The Southern Baptist Convention is a group of autonomous churches working together for certain causes. Historically, the primary cause for denominational cooperation has been evangelism. 100 churches (or 42,000 churches in the case of the SBC today) working together can do more to send missionaries around the world than 1 church trying its own thing. Thus the Southern Baptist Convention has from the start been a convention organized to facilitate the missions work of the various individual churches that voluntarily participate.

The work of the local church, however, is a bit more broad. While true that churches exist to facilitate the missions and outreach work of individuals within the church, this is not all that churches do. At a bare minimum we must speak of at least two functions of the local church: going forth to tell, and drawing together to grow. Both functions together serve one purpose: glorifying God. Thus the functions are not ends in themselves but ways of working for God’s glory.

The first function is the function of missions. We go throughout our neighborhoods and towns and countries and world sharing with others the bad news about sin and the good news about the grace, love, and mercy of God through Jesus Christ, praying that God might use us to lead others to himself.

The second function is the function of discipleship. We work to grow and ground believers in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Recognizing that it is not enough to get someone to profess faith in Christ, we then lead believers in the process of growing more like Christ each day.

The distinction in these functions is important. More and more I am hearing voices within the SBC speak as though the first function were the only real work of the church. For example, take the following snippet from the Great Commission Resurgence proposal:

[The Southern Baptist missional vision should be] As a convention of churches, our missional vision is to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations.

In and of itself, that would be fine. As a missional statement it gets across what missions is intended to do: spread the gospel around the world. But the proposal goes on to say:

This missional vision must drive everything that Southern Baptists do, and reset every priority of the local church and denomination.

Here we should see the problem. The problem isn’t just in the GCR proposal. I’ve heard it from pastors, read it on SBC blogs, and seen it in denominational publications. The problem is that this kind of focus leads us to ignore or at least downplay one of the two functions of the church. We become so focused on expanding the walls of the city that we ignore the condition of the things inside the city. We are so focused on reaching unbelievers that we neglect discipleship and have a denomination full of superficial faith.

It is striking to me that the majority of the Bible is written for those already claiming to be the people of God. The majority of the Bible calls God’s people to greater knowledge, to deeper faith, to more faithful obedience. In the New Testament, the passages calling believers to share the gospel make up just a small subset of the passages calling for holiness, for obedience, for knowledge and understanding, for lives of prayer and studying the things of God.

We must go and tell. We must share the gospel. We are right to stress the importance and necessity of evangelism. If we do not share the gospel, we are sinning. But sharing the gospel is the fruit of a life focused on Christ. The more we grow in our love for God, the more we walk in obedience to God, the more we live in the righteousness of God, the more we will delight to tell others about God. The reason so much of our evangelism sounds so superficial is because it is. We have trained our people to tell others God loves them but we have not trained our people to love God.

I think the best concise definition of evangelism is, “Loving God enough to make him known.” There are several things that makes this a good definition, but for our purposes this definition shows that the one telling the gospel must first be growing in his love for God, something that can only happen through discipleship, through walking in holiness, through growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The more believers walk with God, the greater our love grows. The more our love grows, the greater our desire to share him with others.

Thus we cannot say that a missional vision should drive everything we do. Getting back to the distinction between the local church and the Southern Baptist Convention, we can and should define the SBC in missional terms since that is why it exists. But the work of the local church goes beyond the work of the convention. Drawing together the two functions of the church and its one great purpose, something like the following might be a better vision for the local church: “Seeking the glory of God by helping believers grow in their love of God and faithfulness to God and by helping believers share the love of Christ throughout the world.”

Precise, accurate, and thorough are three words that should describe our study and interpretation of the Bible. We must be accurate – careful to ensure that the things we say are true; we must be precise – careful to be specific about the meaning of Scripture; and we must be thorough – seeking to dive as deep as the text goes.

Looking at science, here is how this would play out:

• It is accurate to say the Sun is far from the Earth, but it is not very precise.
• It is precise to say the Sun is 10,947.763 miles from the Earth, but it is not very accurate.
• To be precisely accurate, the Sun is a long way from earth – 1 Astronomical unit, or 92,955,807 miles.
• To be a little bit more thorough, we might note that this is the perfect distance to sustain human life. Much closer and we would be too hot. Much farther and we would be too cold. We could also note that while 93 million miles is a great distance, it’s still nowhere near as great as the distance between the Sun and Jupiter or Neptune or Pluto (and FYI, I’m still bummed about the whole Pluto fiasco). And the distance fades to a tiny speck if we compare it to the distance between the Earth and the Andromeda Galaxy (some 2,500,000 light-years away).

