This Week at Christ Reformed Church (September 30-October 6)

Sunday Morning (10/06/13):  As we continue to work our way through the Gospel of John, we come to John 12:12-26, and Jesus' triumphal entrance into Jerusalem.

Sunday Afternoon:  I am conducting our catechism service as we return to our series on the Canons of Dort.  This week, we'll be addressing God's covenant promise to parents (CD 1.17).  Our service begins @ 1:15 p.m. 

Wednesday Night Bible Study (10/03/13):  We are continuing our series, "Studies in the Book of Revelation," and are working our way through Revelation 5.  Bible study begins at 7:30 p.m.

The Friday Night Academy (10/04/13):  I am continuing my series "In the Land of Nod" (on the Reformed doctrine of the two kingdoms).  This lecture is entitled:  "Adam in Eden:  Life before Nod"

Watch for the upcoming Academy series by Ken Samples, "Responding to Islam."

For more information and directions, check out the Christ Reformed website:  Christ Reformed Church

"You Will Not Always Have Me" -- John 12:1-11

Here's the audio from this morning's sermon:  Click Here

Audio from My Academy Lecture

Here's the audio from Friday Night's Academy lecture (9/27/13).

This is the second lecture in my series, "In the Land of Nod."  The lecture is entitled, "Nod:  A Flyover--An Introduction to the Reformed Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms."

Nod: Lecture Two

This Week's White Horse Inn

Ordinary Life and Vocation

Should our lives look more like the book of Joshua, or the book of Ruth? How should we live out our faith in a secular culture? On this edition of White Horse Inn, we’ll talk with hip-hop artist Jason Petty about the pursuit of excellence in ordinary life.

Click Here

Audio from the Janet Mefferd Program

Here's the audio from my interview on the Janet Mefferd Show on Friday (9/27/13).

KR on Janet Mefferd Show

Twenty-One Reasons Why

Here are twenty-one reasons why Mariano Rivera is one of the greatest pitchers of all time.  Stark on 21 Rivera stats.  Baseball fans tend to be stat geeks, and Mariano's career numbers are simply mind-blowing.

Baseball fans everywhere respect him, and Yankees fans will mark this day (Mo's last game in Yankee Stadium) as the end of an era.  Admittedly, it will be a while before the Yanks win their twenty-eighth World Series.  But the last five were won, in part, because of Mariano Rivera. 

By all accounts, Mariano is a committed Christian and a kind and gentle man, who just happened to master one of the nastiest pitches of all time--the cutter.

I Hope He Has a Good Hat . . .

I am truly amazed by the wonderful advances in medical technology.

But what do you do if you encounter this poor guy in line in the grocery store?

How do you not stare?  How do you keep your kids from gawking, crying, or saying something rude?

I hope this man's friends and family chip in and buy him a hat (or better a beenie) until his new nose is finally transplanted.

Wonderful?  Yes.  But also creepy.  I guess Picasso was more of a visionary than I thought.

The Myth That Keeps on Giving and Some Other Things of Interest

As the next election cycle begins, David Barton is back, and once again whooping up the Christian right.  Politico on David Barton

Barton has made quite a name for himself by propagating the myth (which also happens to be a serious theological error) that America is a Christian nation which stands in a covenant relationship with God along the lines of Israel under the old covenant.    

Barton, whose book, The Jefferson Lies, has been thoroughly discredited for its shoddy research and glaring factual errors, has made a comeback because (in the words of the Politico article),

[H]e has retained his popular following and his political appeal — in large part, analysts say, because he brings an air of sober-minded scholarship to the culture wars, framing the modern-day agenda of the religious right as a return to the Founding Fathers’ vision for America.

Really?  Politico reminds its readers, lest they forget, that . . .

Barton’s abrupt, and short-lived, fall from grace began with the publication in April 2012 of his book "The Jefferson Lies," which portrays Thomas Jefferson as an orthodox Christian who saw no need to separate church and state.  Secular critics had long denounced Barton as a fraud who manipulates and misrepresents history to serve political goals. With the publication of "The Jefferson Lies," several dozen academics at Christian colleges stepped forward to join the chorus.

The myth of Christian America is so powerful and attractive to political candidates hunting  "values" voters that the same folk who complain about the media manipulation by the left, embrace someone as discredited as Barton, solely on the grounds that he will tell them what they want to hear.  Sad.  His is a powerful myth, and Christians need to reject it once and for all on biblical-theological grounds, if not factual ones.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, who also is not above playing the "Catholic" card to attract voters, is in trouble with the Vatican.  According to a report in The Washington Times (No Communion for Nancy Pelosi),

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has no Catholic right to be granted Communion, said the leading cardinal of the highest court at the Vatican.  Mrs. Pelosi should be denied Communion until she changes her advocacy views on abortion, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke said, in an interview with The Wanderer reported by the Western Center for Journalism.  That’s canon law, not opinion, he said.  Canon 915 states that Catholics who are stubbornly contrary "in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion."  And Cardinal Burke said Mrs. Pelosi fits the definition. 

