A common way of reasoning in Proverbs is to contrast two options in order to illustrate for us what our priorities ought to be. For example, it is better to be poor and righteous than rich and unrighteous. But we have to remember that this is a choice between two when there are actually a …
Facebook Friend Missions
Just about all of us have been affected (and in good ways) by the communications revolution. But there are downsides, advanced in part by our ability to move our ignorance around the world at spectacular rates of speed. But there is another danger besides high-speed gossip and slander, which is the danger of mistaking a …
Thinly Disguised Brigandage
The Christian faith is inescapably political. Jesus is a king, and we are His polis. We are charged with bringing the gospel to every nation, and we are to preach that gospel in such a way as to topple the central idols of every people group. When those idols are toppled, the worship of God …
Unintended Mission Consequences
C.S. Lewis famously says somewhere that when Jesus tells us to feed the poor, He does not give us lessons in cooking. There are certain craft competence issues that we have to figure out ourselves, relying on industry standards and our own sanctified wits. Of course, industry standards of craft competence and our own sanctified …
Eleven Theses on Private Spirits
Before getting into it, my views on the subject of continuing revelation are basically found in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession. “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, …
On Being a Tricksy Dancer
I would just like to take a moment to thank Phil Johnson for the gracious reply. I would also like to offer my apologies for being exasperating, and such a tricksy dancer. I don’t usually mean to be. I have a great deal of agreement with Phil’s premises, and therefore a lot of sympathy with …
Mark Driscoll, Visions, TeamPyro, Cessationism, and Me
As we have reminded you a number of times, we have a conference coming up called The Grace Agenda. More information about that can be gathered here, and of course I recommend it to you. But if you know anything about this conference at all, you probably know that Mark Driscoll is one of the …
Laughable, Right?
Whenever you build an organization (and this would include mission organizations), there is an inexorable tendency to have the mission shift from the original mission to the maintenance of staff positions. In his recent (very fine) book, David Mamet says something very important. He is not talking about mission organizations per se, but rather human …
Inescapable Eschatology
All human action has eschatological foundations. God created us to face the future, and that is where we are all going, like it or not. This means that any task that we undertake is going to have some eschatology associated with it, either express or implied. If we try to deny this — by pretending …
The King of Missions
Missionaries should know the gospel, and be trained in the great doctrinal themes of the Bible. They should also be good-hearted people, but the good-heartedness does not supplant the need for craft competence. This is also true of the other areas that surround mission activity. Missionary pilots should be really good pilots. It is not …