Blog Posts

6 Reasons to Take Seminary Chapel Seriously | For The Church
“Historically, a chief strategy toward forming students has been the seminary’s chapel worship gathering. In the points below, I want to highlight the seriousness of chapel and God’s good purposes in it for the seminarian. ”

4 Lies That Cause Pastors to Neglect Their Families | For The Church
“The walls of our church’s nursery needed painting. So there I was, on my regular day off with a brush in my hand. A country song I’d never heard before—’The Dollar,’ by Jamey Johnson—filled the room as I splashed the first coat of something called Polar Bear over the entrance door…”

My Five Counseling Goals for Session One | Biblical Counseling Coalition
“Effective biblical counseling begins with a successful first session, and a successful first session requires clear goals. What should we seek to accomplish in our first counseling session? Let me suggest five goals. While our methods and techniques will vary, the following five goals—welcome, know, hope, plan, commit—seem comprehensively wise to pursue.”

Research Reveals the 5 Biggest Influencers on Your Child’s Spiritual Health – Eric Geiger
“The study analyzed 2,000 Protestant adults who finished their parenting journey with one or more kids now between 18-30. The study looked at faith characteristics of those kids now, all grown up, and looked at the parenting practices and habits of the children as they were growing up… I am going to briefly offer the top five. If you care for your kid’s spiritual journey, this research is gold:”

Evidences of God’s Grace in the New Calvinism – Tim Challies
“Whatever else we can say about New Calvinism—and there’s lots to say—we can’t deny this: It displays many evidences of God’s grace. It is beyond dispute that God has been blessing his people and glorifying his name through this movement. In this video I want to point out 6 evidences of God’s grace in this Reformed resurgence.”

When I Lost a Daughter, My Children Lost a Sister | Christianity Today
“families that lose a child often struggle with social deprivation and poor health. Even a decade after losing a child, parents (especially mothers) face an increased mortality rate. But such loss may be hardest on children, Carroll said, with preteens exhibiting higher levels of depression and anxiety and adolescents being more likely to show attention problems and anger.”

A Confrontation Checklist – LifeWay Pastors
From the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12) to Nehemiah (Nehemiah 5) to Jesus (Matthew 18) and Paul (1 Corinthians 5) examples of confrontation permeate the Bible. The following is a checklist (drawn primarily from Nehemiah 5:1-13) that I hope will help the next time you have to confront someone living in sin.

Feeding on Christ Criticizing Our Camp – Feeding on Christ
“We readily lend our weight to the demonization of those we perceive to be most dangerous to the cause we seek to champion, while neglecting significant error within our own affinity groups.”

How Michael Phelps Conquered His Demons: ‘I Didn’t Want to Live’
“When I’m able to talk through my problems, it’s like a one-hundred-pound weight has been lifted off my chest, and I’m able to live a happier life, be a better father, be a better husband, and be a harder worker. It’s taken me thirty years to get there, but it doesn’t matter. I was able to get through it and learned a lot about myself by going through some of the darkest places I’ve ever been to in my life, and I’m a better person now because of it. And you know, the suicide rate is way too high. This is life-changing. If I never talked, who knows if I’d still be alive today.”

Kindle Deals

For your non-Kindle book buying needs please consider using Reformation Heritage Books in the USA and Reformed Book Services in Canada. Good value prices and shipping.

God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity by Kelly M. Kapic ($2.99)

Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership by John Dickson ($2.99)

Is Hell for Real or Does Everyone Go To Heaven? edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson ($1.99)

Becoming Worldly Saints: Can You Serve Jesus and Still Enjoy Your Life? by Michael E. Wittmer ($2.99)

Yesterday we met a pastor who claimed that he needed more than the Bible for Biblical preaching. Today I’m going to confront him and call him to repentance for undermining the sufficiency and authority of Scripture. My part of the conversation is in bold.

Good morning Pastor N. T. Grayshon. After talking yesterday, I came away deeply concerned about your view of Scripture and wanted to make sure that I heard you rightly. Did you say that sources of knowledge from outside of the Bible were necessary for understanding, preaching, and applying the Bible?”

Yes, but I can understand how you might misunderstand me. So let me give you an example. I always think it’s better to deal in concrete practical terms rather than in theoretical abstract arguments where different words (like “sufficiency”) often mean different things to different people.

