Weekly Roundup: 2019.05.08
Clint Archer on overcoming problems with the power of God, Lucas O’Neill with a plea to preachers to explain the text and the methodology, Eric Davis on how to deal with people who grow slowly, and John Calvin on false faith that withers away and is no better than that of the devils.
Resources
Power of Problems vs Power of God | Clint Archer | The Cripplegate
God’s protection is glory: When your reputation is being smeared, God is your glory. There is a very real sense in which nothing anyone thinks of you should make you distraught if you realize that your identity is wrapped up with God, in Christ.
Preachers, Don’t Just Explain What the Text Means—Tell Us How You Got There | Lucas O'Neill | 9Marks
Fellow preachers, if we explain what the text means in our sermons, we do well. Our people will benefit. But that’s not enough. If we don’t make it clear how we know that’s what the text means, then we’re serving our people great meals but not teaching them how to cook. We need to explain and apply the text, but we should also demonstrate how we came to our conclusions from the text. As Bryan Chapell has stated, our sermons should not only be faithful to the text, but obvious from the text.[1]
When People Grow Slowly | Eric Davis | The Cripplegate
Before we talk about others, let’s pause. We grow slow in ways too. In this life, not one of us is yet glorified. So, not one of us is perfectly sanctified in every area. Chances are then, we have been a source of feather-ruffling to other believers at some point. Our slow sanctification has pained someone sometime. Others have had to forbear our yet-sanctified areas at some point. And if we asked someone close to us, “In what ways have you had to forbear with me?”, they would likely have a tangible response. Let’s take that posture with us as we walk with others.
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Quote
In like manner, in the Gospel of Luke, those in whom the seed of the word is choked before it brings forth fruit, or in whom, from having no depth of earth, it soon withereth away, are said to believe for a time. Such, we doubt not, eagerly receive the word with a kind of relish, and have some feeling of its divine power, so as not only to impose upon men a false semblance of faith, but even to impose upon themselves. They imagine that the reverence which they give to the word is genuine piety, because they have no idea of any impiety but that which consists in open and avowed contempt. But whatever that assent may be, it by no means penetrates to the heart, so as to have a fixed seat there. Although it sometimes seems to have planted its roots, these have no life in them. The human heart has so many recesses for vanity, so many lurking places for falsehood, is so shrouded by fraud and hypocrisy, that it often deceives itself. Let those who glory in such semblances of faith know that, in this respect, they are not a whit superior to the devils. The one class, indeed, is inferior to them, inasmuch as they are able without emotion to hear and understand things, the knowledge of which makes devils tremble (Jas 2:19).
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Third, Chapter 2, Section 10