Here’s an interesting insight into Jesus’ humanity from Mark’s gospel:
The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. — Mark 6:30–32
Jesus needed to get away from the everyday work of ministry and so do everyday pastors like me. Our elders have established a thoughtful plan for periodic extended breaks for both non-staff and staff pastors. This summer, they have kindly granted me a twelve week sabbatical. Sabbaticals can take different shapes, but the primary purpose is rest, to let the ground of my mind and heart lay fallow in preparation for more faithful ministry. I won’t be engaging email or texts and won’t be reading in ways that are a direct preparation for ministry output. This is a season for refreshment and input. No man is immune from being worn down from the work. Read Charles Spurgeon’s famous, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits.” It’s humbling, but I should admit, yes, I have my own limitations.
That said, thankfully at Heritage, our sabbatical plan is not designed to respond to fatigue but to get ahead of it. And that’s what this is. Think of a sabbatical with this skiing metaphor. If normal ministry life is working on the front side of the mountain under the sun with a measure of risk and lots of eyes on you, then a sabbatical is moving to the back side of the mountain where it is slower and where the man can work on himself. In addition to rest, I have a writing project that I will give myself to for two weeks alone out of town.
Sabbatical You Later!
In summary, I’m headed out from May 6–August 3 to sit on a rock with the Lord and think about my life, to sit in a chair to read and write, and to sit around the table with my family and laugh a little. As I asked of you this morning, pray I would find my inner-middle schooler. I’ve been wound a little too tight at home lately. How’s that for a way of using non-biblical language to confess that one needs to grow in gentleness and warmth.
Pray for me in three ways.
First, pray that I would not work. If you know me, you’ll know that there is a constant queue of long-term and short-term projects for our church, and a handful of books to work through with you in mind. I need to turn all of that off for now.
Second, pray that I would not worry about you. I think about you all the time and that’s a good sign. You are not here at Heritage for me. We are here for one another and I am here for you. But for a time it will be good for all of us if I give my attention to the Lord and to my family in a more undivided fashion.
Third, pray that our family would walk together with the Lord. Just this morning we learned about Zechariah and Elizabeth, “both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (1:6). I would like for that to describe my family. My wife and children give their husband and father to the church in some unique ways. There are meals and events that I am not at because I am with you. This is a time for me to give myself to them.
Fourth, pray that I would be successful in my writing endeavor, a short study for Crossway on Isaiah’s Servant Songs in their Knowing the Bible Series.
Planning and Praying for The Pulpit
I’ll be back in church on August 4 and back in the pulpit on August 18. I am going to do something for you at the risk of mismanaging expectations. I typically do not map out the series like this. There are advantages and I may in years ahead. But because I love you that much, here’s the plan through August. I’m including the text and the preacher so you can pray for the preacher that week.
May 12, Luke 1:39–56, Jason Read
May 19, Luke 1:57–80, Jim Knauss
May 26, Luke 2:1–21, Jim Knauss
June 2, Psalm 77, Jonathan Farmer
June 9, Luke 2:22–38, Jason Read
June 16, Luke 2:39–52, Matt Jackson
June 23, Luke 3:1–20, Matt Jackson
June 30, Luke 3:21–38, Jason Read
July 7, Luke 4:1–13, Jim Knauss
July 14, Galatians, Part 1, Dan Cruver
July 21, Galatians, Part 2, Dan Cruver
July 28, Galatians, Part 3, Dan Cruver
August 4, Galatians, Part 4, Dan Cruver
August 11, Luke 4:14–30, Jason Read
August 18, Luke 4:31–44, Yours Truly
August 25, Luke 5:1–11, Yours Truly
I’m at once eager to get away and eager to get back. Thank you for loving one another so well and for receiving the Word with joy.
Social justice is something we’ve discussed in our preaching over the years. I’ve proposed that it’s not a helpful descriptor if we want to think and communicate in clear biblical terms. It’s overloaded with conflicting meanings. It’s also associated almost entirely in our public discourse with governmental redistributive programs aimed at resolving disparities of one kind or another.
In the last number of weeks we have heard sermons from two of the Bible’s famous chapters as it concerns human sexuality and sin, one sermon from Leviticus 18 and another from Leviticus 20. These chapters dealt with adultery, men laying with men, siblings with siblings, and on and on. In an age when the only moral principle directing sexual behavior is that of consent, these chapters stun. They were given to Israel not as a comprehensive theology and ethic of human sexuality but to protect her on entry into the land of Canaan where these practices were the norm.
