Roman Newsletter – Special Edition: Renovation and Relocation * Update

Dear Friends,

We wanted to share some updates on our renovation and relocation.  Please click here to access our newsletter.

Thanks for your interest in our ministry.

Restoring Worship

I read a portion of Schaff’s History of the Christian Church this week.  In the section on The Swiss Reformation, he notes this about the Anabaptist’s hymnody,

They dwell on the inner life of the Christian, the mysteries of regeneration, sanctification, and personal union with Christ. They breathe throughout a spirit of piety, devotion, cheerful resignation under suffering, and readiness for martyrdom.  They are hymns of the cross, to comfort and encourage the scattered sheep of Christ ready for the slaughter, in imitation of their divine Shepherd (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 8:80).  

Their hymnody grew out of a crucible of suffering and persecution.  It appears that a keen realization that we are living on the precipice of eternity would go a long way in restoring worship that pleases God.

Infertility and an Everlasting Name That Will Not Be Cut Off

One of the foundational commands given to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth (Genesis 1:28).  There are many couples who earnestly desire to fulfill this command but for one reason or another cannot.  Infertility is a devastating reality that many couples struggle with.  According to the CDC,

• Number of women ages 15-44 with impaired fecundity (impaired ability to have children): 7.3 million
• Percent of women ages 15-44 with impaired fecundity: 11.8%
• Number of married women ages 15-44 that are infertile (unable to get pregnant for at least 12 consecutive months): 2.1 million

It is God, the Giver of life, who opens the barren womb (Isaiah 42:5; 1 Timothy 6:13; Psalm 113:9).  A number of Biblical women were barren until God allowed them to give birth; Michal is the exception:  Sarah (Genesis 16:1-2), Rebekah (Genesis 25:21), Rachel (Genesis 30:1), Samson’s mother (Judges 13:3), Michal (2 Samuel 6:23), Hannah (1 Samuel 1:11), and Elisabeth (Luke 1:7).  Childless Absalom erected a monument with his name since he did not have a son to propagate it (2 Samuel 18:18).  Isaiah 56:4-5 offers a word of encouragement to those who cannot bear children,

For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, [5] I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off”

Those who suffer infertility echo the anguished sentiment of the eunuch, “Behold, I am a dry tree” (Isaiah 56:3).  While infertility may not fulfill the command of Genesis 1:28, it does not prohibit a couple from fulfilling the greatest purpose of all: to propagate the Name that will not be cut off.  Infertility and the desire for children can become an idol just like any other good thing (remember when the children of Israel turned the Bronze serpent, a divinely ordained instrument of salvation, into an idol in 2 Kings 18:4).  When God, and not children, is the center of our existence, we are “enriched with blessings far beyond those which even an earthly family (sons and daughters) might have brought” (Motyer, Isaiah, 466).  Another author encourages childless couples,

Not that childless couples or single persons are not in the will of God or cannot make significant contributions to the kingdom; physical fruitfulness is but a part of God’s overall desire for humans to be fruitful, which includes spiritual fruitfulness as well” (Köstenberger, God, Marriage, and Family, 129-30, emphasis added).

The Death of Three Celebrities and Their Legacies

This week three iconic personalities died.  Each of them leaves behind a fingerprint in American culture.

• Ed McMahon died June 23, 2009.  He is best known for being Johnny Carson’s announcer and sidekick.  Legacy: comedian.
• Farrah Fawcett died June 25, 2009.  She rose to fame through her role in Charlie’s Angels.  Legacy: sex symbol.
• Michael Jackson died June 25, 2009 (this is news only for hermits).  He is known as one of the greatest recording artists and entertainer of all time. Legacy: the king of pop.

The death of a comedian, a sex symbol, and the king of pop have saddened many this week.  The number of mourners around the world for Michael Jackson are easily in the millions.  While few will likely lament my death, I hope I will leave a greater legacy behind: that I faithfully pointed people to Christ.

Book Review: Why Johnny Can’t Preach

Gordon, T. David. Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009.

