DTS Magazine

Dallas Seminary Foundation Names New President

Dallas Theological Seminary — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:00:00 CST

Dallas Theological Seminary is pleased to announce the appointment of Stephen M. Golding as the president of Dallas Seminary Foundation. Steve Golding, former president and chief operating officer of Jackson-Shaw, has been involved in the Dallas business community for over 30 years, working with some of the most esteemed companies in Dallas. He leaves Jackson-Shaw having served in a top leadership role since 2001.

Lewis Shaw, chairman and CEO of Jackson-Shaw, recognized Steve Golding for his decade of service to the firm: “Steve’s leadership and vision have been major drivers in Jackson-Shaw’s success and reputation for developing innovative and sustainable projects across the United States. We sincerely appreciate his contributions and wish him all the best in his new endeavor.”

In addition to his professional experience, Steve Golding has faithfully served the church in various roles that benefited from his leadership, financial expertise, and communication abilities. Robert McCulloch of Haynes and Boone, LLP, and current DTS board member says, “I’ve known Steve for almost 10 years through Bible Study Fellowship, where he served as a leader. He is high-energy and at ease in a group setting. People gravitate to him. . . . I think his area of giftedness is a perfect fit for the needs at the Foundation.” He and his wife, Ann (who holds a master’s degree in Biblical Studies from DTS), are members of Park Cities Baptist Church.

As president of Dallas Seminary Foundation, Steve Golding is charged with overseeing the vision, direction, organization, and administration of charitable estate and gift planning services on behalf of Dallas Theological Seminary. Kim Till, vice president for Advancement at DTS, believes Steve Golding is the right person for the job: “We are pleased to have a leader with Steve’s skills and experience to lead Dallas Seminary Foundation. For 25 years the Foundation has provided the highest quality estate and charitable gift planning services for Dallas Theological Seminary friends and the Christian community. Steve will lead us forward in greater service, helping people optimize their contributions to the Lord’s work and achieve their family’s financial goals.”

Dr. Mark Bailey, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, concurs: “I have known Steve for many years as a keen businessman, a committed follower of Christ, and a dedicated family, church and community leader. For several years Steve has felt the Lord leading him toward serving a ministry or business where he could make an eternal impact. As a result, he could not be more passionate about the mission of Dallas Theological Seminary. We could not be more pleased that he is joining our leadership team.”

Steve Golding begins his new role on May 14, 2012.

Senior Preaching Week: Four Graduating Students Say Farewell

Dallas Theological Seminary — Fri, 4 May 2012 12:00:00 CST

Sten-Erik Armitage Th.M.

Which professor has made the greatest impact on you?

Impossible to narrow down to just one! Dr. Blount for giving me a passion to help others think Christianly. Drs. Hannah & Bingham for teaching me that an understanding of history is essential for right-thinking in the present. Dr. Kuruvilla for shaping my philosophy of preaching. Drs. Allen & Allman for exposing me to the unfathomable depths and riches of God's Word. Drs. Coover-Cox & Fantin for their patience in equipping me with the right tools to work in the languages. I could go on—God has profoundly used the faculty here to shape me and my ministry.

How have you been changed during your time at DTS?

The past five years at DTS has been a crucible experience. My wife and I have learned as much (if not more) from going through the experience of seminary as I have in attending classes. The reality of God as provider, God as faithful, and God as good has been hammered home in powerful and at times painful ways. Our faith has been tested and refined during our time in seminary. DTS has been more than an educational experience. Indeed, God has used DTS as a catalyst in forming a deep and abiding faith in Him and His character. God is good, even when it seems like He's not!

Where are you headed after graduation?

I will be continuing on into the PhD program in Theological Studies here at DTS. The goal is to be trained and equipped so that I might be able to invest into the lives of those who are going out into the ministry field. I pray that God would use me to equip disciples that He has called to go out and make disciples so that they might be able to do the same.

Rick Foddrill Th.M.

Which professor has made the greatest impact on you?

I would have to say Dr. Bingham. He opened my contemporary, evangelical, American mind to the world of the faith community throughout history. In his classes, I was challenged to see myself as a member of the body of Christ which has encouraged and deepened my own faith.

How have you been changed during your time at DTS?

More than anything I think DTS has made me a more humble person. In my classes, I've learned so many things that I had never considered before and my pride has had to take a back seat. There is so much that I still need to study and learn. I am immensely grateful that DTS has helped me to grow in this way.

Where are you headed after graduation?

I am proud to say that I am following my wife, a DTS alum of 2011, into an outstanding opportunity. She has helping open a counseling practice in California and I am currently applying to pastoral ministry opportunities focused on youth and associate pastoral positions. I hope to be in full time ministry whenever the Lord provides an opportunity.

Phillip Herbert Th.M.

Which professor has made the greatest impact on you?

I had never preached before coming to DTS, so Dr. Anderson's classes were challenging because I had to face my fear of preaching in front of others. Dr. Anderson taught that it is hard getting up and receiving criticism for our sermons because a sermon is kind of like a baby. It is an idea drawn from Scripture that starts within us, and then it grows in us before finally being birthed as a sermon. When people criticize our sermons, it feels like they are saying we have an ugly baby. However, it is the constructive criticism that we must hear now, because when we graduate and leave DTS, we will never receive this type of feedback again. And it is this type of feedback that causes us to grow. I am very thankful for the feedback I received from students and professors at DTS, and I am thankful for the lessons I learned in Dr. Anderson's preaching classes.

How have you been changed during your time at DTS?

The more I learn about God, the more amazed I am that He would want to have anything to do with me. I struggle at times in my devotional life and intimacy with God. These last two years in particular, I have busy trying to balance a full-time class load, a part time work load, an internship at my church and family life. At times it is balanced but at other times I feel like the weight on my shoulders has been too much to bear. I know the answer is to turn it all over to Christ, but I have felt like there weren't enough hours in the day. Thankfully, God has remained faithful. He has not turned his back on me but has enabled me to persevere while providing a lot of perspective about life and the situations I have faced.

Where are you headed after graduation?

I am planning to enter a one-year residency as a hospital chaplain at Baylor in downtown Dallas. I'm not sure if God has called me to a career as a chaplain, but I know that the skills and lessons I learn in this residency will benefit me in any ministry setting.

Travis Moen Th.M.

Which professor has made the greatest impact on you?

Dr. Timothy Warren. I showed up in his preaching class in my 4th semester about ready to drop out of seminary. Until taking PM103 I could not put all the pieces together and I was getting frustrated. Dr. Warren showed me how exegesis and theology are tools that enable the preacher to make a valid connection between the ancient text and the modern audience.

How have you been changed during your time at DTS?

During my time at DTS, I've learned to listen to God rather than crowd Him out with my own thoughts and goals. It has taken time for me to make peace with the fact that I'm not going back into the Army. God has a different direction for my life and I'm okay with that. My calling as a minister is not about my desires, its about Jesus and His kingdom and I've committed to follow Him where ever He leads.

Where are you headed after graduation?

After graduation I am moving to a small town in western Kansas. I use my vision of discipleship to pastor of a congregation of about 50 people. This is going to be a great place for me to develop into a pastor that matches my character and calling.

How to Talk to Your Relatives about Spiritual Things

R. Larry Moyer — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:00:00 CST

I question if there is a greater heartbreak. For some it causes them to weep at any given moment day or night. Only those who ‘have been there done that’ can fully understand.

There are those who are part of your family on earth that unless something happens spiritually will not be part of your family in heaven. One can say about a departed believer, “So long”. Indeed it will only be “so long” before one sees the person again in the presence of the King. What a day of rejoicing that’s going to be. But to a departed lost loved one, we say, “Good-bye”. Never will we see that person again.

I understand the heartbreak. My dad had a big impact on my life. When I think of men I think of my dad. He taught me hard work, integrity, and introduced me to my favorite sport of hunting. But since I couldn’t be certain of his relationship with the Lord, I woke up with nightmares he just died and went to hell. After 27 years of praying he assured me that his trust was in Christ alone as his only way to heaven. I still wept when he died. But the tears were tears of relief, not remorse.

At the same time, relatives are often some of the hardest ones to speak to about spiritual things. So how do you talk to your own relatives?

Two suggestions will hopefully be of help to you. The worth of them is not only verified by my own experience but by hundreds of believers that we have extended these suggestions to and have seen their relatives come to Christ.

Start by asking God to send someone in addition to you to speak to them. Please note that I said in addition to you not instead of you. It’s no secret to anyone that has spent much time in evangelism that it often takes someone outside of the family to reach them. When the time was right, God sent the right person. God used another pastor to witness to my dad and for that matter my mom as well to the point where they assured me, “I’ve settled it!”

I’ve often used the illustration of a mother I was privileged to lead to Christ in Indiana. Upon trusting Christ, the first thing she said was, “I don’t know why I couldn’t have listened to my own daughter. She’s been telling me this for years.” I then explained the reason she listened to me was I was not her son. She agreed and the two of them became closer than they had ever been.

“No one around my relatives is a believer,” you might say. God is still on the throne. He could bring someone across their path today who shares the same message you’ve been sharing for years – the Gospel of grace.

Here’s the second suggestion. Write a letter. Unlike a conversation that goes in one ear and out the other, they will read it and reread it, even though they may never tell you they got it. A man called the EvanTell office and said, “My niece just trusted Christ as a result of a letter I wrote five years ago. She never admitted she got it. She carried that letter with her for over five years and three moves. She would pick it up and read it and lay it aside, pick it up and read it and lay it aside. After five years she called me and told me she trusted Christ.”

I’m not thinking about any old letter. This has to be a special one. As I have often told people it’s a ten pager not a one pager. It’s one that takes an evening not an hour to write. The letter must contain four things:

Confess – Has something happened that still has not been resolved? Did something occur that they still hold against you? Get it out on the table and get rid of it. You don’t want it hindering what you have to say.
Compliment – Thank them for what they have meant to you. Did they always remember your birthday? Do you have pleasant memories of that one unbelievable vacation? Did they help you through college? Was there a time you saw a caring side of them you had never seen before? The worst relative has something to compliment.
Cross – Explain the way of salvation as though you were there face to face. Don’t enclose an evangelistic tract. They are likely to toss the tract aside and keep reading your letter. Instead, put the message of the tract in the letter. Be sure to make the Gospel clear. Explain to them that 1) We come to God as sinners, 2) Jesus Christ died for us and rose again, and 3) We must trust in Christ alone to save us. Use illustrations like one person dying for another to explain substitution or trusting a pilot to explain faith. Most important, make sure you are clear that eternal life is a free gift, not something they can work for or earn. Remember this is a ten page, not a one page letter. Many have used EvanTell’s, “May I Ask You A Question” booklet. They have put the words of this booklet in their own words as they write the letter. In so doing, they make the message of the Gospel clear.
Concern – Explain to them “What does all that mean if we are not together in heaven? The one person I want with me in heaven is you.”

As you mail the letter, don’t just send it with a stamp. Send it with a prayer that God will use your words to penetrate them with His words.

God has never faced a hopeless situation. If God could bring a Paul the apostle to Christ on the road to Damascus whose favorite past time was witnessing the massacre of Christians, he can certainly reach your lost loved ones. Do your part, and then look forward with anticipation and excitement to God doing His.

DTS graduate Dr. Larry Moyer is President and CEO of EvanTell.

DTS Professors Launch New Blogs

Dallas Theological Seminary — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:00:00 CST

In recent months, several DTS professors have launched new or updated blogs.

	Daniel B. Wallace danielbwallace.com Professor of New Testament Studies Dr. Wallace often writes for Credo House Ministries, but he has also started his own personal website and blog in which he discusses issues related to New Testament theology and criticism.
	Michael J. Svigel retrochristianity.com Assistant professor of Theological Studies Dr. Svigel's new book RetroChristianity: Reclaiming the Forgotten Faith just came out this month, and he has updated his site to reflect with several resources including a free study guide for his book.
	Paul Pettit blogs.christianpost.com/dynamic-dads Director of Placement, Adjunct Professor in Pastoral Ministries and Spiritual Formation Dr. Pettit moved the blog for his Dynamic Dads ministry to a new home on ChristianPost.com where he posts about issues related to being a godly father.
	Abraham Kuruvilla homiletix.com Associate Professor of Pastoral Ministries Dr. Kuruvilla (who is a doctor two times over) recently updated his website where he posts about his two professions - homiletics and dermatology. Hint: be sure to look at his images very closely.
	Sandra Glahn apsire2.com Adjunct Professor in Christian Education and Pastoral Ministries Prof. Glahn, a long time blogger on subjects like contraception, adult stem cell research, and end-of-life issues, continues her writing at Aspire2 and Bible.org's Tapestry blog.

Mondrell Oz: Agreeing to Disagree, and Loving It

Tameshia Williams — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:00:00 CST

Girl talk. Women make time for it at Friday night hangouts, Mary Kay parties, and Sunday brunches. They affirm one another, listen to that week’s trials, and share the latest celebrity news disguised as information. But while most women love to talk about everything, they hate to disagree about anything. They often keep their true opinions to themselves and hold conversations on a surface level, maintaining safety by avoiding conflict. Tired of these polite discussions, Dallas Theological Seminary student Mondrell Oz sets aside time once a month for women to go beneath the surface and discuss opposing views on spiritual, racial, and social issues.

