Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Church Planting Is for Wimps

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That’s the provocative title of a little book I recently couldn’t put down once I started reading it:

Mike McKinley. Church Planting Is for Wimps: How God Uses Messed-up People to Plant Ordinary Churches That Do Extraordinary Things. IX Marks. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010. 126 pp. [Cf. Mark Dever’s interview of Mike.]

The title may mislead you to think that this isn’t a book for you, but it’s instructive on many levels for church leaders in general—not just for those who are planting or revitalizing churches.

Mike is a witty, self-effacing writer, and the book is light and entertaining, serious and insightful. I probably laughed out loud while reading it about as frequently as I do when reading Carl Trueman. Highly recommended.

What Does It Mean to Love God with Your Mind?

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John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79:

What does it mean to love God “with all your mind” [Matt 22:37]? I take it to mean that we direct our thinking in a certain way; namely, our thinking should be wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things.

Chapter 6 (pp. 79–88) unpacks that definition.

Piper has thought about that definition for a long time. As recently as the mid-1990s, he told Don Carson that he wasn’t sure what it means to love God with your mind.

Cf. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 484:

Noll and others often cite Jesus’ injunction to love the Lord your God your God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30) as if that justifies all intellectual effort expended by a Christian. John Piper, in a private conversation, thoughtfully commented that he was unsure what the passage means: What precisely does it mean to love God with one’s mind? It is not obvious. This is not the place to embark on a full-scale exegesis. Remembering, however, that the “heart” in biblical thought is not so much the seat of the emotions as the seat of thought and of the whole person, both “loving God with your heart” and “loving God with your mind” are bound up with thinking the right things about God. They cannot simply be equated with all intellectual endeavor undertaken by a Christian, even though such endeavor must be undertaken coram Deo. But whatever the full sweep of this injunction, it cannot mean less than a God-inspired delight in all of God’s thoughts insofar as he has disclosed them, and a God-given determination to dethrone all competing systems of thought and bring them into captivity to the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5). And that requires constant, thoughtful Bible reading, theological reflection, interaction with Christian thinkers from the past, humble assessment of the currents of our age and courageous determination not to become their slave.

It is precisely here, I fear, that many evangelical intellectuals have failed.

Pitfalls and Benefits of Small Group Bible Study

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My church’s small groups started meeting together again last night, and this week I benefited immensely from reading this practical and insightful new book:

Orlando Saer. Iron Sharpens Iron: Leading Bible-Oriented Small Groups That Thrive. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2010. 142 pp.

In the opening chapter (which you can read here), Saer explains three pitfalls and four benefits of small group Bible study (pp. 10–22):

Potential Pitfalls of Small Group Bible Study

  1. The vertical pushed out by the horizontal: they can turn into little more than social groups.
  2. The message sidelined by the method: members can become addicts to one way of encountering God.
  3. The blind led by the blind: meetings can become simply opportunities to pool ignorance.

Benefits of Small Group Bible Study

  1. A good place to listen to God: each can help the others study the Bible.
  2. A good place to talk to God: each can pray for the others in an informed way.
  3. A good place to care for one another: each can carry the others’ burdens.
  4. A good place from which to reach the lost: members can work together to advance the gospel.

Don’t Call It a Comeback

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This book comes out at the end of the month:

Kevin DeYoung, ed. Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Same Faith for a New Day. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.

My chapter in the book is entitled “Scripture: How the Bible is a Book Like No Other” (pp. 59–69).

Update on February 14, 2011: Crossway gave me permission to upload a PDF of my chapter for personal use only.

Kevin recently asked me to briefly answer this question: “What do you see as the biggest threat to the authority of the Scriptures among evangelicals today?” Answer here.

Explaining Anti-intellectualism

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Bradley G. Green, The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 179–80:

If what I am arguing is true [pp. 175–78 summarize the book’s argument], then the anti-intellectualism that sometimes marks traditional Christianity needs to be addressed. If the gospel has within it the resources to promote the life of the mind, why do we see anti-intellectualism in portions of the Christian church? I can only offer three brief comments here.

First, it is likely that some persons have been unfairly written off as anti-intellectuals. Christians should be slow to believe what the secular media tells us about this or that Christian group.

Second, much of what passes for intellectual sophistication in contemporary culture is—if we are honest—undeserving of that description. If the acquisition of true knowledge requires—as I have argued in this book—that our hearts and wills be properly ordered, then much of what passes for knowledge is not, in fact, true knowledge.

Third, a pastoral word: C. S. Lewis argued in “Learning in War-Time” that certain Christians are called—by vocation—to apply their minds in a sustained way to the intellectual life. Christians who engage in intensive study should never forget the Christian church. . . . Christians engaging in scholarship should consider the moral obligation of their task. We engage in the life of the mind—at least partially—because we have a moral obligation to help and indeed to protect other Christians as we are able.

Green is not disingenuously generous here. He’s a gracious man, and his brief answer at the end of his book is just that—gracious.

Related: John Piper, “Facing the Challenge of Anti-intellectualism,” in Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 113–50.

