One More Week? Please!

So a week has come and gone since I last asked you to answer the question, "What is a Christian?"  To my shame, I've not yet had a chance to compile all of my thoughts in the form of a post.  They are still floating around in this head of mine, and I've still got to grab them and put them down on paper.  So, if you don't mind, let's do 2 things.
  1. Let's push back my response another week. Next Wednesday is my self-imposed deadline.
  2. If you haven't already given an answer to the question, "What is a Christian?", take some time to write a short answer.  I was hoping for a little bigger response than what I got for discussion's sake, so this gives you a little more time to answer if you'd like. You can leave a comment here in answer to the proposed question.
And to make it up to you, here's a pretty hilarious video Kevin DeYoung posted last week on his blog.  I just hope your dentist is a little better than this one.

Is It Okay to Be a Christian & Be Transgendered?

If you have never listened to these Ask Pastor John sessions, I would recommend you subscribe to their iTunes podcast or YouTube page.  It's these hard, ethical questions that I really enjoy seeing how Piper answers them. 

The Dad Life

Happy belated Father's Day to all Dad's out there!


Dad Life from Church on the Move on Vimeo.

What Is a Christian?

Recently, I've been reading Evangelicalism Divided by Iain Murray, and it's got me thinking. In it, Murray plots the 2 paths that Evangelicalism has taken in the past 50 years. A path toward biblical Christianity or a path toward liberalism. One of the many forks in the road for these 2 paths was how the following question was answered: "What is a Christian?"

So that's the question I'm posing to you.  What is a Christian?  What makes someone a Christian?  I think this is an important question for all of us to think through, and the answer has massive implications that we might not realize.  So here's what we're gonna do.

You have one week to leave a comment on this post answering the question, "What is a Christian?"  I'll try to interact with you as you post your answers.  One rule though...  I want people to feel free to answer this question without the fear of ridicule or condemnation.  Therefore, if you leave a comment that is derogatory towards anyone's answer, it will be deleted immediately.  Let's be gracious to others just as Jesus has been gracious to us.

At the end of one week's time, I'll follow-up with a post that summarizes your answers, show some of the implications of some of those answers, and then share how the answer to this question caused division between Evangelicalism in the past 50 years. So have it.

What is a Christian?

A Dragon Fight for the Ages

This was a helpful reminder for me today.

'We fell into sin as a race because we were beguiled by a dragon (Gen. 3:1). God promised to send a warrior who would crush the seed of that serpent (Gen. 3:15), and He has done this in Jesus Christ. In sum, the gospel is the story of a dragon-fight. The serpent of Genesis is the dragon of Revelation (Rev. 20:2), and we are called to rejoice that the dragon has been slain. In contrast, we have reduced the gospel to four basic steps toward personal happiness, and we are much farther from the truth than our fathers were when they told their glorious stories. This is another way of saying that dragon-lore is truer than therapy-speak.' - Doug Wilson in Future Men
Thanks to: Jared Wilson & Zach Nielsen

John Piper's Thoughts on Being a Part of an Online Church

I appreciated John Piper's thoughts here.  Online churches are becoming more and more popular with the emergence of streaming audio and video.  You can now, literally, attend church from the comfort of your own home right in front of a computer.  Without becoming too long-winded, let me just say this and I'll let Pastor Piper do the rest.  Our Christian lives are meant to be lived in community, not isolation.  We are Christ's body... many different parts forming one whole church.  So get off your butt, get dressed, drive to church, and begin the hard yet joyful work of living out your Christian life in community... at church!

How to Pastor Your Family

My pastor from college recently sent me an article on how Mark Driscoll lead's his family in daily worship.  Being a new dad, reading it was helpful, edifying & fruitful.  If you are a parent and are seeking to learn more about family worship, take 5 minutes and read this short post.  Here's a short outline of it.
  1. Routine
  2. Intentional Evenings
  3. Time to Play
  4. Mealtime
  5. Cleanup
  6. Bible Time
  7. Questions & Answers
  8. Family Prayer
  9. Bedtime
  10. Explicit vs. Implicit

Go, Wayne Grudem!

If this doesn't make you want to read Grudem's Systematic Theology, Bible Doctrine, or at least Basic Christian Beliefs, I don't know what will...

On Reading

For the first 18 years of my life, I hated reading.  Seriously.  If I had to choose between pulling weeds, chopping firewood, file my taxes, or read a book, one thing's for sure...  I would never have chosen to read a book.  This even included reading my bible.  As a Christian, I knew that reading my bible (along with prayer) was the only way I could commune with the God I loved.  But the times I spent in His Word would sadly be short because I loathed reading.  Then, during the summer of my freshman year of college, God did a work in me that only He could have done.  I picked up a copy of Desiring God by John Piper and read it fervently to the end.  Since that time, I haven't stopped reading.

I now look back on those years when I hated reading and see one thing.  Pride.  Reading is an act of humility.  The act of reading says this:  "I don't know everything.  In fact, there are many other people out there who know much more than I do.  So I'm going to take some time out of my day to have a conversation with someone else about the things of God."  Reading our bible is a given.  God has spoken to us and has written it done in the form of a book so that we could read it.  We have to do this daily.

But we begin to walk a slippery slope when we read our bible in isolation, with only our own interpretations.  Theology must be done in community.  That's why we have bible studies, where we can gather together to discuss God's Word.  That's why we gather at coffee shops with friends to talk about the hard questions of the Christian faith.  And that's why we read.  We read to converse with other Christian saints (living and dead) around the globe about the things of God.  I cannot tell you the profound influence that men like John Piper, Jonathan Edwards, DA Carson, and Charles Spurgeon have had on my life, and I have never even met them (besides John Piper... I met him at T4G 2010. But I think you still get my point.).

Take it from a former book-hater.  We are not as smart as we think we are.  Let's humble ourselves and gather together in community with the friends around us, the living Christians around the globe, and the past saints of old to push one another closer to the God we love.

And if you don't listen to me, at least hear the prodding of the late English pastor, Charles Spurgeon.  Here's a quote from his sermon on 2 Timothy 4:13 ("When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments" ).
"We will look at Paul’s books. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them.
Even an apostle must read. Some of our very ultra-Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot and talks any quantity of nonsense is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men’s brains – oh, that is the preacher!
How rebuked they are by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching for at least thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet wants books!
He had been caught up into the Third Heaven and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy, and so he says to every preacher, “Give attendance to reading” (1 Tim. 4:13).
The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains proves that he has no brains of his own.
Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers and expositions of the Bible."
Thanks to Trevin Wax for pointing me to this quote from Spurgeon.