Category: The Ministry

Lance summarized Dr. Tim Keller’s preaching methodology by saying,

“In Tim Keller’s preaching seminar he mentions that saying bold things about abortion and homosexuality ‘C issues’ is not helpful when one hasn’t laid the ground work of the Gospel ‘A’ and a biblical worldview ‘b.’ Although he believes these are both… sin, he hits hard on A’ and B’ primarily so that people would actually believe and be saved, rather than always insisting on implications of those, namely C’. Plus, why mis-step with the conservatives and emphasis some sins over others. If we want people to be saved, we must share the A’ and B’ clearly and consistently; rather, than be known for our theological positions, something that won’t save anyone. He’s in the center of the postmodern worldview and we are just about there ourselves. lets take time to unpack things, when we ‘know’ they will be offended and quit listening when we post our theological positions. If you want that preaching seminar PDF ill send it to you. Its be best thing I’ve ever read on preaching. I’m assuming if you were to talk with a homosexual, you would similar things.”

Now, I don’t know Lance and I don’t know if this is a faithful representation of what Keller teaches in his Seminar, but for the sake of dissection let’s say it is. Here is how I would critique such an approach,

I’m pretty sure that one can’t lay out the ground work of either the Gospel or a biblical worldview if one doesn’t deal with prominent sins. Keep in mind that laying the groundwork out means talking about the backdrop of the Gospel which is man’s rebellion against God. Now, it will do no good to talk about a general rebellion of man against God without being somewhat accurate as to what that rebellion concretely looks like. I mean, is Keller looking to convert Abortion Doctors and Homosexuals only to later tell them after being “saved;”

“Now, about those abortions and that Homosexuality, I know you didn’t realize that salvation meant giving that up, but I have a surprise for you.”

This approach looks a great deal like thorough going compromise.

And the smell of compromise gets even heavier when we read Keller’s answer to a direct question on preaching against homosexuality.

Well, it’s much, much, much easier to to have private conversations about it. I think . . . uh . . . can make this short. I . . . I believe in general that if you preach on why homosexuality is a sin . . . uhhh . . . there are . . . at least in my . . . in my . . . in my . . . in my church I know there’s lots and lots of folks who have same sex attraction who know that that’s not . . . as a Christian, I can’t do that. I’m not gonna go there. There’s a good number of them. I’ve got a lot of non-Christians who are present who are friends of gay people but are not gay. Uhhh . . . and then uhh, there’d be a number of people with same sex attraction who . . . are there. And generally speaking, it’s almost impossible to preach a sermon and hit all 3 or 4 of those constituencies equally well. Ummmm . . . it’s just . . . it’s just think about . . . you know . . . you know . . . you’re a communicator. You know you need to . . . well, what’s my goal? Who are my audience and . . . wow! it’s like a conundrum you can’t solve. So, the best thing has always been for me..[CONSPICUOUS COUGH] . . . to not do the public teaching as much as segment my audience through . . . ummm [CONSPICUOUS COUGH] . . . Books, through classes, through one-on-ones, and so on. I think the time is probably coming in which we’re going to have be more public in how we talk about homosexuality. And I haven’t . . . I’m actually thinking quite a lot about it. Uhhh . . . as to how I will go about it or how we should go about it but I’m not prepared to give you 3 bullet points. (Note: ellipses represent pauses)

That explanation that Lance gave in the first blockquote (and I’m not impugning Lance, as it is not, as far as I know, Lance’s opinion) is so full of holes it is downright embarrassing that anyone would try to pass that off as erudite let alone the embarrassment present by seeing scads of people being suckered by such reasoning.

I’ve already exposed one hole

Here are some more

2.) He is suggesting that salvation of people is dependent upon the way he gives the message. If we really believe that the Gospel itself was the power of God unto Salvation we wouldn’t be conjuring up ways to manipulate people into the Kingdom. (i.e. –The thought process seems to be something like, “I can’t speak about homosexuality or abortion because if I do they won’t be swept up into the hurricane of redemption.”)

3.) Presumably “A” and “B” and “C” are all theological positions. You can’t carve “C” out and call it a theological position while suggesting “A” and “B” are somehow something else then a theological position. If he doesn’t want to be known for theological positions then he should keep quiet about not only “C” but also about “A” and “B” as well. Dividing them up the way he does in the explanation above only provides an excuse that when examined only briefly and with the greatest of nonchalance is exposed as utterly vacuous.

