Sunday, November 1, 2009 from Malvern Hill Baptist Church on Vimeo.

-C.J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2005), 107.

In a recent post Keller argues that as preachers, we must be shepherding our flocks in order to be effective in the pulpit.  Read the entire article and then go visit one of your church members: “Preacher-Onlys Aren’t Good Preachers”

Also, Redeemer has recently made 150 of Kellers sermons and lectures available for free.  Check them out at Redeemer’s site.

-Scott J. Hafeman, The God of Promise and the Life of Faith: Understanding the Heart of the Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 175.

-R. Albert Mohler, Jr. A Passionate Plea for Preaching (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust, 2008), 1.

Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, (1) unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us.

The full text of the Chalcedonian Definition of Faith can be read here at Monachos.net. Other important events from this day can be seen below.

451: During the Fifth Session of the Council of Chalcedon, the final form of the Chalcedonian Creed was drafted. It became the Early Church’s highest and most enduring “definition” of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

1844: The “Great Disappointment” began when this latest date, set for the return of Christ by religious leader William Miller, passed without event. Over 100,000 disillusioned followers returned to their former churches, or abandoned the Christian faith altogether.

1899: American Presbyterian missionary James B. Rodgers, 34, baptized his first Filipino converts to the Christian faith, thus inaugurating the beginning of Philippine Protestant churches.

1952: The complete Jewish Torah was published in English for the first time. A collection of oral and written commentary (dating 200 BC to AD 500) on the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah comprises the basic religious code of Judaism.

1966: Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth declared in a letter: ‘God makes no mistakes.’

Source: William D. Blake. Almanac of the Christian Church, Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987. Additional information supplied by the author. Contact via E-mail: William D. Blake. (pilgrimwb@aol.com)

Other Source: The Story of Christianity by Justo L. Gonzalez.

    I have to admit, I was initially disappointed.  As I have reflected back on this event, I realized that I was more interested in the “success” of the service than I was in “serving” them.  God didn’t need me to evangelize that couple, get them involved in a Sunday School class, or add them to our church role.  He only needed me to fill the void while they were away from their home church.  How humbling!  I do not think it was coincidental that Oswald Chambers devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, states in today’s entry, “It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God-but we do not.  We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people…”  

    Am I okay with the “service” God has before me, or will I only be pleased with ”success” in the eyes others?  God is not nearly as interested in the sizes of our churches as we are.  He is not nearly as concerned with stats as He is with our service.  The question the Holy Spirit has been nagging me with all week has been, “Robert, are you okay with just serving Me?”  That question should bother me more often.  Perhaps it should you as well.

Though well written and done so specifically for the Georgia Baptist Convention, all (including Caner I have no doubt) know and agree that Southern Baptists are and have been formed not only from the Sandy Creek tradition, but from the Charleston tradition as well.  The fact remains that we as Southern Baptists are an eclectic blend of staunchly reformed stiffs and free wheeling almost Arminians.  We cannot be packaged into a neat theological box, but we must find the things upon which we can agree, and that must be evangelical faith.

To be Southern Baptist is to be more than our Theological perspectives, but it must never be less. Certainly, there is room in our tradition for varying theological convictions, but must there continue to be room for theological wars. There is room for Baptist churches who extend an alter call and there are multitudes of people who have been saved in this kind of tradition, but there is also room for churches who have no alter call. After all, tons of people have come to know Christ without an alter call as well.

Timothy George’s presentation from the Union University Baptist Identity Conference in 2007 has been referenced on this site before and I will point to it again as a great place to begin a conversation for reconciliation in SBC circles.

Further, I wonder what could be accomplished if we of different theological stripes spoke to one another rather than about one another or if we could focus on our agreements rather than our differences.

Spurgeon is always a safe model to look to. He was an ardent evangelist, a strict biblicist, an advocate for church autonomy, a scholar, and (gasp) a Calvinist. Spurgeon didn’t practice an alter call, he prepared his sermons on Saturday nights (and didn’t preach through books of the Bible), he smoked cigars, and impacted the world with the gospel. Spurgeon was the Prince of Preachers, yet his reformed theology did not some how make him less evangelical, nor did it cause him to separate from godly preachers who held to different theological convictions–he even opened his pulpit to D.L. Moody and had a great friendship with the fiery evangelist.

Could Spurgeon have been a Southern Baptist? I hope so, but I’m not sure he would be welcomed in many circles–Small church pastors would be weary b/c the Tabernacle is too big, traditionalists would be offended because he is too animated, academics would call him crass, non-Calvinists would have called him unevangelical, and many Calvinists would question his passionate pleading to lost sinners (we better not even speak of the cigars). Seriously folks, if Spurgeon wouldn’t fit in, are we really where we ought to be?

May we come together for the sake of the gospel and in so doing let us not be arrogant about what the gospel is (see Bill Streger’s blog, Gospel-Centered Legalism). The gospel is a historical fact and event that we can all agree upon. Jesus lived a perfect sinless life, was killed by evil sinful men and suffered that death for our sin, was buried in a borrowed tomb, rose on the third day, and ascended to the right hand of the Father where he sits as our advocate today. The world is lost and dying and the SBC is not making an impact. Let’s wake up and rally around the gospel for the sake of the lost world around us. Spurgeon did, and the world is better for it.

The coddled Western world will sooner or later give way to great affliction. And when it does, whose vision of God will hold? Where are Christians being prepared for great global sorrows? Where is the Christian mind and soul being prepared for the horrors to come? Christians in the West are weakened by wimpy worldviews. And wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians.

God is weightless in our lives. He is not terrifyingly magnificent. His sovereignty is secondary (at best) to His sensitivity. What is missing is the Bible. I mean the whole Bible, with its blood and guts and sins and horrors– and all of it under the massive hand of God. The hand whose fingers flick stars into being.

The hand that gives life and takes it. The hand that rules everything. Everything. What we need is to know the great things about God. Knowing great things about God will help make us ready not to collapse under cataclysmic conflict and personal catastrophe.”

–John Piper, Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 13-14.

We can see a great illustration in the movie, Tombstone. Before the fight at the OK Corral, Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) goes home and opens a drawer that contains his sidearm. The engraved brass plate on the handle displays the word PEACEMAKER boldly. An unarmed man can keep the peace if it exists, but an armed man can make peace out of chaos. Through the course of the movie we see Earp making peace by confronting and overcoming evil.

Far too many believe that keeping the peace is their job in the church, and so they do not confront sins and dissension for fear of creating a rift. But Jesus commands us to be peacemakers and not just peacekeepers. When we try to keep the peace, we generally allow sin and strife to live on. Peacemaking requires activity and is sometimes ugly, just as with law enforcement, force is sometimes necessary to make peace.

In your church, be a peacemaker. Confront sin, attack dissension, and pray to God for guidance and grace as you do so. Martin Luther was a peacemaker, but definitely no peacekeeper. The church hierarchy did all they could to silence him, but he moved forward, attacking sinful power structures and freed the gospel from the power of the Roman Church. For his efforts, we are forever grateful.

Had Luther kept the peace, we may not now know grace. Are you willing to face the battles in your own church to make peace or are you retreating in fear trying to keep the peace?