A year ago, Mondrell realized she had many friends but she hardly knew where they stood concerning issues such as fidelity, homosexuality, and immigration. Wanting to influence women for Christ, she felt a growing desire to bypass social niceties and talk honestly and deeply with women. As a result, her passion for films gave her an idea to start The Movie Club. She wanted women to view thought-provoking movies that would open dialogue about important topics. So she invited a few friends to a matinee showing of a foreign film and to a lunch afterwards. “The socializing was great,” Mondrell said, “but the women showed a greater enthusiasm for the honest and intense discussion of the subject matter and themes portrayed in the film.”

While the Movie Club serves as an intellectual and social outlet for many of the members, Mondrell sees it from a different perspective. She believes that God uses her and other Christ-followers in the group to share their worldviews in a way that many members have not experienced. The Movie Club also leads to opportunities to share the gospel. The Club, in turn, gives the diverse group members an avenue to discuss divisive issues in a nonthreatening environment.

Participants range in age from thirty-eight to fifty-six and profess Catholic, Protestant, or non-Christian beliefs. The Movie Club has hosted up to twenty members at one time, but a core group of six to eight faithfully show up every month. While their ethnic and religious backgrounds differ, most of the women live in an affluent Dallas suburb, belong to the same fitness club, and have at least an undergraduate degree.

Mutual respect is the Club’s foundation, and the group treats each member with equality, regardless of beliefs. But how do group members avoid offending one another with their comments? “It gets tense,” Mondrell admitted, “but we have all agreed to disagree. And we do it well.” She also prays in about Movie Club events.

The group usually views foreign or independent films because she feels they provide better subject matter for discussion. Recent films include The Artist, Incendies, The Descendants, The King’s Speech, and Beginnings. From Mondrell’s view, these movies have provided opportunities for the group to think about sin and brokenness. As expected, her views usually conflict with those who do not share a Christian perspective. “Deep and intense conversations allow me to challenge non-Christian women in our group with a view alternate to the ones common to their world,” she said.

But the conflicting views sometimes even arise between the Christians in the group. The movie “Beginnings,” with a plot that includes a woman involved in an adulterous affair, caused a tension-filled discussion on infidelity. While the Bible clearly states that infidelity is wrong, and most of the women agreed that fidelity required faithfulness between husband and wife, a Christian in the group believed partner swapping, commonly called swinging, still fell within the bounds of fidelity. Mondrell admitted it was hard for her, as a Christ-follower, to listen to the conversation without immediately confronting the idea with judgment. But she believes that kind of dialogue has allowed her to better understand her fellow members.

For Mondrell Oz, The Movie Club has fulfilled a personal need and spiritual calling to go into her world and make disciples. It serves as a vehicle through which God allows her to reach women in a unique way. It has also improved the way she communicates biblical truths and shares the gospel, her ultimate goal. “I listen more and talk less, which isn’t easy. And when I talk, I’m learning to speak the truth in love.”

Tameshia Williams is a student in DTS's Master of Theology program

How to Experience Victory in Spiritual Warfare

Anthony T. Evans — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:00:00 CST

Before we can talk about achieving victory in spiritual warfare, we have to understand the nature and history of the conflict between God and Satan. The basic principle is that everything we see in the visible, natural realm is controlled by events in the supernatural, invisible realm.

Moves and Countermoves

We can see this throughout the Old Testament as God made the first move and Satan countered with his move. God made the first move when He created the angels. Lucifer countered that move when he rebelled against God (Isa. 14:12–15) and took one-third of the angels with him (Rev. 12:4).

God countered that move by creating man in His own image, “a little lower than the [angels]” (Ps. 8:5). Satan rebelled against that move by tempting Adam and Eve to sin and turn the earth over to his control. But God countered by providing a redemptive covering for Adam and Eve so they could return to fellowship with Him. Of course, Satan tried to counter that move by getting Cain to kill Abel in order to cut off the godly line.

That’s when God countered through the birth of Seth, so that “men began to call on the name of the Lord” again (Gen. 4:26). Satan tried to counter that move through the birth of Nimrod, who built the civilizations of Babylon and Syria and gathered the people at the Tower of Babel to build a civilization and a religion in defiance of God (Gen. 11:1–9). But God countered with a move to Ur of the Chaldeans, finding a man named Abram through whom He would establish a nation, Israel, that would obey Him.

However, Satan countered that move by getting the people trapped in slavery in Egypt so that Pharaoh would not let them go. God countered again by calling Moses to go to Pharaoh with the message, “Let my people go” (Exod. 5:1). We could go on, but you get the idea. The entire Old Testament is move, countermove, move, countermove as Satan battled the work of God. Now don’t get the wrong idea. Spiritual warfare is not a battle between two equal forces. Satan is the creature; God is the Creator. The devil is a defeated foe; his defeat was first announced in Genesis 3:15 when God Himself said that One would come who would crush Satan.

God’s Final Move

That One is Jesus Christ. So God made the big move when He became man in the person of Jesus Christ. Satan tried to counter that move by tempting Jesus in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1–11). Jesus overcame that through the use of God’s Word. Then Satan made his final move at the cross, thinking he had gotten rid of Jesus. But God made the final move by raising Jesus from the dead.

And that move is now your move! No matter what’s going on in your world, Jesus’ resurrection move was God’s move, and now it’s your move for victory in spiritual warfare. What you need to do to make that victory real in your life is to take up the armor God has provided. Paul describes the armor for spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (vv. 10–12).

The Real Enemy

There’s a key principle of spiritual warfare in verse 12 that a lot of believers don’t understand. Notice our enemies are “the spiritual forces of evil.” In other words, people are not your problem. You may think people are your problem because they’re what you see, feel, touch, and hear. But according to God’s Word, people are just the conduit for the battle going on in the spiritual realm. The battles we have in life are not fundamentally physical in nature, but spiritual—not primarily on earth, but in the “heavenly realms.”

This means if you don’t know how to navigate the spiritual realm, you can’t fix what’s wrong in this physical realm. Spiritual warfare is the battle in the invisible, spiritual world that is responsible for the battles in the visible, physical world.

Paul uses the term “heavenly realms” uniquely in the Book of Ephesians to describe the Christian’s activities. For example, your blessings are located in the heavenly realms (1:3). Everything God is going to do for you is located in the unseen realm. Then in 1:20, Paul says that God raised Christ and seated Him in the heavenly realms. Not only are your blessings located there; Jesus, the One who is in charge, is there also. So if you want to get to Jesus, you have to go to where He is in the spiritual realm.

But that’s not all. We also as believers have been raised with Christ, and we also are seated “in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 2:6). So the solutions you need to your problems emanate from the spiritual realm where your blessings are, where Jesus is, and where you are located.

In Ephesians 3:10 we read that the wisdom of God has been made known through the church “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The angels are also in this realm. That’s important because you need your angel. Every believer in Jesus Christ has at least one angel that has been assigned to him or her. The Bible says in Hebrews 1:14 that the angels are “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation.”

So if you’re a believer, you have at least one angel who’s assigned to you, to operate on your behalf in the spiritual realm.

So let’s review. Your blessings are in the spiritual realm; Jesus is seated there; you are seated with Him; and your angelic assistance is located in the heavenly realms. But as we read in Ephesians 6:12, the forces of darkness are also located in the spiritual realm—and their job is to make hell break loose in your life. Combating Spiritual Evil

I believe every Christian also has a demon assigned to try and make sure Satan has his way in that person’s life. The demonic realm knows our weak spots. The devil knows what has messed up our thinking and the sinful patterns we have developed. Satan’s job is to exploit those sins and weaknesses to bring us down and cause us to live in spiritual doom and gloom and defeat instead of in victory.

If you are unaware of the battle being waged in the spiritual world, all you are left with is to try and deal with life in the physical world. But a physical solution can’t fix the problem if the problem originated in the spiritual realm. People spend all of their time and money and effort trying to do better in the physical when that’s not where the problem emanates from. It emanates from a location called “the heavenly realms.”

So if you want to fix a problem that started in the spiritual world that is messing you up in the physical realm, you have to fix it in the spiritual realm where it began. But the devil doesn’t want you to know that. He wants to limit you to the world of your five senses because he knows that if you function only on the basis of what you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, you won’t make any real spiritual progress in spiritual warfare.

That’s why the Bible says we have to take our stand against the devil’s schemes. He’s a thief and a murderer who wants to rob you of the spiritual blessings God has stored up for you and to kill your joy, your witness, and your impact for Christ. That’s quite a different picture from the caricature the world has of the devil: a funny-looking little guy running around in a red jumpsuit with a pitchfork. That’s the way the devil wants people to think of him, because then they don’t take him seriously as a deceiver with schemes—strategies, tricks, and clever devices.

The essence of Satan’s scheme is to trick you into relocating the focus of your spiritual warfare. By that I mean the devil wants to get you focusing exclusively on the visible, physical realm so you don’t use the armor of God to defeat him and his forces in the realm that matters, the spiritual realm.

What happens when we do this? For one, we start seeing other people, or even ourselves, as the problem, and we start fighting them or ourselves. Or we come to believe that the answer to our need is found in some self-help program or in finding a new job or even a new spouse. But these things don’t work, so we start believing that we are helpless against the devil and his schemes.

A Secret to Victory

But here’s a secret to victory in spiritual warfare that the devil doesn’t want you to know. The only power that Satan and his demons have over you and me is the power we give them. That’s because Satan is already a defeated enemy; he was crushed at the cross and the empty tomb of Christ! The only reason Satan could take over planet Earth is because Adam and Eve gave him permission to do it. The devil and his demons need your permission to unleash the forces of hell in your life.

And once they’re given permission, demons are like roaches. They are scurrying around in our lives because we have given them permission to be there. But let me say it again: The devil operates by consent and by cooperation. Some people say, “You Christians are just too demon conscious.” No, the problem is, most of us are too demon unconscious.

I say that because our battle is against these spiritual forces. Now let me ask you a question. If the devil has already been defeated by Christ in the heavenly realm, and if we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realm, and if our real battle is in the heavenly realm, where should we look for the weapons and the power to be victorious? In the heavenly realm!

That’s exactly what Paul is saying in Ephesians 6. The armor of God is spiritual. That means we can’t fight Satan in our own strength, using our puny human ideas. We fight in His power. Therefore, your assignment is to put it on and then, please notice this, “stand your ground.” Paul calls us to stand, twice in verse 13 and again in verse 14. Stay Where You Are!

“Stand your ground” means stay where you are. Hold your ground. It means you don’t have to run and hide from the devil or throw down your weapons and surrender to him. Standing your ground doesn’t change the fact that evil is all around you or that the battle is raging all around you. But standing your ground, clothed in the armor of God, keeps the battle from overtaking you because you are under the protective covering of God.

It’s like standing in the pouring rain with a big umbrella over you. The rain is hitting all around you and even trying to get you wet. But you’re okay as long as you stay under the protection of your umbrella. But step out from under that protection, and you’re going to get pelted.

Let me close with an illustration. Back in the pioneer days, a father and his son were trying to outrun a fast-moving prairie fire in their wagon. But the fire caught up with them, and they were about to be consumed. The father, to the confusion of his son, turned the horse around and went to a spot that had already been burned.

He then told his son, “Jump out quickly.” They jumped out and the father said, “Now stay here and don’t move.” His son said, “But, Dad, the fire is coming at us from all directions.” The father said, “Stay here and don’t you budge!” The son said, “But, Dad, I don’t understand; there’s fire all around us.” The father just said again, “Son, I said stay here.”

Then he explained, “The spot we’re standing on has already been burned. There’s nothing left to burn, so if we stand here the fire won’t get us because it has nothing to grab hold of.”

That father and son standing safely in the middle of a raging fire is a picture of you and me in spiritual warfare. You see, Jesus has already been “burned” for us at the cross. Jesus has already been crucified, and the resurrection has already occurred. So the devil’s fire can’t harm us as long as we are standing firm in Jesus.

Stand your ground, my brothers and sisters. Stand your ground!

Dr. Tony Evans is founder and senior pastor of the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas. He is also founder and president of The Urban Alternative, a national organization that seeks to bring about spiritual renewal in urban America through the church.

The Hosea Love Story: A Video Series

Dallas Theological Seminary — Mon, 2 Apr 2012 12:00:00 CST

Preaching through a book of the Bible requires a commitment to both the hard work of exegeting a text and the challenging task of bringing its message to life within a given cultural context.

A wonderful example of this movement from exegeis to exposition comes from the teaching team at Irving Bible Church, lead by E. Andrew McQuitty (Th.M., 1985, D.Min., 1995) and including DTS professor Barry Jones (Th.M., 2002, Ph.D., Wheaton, 2008). They recently finished a six part series on the book of Hosea, and before each message the media team prepared a short video that offers a deeply emotional, contemporary portrait of Hosea's commitment to Gomer and the convenant love of God toward his people that it so powerfully depicts.