4.) If we are going to avoid naming some sins in “A” and “B” why name any sins at all in the presentation? In Keller’s model a God without wrath brings men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.

5.) And what does the fact that Keller is at the center of the postmodern world have to do with anything? Is the subtext with such a statement supposed to be that because he is at the center of the postmodern world therefore he has to speak differently about sin if people are to know Christ?

“The minister must remind himself in a lively manner that God has sent him, that he ascends the pulpit as an ambassador of God, speaks in the name of God, and is as the mouth of the Lord unto the congregation.”

~ Wilhelmus á Brakel (1635-1711), The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 2, p. 138

“For in hearing us, you gave such heed, as if not hearing men, but as if God Himself were exhorting you.”

~ Chrysostom on I Thessalonians 2:13

“Yes it is I who admonish, I who order, I who command, it is the bishop who teaches. But…… it is Christ who commands through me.” “The preacher explains the text; if he says what is true, it is Christ speaking.”

~ St. Augustine — Bishop Of Hippo
Fourth Century Theologian

“Flesh and blood are an impediment. They merely behold the person of the pastor and brother … They refuse to regard the oral Word and the ministry as a treasure costlier and better than heaven and earth. People generally think: ‘If I had an opportunity to hear God speak in person, I would run my feet bloody’ … But you now have the Word of God in church … and this is God’s Word as surely as if God Himself were speaking to you.”

~ Martin Luther
16th Century Reformation Theologian

“When the Prophet says, by the breath of his lips, this must not be limited to the person of Christ; for it refers to the Word which is preached by his ministers. Christ acts by them in such a manner that He wishes their mouth to be reckoned as his mouth, and their lips as his lips; that is, when they speak from his mouth, and faithfully declare his Word (Luke 10:16)” (Comm. on Isa. 11:4).

~ John Calvin
16th Century Reformation Theologian

“Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is preached, and received of the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be feigned, nor to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; who, although he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God abides true and good.”

~ Second Helvetic Confession (1566)

Question — “What is required of those that hear the word preached?”

Answer — “It is required of those that hear the word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the word of God …”

~ Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. & A. 160

“First, when you come to hear the Word, if you would sanctify God’s name, you must possess your souls with what it is you are going to hear, that what you are going to hear is the Word of God. It is not the speaking of a man you are going to attend, but you are now going to attend upon God and to hear the Word of the Eternal God … Therefore you find that the Apostle, writing to the Thessalonians, gives them the reason why the Word did them as much good as it did. It was because they heard it as the Word of God, I Thess. 2:13 … Mark, so it came effectually to work because they received it as the Word of God. Many times you will say, ‘Come, let us go hear a man preach.’ Oh no, let us go hear Christ preach, for as it concerns the ministers of God that they preach not themselves, but that Christ should preach in them, so it concerns you that hear not to come to hear this man or that man, but to come to hear Jesus Christ” (Gospel Worship, p. 200).

~ Jeremiah Burroughs
17th Century Puritan Theologian / Member of the Westminster Assembly

“It is not only man preaching, as he says to the Thessalonians in I Thessalonians 2:13: You listened, he says to them, and you realized it was not merely the word of man but it was indeed what it actually is, the Word of God. This is his preaching, and this should be true of our preaching” .

~ D. M. Lloyd-Jones — 20th Century Reformed Preacher & Theologian
Knowing the Times, p. 276

“… Christ is represented as being heard in the gospel when proclaimed by the sent messengers. The implication is that Christ speaks in the gospel proclamation.”

John Murray — 20th Century Reformed Theologian
Commentary – Romans 10:14

“Through the preaching it pleases God through Christ, the exalted Lord, the chief prophet of God, who alone gathers his church, to speak to his people unto salvation. This is evident from Romans 10:14, which, according to the original, asks, ‘How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?’ Through the preaching, therefore, you do not hear about Christ, but you hear him. The difference is easily understood. When you hear about or of someone, he is not present. You do not hear his own voice, but the voice of someone else who tells you something about him. But when you hear someone, you hear his own voice. He is present with you. He is addressing you personally. This is the sense of Romans 10:14, which teaches that you cannot believe in Christ unless you have heard him speak to you, unless you have heard his word addressed to you. This is exactly the meaning of the words, ‘How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?'”

