• The “quietist gospel” corrupts the Gospel Announcement, which is a public announcement of Christ’s triumph over all the powers of sin, evil, and death, by turning it into privatized religious experience.
• The “activist gospel” corrupts the Gospel Community by turning the church into a mission that is more concerned about causes than about Christ, confusing the effects of the Gospel with the Gospel itself.
• The “churchless gospel” corrupts the Gospel Community by making membership and involvement in a community of believers optional or even by viewing participation in a church as detrimental to my own personal spiritual formation.

In each chapter, Wax gives reasons as to why each counterfeit is so attractive to people, and some suggestions as to how we might “counter the counterfeit” by living in the light of the true Gospel. .... [more]

And second, an article by Trevin Wax himself about evangelical worship, "Steak on a Paper Plate: Serious Worship in a Casual World":

.... One of the core values of many an evangelical church is the effort to put everyone at ease. "Good morning," says the minister or worship leader. Then comes the inevitable: "Let's try that again, GOOD MORNING!" There's a chatty, street-level style of worship that has become prevalent in evangelicalism. And it's not clear that your pursuit of casual novelty in worship meshes well with hearing the Word of God set forth in all its glory.

Can a contemporary, casual service bring worshipers face to face with the glory of God in a way that buttresses and upholds the magnificent truths being expounded from the Word? I think the answer is yes, but not always. ....

When it comes to worship, we're frequently told that form doesn't matter. Style is not what's important. I get that. I'm not belittling contemporary music or advocating a return to liturgy, organs, and hymns. Cultural forms adjust and adapt, and some contemporary worship services have thrown me to my knees before the holiness and majesty of God. The issue isn't "formal" versus "informal," casual clothes versus Sunday best, traditional versus contemporary.

The problem is not with casual worship styles, but with casually worshiping God in whatever style. ....

Form and content are rarely easy to separate. They mirror one another. A church with serious Bible preaching will generally have a serious worship service (contemporary or traditional, formal or informal, but serious). A church with a feel-good preacher will generally have peppy, feel-good music.

Christians need to sense the weight of God's glory, the truths of God's Word, the reality of coming judgment, and the gloriousness of God's grace. .... [more]

IM Book Review: Counterfeit Gospels | internetmonk.com, Steak on a Paper Plate: Serious Worship in a Casual World

When students pay closer attention...

Teachers with reasonable skills of observation exercising common sense already knew this. Of course they had to ignore the ed school/in-service "experts." Think You're An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It's Unlikely:

...[A]n entire industry has sprouted based on learning styles. There are workshops for teachers, products targeted at different learning styles and some schools that even evaluate students based on this theory.

This prompted Doug Rohrer, a psychologist at the University of South Florida, to look more closely at the learning style theory.

When he reviewed studies of learning styles, he found no scientific evidence backing up the idea. "We have not found evidence from a randomized control trial supporting any of these," he says, "and until such evidence exists, we don't recommend that they be used."

Willingham suggests it might be more useful to figure out similarities in how our brains learn, rather than differences. And, in that case, he says, there's a lot of common ground. For example, variety. "Mixing things up is something we know is scientifically supported as something that boosts attention," he says, adding that studies show that when students pay closer attention, they learn better. ....

Think You're An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It's Unlikely : Shots - Health Blog : NPR

Debating online

Dr. Moore got a Facebook invitation to join a forum debating Calvinism. He is inclined to discount the value of such debates. From "Dungeons and Dragons and Doctrinal Debate":

Remember those Dungeons and Dragons people back in junior high school? Well, they grew up, got saved, and are now debating Calvinism, on both sides. ....

The Dungeons and Dragons clubs came to mind because those guys, at least in my junior high school, seemed to be obsessed with something that seemed to have no relevance at all to their lives, or to anyone else’s. But D&D became their identity. Because it mattered, they mattered. This was by no means restricted to these folk, and to their video-gaming or skateboarding cousins. It’s the same phenomenon in the people for whom a sports team became a personal obsession. The win or loss of my team is a personal victory, because it is totemic of who I am.