Part One: The Covenant Love of God

When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the LORD.” So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim. (Hosea 1:1-11; verses 2-3 excerpted)

Part Two: The Tough Love of God

Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. (Hosea 2:1-13; verses 5-6 excerpted)

Part Three: The Tender Love of God

Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. “In that day I will respond,” declares the LORD—“I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth; and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and the olive oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” (Hosea 2:14-23; verses 14, 21-23 excerpted)

Part Four: The Redeeming Love of God

The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek[b] of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” Hosea 3:1-5; verse 1-3 excerpted)

Part Five: The Love of God: Our Response

Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. (Hosea 6:1-6; verses 1-3 excerpted)

Part Six: The Unrelenting Love of God

Return, Israel, to the LORD your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. (Hosea 14; verses 1-3 excerpted)

More Information

You can listen to the sermon audio on Irving Bible Church's website: www.irvingbible.org/media (Hosea Series), and you can find out more about the production team that made the video series possible at IBC's YouTube page.

DTS is committed to training godly servant leaders who can preach through the books of the Bible (see our Master of Theology) and communicate them through visual arts (see our MA in Media and Communication)

"Raising Your Children in a Multicultural World" by Sharifa Stevens

Dallas Theological Seminary — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

Most parents can remember a time when their children realized that there's varitey among people. Sometimes those moments were funny. Sometimes they were embarrasing. But in the eyes of Sharifa Stevens (Th.M. 2004), they're almost always teachable opportunities for "Raising Your Children in a Multicultural World."

Teachable moments are a good thing. Like when your son loudly asks why that man is “rolling around” in a wheelchair, or your niece licks a person’s skin to see if it tastes like chocolate, or your stepson turns up his nose at the kimchi because it’s not mac-and-cheese and chicken nuggets.

I reminded myself of this – the virtue of teachable moments – as the 4-year-old girl whose mother stood in line ahead of me at the supermarket checkout stared and pointed at me.

Just 30 seconds earlier, the harried mother of this little girl was challenged to ring up and pay for her items while keeping her precious princess tethered to one place. She was losing the challenge. In an attempt to regain ground, she pointed out the placidness of my toddler – which, by the way, is a miracle – as we waited in line. “Look, Sweetheart. See the little boy and how quietly he waits? Say hello to the little boy.”

But instead of seeing the little boy and mimicking his composure, Precious Princess zeroed in on me, or, better yet, a distinguishing characteristic: my huge afro. This discovery did succeed in keeping her still. Well, except her mouth. “Mommy, look at her hair!”

Her mom, sensing where this was going, tried to head it off by saying, “Yes, isn’t it beautiful on her?” (Um, why the “on her” qualifier?)

“No. No. No. No. No. It’s ugly, Mommy.”

The little girl’s mother flushed as red as the beets in her shopping cart and attempted to reason with the child that she was wrong, simply wrong. I smiled, offering that she was entitled to her opinion, even if it is wrong (my hair is awesome).

A teachable moment, wasted.

Studies show that between 6 and 18 months old, a child will begin to differentiate features that are familiar from those that are foreign – in other words, physical traits that don’t look like Mommy and Daddy. Have you ever observed your child staring at someone? They might be working out the physical differences between that person and you. It’s natural. It’s neutral. And how we respond to their questions and observations could make all the difference in how they adapt, embrace and learn about the world of people around them. We can raise an ambassador or a bully.

Read the Full Article >

Do you want to learn to see the world through biblically and theologically Christian eyes? Do you want to help others do the same? Find out how with the Master of Theology degree (what Sharifa earned). The Th.M. has 33 unique emphases designed to prepare you for ministries as diverse as the people you serve.

Downline Ministries Pioneers Customized, Computer-Generated Discipleship Material

Dallas Theological Seminary — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

Thousands of discipleship resources line the shelves in Christian bookstores, but readers sometimes struggle to choose from so many options. A small group of spiritually mature teenage boys that meets weekly has needs that differ from those of a single mother who can meet only once a month.

To help bridge these gaps and make discipleship as personal as possible, Jason Seville (Th.M., 2010), director of resources at Downline Ministries came up with the idea of a web-based tool that helps leaders generate customized discipleship material based on the size, spiritual needs, and time commitments of a group or individual. The result is a new tool called Downline Builder.

Downline Builder Overview

Downline Ministries has also made a special 40% off discount available for the DTS family by using the coupon code "DTS".

Five Ways Download Builder is Unique

Jason was interviewed by the Gospel Coalition who asked him: "What makes this resource unique in the vast world of discipleship curricula?" Jason answered with the following five distinctives:

First, the ability to customize the Builder equips you to do contextual ministry. Once you log in, you have to fill out a page on the person you are discipling or group you are leading. Based on that information, we'll give you a blank table of contents and list of suggested lessons to cover.

Second, it requires relationship building. When you build a curriculum, you must plan what we call a "life on life" session after every two lessons that you put in your table of contents. You can't download or print your curriculum unless you include these fields. These will be things like working out together, running errands, sharing a meal, doing evangelism, engaging in a service project, and so on.

Third, the process equips you to be a disciple-maker as much as the product does. Thinking through various growth areas for each person you're discipling and personalizing a plan will hopefully train you to think more intentionally about what the next spiritual growth steps are for brothers and sisters in your areas of influence.

A fourth uniqueness is the ever-expanding library of doctrinal and practical lessons. You will never have to pay for a "volume two" of the Builder. We'll keep adding lessons (even ones that you suggest) and as long as you have access, you can use the new lessons we add.

Finally, we feel that our payment philosophy is rare, as evidenced by the fact that we've driven our marketing consultants crazy. Our primary objective has always been to have a tool that could help equip and ignite a movement of biblical discipleship across the globe. For this reason, we went with a subscription model that allows you annual access for a very affordable price. If you buy an annual subscription, it's "all you can eat" for the whole year. We could have gone with a pay-per-lesson model, but we didn't like the idea of people trying to see how little they could do and still be effective.

For more information about Downline Ministries and the Builder, visit downlineministries.com/builder where you can watch a demo video and download a sample. Use the coupon code "DTS" for a 40% discount.

On Jason Seville's time at DTS

Jason was also featured in a recent interview with the DTS Alumni department in which he described his time at DTS:

My wife, Kim (MABC 2008), and I moved to Memphis, Tennessee after I graduated to work with Downline Ministries, which was founded in 2005 by another DTS grad, Kennon Vaughan (MABS 2010). Downline focuses on restoring biblical discipleship in and through the local church. We've had several DTS professors and alumni come and teach for Downline Ministries.

I primarily serve as the Director of Resources at Downline Ministries. I have overseen the development of our new discipleship tool, called the Builder, which just launched at the end of January. I had the idea for the Builder while taking CE705 with Dr. Heinemann at DTS. We were looking over all the trusted discipleship curricula on the market and it struck me that most resources are "one size fits all." That seemed unwise to say the least. The Builder allows the user to produce customizable curriculum for biblical discipleship

Every year at DTS was better than the previous. I loved every minute of it. Some of my best memories are singing "All Hail the Power" in Chafer Chapel, lunches in Mitchell with my wife and my good friend Mike Newman, and life-changing classes with Dr. Bingham, Dr. Hannah, Dr. Horrell, "Dr. Jay", and Dr. Chisholm. Also, an essential part of my growth in seminary came as a result of working with at Denton Bible Church, though I don't miss the traffic on I-35!

One of my first—and most formative—memories from DTS was Dr. Jay Smith calling our NT101 class to individual faithfulness. "The playing field is not level," he said. "For some of you, it would be a sin to get a C. But for some of you, it would be a sin to get an A because you'd be neglecting other areas in your life."

DTS further equipped me to study Scripture, teach Scripture, and share my faith. The original languages and historical theology classes are indispensable in each of these disciplines. Seminary also gave me a new paradigm for theological method, solid research, and maintaining a life that is "academically devotional" and "devotionally academic."

I'm forever grateful to DTS and wish I could do it all over again!

Meet the Newest World Missions and Intercultural Studies Professor

Dallas Theological Seminary — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

DTS is proud to announce the faculty appointment of Dr. Rodney Orr to the WMIS department. Dr. Orr earned his Th.M. from DTS in 1990 and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He has served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, director of urban ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ, and lecturer in theology at the Nairobi Int'l School of Theology in Kenya. He also spent eleven years in Zimbabwe building a graduate school called the Africa Leadership and Management Academy (ALMA). ALMA’s mission is to develop leaders of integrity who will impact Africa and the world for Christ.

Dr. Orr and his wife, Cortina, have a daughter and a son. Stateside, his ministry has been focused on sharing the gospel with graduate students at Yale University and United Nations diplomats in New York City.

“My wife and I feel God calling us to mobilize missionaries for His service.” Dr. Orr says, “We believe that DTS will be a great place to do that.”

Dr. Orr will begin teaching WMIS courses beginning this fall. Some of his courses include Dynamics of Missionary Development, Ministry in African Contexts, Ministry in Multicultural America, and Cross-cultural Apologetics and Evangelism.

The DTS community is glad to welcome our newest professor. Please pray for him and his family as they transition to life in the Dallas area.

WEC 2012 Summary: Reach the Unreached for Jesus

Dallas Theological Seminary — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

The 2012 World Evangelization Conference was lead by guest speaker and former DTS professor Dr. Alvin Low. Dr. Low received his Master’s in Theology (Th.M.) and Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) from DTS. He has spoken in conferences and taught in seminaries in more than 40 countries. He is the author of 16 books, which have been translated into various languages. He now serves as president of ACTS International where his calling is to advance the training of indigenous missionaries for effective ministry and church-planting among the unreached peoples of Asia.

Part 1: Missions as the Mission of the Church

In part one of the 2012 World Evangelization Conference, Dr. Alvin Low defines modern missions by describing its core problem and asking the questions, "What is missons? What are the components of missions?" The world population is currently 55% Asian and in Asia there are at least 6900 unreached people groups, mostly in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. In these areas there is no access to a Christian church and there are groups of people as large 56 million that have never heard the Gospel.

What should the missions agenda be in a world where one quarter of the population is unreached with the Gospel? Dr. Low suggests we look at the pages of Scripture and ask ourselves “What did the apostles of Jesus Christ do?” and “What does God want us to do?”

3 Key Components of Missions

Evangelizing the unreached – One quarter of the world is unreached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Focus missions efforts and resources toward these unreached people groups.
Equipping the disciples of Jesus Christ - Be involved in training indigenous missionaries who know the culture and language and can gain access to places where other missionaries cannot go.
Establishing the Church – Every Christian has an important role to play in building up the body of Jesus Christ worldwide. Therefore, we should endeavor to plant churches among unreached people groups.

Part 2: Missions in the Mission Statement

In part two of this series, Dr. Alvin Low explains that God's mission in the world is that people from every nation and tongue will bow in worship before Jesus Christ. Since it is the responsibility of the local church to be about the work of the Lord until He comes again, we need to evaluate current church efforts and set a goal to focus more resources on missions to unreached people groups. A church mission statement that doesn’t include missions is incomplete.

Impact unreached people groups around the world:
5 helpful tips for your church

Re-examine the church mission statement – What is the mission and core purpose of your church? What are you seeking to accomplish? Does the mission statement include the goal of reaching people in the world who have never heard the Good News?
Adopt an unreached people group – The Joshua Project has identified 30 different unreached people groups in the world. Pray and then choose an area of the world to focus your evangelization efforts.
Develop partnerships in foreign countries - Equal partnerships between western churches and indigenous missions efforts is essential. Effective partnerships require trust and willingness to learn from your foreign missions partners.
Review your short-term missions - Many churches have short-term missions, some are good and some are just a waste of money. What is the purpose of your short term missions program? Find a way to increase the amount of your church budget dedicated to reaching unreached peoples and develop long term strategies for short term missions so it will accomplish the goal God has in mind.
Pray for God’s purpose and calling in your missions efforts

Part 3: Missions at the Doorstep of the Church

In part 3, Dr. Low points out that at the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2, God brought people from every ethnic group to Jerusalem to witness the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and hear the Gospel preached through Simon Peter. Today, God has brought representatives of the unreached people before the doorsteps of the American church. How will the American church respond when God provides an opportunity to reach foreign visitors with the Gospel?

5 potentially unreached groups in your neighborhood

International visitors – Everyday thousands of students, tourists, and business people come to America. How can your church reach these visitors with the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Foreign trainees in the U.S. for internships – When they return to their home country will they take Christ’s message with them?
International Students – At least one million international students are studying in the U.S. right now. Over 50% of international students are from just five countries: China, India, South Korea, Canada, and Taiwan. These are the future leaders of the world and more than 80% return to their home country without ever hearing the Gospel.
U.S. Immigrants – Over the last decade millions of people have entered the U.S. as legal immigrants.
Foreign Refugees – There are displaced people living in communities throughout America, many of them from countries where the Gospel has not taken root.

Part 4: Missions to the Ends of the Earth

In his concluding message, Dr. Low conveys the staggering statistic that there are 5.5 billion lost people in the world represented in about 16,700 different people groups. Over the past fifty years there has been a rise in the number of indigenous Asian, Africa and Latin American missionaries, but the work of reaching the world with the Gospel is not finished.