Let’s take digital technology for example. I preached a sermon about this a few weeks ago. The sermon arose out of numerous conversations with parents and Sunday school teachers who were increasingly worried about the impact of smartphones on their children. It wasn’t that the kids were viewing porn, violent games, or anything like that. Most of it was just seemingly harmless stuff like Snapchat, Instagram, social media, etc. They couldn’t put their finger on it or prove it but they all felt that smartphone use was damaging the kids’ ability to concentrate, to relate, to manage their emotions, and even to read their Bibles and pray. So, they asked me to preach a sermon on it!

I wasn’t sure where to turn, apart from “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex. 20:12) and insisting that the kids simply obey their parents and teachers when they said that they should put their devices away. However, I could just imagine the unproductive conversations that would ensue in many homes.

“Stop using your phone!”

“Why?”

“’Cos I said so and God said you are to obey me!”

That doesn’t prepare children for life outside the home. I’ve found it’s much better to help people implement Scriptural imperatives by supporting them with reasons and motives. That’s the way God usually works in the Scriptures.

I then noticed that there was a motive clause: “….that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord God is giving you.” I thought, “If I can prove that obeying their parents on this would extend their lives then that would surely be much more persuasive.”

But there’s nothing about that in Scripture.

I know, that’s why I turned to Amazon! I bought:

• Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids-and How to Break the Trance
• Reset Your Child’s Brain: A Four-Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades, and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen-Time,
• iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood–and What That Means for the Rest of Us

I was absolutely stunned at the research demonstrating the physical, chemical, emotional, and relational, damage that excessive use of digital technology is doing to our kids. Some of the books had scientifically tested various remedies and were able to recommend ways to explain this to kids, implement changes, manage “withdrawal symptoms,” and gauge the best limits for different kids.

After I’d done this research I changed my text to something much more direct: “You shall not kill” (Ex. 20:13), and was able to argue that excessive technology use was forbidden because the sixth commandment “requires all lawful endeavors to preserve our own life and the life of others” (Shorter Catechism 68).

Later in the sermon I also referred to texts about the duty of stewarding our bodies for God’s glory (1 Cor. 6:15-20) and the command to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2), which, at the very least, requires us to care for the health of our brains.

So, the Bible was the foundational authority for my sermon. The Bible was absolutely necessary. The Bible was sufficient to provide these basic principles. In this way, as someone once said, the Scriptures are authoritative, sufficient, necessary, and not surpassed or equalled for biblical preaching.

But science was also essential to proving that, above certain levels, digital technology use is damaging to our kids’ physical, mental, emotional, and relational health, and therefore a sin. It was also essential to guiding parents and kids about how to discover optimum time-limits of digital engagement, and what strategies work in managing technology for our good and God’s glory—although none of these books mentioned God, sadly.

Obviously, the Bible did not have exhaustive information about this subject. It had necessary and authoritative truth. But so did science. Science provided me not just with helpful facts but with necessary facts. I not only included a lot of these facts in my sermon, I encouraged my congregation to thank and worship God for enabling scientists to discover this vital information and for sharing it with us so that we can advance our obedience to this command, progress in sanctification in the parenting realm, and also help our kids move forward in their spiritual lives.

But, by saying that the Bible does not have exhaustive information on the subject of digital technology use, are you not undermining the authority of the Bible?

Only if the Bible claimed to have exhaustive information on it and then failed to deliver. But the Bible does not claim to be an exhaustive source on the way digital technology undermines obedience and sanctification. It does claim to be comprehensive though, in the sense that it has something vital to say about every area of life.,

Are you not abandoning the protestant doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture?

No, not at all. The Reformation doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture was directed against the Roman Catholic claim of additional special revelation (see here), not against the existence of helpful and even necessary truth that God has made available outside of the Bible.

So are you saying that if we didn’t have science, we couldn’t help people in this area of sanctification?

No, I’m saying that if we didn’t have science, we couldn’t help people as much as when we do. In fact, I’d agree with John Calvin who said that truth from non-biblical sources was not just helpful, and not just necessary, but to neglect it is a sin.