~ Herman Hoeksema — 20th Century Reformed Theologian
Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 289

“A true sermon is an act of God, and not a mere performance by man. In real preaching the speaker is the servant of the Word & God speaks & works by the Word through his servant’s lips … The sermon is God’s ordained means of speaking and working.”

~ J. I. Packer
20th Century Anglican Theologian

Preaching has fallen on hard times. Part of that reason for this is that we are decreasingly a word oriented culture and as such it is difficult for us to follow even the best 30-45 minute oral presentations. Another problem we have that mitigates against the rise of strong preachers and preaching is our cultures lack of willingness to hear an authoritative word. We largely live in a “each man does is what is right in his own eyes” culture and as such preaching will not be taken seriously because it cuts against our resistance to any authority besides our own. Another reason for this is that preachers, having been educated in government schools and that combine with their having been saturated in our culture Preachers have lost the ability to think (and so speak) outside of and in opposition to our dominant cultural paradigm.

Several years ago I took some part time work with a funeral home to help supplement my pastor’s income. The people who owned the Funeral home were gracious and they made sure that I never had a conflict of schedules. They understood where my priorities were and worked with me accordingly. The work was different. At times I would drive the hearse transporting the deceased from one funeral home to another. At other times I would pick up the deceased from the place where they had died and bring them to the funeral home. There would be times I would help with the parking and times I would deliver the flowers after the funeral service. It was all the stuff you would expect to find in working with a funeral home.

However I didn’t last more than a year doing this part time work. It wasn’t that they were dissatisfied with me. Nor was it that I was dissatisfied with them. It wasn’t the nature of the work that had me walk away from a little extra income. It was the depression I was struggling with that had me quit. Now, one might think it was a depression brought on by my being around death that had me quit, but it wasn’t that. The depression that drove me to quit the funeral home was the constant barrage of funeral sermons I was hearing. I got to the point I just couldn’t handle seeing people leave funeral after funeral with no idea what the Gospel was. More than that I had got to the point that I couldn’t handle the silliness that was going on in the name of Christ.

At one funeral the Pastor quoted the famous passage,

“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

He then proceeded to eulogize the deceased by saying,

“Paul had many interests in his life and in heaven Jesus has a room for him for all the interests that he had. There will be a voluntary fireman room for him. There will be a ‘Dad’ room for him. There will be a sportsman room for him. etc. etc. Jesus has been very thoughtful this way.

At another funeral where the deceased had been involved in a tragic auto accident the Pastor climbed into the pulpit and the first words out of his mouth were,

“I want everyone who is sitting here and who can hear my voice to know that God didn’t have anything to do with this accident. God didn’t want this to happen and this isn’t God’s fault.”

At yet another funeral a female minister led the congregation in hand holding with the person next to them while she sang Bette Midler’s “The Rose.”

Eventually, I couldn’t take any more and I told my Funeral employer that my emotional well being was being adversely affected by all the funeral messages I was subject to and I had to quit.

I thought I had seen it all until today. Now, keep in mind my observations having nothing to do with the deceased and everything to do with the Clergy officiant. The deceased and his family were and are fine people.

Today I was at a Funeral and the minister got towards the end of the service and he said,

“Now I want everybody to uncross their arms and legs.” (Insert shuffling noises while most people are uncrossing arms and legs while others go out of their way to cross arms and legs.) “In ancient Judaism they never prayed with arms and legs crossed because it was thought that such a posture would block the effectiveness of the prayers. I want everybody here to get the full measure of the prayer so go ahead and uncross your arms and legs. Now, before we pray I want you to take your right hand and pretend you are reaching up into heaven and are pulling a gold coin out of a treasure chest.” (Insert spectacle of 200 people in a funeral home reaching with their right hand upward into ‘heaven’s treasure chest’ in order to pull out a gold coin. Now insert my fear that his next statement was going to be something like … “You do the Hokey Pokey and you shake it all about — that’s what its all about.”) He continued instead, “now, take that coin and pretend it is a memory and put in the pocket over your heart. That is your special memory of ______ that you will always have in your heart with you.”

Look, I try to be a reasonable man. I really try to listen to things with as much charity as possible. But a man can only take so much. Here we had a room full of people face to face with eternity and he is busy having people grab imaginary gold coins out of an imaginary heavenly treasure chest all the while making sure our body posture doesn’t get in the way of God’s ability to answer prayer. There was no mention of Christ. There was not mention of the Cross. There was no mention of resurrection. There was no mention of sin. There was no mention of grace and forgiveness. There was no mention of anything except the Chakra points of prayer.