Overview

This book is a quick read, 105 pages in all.  The author wrote it as he was going through chemo with only a 25% chance of survival.  He wanted to unburden himself of the message in the book in case he did not survive.  God spared him.  The title is a play on the Why Johnny Can’t Read (1966) and Why Johnny Can’t Write (1990) titles.  His stated thesis is “many ordained people simply can’t preach” (p. 16).  It is not a book on “how to” or preaching mechanics.  It is a book that identifies a problem and offers several solutions to the problem.   

He challenges two groups of people:

• Pastors.  “Ministers have found it entirely too convenient and self-serving to dismiss congregational disinterest on the basis of attenuated attention spans or spiritual indifference.  “In most cases, the attentiveness in the congregation is due to poor preaching—preaching that does not reward an energetic, conscientious listening” (p. 31).
• The contemporary and emergent churches.  He challenges them on the reasons for abandoning preaching.  He argues that preaching is not the problem, incompetent preachers are the problem.    “What the contemporaneists and emergents have not yet considered, however, is the possibility that such moribund churches are so not because they are doing the wrong things, but because they are doing them incompetently” (pp. 31-32). 

Gordon’s observations are primarily in the sphere of the Presbyterian Church in America and Orthodox Presbyterian Churches.  His basis is that a majority of sermons lack unity and structure.  He contends, however, that the shoddy mechanics are only symptoms of a deeper problem.   Moreover, the problem is not that seminaries are not teaching homiletics well.  In fact he notes that there are a number of excellent homileticians in seminaries, such as Haddon Robinson and Bryan Chappell.  Instead the paucity of good preaching can be attributed to the following three deficiencies:

The lack of ability to read texts.  By this he means not reading for information but reading for significance in what is said and how it’s expressed.  “There is profound difference between reading information and reading texts” (p. 43).  He asserts that there are few who can read secular or sacred texts closely and carefully.  This, therefore, spills over into preaching when the preacher fails to see the significance and thus communicate it to his hearers.  Why the inability to read texts?  Gordon claims, “Our inability to read texts is a direct result of the presence electronic media” (p. 50).  As a media ecologist, “a person who is concerned about how the mere presence of that medium itself alters individual consciousness, social structures, or cultural habits and sensibilities” (p. 16), he presents some compelling arguments to support his assertion.   

The lack of ability to compose.  By this he means that we simply give little thought to what we say and how we say it.  If we use a computer, we can hit delete.  If we use the telephone we do not need to think about what we say ahead of time.  For instance, the telephone has cultivated the deterioration of preparation.  “We do not compose our thoughts as frequently or carefully as we once did” (p. 63).  Incidentally, Gordon says that technology that allows communicating with people whom we cannot see leads to the atrophy of the ability to read body language (p. 63).  Manual composition forces us to think about what we are going to say because we will only have one chance to communicate our message. 

The lack of Christian content in preaching.  Gordon argues for the indispensability of Christ in Christian preaching.  “That is, the particular ‘tending’ referred to [in John 21:15-17] is the pastoral care that ensures that the flock is fed. Such nourishment and spiritual sustenance, I would argue, comes from proclaiming the fitness and competence of Christ in his mediatorial work.  When we ‘feed’ God’s flock, we feed their faith.  We nourish the part of them that has the need and capacity to rest on Christ and have confidence in his work of redemption” (p. 74).  He echoes the thrust of Bryan Chappell’s Christ Centered Preaching.  He helps set Christological preaching apart from non-Christological preaching by noting four failed paradigms (pp. 78-88):

• Moralism. A “be good/do good” sermon.
• How-To.  A sermon on how to “be good/do good.”
• Introspection.  In the neo-puritan tradition.  Each sermon can be subtitled: “I Know You Think You Are a Christian, but You Are Not.”
• Social Gospel/Culture War.  A sermon on what’s wrong with culture and how to improve it.

In his final chapter, “Teaching Johnny to Preach,” Gordon concludes by suggesting three remedies to these maladies in contemporary preaching:

• A pastor should have an annual review.  “Most ministers will never know how bad their preaching is without an annual review” (p. 97). 
• A pastor should cultivate the sensibility of reading texts closely. “Sensibilities that are absent today could be present in a year or two if an effort were made to cultivate them” (p. 99).  This includes an immersion in English literature and poetry (pre-World War II). He points out that some of the great preachers of our day had formal training in literature, such as James Montgomery Boice and his successor Philip Graham Ryken.  John Piper, a very able preacher in my estimation, was a literature major at Wheaton College.
• Cultivating the sensibility of composed communication.  This includes a proficiency in composition.  His suggestion is fairly straightforward here.  He recommends that pastors write.  He also recommends that pastors write hand written letters to their congregants.  “The handwritten letter requires composition: that one consider before one writes what one wishes to say and how one wishes to say it” (p. 103). 

