Ethics as Worship - A Review

The very first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?”

The simple, but profound answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

In other words, the chief end of humankind is to worship God and delight in his goodness. But “to glorify God” or to worship means more than singing songs at the appointed time each week or having a daily quiet time. Rather, as Scripture makes clear, “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3:17)

The sum of the life of the Christian should be to give God glory by living rightly unto him. This brings us to the place of ethics in the Christian life. Ethics is about worship—it’s about living rightly on earth according to God’s design and pointing others to his truth in righteousness.

Mark Liederbach and Evan Lenow bring the concept of worship through moral living to the forefront in their recent book, Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship. The volume, which is a hefty tome of about 750 pages, presents the authors’ particular focus on the nature of ethics as well as providing much of the standard fare for an introductory ethics text.

This volume has some similarities to other ethics texts in that is explores particular ethical questions (especially those that are cultural pinch points) after surveying alternative approaches to ethics. This is a book that reflects significant research, taking into account the major voices in ethics in the past few decades, along with relevant technical data on questions like reproductive ethics. The arguments within the book are well-thought out, as they have been honed over combined decades of teaching by both authors.

The premise of ethics as worship is so basic that it seems obvious when it is introduced. As the authors explain, “Ethics is about God. It is about maximally adoring him and rendering to him all that he is due from all that he has made. And it is about our doing so both individually and corporately.” (xxi)

While this approach to ethics seems like it would go without saying, it is less often said in ethics texts (even those by orthodox, Christian authors) than is warranted. And, even among those purporting to do Christian ethics, there is often a failure to make God’s character and value the summum bonum.

Ethics as worship means that the Christian worldview is the beginning of the moral quest. The foundation of the Christian worldview is properly Scripture, which anchors the method and content in the reveal Word of God. But a purely “scriptural” ethic can lead to casuistry. After all, Scripture does not say that we cannot use cocaine or tell us precisely what to do about global warming. An alternative, which includes various forms of philosophical ethics attempts to get at truth apart from Scripture and then looks for passages that can illustrate. Still other forms of so-called Christian ethics are more like weather gauges that check the cultural climate and decide write and wrong to try to maintain respectability. Viewing ethics as worship puts God at the center, with Scripture as the foundation, and delight in God and holiness as primary signs of success.

Ethics as Worship is a thoroughly theological volume with a reformed outlook. Liederbach and Lenow see the call to worship beginning in the garden of Eden. Building on the somewhat esoteric work of John Sailhamer, they call for a retranslation of Genesis 2:15 as a call for humanity to “worship God and obey his commands” in paradise before the fall. This is a debatable claim, which has little support in common translations, but whether or not their translation option is correct, there is no question that obedience and worship were central to human purpose before sin came into the world. One need not to agree with this emphasis to see the value in the approach Lenow and Liederbach follow. After the fall, the priority of worship and obedience remained, but it was frustrated by the effects of sin. The authors continue to explore how worship is essential through the remaining phases of the universe: fall, redemption, and restoration.

This is a volume that adds to the field of ethics, especially among evangelicals, by effectively summarizing much of the literature of the field and offering a new emphasis for the moral task. It is not wholly foreign, but the emphasis being on worship rather than righteousness—the process of decision rather than the personal outcome—is refreshing and helpful in many ways.

Ethics as Worship could be used at the college or seminary level. It would be a useful pastoral reference, with up-to-date data on very important cultural debates. Thankfully, the authors tend to focus less on edge cases and so-called dilemmas than providing sound principles that can guide faithful moral decisions. There are several good ethics texts on the market, but this is another worthy one that deserves attention, adoption, and utilization.

Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship

By Mark Daniel Liederbach, Evan Lenow

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NOTE: I was provided a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention - A Review

When people get nostalgic for their childhood, they are usually remembering a time when things seemed simpler. That does not mean life was actually less complex, typically just that they were shielded from some of the twists, confusions, and injustices in the world.

My life was simpler before I knew about the powerful impact racism has had in our nation. Even in my early years in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) I was unaware of the racism that is at the very root of our denomination’s founding. I did not recognize that the racial homogeneity of my church was not simply a function of different preferences in music, but often because my denomination had not done enough to remove the stain of racism.

I previously attend a church that is dually affiliated with the SBC and the National Baptist Convention (NBC). The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and is slowly becoming more racially diverse. The NBC is the largest predominantly African-American denomination in the U.S. My church has historically been predominantly African-American, but is becoming more diverse as we reflect more closely the demographics of our surrounding community. This is, in part, because my former pastor has made significant efforts toward encouraging racial reconciliation.