Yet standing behind these prohibitions and punishments is the precious gift of our bodies, of marriage, and of human society. Basic to God’s plan for our flourishing and his glory is our behavior in bed. If we we’re going to use the terminology of social justice, then we need to speak about sexual sins, about marriage, and about children and family.
With this as background, I want to commend two articles to you.
Article 1: “Welcome to Pride Month, Christian”
In this piece, “Welcome to Pride Month, Christian,” Carl Truman helps us see that “social justice demands our opposition to [pride month’s] celebration and symbols.” He is calling out a contradiction here, as you may pick up. Some of this is tongue in cheek, a rhetorical calling out of those who have given themselves over to a new Phariseeism on one topic or another who are nevertheless quiet on this one. Even if you’re not privy to that discussion, you may be shocked in a good way at Trueman’s plainspokenness. It seems we have gotten used to frank moral demands on some topics but overly couch or avoid them on others. It’s important to ask ourselves, “why do I feel like I should say this?” or “why do I feel like I can’t say that?.” Carl’s piece is a kind of tune up for your justice sensibilities.
Here’s an excerpt:
If anybody wants to understand what is happening to the public square in America—indeed, if anyone wants to know how America, or at least her ruling class, wishes to understand itself, they need look no further than Pride Month. If the arrival of the Pilgrims, the founding of the nation, and even the contribution of Martin Luther King Jr. receive no more than 24 hours on the national calendar, the LGBTQ+ alliance has an entire month to party in the streets. And this street party is enabled by the countless commercial ventures that post rainbow flags in their windows and on their websites.
. . . But there is a silver lining here. Pride Month does offer those Christians who are passionate about social justice a chance to reassure those of us who fear their commitment to such is always tailored to appeal to the broader tastes of the day. For if Confederate flags and statues are deemed social justice issues by many (a point with which I am sympathetic), how much more so is the rainbow flag? The use of the rainbow symbol should be particularly egregious to Christians. It is the primary instrument by which the LGBTQ+ movement asserts its ownership of the culture. And it is the means of telling those of us who dare to dissent that we should have no place in the public square anymore. It tears at God’s creation order and design for family relations and social stability. And it is also a blasphemous desecration of a sacred symbol, taking that which was intended as a sign of God’s love and faithfulness and of our dependence upon Him and turning it into an aggressive symbol of human autonomy and sexual decadence.
If Trueman’s piece gets its force from its rhetoric, this next piece gets its force from its research. On a different but related topic, Kevin DeYoung has written an important journal article: “The Power of The Two-Parent Home.” Less critique in this case and more construcive. We need both.
He offers his own caveats, which any pastor will want to do. We love and support single mothers and fathers and recognize the diverse ways in which those circumstances come about. But the reason we need to acknowledge them is precisely because the single-parent home is an exception to the good norm the Lord established at creation. The two-parent home is one of the most needful and yet neglected topics in the public conversation about social good. Thomas Sowell has written for years on this topic in his work, for example, on Discrimination and Disparities. Kevin’s piece includes his own footnotes to recent studies along with a good example of theological and ethical reasoning.
Here’s how DeYoung begins:
Humanly speaking, there is nothing more important for personal well-being, positive social behavior, and general success in life than being raised by one’s biological parents committed to each other in a stable marriage. Over the past forty years, a vast body of research has demonstrated conclusively that children are deeply affected by family structure and that married parents are best for children. Any efforts — whether governmental, educational, or ecclesiastical — that mean to encourage human flourishing must take this reality into account as both an explanation for many societal ills and as a means to the end of hoped-for societal health and vitality.
Family life in America has changed dramatically in a relatively short period of time. In 1960, 73% of children lived with two parents in their first marriage. By 2014, less than half (46%) of children were living in this type of family. Conversely, the percentage of children living with a single parent rose from 9% in 1960 to 26% in 2014. An additional 7% of children now live with cohabiting parents. Moreover, the increase in non-traditional family arrangements has coincided with the decoupling of marriage and childbearing. In 1960, just 5% of all births occurred outside of marriage. By 2000, around 40% of all births occurred outside of marriage (a percentage that has held steady over the last twenty years). As of 2014, 29% of births to white women, 53% of births to Hispanic women, and 71% of births to black women were out-of-wedlock. In the span of only 60 years, what were once considered exceptional family circumstances have become the norm.