I fear that, all too often, our theological debates fall precisely into this category. We fight them so fiercely because there’s so little at stake in the way we view them. The professional Calvinist in his Internet forum sees a reluctance to embrace effectual calling as a personal attack, as a rejection of him. The anonymous-letter writing anti-Calvinist sees in the Calvinist a repudiation of his own background, of the kinds of churches and methods that led him to Christ. Rather than seeking to understand each other, and love one another with a convictional empathy, we claw and bite one another. That’s because, all to often, what we want is to be right, rather than to build up one another in the faith. ....

.... The Body of Christ needs open-Bible conversations between Calvinists and Arminians, dispensationalists and amillennialists, Baptists and paedo-baptists. But theological debate can’t be a form of entertainment. And it sure can’t be a means of proving myself to be worth listening to. Within the broad parameters of great old Christian orthodoxy, there’s room to differ, and to learn, without hearing a rejection (sometimes only a temporary rejection) of my point as a rejection of me.

Moore to the Point – Dungeons and Dragons and Doctrinal Debate

Trinity X: Pleasing petitions

LET Thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of Thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[Thomas Cranmer]

CONCERNING spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. [I Corinthians xii]

What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy seat;
Yet who that knows the worth of prayer,
But wishes to be often there.

Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw,
Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw;
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings every blessing from above.

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight;
Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright;
And Satan trembles, when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.

While Moses stood with arms spread wide,
Success was found on Israel’s side;
But when through weariness they failed,
That moment Amalek prevailed.

Have you no words? Ah, think again,
Words flow apace when you complain;
And fill your fellow creature’s ear
With the sad tale of all your care.

Were half the breath thus vainly spent,
To Heav’n in supplication sent;
Your cheerful song would oft’ner be,
"Hear what the Lord has done for me."
[William Cowper, 1779]

"Religious freedom is about gospel freedom"

Nathan A. Finn, Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has been posting a series he titled "The Gospel and Baptist Identity." The final entry is "Free Churches in a Free State." A portion:

The final historic Baptist distinctive is perhaps the most controversial, at least in the last generation—our commitment to full religious freedom and the separation of church and state. Of course the reason this idea is so provocative is because the latter phrase means
different things to different people. While there are many secularists out there who equate church-state separation with the silencing of (orthodox) religious voices from the public square, this is far from what Baptists have historically meant when we’ve used this language.....

Baptists have argued that the best way to preserve religious liberty for all people is to protect the church from oppressive state coercion and protect the state from utopian theocracy. Both of these arrangements are a threat to the gospel, the former because it often stamps out the free proclamation of the good news, the latter because it frequently confuses the gospel with worldly political power. Religious freedom is about gospel freedom. There is no arrangement that better protects gospel freedom than one that allows for free churches to flourish in a free state.

To say it another way, when we are at our best, Baptists don’t base our views of this matter on Natural Law, Jeffersonian ideals, or American tradition—though all of these are good as far as they go. Nor do we argue that religious liberty is the way things are meant to be—frankly, it’s a temporary concession in a fallen world where multitudes shake their fists at their Creator and refuse to bow the knee to the True King. Baptists believe that a free church in a free state is not an end unto itself, but rather is the best means of preserving the freedom of the gospel. This means we not only fight for our own religious freedom, but we also defend the religious freedom of pagans, infidels, and atheists, not because they’re right, but because we recognize that when they have the right to be wrong, we have the right to convince them of their errors and persuade them of a better Way through the gospel. .... [more]

The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Free Churches in a Free State | Nathan Finn l Christian Thought & Tradition

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places

From The Book of Common Prayer Daily Office Lectionary for today:

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
In the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
My flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
Or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
[Psalm 16: 6-11, ESV]

Equality

I've been reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time, I think, since high school. I've watched the film many times but the book, as is almost always true, is better, and it is also, like the film, an affirmation of some of our best ideals in the face of great injustice.