Being involved in a truly multi-racial congregation has caused me to develop a new perspective on race relations and racism. Hearing some of our oldest members tell stories, I can no longer argue that the Civil Rights struggles were “a long time ago” and ignore the legacy of racism in our nation. Listening to conversations around me, I can never again claim I don’t know that systemic biases exist.

A few months ago, my pastor asked me to teach church history to the congregation on Wednesday evenings. In four sessions, I skimmed the surface of the major themes of our Christian past. I spent more time talking about African-American church history in part because of my context and in part because I needed to learn more about it. One of the most painful parts of teaching that lesson was tracing through this history of race relations within the SBC; clearly, we’ve made progress, but it is also apparent we have much more to do.

Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention is a volume that tells the story of the SBC’s past, provides a theological basis for moving beyond it, and makes practical recommendations for future progress. This is a necessary next step in a conversation that the SBC has been having, but which needs to continue in earnest.

This volume is an outstanding resource for Southern Baptists and others to learn about racial reconciliation. The volume opens with a collection of SBC resolutions about race, which show the convention has been talking about race—sometimes using the right language—but making insufficient progress toward healing longstanding division. In the first chapter, Albert Mohler recounts the historic origins of the Southern Baptist Convention, which were grounded in the misguided beliefs of slave owners that they could participate in race-based chattel slavery and still be effective missionaries for Christ.

Chapter two is an essay by Matthew Hall, which follows the ongoing participation of some Southern Baptists in racist rhetoric and sometimes political activity. As much as we might wish otherwise, there were many “good Baptists” who argued for Jim Crow laws. The third chapter, by Jarvis Williams, provides a biblical argument for racial reconciliation.

The next six chapters outline suggestions from theologians, pastors, and editors at our denominational publishing house for removing the stain of racism from the Southern Baptist Convention. The body of the book ends with a summary of the state of racial reconciliation within the SBC: we have made progress, but have a long way yet to go. Dwight McKissic and Danny Akin offer epilogues explaining further why the stain of racism remains in the SBC. In a postscript, Vaughn Walker commends readers to continue the work and offers encouragement that the stain of racism can be removed from the SBC.

Although published by the academic arm of B&H, this volume is accessible to the average reader. The writers and editors worked together to create a book that can inform a wide swath of members of SBC churches. More importantly, the contributors to this volume constructed a compelling testimony that (a) racism still exists in our society and our organizations, and (b) there is something we can do about it.

The uniting metaphor of this volume is “removing the stain.” In the preface, the editors explain what that means and their definition is important. To some advocates in racial politics, the stain of racism is like the blood stains on Lady Macbeth’s hands: invisible to living eyes, but indelible to the psyche. The only solution for some is for organizations once complicit in racism to self-destruct. This volume offers a greater hope, recognizing that just as people are redeemable through the gospel, so are organizations.

The metaphor is apt because it also reflects the significant and often time-consuming effort required to remove a stain. Many of us have invested a great deal of time in stain treatments and washing garments by hand to save something treasured from a permanently embedded stain. Rarely are significant stains eradicated in the first attempt, but must be scrubbed repeatedly as by degrees the offending pigment is removed. That is the sort of effort required to continue the work of racial reconciliation in the SBC.

The formal apology for the racist origins of the SBC, affirmed as a resolution in 1995 is important. Electing Fred Luter as the first African-American president of the SBC in 2012 is significant. The resolution opposing the flying of the Confederate battle flag in 2016 takes another step forward. These are important efforts in removing the stain of racism, but they are not enough.

Removing the Stain of Racism reminds readers, with voices from both African-Americans and whites, that though the SBC has made great progress, there is a lot of work to be done. The memory of the racism in the SBC will never be erased, but the stain of racism can be removed. The challenge for the white majority of the SBC is not to attempt to declare victory on our stain-removal efforts too soon. As many have experienced, once you throw the stained garment into the dryer, the stain is often made permanent. We still have scrubbing to do.

Racial reconciliation takes work. While we may remember a time in our denomination’s history when efforts toward removing the stain of racism were not at the forefront, those days only seemed simpler because we were unaware of the problem. Talking about race and racial reconciliation is hard, not least because of the extreme rhetoric on the right and the left of us. The gospel demands we work toward racial reconciliation—no matter how nostalgic we are for simpler days, the work before us cannot be ignored.

NOTE: This article was previously published at B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in communications strategy. I have moved and am no longer a member of the same church that was referenced in this article, but I have left the references from the 2017 publication date.

