Randy Alcorn: Taking Charge of the TV

Randy Alcorn has some helpful thoughts about taking charge of the television. You do not have to agree with all of it to benefit from his advice. (For instance, I do not watch TV, only the occasional movie or sports game). But, I imagine that many friends find their tube-viewing detrimentally in excess, so perhaps this advice from Alcorn will be useful. And lest we (I) be too cocky, social networking has taken the throne of excess use in my generation's life, so here is a link to an earlier article I posted about using social-networking time in a worthwhile way:

Redeeming Social Life Online: Click Here to check out some provoking thoughts on a Christian's approach to Facebook. I'm not sure how I feel about all it's nuances, but it certainly is something to ponder.

Redeeming Time: Speaking of which, here is an insight into ways to redeem that which we all have a tendency to waste: time.

Here are Alcorn's points (but click through to read his reasons):

1. Keep track of how much time you spend watching.
2. Decide in advance how much TV to watch per week.
3. Use a schedule to choose programs for the week--then stick to your choices.
4. Keep your television unplugged, store it in a closet, and/or put it in a remote part of the house (prevents mindless flip-on).
5. Periodically "fast" from television for a week or a month. Notice the "cold turkey" effects. (Avoids addiction, reminds you of all that can be done when TV off).
6. Choose programs that uplift rather than undermine biblical values.
7. Use the "off" switch freely. If it's wrong and you keep watching, you're saying "I approve." (Unless it doesn't present temptation and you're critically analyzing it).
8. Use the channel changer frequently.
9. Watch and discuss programs together as a family--to avoid passivity and develop active moral discernment through interaction. (Avoid the second TV set that splits the family and leaves children unsupervised).
10. Don't allow young children to choose their own programs--that's the parent's responsibility.
11. Don't use television as a baby sitter.
12. Spend an hour reading Scripture, a Christian book or magazine, or doing a ministry for each hour you watch TV.
13. Consider dropping cable, Showtime, HBO, or any other service that you determine is importing ungodliness or temptation into your home.
14. If you find you can't control it--or you're tired of the battle--get rid of your television.

[HT: Josh Harris]

Winding Down

And so summer is thundering to a close, whether I like it or not.

Camp Judson's summer season has ended. I'm glad to be done with the kids--frankly, I'm drained and exhausted. But, I'm bittersweet because I know I didn't minister to the kids to the best of my ability and I didn't do by job to the best of my ability, and I didn't enjoy the place where I grew up and thought of as my home as much as I could; I was faithless many times. Yet God is faithful despite my faithlessness (thanks Westminster Confession and Lord's Supper at Hillcrest this past Sunday for that power reminder of truth).

As I write this, I'm sitting in the Tech Booth at the Youth Temple in Ocean Grove, NJ working as the Technical Director for the Leadership Summit sponsored by Willowcreek Church. Ocean Grove is one of the satellite sites for this summit and our job is to synchronize the satellite feed of all activities in Chicago and broadcast them on the big screen here on the East Coast. Honestly, this has been fun and fresh volunteer work with some of my very best friends mixed in with a vacation at a seaside resort. I haven't the highest opinion of Willowcreek or much of contemporary/pop-evangelicalism and I have mixed feelings on Tim Keller (who is speaking at the moment) and his programs-oriented style. All the same, he is the only Reformed preacher this Summit is broadcasting, and he is a man with a love and passion for the gospel "from whom much wisdom can be gleaned," according to Ligon Duncan. And if it's good enough for Ligon Duncan, it's good enough for me.

Plus, I get to wear a headset, namebadge, and operate a lot of fun looking control panels with lots of blinking lights and buttons. Worthwhile? I think so.

Soon, I will return to the haven of academia and Christendom which I love. I'm excited; there's much to be done and much to consider and much to tackle. I've got plenty of hesitation, not the least of which is serving in an RA capacity, learning Greek, taking over a conference, securing funds, participating in a small government, planning life, changing churches and denominations and doing all the aforementioned well.

Grace, anyone? Praise God it abounds from Him.

Still need to finish that silly paper from May Intersession. Too bad one can't drive and type at the same time.

The Heresy of 'Individualism'?

By Richard J. Mouw

In her opening address to the Episcopal Church's recent General Convention, the Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the church's presiding bishop, made a special point of denouncing what she labeled "the great Western heresy"—the teaching, in her words, "that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God." This "individualist focus," she declared, "is a form of idolatry."

