Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands - review

Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands by Paul David Tripp has been called by Deepak Reju (of 9Marks) as the one book to get on Biblical counseling.

After laying a good foundation of our need for Christ, Tripp sets out a fairly simple process to counseling: love, know, speak, do. These steps are broken down into various parts:
* The four elements of a loving ministry relationship are entering the person's world, incarnating the love of Christ, identifying with suffering, and accepting the agenda.
* To gather information, you need to know the situation, the responses, the thoughts, and the motives.
* To speak the truth in love requires a balance of comfort and call to sanctification. The direction of the guidance involves consideration of what the Lord wants the person to see, confession of sin, commitment to new ways of living, and change in daily life.
* To help a person do what God wants has four objectives - establish your personal ministry agenda, clarify responsibility, instill identity in Christ, and provide accountability.

One refreshing aspect about this book is that Tripp looks at quite a few passages of Scripture to find a way forward in being used to help people change. Not the normal sort of proof-texting one might find to support the odd point or two, but almost sermons on sizable passages. But what really stands out is that Tripp continually brings us before a sovereign Lord and before the cross of Christ, giving both hope and grace.

A friend of mine recommended Tripp to me and I must say that he was very insightful and practical. I hope to read some of his other works along with some of his contemporaries like David Powlison. Great stuff; beneficial to anyone who talks with other people.

A Diary of Private Prayer - review

A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie is a series of written prayers for morning and evening. This was recommended to me by a friend and it has been wonderful. Among many evangelicals, written prayers aren't all that common, probably due to the fear that they will become heartless mantras that are chugged through. But I found that these prayers were stimulating and often times could better communicate my own own desires than I could. The book is cheap and small, the prayers are written in an older style of English (KJV English, written in 1949), but I really enjoyed the content. Here is a sampling:

Twenty-Fifth Day, Evening

Holy God, to whose service I long ago dedicated my soul and life, I grieve and lament before Thee that I am still so prone to sin and so little inclined to obedience:

* So much attached to the pleasures of sense, so negligent of things spiritual:
* So prompt to gratify my body, so slow to nourish my soul:
* So greedy for present delight, so indifferent to lasting blessedness:
* So fond of idleness, so indisposed for labour:
* So soon at play, so late at prayer:
* So brisk in the service of self, so slack in the service of others:
* So eager to get, so reluctant to give:
* So lofty in my profession, so low in my practice:
* So full of good intentions, so backward to fulfill them:
* So severe with my neighbours, so indulgent with myself:
* So eager to find fault, so resentful at being found fault with:
* So little able for great tasks, so discontented with small ones:
* So weak in adversity, so swollen and self-satisfied in prosperity:
* So helpless apart from Thee, and yet so little willing to be bound to Thee.

O merciful heart of God, grant me yet again Thy forgiveness. Hear my sorrowful tale and in Thy great mercy blot it out from the book of Thy remembrance. Give me faith so to lay hold of Thine own holiness and so to rejoice in the righteousness of Christ my Saviour that, resting on His merits rather than my own, I may more and more become conformed to His likeness, my will becoming one with his in obedience to Thine. All this I ask for His holy name's sake. Amen.

Funny graphs

more graph humor and song chart memes

(HT: Evangelical Outpost)

Life Together - review

Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is overview of what worship is to look like, both corporately and individually. This is a short read, and is rather helpful at times.

The Good - Bonhoeffer on community

Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.

What does that mean? It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ. It means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. It means, third, that in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity. (p 21)

My brother is rather that other person who has been redeemed by Christ, delivered from his sin, and called to faith and eternal life. Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community. What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity. (p 26)

The Bad (for me at least) - Bonhoeffer on getting up early

With remarkable frequency the Scriptures remind us that the men of God rose early to seek God and carry out His commands, as did Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Joshua (cf. Gen. 19:17, 22:3; Ex. 8:16, 9:13, 24:4; Josh. 3:1, 6:12, etc.). The Gospel, which never speaks a superfluous word, says of Jesus himself: "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed" Mark 1:35). Some rise early because of restlessness and worry; the Scriptures call this unprofitable: "It is vain for you to rise up early ... to eat the bread of sorrows" (Ps. 127:2). But there is such a thing as rising early for the love of God. This was the practice of the men of the Bible. (p 44)

The Ugly (vs the 'attractiveness' of secular standards) - Bonhoeffer on authority

"Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister" (Mark 10:43). Jesus made authority in the fellowship dependent upon the brotherly service. Genuine spiritual authority is to be found only where the ministry of hearing, helping, bearing, and proclaiming is carried out. Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in Christian community. The desire we so often hear expressed today for "episcopal figures," "priestly men," "authoritative personalities" spring frequently enough from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishment of visible human authority, because the genuine authority of service appears to be so unimpressive. There is nothing that so sharply contradicts such a desire as the New Testament itself in its description of a bishop (1 Tim. 3:1 ff). One finds there nothing whatsoever with respect to worldly charm and the brilliant attributes of a spiritual personality. The bishop is the simple, faithful man, sound in faith and life, who rightly discharges his duties to the Church. His authority lies in the exercise of his ministry. In the man himself there is nothing to admire. (p 109)

All in all, this is a nice little book, although I have a few notable doctrinal differences. I especially liked the first chapter on community.

Cora saying 'mama' (well, kinda)

Here's Cora saying "mama" - or at least I like to think so.



For more Cora videos, check out this link or the one on the side of the page.

Leading Leaders - review

Leading Leaders by Jeswald W. Salacuse is about how to lead people who are leaders in their own right. The book provides good, but concise explanations, with chapter summaries, making it an easy read.