Together on God's Mission - A Review

The Cooperative Program is one of the most effective funding mechanisms for worldwide gospel ministry in the history of Christianity. Annually, autonomous local congregations give millions of dollars to support the advancement of the Great Commission at state, national, and global levels. Hundreds of pastors, missionaries, and lay people graduate from the six Southern Baptist Seminaries each year, better equipped for ministry and less financially burdened that would be possible if millions of people did not give to the Cooperative Program through their local churches. Missionaries go to language school, are transported to the field, and sustained in thousands of international locations because the gifts of small congregations are pooled with those of large ones to enable men and women from any sized church to dedicate their lives to getting the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Some might say the Cooperative Program is a wonder of modern missions. It serves as a catalyst for the spread of the gospel and offers a bright future for engaging the lost with the good news of Jesus Christ. Tragically, sometimes the purpose and fruit of Cooperative Program giving are invisible to people in the local churches. If Southern Baptists are going to continue to function in a collaborative manner to fund gospel ministry in the years to come, we must work diligently to celebrate the positive impact our cooperation can have and explore the shared theology that enables congregations who differ in their understanding of some doctrines to work together to advance the Great Commission.

The SBC has needed an updated simple, brief, and theologically informed case made for continued cooperation for several years. Together on God’s Mission: How Southern Baptists Cooperate to Fulfill the Commission, which released in early 2018, is a resource that fills that need.

Scott Hildreth’s recent book on cooperation in Southern Baptist life offers a concise history of the convention, with an emphasis on the Cooperative Program, and outlines a theological foundation for the ongoing collaboration of SBC churches in advancing God’s mission on earth. In less than one hundred pages, Hildreth significantly updates previous histories of the CP and makes explicit the ecclesiology that has for generations been assumed by cooperating Southern Baptists.

Part One of this volume consists of three chapters. The first chapter of Together on God’s Mission gives an overview of the early history of the Southern Baptist Convention as they shifted from mission society to a convention cooperating in ministry on multiple levels. Chapter Two traces the evolution of the early convention to a robust network of churches joined together to efficiently fund Great Commission activities. The third chapter helpfully informs readers how the Cooperative Program works.

In Part Two Hildreth shifts from history to theology. Chapter Four succinctly outlines a theology of mission. The fifth chapter offers a basic Baptist ecclesiology for cooperation which unites the many autonomous local congregations of the Southern Baptist Convention and enables them to work together with the other churches in the convention. In Chapter Six Hildreth outlines some of the ways the local congregations of the early church—that is, those documented in Scripture—cooperated, pooled funds for ministry, and sent personnel to accomplish the common mission of advancement of the gospel.

Part Three of the volume contains a single chapter. In the seventh chapter, Hildreth summarizes his arguments and offers some proposals for continued cooperation among Southern Baptists in the future. He commends churches to consider the theological implications of the Cooperative Program, evaluate cooperation in broader, non-financial terms, and celebrate the ability to participate in CP giving rather than viewing it as membership dues.

Together on God’s Mission was published by B&H Academic because it contributes to the academic conversation within the SBC about ecclesiology and history. However, the volume is written in plain English, with short chapters, and clear argumentation. These make the volume suitable for a popular audience. This book would be helpful to pastors who are not sure exactly what the Cooperative program does. It will also make a useful resource for prospective members of SBC churches who wonder what makes Southern Baptists distinct and unites them. As tensions continue to simmer over differences in ministry methodology, political persuasions, and doctrinal debates, this book can help recall to mind the good things that keep Southern Baptists working together. Together, the local churches of the Southern Baptist Convention can do a great deal more than we can do working alone.

This is a book that fills a void for the SBC at a time when a call to unity and recognition of the powerful way God has used the Cooperative Program to get the gospel to the ends of the earth. Together on God’s Mission deserves to be read broadly and discussed carefully as the convention marches toward two centuries of cooperative missions.

Together on God's Mission: How Southern Baptists Cooperate to Fulfill the Great Commission

By Hildreth, D Scott

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NOTE: This review was originally published at the B&H Academic blog, which has since been deactivated due to changes in strategy at LifeWay. I was provided a gratis copy of the volume with the expectation of an honest review.

Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches - A Review

A quick internet search for churches in your area will likely reveal a wide range of options. Anglican, Roman Catholic, Baptist, non-denominational, Pentecostal, Church of Christ, Presbyterian, and the list goes on. To many Christians, the main questions about these churches are based on a consumeristic mindset: Do they have a youth group for my kids? Will I like the music? How long does the pastor preach? Do the sermons advocate my preferred political views?

It’s not wrong to ask questions about music and ministries, but when these become the primary item of concern rather than the doctrine of the church, it reflects a poverty of discipleship.

A more significant question for church members should be whether the doctrine of the church is consistent with Scripture and whether that doctrine is reflected in the practice and the structures of the church. While Scripture says nothing about a children’s ministry (beyond the call for parents to disciple their children), it does talk about the nature and meaning of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Bible does talk about the need for engaging in a local body of believers, and of the proper characteristics of church leaders.

