If You Like It Funky

I love Sovereign Grace worship music. We sing these songs all the time at our church.

If you’d like to move to this music, you’ll be interested in the remixed versions of many of their worship songs (you can hear samples here):

Delighting in God is the Work of My Life

Some people miss the point of life altogether. Not only do they miss the point of life, they miss the point of ministry. For instance, one pastor, asked what advice he would give to seminarians, “stressed the importance of learning practical pastoral matters, such as working with committees, mobilizing leaders, time management, strategic planning, managing a budget and managing disciples.”

Managing disciples? I did not make that up. A pastor really said that.

A healthy contrast to this is found in the latest issue of Southwestern News, which profiles Dr. Matthew McKellar, pastor of Sylvania Church in Tyler, TX. Dr. McKellar has preached in our chapel in Houston, and it was one of the best sermons I have heard in our chapel. He simply opened the Bible and explained it to us, helping us to know God through God’s own revelation of himself, pointing to the tremendous majesty of God, marveling in the mercy that the Lord has been pleased to show to us. The main point of the text he was preaching was the main point of his sermon. McKellar understands the point of life and ministry. He knows that life and ministry are about God. At the conclusion of the piece on him in Southwestern News, he is quoted saying:

“I am a man to whom God has been abundantly gracious and faithful . . . I want people to know that my prayer is like the Puritans used to say, ‘Delighting in God is the work of my life.’ I want my existence to be totally focused on making a big deal about who God is and what He has done through His son, Jesus Christ.”

Amen! May his tribe increase! McKellar has been at Sylvania Church for 20 years, modeling faithful pastoral ministry. Commenting on ministry, McKellar points to God’s faithfulness, to prayer, and the Bible.

May the Lord so ravish the souls of the manager-ministers that they cannot help but be consumed with the greatness of God, all taken up with the study of his word, and ever pointing seminarians to Christ, not the skills they need.

We are not the point. Our capacities are not the point. The point is that God is pleased to glorify himself through the things that are not, through the weak, through the low and despised, and all so that the glory will be all his.

The Smith Band: Wonderworld

At a conference last month I had the privilege of hearing The Smith Band. Stephen Smith now serves as the Worship Pastor at First Baptist Church, Irving, TX, and they blessed me with a copy of their CD Wonderworld. You can hear tracks from the album on either their website or the Independant Bands site. I encourage you to check it out. The Smiths are super-nice folks, and they sound great—-both live and on CD.

The CD was produced by Nathan Nockels, and the songs express God-centered wonder at the stunning mercies of our great God.

My favorite track is titled “According to Mercy,” and its chorus goes:

“It was your love/That caused these blinded eyes to see/It was your love/That broke these chains and set me free/You came to save this life that was lost/According to mercy, that you’ve poured out on us”

Amen!

Amen to the Attitude!

Andrée Seu has written a column in this week’s World magazine on why she is now wearing a head-covering to church. I second every attitudinal instinct she expresses in her piece, and I pray her tribe will increase!

That said, though I agree with her submission to Scripture and embrace the clear roles it gives to men and women, I don’t think a woman needs to cover her head when she goes to church.

Why not?

For the same reason that I don’t think we all need to greet each other with a holy kiss. Does that mean that I have rejected what the kiss and the head covering signify?

Not on your life.

I think that the kiss points to our need to express our enthusiastic affection for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Where I live, we do that with loud greetings (always a bit surprising to the more genteel), firm handshakes that nearly yank the shoulder out of socket for the guys, respectful side-hugs for the gals, and big smiles all the way around. The enthusiasm and affection all this communicates is, I think, what Paul wants from the holy kiss.

Similarly, at our church women don’t teach men or exercise authority over them (1 Tim 2:12), and we’re trying to cultivate men and women who obey everything Paul says about marriage in a text like Ephesians 5:22-33. The women get to submit; the men get to lay down their lives. And we’re trying to leaven this all through our lives. The godly male authority and the feminine embrace of and submission thereto is, I think, what Paul wants communicated by the head covering.

It would be possible for us to kiss each other coldly, and it would be possible for the women to cover their heads but “wear the pants,” or try to. In both cases, we would be keeping the commands in the way the Pharisees kept the law. So I hope that we’re keeping the spirit of the law without its letter. That is, I hope that we have contextualized the head covering and the holy kiss so that we keep them even though the ladies don’t have anything on their heads and we don’t peck each other on the cheek.

If you convince me that we haven’t, I’d rather start giving kisses and seeing head coverings on the ladies than relegate what they signify–enthusiasm for each other and male headship–to the first century. Christ rules the church through his Word, and as Andrée Seu rightly writes, the King has spoken.

Powlison on Desire

Justin Taylor is posting important snippets of David Powlison’s book, Seeing with New Eyes.

The first post introduces the lusts of the flesh, and the second explores how the New Testament describes what is wrong with us. You should read these two posts.

This is important material for counseling ourselves and others in the fight of the faith.

Are You Ready to Meet God?

John Piper’s account of the last moments of his father, and his response to those moments, is a must read.

HT: JT

The Beauty, Dignity, and Comfort of Formality

This is a helpful meditation on the funeral deportment of a casual pastor as compared with the dignity of the Marines who also had a part.

HT: Ray Van Neste

Chosen for Life, by Sam Storms

One evening during my freshman year in college at the University of Arkansas, I asked my wise Sunday School teacher, “Do you believe in predestination?” He responded simply, “The word is in the Bible.”

The word is in the Bible, but what does it mean and how does it work? If you or someone you know is wrestling with such questions, Sam Storms has done you a great service. If you have some ideas about this but would like to have a fellow traveler who has been down the path, studied the map, knows the landmarks, and can tell you the history of the great sites in a winsome, envigorating, even devotional way, Sam Storms has done you a great service.

If you know people struggling with what the Bible says about these topics, this would be a great book to give them. If you are a pastor thinking about reading a book with some guys you would like to invest in, this would be a great book to work through together.

If you have heard the buzz about the whole debate between calvinists and arminians and want a fair treatment that will rightly divide the word of truth, Sam Storms has done the hard work for you. Now you get the fun part of reading his book!

You can read the introduction and first chapter here,  and note the impressive commendations from the likes of John Piper, J. I. Packer, Tom Schreiner, C. J. Mahaney, and D. A. Carson.

I recommend that you buy and read this book.

Time Interviews Dr. Mohler

Great interview here on the intersection of Dr. Mohler’s theology and his recent illness. Praise God for this faithful servant, and praise God for his continued life!

HT: JT

Is the Bible Sufficient for Those Who Are Depressed?

What do you read when you want to help someone who is depressed? What do you suggest they read to help themselves out of their melancholy?

John Piper has thought as carefully about these things as anyone in our day, and he gives us his conclusions in When the Darkness Will Not Life: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God-and Joy.

You can read the whole thing for free online here.

This is a short book–less than 70 pages of large, wide spaced text–that can be read quickly. It is as potent as it is brief, and I pray it will receive wide circulation. This is not pop-psychology, it is pastoral soul care.

Piper has the audacity to think that the great truths of the Christian faith apply to all of life–even when people are down. If you want to live like a worldling, don’t try to live on the faith when you’re depressed, and don’t bother with this book. Conclude with many that the Bible has nothing to say to you in such times (and don’t bother with books of the Bible like Lamentations or Job).

But if you want to live like a Christian and aren’t sure how Christians should respond to emotional darkness, read When the Darkness Will Not Lift. Then give it away to someone else, and keep another few copies on hand for your next encounters with depressed Christians.