Keep It Central

In this 6 minute interview, Francis Chan and David Platt discuss how easy it is to find our identity in our performance, work or ministry. And this is why repentance and ministry are inextricably linked, and what we can do about it. (From the Verge Network.)

Radical Abandonment

"If Jesus is who he says he is, and if his promises are as rewarding as the Bible claims they are, then we may discover that satisfaction in our lives and success in the church are not found in what culture deems most important but in radical abandonment to Jesus."

— David Platt, Radical (Colorado Springs, Co.: Multnomah Books, 2010), page 3

HT: Of First Importance

Some Links Worth a Look

Some links worth a look:

The Disappearing Umbrella Over Conservative Christians- Tim Keller
A very discerning social commentary by Tim Keller explaining a major social trend in a way that makes a lot of sense to me.

The Wrong Kind of Christian at Vanderbilt University
When Southern Baptists are on the same side with an alcohol drinking female pastor, you know there's a real religious liberty issue in play.

9 Things You Should Know About Rabbinic Judaism
I was shocked at  my ignorance on this subject.

David Platt elected president of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board
Radical author/pastor gets opportunity to move missions in a radical new direction

Better Places to Send Your ALS Ice Challenge Donations
I lost an uncle to this disease, but would rather send donations to charities that do not use embryonic stem cells

How God is Moving With Dreams & Visions in the Muslim World
He did it in Bible times, and continues to do it today.

The Church and the Kingdom

David Platt on the church and the kingdom:




 HT Rick Ianniello

Radical Ordinariness

Are you a "radical" Christian, an "ordinary" Christian, or perhaps both? From "A Few Thoughts About Being Ordinary Christians" by Tim Brister

In case you did not know, there’s an ongoing debate regarding “radical” Christianity and “ordinary” (mundane/normal) Christianity.

Really. [Pardon the intensifier]

Best-selling books and viral blogposts have littered the evangelical landscape the last few years, and I’ve tried to keep up with the latest installments in this ongoing debate. I respect and appreciate the men on both sides of the debate, and while I may not be offering anything necessarily new, I’d like to offer a few thoughts.

1. Definition of Ordinary

So much of the debate begins with the premise of being radical. What does radical Christianity look like? How can it be defined? Is the challenge confined to middle-class white suburbia in North America? But what about ordinary Christianity? How much agreement exists in defining normal Christianity?

As it has been stated, much of the recent literature calling for “radical Christianity” is a discontentment with what many consider to be a sub-standard nominal Christianity (i.e. “Christendom”) that in many ways has neutered the evangelical testimony of biblical truth and dulled our motivation as followers of Jesus to “observe all that he has commanded us”.

Though this may sound redundant, I do think the pushback to radical Christianity is to be ordinarily ordinary. I have a real problem with this perspective, because we still have not come to terms with what Jesus identifies as ordinary or normative for run-of-the-mill Christians. So we are not spectacular or world-changing or facing death as a martyr – what then?

2. An Old Kind of Ordinary

The message of John the Baptist, Jesus, His sent disciples, and the early churchwas the same, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” In other words, the ordinary way of living is unacceptable under the reign of King Jesus. When His kingdom comes, everything changes. Everything.

Take, for example, eating and drinking. This is about as ordinary or mundane as it gets. Jesus’ earthly ministry was characterized by eating and drinking, but it was how and with whom he ate and drank that set Him apart from others. You see, eating and drinking comes with a philosophy and ordinary approach to life. When I’m living under self-rule, it is “eat, drink and be merry.” But when I’m living under the rule of Christ, it is eating and drinking (and everything else) to the glory of God. That’s radical. The most basic things we almost unconsciously do on a daily basis are to be singed with motivations and aspirations that God might be glorified. Is this what we are talking about when we are speaking of ordinary or normal Christian living?

What about the Great Commission? Jesus commands us to go and make disciples. That should be normative for every follower of Jesus. That means our lives should have an orientation and intentionality that pursues this missional objective. How does that work? Where do we find time to do that? In what ways and venues of everyday life are we making disciples of Jesus? Is that what we are talking about when we speak of ordinary Christianity? If so, then where are the ordinary Christians?

What about the teachings of Jesus? He told us if our right eye causes us to sin to pluck it out. Do ordinary people treat sin so seriously? He told us to count the costto be His disciple and take up our cross. Do ordinary people prefer to die to self? Jesus told us to love our enemies, that the greatest will be the servant of all, that those who humble themselves will be exalted, and that those who put their hands to the plow looking back are not fit for the kingdom of God. Is this the ordinary teaching of normative Christianity?

Then there are phrases like doing all things for the sake of the gospel. Paul (and those he discipled) lived in certain ways to reach certain people because he sought to commend the gospel in word and deed and “save some.” Some people box like those beating the air. Paul disciplined His body. Some walked dependent on their senses. Paul said we Christians walk by faith. Some were civilians living a civilian lifestyle, “entangled with the affairs of everyday life.” Paul and his disciplessuffered hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ because they wanted to please their commanding officer. Is that what we mean when we talk about ordinary Christianity?

Yes, this is the same Paul who exhorted Christians in Thessalonica to “aspire to live quietly and mind your own affairs.” I don’t think they are at odds at all. Paul was someone who redeemed ordinary life for kingdom purposes. I think that is why he constantly spoke of how he himself worked with his own hands for the purpose of helping the weak and remembering the poor. In the same context, Paul would say things like “I do not consider my life of any value to me or precious to myself“. The two realities are not opposite visions of the Christian life, are they?

