Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Practical Theology

You Take Me the Way I Am

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I recently heard Ingrid Michaelson’s catchy pop song “The Way I Am”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt1Ny_rLp74

It encapsulates the “I love you because you make me feel good about myself” idea that Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage  repeatedly refutes (see especially chapters 1 and 3). Keller rejects the contemporary idea that love means finding your perfectly compatible thrill-inducing soul mate:

[S]exual attractiveness was not the number one factor that men named when surveyed by the National Marriage Project. They said that “compatibility” above all meant someone who showed a “willingness to take them as they are and not change them.” “More than a few of the men expressed resentment at women who try to change them. . . . Some of the men describe marital compatibility as finding a woman who will ‘fit into their life.’ ‘If you are truly compatible, then you don’t have to change,’ one man commented.” (pp. 30–31)

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It would be wrong to lay on men the full responsibility for the shift in marriage attitudes. [Read more…] about You Take Me the Way I Am

Honor and Shame

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I recently read three books in a row that each happen to highlight a common theme: how the honor-shame culture of NT times differs drastically from our culture. Not only is it fascinating; it’s important for understanding the Bible.

1. Ben Witherington III. Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.

[Excerpt from a section entitled “Rhetorical Conventions or Apostolic Hubris? (pp. 63–64)]

Let’s consider an example of socio-rhetorical conventions. What in the world is going on in 2 Corinthians 10–13, especially considering what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that he will boast in nothing but the cross of Christ? Isn’t he boasting about himself in 2 Corinthians 10–13 (or in Phil. 3)? What should we make of Paul’s autobiographical remarks in such texts?

As it turns out, there were rhetorical rules about boasting. In fact, Plutarch wrote a little treatise on what constituted “Inoffensive Self Praise.” What is interesting about 2 Corinthians 10–13 is that while Paul does follow these rules in a self-deprecating sort of way, he also subverts the whole way that ancients would normally boast about themselves by boasting of things they would never brag about. No one would brag about how many times they had been stoned, how many times they had been run out of town, how many times they had been shipwrecked, and how many times they had been pursued and betrayed by their co-religionists, and especially no one would have bragged about how they escaped danger by being lowered over a city wall in a basket under the cover of darkness. I like to call this story (mentioned in both Acts 9:25 and 2 Cor. 11:32–33) St. Paul the Basket Case. [Read more…] about Honor and Shame

Confront and Engage

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Carl R. Trueman, Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow  (2nd ed.; Fearn, Scotland: Focus, 2011), 8–9:

[W]ere I to write the book today, it would be different in certain respects. . . . I would want to modify, or at least off-set, my promotion of biblical theological teaching and preaching by emphasizing the need for the preacher to confront and engage his hearers. ‘Hey, I bet you never saw Jesus in this text before,’ is not an adequate application of the Bible; and yet too many so-called redemptive historical preachers and teachers in the Vos (or perhaps, to be charitable and not to impute the sins of the followers to the founder) pseudo-Vos tradition, consider their job to be done when they produced a nice, neat, dry-as-dust lecture on a passage which does just that and no more.

9Marks Workshop in NYC

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Guest post by Matthew Hoskinson

Next week 9Marks Ministries is hosting a two-day workshop on church health. The host is Gallery Church, which meets on the fifth floor of 1160 Broadway (on the northeast corner of 27th).

Leading the speakers’ list is Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and author of numerous philosophy of ministry resources like 9 Marks of a Health Church, The Deliberate Church, and Polity. Other speakers include Jeramie Rinne, Garrett Kell, and Shai Linne.

The event begins tomorrow evening and runs through the day Thursday. The cost is just $45 and includes breakfast and lunch Thursday.

If you live in or near the city, I encourage you to attend. The sessions will help you as you consider the place of the local church in your life and growth in Christ.

For more information and to register for the event, check out the workshop’s webpage and the video below:

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Update. Online registration is now closed. You can still register at the door.