What are some considerations that affect the goal of missions work today?

The challenge of the multitudes – With such a large number of unreached people living in closed countries it becomes difficult for missionaries to engage them. Only about 1 in 10 cross-cultural foreign missionaries minister among unreached people groups.
The compassion of God – God has told us in James 1:27 that pure religion in His sight is caring for orphans and widows. 163,000,000 children in the world are orphans in need of compassion and the saving power of Jesus.
The condition of mankind – Human trafficking, the AIDS epidemic, Genocide, these are the results of sin and the curse. Pray for workers to go into God’s field and bring the light of the Gospel to hurting people.

Stepping Stones for the Christian Journey

Robert P. Lightner — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

Chapter 7: Tying Up a Loose End (James 3:1–12)

Years ago a man named Latimer was called upon to preach before King Henry VIII. At the beginning of one of his sermons to the King, Latimer, a godly man, first addressed himself. He said, “Latimer! Latimer! Dost thou remember thou art going to speak before the high and mighty King Henry VIII, before him who has power to command thee to be sent to prison, before him who can have thy head struck off, if it please him? Wilt thou not take care to say nothing that will offend royal ears?” Then after a short pause of contemplation he proceeded: “Latimer! Latimer! Dost not thou remember that thou art to speak before the King of kings and Lord of lords, before Him at whose bar Henry VIII will stand, before Him to whom one day thou wilt have to give account thyself? Latimer! Latimer! Be faithful to thy Master and declare all God’s Word.”

The tongue is the fiercest force in the whole world, and it has its den just behind our teeth. Truly, our tongue needs to be tamed, to be tied up. How different things would be if Christians would always speak as though they were in the physical presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we look at what James said about our tongues, we will discover more stepping stones to Christian maturity.

THE TONGUE HAS TO BE BRIDLED (James 3:1-4)

Our tongues need to be constantly disciplined. It seems James was concerned that his readers might conclude from his emphasis on showing our faith by doing that they might conclude that their tongue has little to do with the Christian life. That certainly is not the case. The fact is, our speech is a form of work. Here then is another evidence of either a dead faith or a living faith. Early in the Christian era, church services were conducted differently than in our day and time. Men in the gathered group felt free to stand up in the assembly and exhort, teach pray, sing, or read Scripture. We need to remember that these early Christians met in the Jewish synagogues in the beginning. And they simply followed the way things were done in the synagogues.

Perhaps that way of doing things caused some men to want the position of teachers. They may have wanted more prominence in the assembly. Such was hardly a worthy and God-honoring ambition. James did not want them to take such a position hastily. Neither, of course, did he want to discourage them. So he warned against status-seeking, reminding them that pride and selfishness are sins and God will judge the guilty Christians at the judgment seat of Christ. Instructing others in the things of God is serious business. No one who is called to do this is perfect, “We all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). All of us need to bridle our whole body, not just our tongue.

A bridle on a horse is a small piece of equipment, yet it is necessary to control the animal. The same is true of the bit in the mouth of a horse. The bit is a small piece of steel. It is about four or five inches long with holes at each end for attaching leather straps which are fastened to the bridle. The bit’s purpose is to control the direction of the horse and command its obedience. James’ point is that such a small thing as a bit is used to control a large, powerful animal.

Another illustration is the small thing used to control a large ship. When we see a huge and beautiful sea-vessel, it is hard to understand how such a small piece of equipment called a rudder (v. 4) is used to control the ship. Through calm or stormy weather the rudder makes it possible to direct the vessel where the captain wants it to go.

What the bit is to the horse, the rudder is to the ship. A huge thing like an aircraft carrier and an irrational creature like a horse are both governed by a small thing. But, wait, James is going to introduce another small thing that can and often does cause a world of trouble or can calm a troubled soul.

THE TONGUE’S NASTY BOASTING (James 3:5-12)

It is almost impossible to miss how James, guided by the Holy Spirit illustrates his point of small things which have large consequences. First, it was the “bridle” (James 3:2), then “bits” (v. 3), then a “rudder” (v. 4), then the “tongue” (v. 5), and finally “a small fire” or spark (v. 5).

James returns to the importance of Christians taming their tongue. It sounds as though the people he addressed needed to be reminded how the psalmist prayed: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14). Today we too need to ask God to “set a watch upon my lips.”

The damage of a tongue out of control is almost beyond description. Our Lord’s brother was led to compare it to a great forest fire that started with a small spark. A careless flip of a cigarette butt can cause, and has caused, fires that destroy hundreds of acres of trees, homes and lives. The human tongue, yours and mine, can cause irreparable damage as well. The human tongue is a fire and a “world of iniquity” which “defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell” (James 3:6). To put it mildly, the tongue has enormous potential to create both good will and evil.

James continues his description of the evil possibilities of the Christian‘s tongue. Some of the most ferocious creatures on land or sea or air have been “tamed” by man. Yet “no one can tame the tongue” (v. 8). That is, in our own strength we cannot tame our tongue. But by the enablement of the Holy Spirit we can gain victory over this restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Think for a moment about the inconsistency of at one moment using our tongue to praise God and honor Him. And then often we use it to attack another person made in God’s image. How horrible that is and what a stench that must create before God. Does your faucet at home or the water fountain in the public place give out both fresh and bitter water? No, that does not happen. If it ever would, we would be quick to turn it off and not drink from it again until it was repaired. James gives two more pointed illustrations of our inconsistent use of our tongue. Fig trees do not ever produce olives, not even rarely. Furthermore, the stability of nature keeps salt water from ever producing fresh water (James 3:12).

Take a long hard look at the simple visual below. It will remind you of God’s view of an evil tongue. Then read the strong stepping stones and place your feet upon them as you live out your faith.

DESCRIPTIONS OF AN EVIL TONGUE

It is:

1. Offensive, v. 2

2. Small, v.3

3. Influential, v.3

4. Destructive, v.5

5. Devilish, v. 6

6. Insubordinate, v. 7

7. Poisonous, v. 8

8. Inconsistent, vv. 11-12

Solid Stepping Stones

(1) Beware of your use of your tongue.

(2) The tongue needs to be bridled.

(3) Beware of status-seeking and selfishness.

(4) Review how James used small things which have large consequences.

(5) Before speaking, remind yourself you cannot take back what you say.

(6) Claim the power of the Holy Spirit to help you control your tongue.

Did you find any other stepping stones in this passage? (1) (2) (3)

Excerpt from Solid Stepping Stones for the Christian Journey (2011, Grace Acres Press), by Robert P. Lightner. Additional information at www.GraceAcresPress.com.

Cruciform: Living the Cross-Shaped Life

Jimmy Davis — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

Chapter 1. Introduction

Cruciform Cathedrals

Those grand and glorious cathedrals built in the Middle Ages may have something to teach us about the way we live the Christian life today. The medieval church ministered to a culture that had no direct, personal access to the Scriptures in their own language. The church leaders of that era were faced with the challenge of teaching biblical truth to a Bible-less people. One creative way they taught key doctrines to their people was by building object lessons into their church facilities. The cathedral served as “The Poor Man’s Bible,” as historians now call it. Everything about the way a cathedral was built—firm foundations and transcendent towers, storytelling statues of stone, tile mosaics and stained glass windows depicting central biblical stories in full color, and even the way sunlight streamed through those windows—was designed to help folks discern, delight in, and declare the great, biblical doctrines concerning God and the gospel.

The art and architecture of these sanctuaries taught two central biblical truths: God’s just judgment against the sinfulness of mankind; and God’s gracious provision of salvation from his wrath through the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Cathedrals were intentionally built to teach theology to the people in the pews. And not just random bits and pieces of biblical teaching, but a consistent curriculum of repentance from sin and faith in Jesus as he is offered in the gospel. Indeed, the most distinct feature of these cathedrals was their cruciform or “cross-shaped” floor plan. The central doctrine the church building communicated was the gospel, the message of the cross. And since these church buildings were the most prominent and prized buildings, the hope was that through the preaching of the gospel inside the church building and through the presentation of the gospel in its art and architecture, the surrounding population would both see and hear the message of the cross.

We Need More Cruciform Cathedrals

Here in the 21st century we need more cruciform churches. Not lavish cathedrals but living communities of disciples being shaped by the cross into the shape of the cross for the glory of God and the good of our neighbors, the nations, and the next generation. Our best hope is to cooperate with The Architect, who promised he would build his church (Matthew 16:18) as we join him to form our families, small groups, and churches into “cruciform communities.” Such communities visibly show and verbally share the message of the cross because they are made up of people who have been vibrantly shaped by that message.

Cruciform Christians and Cruciform Churches

Unlike the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, this construction project requires both a cruciform building and cruciform building blocks. The Apostle Paul taught that both our individual bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19) and the corporate Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) are temples in whom the Spirit and glory of God dwell. The biblical blueprint calls for Christians and churches to live what I’m calling “the Cruciform Life.” So grab your work gloves, strap on your tool belt, and put on your hardhat and safety glasses. Let’s partner together with the Architect as he builds his cruciform cathedrals in and with us.

Chapter One

Created to Be Cruciform

It started in fourth grade when my buddy Tommy and I entered our class talent show. Elvis had died that summer, so with all the taste, compassion, and sensitivity of ten-year-old boys we decided to pay tribute to the King by mocking him. I sang “Hound Dog” while Tommy ran around me on all fours, barking. We were a hit.

By fifth grade my family had moved, so I decided to bring Elvis back for the all-school talent show. This time it was serious—out with the canine sidekick, in with the costume. My mom slaved over a sewing machine to tailor a white jumpsuit, complete with rhinestones, high collar, and giant belt buckle. My dad squeezed half a tube of goo into my hair and combed it into an impressive pompadour. I took that stage and stole the hearts of the grade-school girls and their moms. “Jailhouse Rock” and “Love Me Tender” never sounded so good, thankyouverymuch, and I became known as “The kid who does Elvis.”

Seventh grade brought yet another new school. Since my older brother was already established there, I was mostly known as “Jeff’s little brother.” But that changed when I showed up at the Homecoming banquet in full Elvis mode. As everyone applauded and the Homecoming Queen planted a kiss on my cheek, I basked in the attention. I had made a name for myself. From then on I was known in that school as “Little Elvis.”

Why do I offer this odd glimpse into my past so early in the book? Because as any good theologian will tell you, Elvis impersonation has its roots in the Garden of Eden.

We are all born to be someone special; all created to do something special. Indeed, we were made to partner with God’s community and participate in his mission. But one way or another we all tend to pursue a people and a purpose that neither relies on nor revolves around God. We have this desperate, unshakeable need to be special, but that need gets misdirected, so we find ourselves in a kind of costume, pretending to be someone we are not meant to be and singing songs that are not really our own.

Pastor Tullian Tchividjian offers a brief explanation for how we came to this condition. “Essentially, the Bible tells a three-part story. Creation: God made everything good. Fall: Our sin has broken everything. Redemption: Everything in Christ will be made new.” That is an excellent summary of what's gone wrong and how God will make it right, but to really understand how Elvis impersonation and our countless other strivings for human greatness relate to Adam and Eve, we need to go a little deeper.

Creation

The first words on the first page of the first book of the Bible are, “In the beginning, God created.” That is the right anchor point for the story of creation, but another passage in the Bible actually looks further back. Writing after the resurrection of Christ, the Apostle John’s New Testament account of the story of Jesus opens with, “In the beginning was the Word.”

John was present among the disciples on Resurrection Sunday when Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” as all about him, their long-awaited Messiah (Luke 24:45). Moses wrote Genesis 1 to describe creation, but when we talk about origins from this side of the resurrection, we must go further back. We must begin where John began.

In the Beginning Was a Community on Mission

John 1:1-15 gives us a glimpse into the eternal plans of God. It is the prequel to Creation because God’s story really begins with himself. It begins with the God who is a three-in-one community: “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1). The community we understand as the Trinity was there in the beginning, with each member participating in creation (Genesis 1:1-2, John 1:2-23, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2). The story begins with God’s mission to show his glory and goodness by sharing with his creation the overflow of the fullness of his grace and truth. God’s story begins with the Community on the Mission.

God Created a Community on Mission

Genesis 1 and 2 teach something affirmed by John: God is a being intent on doing. In fact, God began his doing with a unique special project: he created the heavens and the earth and filled them with unfathomable radiance and resources (Genesis 1:1-25). But he didn’t stop there. This triune God was on a mission to build a people in his image, created for his glory (Genesis 1:26-28, Isaiah 43:7). Adam and Eve were made to relate and to create, just like the inherently communal and creative God who made them. They were created in the image of God for relationship as his beloved son and daughter and also rulership as his blessed servants.

When God made mankind he created a people with a purpose, sons who would serve. They were not only meant to take delight in one another, but also to take dominion over all that God had made (Genesis 1:28). As his “kingdom of priests,” the mission of God’s son-servants was to “work and keep” creation, to cultivate and care for the place in which he put them so that it would be the dwelling place of God and his people, for the glory of God and the good of others forever (Genesis 2:15, Numbers 3:7-8, Exodus 19:6, Revelation 1:6, 5:10). If God is a relationship that rules, a being who is doing, those made in his image and likeness must also relate and rule. Each human being is designed for relationship—to be someone special to God and to one another—and for rule, as together they do something special for the glory of God and the good of all God has made.

