A Leader Like No Other

Leadership is influence, so the accepted definition goes. Influence is the ability to move another person in a direction you believe is important. By any definition, Jesus Christ was a leader like no other! . . .

Jesus Christ was the greatest leader the world has ever known because He was the greatest follower the world has ever known. He had a sharply focused view of exactly what His Father desired of Him. No trial, no deprivation, no conflict, no misunderstanding, and no death threat made Him swerve from following the will of His Father. What a leader! What a Follower!

Although those terms may sound contradictory, this dynamic balance is what God desires in our lives. He desires a leader who blazes a clear trail because his eye is on the Leader. God desires churches which walk the straight path because the leadership does not get lost on rabbit trails; rather, the leaders pursue the path of the Just One. . . .

The primary quality of a godly leader is that he follows Someone who is stronger than he is, wiser than he is, more discerning than he is, and more in control of circumstances than he is. A godly leader, whether a parent, teacher, supervisor, deacon, business leader, or student body officer, excels at following Someone to a greater degree than others around him do. How unlike this pattern is from the modern view of a leader as one who is great because he chooses a direction and consults only himself and his own resources!

God’s plan calls for a different kind of leader. His plan calls for someone who loves to be under authority and proves it by following God alone. His plan demands a leader who realizes that his greatest duty is to follow another. This is the leader who will make a difference.

A Different Head: Jesus Christ

A Very Different Idea—A Leader Is a Servant

I was stunned, but this was exactly what I had been looking for. The speaker had just given a challenge about Abraham’s servant in Genesis 24, and what he said was like a flash of lightning suddenly illuminating a nighttime scene. It was a simple enough concept. Verse 2 reads, And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had. . . . This was a revelation to me. This man was called his eldest servant, but he was obviously a good leader. As a matter of fact, he ruled over all that he had! This man, capable of being a servant, was the kind of man Abraham chose to be the leader of his household! Is it possible that being a servant helps qualify one to be a leader? If the good leader is a good leader because he is a good servant and a good follower, that would be different from the commonly accepted profile of a leader. . . .

A Different Leadership

Biblical Leadership—Christ’s View

Leadership is not how many serve you, but how many you serve. It’s being excited about seeing the Master successful in the lives of other people. And with each position of leadership comes a greater responsibility to serve those under our authority. This makes our influence a great training ground for future servant-leaders.

Let’s examine the three key principles that make biblical leadership the avenue of God’s power.

Be a minister

But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:42-45)

Servant of all! When I think of this principle, my thoughts go to a situation that took place a few years ago. When I first traveled to Mexico, I attended a pastors’ conference in a little village called Chouchacoyo. Pastors had traveled from all around this mountainous region to attend. Some came by car, some by truck, some even walked or rode mules or horses to attend. It was a wonderful conference, and those of us from our church had a great time. One of our most notable experiences was the sleeping situation. It was simple: just find a spot, put your bedroll down, and enjoy a good night’s rest. We did. In fact, we found some old army-style fold-up beds behind the church. We set them up outside and slept under the stars. It was great!

The following year I was able to attend the conference again, this time as a speaker. I brought five other men from our church with me. When we arrived, I told them about the army beds, and we went to look for them. They were not to be found. Soon it was time for the service to begin. Following the service, my friends and I were outside fellowshipping with the people. A man approached and, through a translator, asked me if I wanted a bed. “Ah!” I thought, “This man must know where the army beds are.” So I replied, “Yes.” He left, and we continued to fellowship. About 45 minutes later I saw a man climbing that steep dirt road toward the church. He had a large object strapped to his back-a piece of foam and a wooden frame. This man had gone home and gotten his bed from his home, the bed that he and his wife slept on, and he was bringing it for me. “I didn’t mean for him to bring his bed. I can’t take his bed!” I said to the translator. “No, he wants you to have it. He would be hurt if you didn’t accept his service,” was the reply. This man understood the principle of being a minister. He didn’t have much, but he used what he had to minister. What can we do today to serve someone else? We have gifts, talents, abilities, and possessions. God wants us to use what we have to be a blessing to others. Biblical leadership is taking what we have and giving it back to God by ministering to others. . . .