Two Kinds of Preaching

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Guest post by Mark Rogers

Parsons Cooke:

There are two ways of handling divine truth. The one uses it as a mere subject of discourse, the mere theme of a beautiful and splendid oration, the mere block of marble on which the sculptor displays his art. The other uses it as a sharp threshing instrument having teeth, to produce the broken and contrite heart. Let one propose to himself the true end of preaching — not the charming of his hearers by the beauty of his discourses, not the convincing of them that he is a splendid preacher, but the awakening in their minds of views and feelings answering to the truths which he utters; then let him employ whatever arts of eloquence, whatever powers of persuasion, whatever resources of learning, whatever impulses of genius, may pertain to him, to secure this single end. Then his splendid gifts, if he has them, assume a new lustre from the heavenly spirit and aim of their application. In such preaching, the wisdom of God and the power of God come forth. Such a ministry is in the highest degree eloquent, speaking as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified. – Recollections of Rev. E.D. Griffin, or, Incidents Illustrating His Character, 141.

Edward Dorr Griffin:

Let your chief attention be directed to your style and address, and the soul of your conversation has evaporated. Let your attention be engrossed by your subject or by an earnest desire to impart instruction or pleasure to those around you, and you are a different man….

The operation which takes place in a Christian church by the power of truth and the divine Spirit, is wholly different from that which took place in a Roman forum by the influence of Cicero’s elequence…. Pelagians may do the same in the pulpit: but Calvinists know that here the victory is to be won, ‘not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord’; and they rely on the energy of truth in the hands of the Spirit to produce, not natural and transient effects, but supernatural and permanent transformations of heart and life.  – “A Sermon on the Art of Preaching,: Delivered Before the Pastoral Association of Massachusetts, in Boston, May 25, 1825,” (Boston, T. R. Marvin, 1825), 6-7.

A Good Bible-Story Book with Thousands of Pictures

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I recently finished reading all 215 stories in this book to my three-year-old daughter:

Doug Mauss, ed. The Action Bible: God’s Redemptive Story.  Illustrated by Sergio Cariello. Colorado Springs, CO: Cook, 2010. 748 pp. Audiobook, 10.2-hours.

Thoughts:

  1. I was skeptical at first how a comic-book approach like this would work, but the book responsibly presents the Bible’s storyline chronologically. It’s divided into 215 short stories spanning Genesis to Revelation.
  2. It’s attention-grabbing and attention-keeping. My daughter loves it! She daily asked me, “Daddy, would you please read God’s Redemptive Story to me tonight?!” And after each story ended, she would immediately ask, “Would you read another one?!” She was riveted to the pages as we worked our way through the Bible’s storyline. I’d estimate that it took us about 15–20 hours to read together, and she enjoyed every minute of it. [Read more…] about A Good Bible-Story Book with Thousands of Pictures

How to Manipulate People to Make (Fake) Professions of Faith

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Jack Hyles, “The Invitation Time,” chapter 27 in The Hyles Church Manual (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1968), 279–82 (numbering added; this chapter reprints most of ch. 7 in Hyles’s Let’s Build an Evangelistic Church):

After observing for nearly twenty-two years the preaching of hundreds of preachers across America, I have come to the conclusion that many of us need intensive help in the conducting of a public invitation. Many wonderful gospel messages can be rendered ineffective by a weak invitation.

On the other hand, many average preachers can be rewarded greatly with the use of an effective, pungent, public invitation. Though in many places a public invitation is seldom used and even considered out of date, it is still true that the greatest soul-winning churches utilize an effective, spiritual, Spirit-filled, powerful invitation as their greatest means of evangelism. May we look at a few practical pointers concerning the invitation.

1. Starting the Invitation

  1. Do not reveal the closing of the sermon. When the sermon reaches a high point or a climax, then would be a good time to close abruptly. Even if the sermon is not completed, sometimes God may lead one to close prematurely in order to start the invitation from a high spiritual plane. This also prevents the unsaved from “digging in,” so to speak, before the invitation is given. [Read more…] about How to Manipulate People to Make (Fake) Professions of Faith