Created to Be Cruciform

We too were made to live in God’s community and on God’s mission. We were made for God, for people, and for creation. The stick-figure diagram below illustrates what I mean. Like Adam and Eve, we were made to live in right, loving relationship with God, people, and all that God has made (Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-25). We exist and have been placed here for God, for other people, and for the sake of all creation. We exist to exalt the glory of God and to help other people and all of creation do the same (Psalm 8, Isaiah 43:6-7).

In my family, this is what we call living with a you-first heart. We were created to look away from ourselves toward God, other people, and all of creation and say, “You first.” A person with a you-first heart recognizes that life is about using oneself to serve God, others, and all that God has made, thus living a life that takes the form of a cross. Can you see it? We were created to be cruciform (cruci = cross, form = shaped). Like Adam and Eve, we were made to live a cross-shaped life.

Fall

Today, however, cruciform is not the norm. A quick look at the way we and others fulfill our various relationships, roles, and responsibilities tells us we’re not in Eden anymore. Something has gone terribly wrong. The people God made became a man-centered community on man’s mission to multiply man’s glory for man’s good throughout all creation forever. Since then, people no longer live with you-first hearts but lean toward living with me-first hearts.

This is the human condition as we know it. People are disconnected from God, isolated from one another, and cut off from meaningful purpose in the world. The arrows are broken because our relationships with God, people, and creation are broken. The arrows point inward, indicating that we have traded the self-sacrificing cruciform life for the self-centered life of a me-first heart. Rather than using ourselves to serve God, people, and creation, we live to use God, people, and creation to serve ourselves.

The Story Has a Villain

What happened? How did we all become isolated individuals who live for our own glory and good? In Genesis 3 we’re introduced to one who hates God’s community and God’s mission. The serpent that slithered his way into God’s garden is “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). The Adversary sought to disassemble God’s new community and distract them from their mission (Genesis 3:1-5). Satan suggested that perhaps God was not as open to share his community and mission as Adam and Eve had first believed. Adam and Eve listened to these lies and came to think there was something better than that which God offered them. This was an illusion, yet they wanted it. They wanted to do it their way. So they traded their you-first hearts for me-first hearts. God’s son-servants rebelled against their Father, the King. They rebelled against the being and doing of God, and thus lost their passion for and place in God’s community and God’s mission.

The Brokenness Begins

Adam and Eve’s broken relationship with God led to broken relationships with one another and with creation. This unraveled their relationships with God’s people and purpose as well. Genesis 3 describes their alienation and aimlessness:

First, their relationship with God was broken. They once enjoyed unhindered partnership with their Creator and participation in his creative work, but having disobeyed his Word, they became disconnected from him (Genesis 3:8-11).

Second, their relationship with people was ruined. What was once a beautiful partnership of oneness (Genesis 2:18-25) disintegrated into furious finger-pointing (Genesis 3:12). Disobedience to God left them distant from and divided against one another (Genesis 3:7).

Finally, their relationship with creation was corrupted. They retained their created purpose to be someone special by becoming intimate community, but their efforts to do so would often seem futile (Genesis 3:16). They retained their created purpose to do something special by pursuing a God-given mission, but their plans would regularly be frustrated (Genesis 3:17-19). Their purpose to make the world a temple filled with the multiplied glory and goodness of God was curtailed when God’s curse plunged all of creation into misery (Romans 8:20-23). Once disengaged from their mission and cut off from paradise (Genesis 3:24)—the place in which they could live freely as a people with purpose—humankind immediately began to distort creation’s glory and goodness (see Genesis 4 for starters).

Tragically, we have inherited Adam and Eve’s ruined relationships with God, people, and creation (Romans 5:12-21). We are now naturally inclined to believe that everyone (God and people) and everything (creation and all its resources) is here to serve us. Our fallen “community” of me-myself-and-I has adopted an almost exclusively me-first mission: making the world a temple of our praise by using everyone and everything for the exaltation and enhancement of our glory, not God’s.

From Bad to Worse

Genesis 4-10 illustrates the intensified [impact] of sin as it passed from generation to generation and culture to culture. The me-first heart went viral. Genesis 11 tells a story that captures the essence of the brokenness Adam and Eve set into motion, because it is a story about a community with a mission.

The people who built the tower of Babel sought the community and mission for which they were made but separate from dependence on the One who made them. They wanted to maintain relationship with heaven and with one another by building “a city and a tower” so that they could reach the heavens and not be “dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” They wanted the community for which they were made, but on their own terms. They also held out hope that this project would help them make a name for themselves, an accomplishment that would leave a legacy. They wanted the mission for which they were made, but on their own terms.

Making Sense of My Story

Doesn't this shed some interesting light on my supposed glory days as a teenage Elvis impersonator? I was using the Elvis act to be someone special and do something special. I sinfully pursued the affection and the attention of my community, and my mission was to make a name for myself instead of living for the only name worthy of fame, Jesus Christ. I was designed to live life with a you-first heart, to relate and rule with God in his Kingdom, but the Elvis act was all about establishing my own me-first kingdom.

I look back now and laugh at the madness of my methods. I might be tempted to chalk it all up to youthful foolishness, but the truth is that as I grew older I simply found more subtle and sophisticated strategies to pursue the same twisted goals. In high school and college I tried drama club, getting good grades, student government, and the church youth choir as avenues for joining a community on mission. In my college and seminary days, local-church ministry and academic achievement were my means to be someone special and do something special. These days I’m tempted to depend on the behavior of my children, my religious reputation, praise for preaching and teaching and counseling skills, the number of hits on my blog, and a whole host of other ways in which I can relate to others and rule some small kingdom within my purview without depending on God. Even now I must fight against all the me-first reasons for writing this book.

Elvis is still in the building, still trying to do it his way. He just keeps changing costumes. Indeed, all of us are caught between the dignity of our design on the one hand and our depraved distortion of it on the other. We were created to live in community and on mission, but we pursue these things on our own terms, not God’s.

What’s your story? As you look back over your years, can you see the pattern I’ve described here? Are you aware that you were created to be cruciform, to enjoy right relationship with God, people, and all that God has made? Can you discern the ways in which you have pursued people and purpose apart from God? What are your Elvis stories?

Permission line: Reproduced by permission of Cruciform Press. www.CruciformPress.com

DTS-Houston Leadership Changes, New Degrees, and Campus Expansion Plans

Dallas Theological Seminary — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

The following are several updates and announcements about the DTS-Houston campus from Dr. Mark Bailey, president of DTS.

Dr. David Klingler Stepping Down as Executive Director

Dr. David Klingler has notified us that he will be stepping down as the Executive Director of DTS-Houston. We are grateful for Dr. Klingler’s service over the last couple of years and appreciate his love for Houston, DTS, and his students. In fact, it is his love for students and the classroom that has led him to make this decision. His desire is to concentrate on his teaching, and all of us who were called and trained to teach certainly understand and can honor that decision. You will still find him in the classroom teaching Hebrew and Bible courses as his schedule allows. Please wish him well and pray for him as he makes this transition, and stay tuned for some future announcements concerning the leadership of DTS-Houston.

Dr. Bill Blocker Appointed President of College of Biblical Studies

We would also like to congratulate the College of Biblical Studies on the recent appointment of Dr. Bill Blocker as their next president. Prior to his appointment at CBS, Dr. Blocker was a vice president at Moody Bible Institute. Dr. Blocker is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and is excited to be in Houston to work with all our friends at CBS. We are also looking forward to working closely with Dr. Blocker in the days ahead as we continue to partner with CBS to impact the graduate levels of theological education in Houston. If you are across the street in the library, or interfacing with CBS staff at school or in the churches, be sure to congratulate them on this recent appointment. Praise God for His provision, and go CBS!

Houston Campus Renovation and Expansion

If you are on the DTS-Houston campus in the next few weeks you will notice large machinery, work crews, and dust! The reason for this is because construction/renovation is now taking place that will provide us an additional four thousand feet of additional classroom, common space, and restrooms! A gracious group of donors, who are special friends to both CBS and DTS, provided the necessary funding for the project. This gift was critical to DTS due to our continued growth and development. This is indeed a blessing from the Lord, and allows us to sign a multi-year lease in our current facilities and continue the long history of partnership with the College of Biblical Studies.

New Degree Offerings for Houston Students

As we continue to develop the long-term plan for DTS-Houston, we are excited to take several steps forward. As you know, over the last year we have been able to receive approval for several new degrees at DTS-Houston: the M.A./CM (Cross-cultural Ministries), M.A./CL (Christian Leadership), and the Doctor of Ministry (Multicultural Ministry). We are also seeking approval to offer the M.A./BC (Biblical Counseling) in Houston.

Houston Library Expansion Plans and Scholarship Increases

Along with programs come other academic needs. We are therefore taking steps to develop an adequate theological library—with a long-term goal of having a 20K-volume, graduate-level holding. This is in addition to the increase of electronic books and journals now accessible through the web. As the student body grows, so also must scholarships. We are currently raising additional funds for financial aid to assist you and help make the journey of theological education more affordable.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, these are exciting times. Please pray for these initiatives. Please pray that the Lord will be honored through these decisions and days of growth. We thank you in advance for your patience, prayers, and encouragement. Our desire is to provide you with training that will equip you for a lifetime of service for our Lord and Savior. To our great and gracious God be the glory!

In His service,
Mark L. Bailey
President
Professor of Bible Exposition
Dallas Theological Seminary

Terry Turner Heads Southern Baptist Convention of Texas

Dallas Theological Seminary — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

Rev. Terry M. Turner (MABS, ’91; MACE, ’95) was recently elected as president of the Southern Baptist Convention of Texas. Nominated by Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Rev. Turner was elected to his new post at the fourteenth annual meeting of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention on November 15, 2011.

A native of Guthrie, Oklahoma, Rev. Turner graduated from Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma in 1979 with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. He responded to a call to the ministry during his senior year of college. Rev. Turner immediately plunged into practical ministry, first serving the Mount Zion Baptist Church of Guthrie as an assistant to the pastor, and then as pastor from 1982 through 1989.

In 1989, Rev. Turner entered Dallas Theological Seminary. After he earned his first degree from DTS in 1991, Rev. Turner started a church plant in Mesquite, Texas: the Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church. Under his tutelage, the church grew from five families to 2,100 members. During this time, Rev. Turner also organized radio and television broadcast ministries.

No newcomer to SBC leadership, Rev. Turner served as an executive Board Member of the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention from 2002 -2010, among other roles. Rev. Turner also currently serves as the President of the SBC (Texas) African American Fellowship. He is also a Trustee of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, San Francisco.

Rev. Turner has been married for twenty-nine years to Nancy; they have three children, one son-in-law, two daughters-in-law and five grandchildren.

New Course: Local Church and Social Outreach Ministry with Tony Evans

Dallas Theological Seminary — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

We know how to send missionaries overseas, but what is our mission to those within a few miles of our church buildings? Where do local churches rank among the major influences--movies, friends, video games, schools--in a given community?

Jesus promised the Church's endurance and importance as his vehicle for change. But what does that look like at the local, community level? Does it look different in rural Kansas or downtown L.A.?

WM450 - Local Church and Social Outreach Ministry

DTS aims to help answer these questions and more with a new course taught by Dr. Tony Evans. WM450 "Local Church and Social Outreach Ministry" (download syllabus) takes a fresh look at the local church's missional ministry, with special attention to practical strategies and skills for seeing that mission become a reality. Students will:

Learn the biblical and philosophical foundations of social outreach
Develop a feasible social outreach plan for a local church
Assess the value and effectiveness of social outreach programs

Students will also:

Value the interrelatedness of theology and practice, specifically in social outreach ministry
Develop a deep love for their communities
Commit to becoming agents of change by working through their local churches.

The course will meet at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship on Tuesday evenings beginning Fall 2012. Details below:

Location: Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship
Time: Fall 2012, Tuesdays, 6:30 – 9:15 p.m.
Travel: DTS will provide complimentary transportation from the Dallas Campus to OCBF. To register for transportation, please contact the registrar (registrar@dts.edu). Limited availability.

For more information, see the Fall 2012 schedule.

About Dr. Tony Evans

Dr. Tony Evans, Senior Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship (OCBF) and President of The Urban Alternative, has more than 35 years experience in both church and community ministry. In fact, he's operated under the belief that there's a fundamental overlap between both. Author of multiple books and articles, Tony Evans is known for his emphasis on race relations and the programs OCBF has implemented to see spiritual change come to schools and communities alike. Read more about Tony Evans and the ministry philosophy of OCBF.

From the Garden to the City: the Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology

John Dyer — Sat, 3 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

This is an excerpt from From the Garden to the City, published by Kregel Publications, 2011.

Chapter 3: Reflection

If you’ve ever tried to learn any computer programming, you might recognize the words “Hello World.”