I just reached the final part of Atticus's summation to the jury at the conclusion of Tom Robinson's trial:

Atticus paused and took out his handkerchief. Then he took off his glasses and wiped them, and we saw another "first": we had never seen him sweat—he was one of those men whose faces never perspired, but now it was shining tan.

"One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use the phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious—because all men are created equal, educators gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.

"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest  J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.

"I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of of the courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty."

Atticus's voice had dropped, and as he turned away from the jury he said something I did not catch. He said it more to himself than to the court. I punched Jem. "What'd he say?"

"'In the name of God, believe him,' I think that's what he said."

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, HarperCollins, New York, 1995, pp. 233-234.

Sabbath

Joe Lieberman will leave the Senate at the end of this Congress and so this book is unlikely to have any ulterior political purpose. The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath is about the Sabbath observance of Orthodox Jews, but its reviews also indicate that it may be of interest to Sabbatarian Christians. This is from Michael Medved's review in the Washington Times:

The purpose of “the gift of rest” in Mr. Lieberman’s view isn’t “to recharge our batteries so we can work harder but to recharge our souls so we can live better.” Citing a wide variety of Jewish sources both ancient and modern, the senator affirms that work and rest form an indissoluble whole. Six days a week we work to improve our world; on the seventh day, we rest to improve ourselves. ....

For secularists, and especially for the great bulk of American Jews who have received scant exposure to the rigors and joys of Orthodox Jewish practice, this informative exploration of the 25 hours of the Sabbath (it begins at sunset but concludes only at full dark) will prove fascinating and rewarding, answering the perpetual questions about how, exactly, observant Jews spend their time while they retreat each week from the insistent demands of the workaday world. ....

The Gift of Rest cites long-ago examples of American presidents who, as devout Christians, observed Sunday restrictions in the White House. Franklin Pierce conducted no business on the Lord’s Day and wouldn’t even allow mail to be opened; Theodore Roosevelt, enthusiastic outdoorsman that he was, refused to hunt or fish on Sunday for religious reasons.

Unfortunately, Mr. Lieberman’s book provides little perspective on how Americans lost this emphasis on following the Sabbath commandments, which, after all, play a prominent role in Christian as well as Jewish versions of the Bible. .... (more)

BOOK REVIEW: 'The Gift of Rest' - Washington Times

Is the only True Church in Milwaukee?

Peter Berger, a Lutheran, describes Michele Bachmann's former denomination and ruminates about Lutherans, Catholics, the religious commitments of politicians, excommunications, and anti-Christs. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod:

.... The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) was founded in 1850 by German immigrants. (By the way, the term “Evangelical”, in the name of this and of other Lutheran bodies in this country, should not be understood in its usual sense in English. It is a translation of the German “evangelisch”, which simply means “Protestant”.) It now claims about 390,000 members, much less than the two more numerous Lutheran bodies, the theologically (and also politically) liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), whose conservatism is close to that of WELS, but in the latter’s view not close enough. The headquarter of WELS is in Milwaukee, which through most of its history has been known as the Beer Capital of the World, but can now also boast as the location of a Lutheran version of the Vatican. ....

