Gospel-Centered Resources from Midwestern Seminary
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
On this installment of the regular Mailbag feature of the FTC Podcast, Jared and Ronni discuss listener-submitted questions, including first steps for new believers, the timing of children’s baptisms, sermon prep schedules, and building theological interest in a church without intimidating them.
Pain is a prominent and protruding feature of a global pandemic. So many folks have experienced pain in new ways. The pain of death, the pain of loneliness, the pain of individuals, families, and nations have all been extremely visible. Is there a purpose to the pain? How can God be working all things for the good of those who love him even in the pain? I think a lot of us are wrestling with these questions. I know I am.
Growing up in a family with several physicians pain was not a distant thought. I remember seeing many wince as my father assessed their physical condition. In these moments pain was proven to be valuable. Pain revealed a need for healing. Without pain, we would not know we are in need of help. Without pain, we would not know there was a need for a physician in the first place. Internal bleeding, broken bones, and decaying joints would doom us to death far faster without pain’s revelations.
In my wrestlings regarding the pain of this world, I have begun to learn to turn to the Great Physician to see how He is using this pain to shape, heal, and refine me to his image. In this poem, you will see portions of my doubts, prayers, and findings as I have sought the Lord. I pray this poem will help you process the pain too. Pain has a purpose.
Seared emotions.
Cauterize the feeling to stop the bleeding.
They said that killing the pain will lead to healing,
But that simply is not true.
Pain is a sign of life.
You can’t ask for surgery and avoid the knife.
A numb limb is doomed to be broken
Even still unaware of this token.
To lose the feeling of pain is to lose feeling altogether.
The same nerve that stings captures the softness of feather.
There are itching ears here demanding a scratch,
And poisonous myths just waiting to hatch.
The birth of a song, it is sweet. It is seduction.
A descant from demon by device of destruction.
Distraction is this salve— impermanent and lethal
Coaxing the mind, undying and deceitful.
Yes, the buzz in the pocket is like that of the bottle,
Except one is regulated, and one runs full throttle.
For you need not be convinced to give your life all to evil.
You only need be pulled away to throw your life in upheaval.
Removal from reality is enough to convince
That peace cannot come from the presence of the Prince.
Instead we buy the lie that leads to death;
Sold a toxin of diversion as addictive as meth
Simply because it kills the pain.
But pain is a sign of life.
And the alternate reality is a barbed and bloody knife
With a shrouded slash of fraudulent facts.
Because the lie hurts less you can ignore your tracts.
But how long will that last you? How long can you avoid what’s true?
That anesthesia will wear off, or you will be dead and through.
Ruined by your fight to avoid everything that bruises
You may be the one who misses out or loses,
Unknowingly doomed to an eternal fire,
A pain irremovable no matter your desire.
So, what is the value of pain here and now?
Is it not just a portrait of eternity’s brow?
No, the Prince says there is hope in the secondary coming.
This the tune of the church which the saints have been humming.
As they look to that day the pain increases the yearning,
While all creation is groaning and aching and burning
For the skies to be split and their eyes to be learning
The face of their Savior in the clouds there returning.
The pain also purifies in the heat of its fire
Removing all the dross of erroneous desire.
It floats to the surface unveiling the heart.
Thus refining the faith that doubt may depart.
Purification is preparation for an eternal weight of glory.
The pain it will cleanse and renew your whole story.
The weight of the agony does not compare to the impending.
It’s a momentary affliction juxtaposed to His ascending.
The risen Lord means confidence in the inheritance that is looming
For the saints of His bride to hold a bouquet that is blooming
With recreation and beauty by a glassy sea of his grace
At the marriage banquet they will finally get their long awaited embrace.
Without a trace of their sin.
Without a face carrying tears again.
Without a race wearying the years of men.
This is the place of marrying their greatest friend.
So yes, the growing pain is worth the gain through this season.
The stretching soreness is a tool for a reason.
Pain points us to better things and it draws us to a Savior.
Pain teaches us dependency thus shaping our behavior.
The potter has his clay, which he beats down to build up.
Only then can the vase be a living water filled cup.
Pain has a purpose, so in the aches do not wander,
For with Christ in every tribulation we will more than conquer.
“He is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.” Acts 17
Paul on Mars Hill in Athens proclaimed the entire self-sufficiency of God.
We are his body, it is true, which is the fullness or completion of the Head. He uses us. But he needs nothing from us. Let that sink in. We do not add to him in any way, but rather, he gives us our “life, our breath and everything else.”
He does not need my service to him. I do serve him, but he does not need it because he is the source of everything I have. He started out before my birth with everything that I could give him.