Kevin traces the social implications of these trends and ends by expanding on four suggestions:
First, pastors, Christian educators, parents, and church leaders need to do more to teach on this subject.
Second, we ought to encourage public policies that make pro-child marriages more attractive and less healthy family arrangements more difficult.
Third, we should consider how we have normalized behavior that harms children and does not lead to human flourishing.
Fourth, unless called to singleness for kingdom purposes, we must encourage Christians to get married, have children, stay married, and raise those children in a stable two-parent family.
Read the full piece, or listen Kevin read it at his podcast, Life and Books and Everything.
D.A. Carson has written a helpful book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Kristi gave me this book when we were dating, actually. It was our six month anniversary. Now, twenty years and about two weeks later, I commend it to you.
The occasion for this recommendation is, of course, Sunday’s sermon from Leviticus 20, “What can we learn from the Bible’s shocking judgments?” This chapter brought us up close and personal with some of the Bible’s most shocking judgments. For example, stoning for child sacrifice (which perhaps sounds reasonable) but also the death penalty for adultery (which may give us pause). There is an important biblical theological context for these commands. Remember that Adam was banished from the garden for his sin. These laws concern Israel’s life when she enters the land of promise, a new Eden. In short, the comfort we can take in Leviticus 20 is that there won’t be any such sin in the new creation. Where does that leave us, sinners that we are? Trusting only and wholly in the perfect advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, our propitiation for sin (1Jn. 2:1–3).
Chapters like this raise tensions not only in the question of how any of us can be saved, but a tension in the question of who God is in himself. Is he wrathful or is he loving? Aren’t these descriptors mutually exclusive? Is this just one of those mysteries we have to accept? Yes, we must accept it if that’s the Bible’s portrait of our God, a God beyond all comprehension. But that doesn’t mean we are left without any sense of coherence in our picture of God.
For help with that question, Don Carson has served us well on pages 67–70 in his chapter, “God’s Love and God’s Wrath.”
Carson on the difference between wrath and love:
“Wrath, unlike love, is not one of the intrinsic perfections of God. Rather, it is a function of God’s holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath-but there will always be love in God. Where God in His holiness confronts His image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, or God is not the jealous God He claims to be, and His holiness is impugned. The price of diluting God’s wrath is diminishing God’s holiness.”
He continues, on the compatibility of God’s wrath and his love focused on the same person:
“God’s wrath is not an implacable, blind rage. However emotional it may be, it is an entirely reasonable and willed response to offenses against His holiness. But His love…wells up amidst His perfections and is not generated by the loveliness of the loved. Thus there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time. God in His perfections must be wrathful against His rebel image-breakers, for they have offended Him; God in His perfections must be loving toward His rebel image-bearers, for He is that kind of God.”
How God’s love redirects God’s wrath to save sinners:
“Both God’s love and God’s wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax – in the cross.”
As Carson has asked elsewhere, “Do you wish to see God’s love? Look at the cross. Do you wish to see God’s wrath? Look at the cross.”As with so many other doctrines, the theological tension leads to and finds resolution in the person and work of Christ.
Those are three words that come to mind when I think about Keith and Kristyn Getty.
I remember where I was when I first heard, “In Christ Alone.” This song takes the deepest truths to the deepest places. There’s something about the combination of text and tune that struck me. Keith and Kristyn are students of song writing. They try their hand at hundreds of melodies before committing an album of a dozen songs. Not me. I was just a Christian with a spiritual longing for Christ’s riches. I was also a youth pastor in St. Louis who was curating the best of old and new songs I could find for our youth group. That required some finesse back in 2003, pulling songs from albums recorded by collegiate song writers, such as Indelible Grace, and updating older hymns slightly since we weren’t piano led.
I wouldn’t have put it this way at the time, but we needed some people who were alive to write some new old songs—deep songs that would stand up for generations. We also needed some song writers who would devote their craft for the church’s singing. Americans mostly listen to music and that had become what we were doing in church. The American church also had an unhappy Hatfield-McCoy problem with “traditional” and “contemporary” music, poisoning some against guitars and drums and others against the piano and strings. The beauty of sung truth was getting lost in all that noise.