Have the mind of Christ

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And, being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. (Philippians 2:3-11)

This passage presents four key thoughts:

1. Put others before yourself, v. 3.
2. Have the mind of Christ in all that you do, v. 5.
3. Christ made Himself of no reputation, v. 7.
4. Christ became obedient unto death, v. 8.

These practices—illustrated through the life of Jesus Christ—sum up biblical leadership. This is having the mind of Christ. The one underlying foundation of all is not to think of ourselves and what is best for us. Like Christ, we must choose to make ourselves of no reputation and to become obedient to the will of our Heavenly Father, having as our one desire to see the Master successful in the lives of those around us.

Last summer I had the privilege of heading up a mission trip to Mexico with over eighty adults and teens from our church. Our theme for the week was Philippians 2:5, having the mind of Christ. What a week we had! Even before we got into Mexico, the Christlike attitudes and actions manifested by members of the mission team greatly impacted each other’s lives as well as the lives of others outside our group. It was an unbelievable week, one we will never forget, a week which glorified God to both Christians and non-believers in Mexico. As I heard testimonies of Christian teens and adults seeking to have the mind of Christ, it occurred to me to wonder, “Do we have to travel hundreds of miles to a foreign country to display the mind of Christ?” No. We can focus on Philippians 2 and these vital principles every day if we choose. . . .

Wash dirty feet

Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him; Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things unto his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so lam. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. (John 13:1-5, 12-17)

Let’s think about this passage and the role that Jesus Christ played here. This is not really about removing dust. Attitudes, not actions, are the heart of this being a servant of all. If the attitude is right, the actions will be there. We are talking about someone who doesn’t just do servant things, but someone who is a servant.

We use the term servant commonly around our churches, and I’m afraid that sometimes we get the idea that being a servant is based on what we do. I may think I’m a servant if I have a good voice and I sing solos at church. I serve by singing a solo. Or, I’m an usher and serve the Lord by ushering. Or I’m a cheerleader; I try to get a lot of spirit going in our school, and I serve by doing that. Or I’m an officer in my class, and I try to help my class. Those things are all good; there is nothing wrong with any of those things. It’s great to be involved, and the Lord can use those activities. However, I’m afraid that we sometimes think that if we are doing those things, then we are servants. No. A servant doesn’t just do servant things, but as he does those things, he serves. The difference is primarily in our motives. So what is the objective of being on a team? Is it helping everyone else? What is the objective of being an usher? Is it helping people feel comfortable as they come to church so that they are not distracted from the message?

Taken from pp. 1-2, 5-6, 52-56 of Biblical Leadership by Ken Collier and Matt Williams, © 2004 by Ken Collier and Matt Williams. Used by permission of Ambassador Emerald International, Greenville, SC 29609. All rights reserved.

The Diagnosis and the Cure

A television documentary showed a Tibetan peasant woman making her pilgrimage around a sacred mountain. She stopped every few steps to prostrate herself on the rocky soil. She stood to her dust-covered feet, walked a few more paces, and repeated the arduous and painful ritual. She had completed the thirty-two-mile pilgrimage twenty-nine times. Asked why she did it, she smiled sweetly and answered, “We want to be reborn in heaven.”

She is not alone in her spiritual philosophy. Much of humanity thinks that by their suffering and self-denial they can enter heaven. They crawl on their bloodied hands and knees, fast from certain foods, cut their bodies, throw their beloved children into the Ganges River, refrain from worldly pleasures, and give money sacrificially to some worthy cause. Many lie on beds of nails, and many more sit on hard pews tormenting themselves under the sound of dull and dry sermons. Very sadly, they think God will consider their suffering or self-denial to be an acceptable sacrifice—a worthy atonement for their sin.

However, the payment that they offer God reveals that they lack understanding of the true nature of sin. Like the Jews of old, they seek to establish their own righteousness, being ignorant of God’s righteousness (see Romans 10:3). This would be like a vicious mass murderer thinking that the good judge will let him go if he simply hands him a day’s wages, when the only thing that will satisfy the demands of the law is the finality of the death sentence. . . .

