Great News from Canterbury: The Archbishop Sides with the Bible!

Go read how the archibishop of Canterbury is now saying that homosexuals must change to be admitted into the church! This marks a change from a position he advocated 20 years ago. Praise God, people can change their minds, repent of wrong thinking, and acknowledge the Bible as God’s word!

I wonder if this might be due to N. T. Wright’s positive influence on the Archbishop?

HT: Mike Bird

Review of Haggai, Malachi

Here’s my review of this very helpful commentary.

The Cross from a Distance: Atonement in Mark’s Gospel

Here’s my review of Peter Bolt’s excellent book.

What Is Prophecy and Has It Ceased?

As Paul is describing the activity of prophets in 1 Corinthians 14:29–30, he writes, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent.” 

From this statement, we know that (1) prophecy is revelatory because Paul refers to a “revelation” coming to a prophet. We also see from this that (2) prophecy is spontaneous, because these verses indicate that as one prophet is uttering a prophecy, another prophet gets an unexpected, unprepared revelation. This means that prophecy is not like teaching. Teaching is the communication of knowledge gained through study and preparation (cf. 2 Tim 2:15). I think it is also safe to say that (3) prophecy is inspired by the Holy Spirit, since prophecy is a spiritual gift (1 Cor 12:10). 

These points are generally agreed upon. Prophecy is Spirit inspired, spontaneous, revelatory utterance. The next question is whether the prophecies Paul is describing are like Old Testament prophecy. It is generally agreed that Old Testament prophecy is authoritative. Old Testament prophecy communicates the Word of God in the same way that the Bible communicates the Word of God. 

Wayne Grudem argues that NT prophecies like the ones Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 14 are not like OT prophecies. Grudem thinks that NT prophecies do not carry the authority Scripture carries, that they can be wrong, and that prophecy is basically the Lord bringing appropriate thoughts to people’s minds. 

If Grudem is correct, then every Christian who has ever communicated a thought that the Lord brought to mind has prophesied. He may be right, but I think that Paul’s use of the word “revelation” in 1 Corinthians 14:30 makes Grudem’s view unlikely. It seems that “revelation” entails more than the Lord bringing a helpful thought to mind. 

I think that NT prophecies are like OT prophecies. If they are inspired by the Spirit, they will not be erroneous and they will have the same authority Scripture has. The “weighing” of these prophecies probably refers to establishing whether the prophecy was inspired by the Spirit or not, and thus whether it was a true or false prophecy. If it was a true prophecy, they probably then weighed how it was to be applied, since it was the authoritative word of God. Let’s recall that the Christians in Corinth to whom Paul wrote did not have the whole New Testament as we have it. Paul was sending parts of it to them! 

I agree with Richard Gaffin’s argument that just as the twelve apostles are unique and not replaced by successors in the history of the church, so also the prophetic activity of the early church is foundational for the church. Once the foundation is laid, it is not repeated. I think this is what Paul means when he refers to the church being “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph 2:20). Having discussed the exegetical issues in detail, Gaffin writes, “Consequently, a major conclusion in our study from Ephesians 2:20 is that the New Testament prophets, along with the apostles, are the foundation of the church. They have a foundational, that is, temporary, noncontinuing function in the church’s history, and so by God’s design pass out of its life, along with the apostles” (95–96). 

I don’t think anyone after Paul is an apostle of the Lord Jesus, and I don’t think the Lord is still giving revelations that carry the authority of Scripture. The canon, like the apostolate, is closed, which means that prophecy has ceased.

Invitation to the 2006 Northbrook Conference

Dear Saint, 

Have you ever wondered what it means that as a believer in Jesus you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit? If we think on this for a moment, it is beyond what we have even dared to dream—God dwells in those of us who believe. Does this have cash value in your life? 

What about your church? Where two or three gather he is among us, and Paul calls the church God’s temple, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Is this relevant for the way you prepare to gather for worship? If you are a pastor, does this influence what you preach and teach? No church is holy like God is holy, which means that every church is going to have to practice church discipline. Are you obeying the instructions of the Lord Christ regarding church discipline? 

