The Book I Wish I Had Read Ten Years Ago

This book was printed 2010 and so I couldn't have read it ten years ago when I needed it. California Pastor Daniel H. Hyde discusses some of the matters that I had on my earlier post of June 10, 2010.

Reformed churches have deep historical and theological roots. Hyde explains confession and creeds showing they are beneficial, promote unity and also are a stardard for church discipline. Scripture, not what is popular or "relevant", is what guides preaching.



The first Appendix answers common questions about Reformed churches, such as:

Are you Roman Catholic?
Are you fundamentalists?
Are you evangelicals?
Why is your worship so boring, cold, and serious?
Why do Reformed churches sing psalms?
Do you care about evangelism?
Are you anit-Semitic?
Why are you so theological? Should you not be more practical?
Why do people put so much emphasis on Calvin and Luther?
Why do you seem so strict and 'legalistic'?
Is there a Reformed view of creation?
What do Reformed churches believe about the Hoy Spirit?
What do Reformed churches believe about the end times?

Relevant questions and good answers. Helpful books are included in a second Appendix, including Horton's Introducing Covenant Theology shown above. 

Listen to an Interview of Hyde by Tim Challies at 
Interview of Author                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The Hypersocial World

A pre-conference, BITS, TYTES, BLOGS & BIBLES, was held this morning at the 2010 Ligonier Conference. I mention this because  most all who will read this post are Social Media consumers. I believe some important things were said  this morning. Here are some from my notes.

ED SETZER in "The Brave New World of New Media" mentioned that the population of Facebook is larger than the population of the USA. Social Media, he said, can assist in creating community, but is no substitute for the church; he has concerns that the wrong people are "drive-by posters"--that important things are trivialized--that this is a false community that can't come over to our house (or chat on our front porches with us). Social Media can promote narcissism and pride. It's all about ME. (I'm thinking Twitter and Facebook people need to know what I did, want to do, what I acquired, and what my gripes are?!) He asks, "Would we say these things if people were sitting right next to us?"

TIM CHALLIES spoke eloquently on  "Principles for Conduct in Communication". Tim also expressed concern that Social Media lets people go "beyond Gibraltar" thereby lacking accountability. Quoting Ephesians 4:15 he said speaking, truthing and loving need to be guarded. People who post anonymously often show immaturity. He said we need to be real, visible, slow to speak (write), and to strive for godliness.

BURK PARSONS' presentation was called  "Taking Captive New Media for the Church". He had seven points. 1. Make the best use of our time.  2. Set our minds on heavenly things. (Oh yes, have those times in Scripture and in prayer! I'm thinking do we have more time on Social Media than we spend on heavenly things!) 3. Use media to edify, to stir people up to love and good works. 4. Use media to maintain unity and purity of the church. No gripes. 5. Subdue the earth and and fill it with the knowledge of God. 6. Use media to glorify God. 7. Don't use media for our own kingdom--glorify His kingdom. Ask, "Are you using media to glorify God?"

AL MOHLER spoke on "The Hypersocialized Generation". He talked specifically about the obsession of teens and recommended that parents not allow a cell phone in bedroom at night and no Internet-connected computers in the bedroom at all. Incredible statistics he presented. We can do 7 1/2 hours of Social Media and clock it up to 11 hours--we multitask (e.g. listening to our iPod while texting). 75% of teens have cell phones. One third of teens send and receive more than 100 texts a day.  Boys tend to use Social Media as entertainment and girls tend to not want to miss out on any news and have to keep checking. For teenagers, he says, some think that not being connected is worse than death. What's the cost--the reality of human experience! We are missing two realities he says: 1) silence for prayer and directing our mind; 2) book reading. We fill our soul with distractions. Or we withdraw or over-relate. We feel that people should immediately respond to our postings.  We have lost the ability to empathize by reading facial expressions. He challenged the church to be both connected and faithful. (For me I am trying to make more phone calls and write more letters.)

An excellent panel discussion followed. Everything is now! How about patience and discipline, the panelists asked. Challies menioned the "idolatry" of the immediate. Mohler told us to spend time with books that require long-term investment.

Got to meet TIM CHALLIES himself at the end of the morning. He graciously stepped off the platform and met my husband and myself. During the break I laughed when, for the first time ever that I have noticed, there was a line to the mens room but not to the ladies room.

For viewing the conference go to:  http://budurl.com/2010lnc

Emergent or Biblical Narration?

