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I am a Presbyterian for a thousand different reasons. One of them is relevant to this post. As a Presbyterian, I do not succumb to the very real experience Ron Edmondson addresses in this post ; the loneliness of a pastor. ( Please read that brief post before continuing. This post will make more sense when you do.) Over the past couple of years, in my presbytery, we've had the sad responsibility of addressing tragic circumstances among other ministers in our presbytery. In many of the cases deception and long-nurtured secret sin was exposed. Discipline was imposed with the ultimate purpose, bathed in prayer, that repentance and reclamation would result. Our presbytery has attempted and is attempting to put in place opportunities to address these challenges. Ideas discussed are meetings of pastors within smaller geographical regions for lunch and discussion, a pre-presbytery seminar (once a quarter) to fellowship, learn and pray with one another, designating a portion...

Let's be honest, and I mean that sincerely. I have friends and extended family members that believe it is important that abortion should be a woman's choice and that it should remain safe, legal and accessible. There are those who argue for abortion rights on the basis that it is a human right  and must necessarily be protected in order to achieve gender equality worldwide. I disagree...completely. I want to be honest about why I disagree with my family and friends who support a woman's right to have access to safe and legal abortion. Abortion is the act of killing a baby while in the mother's womb. In some cases, the baby is "partially born" before it is killed. The recent videos filmed and provided by " The Center for Medical Progress " have left no doubt about the premise; abortion kills the baby while in the mother's womb. For it is upon this premise that the parts; hearts, livers, etc. and tissues of the dead baby can be sold, dona...

It is not a stretch to say that, humanly speaking, I am a minister because I faced early on my utter inability to pastor people. I failed in a lot of ways as a Young Life staff person and a youth director in a new PCA church. I still do after being an ordained minister for 16 years. But a primary failure in those early days was my inability (and often unwillingness!) to listen well. I've been reading through the book The Pastor and Counseling  by Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju. They have reminded me how the first task of pastoral ministry and pastoral counseling is humility which leads to listening well. Listening means to be fully engaged with the person or people in front of me. Being fully engaged means I am taking in their words, seeking to understand how they see their world. This is intentional activity on my part as I must seek to hear the parts others play in their life; family, friends and most especially God. I can get a sense of this by what they say and what they ...

I want to commend three excellent resources to you that address the current culturally hot topic of homosexuality. They are, in alphabetical order by title, Compassion without Compromise , Is God Anti-Gay and What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? .  I read them recently and am commending them to you now for one primary reason; keeping directly in front of us the people who struggle with same sex attraction and the Person who addresses this struggle. With all of the noise in our culture regarding homosexuals, the definition of marriage, the rule of law, the spheres of church and state and their relationship, I'm hearing lots of doom-saying, pessimism, squishiness and all out calls to retreat. As a minister and a Christian I needed help sorting through it all. These four authors ( Compassion without Compromise was written by two men) have provided me that help in valuable ways. This is not a review of any of the books. There are those who are much better at boo...

Grief Undone: A Journey with God and Cancer by Elizabeth W. D. Groves My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is absolutely wonderful! Libby Groves shares her heart as she shares her grief and, most incredibly, the Lord's sustaining grace throughout it all. Pick it up and read it. View all my reviews

You may have heard about a congregation in San Francisco, CA that recently decided to receive into faithful membership those who live non-celibate lives with people of the same sex. This congregation was a church in the denomination I serve, the PCA , a few years ago. They left the PCA and joined the RCA denomination . You can read their announcement here . A picture from worship this past Sunday at Glory, PCA where they had over 30 visitors! A pastor of a PCA church in San Francisco responded to this announcement in a letter to those at City Church, RCA . The pastor is Chris Robins and the church he is planting is Glory, PCA . I have been in contact with Chris and asked for his permission* to reprint his letter here. He graciously gave me permission. Please read Chris' letter below. Consider joining me in praying for the vital work of Glory, PCA in San Francisco. We need more bold churches committed to loving sinners and doing so without compromising Scripture or bringin...

What a wonderful providence of God that Kevin DeYoung's newest book, " Taking God at His Word: Why the Bible is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough and What That Means for You and Me " would be published right now. With the attempt to redefine what marriage is, what sex is and for whom, God's Word and our understanding of it (and Him) seems to be up for grabs, culturally speaking. Not too long ago my alma mater was in the midst of controversy over the nature of God's Word. This too provided the opportunity for the publication of a wonderful resource. (Find my very brief thoughts on the controversy and links to the resource here .) Rev. DeYoung is a gifted writer. I've enjoyed reading most of what he has written. (I've never liked referring to author's by their last name only. It sounds almost disrespectful to my Texas-born ears. I will refer to Rev. DeYoung as Rev. DeYoung a day this is especially appropriate given the subject matter. He is a mini...

Our last brief post  was on the subject of God's Word; the Bible. This, Dr. Gaffin makes clear, is our only reliable and true source of Truth. Do you believe God's Word is trustworthy? Complete? Authoritative? Compelling?  Where you stand on these questions will have everything  to do with where you stand on the work of Jesus on your behalf; His ongoing work in you by His Spirit, His final work of consummation and everything in between. I just finished reading  Kevin DeYoung's recently published book " Taking God at His Word " and I have also written a review of it which I will post later today or tomorrow.. That will be our next order of business. (Just so you'll know I plan on strongly encouraging you to buy the book   in the next post). But in the meantime and just to whet the whistle, read this . Kevin DeYoung's book is very relevant to our discussion of "By Faith, Not By Sight" which we will take up again after the next post/review.