That’s because whenever a new programming language is created, the first thing its creator does is explain to everyone else how to write a simple program that makes the words “Hello World” appear on-screen.

For example, in the famous programming language C, the code looks something like this:

main() {
printf("hello world");
}

And in PHP, the language used to make popular websites like Facebook and Wordpress, it looks like this:

<?php
echo "Hello World";
?>

Even if you’ve never seen the code for a computer program before, these examples should be at least partially readable to you. You can spot the words “Hello World,” and you might have guessed that everything else around it tells the computer to send those words to the screen. One of the things that has always fascinated me about programming is that it allows us to create working tools using nothing but words. We don’t need any raw materials or physical strength, just pure creativity. Of course, our task in this book is not to learn about programming but to understand something about what the Scriptures say about technology. And when we open up to the first pages of the Bible, we find God doing a kind of programming of his own. He, too, is not dependent on raw materials but can instead create by the power of his word. Yet unlike our dependence on computers or electricity, God really can create something from nothing.

In this and the coming chapters, we will reexamine familiar biblical stories and look for clues about how we should approach technology. From the outset, I want to make it clear that we won’t take the time to acknowledge every nuance or important theological detail in the text. Neither will we attempt to answer questions about the relationship of science and history to the biblical stories. Instead we will simply assume that the Scriptures are trustworthy, and that they have much to tell us . . . including some things about technology.

How We’re Programmed

In the opening chapter of Genesis, as God is creating the universe, he gives each of his creations a purpose and a function. To the stars he gives the job of separating day and night and marking out the seasons. To the plants he gives the job of sprouting fruit and seed. To the fish—what the Hebrew literally calls “the swimming things”—God says simply, “Swim.” And to the birds—literally “the flying things”—he says, “Fly.” During those first six days, every plant and animal received a place and a function within God’s world. What they are made to do—shining, sprouting, swimming, and flying—in part defines what they are.

What, then, are human beings? If all the other creatures are defined by what they do, what is the thing that we humans do that makes us human? In other words, how did God program us?

Later on the sixth day, God answered this question by defining humanity not as creatures that sprout, swim, or fly but by saying, “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26). This means that our job, and the essence of what it is to be human, is to reflect God’s image to the rest of creation. Of course many theologians have worn out their keyboards trying to demystify what it means to reflect God’s image, but we can expound using four categories.

First, humans display God’s ability to think rationally. Although some animals display a form of intelligence, humans are clearly distinct from the rest of the created order.

Secondly, many thinkers have noticed the plural language referring to God (“let us”) and proposed that humans reflect God’s relationality. In our sin we attempt to live independent of our need for God and others, but God originally designed humans to function in a deeply interdependent way that reflects the tri-personhood of God.

Thirdly, just as God is the ruler over the entire universe and all created things, his image-bearers are to rule over this tiny little planet. In Genesis 1 God commanded Adam (and successive humanity) to “have dominion” and “subdue the earth.”

These three facets of humanity—our rational thinking, our relational nature, and our call to subdue the earth—are all undoubtedly reflections of God’s nature. But we discover a final category as we move into Genesis 2, and it is this one that needs a bit more explanation.

Whereas Genesis 1 offers a panoramic view of the entire universe, Genesis 2 zooms in on God’s design and production of humanity. Unlike the lush, full world of Genesis 1, chapter 2 begins with a barren, lifeless landscape where “no plant of the field had yet sprouted” (Gen. 2:5). Part of the reason for this was that “God had not caused it to rain,” but the other issue was that “there was no man to work the ground.” In Hebrew, there’s a little wordplay going on because the word for ground (adama) sounds like the word for man (adam). Literally it reads, “there was no adam for the adama.” Then God responds by picking up some of the dust from the dry, barren landscape and sculpting that dust into the first human being.

But God’s image-bearer wasn’t meant to live in an arid wasteland, and so before God does anything with Adam, he first plants the Garden of Eden and fills it with tall trees, ripe fruit, and flowing rivers. Once the garden is prepared, God gently sets Adam down within and gives him a simple job: “cultivate it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15 NASB). The air has flying things that fly, the sea has swimming things that swim, and now, finally, the adama has Adam to cultivate it. If the fish were programmed to swim and the birds were programmed to fly, then humans were programmed to cultivate the garden.

This tells us something important about both human nature and the garden. It means that God designed the garden—even before the fall, sin, and death—in such a way that it needed to be worked on. It’s not that there was anything wrong with the garden, it’s just that God didn’t intend for it to stay the way that it was. Instead, God wanted Adam to “cultivate” or “till” or “work” what he found in the garden and make something new out of it. God created the garden not as an end point but as a starting place. Adam’s job was to take the raw materials of the earth—from the wood of the trees, to the rocks on the ground, to the metal buried deep within the earth—and create new things from them. In a sense, Adam was to take the “natural” world (what God made) and fashion it into something else—something not entirely “natural”—but sanctioned by God.

Of course, God did put some limits on Adam. As we all know, God warned Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But God also put limits on Adam’s creative powers. The command to “cultivate the garden” was coupled with the command to “keep the garden.” That word keep can also mean “guard” or “watch over,” and it conveys the idea that Adam was not only to shape the garden but to maintain something of its original form. He was not to overcultivate it or use its raw materials in a way that would unnecessarily harm it or God’s creatures. This is, of course, easier said than done especially in the unfortunate circumstance we find ourselves in today where “creation care” and “the environment” have become highly politicized. Nevertheless, it seems that God is asking us to strike a careful balance between “natural” and “unnatural,” between the acts of cultivating and keeping.

Within these limits, Adam could do whatever he wanted in the garden, rearranging and creating from it as he saw fit. He could add a row of stones around trees he liked or make a bridge over one of the rivers. He could build a storage shed out of shells or collect seeds and plant them in rows. Whatever he chose to do, he would be taking what God had made and remaking it into a creation of his own. And in doing so, Adam would be reflecting the creativity of his Creator (who, at this point in the story, had done little but create).

The final aspect of our role as God’s image-bearers, then, is our ability to create. When we cultivate the garden, that is, when we make things from what God has made, we are reflecting the image of God.

But something else important happens when we create. By choosing to put rocks around one set of trees and not another, Adam would be making a decision about what was important to him. By adding a bridge over this part of that river, Adam would be making a choice about the way he thought things should work. With each creative act, he would be making decisions about what matters and how things should be done. As he modeled behaviors to Eve and their children—and then Adam’s children in turn modeled those same behaviors to their children—Adam’s choices would form the basis of what these people considered important and meaningful.

Theologian Stanley Grenz groups the things we create into four broad categories: things, images, rituals, and language.1 A thing is simply any physical object that people create, from a bridge over a river to the utensils with which we eat. Images, though objects also, are designed to represent something else, like a company logo, a symbol on a traffic sign, or the cross that represents our faith. Rituals are what we do with those things and images, including the time of year when we plant vegetables, how we wake up in the morning, how we brush our teeth, and the way we make coffee. Finally, language is the tool we use to share the meaning of these objects, images, and rituals.

As we create and use things, images, rituals, and language with others, we are sharing not only those items but also what they mean to us. The word we use to summarize this transfer of meaning is culture. In fact, these passages in Genesis 1 and 2 have sometimes been called the “culture mandate” because theologians find in it the command and responsibility for humans to create culture.

Now, there are probably as many definitions and views of culture as there were trees in the garden—and the word culture brings with it things like “culture wars,” “high culture” versus “low culture,” and the debate over “Christ and culture”—but we are going to use the word culture in a very simple way. My good friend Professor Barry Jones would say that the sharing of things, images, rituals, and language mediates three things to us: identity, meaning, and values. Theologian Emil Brunner captured this idea when he wrote that culture is the “materialization of meaning,”2 but I did not fully understand what he meant until I experienced it firsthand.

An Altar in the Garden

A few years after I graduated from college, I started to wonder how my mom managed to raise four great kids as a single parent. One day she answered my question by taking me on a walk at a nearby park we used to visit when I was growing up. As we were walking along, my mom stopped for a moment to point out a small pile of rocks a few yards off the main pathway.

The pile was small enough that I hadn’t noticed it at first, but once she pointed to it, I could see that it was human-made. The rocks obviously couldn’t have gotten that way themselves—someone had collected and arranged them. After looking at them for a minute, I asked her, “What is it?” My mom started to talk about how hard it was on her when my dad left. He gave her a lot of financial support and came to see us regularly, but she still felt crushed by the weight of raising us alone. Most of the time, the only thing she felt strong enough to do was pray for us. So every day while we were off at school, she would walk out to this spot and spend a few hours begging God to protect us. As God answered her prayers, she found some nearby rocks and built this little altar to mark the place where God had been faithful to our family.

As she told her story, that ordinary pile of rocks turned into something of enormous meaning to me. My mother had made this little place more important than the places in front of us and the places behind us. God had done something meaningful for my family, and my mother materialized that meaning into a tangible, visible, material form. She did this by taking what God had made—a few simple rocks—and remaking it into something that reflected the creativity and goodness of God.

Growing up, my mom never talked about her little altar, but when she finally told me about it, it changed me. I could never again see myself as a person whom God had forgotten. My identity was altered such that I now see myself as a person who was an answer to prayer. Those stones said I would not be who I was if God had not acted.

Using Grenz’s terminology, my mom’s altar was a “thing” around which she had built a “ritual” of consistent prayer for her children. When my mother shared her altar with me, it was deeply meaningful to me, and it mediated the value of a life of prayerfulness as well as a new sense of identity. While the example of my mom’s altar might seem extraordinary, this kind of mediation of values happens anytime we create—and even when we rearrange—everyday things.

For example, imagine that you walked into a roomful of twenty chairs. If those chairs were arranged in four rows of five with a podium up front, you would immediately know this was some kind of classroom with a clear authority figure. But if those same chairs were arranged in a circle, you would tend to interpret it as a group-oriented setting where everyone is equal. The “culture” of the room would be determined by both the presence of chairs and the arrangement of them. Every day we participate in dozens of these little cultures. Our homes, offices, churches, cities, and countries each encompass a unique set of things, images, rituals, and language that forms its identity and communicates meaning and value.

Technology Culture

So what does all this talk of culture and meaning have to do with technology? Underneath those things, images, rituals, and language are the tools we use to create them. Andy Crouch recently wrote that culture is simply “what we make of the world,”3 and we might say that technology is “how” we make what we are making. But tools are also themselves “cultural goods,” and as we discussed in the previous chapter, they not only help us cultivate the garden, they also work to cultivate us. We use tools to create cultural goods, yet because those tools are themselves elements of culture, they too mediate a set of values, meaning, and identity back to us.

If you ask the average person, “What is the meaning of your cell phone and what sense of identity and values does it mediate to you?” you might be answered by a confused look. But if you ask, “How would you feel if you lost your cell phone?” the immediacy of the answer would betray deep beliefs about what it means to be connected. It may be that the cell phone is not just a tool but an integral part of the person’s identity, who they define themselves to be.

We will spend much of the next chapter more carefully distinguishing technology from other cultural goods, but before we close this chapter, we should address one final question about creating and culture. We don’t live in the Garden of Eden, and the things, images, and rituals of today’s cultures and subcultures don’t always reflect the values of our Creator. The wickedness of much of today’s culture has led some to believe that culture is synonymous with worldliness. Therefore it’s hard to believe that culture and technology actually existed in the garden.

Yet the word translated cultivate in Genesis 2 is elsewhere translated till, an action that assumes the use of tools. This seems to indicate that using tools was a part of God’s design for humanity even before the fall. But even more importantly, if we look carefully at Genesis 2, we’ll see that the first elements of culture—and the first tools that both shaped the world and the humans who used them—were created in the garden.

The First Technology

If you ask a cultural anthropologist or evolutional biologist to identify the most important tool developed by early humans, they will invariably say it was language. Even monkeys use stone tools, but it was language that allowed humans to build and share knowledge. Interestingly, Genesis seems to agree with this line of thinking.

After God put Adam in the garden to “cultivate and keep it,” he gave Adam his first creative task. As God created the animals, he “brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” Genesis goes on to say that, “The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field” (Gen. 2:20).

From the way this section of Scripture ends, we surmise that this exercise was in part designed to show Adam that none of the animals could serve as a “suitable helper” for him. But the text also tells us that God had a second purpose in mind. Apparently God wanted “to see what he [Adam] would call them” (Gen. 2:19). In other words, he wanted to watch as Adam created language.

There in the garden, as he created words and names that didn’t exist before, Adam started reflecting the image of God. These words would serve as the lens through which Eve and their children would see those creatures. Now we don’t ordinarily think of language as a technology, but language is very much a tool. Not only is it a tool, but it is a tool we use to inform and categorize the way we see the world. Embedded in our language lies our values and identity.

When my son was learning his first words, my wife and I loved to see what he called things. The first animal name he learned was “duck,” and since that was the only word he knew, he called everything “duck” . . . dogs, cats, birds, elephants, and every other living creature. He was constantly pointing to anything that moved and shouting, “DUCK!” Thankfully, he soon started learning additional categories like fish and cat and bird, and the more words he learned, the more he could communicate with us.