When it comes to Bible study we must be accurate in our observations, precise in our details, and thorough in our study. We will only grow in our knowledge of God’s Word, and the things revealed through God’s Word, when all three parts are present.

Take, for example, Revelation 22:18-19:
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

• It is roughly accurate to say, “By this verse we see that anyone who adds or takes away from this book is cursed.”
• It is more precise to say, “John warns the reader of Revelation that if anyone adds or takes from the book of Revelation, he will be cursed.”
• Adding a bit of thoroughness, we can observe that the books of the Bible were originally independent works and John would have written the warning as applying to “this book I have written”, the book of Revelation. Nonetheless, we could say that the principle applies to all of Scripture, even if this verse does not directly apply. We are not to tamper with God’s Word. Note 2 Corinthians 2:17, 4:2.

(Note that in the example I’m by no means trying to say everything there is to say about the verse; I’m limiting myself to the scope of the verse’s application.)

Now, why am I saying all this?

I think we have a tendency to settle for accuracy without showing much concern for precision or thoroughness. When we do this, we can only arrive at a partial – and often distorted – understanding of Scripture which means our ability to walk in obedience will be limited. We also leave others with the impression that the Bible is not worth careful, attentive study and that people can claim to love Scripture without actually interacting deeply with the things taught in Scripture.

If we are to be people of the book – and we absolutely should be people of the book – then we must labor daily to arrive at a precise, accurate, and thorough understanding of all the verses of the Bible. We will never get there, but that’s no excuse to be caught neglecting the Bible.

The below video demonstrates the major problem from Eyavap… Evyafil… Eyvyalpth… the Icelandic volcano.

I am working on a fairly extensive series of posts digging through the Great Commission Task Force recommendations. In the meantime, head over to Baptist 21 and submit questions for a panel discussion to be hosted at Southeastern Seminary. Here are the questions I sent in:

Recognizing that the IMB serves a broader range of cultures than NAMB, why does NAMB need to be decentralized into regional offices when IMB does not?

On the creation of a leadership training center through NAMB, don’t seminaries serve that function?

On the ending of cooperative agreements, has any thought been given to designating certain states as pioneer or frontier states and allowing NAMB to have cooperative agreements with pioneer states?

Are all of the proposed changes ultimately designed to turn NAMB into a church planting network in order to retain and facilitate the work of young church planters, moving the old NAMB ministries into the hands of state conventions?

Tim Challies has voiced his concerns well. As Challies says, Piper inviting Warren to the 2010 DGNC is not a terribly big deal. As I have said, I trust Piper and will respect his decision.

But Warren remains something of a problem. Challies lists two general issues with Warren: his failure to honor Scripture, and his tendency to duplicate his hearer. On the first, Challies says:

Warren has proven repeatedly that he does not and will not honor the Bible. He preaches from the Bible, he knows vast amounts of Scripture and I’m sure he loves studying the Bible. But his ministry makes clear that he does not truly honor it in the way he uses it.

…

…[in Purpose Driven Life] Warren had used Scripture poorly, stretching its meaning, choosing translations that, more than being true to the text, furthered his intended meaning.

This matches what I’ve observed about Warren. He talks a lot about the Bible, but does not appear to be faithful to the Bible. Since my previous post about Warren, I flipped through Purpose Driven Life and immediately noticed what Challies said: Warren uses lots of translations, choosing whichever translation best expresses the point Warren wants to make rather than the point Scripture is intended to get across.

Under the second heading, Challies observes that Warren talks different depending on which group he is with. In 1 Corinthians 9:22 Paul says he has become all things to all people. But in Paul’s case, the message remains the same, it is the method of speaking the message that is adapted to the audience. But for Warren, it often seems the message itself changes. Warren does not simply adapt his approach or his language, the content of what he says changes from group to group.

If you were to dig through Warren’s teaching and preaching in his normal contexts, would you ever guess that he would claim to be a monergist? Does it seem a little hollow that Warren’s theology only sounds Calvinistic when he is talking to Calvinists?

Challies observes:

Warren always knows exactly what to say. I truly believe this is one of the means by which he has become so popular and gained such a large platform–he always knows what to say to please a particular audience.

This should concern us. It shows Warren has a lack of commitment to theological truth. Even if his message consistently remains loosely evangelical (and there are reasons to question that), Warren’s example does not demonstrate a commitment to sound teaching. If it is okay to talk like a prosperity theologian in one interview, a Calvinist in another, or a Jew in another, what is left of our conviction to Christian truth? Christianity becomes a watered-down container for whatever ideas people want to inject.