Unfortunately, the core questions about whether or not a local congregation fulfills the scriptural instructions for a local congregation are often considered well after questions of personal preference.

John Hammett’s book, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, addresses the primary questions of local churches in general from a specifically Baptist position. The first edition of the volume was published in 2005, with a second edition released in 2019.

Summary

This is a book written for Baptists from a baptistic perspective, but this is a volume that could be helpful for many Christians thinking through Scripture’s teaching on the nature and structure of the church. Hammett begins by asking about the nature of the church. He explores the term ekklesia as it is used in Scripture, how the church was understood through church history (especially with the one, holy, apostolic structure of the creeds) and what that means about the place of local congregations in the life of a believer. He then moves into discussions about the proper members of churches, with a call to return to meaningful church membership, with the practice of discipline, catechism, and a focus on ensuring that the Church is a Christian organization.

Having addressed these more basic questions, Hammett takes up the practical questions of the structure of church government. He argues for congregational rule, the possibility (but not necessity) of plurality of elders, and the importance of deacons as servants within the church rather than as an executive board. Regenerate church members who are truly committed to the local body as a family, rather than as a consumer outlet, are needed to make these structures possible.

Hammett also explores the ministries of the church, which he treats under the headings of teaching, fellowship, worship, service and evangelism. Rather than make biblicist arguments about which ministries are mentioned in Scripture and, in the mind of some, allowable, Hammett considers how the church can fulfill her purpose through specific activities and structures. This section also explores the practice and meaning of both baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which can be contentious issues even within baptistic traditions.

The book closes by considering contemporary issues. This is one of the sections that changed the most between the first and second edition. The emerging church was a bigger issue in 2005, while multi-site churches, the popularity of charismatic theologies, and the adoption of the sexual revolution tend to be bigger concerns in 2019. Hammett also picks up the question of the rapid growth of the global Church, which draws out questions of contextualization, both for those in the West and for those in the global South.

Analysis

The first edition of this book has been a standard reference in many Baptist circles, particularly in the SBC, for the past decade or so. There are no major corrections from the first edition, but the updates in the second edition make it worth purchasing. Hammett has meaningfully addressed many of the debates that have been ongoing since the first edition was released. This is reflected in the notes and bibliography, as well.

This is a book written from a baptistic perspective. It is not particularly polemical, but it is written for an audience of baptistic believers. As a result, a confirmed Presbyterian is unlikely to have his mind changed by Hammett’s book alone. On the other hand, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches does honestly engage with the arguments of other denominations to show why, in Hammett’s estimation, the baptistic positions are correct on church practice. This book obviously cannot deal with all arguments comprehensively, but it does seek to fairly represent different practices and makes the case for certain practices that are common among many Baptists throughout history based on biblical principles.

Readers should appreciate Hammett’s even-handedness. The author is not a polemicist. He is trying to convince, obviously, but he does so by careful argumentation and gentle reasoning. In places where there are multiple valid options, Hammett notes that Scripture is not explicit, though he may mention benefits for one direction or another. Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches is an example of the best forms of argumentation and fair treatment of differing opinions.

Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches should be required reading for members of pastoral search committees, ministry leaders, deacons, and those seeking to head toward ministry in a Baptist church. It is written in language that is accessible to the average person, so this would be a useful tool for a group study in a local congregation seeking to strengthen its adherence to biblical models for church structures. There is enough difference between the first and second editions, that it would be worthwhile for church leaders to invest in an updated copy, but the positions are essentially the same. This book should be in the church library or on the book table of every Baptist church.

Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology

By Hammett, John S.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

An Invitation to Glory

This post is an excerpt from The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers (Wipf and Stock, 2019). It was written by Dr. Michael Travers. It was presented to the C. S. Lewis Society of New York in 2013 on the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s Death and again at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary on January 30th, 2014. Today, March 2nd, is the anniversary of Michael’s passing into the glory that he deeply longed for.

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In his apologetics and fiction, C. S. Lewis invites his readers to hope for heaven and God. His great contribution is his reminder to twentieth-century western culture, which has lost its mooring, of what it means to be humans who were made for God and to long for him all our lives. C. S. Lewis reminds readers that this longing for God, this hope of heaven, is the proper state for all of us in a fallen world. He offers to readers a vision of the Christian mind.

Our culture needs to remember what it means to be human: we are created in the image of God and for the purpose of praising God. At the very outset of his Confessions, St. Augustine gives voice to the essential human need––and desire––to praise God:

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is no number. And man desires to praise Thee. He is but a tiny part of all that Thou hast created. He bears about him his mortality, the evidence of his sinfulness, and the evidence that Thou dost resist the proud: yet this tiny part of all that Thou hast created desires to praise Thee.