Some New Books That Discuss the Holocaust

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I recently read some new books that directly or indirectly discuss the Holocaust. All of them are worth reading. In different ways they open our eyes to how heinous humans can be, and they lead us to pray with John, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).

My favorites = books 5 and 6.

1. Neal Bascomb. Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World’s Most Notorious Nazi. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Intriguing story. Excessively detailed. Would make a good modern movie.

2. George W. Bush. Decision Points. New York: Crown, 2010. Fascinating account of Bush’s life and presidency. Discusses the Middle East political quagmire, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust.

3. Paul Johnson. Churchill. New York: Penguin, 2010. Swashbuckling. Cf. my previous posts.

4. Ben Macintyre. Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory. New York: Crown, 2010. Not as thrilling as I thought it’d be. Excessively detailed. Second half is much better than first half. Suggestion: Read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Pandoras Briefcase” instead.

5. Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Nashville: Nelson, 2010. Gripping, inspiring story. Filled with theological insights.

6. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Vol. 7 of Harry Potter. 7 vols. New York: Levine, 2007. The Ministry of Magic : Lord Voldemort and non-pure-bloods (esp. Muggles) :: “The Ministry” of the Third Reich : Satan/Adolf Hitler and non-Arians (esp. Jews). (Jenni and I enjoyed listening to this audiobook again.)

7. Carl R. Trueman. Histories and Fallacies: Problems Faced in the Writing of History. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010. Proves why Holocaust Denial is nonsense by distinguishing between neutrality (which is “practically impossible” and “logically inconceivable”) and objectivity (pp. 17–21, 25–68; cf. “Example Two: Was Luther a Racist?” pp. 129–38).

Linda McMahon’s WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)

Judgmentalism

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That’s the title of chapter 17 in this painfully convicting book:

Jerry Bridges. Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2007. 185 pp.

Judgmentalism is a sinfully “critical spirit, a condemning attitude” (D. A. Carson,  Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World , p. 105). We can be judgmental about nearly anything.

The point of this post is not to debate disputed positions; it’s about our disposition. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong; it’s about applying the gospel to our sinfully critical spirits and condemning attitudes. We might think of judgmental people as those with “stricter” standards, but people with “looser” standards can be judgmental, too. Whatever our views may be on disputed issues like the ones below, we can be guilty of judgmentalism. Jesus died for that sin.

When my mind is fixed on the gospel, I have ample stimulation to show God’s love to other people. For I am always willing to show love to others when I am freshly mindful of the love that God has shown me. (Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer , p. 24)

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Jerry Bridges (b. 1929) turned 82 last month. He’s a prolific author and a humble, gospel-centered man. You can get to know him a little better via C. J. Mahaney’s brief text and audio interviews. (See also his books and audio.)

Below I quote portions of his chapter on judgmentalism (pp. 141–48, headings added). This will likely whet your appetite to read the whole chapter, especially in light of chapters 1–6.

Introduction

The sin of judgmentalism is one of the most subtle of our “respectable” sins because it is often practiced under the guise of being zealous for what is right. It’s obvious that within our conservative evangelical circles there are myriads of opinions on everything from theology to conduct to lifestyle and politics. Not only are there multiple opinions but we usually assume our opinion is correct. That’s where our trouble with judgmentalism begins. We equate our opinions with truth. (p. 141)

Example 1: Dress

I grew up in the mid-twentieth century, when people dressed up to go to church. Men wore jackets and ties (usually suits and ties) and women wore dresses. Sometime in the 1970s, men began to show up at church wearing casual pants and open-collar shirts. Many women began to wear pants. For several years, I was judgmental toward them. Didn’t they have any reverence for God? Would they dress so casually if they were going to an audience with the president? That sounded pretty convincing to me. [Read more…] about Judgmentalism

Worship Traditions

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John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (A Theology of Lordship; Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 237–38:

[The Protestant Reformers] used a very broad brush to eliminate from their theology and worship anything they considered contrary to Scripture or supplementary to Scripture. So the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture has served as a weapon against the imposition of extrabiblical notions on the conscience of the believer.

Nevertheless, nearly five hundred years have passed since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, and during that time Protestantism itself has accumulated a large amount of tradition. Some of this is good, some bad. My present point is that it is just as important as ever to distinguish human tradition from the norms of Scripture and to fight any attempt to put the two on the same level of authority. Some cases in point:

. . . . Many traditions have also developed concerning worship and other aspects of church life. These concern the style and instrumentation of worship songs, the order of events in worship, degree of formality or informality, and so on. Many of these are not commanded by Scripture, but many are in accord with broad biblical principles. The problem is that church people will sometimes defend their particular practice as mandatory on all Christians, and they will criticize as spiritually inferior churches that use different styles and patterns. Often the criteria used are not scriptural, but aesthetic. People argue that this style of music is more dignified, that that liturgy is more ancient, and so forth. These aesthetic and historical criteria are often used in place of Scripture, leading to the condemnations of practices that Scripture permits and commanding of practices that Scripture does not command. That, too, in my judgment, violates the principle of sola Scriptura, the sufficiency of Scripture.

Related: John MacArthur on How to Serve Christians Who Are Needlessly Restrictive