Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Andy Naselli

Practicing Affirmation

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Earlier this month I read a book that I desperately needed:

Sam Crabtree. Practicing Affirmation: God-Centered Praise of Those Who Are Not God. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.

And I already need to read it again.

Sam Crabtree is executive pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, and John Piper, that church’s pastor for preaching and vision, writes the foreword.

Here’s an interview with the author (audio):

https://vimeo.com/51221224

And here are some excerpts from the book:

[T]he praising of people does not necessarily preclude the praising of God, if the people are commended ultimately for his glory. God is glorified in us when we affirm the work he has done and is doing in others. (p. 12)

Good affirmations are God-centered, pointing to the image of God in a person. (p. 18)

Proportionality matters when it comes to affirmation, for affirmation can be choked out by criticism, correction, or mere indifference and neglect. (p. 44)

It takes many affirmations to overcome the impact of a criticism, because criticisms are heavier and sting more. (p. 48)

Corrections tend to cancel affirmations, and the closer the proximity to correction, the more crippled the affirmation. (p. 64)

I can be so quick to point out the negative while taking the positive for granted, assuming people around me will behave the way I think they should and forgetting that I might have a role to play in encouraging them to behave in certain ways. (p. 74)

Not only commend people to their faces (or in letters), but commend them behind their backs, whether or not the report ever gets back to them. (p. 109)

Related: Bob Kaulflin on receiving compliments

Update: I named this book one of the top three of 2011.

Just Preach the Point of the Text

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Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation: How God’s Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action to His People (IX Marks; Chicago: Moody, 2010), 105–7, 112:

“We don’t think your preaching will build this church. So we have decided not to nominate you as our next pastor.” That is what the elders of a church said to me toward the end of a three-month interim pastorate.

It was a Sunday. We had just finished the church’s evening service, which I had led. My wife had gone home. And the four elders and I were now sitting in the living room of the elder chairman. My wife and I had prayed that, God willing, the interim pastorate would turn into a full-time pastorate. Apparently, that was not going to happen.

What was wrong with my preaching? That was the obvious question. The four brothers focused their answer almost entirely on one thing: my faithfulness to the biblical text. They put it like this: “Your preaching has been fine from the standpoint of saying true things, and much of what you’re saying comes out of the text you’re preaching. The problem is, your sermons tend to be 20 to 30 degrees off the main point of the text.” [Read more…] about Just Preach the Point of the Text

A Short Bibliography on the Church

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Timothy Savage, The Church: God’s New People (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 27 (numbering added):

  1. Belcher, Jim. Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009.
  2. Calvin, John. “The External Means or Aims by Which God Invites Us Into the Society of Christ and Holds Us Therein.” Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book 4. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960.
  3. Carson, D. A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005.
  4. Chester, Tim, and Steve Timmis. Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008.
  5. Dever, Mark. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000.
  6. Dever, Mark, and Paul Alexander. The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005.
  7. DeYoung, Kevin, and Ted Kluck. Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion. Chicago: Moody, 2009. [Cf. my review.]
  8. Edwards, Jonathan. “A Farewell Sermon.” In The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1979.
  9. Keller, Timothy. Gospel Christianity. Studies 7 and 8. New York: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003.
  10. Packer, J. I. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Chap. 3. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991. [Cf. my summary.]
  11. Stott, John. The Living Church: Convictions of a Lifelong Pastor. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2007.
  12. Strauch, Alexander. Biblical Eldership: Restoring the Eldership to Its Rightful Place in Church. Colorado Springs: Lewis and Roth, 1997.

God’s Promises

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Colin S. Smith, The Plan (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), pp. 15, 21–22, 29:

The Old Testament is the story of God’s amazing promises. Step back and try to take it in:

  1. God promises to give life to people who will reflect his glory.
  2. God promises to destroy evil and rid the world of its curse.
  3. God promises to bless people from all nations.
  4. God promises to reconcile sinners to himself through a sacrifice for sins.
  5. God promises that his people will live under the blessing of his rule forever.
  6. God promises that all his people will walk in all his ways.
  7. God promises to bring new life from the grave. . . .

Here is the breathtaking sweep of what God promises us in Jesus Christ. Jesus came and lived and died and rose again so that: [Read more…] about God’s Promises

Father, That Debt Is Paid

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Bryan Chapell, What Is the Gospel? (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 10:

Since the Son of God had no sin, his willingness to suffer on a cross and accept the penalty we deserve is far beyond any recompense that humanity could provide. Christ’s righteousness so overbalances our unrighteousness that his sacrifice is sufficient to compensate for the sin of the entire world and of all ages (Rom. 5:15–19; Heb. 9:26–28; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 2:2). God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice as a substitute for our punishment (1 Pet. 2:24). He paid the debt to justice we could not pay (Ps. 47:7–9; Titus 2:11–14). His suffering atones for (covers) our wrongs (1 John 4:10). His death rescues us from the hell we deserve (Gal. 3:13–14).

For those of us who wrestle with guilt, Christ’s provision is amazingly good news. In prison my brother David cannot pay the debt for crimes he has committed any more than we who are guilty of sin can clear the debt we owe a holy God for our breaking his law. Yet because Jesus came to pay our spiritual debt despite our spiritual destitution, David and you and I can live with hearts free of shame.

Chapell weaves the story of his brother throughout the 30-page booklet.

Eschatological Essentials

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Sam Storms, The Restoration of All Things (The Gospel Coalition Booklets; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), pp. 7–8 (numbering added):

The eschatological hope of the Christian is summarized well in the thirteenth and final article of The Gospel Coalition’s Confessional Statement. This statement does not address the variety of end-time scenarios present in the evangelical world but is designed to identify those essential elements of our eschatological hope that are embraced by all who affirm the authority of the inspired text. It is, therefore, a broadly evangelical statement that avoids the denominational and sectarian distinctives that have so often marred the discussion of God’s end-time purposes. It reads as follows:

  1. We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels,
  2. when he will exercise his role as final Judge,
  3. and his kingdom will be consummated.
  4. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust—the unjust to judgment and eternal conscious punishment in hell, as our Lord himself taught,
  5. and the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness.
  6. On that day the church will be presented faultless before God by the obedience, suffering, and triumph of Christ, all sin purged and its wretched effects forever banished.
  7. God will be all in all and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace.

Related:

  1. Schreiner: From Amil to Premil
  2. Are Millennial Views Essential?
  3. Mark Dever on the Function of Statements of Faith

 

Goldberg Variations

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It’s Bach around the clock at my house these days. God blessed us with the birth of our second child last weekend, and Gloria Grace is becoming well-acquainted with Bach’s masterful music, especially his “Goldberg Variations.”

Compare what I wrote in 2007:

Glenn Gould Plays Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”

Glenn Gould’s (Wikipedia) recordings of the Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach are among my all-time favorites. Amazon has excerpts of both his 1955 and 1981 recordings.

My favorite is his 1981 recording, which I’ve probably listened to more than any other piece in my music collection (over 200 times according to iTunes, but that doesn’t count years of listening to it on cassette tape and then CD prior to importing it to iTunes).

You can also watch him play on Google video (though I admit that he is eccentric!).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6984208089899995423#

Brilliant. Masterful. Edifying. And as Bach would say, Soli Deo gloria.