Thou dost so excite him that to praise Thee is his joy. For Thou has made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.[1]

Because we were made for God, we cannot be satisfied apart from Him. Nothing in this world can satisfy the ultimate desire of the human soul to be satisfied in God. Human culture, particularly that inspired by Christianity, incarnates this desire for God in manifold ways, and, what is more, Scripture attests to it as well. The desire for God is a key element of the Christian mind.

The idea that we all desire God and hope for heaven is expressed in both the Old and New Testaments. In Ecclesiastes, the wisdom writer states that God has put “eternity into man’s heart” (Ecc 3:11), and evidences the implications of our desire for God in that nothing in this life ultimately satisfies the soul. The writer speaks of good things––such as work, food, and relationships––that we enjoy in this life, but he teaches that ultimate wisdom is to seek God and rest in him. Everything else is “vanity,” or futility. The Psalmist writes that the ancient Hebrews longed for rest in the Promised Land. But, because of their unbelief and sin, they had to walk the wilderness pathways for forty years before they were allowed to enter that rest, and then it was only the next generation that was allowed to do so (Ps 95:1–11). In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews applies the temporal rest of the ancient Hebrews in the Promised Land figuratively to the spiritual rest Christians have in Christ and then to the eternal rest we ultimately will enjoy in the new heavens and the new earth (Heb 3:7–4:11).

In this life, we are not yet at rest, and we cannot be at rest until our faith becomes sight in heaven. We hope for future glory. In the New Testament, the apostles often write of a hope that looks forward to eternity. The apostle Peter admonishes us to be “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). Peter speaks this instruction to Christians, admonishing them to give a witness to non-Christians about heaven and eternity with God. For Peter, as for the other New Testament writers, this hope is not wishful thinking; rather, it is settled and certain hope, for it is predicated on the character of God as evidenced by the Word of God––“Christ in you, the hope of glory,” as Paul has it in Col 1:27. Paul speaks elsewhere of our hope in Christ, for Christ has paid the debt of our sins and granted us eternal life (Cf. 2 Cor 1:10; 1 Tim 4:10). In the earthly life of Christ our longing for God is made concrete in the transfiguration, when Peter, James, and John see Christ revealed in all his glory. The transfiguration follows immediately after Jesus tells his disciples that he will come again in great glory, thereby prompting longing for that glorious kingdom; it is then that he is transfigured before the three men, and they are given a glimpse of the future and the one on whom their hope is founded. In Romans 8, Paul writes that the Christian’s whole life is oriented toward this hope when we will be glorified in the presence of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Michael Travers

The Bible often expresses this hope in narrative form. Almost two-thirds of the Bible is narrative. From Genesis to Exodus, through the history books and prophets in the Old Testament, to the Gospels, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and even the book of Revelation in the New Testament, the story of redemption is just that––a narrative. The writer of Hebrews symbolizes this life as a pilgrimage. He writes that we “desire a better country, that is a heavenly [one]” (Heb 11:16), and “for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Heb 13:14). A pilgrimage is not just a wandering journey; rather it is a teleological journey with a destination. For Christians, that destination is heaven with Jesus Christ, our ultimate beatitude. It is no accident, then, that the Bible incarnates a grand metanarrative that encompasses the whole of the created order and our place as humans in that story.

Giving voice to the Christian narrative of hope is what Lewis did in his writings at a time when others had lost sight of that hope. He presented a vision of the Christian mind. Austin Farrer writes of the voice Lewis gives to Christianity:

It was this feeling intellect, this intellectual imagination that made the strength of his religious writings. . . . His real power was not proof [as in apologetics]; it was depiction. There lived in his writings a Christian universe that could be both thought and felt, in which he was at home and in which he made his reader at home.[2]

There is the note: Lewis invites his readers to come along home with him––to God and heaven. He knew that we longed for something beyond this world, and he invited us to join him in the search for our eternal home.[3] Lewis’s method for inviting others to put on the Christian mind, through his prose, poetry, and narrative, was to put the metanarrative of the Bible on display.

C. S. Lewis reminds readers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries of a truth that pre-modern western people knew as part of their culture and we have largely forgotten today: we were created to worship God. Lewis encourages his readers to worship God again––that is, to put on the Christian mind. He invites them to accept that “weight of glory.” Lewis embodies the heart of Christianity in this invitation, for the metanarrative of the Bible tells the same story: creation, fall, redemption, and recreation. Lewis incarnates this metanarrative in his apologetics, his poetry, and his fiction. It is by developing a Christian mind that Lewis fulfills his role as worshipper.