The human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. . . . We will be careful . . . not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears. . . .If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole foundation of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? . . . No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. But if the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. For if we neglect God’s gift freely offered in these arts, we ought to suffer just punishment for our sloths (Calvin, Institutes 2.2 15-16)

Sounds like it’s me that needs to repent! Anyway, how did your congregation respond to the sermon?

Well, from what I’ve heard in the weeks after preaching it, there have been some wonderful conversations between parents and their kids. Kids were able to see the scriptural authority for preserving their lives, for stewarding their brains for God’s glory, and for renewing their minds. But they also said that the introduction of the science nailed the Scriptures into their minds in life-changing ways. Many kids have asked their parents to get them these digital technology books so that they can learn how to protect themselves from themselves. But the best part of this has been that the kids have seen how comprehensive the Bible is, how relevant and authoritative the Bible is to every part of their lives, and are studying their Bibles more than they ever did before.

I’m actually dealing with a lot of counseling problems in this area of digital technology in my own congregation. Sounds like we need more than the Bible for biblical counseling too. Is that too dangerous to say?

Why don’t you come back tomorrow and we can discuss that?

Blogs

Is Scripture Alone the Same Thing as Scripture Only?
Couple of recent articles on the sufficiency of Scripture:

“The Reformers held to sola Scriptura, not solo Scriptura. Solo Scriptura advocates a radical individualism that rejects the church, creeds, confessions, and tradition as having any authority while embracing private judgment above all else. This view radicalizes the Protestant ethic and undermines it. Such an approach finds no credence in the teaching of the Reformers or the early church. “

And this one: The Sufficiency of the Bible Contra Rome.

Breaking the Last Socially-Acceptable Addiction
“Most American Christians have an addiction and we all know it. The addiction is social media. You don’t think you do? Here’s a simple test”

Grace for the Afflicted
“Too often, we approach mental illness from a purely spiritual point of view, interpreting all mental health problems as simply spiritual in nature. Too many churches, and their leaders, are tempted to dismiss psychiatry and neurological discoveries as purely secular, or even anti-Christian. It’s hard to make a case for that way of thinking when brilliant and committed Christian professionals like Stanford share what they know, through the lens of what we all believe.”

With Rising Teen Suicides, the Church Cannot Afford Mixed Messages on Mental Health
“According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of suicide for girls aged 15–19 doubled between 2007 and 2015, and there was a smaller though significant uptick in suicide rates for boys. A Time article in late 2016 indicated that though there has been a substantial increase in teens who are depressed, the country has not seen corresponding growth in resources for mental health options.”

Autism Speaks | Biblical Counseling Coalition
“With rates of autism rising, counselors will be in a position to help parents struggling with these and other questions. This post will briefly consider issues that parents of autistic kids will likely face and give initial direction for counsel.”

Kindle Books

Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul David Tripp $4.99.

Faker: How to live for real when you’re tempted to fake it by Nick Macdonald $2.99.

“Do we need more than the Bible for biblical counseling?” This question lies at the heart of one of the debates surrounding the sufficiency of Scripture in the Biblical Counseling movement.

Every Biblical Counselor I know of accepts that non-biblical sources of knowledge can be helpful in counseling. Even Jay Adams admitted this at points. The debate is not about whether sources of knowledge such as science, sociology, etc., can be helpful. The debate is usually about whether they are necessary. The pressing question then is: “Do we need more than the Bible for biblical counseling?”

This is a tricky question because it’s so easy to caricature any answer other than a straightforward “No” as sinful Bible-undermining compromise. “See, he says the Bible is not enough. He says the Bible is not sufficient, etc.”

So let me try to take some of the heat out of the debate by asking another similar question about a related and (hopefully) less controversial domain: “Do we need more than the Bible for biblical preaching?”

Is the Bible enough?
The simple and instinctive answer most of us would offer is “No.” But let me ask you to pause and think a bit deeper and longer about it and see if the simple answer is perhaps a simplistic answer.

Yes, some have preached excellent sermons and all they have used is the Bible. Church historians could probably provide some examples of men whose library constituted one book: the Bible. They preached the Word, God blessed it, people were saved, and saints were edified. “Do we need more than the Bible for preaching?” Examples such as this would suggest no.