WELS believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, including the creation stories in the Book of Genesis. It holds that Christian fellowship should only be extended to those who share the right—that means its, doctrinal views—which effectively excommunicates just about all other Christians, with the possible exception of Missouri. (At some point—I don’t remember why—there was talk of also excommunicating Missouri, but it was decided to only “admonish” LCMS.) “Fellowship” apparently means, not just communion, but any activity of praying together, which is why Wisconsin kids were not allowed to join the Boy Scouts. As one would expect, WELS is rigorously conservative on all issues south of the navel. There are of course no women clergy. In 1959 WELS published a “Statement on the Antichrist”, whose key sentence reads “We reaffirm the statement of the Lutheran Confessions, that the Pope is the very Antichrist.” I don’t think that many Reformation scholars would agree with this interpretation of the confessions. In the wake of the brouhaha about Bachmann’s resignation a WELS spokesman, Joel Hochmuth, issued a clarification. (Anyone who understands German will relish the name.) He said that the status of Antichrist refers to the papacy as an institution, rather than to individual popes. .... [more]

Is the Only True Church in Milwaukee? | Religion and Other Curiosities

Scripture and smoke

Mark Bertrand: "[I]f you love your Bible, you owe [cigarette smokers] a debt of gratitude." He explains.

"The message is the medium"

In a blog posted at The Gospel Coalition about a church-planting conference called "Plant New England":

.... The church-growth movement has bought into the entertainment paradigm with catastrophic results. The unfathomable riches of God’s wisdom in Christ just cannot be plumbed by video clips and sermons on loneliness. The Christian message—salvation for hell-deserving sinners through Christ’s death and resurrection by faith alone—has been subjugated to the entertainment paradigm and predictably distorted, truncated, and even lost altogether. As a result, the church has become increasingly ignorant of its faith and, not surprisingly, increasingly confused about its mission. ....

Christianity is all about proclaiming the message of the gospel. So what is a fitting medium? The message actually contains the medium God has endorsed—the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and in these last times, God has spoken to us by that Word, his Son. ....

This realization should profoundly affect how we do all things “church,” including church planting. In gospel-driven church planting, the message of the gospel is the church-planting methodology. As one NETS planter put it, “I’m a gospel-only kind of guy. No tricks, no gimmicks, no rock-climbing walls, no bait to get them in and then preach the gospel. The gospel is the bait. The gospel is the hook.” ....

The Message Is the Medium: Gospel-Driven Church Planting – The Gospel Coalition Blog

Basic economics

Well before I took Econ 101 I had read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson [1946], which is still in print. I was reminded of that invaluable introduction to the subject today by Joe Carter's comment on Matt Yglesias's claim that shoplifting actually could (at least temporarily) stimulate the economy. Carter:

Yglesias, as Hazlitt would say, is confusing need with demand. The retailer may need to replace his stock but he is not doing so because of an increase in demand. He has to spend additional capital merely to replace the shoplifted inventory. If a TV cost him $50 he has to spend an additional $50 to replace the TV. Now his cost for one TV has increased 100%. Who pays for that? The consumer. As The Economist has noted, theft inflates the average family’s annual shopping bill by $186.

Justin Taylor provides the relevant quotation from Hazlitt:

A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sun. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.

Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.

The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.

Economics in One Lesson – Justin Taylor

Who are Seventh Day Baptists?

Dr. Ron Davis asks and answers the question "Who are Seventh Day Baptists?"

Seventh Day Baptists are a little known, historic, evangelical, Christian group, who have the distinctive of worshiping on the Seventh Day Sabbath. Like other Baptists, they baptize believers in Christ by immersion and hold to local church autonomy. Like other Evangelicals they are Trinitarian, evangelistic, and world-mission minded. They emerged in the mid seventeenth century from British Separatists, and organized their first church in America in 1671 in Newport, Rhode Island. They had theological and genealogical ties to other Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists, holding to God's sovereign grace in originating and completing man's salvation. Several colonial Rhode Island governors were SDB's. The Hopkinton Seventh Day Baptist Church in Rhode Island became one of the largest churches in colonial America. Today, Seventh Day Baptists are a small, growing, mission-minded, Christian body in over forty countries worldwide.

I'm curious about whether other Seventh Day Baptists agree with his summary of our history and theological posture. One quibble I have is that it ignores the existence of the Arminians among us but I find myself feeling that if it isn't entirely accurate, it probably ought to be.

"Who are Seventh Day Baptists?"