There is good news and bad news here. The good news is that the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop is not afraid to denounce heresy. The bad news is that we evangelicals turn out to be the heretics she is denouncing.

I am willing to meet her partway on the subject of her concern. Many of us in the evangelical world have devoted much effort toward remedying what we see as an unhealthy individualist focus in our ranks. If, for example, Bishop Jefferts Schori would take the time to browse through the pages of Christianity Today from the past half-century, she would find many calls for evangelicals to depart from the notion that all that matters is that individuals get saved and prepare for a heavenly reward. Much evangelical attention has been paid to systemic injustice, social structures, the central importance of "body life," and so on.

In all of this, however, the presiding bishop would discover an important nuance. We evangelicals never downplay the importance of individuals—as individuals—coming to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. We never say that an individual's very personal relationship to God is not important. What we do say is that individual salvation is not enough.

In my own thinking on this subject, which has made much of the centrality of the church and the importance of collective Christian address to the issues of injustice and public morality, there are actual stories that have kept me from endorsing the kind of un-nuanced verdict that seems to have come so easily to Jefferts Schori's lips.

Here is one that has stuck with me from my younger years. A man, a prominent leader in his local church, testified that before becoming a Christian, he had lived a dissolute life. A salesperson who was constantly on the road, he drank heavily and was frequently unfaithful to his wife. One evening, sitting alone in his hotel room, be became very despondent. He did not want another evening spent in the hotel bar, nor did he have an interest in seeking a sexual encounter. Remembering that there was usually a Gideon Bible in one of the dresser drawers in hotel rooms, he found the Scriptures, and began to read the passages recommended in the inside cover under the heading, "Feeling Discouraged? Read …". As he read the prescribed passages, he was overcome by a sense of his sin, and finally fell to his knees and pleaded with God to do something in his life. That experience was the turning point for him. He confessed his misdeeds to his wife, they sought out a church, and together they matured in the Christian life.

That story has always fit well with my views of salvation and the church. In a profound sense, of course, the church was a living reality in that hotel room—the invitation extended to him by the placing of a Gideon Bible in that room was as "churchly" a reality as any evangelistic sermon preached from a pulpit. But what the Lord, through the placing of that volume, was doing in the privacy of that hotel room was inviting an individual sinner to bring the burden of his sin and guilt to the Cross of Calvary. The man accepted that invitation, and he rightly moved on to the point of identifying himself with the body of Christ.

We evangelicals can tell many stories of that sort. I wish that Jefferts Schori would listen to them and discuss them with us. And I wish also that, having discussed these things together, she would joining us in singing: "My sin—O the bliss of this glorious thought!—/my sin, not in part but the whole, / is nailed to the Cross, and I bear it no more, / praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul."

Call that "individualism" if you want. But for us not only is it not heresy, it is at the heart of what it means to affirm the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thoughts on Media Usage in Worship

The following is an edited transcript of the audio.

What are your thoughts on drama, movie clips, and the like in a church service?

I'll start with the freedom that we have in Christ, and then I'll move to the position that I operate in.

The New Testament isn't explicit on forbidding using a screen to put the lyrics up, or to put the scene of a waterfall behind it, or to make the waterfall actually move behind it, or to show a picture of your fishing trip to illustrate the big fish that you caught and how your people should now go out and be "fishers of men." The Bible doesn't forbid it.

I'll be gone in a few years and you can do whatever you want to do, but I believe profoundly in the power and the till-Jesus-comes-validity of preaching. And by that I mean the spirit-anointed exposition of the Scripture through clear explanations and applications of what's there. There's something God-appointed about that.

I think the use of video and drama largely is a token of unbelief in the power of preaching. And I think that, to the degree that pastors begin to supplement their preaching with this entertaining spice to help people stay with them and be moved and get helped, it's going to backfire. It's going to backfire.

It's going to communicate that preaching is weak, preaching doesn't save, preaching doesn't hold, but entertainment does. And we'll just go further and further. So we don't do video clips during the sermon. We don't do skits.

I went to a drama at our church four days ago. I believe in drama. I believe in the power of drama. But let drama be drama! And let preaching be preaching! Let's have the arts in our churches, but don't try to squash it all into Sunday morning. So I get worked up about these things.

That's where I am on that. Free. Nobody is going to go to hell because of this, in the short run.