So, why is it that when we go into pastors’ studies today, their shelves are packed with books from every area of knowledge: theology books, Greek and Hebrew grammars and lexicons, biographies (sacred and secular), Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, church history, maps, fiction, social studies, modern ethics, critiques of the cults and false religion, analysis of modern trends and issues, politics, business, leadership, psychology, pedagogy, and so on. We also find their computers packed with software of various kinds that are central to their sermon preparation.

Let’s enter a study and ask one of them: “Do you need more than the Bible for preaching?”

He pauses, thinks, then answers, “No and yes.”

Confused, I press for clarification: “What do you mean?”

No and Yes
He replies: “No, I don’t need more than the Bible for preaching, in the sense that I could preach a sermon using only my Bible from start to finish and look to the Holy Spirit for help and blessing. However, I would probably have to stick to really simple texts and my sermon would probably be quite basic.”

“But yes, I do need more than the Bible for preaching, in that I could miss some crucial insights if I don’t know the background and culture of both the biblical text and of the people I’m preaching to. I could misinterpret Scripture if I don’t know how to do Greek and Hebrew word studies or if I don’t know the fundamentals of Greek and Hebrew syntax. I could confuse people if I didn’t follow the rules of logic and rhetoric in my presentation of my sermon. If I didn’t read outside of the Bible, I wouldn’t know the philosophies, errors, and heresies of the day that I should be counteracting and I wouldn’t know the problem areas of modern living that I should be applying the Word to. I wouldn’t have access to the sermon illustrations that I’m always picking up from reading books on the social sciences, popular biographies, cultural problems, etc. But I still need to look to the Holy Spirit for help and blessing, just as much (if not more) as if I only had a Bible.

“In summary, no, I don’t need more than the Bible for basic preaching of basic texts at a basic level. But yes, I do need more than the Bible if I really want my sermons to have maximal effectiveness, especially in long-term ministry, especially when preaching difficult passages and books, especially when addressing modern problems, and especially when it concerns issues that impact not only the soul but the body and the way the mind works.”

A compromiser who needs to repent?
This pastor insists that non-biblical sources of knowledge are more than just helpful for preaching; they are necessary. They are necessary if he wants to do maximum good to broken people in a broken world.

Is he undermining the sufficiency of Scripture? Has he abandoned the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura? Is he unfaithful? Is he a compromising integrationist? Has he contradicted what the Bible claims for itself? Does he need to repent? If the Bible alone was good enough for pastors in the past, why is it not good enough for us today?

This pastor needs to be confronted. Join me in his study tomorrow.

I was helped and challenged by this podcast interview with John Dyer, on Technology and the Spiritual Life. Dyer is Executive Director of Communications and Educational Technology, and Adjunct Professor in Media Arts and Worship at Dallas Theological Seminary. He’s also the author of From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology. I’d encourage you to listen to the whole interview, but to whet your appetite, here are my takeaways with some of the transcript.

Technology is a God-given transformative force

The way I often think about technology is kind of two things: 1. It is God given. 2. It is a transformative force. I would say, technology is a God given transformative force. That does help me say (that the Scriptures seem to say) that human creativity is good, full stop. It is God given. At the same time it is always going to be transforming something. It is going to transform my culture, my family, myself, my body, my mind, something like that. And so that helps me think what I’m going do with it.

Overuse of Technology “Blisters” the Brain

One thing Marshall McLuhan defines technology with is, that it is always an extension of your humanity. So for example, a telescope extending your eyes, or glasses extending your eyes, or a car extending your legs and so forth, or a shovel extending your arms. When we think about what modern technology extends, probably one of the major differences is that something like an iPhone is primarily working on operating on the level of your mind. And that is something that is not physical, you can’t see it, so sometimes I think its effects are harder to detect. Unlike blisters that we see immediately, that which happens in our mind is slower, takes place over time. 

Our minds adapt to what we do with them

One of the terms you will hear is neuro-plasticity and all that really means is that your mind is just like your body and that it adapts to whatever you have it to do over time. So for example, when we go into the gym we use tools based on how we want them to shape our body, right? So if we do a treadmill we want long lean legs and if we do leg press we want big strong legs. And the catch is that we can’t do both. So if you want to have your mind to be shaped in the direction where you really are good at reading long books, you got to do that, and if you want to be able to read lots of little disconnected bits, you should do that a lot. It is just hard to do both. You can’t be a marathon runner and a leg lifter. They are two different activities so you want to decide what kind of mind you want to shape just like when you are shaping your body, if you choose an apple versus a candy bar you know it is going to change you.