Links Worth A Look

Some links that are worth a look:

Nine Things You Should Know About Duck Dynasty

Top 10 Theological Challenges Coming Our Way

Here Come the Radicals - Chan, Idleman, Claiborn & Platt

Radicalism & Reality - A Response to "Here Come the Radicals"

The Sin of Silence - In the face of abusive church leaders

Why Studying Doctrine is the Best Medicine - Tim Keller
 
Charismatic Renewal: 10 Strengths & Weaknesses

To A New Level

“This is the beauty of making disciples. When we take responsibility for helping others grow in Christ, it automatically takes our own relationship with Christ to a new level.”

      — David Platt, Radical (Colorado Springs, Co.: Multnomah Books, 2010), 100-101

Hat Tip: The beauty of making disciples | Of First Importance

All For the Glory of God

"We are selfless followers of a self-centered God. We exist for the glory of God, and God exists for the glory of God.  The ultimate key to joining together in radical obedience to Christ is found in fostering a humble view of ourselves and a high view of God in the church.  For when we see ourselves as completely dependent, utterly desperate children of God who live exclusively for him, then we will give ourselves in total abandonment to him for his great purpose in the world: the declaration of his gospel and the demonstration of his glory to all the peoples of the earth."

- David Platt, Radical Together, page 120
 
Now that's a description of God that you do not often see; "a self-centered God."  Yet, in the context within which the author is using it, I think it to be entirely appropriate.  What do you think?

From the Book to the Spirit

"The Bible is not in a church leader's hands so he or she can give people answers to every question they have and guidance for every situation they face.  Instead, the Bible is in a church leader's hands to transform people into the image of Christ and to get people in touch with the Holy Spirit of God who will not only give them counsel for every situation they face, but will also walk with them through the situation.  And when church leaders use God's Word for this purpose then church members develop a healthy dependence on God's Spirit and a healthy admiration of God's glory."

               - David Platt, Radical Together, page 49

..Because We Want To

"...as we trust in Christ, he changes our hearts, minds and lives.  He transforms how we see, feel and act...

...any low-grade sense of guilt gets conquered by a high-grade sense of gospel that compels a willing, urgent, joyful, uncompromising, grace-saturated, God-glorifying obedience in us.  We live sacrificially, not because we feel guilty, but because we have been loved greatly and now find satisfaction in sacrificial love for others.  We live radically, not because we have to, but because we want to."

            - David Platt, Radical Together, page 31
  

Free to Follow, Free to Obey

"The reality is that when you believe in Christ for salvation, you not only are declared right before God as Father, but you are also begin to walk with God as friend.  In addition to new birth, Jesus gives you new life: a life of joyful obedience and overflowing love.  So when you hear Christ's radical call to live sacrificially, you do not think In the gospel I am free to flout his commands.  Instead you think In the gospel I am free to follow his commands.  And the faith that God has graciously given to you begins to produce radical fruit from you."

         David Platt, Radical Together, Page 30

Radical Together Arrives

David Platt's new book Radical Together ( sequel to the best seller Radical) is out. Jared Wilson reviews it at Radical Together - TGC Reviews. I love this quote from the book.

"No matter what you do, even if you sell all of your possessions and move to the most dangerous country in the world for ministry’s sake, you cannot do enough to be accepted before God. And the beauty of the gospel is that you don’t have to. God so loved you that, despite your hopeless state of sin, he sent his Son—God in the flesh—to live the life you could not live. Jesus alone has kept the commands of God. He alone has been faithful enough, generous enough, and compassionate enough. Indeed, he alone has been radical enough." (23).

Radical Together

If you enjoyed reading this...

...then you should be looking forward to this! (To be published in April)

Jesus is Worth Losing Everything

"This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something — someone — worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him."

— David PlattRadical(Colorado Springs, Co.: Multnomah Books, 2010), 18

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

The Radical Gospel vs. the American Dream

In a New York Times opinion article entitled The Gospel of Wealth, David Brooks discussed David Platt's book Radical (on my want to read list).

Platt grew uneasy with the role he had fallen into and wrote about it in a recent book called “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream.” It encapsulates many of the themes that have been floating around 20-something evangelical circles the past several years.

Platt’s first target is the megachurch itself. Americans have built themselves multimillion-dollar worship palaces, he argues. These have become like corporations, competing for market share by offering social centers, child-care programs, first-class entertainment and comfortable, consumer Christianity.

Jesus, Platt notes, made it hard on his followers. He created a minichurch, not a mega one. Today, however, building budgets dwarf charitable budgets, and Jesus is portrayed as a genial suburban dude. “When we gather in our church building to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshipping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead, we may be worshipping ourselves.”

Next, Platt takes aim at the American dream. When Europeans first settled this continent, they saw the natural abundance and came to two conclusions: that God’s plan for humanity could be realized here, and that they could get really rich while helping Him do it. This perception evolved into the notion that we have two interdependent callings: to build in this world and prepare for the next.

The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.

Platt is in the tradition of those who don’t believe these two spheres can be reconciled. The material world is too soul-destroying. “The American dream radically differs from the call of Jesus and the essence of the Gospel,” he argues. The American dream emphasizes self-development and personal growth. Our own abilities are our greatest assets.

But the Gospel rejects the focus on self: “God actually delights in exalting our inability.” The American dream emphasizes upward mobility, but “success in the kingdom of God involves moving down, not up.”