Christianity has turned off many people says the emergent church movement and this movement will do something about that problem. It will be culturally relevant and tell modern man what’s in it for them, so modern man can feel comfortable in their churches. Theology and propositional truth are not emphasized because theology is a turn off. Instead, experience and conversation are emphasized. The movement uses narration in Scripture and narration in life as a spiritual barometer. Gary Zustiak in an article about the movement points out “There is a heavy emphasis upon narrative, or story, as the chief means of communicating the message of God over doctrine or exegetical approaches.” Gary Zustiak's Article

D. A, Carlson in his book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications also points this out: "Post-moderns are likely to be happy with personal narratives—i.e., with individuals telling their own stories and explaining how they view things. They are likely to be suspicious of metanarrative—i.e., of a big story that claims to explain all of life, or that claims to be true for everyone."(p. 102)

Narration can be fiction or nonfiction. There are three popular emergent books with narration that I read -- Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis, and William Paul Young’s The Shack. The Shack is fiction and the other two books are autobiographical. All three narrative works seem to deal with emergent church ideas. How biblical are these ideas? They aren't.

Stephen Holland writes: "So after 2000 years we have still not got it right and we must keep on trying and experimenting. To say that the Emerging Church has a faulty theology of God is an understatement. Any heresy usually has a defective view of God himself and the Emerging Church has gone wrong on its attempts to spread the gospel because it has a wrong view of God and a wrong view of the Bible." Holland's Blog

Tim Challes has written about The Shack when it came out. Today he posted a review of an author who knew Young and his universalism.  Tim Challies on Burning Down the Shack

2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” NKJV

These three narratives do not include sound doctrine. The works are popular perhaps with those who have itching ears or need to feel God’s love apart from the discipleship of Scripture and godly counsel.

Unlike theology, these books are easy reads, but disturbing. Let's call for biblical narratives with fiction, biography and autobiography where

God gets the glory
and they are easy reads.

The Law of Piety? Or the law of love?

Navel Gazing Gone Wild




Oh the things the Word of Faithers will say to make their followers think so highly of themselves. Pastor Fred Price provides this edition's "fatal error".

But on this edition of Radical Grace Radio we revisit the "Lukewarm Christian Test" and divide Law and Gospel this way: which is more important? The law of piety? Or the law of love?
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To listen to the show you can click on the play button or right click on "get mp3" and choose "save target as" to save to your computer.






The Law of Piety? Or the law of love?

Ten Observations in Ten Years

Recently I read a blog on 10 reasons Reasonable Christian (now a Reformed Anglican) is not a Pentecostal Christian (see his link in Resources—interesting post). It got me thinking about ten reasons I am a Reformed Calvinist. Well I will attempt ten observations in the ten years since I have been in a Reformed church and thinking new throughts. My observations and conclusions are tentative. I have a long way to travel in my faith. In ten years there may be another post here.

Becoming a Calvinist and joining a Reformed church isn’t like winning a theological debate or reciting and explaining the Five Sola’s, TULIP and the Westminster Confession (WC). It is orthodoxy and it is orthopraxy. I think that Mike Horton says it best when he says that Calvinism is just biblical Christianity.

Now the most important information is not that I became Reformed, or a Calvinist, but that I became a believer at the age of seven. Since that time I have had a joyous assurance of Christ as  my Savior.

Years ago I was conceptually introduced to Calvinism with a sermon by Rev. Dwight Small, my pastor at the time. Much later in 2000 when I married my current husband and joined his church, I learned a lot more about Calvinism and the WC. In fact while we were courting he had me read up on the WC and I e-mailed him my responses to my study, all the while wondering if I was his project or he was in fact courting me. My relatives would smile while I read a quota of pages every day to get through this induction into more informed Reformed thinking.

Since that time I found out that Calvin was not a perfect man (just as no Pope is), but that Calvin’s Institute and the WC fairly well represents what God wants us to know in the Bible. The Puritans, whom Reformed folks are constantly pointing to, were especially concerned that they follow God’s Word as accurately as possible, not to obtain salvation, but to please God who had chosen them. They were ever so grateful to God.

Before 2000 I had barely affirmed the doctrines of grace and giving God the glory. I was a devoted, careful Christian for the most part, but not free from worry about how things would work out. I would worry instead of trusting God (and at times I still worry going into our senior years). Much of my former and new thinking is in my book Getting Off the Niceness Treadmill. I had wanted God to lead me, but often lacked confidence that He would. I was a widow, however, and God was answering my prayer for a godly, attentive husband. Then comes the shock of changing denominations with my marriage.