My money is not needed.
My time is not needed.
My intellect is not needed.
My skills are not needed.
My efforts are not needed.
My devotion is not needed.
My wisdom is not needed.
My personality is not needed.
My sincerity is not needed.
My LIFE is not needed.
Though he has the right over all of that and everything else, they are not needed. He gave them to me in the first place. I can add nothing to him that he does not already possess.
I do not make him stronger, bigger, wiser, or more loving, kind or just.
You may think that you have a lot to offer God. Perhaps you have years of experience or a tender heart or an intriguing story, or a sharp mind or a quick tongue, or an easy way about you that people like. God needs people like you, right? Not so. He may use you, but he does not need you. He gave you whatever you think is so special in the first place. He can produce a lot of “me” whenever he wishes.
In fact, you could have a heart attack today, and God would not be diminished one tiny bit. Others may miss you and feel the loss, but God is able to raise up more like you if he wishes. And, he can make even better ones than you if he wants to. After all, he gives breath. He can take it away. He will not even miss you because he has given you life with him forever if you are a Christian. He suffers no loss by your death.
No, we serve him not because he needs us to, but because he has given us everything we have. This is the reason that God demands that we give allegiance to him. Repenting and believing in Christ is not an option, but a requirement from the one who gave you the breath to say, “I believe.” It’s due him. He made you. He’s not begging; he’s demanding. Paul went on to say, “he commands all people everywhere to repent.”
But he is also kind and loving. He is as gracious as he is just. It is a privilege to serve him. But he still does not need you. If you get to serve him, you are blessed beyond imagination.
I’m of the opinion that truly understanding the self-sufficiency of God will cause us to want to serve him forever.
Editor’s Note: This originally published at Christian Communicators Worldwide
When you set out to plant churches, what exactly is it that you’re trying to plant? What must be in place in order for you to say that you’ve planted “a church” and not something else?
I suspect that most churches operate under the same philosophy of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who, when pressed to define a category, said “I don’t know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.” Most Christians might not be able to define what a church is, but they know it when they see it.
That sort of loose understanding actually undermines a church’s ability to effectively plant and build up other churches.
My church’s statement of faith defines a local church in this way:
[Local churches are] congregations of baptized believers covenanted together in faith and fellowship, marked by the right preaching of God’s word and right administration of the ordinances.
In essence, that summarizes the basic Reformation definition of a true church, with some Congregationalist and Baptist qualifications dabbed on. It briefly covers a lot of ground—short enough to be useful, and substantive enough to be meaningful.
But I want to make another point: what’s most useful about a strict definition of a church is having clarity about all the things that aren’t in the definition. It may feel counter-intuitive. But a clear, strict definition of what a church is actually provides greater freedom in church planting. A strict definition clarifies what’s necessary. This helps in at least two obvious ways: it ensures that you’re actually aiming at planting churches; and it keeps you from assuming a church needs certain things that it absolutely doesn’t need. In other words, it keeps you from requiring more than what Scripture requires.
Put simply, a strict and clear definition guards against mission creep, cultural and non-biblical norms, and unnecessary discouragement.
1. A strict definition guards against “mission creep.”
One threat to any mission or project without clearly defined parameters is “mission creep.” When this happens, additional objectives or goals start to sneak into your definition of success.
One helpful tool to guard against this is clear definitions. What needs to be in place in order to have a church? What must a church do or offer in order to be considered a full-fledged church?
In my part of the world—perceived as “frontier” in some circles—it seems every Western minister in the city has multiple side-gigs. The church can’t just be a congregation of covenanted, baptized believers. It also needs to have a seminary, or a publishing house, or a refugee vocational training program. Those are there in part to justify their fundraising back home; they’re also there because many church planters seem to think a congregation is merely a pre-requisite for real ministry, not the substance of it. That confusion comes from (among other things) a lack of any guard against mission creep.
Many church programs often become barriers to church planting and maturity when they become a standard for what makes a church. And such standards can only be exposed if you’re able to articulate a clear definition of a church.
2. A strict definition guards against absolutizing non-biblical norms.
I suspect our tendency to absolutize cultural norms or tools plays a big part in the suspicion missionaries and missiologists tend to have toward absolutized statements about ecclesiology. While biblical ecclesiology is practicable for all churches in all places, biblical ecclesiology plus particular cultural practices or norms may not be. Insofar as American churches have required their missionaries to plant churches that look exactly like their home church in Shreveport or Long Grove, they have taught missionaries and church planters that church structure is entirely a cultural artifact.