(Note: Michael Horton has offered some comments about Warren and his interview with Modern Reformation.)

So my issues with Warren continue. I wish he were not as popular as he is, and I agree with Challies that having Warren at the 2010 DGNC will only increase Warren’s platform while harming Piper’s. Less people need to be listening to Rick Warren, more people need to be listening to John Piper, but I’m afraid that this invitation could have the opposite effect.

John Piper has invited Rick Warren to speak at the 2010 Desiring God National Conference. Like many, I am a bit concerned by this. I am not overly fond of Rick Warren. But here’s the thing – I trust John Piper. His preaching is solid, his mastery of Scripture is solid, his devotional life seems solid, his walk seems solid, etc. He is not a perfect man. He makes mistakes. Inviting Rick Warren could prove to be one of those mistakes. But I trust John Piper and if Piper decides to invite Warren, I may not like it, but I will trust Piper’s choice and will be interested to hear what Warren says.

Update:
Here is Piper explaining why he invited Warren. I may be re-evaluating my view of Warren.

A few years ago I went through a gospel Harmony and put together a list of biblical events from the Passover observance to the ascension of Christ. Events take place in three “chapters”: From the Table to the Cross; The Crucifixion of Jesus; and The Resurrection of Jesus. It is a useful guide to see the events and related Scripture from each of the gospels pertaining to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

Events of the Cross

Today, I’ve put together a briefer guide giving an overview of the events of Holy Week. This is highly summarized in order to fit everything on one page, but can provide a good, quick reference point.

Events of Holy Week

From the introduction to two sermons in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2. The attribution is given to T. Prince and W. Cooper, written in 1731.

…it is the very soul of piety, to apprehend and own that all our springs are in him; the springs of our present grace and comfort, and of our future glory and blessedness; and that they all entirely flow through Christ, by the efficacious influence of the Holy Spirit. By these things saints live, and in all these things is the life of our spirits.

Such doctrines as these, which, by humbling the minds of men, prepare them for the exaltations of God, he has signally owned and prospered in the reformed world, and in our land especially, in the days of our forefathers; and we hope they will never grow unfashionable among us: for, we are well assured, if those which we call the doctrines of grace ever come to be contemned or disrelished, vital piety will proportionably languish and wear away; as these doctrines always sink in the esteem of men upon the decay of serious religion.

I believe they are right.

I generally try to avoid politics on this blog, but this is an issue that has been gnawing at me for some time now. This post could get me into lots of trouble, but here goes.

Simply put, my concerns over conservative speakers such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck continue to grow. I believe many far right conservatives have become masters at stirring anger but offer nothing in terms of solutions. As they rouse anger, they win supporters. Palin and Beck in particular know exactly which buttons to push and how to push them.

At risk of crossing Godwin’s Law, here is my fear. How do the cries of Palin, Beck, and others differ from the cries of Hitler when he was building support? He knew what issues stirred people’s fear and anger. As he lit and stirred the fires of anger, he won fiercely loyal followers. I see the same taking place with Palin and Beck. They do not sound like totalitarian dictators (did Hitler early on?) but they are certainly gaining a following based on little more than their ability to stir anger.

There are reasons to be angry. There are good reasons to be frustrated and fed up with politics as usual in Washington. But I see Palin and Beck as even greater threats. They are not offering solutions to the problem, they are pouring fuel on the fire and when things blow up, they (far right conservatives in general) hope it will launch them into positions of power. If this happens, they will have behind them a base of supporters angry about the way things had been and willing to grant the new leaders a great deal of trust and loyalty. And since the new leaders had stirred so much fear and anger, something drastic and dramatic will have to happen so that it will look like the new leaders are dealing with the problems. In Germany it meant targeting the Jews as the source of every social ill. In the U.S. it will likely be immigrants, starting with illegal immigrants but spreading from there. Then it will be anyone who differs too much from the far right dogma.

Now, I do not believe that Palin or Beck or any others have any intention or desire to be anything like Hitler. Palin does not dream about totalitarian rule. But I wonder if even Hitler had any intention of becoming what he became.

I also do not believe things will get that far. The anger is immense, but I think most people would recognize and back away from the threat of totalitarianism. But if the far left continues its decline into blind insanity (and I have my own speculation on how the far left might try to prevent the rise of the far right, and it is equally troubling) and if the far right continues its plunge into the fires of fury, someday something will have to give.