Then I went to a recital for one of my students at a neighboring church. Two teenage girls sang solos. One young lady sang a sensual rendition of a Top-40 praise song. It was weird but I think that’s just what she knew to do. Then a twelve year old middle schooler approached the stage. She was unassuming and simple. The piano started in and she sang “In Christ alone, my hope is found; He is my light, my strength, my song.” This song was old and new, deep and accessible, solid and sweet. I chased down the authors on the recital order. They were indeed alive. The rest is history. Today at Heritage we sing some twenty-five of songs written by this couple, songs for every part of our service that magnify every facet of Christ’s work.
Keith and Kristyn are happy. How else could they so comfortably barge into our feeds with Family Hymn Sings from their living room during the pandemic each week? By God’s grace, they are also faithful to Christ and to his church. Their goal is not a musical career, or notoriety, or institution building. Their goal is to see the church sing her faith. It’s as if the American church needed a couple from Ireland–a singing people—to come help us sing. Singing is trending again, as it has from creation and as it will in the new creation. Churches have also warmed up on the role of music. As it turns out, when we prioritize the congregation’s voice, questions of genre and instrumentation become more fun and fruitful. There are lots of reasons for this, but one reason is the gift of new songs that work in different settings and which prioritize the congregation’s voice. The Gettys have helped us here.
We welcomed the Gettys to Heritage in 2018. The photo above is from the concert that ended a day of investment in area pastors and even our children.
They’ve got a beautiful new album of old songs and new in an artful mingling of Irish folk and American bluegrass. These songs tell our story and the music tells theirs. It’s called, Confessio. They’re with us tonight as part of their St. Patrick’s Tour for this album. Just like old times, we’ll sing “In Christ Alone.”
Join us in welcoming Keith and Kristyn Getty and their faithful team of musicians to Heritage.
This past Sunday we closed up our series through 1 Peter with a sermon on Peter’s closing greeting. It could not have come at a better time. Here was our passage:
By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son. Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ. —1 Peter 5:12–14
Peter commends Silvanus, a partner who will likely deliver the letter. He connects churches with one another. He affirms one brother whom he has been discipling. In all this he is setting an example for us of the kind of warm and wide-hearted love that should mark the church in exile.
In the coming weeks we have an opportunity to work out this spirit as a church by welcoming several “faithful brothers.” I’m eager for you to meet them and to greet them in Christ.
So, let me make some introductions for us. I’ll make these remarks personal where I can, taking my cue from Peter who commended Silvanus to his own readers. I also asked each of these brothers for recommendations of things the other brothers have written lately, since they are all friends.
Receive David Mathis, a Man of Faithful Words
I don’t know where our relationship began exactly, but we really hit it off once I wrote an article for Desiring God on marijuana. Just like every good friendship. In return, David heard of our executive pastor search and pointed us to Jason Read, his brother-in-law. We are ever-grateful! David is the speaker for this year’s men’s retreat, from February 18–19. He grew up in the Upstate, he’s a graduate of Furman, and his parents live in Spartanburg. He’s also a husband and a father of four.
David is a man of words.
David is executive editor for desiringGod.org, a ministry that we’ve been helped by over the years in many ways. Desiring God is a ministry that grew out of John Piper’s preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. I remember coming into Pastor John’s book, Desiring God, as a college student. I remember that memorable line, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” And I remember the internet in its earlier days when Desiring God was a little site that had Piper’s sermons available for free, a novel idea back then. And an idea made possible by generous donors who believed in its spreading mission. I remember when the iPod was released. Among my aspiring pastor friends, that device might well have been called an iPiper. It carried all those sermons and lectures we devoured. In any case, there’s a lot to thank the Lord for here. Read up on the history of this ministry and note the tie to Greenville. David is a steward of the mission of this ministry. Pray for his editorial clarity and courage.
David is also a writer. One book we’ve recommended for years around here is, Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus Through the Spiritual Disciplines. But more than an editor and writer of words, David is a preacher, a local church pastor at Cities Church, in St. Paul, MN. So much of his writing flows from the loves and labor of any pastor. You’ll sense that in some of his recent writing:
Read more from David, pick up some of his books, and follow him on Twitter.
Greet Andy Naselli, a Faithful Guardian
Andy Naselli will preach both Sundays, February 20 and 27, to bookend GO Week on this year’s theme, Spreading a Passion for God’s Glory. When we learned that he was in the region on sabbatical to write a book, we extended this invitation.