For Lewis, the original creation is the normative mode of existence for human beings, in fellowship with each other and God. In this created condition, there was no need for longing to escape and go to heaven, no need for hope, for all things were as they should be. Lewis invites his readers in all of these books to participate in the glory of things as they were meant to be. In the fall into sin, however, humans were plunged into a pathological condition, producing a sense of exile because we were cut off from God and therefore long to be reunited with him. It is this undesirable state of sin and exile that forms the foundation of Lewis’s apologetics and fiction. Our innate longing for a remedy finds expression in his novels, in the form of a pilgrimage, or quest––a journey that inherently incarnates longing and hope in its form and structure. This longing is for renewal of all that has been tainted by sin; it is a longing for a new life.

Lewis’s fiction provides descriptions of this coming renewal, which begins with a sense of release from sin’s effects. He expresses the sense of beginning a new and glorified life in heaven this way in The Last Battle:

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are––as you used to call it in the Shadowlands––dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”   

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.[4]

All of Lewis’s writings encourage his readers to long for God and to hope for heaven; this is a central characteristic of the Christian mind. And it is fitting that this is so, for the longer we live in communion with Christ, the more we long to see him face to face. Lewis knew that longing well and it shaped everything he wrote. This longing for the transcendent is what makes the Christian mind so beautiful.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

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[1] Augustine, Confessions, 3. Emphasis original.

[2] Farrer, “In His Image,” 384–85. Farrer was Chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1935 to 1960, and a good friend of Lewis.

[3] Cf. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 143.

[4] Lewis, The Last Battle, 210–11.

Encountering God in the Psalms - A Review

Most books get reviewed when they are first out, generally within two years. Sometimes, there are classics that people will “review” years afterward, but this is generally a way of introducing people to an older book, with little intent to provide feedback to the author for his next work. This review falls more into the latter category than the former, since the author is deceased, but I make no claims that this book is a classic, merely that it is a worthy piece of scholarship that could be helpful to more than have likely encountered it. It is a book that is useful in building up the body of Christ.

Michael Travers’ most important book is a 2003 volume, Encountering God in the Psalms, which he published with Kregel shortly after he arrived at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, though the majority of the volume was authored while he was at Mississippi College. The book is about reading the Psalms. More specifically, it is about reading the Psalms both for their literary quality and their devotional power. It is in this dual purpose, well executed, that gives this book its unique quality and enduring value.

The first part of the book teaches the reader how to read the Psalms. The first three chapter of the book are dedicated to teaching readers about the nature of poetry, the structure of Hebrew poetry, the concepts of theme, genre, and musical quality. While the book is focused on a particular subset of poetry, there is a great deal of general wisdom in these chapters that teach the reader how to read poetry better.

Part Two is longer, consisting of ten chapters that walk the reader through reading select Psalms. The section begins by presenting Moses’ encounter with God as a narrative exemplar that shows the setting that is, to some degree, present for all of the various authors of Psalms. The remaining chapters deal with Psalms that are sorted by theme. Travers moves through Psalms grouped under headings that consider God as creator, covenant maker, Messiah, redeemer, way of wisdom, and other themes. Each chapter shows how the method for reading the Psalms laid out in Part One can be applied to Psalms that fit those themes.

This is a useful book because it is a book that points people toward something beyond itself or the author. In this way, Travers is much like C. S. Lewis. When Lewis wrote he was always trying to get people to see where he was pointing. In this case, Travers is pointing people through his own work toward that Psalms that are, in turn, pointing people toward the Triune God. This is, therefore, just the sort of book that will help people become better Christians.

Michael’s early research was on the devotional poets, especially John Milton. His skill with poetry comes through in this book as he brings readers to a deeper appreciation for the power of language through poetry. This is the sort of book that will shape the mind by equipping it for later study. It is not a flashy volume, but its chapters are filled with solid wisdom.

Encountering God in the Psalms is a book that will most benefit those who love Scripture and want to learn more about God through his word. It is the sort of book that requires diligence and careful reading of the text of Scripture alongside its own pages. However, it is also a book that will sharpen the reader, deepen their love for the Psalms, and likely point them to a deeper understanding of the God who inspired the psalmists. It is, in fact, a book that many pastors should pick up and that lay people should aspire to.

Encountering God in the Psalms

By Michael E. Travers

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Preaching By The Book - A Review

I was impressed with the first volume in the Hobbs College Library from Oklahoma Baptist University when it was published last year. It’s taken me until this Spring to get to the most recent volume in the series, Preaching by the Book: Developing and Delivering Text-Driven Sermons, by R. Scott Pace. The book deserved to be read sooner and deserves to be read widely.

In general, the Hobbs College Library is intended to provide basic resources for students preparing for ministry or men whose entry into ministry preceded their opportunity to get formal education or training. The books are written by highly qualified authors who have spent years teaching university level students; they balance scholarly acumen with a pastoral heart to create helpful resources for the growth and health of the church.

