Pastors Criticizing and Criticized // Praying for Pastors // Church Singing

Mark Dever talks about how pastors should receive and give criticism.  This was excellent!


How to pray for your pastor.  Eight specific and targeted prayers.


Tim Challies lists benefits of a physical hymnal at church, instead of words on a screen.
He's too pessimistic about "going back," as if it's a quixotic and futile quest.  I suppose all the cool churches would consider it too 10-years-ago, and inconvenient.  But the medium-sized churches who do powerpoint with amateur volunteers at the computer often hit snags mid-song, when the computer freezes or the operator is asleep at the button.

Another aspect lost is knowing you're part of a bigger church than you and your radio station.  Who put this book together, and why do we align with them?  You're more likely to ask that with a physical book in your hand.  But we should also ask it CCM song selection.  This song on Christian radio they are playing a lot - why is it a good song to sing in church?
Church music should not be an extension of "top Christian 40" radio.

Culture War // Patient Sanctification // On Luther and Lutherans

Kevin DeYoung reminds the church that to always wage the cultural war will sometimes alienate hurting people. 
"While we do not have patience for secular agendas, we must have patience for struggling people....
Let’s make sure we aren’t constantly in full-on culture warrior mode. We should empathize with those who genuinely feel threatened, scared, or all alone. Standing up for the truth doesn’t mean we have to say everything we think in every situation. It’s okay to be tactful, respectful, and even keep our mouths shut at times. Charging ahead with zeal is not an excuse for trampling over people."



Ever noticed that you are patient with yourself, but not with others?
This is especially true regarding your sins and theirs....


Carl Trueman writes well about conversion theology and the sacraments, and wonders why Reformed try harder to ally with Baptists than with Lutherans.

Givenness of Things Review

The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Marilynne Robinson does her best to make “liberal” attractive again.

I don’t think she ever uses the word, and I don’t mean it here in the way that conservative talk shows do. She only occasionally advocates for more involvement of the state in our lives, and then only obliquely.

No, I mean the classical liberal, non-economic sense, of being open-hearted to one another as people. Her thesis is found on the last page:
“Everything depends on reverence for who we are and what we are, on the sacredness implicit in the human circumstance. We know how deeply we can injure one another by denying fairness. We know how profoundly we can impoverish ourselves by failing to find value in one another. We know that respect is a profound alleviation, which we can offer and too often withhold” (286).

She couches the truth in very gentle terms, for an audience now unaccustomed to biblical truth. But referring to Calvin and the Puritans often, Robinson asserts that people are made in the image of God, and must be treated as such. If you can ignore her undercurrent of universalism and neo-orthodox treatment of Scripture, this is an important take-away.

The givenness of things involves our created-ness, the universe as vast and mysterious, our need for forgiveness and grace from others. She upholds “a generous and even a costly readiness to show our respect for all minds and spirits, especially for those whose place in life might cheat them of respect…. To value one another is our greatest safety, and to indulge in fear and contempt is our gravest error” (29). This needs some tempering with a realistic view of the sin at work in everyone’s lives. But it’s refreshing, coming from conservative circles where the tendency is to only value propositional truth. If the person doesn’t hold to the truth exactly as I see it, the person is abruptly dismissed. Robinson instead calls for respect and tolerance (in the old, best sense of the word), and patient regard for the soul God is working on. As the fellow says, people need kindness, because everyone is dealing with something hard.

This leads her to defend the humanities in academia, at a time when our culture looks more to science for answers. I agree with her in this, though she may go too far in the “education as savior” direction. But she also interacts with contemporary science quite a bit, usually making the point that we don’t know as much as we think we know.

Robinson’s writing style is not very accessible – she’s more academic. 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 on that one. But her tone does convey her thesis: value the givenness of things that God has built into the souls around you.



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A New Hymn // Being Pastoral // Love Called Hate

Here's a wonderful new hymn for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, by Bob Kauflin and Sovereign Grace.


What does it mean to be "pastoral"?  Kevin DeYoung helps.

We are starting to condemn acts of love as hate, in the church, just like progressives do in the culture, Tim Challies asserts.




"It is not necessary for a preacher to express all his thoughts in one sermon. A preacher should have three principles: first, to make a good beginning, and not spend time with many words before coming to the point; secondly, to say that which belongs to the subject in chief, and avoid strange and foreign thoughts; thirdly, to stop at the proper time."
Martin Luther, The Early Years, Christian History, n. 34.

HT: Randy Booth