Analysis and Critique

I found the book to be very pointed.  It is worth reading and pondering how we might become more capable preachers.  The urgency of the author was evident throughout the book.  While it was terse, it was a message that needs to be voiced.  As best as I can tell, Gordon has a sincere and earnest desire to sound the alarm of poor preaching in our day in the hopes that the warning is heeded and the problem corrected.  I admit that I grimaced on occasion as I beheld myself in the reflection of the pages.  I also found myself taking a defensive posture early on in the book.  Gordon did a good job of proving his assertions which caused me to lower my defenses.  I did, however, find myself wondering what, in practice, an able preacher looked like in his estimation.  He provided some examples to be sure, but it was difficult to nail down as I read the book.  For our current regimen of ministry preparation, it is pretty close to a paradigm shift if we are to follow some of his suggestions.  However, he has a good deal of history and preachers of generations past who serve as persuasive proof of the validity of what he is suggesting.  Augustine’s account of his conversion began by attending Ambrose’s church at the prodding of his mother.  Augustine attended to learn rhetorical skills since Ambrose was well known for this.  Over time Augustine was compelled by the content of his messages more than the way in which he delivered them, but the initial draw was Ambrose’s speaking ability.  Augustine says,

To Milan I came, to Ambrose the Bishop, known to the whole world as among the best of men, Thy devout servant; whose eloquent discourse did then plentifully dispense unto Thy people the flour of Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy wine. To him was I unknowing led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be led to Thee. That man of God received me as a father, and showed me an Episcopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to love him, at first indeed not as a teacher of the truth (which I utterly despaired of in Thy Church), but as a person kind towards myself. And I listened diligently to him preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought, but, as it were, trying his eloquence, whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than was reported; and I hung on his words attentively; but of the matter I was as a careless and scornful looker-on (Confessions, Book 5, Chapter 8).

Helpful as Gordon’s book is, I wonder if Gordon overstated his case.  Let’s assume that preachers take his advice and pursue deeper studies of the humanities.  We would likely have more capable public speakers and even more eloquent preachers, but more successful in effecting change?  Paul says that even if a man speaks loftily and lacks love, it is an indistinct sound (1 Corinthians 13:1).  Was Paul a sub-standard rhetorician (2 Corinthians 11:6)?  John Piper has recently pointed out that eloquence itself might not be a virtue but a stumbling block.  He says this in “Is There Christian Eloquence? Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross”

In the Spring of 1740, George Whitefield was in Philadelphia preaching outdoors to thousands of people. Benjamin Franklin attended most of these messages. Franklin, who did not believe what Whitefield was preaching, commented on these perfected sermons,

Here is preaching that is so eloquent you can like it without believing anything in it. In other words, the language itself—the word-selection, word-arrangement, and word-delivery was such that it was pleasurable to Franklin who cared nothing for what the language meant. Franklin loved his eloquence and rejected the cross.

His delivery…was so improved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned, and well placed, that without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse: a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:17, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”  This verse is a good perspective to balance Gordon’s message.  I do affirm the need to develop our ability to communicate because of the eternity-impactingmessage we communicate.  Apollos was known as a capable and eloquent preacher (Acts 18:24), we should strive for nothing less.  Then may God empower our feeble words to bring about salvation and sanctification in the hearts of our hearers. Let us labor to competently proclaim God’s word, “whoever speaks, as one who speaks the oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11).

Ambrose as a Shepherd and Preacher

Augustine highlights two aspects of Ambrose’s ministry which seemed to consume him: caring for his congregation and study. 