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© Desiring God

A Few Thoughts on Free Will

July 9, 2009 | By: John Piper

Category: Commentary

Before the fall of Adam sinless man was able to sin. For God said, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

As soon as Adam fell, sinful man was not able not to sin, since we were unbelieving,and “whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).

When we are born again, by the power of the Holy Spirit we are able to not sin, for “sin will have no dominion over you” (Romans 6:14).

This means that what Paul calls “the natural man” or “the mind of the flesh” is not able not to sin. Paul says this in Romans 8:7-9

The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (See also 1Corinthians 2:14).

How then shall we think of free will?

It is not a saving power. In his freedom to will, fallen man cannot on his own do anything but sin. Such “free will” is a devastating reality. Without some power to overcome it’s bent, our free will only damns us.

We could stop here and turn with joy to the gospel truth that God overcomes our resistance, gives us life, wakens our dead inclination for Christ, and freely and irresistibly draws us to himself (John 6:44, 65; Acts 13:48; Ephesians 2:5; 2 Timothy 2:25-26).

But it sometimes helps to answer objections. One common objection is that, if we “cannot” do what is right, and “can only” do what is sin, then we are not acting voluntarily and cannot be praised or blamed.

Here is part of John Calvin’s answer to this objection:

The goodness of God is so connected with his Godhead that it is not more necessary to be God than to be good; whereas the devil, by his fall, was so estranged from goodness that he can do nothing but evil.

Should anyone give utterance to the profane jeer that little praise is due to God for a goodness to which he is forced, is it not obvious to every man to reply, “It is owing not to violent impulse, but to his boundless goodness, that he cannot do evil?”

Therefore, if the free will of God in doing good is not impeded, because he necessarily must do good; if the devil, who can do nothing but evil, nevertheless sins voluntarily; can it be said that man sins less voluntarily because he is under a necessity of sinning? (Institutes, II.3.5)

Independence Day

INDEPENDENCE Day: when I was born again. “All things are lawful for me, but I WILL NOT BE ENSLAVED by anything” (1Cor 6:12)

HT: John Piper

Christians and Government

From Ligionier Ministries:

Both Peter and Paul call us to submit to governing authorities. In light of that, is revolution ever possible for a Christian, and if so, under what circumstances?

It certainly is clear that the New Testament puts an emphasis on the Christian's responsibility to be a model of civil obedience. In Romans 13, Paul tells us that the powers that be are ordained by God. That doesn't mean that they are sanctioned by God or that God endorses everything that civil governments do; we know better than that. But Paul is saying that it is God who brings government to pass, and we are called to submit to the rulers of the government out of respect for Christ.

Peter says that we ought to obey the civil magistrates "for the Lord's sake" (1 Pet. 2:13-17). How is Christ glorified by my submitting to the governor of the state of Florida or to the Congress of the United States of America? I think the broad issue here is the ultimate biblical struggle between competing voices of authority, the principles of Satan and of God. The issue is, Does the human person manifest a spirit of obedience to the law of God, or do we participate in a spirit of lawlessness? It's interesting that the Antichrist in the New Testament is identified with the man of lawlessness.

I think that when we are called to obey the civil magistrates, it's because the New Testament sees a hierarchical structure of authority, and that the ultimate authority in heaven and earth is God. God delegates authority to
his only begotten Son: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18). Yet underneath the authority of the Son, who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, are levels of earthly authority, such as government at its various levels down to the authority of employers over employees and parents over children. We see that ultimately authority finds its sanction in God's authority and sovereignty. The principle is not difficult to understand: If I am willy-nilly and careless in my obedience to authority at the lower levels, I am therefore implicitly placing myself in a posture of disobedience to the ultimate authority that stands above and behind the earthly. It is the law of God that we disobey. We apply this principle when we say that a child who doesn't learn to respect his parents will have trouble respecting anything or anyone else. By my being scrupulous in my civil obedience, bending over backwards to obey my teachers, my employers, my governors, and my police officers, I am honoring Christ, who is the ultimate model of authority and of obedience to the law.

Is it is ever justifiable to engage in revolt? Many Christians would say no. This was a crucial question at the time of the American Revolution, and Christian theologians fell on both sides of that issue. I believe that those who did justify the Revolution said the only time it's justifiable to revolt is when the government itself becomes lawless and functions in an illegal or unlawful manner. In colonial America the revolt was against the unlawful taxation that was taking place. That requires a longer history lesson than we have time for here.

*****

Quoted in Now, That's a Good Question! by Tyndale House Publishers. Available here.