Pace’s volume is a little over one hundred pages in eight chapters. In Part One, he lays the groundwork for the preaching event, focusing on the nature of Scripture and the importance of properly approaching the text on its own terms. Rather than hunting for a specific text to preach (which often results in sermons that mangle the meaning of the text), Pace urges preachers to survey the text prayerfully in preparation for the study process that comes later.

In Part Two, Pace constructs the framework for the sermon with a chapter on study and interpretation of the text and another of construction of the body of the sermon. Notably, Pace emphasizes that preaching arises out of diligent, joyful study of God’s Word; study is not an onerous duty that must be accomplished because one must preach. This approach to sermon preparation is encouraging. Additionally, the emphasis on using the structure of the passage to drive the construction of the sermon helps keep Scripture at the heart of a given sermon.

In the final section, Part Three, Pace picks up the garnishes to sermons: introductions, illustrations, and invitations. He offers balanced perspectives on both introductions and illustrations, which offer helpful reminders of both the importance of the elements as well as warnings for their potential to overtake the sermon. Pace offers a perspective on invitations consistent with many evangelical Bible belt churches that will work well in that context, avoiding the ditches on that culturally appropriate practice. This chapter will be less helpful for those in other contexts (e.g., many congregations in the Northern half of the US) who would find the practice unduly awkward and disconcerting.

This is a book that puts the cookies down on the bottom shelf. It is concise, clear, and well balanced. The Hobbs Library continues a positive trajectory with this book. I look forward to many further entries into the series of ministry-minded books that are intended to serve the church.

Preaching by the Book should not be the final stop in someone’s preparation for preaching. However, this is the sort of book that would be especially useful in a mentorship program with young men considering vocational or bi-vocational ministry. It would be useful as a text at the undergraduate level in a practical ministry or preaching course. It might even serve as one of several texts in a seminary course. This is the sort of book that is worth reading and sharing with those seeking to improve their skills in the pulpit or determine whether they might be gifted for pulpit ministry.

Preaching by the Book: Developing and Delivering Text-Driven Sermons (Hobbs College Library)

By Dr. R. Scott Pace

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Lessons Learned from my Dissertation Defense

I still have that feeling of contentment in light of last Tuesday. Not because of the results of the election, but because I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation. I’ll leave the politics to others; frankly, I’m just glad this election cycle is over.

Photo: The Leeds Library. Public Domain: http://ow.ly/QmT0306bLEN

Seminary has been the best decade of my life. I started on my Master of Divinity in the Fall of 2005. It’s now the Fall of 2016 and I’ve finally completed the final step of the process. All that remains are a few typographical revisions and graduation. I’ve invested the arm and a leg that it costs to get regalia, so that’s out of the way.

For the handful of folks that read my blog and are interested, I’ve been summarizing some lessons learned from each stage of the game. Today I’m going to do the same for my dissertation defense.

Readers should recognize that some of this depends on your topic, discipline, and committee composition. However, in general, here are the lessons I learned:

1.         You really do know more about the topic than your committee. Most of my life, the person giving the examination knew the answer before asking the question. However, at my defense, there were multiple occasions that my examiners asked questions out of legitimate curiosity or simply because they weren’t aware that the literature pointed a different direction. Being able to cite specific examples and argue cogently why I wrote one thing and not another was important, and my argument was accepted because I was more current and more deeply read on my topic than the examiners.

2.         Sometimes the committee is asking questions just to see how you’ll answer. After spending years looking up to the professor, now the professors are asking you for your judgment. There were a few questions that they asked that seemed to be more concerned with the manner that I answered them than what I said. Confidence is important, but so is humility. I admitted my knowledge, but it was important to admit when we went beyond what I had researched.

3.         Part of the defense, at least at Southeastern, is an assessment of character. This was more than just a test of knowledge. The committee wanted to see what I had learned about myself from the process. For me, one of the most important lessons was to have a greater degree of compassion for the authors whose imperfect books I read. There were points in my dissertation that I knew were not as strong as others, but at some point I had to accept that was the best I could do right now and move on. Other authors are doing the same.

4.         The extra time I spent making the dissertation readable paid off. There is little doubt from the comments of my committee that working to make the prose as clear as possible encouraged them to give me grace in other areas. Readability does not replace good content, but it was worth the effort. I think that the work on the front end helped contributed to the positive outcome that includes no mandatory revisions. I have some typos to fix, but only a few hours of work.

5.         The best dissertation is still the done dissertation. Even with changing jobs and moving halfway across the country last year, the dissertation still took me only about a year and a half to write. It was much better to push through than to drag it out for two or three years. (This assumes that you aren’t waiting on research, etc.) It was worth it to write nearly every day, give up some family fun and push to completion even when taking a week off would have felt really good.