And Ambrose himself, as the world counts happy, I esteemed a happy man, whom personages so great held in such honour; only his celibacy seemed to me a painful course. But what hope he bore within him, what struggles he had against the temptations which beset his very excellencies, or what comfort in adversities, and what sweet joys Thy Bread had for the hidden mouth of his spirit, when chewing the cud thereof, I neither could conjecture, nor had experienced. Nor did he know the tides of my feelings, or the abyss of my danger. For I could not ask of him, what I would as I would, being shut out both from his ear and speech by multitudes of busy people, whose weaknesses he served. With whom when he was not taken up (which was but a little time), he was either refreshing his body with the sustenance absolutely necessary, or his mind with reading. But when he was reading, his eye glided over the pages, and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were at rest. Ofttimes when we had come (for no man was forbidden to enter, nor was it his wont that any who came should be announced to him), we saw him thus reading to himself, and never otherwise; and having long sat silent (for who durst intrude on one so intent?) we were fain to depart, conjecturing that in the small interval which he obtained, free from the din of others’ business, for the recruiting of his mind, he was loth to be taken off; and perchance he dreaded lest if the author he read should deliver any thing obscurely, some attentive or perplexed hearer should desire him to expound it, or to discuss some of the harder questions; so that his time being thus spent, he could not turn over so many volumes as he desired; although the preserving of his voice (which a very little speaking would weaken) might be the truer reason for his reading to himself. But with what intent soever he did it, certainly in such a man it was good (Confessions, Book 6, Chapter 3).

Al Mohler Provides and Evaluates Statistics on Homeschooling

On June 3 Al Mohler highlighted some of the results of a recently published review by the US Department of Education. 

There are some promising trends in homeschooling from the number of homeschoolers to the quality of homeschool education. 

As he evaluates the statistics Mohler observes,

Homeschooling is now a major force in American education, and Christian parents have been in the vanguard of this movement.  For many Christian parents, homeschooling represents the fulfillment of the biblical mandate for parents to teach their children.  These parents deserve our respect, our support, our advocacy, and our prayers.  This movement is a sign of hope on our educational horizon, and a phenomenon that can no longer be dismissed as a fringe movement.

As president of a seminary and college, I can attest to the fact that questions about the educational aptitude of homeschooled students are now settled.  These students can hold their own as compared to students from all other educational backgrounds.  One other fact speaks loudly to me concerning their education.  Most of the homeschooled students I meet at the college and graduate levels indicate an eager determination to homeschool their own children when that time comes.

Roman Newsletter – Special Edition: Relocation and Renovation

Dear Friends,

Here is a copy of this special edition of our newsletter. Click here to access it.

You can also view the plans for the renovation of the space by clicking here.

We value your partnership with us.

The Impersonality of the Atom and the Creator

In the June 2009 Acts & Facts, I read an interesting article, “Werner Arber: An Honest Evolutionist.”

I found this citation refreshing:

Although a biologist, I must confess I do not understand how life came about . . . I consider that life only starts at the level of a functional cell.  The most primitive cells may require at least several hundred different specific biological macro-molecules.  How such already quite complex structures may have come together, remains a mystery to me.  The possibility of the existence of a Creator, of God, represents to me a satisfactory solution to this problem.

Now, the article goes on to say that this is not an all-out admission that God is the Creator by Arber.  It is only a concession about the possibility (but with profound implications).  Nevertheless, there is a willingness to concede, based on empirical observations, what is undoubtedly a gnawing problem in the consciences of many evolutionists.

In How Should We Then Live?, Francis Schaeffer writes:

In much modern thought, all begins with the impersonality of the atom or the molecule or the energy particle, and then everything–including life and man–comes forth by chance from that (Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, 165).

The implications of what Schaeffer stated and what Werner Arber conceded, albeit as a possibility, correspond.  When we don’t squelch the complex personality of the atom, it allows us to pull back the veil and see the fingerprints of the Creator behind it all.

Grateful for Freedom

We owe so much, humanly speaking, to the many brave soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for freedom.  I came across this picture today.  It is a perfect example of the truism, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” 

What makes this picture so powerful is that it is a picture from the soldier’s perspective of the landing during D-Day, June 6, 1944.  We see what they saw.  Perhaps, in a minuscule way, a few of us can imagine the fear they must have felt.  But fewer still might know what it is to have this kind of courage as they move forward to defend–and die for–freedom.

Thank you. 

(Picture was dowloaded from this site)