Andy Naselli is a long-time friend of our church. When he worked as research assistant to D.A. Carson, Andy was responsible for editing the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, which he could do from anywhere. So, Andy and his family moved to the Upstate, where his wife, Jenni, is from. They were members for years at one of our church plants, Grace Bible Church, in Moore. You may know him as a co-author of that helpful book we point you to, Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ.
On a personal note, Andy and I have been friends since we shared a burger in Louisville back in 2011. Five years later Heritage reached out to Andy for contacts in our search for a preaching pastor. In a momentary lapse of judgment, Andy thought of me and put us in touch. Blame him.
Andy is a guardian.
Pastors are called to instruct in and defend sound doctrine (Tit. 1:9). Andy is a busy instructor. He is associate professor of systematic theology and New Testament at Bethlehem College and Seminary and one of the pastors at Bethlehem Baptist Church. He’s got a whole bunch of PhDs, including one from Bob Jones University here in town. If you’re the kind who teaches the Bible here at Heritage, pick up a copy of, 40 Questions about Biblical Theology. If you’re a kid, you should get your parents to buy you a copy of a book Andy wrote with another brother connected to Heritage, Champ Thornton, The Serpent Slayer and the Scroll of Riddles: The Kambur Chronicles.
Or, for all of us, read these articles on eternal things:
Read more from Andy, pick up some of his books, and follow him on Twitter.
Welcome Joe Rigney, a Faithful Shepherd of Shepherds
Joe Rigney will preach for us on Sunday, March 6. When Andy learned that Joe would be in the area on a family vacation, he put us in touch and we invited him to preach. One faithful brother commends another. That’s how it often happens.
He’s a shepherd in the church as a pastor at Cities Church along with David Mathis. He’s a shepherd in his home as a husband and father of three. But he’s also a shepherd of shepherds as a professor and newly appointed president of Bethlehem College & Seminary.
Joe shepherds pastors not only as an institutional leader but as a theological leader. A pastor’s job is to teach, “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Eph. 4:14). Deceitful schemes are deceitful because they come off as true and obvious. One of the problems we’re dealing with in our day is the subtle manipulation of biblical compassion in service of false visions of justice. In this way, goofy theories about just about everything play on the best parts of us as Westerners and as Christians in particular. We’re a people with a high view of humanity. That’s good. But we’re having trouble, and that’s because we’re untethered from the Word in our understanding both of justice and of compassion.
In this vein, read two pieces by Joe: “Do You Feel My Pain? Empathy, Sympathy, and Dangerous Virtues,” and “Dangerous Compassion: How To Make Any Love a Demon.” This is not the first topic I would have turned over for help in navigating the times, but you’ll be surprised at how important this insight is. In a conversation with Doug Wilson, “The Sin of Empathy,” (yes, provocatively titled, but read it in context), Joe and Doug tease out the implications of these reflections for the times. In this way, Joe helps us pastors read the winds so that we may speak the truth even as we do it in love.
True compassion will often require courage. Empathy can often become a disguise for anxiety or cowardice. In fact, it’s for a failure of true compassion that we often fail to act in love. Sharpened by this discussion, Joe spurs us on to true biblical courage.
No surprise, in both pieces, Joe draws from the life and teaching of another pastor of pastors, Apostle Peter, a pastor who learned courage through some of his own failures of courage.
On March 6, Joe will shepherd our church to sing with a sermon from Colossians 3:16. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” That will be a timely message ahead of our evening with the Gettys on March 11.
Read more from Joe, pick up one of his books, and follow him on Twitter.
A lot of good material came out of Rome. Paul was from there. Peter wrote from there. Minneapolis has been a hot-spot for faithful Word workers, as have been other cities in their own way, including ours. Join me in greeting these faithful brothers from Minneapolis.
When the Sadducees came to Jesus with a disingenuous question about the resurrection, his response was direct: “you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Mk. 12:24). We explored this interaction in Sunday’s sermon, “He is God of the Living.” The Sadducees insisted that there would be no future resurrection, that when we died that was it. It’s a brutal way to live. As in Jesus’ day we too are tempted to pursue religion without the truth of resurrection, to see the world as matter in motion without ultimate meaning.
Jesus’ chief interest in coming was souls. But we do well to ponder how a denial of a truth like the resurrection is destructive for both souls and societies. It’s by pondering the course of bad ideas that we more clearly see and speak the true goodness of the good news, to speak to our neighbors and the need of the age.