Later he began learning his colors, and I loved watching his little face as he studied an object, categorized it, and then blurted out a new word. Where he used to just see a collection of undifferentiated objects, he could now organize that visual space using the colors and names we had given him. But we don’t just use language to categorize things; we also use language to represent our values. For example, the word bachelor describes a man whom our culture believes is old enough to have married but who has not done so. The existence of the word bachelor shows that English-speaking cultures value marrying at a certain age.

As we teach my son the English language, we are introducing him to our culture and giving him the tool set through which he will see the world. But if we were not English speakers and we taught him a different language, then he would see the world in a slightly different way. Language, like all of our tools, operates as a filter between us and the world. The language that we speak and through which we think tints what we see in the world.

For example, English words generally don’t have gender, but most German and Spanish nouns are categorized as masculine, feminine, or neuter. This is important because some words like bridge are feminine in German, but masculine in Spanish. Other words like key are the opposite— masculine in German, but feminine in Spanish. When you learn these languages, teachers usually say that the gender doesn’t actually matter, but a recent study proved otherwise. It showed that German speakers tended to describe bridges in feminine terms like “elegant” and “peaceful,” while native Spanish speakers used words like “towering,” “strong,” and “dangerous.” When it came to keys, they did just the opposite. The Germans felt that keys were “hard,” “heavy,” and “jagged,” while their Spanish friends spoke in terms like “intricate,” “little,” and “lovely.”

That study is evidence that language works like a pair of sunglasses; it colors the way we see everything, from bridges to keys to other people. The authors of the same study also found a small Aboriginal community whose language lacks directional words such as “behind” and “in front of.” Instead, to identify an object, members of the community use cardinal directions like “the mountain to the north” or “the man to the west of you.” They might even say, “There’s an ant on your southwest leg.” This kind of language requires them to stay oriented in space at all times in order to function.

Unlike those of us who see objects in the world in relationship to other objects, their language identifies the object relative to the earth itself. This is valuable for a culture who spends most of its time outdoors. But language of this nature has no value for those who live mostly indoors. In other words, the value system of this Aboriginal dialect would conflict with the value system embedded in the English language.

Cultures develop and modify language so that it reflects the culture’s needs, that is, what they want from the world. Today this is evident in the adolescent culture with teenagers who do much of their communication via text messaging. Teenagers are constantly introducing new abbreviations, shortcuts, and combinations of characters that help them transfer their values back and forth among themselves. As they change their language, though, they are also creating a distinct culture. Those who do not understand these texting conventions may not be a part of their culture. This means that kids and parents living in the same household can be a part of different cultures. This fits with the idea that culture mediates not only values and meaning but also identity.

Language is not only purposed for the transfer of information. Another aspect of language that makes it more tool-like is that we actually use language to accomplish something.

For example, the words “I now pronounce you man and wife” perform the function of marrying a couple. And the words “I nominate Rebecca as team captain” have actually done something. When one person says to another, “I hate you,” we say, “Those were hurtful words,” because the words didn’t just transfer the state of hatred—they actually functioned to wound the hearer. Linguists use the term “speech acts” to describe this aspect of language 5 and they have identified dozens of things we do with language: we confess, forgive, frighten, inspire, and so on.

So it turns out that what I thought was special about programming— creating and doing things with language—is not so unique after all. From the opening pages of Genesis, we find God speaking the entire universe into existence and Adam making up words as his first creative acts. Language is our first example of how humans create within the creation of God, imbuing each creation with value and meaning. God designed the world in such a way to be cultivated and shaped by humanity, and when we create we are operating as God’s image-bearers.

Sadly, we don’t get to stay in the perfection of the Garden of Eden for long. We have to move on to Genesis 3 and the fall, a world in which our creativity is tainted by sin and sinfulness. But first, we need to spend some time distinguishing technology from other elements of culture. To do that, I’ll take you to a dinner party in north Dallas.

John Dyer is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, where he serves as Web Developer. This excerpt © 2011 by John Dyer, from his book From the Garden to the City, published by Kregel Publications.

Follow the Faculty

Dallas Theological Seminary — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 12:00:00 CST

NORTHEAST

Dr. Mark Bailey Feb 9–10 Moody Founder’s Week, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, Illinois

Dr. Robert Lightner Apr 22–26 Middletown Bible Church Conference, Middletown, Connecticut

Dr. Oscar Lopez Mar 2–4, 9–11 Hispanic Conferences, Keswcik, Whitting, New Jersey

Dr. David Wyrtzen Apr 20 22 Pine Island Marriage Retreat, Pine Island, Minnesota

MIDWEST

Dr. Ron Allen Feb 19 Hayward Wesleyan Church, Hayward, Wisconsin

Dr. Mark Bailey Feb 18–19 First Baptist Church, North Terre Haute, Indiana

Dr. Charles Baylis Mar 25 Bible Conference, Metropolitan Baptist Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Dr. Stephen Bramer Jan 28–29 Winter Bible Conference, Springfield Bible Church, Springfield, Illinois

Prof. Sandra Glahn Mar 24 “Coffee and Stories,” Community Bible Church, Omaha, Nebraska

Dr. Stanley Toussaint Mar 10–14 Bible Conference, Marshalltown Evangelical Free Church, Marshalltown, Iowa

Dr. David Wyrtzen Feb 24–26 Maranatha Marriage Retreat, North Platte, Nebraska

SOUTHEAST

Dr. Mark Bailey Feb 29 Bryan College Chapel, Dayton, Tennessee; Mar 18, Grace Church, Greenville, South Carolina

Dr. Robert Lightner Apr 9–13 Piedmont Baptist Graduate School, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Dr. Stanley Toussaint Feb 12–17 Word of Life Bible Conference, Hudson, Florida

SOUTHWEST

Dr. Ron Allen Jan 29 Cornerstone Bible Church, Lubbock, Texas

Dr. Vic Anderson Feb 1 Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, Pantego Bible Church, Arlington, Texas

Dr. Mark Bailey Mar 2–4 Permian Basin Bible Conference, First Baptist Church, Odessa, Texas

Dr. Darrell L. Bock Feb 17–18 Eschatology Consultation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas

Dr. John Hannah Mar 23–24 Church History Lectureship, Tyndale Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas

Dr. Scott Horrell Feb 18 Faith Bible Church, The Woodlands, Texas

Dr. Abraham Kuruvilla Feb 12 Missions Conference, Mansfield Bible Church, Mansfield, Texas

Dr. Robert Lightner Mar 18, 25 Free Grace Bible Church, Richardson, Texas

Dr. Daniel B. Wallace Jan 27 New Testament Lectureship, Florida International University, Miami, Florida; Feb 1 Reliability of the NT Debate with Dr. Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Feb 14 “The Bible’s Survival and Success: New Discoveries, Technologies and Challenges,” In conjunction with Passages Exhibit of manuscripts and Bibles, Passages Exhibit, Atlanta, Georgia; Feb 28–29: Theological Forum, Mid-America Baptist Seminary, Cordova, Tennessee

WEST

Dr. Mark Bailey Mar 28–Apr 1 Shasta Bible College Conference, Redding, California; Apr 28 Western Seminary Commencement, Portland, Oregon

Dr. David Wyrtzen Jan 20–23 Clydehurst Marriage Retreat, Boseman, Montana

INTERNATIONAL

Dr. Ron Allen Mar 5–17 Leader and Teacher, Holy Land Study Tour, Various locations, ISRAEL

Dr. Stephen Bramer Mar 4–16 Insight for Living Israel Tour, Israel; Apr 23–26 Word of Life Bible Institute, Tóalmás, HUNGARY

Dr. Oscar Lopez Apr 26–29 Anniversary Conference, Nazareth Church, Guatemala City, GUATEMALA

Books by Three DTS Grads Chosen as "Resources of the Year"

Dallas Theological Seminary — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:00:00 CST

In its March/April 2012 issue, Outreach Magazine published its list of Resources of the Year which includes eighteen books in categories such as evangelism, leadership, missional church, culture, and youth ministry. Three of the books chosen as 2012 Resources of the Year were written by DTS graduates: Aubrey Malphurs, Carolyn Custis James, and John Dyer.

Leadership

In the category of Leadership, Dr. Aubrey Malphurs, senior professor of Leadership and Pastoral Ministry, received honors for his book Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting: A Guide for Starting Any Kind of Church. Bill Easum writes,

When Aubrey Malphurs writes a book on church planting, you better read it if you’re a planter or ‘would be’ planter. This is one of the most practical, detailed and comprehensive works on church planting in print...

Links: Outreach Magazine full review | Buy the Book

Culture

In the Culture category, two books from DTS graduates received top honors. About Carolyn Custis James' book Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women, Andy Crouch writes

This book is a stirring and encouraging call to a 'blessed alliance' between women and men in addressing a great evil of our time, and any time: the neglect and exploitation of girls and women worldwide... It's a passionate, clear and convincing call to a better way for both men and women.

Links: Outreach Magazine full review | Buy the Book | Read an Excerpt

Also in the Culture category is a book by John Dyer, director of web development, entitled From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology. Andy Crouch writes,

This is a creative, unpredictable, and surprisingly moving introduction to thinking as Christians about technology... With John Dyer's help, you will never see either a shovel or a smartphone the same way again... It is the ideal 'first book' on a topic that deserves much more Christian reflection and attention.

Links: Outreach Magazine full review | Buy the Book | Read an Excerpt

You can find other publications by DTS faculty, staff, and alumni at our DTS Books page, and you can purchase these and other books at the DTS Book Center.

Insights in Revelation: Messages from a Majestic Savior

Charles R. Swindoll — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:00:00 CST

MESSAGES OF THE MAJESTIC SAVIOR (REVELATION 1:1-3:22)

Think before answering this question: If Jesus Christ Himself were to show up in your church unannounced, evaluate your worship, and carefully investigate the interpersonal relationships in your congregation, how would He react? Be honest, now. Would He sit down with your leadership, pat them on the back, and say how proud He was of them and encourage them to keep up the good work? Or would the Lord sit across from them, stare in their eyes, and shake His head in disappointment?

It’s a frightening prospect to be evaluated directly by the One who knows every dark secret, concealed fact, longstanding grudge, embarrassing mistake, and less-than-pure motive. Yet this is exactly what Christ did, according to the first three chapters of the book of Revelation. Much to the surprise of the apostle John, who didn’t expect to see the Lord again until his own death or the second coming, Christ appeared in majestic glory to deliver visions of the future and to dictate timely messages to seven specific churches. As would be expected if Jesus were to explore our personal lives or the lives of our churches, He gives varied diagnoses. From unimpeachable to despicable, from praiseworthy to pathetic, Christ would hold back neither encouragement nor rebuke. He called all the believers in the seven churches to examine their own lives and ministries to see if they measured up to His standards of faith, hope, and love.

The first major section of Revelation includes John’s own introduction to the book (1:1 – 8), followed by a startling vision of Jesus’ glorious majesty in which He instructed John to write everything he saw and heard (1:9 – 20). Jesus then addressed the leaders of seven hand-picked churches in Asia Minor: Ephesus (2:1 – 7), Smyrna (2:8 – 11), Pergamum (2:12 – 17), Thyatira (2:18 – 29), Sardis (3:1 – 6), Philadelphia (3:7 – 13), and Laodicea (3:14 – 22). Here we see Christ functioning as the exalted Head of the church, who is responsible for the church’s discipline and reward at His coming. As the veil is lifted between earth and heaven and we hear the messages of the majestic Savior, let’s allow His words to pierce the veil of our own hearts, fortifying our strengths and correcting our flaws.

The Messenger in His Majesty (Revelation 1:1 – 20)

1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood — 6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father — to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.

8 ”I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

9 I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, 11 saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” 12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; 13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. 14 His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. 16 In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. 17 When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. 19 ”Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things. 20 ”As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

From psychics to seers, from statisticians to scientists — people from every nation and every generation have been trying to discover what the future might hold for them. Occasionally these forecasters get it right and things turn out the way they predicted. Far more often, however, these secular or religious prophets miss the mark. In your own lifetime, just think about some of the false forecasts that have let people down:

• A political analyst calls an election... but the other candidate wins.

• An army general predicts a swift victory... then the war drags on for years.

• A Bible scholar dates the return of Christ... but Jesus doesn’t appear.

• A financial expert banks on a bull market... then Wall Street crashes.

Prophecies about the future are only as reliable as the wisdom, knowledge, and insight of their sources. When the source of information is limited to our human perspectives on the past and present, the most intelligent “expert” can offer only an educated guess. If, however, the source is the all-knowing, sovereign God, we can be certain that what He speaks will surely come to pass.

Before He gives us a glimpse of future events, however, God reveals the reliable source of this information. These visions of the future do not come to us from the pen of a crazed quack or wild-eyed fanatic. The prophecies of the book of Revelation come from our omniscient, sovereign God, through Jesus Christ Himself. They are therefore a reliable and relevant source of information concerning the future of the world.