In part because of Islam’s influence in my cultural setting, most of the pastors in my city look skeptically at any sort of Christian gathering in a home (rather than a designated worship building). The Muslim understanding of the mosque as a building devoted to worship has shaded the way they perceive other churches in the city. While that means most pastors I know are leery of church-dismissing rapid-multiplication discipleship movements, they’ve not engaged with the real biblical issues at stake: they’re just put off because that “movement” doesn’t have a building.
But there are more subtle, less culturally explicit norms you may have yourself. Do you find yourself anxious about that sound equipment you need for the church to work? How about your website? What about small groups, or Sunday school classes? A youth group? Awana? What about a pastoral internship? These are all helpful tools, but what level of priority should they be in the early life of a church? Or, to put an edge on it, what other things are you willing to sacrifice in order to have those things as soon as possible?
The lack of an articulated, strict, and clear definition of church has led us to plant churches deprived of clear instruction on what they are or should become. In the process, we’ve left planters with the impression that there’s nowhere to look for such instruction.
3. A strict definition guards against needless discouragement.
In the last three years, I’ve pastored two churches in a Muslim context. A combination of government interference, financial restrictions, and a bad building has meant that those two congregations have had to move locations five times. It’s been tiring and discouraging. Obviously, in order to keep meeting together as a church, we needed somewhere to meet. But understanding the old adage that the church is a people, not a steeple, has helped us. Though we were comfortable where we were meeting, and though there were advantages to meeting there, that particular place is not necessary for our existence. Our strict definition of church guarded us from unnecessary despair.
We’re tempted to believe that a place is part of what makes us a church, that moving our meeting space in some way compromises our identity. But that temptation exposes a hidden belief in our hearts that that place is necessary in order for us to be a “real” church.
How have I fought this temptation? By reminding myself of what really makes a church a church.
The church planting world often encourages and even incentivizes sparse definitions of the church. That’s a danger. Your definition really does need to have certain biblical elements—like preaching and membership and gathering regularly and carefully practiced ordinances and so on. But perhaps more often, the danger we fall into—even as we requiring too little—is that we also require too much without even realizing it. A strict definition of the church protects us. It keeps us from neglecting what Christ has taught us as necessary. It also guards us by freeing us from requiring too much of ourselves. It frees us by preventing us from putting too many burdens on our back, or treating everything as essential.
So, how would you, according to Scripture, define the church? Does this definition free you up or weigh you down?
Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at 9Marks.org and is used with permission.
“The reality of God lays lightly on the American church.”
— David Wells
“Arise! Shine! Your light has come; the LORD’s glory has shone upon you. Though darkness covers the earth and gloom the nations, the LORD will shine upon you; God’s glory will appear over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to your dawning radiance. Lift up your eyes and look all around: they are all gathered; they have come to you. Your sons will come from far away, and your daughters on caregivers’ hips. Then you will see and be radiant; your heart will tremble and open wide, because the sea’s abundance will be turned over to you; the nations’ wealth will come to you. Countless camels will cover your land, young camels from Midian and Ephah. They will all come from Sheba, carrying gold and incense, proclaiming the LORD’s praises. All Kedar’s sheep will be gathered for you; rams from Nebaioth will be your offerings; they will be accepted on my altar, and I will glorify my splendid house.”
— Isaiah 60:1-7
American evangelicalism has emerged in the 21st century not as a prophetic witness but as a political action committee, not as a proclaimer of the glory of Christ but a purveyor of pragmatism and production values.
We take God lightly. We treat him flippantly. We are too busy saying “whee” in church when we should be saying “woe is me.” The weightiness, the gravity, the all-encompassing and awe-inspiring glory of the Creator God, the Great I AM, is woefully neglected in far too many places where something resembling worship takes place.
But God will not have it.
In Isaiah 60 we see the enormity of the effect on the church and on the world of the God who lives. Think of all the ways we try to make the church appealing that have almost nothing to do with God. God almost seems like an afterthought, or a benevolent grandpa sitting in the corner admiring our concerts to ourselves. There is no glory in those exercises.
In the end, if we will have glory it MUST come from God.
Our light comes from HIM shining over us – Is. 60:1
His glory will appear over us – v.2
The radiance is a reflection of him – v.5
The praises will go to the LORD – v.6
He will glorify HIS beautiful house – v.7
This theme runs throughout the entire book of Isaiah. In the midst of ruins, the Lord reigns:
For the High and Exalted One,
who lives forever, whose name is holy, says this:
“I live in a high and holy place.” (Isaiah 57:15)Heaven is my throne,
and earth is my footstool.