We'll see if the cardinal's "line in the sand," produces any concrete action barring Ms. Pelosi from the Mass.  Will Rome actually exercise church disicpline in an age of a pope-lite like Francis?  I don't think so.  

And then, for those of you who read my series on the "OC as Burned-Over District," Timothy George offers a much more philosophical take on the ministry of Robert Schuller,

“America loves success stories.” This is how a 1983 admiring profile of the famed Robert Harold Schuller began. And back in 1983 “Bob” Schuller, as his friends called him, was certainly successful. The son of pious Dutch Reformed parents, Schuller was born on a farm in Sioux County, Iowa, in 1926. That was one year before Sinclair Lewis published Elmer Gantry, a satirical novel about a ne’er-do-well preacher from Kansas. Though Schuller would match Gantry in exuberance and flamboyant style, he was no charlatan. Educated at his denomination’s flagship schools, Hope College and Western Theological Seminary, Schuller was already a proven pastor before being sent by the Reformed Church in America to plant a new congregation in Orange County, California.

To read the rest, The Schuller Saga

If You Are Interested . . .

Lord willing, I will be on the Janet Mefford Show this coming Friday (09/27/13) to talk about my book, A Case for Amillennialism.

I'll be on with Janet from 1-2 p.m. PT.  Here's the link to her website, where you can listen live.  The Janet Mefferd Show

"We Walk by Faith" -- 2 Corinthians 4:7-5:10

The Fourth in a Series of Sermons on Select Passages in Second Corinthians

Face it, not one of us here is getting any younger.  As Paul puts it, we are wasting away.  In speaking as he does, the Apostle doesn’t mean to say that we are starving to death as a consequence of some fad diet, or as a result of a serious illness.  Rather, Paul says we are wasting away because of the fall of the human race into sin.  Because of the curse brought upon us by Adam, we are all dying.  We are wasting away–some of us faster than others.  Yet, this fact does not cause Paul to despair, or to give up on the Corinthians.  Instead, Paul looks ahead to the glories of the age to come.  That jar of clay, that “tent” which is our body, will not last forever.  But our resurrection bodies will.  In light of our human frailty, says Paul, we must walk by faith, and not by sight.

We are continuing our series on 2 Corinthians, and we now take up Paul’s discussion of the frailty of sinful human nature in light of the glories of the age to come–the focus of 2 Corinthians 4:1-5:10.  Recall that in the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians, Paul defines and defends the nature of his apostolic office in the light of the stinging criticism raised against him by certain men in the Corinthian church.  These men identify themselves as “apostles,” and who in doing so, seek to undercut Paul’s apostolic authority to make room for their own.  Paul, however, sees these men as “false apostles” (chapter 11), men who count upon their impressive rhetorical skills and their popularity among the Corinthians as the basis for their self-proclaimed apostolic status. 

Because these men have charismatic personalities and are eloquent speakers, they are able to rely upon their own natural abilities and achieve some degree of success.  But Paul knows his own weakness and frailty.  This is why he relies upon the power of God, not flowery speech, or lofty rhetoric.  Paul understands that God’s power is revealed in the scandalous proclamation of a crucified Savior.  But the false apostles do not understand this.  They avoid saying anything which might offend their hearers. 

Furthermore, flowery rhetoric doesn’t help much in times of trial.  So Paul reminds the Corinthians that God is the source of all comfort.  Even when Paul faced such severe affliction, and underwent trials so difficult that he (as an apostle) despaired even of life itself, nevertheless God opened a door for Paul to go and preach the gospel in Troas and Macedonia.  In light of this remarkable and unexpected turn of events, Paul describes how the preaching of the gospel amounts to a triumphal procession of Jesus Christ.  This triumph is a fragrant offering unto God, a point in light of the Old Testament background of sin and thanksgiving offerings which are described as an aroma which pleases God.  Paul points out that God is pleased with the proclamation of the sacrificial death of Jesus, that once for all sacrifice for sin, through which sinners are saved, and made forever right before God.

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul contrasts the fading glory of the Old Covenant–made by God with Israel at Mount Sinai, of which Moses was mediator, and which came in the form of types and shadow–with the far greater glory of the New Covenant, ratified in the blood of Jesus Christ.  Paul has argued that the law–first written upon stone tablets, and then in the Torah–pales in comparison with the glories of the New Covenant, in which the law is now written upon the human heart in and through the power of the Holy Spirit.  When Paul contrasts the law with the Spirit, he is not saying that the Old Covenant (external authority) is torn up and thrown away so that New Covenant believers rely solely upon the Holy Spirit living in the human heart for revelation from God (internal authority).

To read the rest of this sermon, Click Here