The Bruised Reed

Here is a video that highlights hip hop/rap as a medium to communicate the gospel.

“There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.”

Mark Driscoll

If you haven’t seen this book by John Piper I encourage you to check it out.  ”John Piper unfolds the story of Job in beautiful, compassionate poetry and revels in God’s sovereign and surprisingly joyful purposes in allowing exquisite suffering in the lives of his saints. An uplifting book, especially for those experiencing great suffering and loss.”  It contains moving illustrations by Christopher Koelle.  I’ve put some sample illustration below from the book.  Here is a link to the Desiring God bookstore if you want to order yourself a copy.  It’s also 50% right now!!

WOW, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted.  I’m sorry it’s been so long.  It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, I actually have much to post about, both theologically and ministry wise.  It’s been a busy past month and obviously updating the blog is not on the top of my list. 

I’ll be heading to Virginia this weekend to speak at a church’s for their missions month.  So I plan to post of few things over the course of the weekend.

I’ll leave you with a video I saw a few weeks ago that I really enjoyed.

“It is true, I have, by and large, sharply inveighed against ungodly doctrines and have not been slow to bite my adversaries, not because of their bad morals but because of their ungodliness. Of this I am so unrepentant that I have resolved to continue in this burning zeal and to despise the judgment of men, after the example of Christ, who in His zeal called His adversaries a generation of vipers, blind, hypocrites, children of the devil (Matt. 23:13; 17:33; John 8:44).

And Paul calls the sorcerer a child of the devil full of all subtlety and all mischief (Acts 13:10); and some false apostles he calls dogs, deceivers, and adulterers of the Word (Phil. 3:2; 2 Cor. 11:13). If these sensitive ears had heard this, they would probably say that no one could be more biting and immoderate than Paul. Who is more biting than the prophets?

But nowadays, of course, our ears are made so sensitive by the mad multitude of flatterers that as soon as we find that we are not praised in all things, we cry out that people are vicious; and when we cannot ward off the truth under any other guise, we escape from it under the pretext of the snappishness, impatience, and immoderateness of its defenders.

What good does salt do if it does not bite? What good does the edge of the sword do if it does not cut? Cursed be the man who does the work of the Lord deceitfully!”

–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, Vol. 1, comp. Ewald M. Plass

Here is a snippet of his testimony.  Tony Snow died on July 12, 2008 from his battle with Cancer.

“Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don’t matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?”

Check out his entire testimony here.

This is the fourth post in a series. If you want to catch up check out previous post on past Sunday’s…if you haven’t read them, you should check it out before reading this one. These posts are in reference to the passage in Leviticus 23:3.  I am taking them from an article written by Ken Puls over at Founders Ministries.

In light of Christ’s fulfillment of the Sabbath and the presence of this commandment here in this passage, is the Sabbath part of the Old Covenant that has “grown old and vanished away” (Hebrews 8:13)?

To this I would answer, “No.” This is part of God’s moral law that He established at creation and intended for all mankind—not just for Israel under the Old Covenant. The Sabbath is a gift of God made for man. Jesus said in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made [or more literally “created”] for man and not man for the Sabbath. God intended it for our good and His glory. It is not just for Jews, not just for believers in Christ, but it is a command to which all people will be held accountable.

As a part of God’s moral law, it has its foundation at creation, not at Mount Sinai. God told His people on Mount Sinai to remember the Sabbath Day, not establish it. We see the Sabbath in Genesis 2 as God rested on the seventh day. In Exodus 16, where the children of Israel were told to gather manna in the wilderness, we see them working 6 days and observing the Sabbath before they arrived at Mount Sinai to receive the law.

We see the Sabbath displayed at creation and throughout human history because it is rooted in the character and nature of God revealed in His Word. God rested on the 7th day. He did not rest because He was tired. He did not rest because His energy was depleted and He needed to regain His strength. He did not rest because He became distracted or unclear and needed to refocus and get reorganized. God rested because it was His nature to do so. It was His nature to stop, reflect, enjoy and delight in the work of His hands—to manage time in a way that most perfectly revealed and celebrated His glory.

Notice that this is not just a theological principle of rest. It is a practice of rest as well. God took time to rest. The Almighty Creator of heaven and earth put rest in His schedule. He took time to delight in the act of creating for 6 days and on the seventh day he took time to cease and reflect. It was His nature to do so. And as His image-bearers, this moral practice of work and rest should be reflected in our lives as well.

• We need to rest, not just because we get tired and need refreshed (although for us—we need refreshment).

• We need to rest, not just because we get distracted and need to refocus (although for us—we need refocusing).

• We need to rest, not just because we are forgetful and need to remember (although for us—we need to be reminded).

• We need rest primarily because God made us to reflect His own glory and we need time to stop, reflect, enjoy and delight in the works of His hand.

And this is even more true for the Christian who has seen God’s work not only in creation and the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage in the Old Testament, but also in the glorious work of redemption in Christ in the New Testament.