This is the seventh post in a series on the book,  "By Faith, Not By Sight"  by Dr. Richard Gaffin. The links to the previous posts are here:   #1    #2    #3    #4    #5   #6 This may be the most important thing for us to remember as we think about all that is before us; this is God's Word. As is already clear, we are focusing on the Apostle Paul's words found in the Bible.  But we do so understanding that Paul is an apostle; "...that is, as he is an instrument of God's revelation, authorized by the exalted Christ, for attesting and interpreting salvation manifested in Christ." (BFNBS, pg 7) There are at least two crucial implications we can draw from this. First, this is not some isolated academic or practical study we are about. When dealing with God's very Word we are dealing with God Himself as speaker. We are responsible to Him for how we understand Paul. Care must be taken. Second, these letters of Pau...

This is the sixth (semi-) post in a series on the book, " By Faith, Not By Sight " by Dr. Richard Gaffin. The previous posts can be found at the following links: #1   #2   #3   #4   #5 We need to make sure we understand, at least in a cursory way, what gave rise to Dr. Gaffin's lectures of 2004 that became "By Faith, Not By Sight" that will occupy our time. So we at least skimmed over the top of the weeds a little bit. But don't let these first few posts trip you up. As we continue, this rich theology will bear much practical fruit. So we will keep going, just like these guys... ( HT )

This is the fifth post in a series going through the book, " By Faith, Not By Sight ." Find previous posts at the links below: #1 (Intro)   #2   #3   #4 Have you ever thought about salvation, the work of Jesus as being accomplished and being applied? Another wordy way of putting it; all of what Jesus did in history; being born of a virgin, living a sinless, perfect life in complete obedience to His Father, being crucified, dying and receiving the Father's wrath earned by taking into Himself the sin saved sinners, being raised from the dead and ascending to the right hand of His Father in heaven; all of that actually happening on the timeline of history and it being applied to you at the moment of conversion; salvation accomplished by Jesus and applied to you. This is referred to in Dr. Gaffin's book in a nifty shorthand way as historia salutis (salvation accomplished in history ) and ordo salutis (salvation applied to the believer). If you haven't heard of t...

This is the fourth post in a series where we are making our way through Dr. Richard Gaffin's book, "By Faith, Not By Sight" . You can find  the first three linked here: First Post Intro Second Post Third Post The last post ended with the question, "How are we made right with God?".  It is your answer to this question that will help you make sense (or not) of the rest of our posts. Men like N.T. Wright, E.P. Sanders and J.D.G. Dunn may argue that this is the wrong question to ask. (A helpful bibliography of some of these men's work is available in the book "By Faith, Not By Sight" .) So it is necessary to dip our toe in these waters, in the most shallowest of ends, so that we can move forward a bit more prepared. We are only dipping our toes in because I don't think I have the theological chops to understand all of the complexities involved. But some familiarity is necessary. In order to hyper-metaphor you, we will do our best to avoid t...

Post 3 in a series on the book " By Faith, Not By Sight " The introduction to this series is here . First post is here .  How are we made right with God?  The Bible is clear that we have all fallen short of the glory of God. No one is righteous, not even one. We are dead in our trespasses and sin . What has to happen for sinners to be received by God? (The issue of b eing made right with God is captured in the the doctrine of Justification.)  The Apostle Paul teaches us that sinners must be justified; their sin must be punished and the sinner must be found "not guilty", in order to be received by God.  So the next question should be; how is one justified?   The background for the lectures Dr. Gaffin gave in 2004 was a somewhat fragmented and complex body of work regarding Paul's view of justification. This body of work is generally referred to as the New Perspective on Paul (NPP).  One of the claims that is made by some of the NPP proponents is...

Post 2 in a series on the book "By Faith, Not By Sight" This is the first post of a series I introduced here . "...the purpose of the lectures [is] to highlight matters which...pastors and other teachers...need to be clear on..." ( Preface, BFNBS ) This book was born out of lectures Dr. Gaffin presented in 2004. The lectures had a purpose, as does the book, captured in the abbreviated quote from the preface above; to offer clarity in Paul's theology. Clarity is needed as things have become muddled with the New Perspective on Paul, the intramural debates regarding justification and sanctification, the distinction between Law and gospel, etc. How you appropriate Paul's theology will necessarily put you somewhere on the continuum in any or all of these debates. And  it will effect your understanding of, not just Paul's letters (13 of them!), but of all of Scripture. And that will inform how you preach, how you counsel, how and from what you repen...

On March 19th I tweeted this tweet . It was a pretty bold claim, I admit.  So I am going to take the opportunity to back it up through a series of blog posts. Get yours today! I claim that the book, By Faith, Not By Sight   may be the best theological-pastoral-practical-pastoral counseling  book I have ever read. I am saying this book and its subject matter has implications in all of these facets in ways I have not found (or can't remember) in any other book I've read.  To be sure, there may be better theological books out there, better pastoral books, better books that are more accessible practically, etc. But Dr. Gaffin's work is multi-faceted in its implications for all of these areas in ways I haven't seen before. My goal in this series of blog posts is to make my way through the book and highlight these implications. But first, maybe some definitions would help. Theological- This is a study of the Apostle Paul's view of the theology of salvation, or h...

They imagine they see their faces. They wonder about the sounds of their voices. They see a smile and wish they could turn the clock back. Church nurseries hurt. Baby showers bring a knot to their stomach. High chairs can make them turn away. Avoiding the baby food aisle can be a singular goal with every trip to the grocery store. Women (and men) carry the shame and guilt and grief of past abortions.  This past decision carry with it painful, personal and often silent incriminations.   We all coo and ahh at the pictures of newborns.  We celebrate the news of newly expectant mothers and rejoice with the families. Women (and men) whose past includes the abortion of their baby share these experiences, but the experiences are always tinged with something else; something hard for us to understand...at least experience..."what might have been", "what have I done", "how old would he/she have been" and on and on and on. So often these e...