Christ came chiefly for this reason

"Christ came chiefly for this reason: that we might learn how much God loves us, and might learn this to the end that we begin to glow with love of him by whom we were first loved, and so might love our neighbor at the bidding and after the example of him who made himself our neighbor by loving us." — Augustine, quoted by Gary A. Parrett and S. Steve Kang in Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 61

(HT: Of First Importance)

Jesus is the True Israel

Justin Taylor: Jesus is the true Israel, and the church becomes the Israel of God as it unites to True Israel. The same is true for ethnic Israel, whom God has not abandoned. But their only hope is to be united with Jesus, the ultimate suffering servant.

"For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory." (2 Cor. 1:20)

Read his entire post here.

Is there really hope in a world like this?

Excerpt from Tim Challies talking about fiction in the latest Connected Kingdom Podcast (audio):

I have heard it said that the purpose of fiction is to ask questions while the purpose of nonfiction is to answer them. That may be an over-simplification, but maybe it is not too far off the mark. At least that has been my experience of fiction. Fiction introduces ideas and evokes feelings and arouses emotion. These feelings demand answers or make us long for them. There are many questions I have been asked in fiction that I’ve had to go to the world of nonfiction to answer.

Cormac McCarthy’s novels ask if there is hope even in a world like this one, a world of darkness and depravity. John Piper has rightly said that Cormac McCarthy is to the American literary canon what the book of Judges is to the biblical canon. McCarthy portrays the darkness of humanity and asks us if there is hope even here. It doesn’t offer answers—just questions, questions brought about by deep feelings of pain or revulsion or sadness. Answers must be found elsewhere. ...

I am convinced that to truly enjoy fiction we need to have a knowledge of what is true and fixed and unchanging, which is to say, we need to know the Bible. So many questions are asked in the pages of books that can only be answered in the pages of The Book. The Bible interprets and refines and answers. It gives hope where fiction is hopeless, it gives light where fiction is dark, it gives joy where fiction is depressing. Fiction gives us stories of the world as it is or the world as someone images it; an author takes his experiences and hopes and desires and dreams and wraps them in a story. The Bible takes that story and makes sense of it. It tells us why the world is this way, why this author’s experience of the world has been so painful, why there is still hope even in a world like this.

Wise words on good and bad tweeting

Ray Ortlund on the "intended effect of a successful tweet":

• A failed tweet displays Self.
• A successful tweet displays Christ.
• Who cares about the details of my daily life? I hardly care myself.
• But I think we can all agree on this: we must decrease, but he must increase.
• What I aim at in using the media is another person being able to click in and click out quickly, with maximum benefit to their souls.
• Everyone is so busy. But everyone matters.
• I want to ask little of them, and add much to them.
• I am there to serve, not to demand or impress, by giving them more of Jesus.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Realities for every believer

"The believer has died, is buried, is raised, is seated with Christ in the heavenlies, and so on. These are not plateaus for victorious Christians who have surrendered all and willed their way to victory, but realities for every believer, regardless of how small one’s faith or how weak one’srepentance." (Michael Horton, "Christ the Lord," pages 113-114) 

(HT: Of First Importance)

G.O.S.P.E.L.

The perfect Church

"If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never have joined one at all; and the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it, for it would not have been a perfect church after I had become a member of it. Still, imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earth to us." 

(C.H. Spurgeon, from sermon No. 2234 titled "The Best Donation," in Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37.)

Rolling-stone Christians

“I know there are some who say “Well, I hope I have given myself to the Lord, but I do not intend to give myself to any church, because “Now, why not?” Because I can be a Christian without it.” Now, are you quite clear about that? You can be as good a Christian by disobedience to your Lord’s commands as by being obedient? Well, suppose everybody else did the same, suppose all Christians in the world said, “I shall not join the Church.” Why there would be no visible Church, there would be no ordinances. That would be a very bad thing, and yet, one doing it — what is right for one is right for all — why should not all of us do it? Then you believe that if you were to do an act which has a tendency to destroy the visible Church of God, you would be as good a Christian as if you did your best to build up that Church? I do not believe it, sir! nor do you either. You have not any such a belief; it is only a trumpery excuse for something else. There is a brick — a very good one. What is the brick made for? To help to build a house with. It is of no use for that brick to tell you that it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as it would be in the house. It is a good-for-nothing brick; until it is built into the wall, it is no good. So you rolling-stone Christians, I do not believe that you are answering your purpose; you are living contrary to the life which Christ would have you live, and you are much to blame for the injury you do.”

(C.H. Spurgeon, from sermon No. 3411 titled "Joining the Church," in Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 60.)

What is unbelief?

St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. AD 315-67):

“All unbelief is foolishness, for it takes such wisdom as its own finite perception can attain, and measuring infinity by that petty scale, concludes that what it cannot understand must be impossible. Unbelief is the result of incapacity engaged in argument.”

—De Trinitate, III.24, cited in Douglas Kelly, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 19.

HT: Justin Taylor

The grace of God extends to and overcomes the worst forms of human depravity

James Edwards on Mark 2:17: … it is as senseless for Jesus to shun tax collectors and sinners as for a doctor to shun the sick. The grace of God extends to and overcomes the worst forms of human depravity. Ironically, in one sense great sinners stand closer to God than those who think themselves righteous, for sinners are more aware of their need of the transforming grace of God. “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Rom 5:20).

— Edwards, J. R. (2002). The Gospel according to Mark. The Pillar New Testament commentary (86). Grand Rapids, Mich; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.

Scandalous grace

James Edwards: The scandal of this story [Mark 2:13-17] is that Jesus does not make moral repentance a precondition of his love and acceptance. Rather, Jesus loves and accepts tax collectors and sinners as they are. If they forsake their evil and amend their lives, they do so, as did Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1–10), not in order to gain Jesus’ favor but because Jesus has loved them as sinners. Jesus’ association with such people is not coincidental. He does not happen to be with them or wait for invitations. He initiates the fellowship, “‘I must stay at your house today’” (Luke 19:5). We are not told how many sinners and tax collectors repented and reformed. We are only told that Jesus sowed love as profligately and uncalculatedly as the sower who threw seed in unpromising places (Mark 4:3–9). It is this that scandalized the religious leaders of his day, as it scandalizes those who define the gospel in terms of pure moral reformation and character formation of our day. Jesus communicates in word and deed that accepting and following him are more important than following Torah. When the unreformed and unregenerate do that, they will enter the kingdom of God before the scribes and Pharisees. In table fellowship with “sinners and tax collectors,” Jesus scandalously asserts his exousia, his own person over Torah, and the profligate love of God over merit. That is the scandal of grace. 

— Edwards, J. R. (2002). The Gospel according to Mark. The Pillar New Testament commentary (85–86). Grand Rapids, Mich; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.

Gift-righteousness versus self-righteousness

"The righteousness of God escapes those who seek to establish their own righteousness; whereas those who are too far off to hope for the righteousness of God are graciously granted it." (Rom 9:30-31)  

— Edwards, J. R. (2002). The Gospel according to Mark. The Pillar New Testament commentary (85). Grand Rapids, Mich; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.