We are in desperate need of revival and reformation in our day. I am praying that God will do beyond what we can ask or think in local churches across the land. When we speak of revival we are speaking of a dramatic increase in concern for the things of God among the people of God: Christians trusting God through whelming floods, hungry for the word of God, thirsty for righteousness, zealous for the truth, giving their lives away in heroic self-denying neighbor-loving service, and, most of all, fearless proclamation of the good news that those who confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised him from the dead will be saved. 

Real revival doesn’t only pertain to Christians being consumed with the things of God, it also refers to astonishing numbers of new converts. We want to see multitudes of people born again, regenerated, made alive in Christ Jesus. It is the Spirit who gives life. May the Lord bring revival! 

If the Lord gives us a revival, awakened and renewed people will seek to re-shape all of society. This is what we mean by reformation. If individuals, families, churches, schools, and whole communities become radically committed to the glory of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, everything will be transformed. A transformation of society that results from healthy churches full of zealous Christians obeying the word of God is the kind of reformation we need. Would you join me in praying that God will save so many people that the whole culture will be re-formed around his word? 

I believe all of this can start one church at a time, and I believe that understanding what God has called the church to be as his temple, the dwelling place of the Spirit, can set a church on the path to revival and reformation. Would you prayerfully seek the Lord about joining us for The Northbrook Conference this fall? 

For Christ and his church,

Jim Hamilton

Culture, Family Worship, and the Church’s Worship

In God in the Wasteland David Wells defines culture as “the set of shared values that are held to prescribe what is normal in society.” As I’ve indicated before, when I first started hearing the words “Family Worship,” I was a little intimidated. It seemed like a weird thing to do, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try to preach a sermon to my wife and kids or come up with something wonderfully creative on a daily basis. It is so liberating to recognize that all that is meant by “Family Worship” is that we seek to read the Bible, sing a hymn or spiritual song, and pray together on a regular basis. (I think it’s also a great idea to memorize Scripture together and try to learn the answers to catechism questions).

For many evangelicals, it seems normal to watch blasphemous, vain, immoral tripe on television as a family, but it seems strange to even consider singing a hymn, reading a chapter of the Bible, and praying together as a family.

This is a huge problem in evangelical culture, and it shows that we are indeed more conformed to the world than we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

So I plan to distribute Don Whitney’s booklet on Family Worship as often as I get the opportunity, and I’m also glad that Richard Fields has developed a new tool for us at Redeemer. Those of you who are pastors or serving at churches, I commend this idea to you. We learned from Mark Dever that it is a good idea to plan out worship services in advance. We are a couple months ahead, and as we work ahead this way, Richard is taking our planned worship services and creating devotional guides that correspond to the worship services. This way an individual or a family can read the biblical passages and sing the songs that will be read, preached, and sung the coming Lord’s day.

I praise God that Richard came up with this idea, and I hope it will benefit you. If we are to staunch the hemorrhaging of kids going off to college and leaving the faith of their fathers, we who are fathers must resolve that we will be part of an evangelical culture in which family worship is normal not weird. The two years since our first child was born have flown by. Let’s get to work.

Do Not Be Conformed to this Age

David Wells opens chapter 8 of God in the Wasteland with this quotation from James Davison Hunter:

It would be superficial simply to say that Evangelical theology as practiced by the coming generation is becoming more liberal. Yet the evidence is suggestive of a common trend, one in which the theological tradition is conforming in its own unique way to the cognitive and normative assumptions of modern culture.

May the Lord give us eyes to see and backbones to stand.

Prayers of Supplication

Every Sunday at Redeemer we have a time for a “Prayer of Supplication.” I want to give some explanation of why this is included and provide some pointers as to what we should pray for during this time. This is neither a checklist nor a law. I don’t want anyone to fear that their past prayers were inadequate, and I hope no one will worry that their prayers in the future are being evaluated. We are praying to God, and we are praying as he leads us to pray. This is merely some pastoral direction.