Salacuse begins by laying some groundwork as to the issue of leading people that are normally not used to being lead, people that are leaders or very skilled in their own right (like doctors, professors, executives, etc.). He isolates seven tasks the leader of leaders needs to confront:

1) Direction - How do you negotiate a vision for the organization that other leaders will buy into?

2) Integration - How do you make stars a team?

3) Mediation - How do you resolve conflicts over turf and power among other leaders so the organization can move forward?

4) Education - How do you educate people who think they are already educated?

5) Motivation - How do you move other leaders who already seem “to have everything” to do the right thing for the organization?

6) Representation - How do you lead your organization’s outside constituents while still leading leaders inside?

7) Trust Creation - How do you gain and keep other leaders’ trust, the vital capital that your own leadership depends on?

I appreciated the simplicity and clarity Salacuse gives on this issue. If you really want people on board, nothing supplants the hard work of spending time in personal interactions with others.

If you are short on time and see this in the library, you can just go to the chapter conclusions and have a good sense of this book. Sometimes that sort of simplicity is nice too.


This was an interesting tidbit:

Many languages, including French and Spanish, have no precise equivalent for the English words "leader" or "leadership." As a result, the English words for these terms have found their way into those languages. So French books and articles on politics and management often refer to "le leader" (p 20)

Sweet, I learned a French word without really learning any French.

Magary says, "Keep your Hebrew healthy."

Thoughts from Preaching the Old Testament, Keeping your Hebrew healthy by D. Magary.

Tips for retention:

We will propose strategies on two fronts. Strategies for review will address the importance of revisiting the fundamentals of the language, especially vocabulary and grammar. Strategies for use, or text-focused strategies, will speak to the importance of regular Hebrew use and engagement with the biblical Hebrew texts. (p 33)

Not the flash cards and the audio CD's again! It must be done, it must be done. Remember the alphabet song.

On the importance of using Hebrew:

The most important thing pastors and teachers do in any given week is communicate to people what God has said. The most sacred moments they spend in ministry are the moments in which they are proclaiming the Word of God-the most important words ever written! The man or woman who has the responsibility to communicate to others what God has said needs to know exactly what God has said! A challenge far greater than learning Hebrew is keeping it vital and healthy for use in lifelong ministry. The whole point of studying Hebrew and Greek in seminary is to be able to have direct access to the biblical text-the very foundation for Christian faith and practice-in the languages in which God's Word was originally written. (p 30)

Magary gives excellent, practical advice for his two pronged approach of review and use. He also really appeals to the importance of keeping your Hebrew up (or in my case, elevating it to acceptable levels). One final exhortation:

Everything in the text matters! Every word is important. Every structure reflects a choice that an author has made. Nothing is superfluous. Every component of the text has its function. Knowing how to navigate the Hebrew text by reading and understanding what is actually there makes the difference, at least for a pastor, between preaching the text and preaching the translation. As we have already noted, translators make hundreds of decisions, many of which affect the interpretation of the passage. If the only access one has to the biblical text is through a translation, what does one do where translations differ? (p 52)

This is a good word to not let your languages slide.

Romans 15 - why go?

i see
Originally uploaded by Jane Costa Lima.

Why go to places where Christ isn't proclaimed? Paul had this hope:

Those who have never been told of him will see,
and those who have never heard will understand.
Romans 15:21 (ESV) cf. Isaiah 52:15

This 'is' my body: sympathy for a former president

Bread & Wine
Originally uploaded by cas lad.

Since the question of what is meant by Jesus' words, "This is my body," was brought up during our Life Builders time, I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a more careful look at this debated statement. Without sounding too Clintonian, our first stop is to examine the word 'is'.

From Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, pp 57-58

Few words with broad semantic range cause more interpretive difficulties than the copula eimi (to be). Caird (Language and Imagery, p. 101) provides a useful list of what he calls the “main types” of copula usage in Greek:

a) Identity: “Is the law sin?” (Rom. 7:7)
b) Attribute: “No one is good except God alone.” (Mark 10:18)
c) Cause: “To be carnally minded is death.” (Rom. 8:6)
d) Resemblance: “The tongue is a fire.” (James 3:6)

This is very helpful and is obviously pertinent to any consideration of the four most disputed words in the Bible, “This is my body.” Several branches of Christendom treat “is” in the sentence as a statement of identity; but quite clearly the semantic range of “to be” is broad enough that identity cannot legitimately be presupposed: it must be argued. ... Caird proceeds to argue that the statement “this is my body” cannot be one of identity, because “Jesus cannot be supposed to have identified the bread in his hands with the living body of which those hands were part.” But if “body” in this instance has a slightly different referent that the body of which the hands are a part, then “is” is being used metaphorically, and all metaphors belong to class d.

To restate: if we agree with the various classifications of 'is' above, then unless Jesus is referring to the bread and wine in the same way he would refer to his hand, the 'is' must fall into category d. Even if you believe in transubstantiation, there is a difference in Jesus' physical body and communion elements: Christ's body contains both the accidents (form) of flesh and blood and the substance of flesh and blood, while the communion elements retain the accidents of the bread and wine. The argument in transubstantiation is whether the substance has changed. But the point is this: clearly there is a difference between Christ's blood and wine.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia (newadvent.org)

Finally, Transubstantiation differs from every other substantial conversion in this, that only the substance is converted into another — the accidents remaining the same — just as would be the case if wood were miraculously converted into iron, the substance of the iron remaining hidden under the external appearance of the wood.

Again, there is a difference between an iron bar and an iron bar that has all the appearances of wood. The 'is' in "This is my body" is in category d.