Maybe for you this pursuit isn’t so much about speaking to others as it is about coming to terms with the claims of Scripture yourself. As we said Sunday, if you have rejected Christianity because you cannot buy-in to the resurrection, you should be commended for seeing that claim for what it is. Whatever the case, I’d like you to meet someone who knew both the Scriptures and the power of God.
Meet Francis Schaeffer, a Recently Dead Pastor
It’s good for us to read the works of dead pastors from long ago, but it’s also good to read the works of dead pastors from not so long ago. In this case, the works of a man like Francis Schaeffer—a pastor and apologist from the mid-to-late 20th century—are proven valuable for two reasons. First, they have stood the test of time. Time is a wonderful sorting mechanism in a world of so many words. Second, his work has stood the test of time because he was a man who understood the times. Schaeffer was an exegete of the Scriptures and the present stage on which God’s saving plans are unfolding.
Francis Schaeffer was an academic but no less an evangelist. His work in understanding the world was powered by his love for the people who inhabit the world, as it should be. If you’re a skeptic yourself, he had you in mind.
Whereas Mohler first encountered Schaefer through his books, Guinness came to know Schaeffer in Schaeffer’s home turned ministry called L’Abri, which he co-founded in Switzerland with his wife Edith. If your interest is piqued, read Jerram Barr’s, “Francis Schaeffer: The Man and His Message,” for his story, his emphases, and some critique.
Where to Begin
With the Sadducee’s error in mind, this Sunday I quoted this excerpt from Schaeffer’s, A Christian Manifesto:
“Those who hold the material-energy, chance concept of reality, whether they are Marxist or non-Marxist, not only do not know the truth of the final reality, God, they do not know who Man is. Their concept of Man is what Man is not, just as their concept of final reality is what final reality is not. Since their concept of Man is mistaken, their concept of society and of law is mistaken, and they have no sufficient base for either society or law.”
Schaeffer had a way of getting under the surface of things. One of his central critiques of Christians in his day was that, as he said, “they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals.” That is, we tend to see issues like pornography, the breakdown of the family, abortion, etc. instead of the total world and story in which these tragedies emerge. Schaeffer’s burden was to help us understand this.
For an entry into Schaeffer’s work, A Christian Manifesto is a good place to start, but let me offer a few other options. Three books together form the heart of his apologetic work: The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. These books will help to those wrestling with questions about the truthfulness of the Christian worldview and those who are engaging friends disaffected by Christianity. High School students and their parents will get help as well. Here’s from Escape from Reason:
“People today are trying to hang on to the dignity of man, but they do not know how to, because they have lost the truth that man is made in the image of God. . . . We are watching our culture put into effect the fact that when you tell men long enough that they are machines, it soon begins to show in their actions. You see it in our whole culture—in the theater of cruelty, in the violence in the streets, in the death of man in art and life.”
The title of another book describes its aim: How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. We do well to study history with a Christian worldview. But the purpose of doing so must always be fidelity to the God of history in our own day. If you can put up with the dated and even cheesy production, watch the the video series by the same name:
There are a host of volumes written by those who studied with Schaeffer in some fashion. One of the most important among them—and a book you would do well to have on the shelf—is Nancy Pearcy’s, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. For some reading on the life and ongoing relevance of Schaeffer’s work, check out the Summer 2020 edition of Southern Baptist Journal of Theology on the occasion of L’Abri’s 65th anniversary, edited by my dear friend Stephen Wellum—there, again, another influence of mine influenced by Schaeffer.
No Little People
Schaeffer influenced the world with his words, but here are some words he wrote that explain his reach: “A compassionate open home is part of Christian responsibility, and should be practiced up to the level of capacity.” He more than understood the truth of Scripture for our day, but embodied it in Christian hospitality that changed the world.
This Sunday we will be in the next passage in Mark, 12:28-44, where we meet scribes who like the best seats and a poor woman who contributes all she has to live on. In all our work to understand the world, let’s remember our place in it with Schaeffer’s help—a man for whom there truly were No Little People:
Jesus commands Christians to seek consciously the lowest room. All of us — pastors, teachers, professional religious workers and non-professional included — are tempted to say, “I will take the larger place, because it will give me more influence for Jesus Christ.” Both individual Christians and Christian organizations fall prey to the temptation of rationalizing this way as we build bigger and bigger empires. But according to the Scripture this is backwards: We should consciously take the lowest place, unless the Lord himself extrudes us into a greater one.
It is there we come to know both the Scriptures and the power of God.