The Prayers in Our Worship Service

We begin our worship service with a prayer we call the “Invocation.” Our intention at this time is to “invoke God’s presence,” we are inviting him, begging him really, to come and make us feel his nearness.

A little later in the service we have a prayer for the “Confession of Sins.” This is a time for us to acknowledge before God that we have done things we knew were wrong, that we have not done the good things we should have done, and that often we don’t even know what righteousness would look like in particular situations.

As the service goes on we have our “Prayer of Supplication,” more on that in a moment, and then before and after the sermon we have “Pastoral Prayers.” In the pastoral prayer whoever is preaching calls on the Lord to do mighty things through the preached Word. We are asking the Lord to minister to his people by his Spirit through the Word.

The Prayer of Supplication

The prayer of supplication is our time to lay our needs before the Lord. We should pray for kings and everyone in authority. We should pray for the spiritual health of the members of our church. We should pray for those who are suffering for the Gospel. We should pray for the missionaries taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth. We should pray for other churches in the area, especially those supporting us financially. We should pray for the salvation of the lost, for the healing of the sick, for the Lord to glorify himself.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it points in the direction we should go. To summarize, we pray these prayers in our worship service:

Invocation: asking the Lord to inhabit our praises.

Confession of Sins: responding to his holiness with honesty about our sin.

Prayer of Supplication: calling on the Lord to meet the needs we have.

Pastoral Prayer: asking the Lord to prosper his word.

May the Lord bless our worship!

Why Are Emergent Pastors Reading N. T. Wright?

A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that N. T. Wright’s book, The Challenge of Jesus, is on the Emergent Village reading list. Why are Emergent pastors reading N. T. Wright?

Well, besides the fact that Wright is a great writer and this is a very engaging book, Emergent pastors often critique traditional forms of evangelicalism, embrace narratives and stories, eschew propositions, and relish fresh approaches to old questions.

N. T. Wright is not afraid to go after those both to the right and the left of himself, he is a gifted storyteller, and he always communicates with creativity and verve. On the one hand, Wright’s book The Resurrection of the Son of God is an 800 page academic tome that defends the bodily resurrection and commands the attention of every New Testament scholar, liberal or conservative. And this fat book reads like a novel. On the other hand, Wright takes cheap shots at Martin Luther and has lately taken to critiquing US foreign policy as imperialistic and reminiscent of the Roman Imperial Cult denounced by the Apostle Paul. Wright’s failure to speak openly and clearly on the issue of homosexuality, however, robs his pronouncements of their prophetic potential and leaves him looking a little left of the Bible.

This mix of respect for historic orthodoxy and ancient tradition, serious doubts about the way that Protestants have formulated the doctrine of justification, with open contempt for the political right resonates with many in the emergent stream. So a book like The Challenge of Jesus, which takes a fresh look at Jesus in light of his Jewish background, catches a wave of discontent and holds out a new opportunity to “speak truth to power.”

For all that, to the pure all things are pure, and there is much we can learn from Wright’s thorough knowledge of the text, remarkable ability to communicate, and invigorating sense that there is always more to learn about Jesus.

And, we should pray that N. T. Wright would have wisdom and courage to speak the truth to his own communion as boldly as he speaks to us North American evangelicals, whom he does not always represent fairly.

New Feature on This Blog

I’ve added a page that gives my schedule. If you’re in the Memorial area of Houston this Sunday, August 13, I’ll be preaching at Chinese Baptist Church of Houston in their 9:15 worship service–it’s the one in English!

Then I’ll be at First Baptist Houston on Friday, August 25th at thing for their teachers. My topic is “How to Teach a Difficult Lesson: Women in Ministry as a Test Case.”

Then in October I’ll be with my friend Eric Schumacher October 13-15 doing a conference at the church he pastors, Northbrook Baptist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on “The Church: Tower of Babel or Temple of the Holy Spirit?” The theme of this conference grows out of my book, God’s Indwelling Presence.

If the Lord causes our paths to cross, I look forward to meeting you!