I can’t say I have ten reasons, but ten adjustments/observations.

1. First bombshell. Always a fan of Dr. Billy Graham, I have learned he is an Arminian. Never thought he was one before. Never thought about the difference between Arminianism and Calvinism before. I still am his fan, even a Facebook fan of the Billy Graham Association. I believe the Lord has used that man in a mighty way. Was Calvin always right? James Dobson sounds Arminian when he heralds the late Reformed pastor D. James Kennedy for being responsible "for six million souls being saved through Evangelism Explosion". Hmm. I just say God elected people to be Christians before the foundation of the world and it doesn’t matter if it was Billy Graham or D. James Kennedy or however they came into His fold.

2. Second bombshell. We women don’t study Scripture together. There has to be an Elder present to study Scripture. We women do meet together each month to study Puritan women, however, and do pray for each other.  Now this is such a radical departure from my previous church. I was an elder in a small church because there just weren’t enough men up to the job. This fact of my being an elder embarrassed my husband, fiancé at the time. Now I think it is so wonderful there are biblically literate men in my church who answer my questions. And I do have those questions. I do study Scripture everyday on my own.

3. Third bombshell—The Puritans. Are the heralded Puritans legalists? Really I have been forced to take a new look at them. They wanted to apply Scripture to all areas of life. I like this. Counseling doesn’t have to be Rogerian. It can be Nouthetic—healing by applying God’s Word.

4. I care about theology now. Rather than a dull document, I now find the Westminster Confession the benchmark for so much theology. We study a section each Sunday before the sermons and I do take notes on the WC.

5. Church history is so very important. I have always affirmed the importance of Scripture, but church history is now coming alive. Without history, why, one could create a new kind of Christianity as some are now wont to do—make it more appealing to the post-moderns.

6. I am much more understanding of the moral law of the Old Testament as it centers on the Ten Commandments whose principles have a whole lot to say about the New Testament and all of what God wants for us. The WC specifies more information on that Moral Law. Thank God those ceremonial laws  and case laws don’t apply since Christ has come. Christ fulfilled the law, but subjects such as graven image, respect, lust, murder, envy, slander are still part of the moral law that Christ fulfilled.

7. The Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW) is a highly regarded practice in Reformed circles. It is almost the default on worship practices. No new technology (except recording of sermons) or entertainment.  I am finding that different persons and churches interpret the RPW differently. For example, a PCA church might have a band in the worship service with words projected. Another Reformed church might sing psalms only. Reformed folks try to worship God as He has prescribed. Worship and the Sabbath are elevated. Worship is the highlight of the week—it is for God, not my Christian entertainment.

8.  At times theology seems to be elevated over orthopraxy. There are so many theological issues in the Reformed churches that need attention and I do appreciate the men who guard the flock. Sometimes we have to speak up if we need shepherding that isn't theological. Sometimes we need to be there for others with their ordinary needs that aren't theological. Caring for others used to be the only concern I had in  my previous church experience. We need the balance of both.

9. I came from a congregational form of government and have adjusted to a Presbyter/Elder form of government. No more church politics for me! Relief!

10. I used to have too many things to do on a Sunday and throughout the week "for Christ" in my former denomination. Now whom was I trying to impress?! It is for God's glory.

I am free to bring God the glory as I ask for His guidance and obey His Word that I study every day. I am growing in faith, responding to the grace I have been given, but not becoming a Calvinist as one might become a member of the Rotary Club. Others may call me a Calvinist or a Reformed believer by my associations, but I hope that they see Christ in me, and that I am a growing believer in Christ.

Judged by our works?

Law vs. Gospel? Is that right?


On this edition of Radical Grace radio, we talk in the first half hour about a listener email that asks:



"At what point is my sin deliberate? I know I will commit tomorrow, the same sin(s)I committed today. I recite the Lord's prayer every night. I have guilt, but that doesn't matter. I know it's a sin, but yet I keep doing it. Is this not deliberately sinning against God, thus losing my salvation?"

Then on the second half of the hour we talk about Judgment day, and why it seems that scripture is of two minds with regards to how we are saved.
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To listen to the show you can click on "get mp3".


Judged by our works?