6.         I benefited greatly from choosing my general topic (environmental ethics) at the beginning of my program. That allowed me to read broadly, explore various tangential topics in seminars along the way, and finally find a good working thesis.

7.         The best way to prepare is to re-read your dissertation and review your bibliography and footnotes to refresh who the conversation partners are. I also made sure I checked the committee’s publication lists to see if there was something they were thinking about that I should be prepared to discuss.

All in all, I’m glad to be done. It was a long process; I learned a lot about my topic and about myself. Now I need to set out a research agenda for the next few years. There is a stack of books on my shelves and another set in my Amazon wish list that I have been putting off and want to catch up with. I have some kids to play with and a laundry list of small projects around the house to do. Oh, the places we can go.

Every Waking Hour - A Review

Every Waking Hour is the third installment of volumes published as part of the Economic Wisdom project at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. This brief volume, written by Benjamin Quinn and Walter Strickland, focuses on the doctrine of vocation and presents it at a level accessible to the average church member.

The book consists of five content chapters in addition to its introduction, conclusion, and three brief appendices. Chapter one presents an overview of the theology of work. The next two chapters outline the concept of work as it is presented in Old and New Testaments, respectively. Chapter four focuses on the relationship between Christ, wisdom, and work. The last content chapter synthesizes the biblical data and relates it to the idea of working for God’s kingdom, being on mission, and being a good disciple. The three appendices answer the potentially sticky question of how to work with and for non-believers, describe how to evaluate your job in relation to your vocation, and offer suggestions for further reading.

Every Waking Hour is a clear, basic introduction to an important topic. After all, people spend a great deal more time working for a living than they do in church or actively praying. If we cannot redeem those hours spent on the job for the kingdom of God, then one wonders how Christianity is really valid as a totalizing worldview. The text begins with Scripture and remains close to that touchstone throughout. This is a volume that does not seek to baptize vocation, but to explain what the Bible says about it.

Strickland and Quinn exhibit a pastoral concern for Christians trying to figure out how to reconcile their workaday roles with their Christianity. They reinforce the reality that the pastor’s work is not holier than the janitors. The lowliest employee on the job has the potential to bring about redemption of some part of the world through his work. Upon reading this, one can hope readers will respond with gratitude as they have the value of their vocations affirmed beyond their ability to earn a paycheck and fund the church’s various endeavors.

For those well read in the faith and work movement, this volume adds little that is new. It is not a scholarly volume designed to stretch the field or innovatively explain the topic. Rather, it is a basic primer for the uninitiated. At just over one hundred small format pages of text, this is the sort of book that can be devoured in an airplane ride. It could also serve as a resource for a several week Sunday School elective on the intersection of faith and work.

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has produced three volumes like this, which offer simple, clear, and basic introductions to important topics. Although such resources lack the scholarly weight of a technical monograph, this sort of resource created for the Church is likely to contribute to the welfare of a significantly larger number of Christians. As such, this book and the entire series are a welcome addition to a pastor’s library.

George Liele - The First Baptist International Missionary

William Cary often gets credit for being the first Baptist sent as missionary to the nations. He certainly deserves credit, along with pastor Andrew Fuller, for kicking off the modern missionary movement.

Adoniram Judson frequently is identified as the first American missionary for leaving the shores of the U.S. in 1812. However, he isn't the first missionary to leave this land to go overseas, nor the first Baptist. Judson is important, but there was a Baptist missionary that preceded him.

The title of the first Baptist missionary actually belongs to a black man from colonial America named George Liele.

Biography

Liele was born a slave in the colony of Virginia in 1750. He converted to Christianity in 1773 in the church of his master, Henry Sharp. He gained his freedom in 1778 from Sharp so that he could preach the gospel. In 1783, since he had sided with the British in the revolution, in order to be evacuated from America with British troops, Liele became an indentured servant in exchange for his family's passage to Jamaica. After a short time he repaid his debt and was freed again. He then turned his attention to preaching the gospel to the slave population of Jamaica.

Liele was persecuted by the plantation owners of Jamaica for preaching the gospel. But he continued to preach the gospel.

Although he pastored many years, he did not rely on his pastorate for his income but worked as a teamster/hauler and farmer to support his livelihood.

Liele is an impressive example of a faithful Christian and an important figure in black history. Below you can watch Danny Akin's tribute to Liele in the form of a sermon on the text of Galatians 6:11-18.

Preaching from Galatians 6, Dr. Akin speaks about the marks of a cross-centered ministry and how these marks are seen in the life and ministry of the first Baptist missionary to the nations, George Leile, a former African slave who planted the Gospel in Jamaica.