We can’t beat 17 PhD’s in the attention war

I think one thing to think about that, before we go on, is to remember that out there are technology companies that are employing people with seventeen PhD’s in human attention and all kinds of computer degrees, and their entire job is to get your eyes on your phone as often as possible in order to sell you ads. So you were trying to say, “I bet I can beat a thousand googlers, I can overcome that with my own will.” Well, that is very hard to do. I think to acknowledge that, is very important, because people are fighting for your attention in very active ways worth billions of dollars. So when we say: “oh I can probably just beat them,” that is a bold claim

Use devices for creating, not just consuming

What I try to differentiate between with my kids is whether they are creating something or if they are consuming something. So if one of my kids is saying “I want to write a story on the computer” or “I want to edit a video” or “I want to paint,” I will let them do that for as many hours as they want to do that. If they say “I want to watch a show,” we think a little more about that time. So one thing is to encourage people to say: “these devices are for making things and they are not just for consuming things.”

Kids need “driver-training” in digital device use

When we gave them a car we waited till they were fifteen and we had them go through this huge amount of training and responsibility and there were consequences to it when you violated it. So I think we want to do the same thing with the phone. We want to think through how to do some intense training with them, how to do some follow up and how to set some boundaries. So if you search for like “family technology contract,” there are millions on google, those can be really useful framing device. Also checking up on that every six months. We have given our kids one more little rule and that is to say: you are going to see some things evil on the internet. So it is not just that we will prevent it, we believe that they will see it. The idea with our kids is that we tell them, “hey, if you see something that you know you shouldn’t see, close the laptop and the phone and come talk to us about it.” Then you won’t be in trouble and we will work what is going on. So they have that expectation in there.

Blogs

Conversations through 95 Theses: Areas of Agreement
Brad Hambrick begins his charitable dissection of Biblical Counseling’s “95 Theses.”

How do you start a profitable conversation when you know there are going to be differences of opinion? You start where you agree. By starting where you are aligned, you accomplish two things: (a) you show that you are a fair-minded participant in the conversation, and (b) you can discern where differences would be most easily navigated.

Here’s How To Save Your Family From Technology Creep
“I consulted some parents, asking for their advice and input on setting aside family time and pushing away devices. Here’s what some of them said.”

Be a Boaz in Your Business
“If you’re a man blessed with authority and influence in the workplace, use it to protect and empower women. As you do so, you follow in the footsteps of not just Boaz, but Boaz’s greatest son, Jesus Christ.”

What Is a Writer Who Can’t Write?
Please pray for Tim. We need him.

“So here’s the deal: I’m a writer who can’t write. Sometimes I joke about it—I’m like a preacher without a voice or a painter without a brush. But seriously, who or what is a writer if he can’t write? The story behind the story is the cubital tunnel syndrome that has taken over my hands and left me unable to type. It’s not the tapping of the keys that gets me as much as the typing position—the rigid forearms, the cocked wrist, the extended fingers. That position is almost unbearable at the moment.”

When a Loved One “Comes Out”
“Loving and welcoming does not negate any of the other truths above. We must seek God’s best for our loved ones, which always means honoring Him first. We are never to sacrifice truth, but we also are not to sacrifice love.”

Decision paralysis and searching for paradise
“All this choice and information, often rather than enabling us to make better choices, leaves us with a fear of missing out (FOMO). Or perhaps a FOMP (fear of missing perfection), or even FOMSMP (fear of missing social-media perfection).”

How To Fall Asleep And Why We Need More
“Human beings are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent gain,” Walker says. “Many people walk through their lives in an underslept state, not realizing it.”

Kindle Books

For your non-Kindle book buying needs please consider using Reformation Heritage Books in the USA and Reformed Book Services in Canada. Good value prices and shipping.

The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World by Stephen J. Nichols $3.99.

To the Ends of the Earth: Calvin’s Missional Vision and Legacy by Michael A. G. Haykin $3.99.

American Hour: A Time of Reckoning and the Once and Future Role of Faith by Os Guinness $3.99.