Where could you possibly build a house for me? (Isaiah 66:1)God is enthroned above the circle of the earth;
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. (Isaiah 40:22)Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are considered as a speck of dust on the scales;
he lifts up the islands like fine dust. (Isaiah 40:15)
And this commences of course with Isaiah 6:
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. And the angels are calling Holy Holy Holy and Isaiah is utterly undone. “I am unclean. Woe is me!”
And it is out of this divine discombobulation, this awestruck reconstitution, that the missional mandate is given. And this is always the case with great moves of God in which men are tools in his hands—they always begin with gospel exultation. Mission begins not with leadership skills or leadership strategies, but a glorious encounter with the living God.
Look, what America needs, brothers and sisters, is not merely believers in God, but worshipers of God—not people simply willing to mentally assent to the reality of the supreme being, willing perhaps to accommodate acknowledgment of him into their weekly schedule, willing to nod at him on social media as a missing “value” in society, but people willing to offer their whole hearts to the reality of the glory of the one true God YHWH, willing to surrender their days—their very lives—to him, willing to reorient their very existence around the One in whom we live and move and have our being.
When we look back at the genuine moves of God throughout history we inevitably find a preaching of God that is drenched in majesty. Movements begun through the preaching of the glory of the church fizzle out quickly. But movements begun through the preaching of the glory of God have captured whole counties and countries. They have changed the face of the globe.
A domesticated, privatized god moves nothing. But the majesty of the God of the Scriptures is like a heavenly magnet, drawing and repelling, reshaping the very world into a reflection of his foreordained designs.
Before the pandemic, I would anticipate coming home from work, changing into comfy clothes, and resting, knowing that my day was done. Home and rest have always been connected. Until now.
My rhythm of work and rest has been shattered. Although I’m home all day, I find myself exhausted and restless, wanting to find rest but not knowing how. It turns out that home itself is not the source of rest. Home isn’t even a specific place.
In his book On the Road with Saint Augustine, James K. A. Smith examines all of life through the lens of travelers pursuing a home. The non-Christian travels looking for home—desiring to belong, to find meaning and rest, but being disappointed by every place that promises this home-ness.
The Christian, on the other hand, knows where her home is. Christians know that their home is not a place, a job, a relationship, or money, but their home is in God. The Christian places her hope in someday arriving at her ultimate home in his presence while finding a home for today through union with Christ.
But perhaps more important than knowing where home is, the Christian is able to find rest—rest for her soul in the midst of the journey that will enable her to keep on traveling.
All of Life is The Wilderness
The concepts of home and rest are interwoven in the story of Israel. The people of God travel as redeemed, exiled migrants out of Egypt so that they might worship God in the wilderness and find rest from their labor as slaves. Israel sojourns toward the promised land, a home where God’s presence would dwell in their midst.
But the journey home didn’t go smoothly. In fact, it went so poorly that God barred his own people from entering the promised land—his rest—for 40 years. A generation of God’s people were relegated to be migrant wanderers for their lifetime. The younger generation of Israelites wandered for decades knowing they were going home, but that they weren’t yet there.
Israel’s story is the story of the church. Instead of God’s presence leading us through pillars of cloud and fire, we have his Spirit inside of us. Instead of the sacrificial system, we have the perfect, finished work of Christ.
But like Israel, we know where our home is—the New Jerusalem, where God will dwell with his people (Rev. 21:2–3). And we spend our lifetimes journeying toward that home. For the Christian, all of life is the wilderness.
Changing How We Travel
Knowing where your home is doesn’t mean you stop traveling. Conversion gives you a map and compass, tells you where your home is, and demands that you keep sojourning. Smith says, “Conversion doesn’t pluck you off the road; it just changes how you travel.”
Like Israel, we’re tempted by mirages—different customs, idols, and ways of life that seem to offer a bit of rest for weary sojourners. In our weariness, we’ll be “tempted to camp out in alcoves of creation as if they were home.”
Like Israel, we have to depend on God for manna from heaven—his daily provision. We are travelers, daily walking by faith toward a home promised to us, abiding in his guiding presence, refreshed each day by his rest and his presence. But always traveling.
Christians Are Immigrants
Traveling is hard. It’s tiring. And you’ll be doing it your whole life. Christians are not tourists; we’re immigrants. We’ve left a homeland of life apart from Christ where we once lived solely for ourselves, and we’re now sojourners who are being sanctified on our way home.
Knowing our identity as spiritual immigrants doesn’t mean that we never find rest in this life. Rather, our good Savior gives us the rest we need to keep walking toward him and our ultimate home in his presence.