If I were a pagan at a funeral like this, I guarantee you I would never ever darken the door of a church. If I were a pagan at a funeral like this I would never ever have anything to do with Christianity.

And now, I’m working on not being depressed again.

“With the doctrine of predestination, Christians were dramatically freed from dependence on church and state. Predestination freed man from the custodial care of institutions. His determination and salvation came from God, not church or state. It is not an accident but an inescapable fact that the decline of the doctrine of predestination had led to statism and to power-hungry churches…. If the doctrine of predestination is weakened, then church and state are exalted and their powers enhanced.”

R. J. Rushdoony
The Great Christian Revolution

“Every consistent teaching of predestined grace inevitably implies a radical and ultimate devaluation of all magical, sacramental, and institutional distribution of grace, in view of God’s sovereign will.”

Max Weber
The Sociology Of Religion

A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, Central London Hatchery And Conditioning Centre, and in a shield, the World State’s motto, Community, Identity, Stability…. “We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future …” He was going to say “future World Controllers” but correcting himself, said “future Directors of Hatcheries,” instead.

Aldous Huxley
Brave New World

Predestination, in Biblical understanding, is the doctrine by which we confess God’s exhaustive sovereignty that extends from eternity past in the decrees of God to eternity future as seen in the fulfillment of all that God ordained.

What we learn from these quotes is that Predestination is an inescapable category. The question is never whether or not predestination is true but rather the question is what or which predestination we will be predestined with and by. Either we will acknowledge and bow to a supernatural predestination or, denying that we will be governed and controlled by a naturalistic predestination — a governance and control that God predestined for the disobedient who seek to cast Him from their thinking.

Should we deny God’s predestination and function as if it is not true we will not suddenly discover the libertarian freedom that so many assure us will be the result of denying God’s predestination but rather we will find our wills bound, as God predestined, by the predestination of some false idol seeking to ascend to the seat of God.

The reality that naturalistic predestination is a reality in America can be seen in the increase of Statism as the Federal Government seeks to predestine the lives of the citizenry. Wherever we find an dramatic increase in centralized planning there we find a state that is seeking to take on the prerogative of predestination.

Wherever we find the State implementing school to work programs that have as their intent channeling individuals to precise places in the work force there we find an example of naturalistic predestination. The language of the “school to work” legislation reveals that the State is embracing the role of predestinators of the future careers of individual students. As B. K. Eakman notes, “The underlying assumption (of School to Work) appears to be that it is not cost effective to have mere individuals making choices about their own lives, that they must be regimented and controlled for their own good and for the good of society.”

Examples could be multiplied but we must understand the connection between abandoning the truth of supernaturalistic predestination and the rise of naturalistic predestination. Predestination is an inescapable reality that never goes away. One significant implication of this is that when people deny God’s supernatural predestination they do not escape the fact that their wills are conditioned by the will of some other naturalistic predestinating source. Another significant implication of this is that just as God predestines to the end of advancing His Kingdom so naturalistic predestinators predestine to the end of building up their respective Kingdoms. Ironically naturalistic predestination always serves God supernatural predestination.

What we see here then is that whenever man seeks to overthrow God’s predestination so that he may experience full libertarian freedom what happens is that his freedom is constrained by naturalistic predestinating agents.

All of this teaches us that if we are a people who desire political and economic freedom we must be a people who embrace the Biblical teaching of God’s predestination for when the Church loses the high notion of predestination the consequence is the reduction and constraint of individual freedoms in the societal realm.

Finally we should learn from this that proper Biblical notions of predestination do not make men careless, languid or lazy but rather makes them active, vigorous and striving since a proper understanding of predestination means that the Christian understands that if he isn’t, in obedience, actively about ordering the world according to God’s revealed law-word he will instead be himself ordered according to the naturalistic predestined will of the state or some other institution. Predestination then, properly taught, energizes and enlivens God’s people.

Delegates to Synod 2009 gathered at Elmhurst Christian Reformed Church on Sunday afternoon for a service of prayer and praise that included … a video that told the story of Christianity through rap and hip-hop music.

On the following evening, about 40 delegates and members of synod and Trinity Christian College staff had fallen sick with a flu-like illness whose primary symptoms are severe gastro-intestinal distress.

Everyone knows that rap and hip-hop music is sickening.