1:1 – 3

The book of Revelation wasn’t written to confuse, frighten, frustrate, or entertain us. The opening verse of this incredible book reveals its own purpose in no uncertain terms: “to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place.” Though the book reveals the unfolding of future events, don’t let its portrayal of the end times distract you from the real heart of the book: the Author of those events. The title, “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1), can mean either the revelation from Jesus Christ or the revelation concerning Jesus Christ; in fact, it may mean both. As we witness the unfolding of events leading up to Christ’s coming kingdom, our mental picture of the person of Jesus becomes clearer. This is true because “the testimony of Jesus Christ” mentioned in verse 2 is itself “the spirit [or inner heart] of prophecy” (19:10). The person and work of Christ is the blueprint that holds together all the pieces of the prophetic puzzle.

The Greek phrase translated “soon” or “quickly” in 1:1 is en tachei. The same phrase is used in Luke 18:8 in reference to the judgment of God and in Romans 16:20 in a description of the future destruction of Satan. The other common Greek term for impending fulfillment is found in Revelation 1:3, where the Greek word engys appears, meaning “near.” These two terms, en tachei and engys, communicate that the fulfillment of future events could begin at any moment. It’s as if Christ now stands at the very door of our world, ready to enter at any moment. We should not expect the return of Christ at a particular time, but rather be ready for His return no matter when it occurs.

In verse 3 John wrote that those who read, hear, and heed the words of the prophecy of Revelation would be “blessed.” What does it mean to be “blessed” in a biblical sense? One commentator notes that the underlying Greek word “does not express superficial sentiment but instead the rugged and tested assurance that it is a good thing to be walking in the pathway of God’s will.” The same Greek term is used repeatedly by Jesus in the famous “beatitudes” passage in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3 – 11). We often think of Revelation as containing nothing but death, destruction, and suffering. In reality, Revelation contains seven “beatitudes” for believers, designed to provide hope and encouragement in the midst of trials.

1:4 – 8

John began by greeting the churches in Asia Minor with “grace. . . and peace” (1:4). When sinners come to Christ through simple faith, accepting Him as God in the flesh whose death on the cross paid the penalty for their sins, they receive eternal salvation through grace —unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor. God doesn’t save us because of any good thing we have done, or will do, or even promise to do. God saves us solely by His grace through faith (Eph. 2:8 – 9). Salvation is God’s gift to undeserving sinners — we must never forget that! The result of this precious grace is a relationship that offers us true peace that overcomes any trials and tribulations the world can bring. What a reassuring greeting to the members of the persecuted church! Though John will later describe judgment and distress that in the future will overtake wicked unbelievers, God’s own people receive grace and peace.

This present peace and the future fulfillment of our salvation come from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Drawing on several images he saw in the visions, John presented an “elaborate triadic formula for the Trinity.” He called the Father the One “who is and who was and who is to come” (1:4). We see this same description in the song of the four living creatures in 4:8. As an allusion to the divine name “I AM” in Exodus 3:14, it indicates God’s complete transcendence over all history — past, present, and future. God is just as much in control of our unknown future and unnerving present as He is of our unpleasant past.

The names John used for “Jesus Christ” are also drawn from Old and New Testament language. The titles “faithful witness,” “firstborn,” and “ruler of the kings of the earth” are drawn from Psalm 89:27 and 37; these refer to Christ’s authority and kingship as the promised descendant of David. These phrases also appear in Colossians 1:18 and Revelation 3:14, possibly referring to Christ’s authority to rule as the promised king from the line of David.

Finally, the Holy Spirit is described as “the seven Spirits who are before His throne” (1:4). John isn’t describing seven distinct Holy Spirits; there’s only one Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 4:4). In a vision of the heavenly throne room described in Revelation 4, John saw the Holy Spirit symbolically represented by “seven lamps of fire burning before the throne” (4:5). The image of the “sevenfold Spirit” is also drawn from a similar image in Zechariah 4:2 – 7 and the seven qualities of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 11:2 – 3: the Spirit (1) of the Lord, (2) of wisdom, (3) of understanding, (4) of counsel, (5) of strength, (6) of knowledge, and (7) of the fear of the Lord.

In light of this glorious truth about the Triune God, John responded with a grand doxology or song of praise (1:5 – 6). He drew the attention of his readers back to the cross where he had once stood as an eyewitness to the sufferings of his Savior (John 19:26 – 27, 35). By shedding His blood, Christ paid the debt in full for the sins of the world and thereby released believers from the guilt and penalty of their sins. On our behalf He conquered death and gave new life to all who believe. We can therefore share with Christ His authority as Priest and coming King through a supernatural union with Him by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:4 – 7; Rev. 5:10; 20:6). Such glorious news is worthy of a grand doxology!

Ultimately, the book of Revelation tells the story about Jesus Christ Himself. As John concluded the opening greeting, he broke into a prophetic description of the coming King in all His glory. When the true Sovereign steps foot on the Mount of Olives, no applause will erupt from those who have rejected Him. No marching band will play His anthem. No red carpet will mark His way. No massive banner will greet Him displaying a bold “Welcome Home!” Instead, His coming will be accompanied by mourning because He comes as Judge (1:7). Using biblical images common in his day, John previewed the glorious descent of Christ at the final battle of Armageddon. Every eye will see Him, even those who did not believe in Him, and all who see Him will mourn greatly.

Jolting us to attention, John interjected a direct quote from God Almighty Himself: “I am the Alpha and the Omega... who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (1:8). “Alpha” and “Omega,” the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, mark God as the One who has both creation and re-creation in His hands. It would be a terrible misunderstanding, however, if we were to assume God cares nothing about what comes between the “A” and “Z.” This is why He reminds us that not only is He the God of the past and the future, but of the present as well. As “Almighty” God, the Lord exercises control over all time.

1:9 – 11

After a powerful introduction that climaxed in a quotation from the Almighty Himself (1:1 – 8), John transitioned abruptly to the setting of his first vision (1:9 – 11). As if he were going out of his way to keep the spotlight on Jesus, the apostle John introduced himself and his circumstances with succinct simplicity and humility: “I, John” (1:9). Having been banished to the penal colony on Patmos by the cruel Emperor Domitian for refusing to confess the emperor as “lord and god,” John wasn’t about to turn attention away from the only true Lord and God, Jesus Christ.

Though John could have pointed out items in his résumé that no one then alive could equal, he didn’t. Instead, he described himself in ways that emphasized the common experiences he shared with fellow believers: “your brother and fellow partaker” (1:9). The term translated “partaker” is related to the concept of “fellowship.” It’s hard for most Christians today to imagine fellowship in the church without the three so-called essentials — food, folks, and fun. Yet John verified that fellowship in the early church centered on an altogether different threesome — perseverance through tribulation in light of the coming kingdom.

The Greek word thlipsis (“tribulation”) can refer to the coming great tribulation of the end times, leading up to Christ’s physical return (Matt. 24:21, 29). More commonly, though, it refers to general trials and persecutions experienced by Christians of every age (13:21; 24:9; John 16:33; Rom. 5:3).

The term kingdom refers to a future earthly kingdom that will be established at the return of Christ (Matt. 19:28; Acts 1:6 – 7; 2 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 20:4). In light of their common destiny as co-regents with Christ at His coming, believers are occasionally referred to as God’s “kingdom” in a spiritual sense (1 Cor. 4:20; Col. 1:13).

In the context of shared suffering and in light of the promise of future glory, the Spirit enables believers to share in perseverance. The noun hypomone (along with the cognate verb hypomeno) implies endurance under extreme difficulty, as a beast of burden might endure under a heavy load. God Himself gives believers the ability to endure hardship (Rom. 15:5; Col. 1:11).

In these three things — perseverance, tribulation, and the kingdom — Jesus Christ drew believers in John’s day together by giving them purpose and perspective in the midst of suffering. If Christ the coming King could suffer unjustly for them, they could certainly endure persecution for Him.

During Domitian’s reign, John was exiled to Patmos because of “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (1:9). Because of its unpleasant conditions, Rome had established the tiny, remote island of Patmos as a penal colony in the first century. According to the earliest historical records of the ancient church, the apostle John was exiled to Patmos for eighteen months beginning in AD 95.6 Even in exile for his faith, dwelling in the uncertain surroundings of a rocky penal colony, the elderly apostle set aside time on “the Lord’s day” (Sunday) to worship and pray. That’s what I call devotion! Perhaps he was kneeling in prayer or reciting Psalms when something supernatural took hold of him and ripped him out of the sphere of this world and transported into the spiritual realm.

Immediately upon finding himself “in the Spirit,” John heard behind him the clear, penetrating voice of Christ calling to his beloved disciple “like a trumpet” (1:10). He gave a simple instruction: “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Christ selected these seven churches because their situations represented conditions applicable to churches of every age, including our own. Ephesus, the first of the seven churches and John’s own home church, was nearest to Patmos. The rest of the churches were on a natural overland route in the specific order given by Christ.

With the booming, majestic voice of the Savior still echoing in his ears, John slowly turned to see who was speaking to him. He noticed first not a man, but seven golden lampstands, each holding an oil-burning lamp (1:12). Then his eyes settled on the source of the voice — “one like a son of man” standing in the midst of the seven lampstands. This was Jesus, no doubt, but not the kind of Jesus John remembered from earlier years — preaching to the multitudes, healing the sick, suffering on the cross, or even ascending into heaven. No, the message from this Jesus sent John’s memories racing backward in time more than sixty years to a powerful experience on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1 – 8; Mark 9:2 – 8; Luke 9:28 – 36). There Peter, James, and John had witnessed Christ transformed before their eyes as He brief ly unveiled His glory. Now, near the end of his life, John saw a vision of the risen Lord in all His splendor.

John used the best descriptive terms he could muster to put into words what was essentially indescribable. The initial image resembled a human form, but He was clearly more than a man. The vision of the long robe, golden sash, white hair, f laming gaze, bronze feet, bellowing voice, and brilliant features (1:13 – 16) all point to one thing: Jesus Christ is God! From His mouth shot a two-edged sword — a symbol for the word of God (Heb. 4:12) as well as an instrument of judgment (Rev. 19:11 – 15). In his hands He held seven stars (1:16). In a brief glimpse of unveiled deity shrouded in mysterious symbols that surpassed even John’s experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, that beloved disciple quickly learned his place in the universe. Saint John — evangelist, theologian, elder, apostle, and elite member of Christ’s inner circle — was instantly reduced to a trembling sinner lying powerless before the King of kings and Lord of lords. In a word, the vision terrified him.

Yet in the midst of the apostle’s heart-stopping terror, the unsurpassable Son of God stooped down, reached out with His nail-pierced hand, and comforted His old friend. Helping the elderly disciple to his feet, He told John not to fear. Then Jesus described himself in exalted terms: “I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (1:17 – 18).

Immediately the Lord reiterated his command for John to write everything he saw (1:19; cf. 1:11). Yet this time he outlined the divine information into three distinct units that can be broken down into past, present, and future.

Like a reporter in the midst of a historic event, John began frantically recording the vision of Jesus still impressed upon his mind (“the things which you have seen”). Then Jesus helped all of us by interpreting two symbols from that vision: the stars and the lampstands. The seven stars in His right hand are the “angels” (or human messengers) of the seven churches mentioned in 1:11. The seven golden lampstands are the seven churches themselves (1:20). The charge is clear: John was to write everything he saw and heard and send it to the seven churches through each church’s pastor. This wide distribution of the book guaranteed that the revelation from Jesus Christ would address not only believers in John’s own day, but it would continue to inform and encourage believers of every age.

Application

As I reflect on John’s breath-taking experience on Patmos, I’m struck by two principles.

First, the better our understanding of who Christ really is, the quicker we’ ll respond in submission and obedience. Revelation 1:17 says, “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.” We sometimes hear people talk about meeting Jesus face to face, giving Him a hug, sitting on his lap, and asking Him all those theological and biblical questions that have been nagging them throughout their lives. In light of John’s response to his brief glimpse of Christ’s unveiled glory, such a view fails to measure up. As we ponder John’s awesome encounter with the risen Lord, we should ask ourselves a couple of questions:

• Do I know and adore the awesome, glorious, powerful Jesus portrayed in the Bible, or have I adopted a culturally appropriate, mild-mannered, user-friendly Jesus after my own imaginations?

• How should John’s portrayal of Jesus affect my attitude in prayer? In worship? In obedience? Does my life reflect a response to the Jesus of Revelation 1:17? In what specific ways have I been too flippant or casual in my approach to my Master and Lord, Jesus Christ?

Second, the greater our willingness to submit to Christ, the deeper will be the truths He reveals to us. No, you won’t receive divine visions of the future. No, Jesus Himself won’t give you a message for your pastor. John’s profound perception of the person of Christ, however, led him to a complete submission to His authority. In turn, this led to a deepening understanding of Christ and His plans for the future. As we open God’s Word and encounter Christ, our attitudes of humility and submission will lead us into a deeper relationship with Him. Let me suggest what you can do to drive this principle home.

Read Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; and Proverbs 9:10. Look closely at these texts. According to them, what one thing is essential for deepening our understanding of obedience to God’s revealed truth? Then ask yourself, “Do I open God’s Word with this attitude? Do I show the kind of respect and reverence necessary to have true wisdom and understanding?” Why not pause and reread these verses? Consider committing them to memory.

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