Jesus said, “Come to me (come be at home in my presence) all you who are weary and heavy-laden (all you travelers who are worn-out), and I will give you rest . . . I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt. 11:28–29, parentheticals mine). Our gracious God desires to give you his rest and invites you to come receive true rest as you travel with him along the rocky pathways and steep climbs of everyday life.
Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Likewise, our hearts are homeless unless they are at home in Christ. The rest we desire is given to us in our relationship with Christ when we come to him, the one who provides and meets us in our exhaustion as we travel home to him.
Suffering and Satan’s Purposes
“In our suffering, God invites us to trust him deeper, draw nearer to his people, and find a deep well of gratitude.”
Loyalty Matters: The Misunderstood Virtue
If you have ever experienced disloyalty, this article by Matthew Hall will be an encouragement for you. He presents a biblical view of loyalty and how to think about it when you are betrayed.
Our hearts are deceitful and do not often tell us the truth. Jon Bloom points the readers to direct their hearts toward obedience and trust in Jesus.
Serving Christ When Everyone Needs You
Ann Swindell writes about the overwhelming feeling that can come when we have responsibilities that loom over our heads. This article shares how important it is to pursue thankfulness in these moments.
Editor’s Note: The weekend can be an incredibly distressing time for many pastors to enter into. The desire to spend quality time with family while juggling the pressures of an unfinished sermon can be an exhausting reality. What many pastors need are not more tips on how to prepare better sermons as much as some encouragement to better prepare their hearts to preach the sermon they have. Join Ronnie Martin every Friday for The Preachers Corner, where he offers some words of comfort and stories of hope to help preachers enter the weekend encouraged by the gentle and lowly heart of Jesus.
There’s nothing lonelier than a room full of pastors.
Exhausted from a year of Covid
Bleeding from critical church members
Fighting against cynicism
Contemplating resignation
Needing somebody…anybody…to listen
These were the harsh but unsurprising realities painted all over the faces of eighteen pastors I sat beside last week. Pastors both young and old who shared an eerily familiar isolation that’s reached unbearable proportions in their life and ministries. Pastors who had to eventually leave the companionship with like-minded brothers, and reunite with the darkness that’s been their unwanted companions for as long as they can remember.
I write this not as a leader with written books and readied answers, but as one of these men who has to journey home, wake up, wash my face, and prepare another sermon as a brokenhearted shell of a person. I don’t know.
But look at this song God has for us.
But I, O Lord, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness. Psalm 88:13-18
When the writer of Psalm 88 says “my companions have become darkness,” he’s saying the only visible friends in his life are immaterial. And unwanted.
Darkness is hard to hug. It hugs you.
But the hope comes in who we cry out to in the darkness, because even pastors who have darkness for friends eventually wake up to a deeper friend in the morning light who hears our unheard prayers and helps our helpless hearts. We need only to cry out to Him, and though the darkness may not vanish completely, it will not be victorious in the end.
“What is the argument for Christian missions?” It was a sincere question from a professing Christian. My response was, “What is the argument against Christian missions? The entirety of the biblical revelation of God in Christ, from beginning to end, is the argument. The reason for missions is Christ and the Bible is a book about him.
His next question was, “Who are we, people like us, to be involved in trying to convert the entire world? Who are you?” That question was a better one than the first. Who are we to be involved in a global mission of converting the world? Who do we think we are?
Paul explains it this way: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay” (2 Cor 4:7a).
The work of the gospel is infinitely valuable. Paul describes the good news as “this treasure.” The dynamic of those two words is breathtaking.”Jars of clay” were containers, earthen ones, made of baked clay. They were inexpensive, easily breakable, and subject to deterioration. That sounds like me. The believer is like a jar of clay, but a jar of clay containing “this [gospel] treasure.”
Paul always saw God’s strength made perfect in human weakness: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Cor 12:9).
The reason God uses “jars of clay” for Kingdom work is explained by Paul in the second half of 2 Corinthians 4:7b: “to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
Therefore, using frail, flawed, and weak servants is the strategy of God for Kingdom work and world evangelization because it reveals the power of God in Christ, not our power. The triumphant march of the gospel around the globe cannot be explained by man, it can only be explained by God and his awesome, gracious, supernatural power.
Sometimes we look at the church and ourselves and see failures of pettiness, division, complacency, pride, and wonder how it/we could possibly be the chosen instrument of the Kingdom mission of Christ? This kind of reasoning is backward.
It is upon human weakness, and not human strength, that God chooses to advance the Kingdom of Christ. God uses “clay pots” for his gospel mission, not merely in spite of our frailties and weaknesses, but because of them.
What a thrilling, and more importantly, transformative truth for the church’s evangelistic enterprise.
Editor’s Note: This originally published at Prince on Preaching.