The Judge of the universe is not satisfied by humanity’s self-inflicted suffering. In fact, He is greatly appalled by it. The Bible tells us that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord (see Proverbs 21:27). Even the best that we can offer the Judge is a detestable insult to Him. Our attempts to make any atonement for sin reveal that we don’t see our crimes against His Law as being very serious. We trivialize them.

This is why we need the Law (the Ten Commandments) to show us the standard of righteousness that God requires of us. It is ignorance of God’s moral Law that leaves most of humanity with the delusion that their good works commend them to God. As long as the peasant woman doesn’t know the righteous standard of the Judge she seeks to influence, she will continue to trudge around the sacred hill.

However, the Law reveals that sin is “exceedingly sinful” (see Romans 7:13), and when we see the depth of our sin, we are divorced of any thought that we can make atonement ourselves. It leaves us with nothing but the hope of God’s mercy and brings us to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Consider what the Word of God says about the purpose of the Law:

But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners . . . (1 Timothy 1:8,9)

These verses state that the Law is good only when it is used “lawfully.” It is therefore implied that the Law is bad when it is used unlawfully—for seeking justification or for promoting legalism. It is very clear from Scripture that no one can be made right with God by keeping the moral Law. So what then is the Law’s function? Paul tells us:

Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)

The Law was given by God to bring the knowledge of sin, so that a spiritually blind and self-righteous world could see their need for the Savior. This is the lawful use of the Law. Do you know any who are ungodly, who are sinners? The Law was made for them. But when the Law isn’t used and a sinner simply makes a “decision for Christ,” he lacks understanding of the true nature of sin. He thinks that his good works commend him to God, and he is liable to say “do not touch, do not taste, do not handle”he becomes legalistic, thinking these things have a role in his salvation. . . .

While many are deceived into thinking they can be justified through the Law or are bound up in legalism, the Law’s purpose is to reveal to the world its desperate need of God’s mercy. . . .

There are many in the Church today who deny this, insisting that the evangelistic use of the Ten Commandments has no basis in Scripture. To those who believe that there are no incidents of the Law’s use by the early Church, I present my case in these pages. I do this because I want the Church to see that God gave only one method to reach the lost, and that method is the one we should be using. All other methods are man-made, and are therefore detrimental to the cause of evangelism.

In these pages, we will see that Jesus used the moral Law as He spoke to the lost, and that the use of the Law wasn’t confined to the Master Evangelist (as if that weren’t enough). My hope is that those who are skeptical will look to Holy Scripture as the final authority on the subject. . . .

In addition, we will examine biblical instances where they preached the reality of future punishment for those who break the moral Law (a topic that many within the contemporary Church have neglected, in the name of discretion). To make an important point regarding this issue, I have used footnotes to highlight instances of the preaching of future punishment by the One whom we are commanded to imitate.

I will emphasize the importance of preaching the reason that men and women are commanded to repent—because God “has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:30,31). We need to be reminded of these truths in a day in which many within the Church are telling us to forget them. . . .

What Did Jesus Do?

We live in days of rampant hypocrisy. As a result of our failure to give people the knowledge of sin and its consequences, there are many who profess faith in Christ but whose lives say otherwise. Without a proper fear of the Lord, they have a form of godliness but deny its power in their lives. Millions of people fall into this category, so how should we awaken them? Let’s look at how the Master Evangelist used the moral Law to reprove the hypocrites of His day. Jesus said,

Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ . . . Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ (Matthew 15:3,4,79)

These are not the gentle, affirming words of life enhancement that can be heard in many churches today. Why would Jesus speak so harshly? Because He wanted to alarm those who were self-righteous, to awaken them to their true state. He used the Law to bring the knowledge of sin, telling His listeners that they have transgressed the “commandment of God,” specifically referencing the Fifth Commandment.

Again, Jesus didn’t avoid words that might offend His hearers. When told that His words had offended the Pharisees, He emphasized the certainty of future punishment (verses 1214). He then explained to His disciples what defiles a man, giving them a list of sins and where they originate. Jesus lists several of the Commandments, clearly showing that “sin is transgression of the Law” (1 John 3:4, KJV):

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders,adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” (Matthew 15:19,20)

Jesus continually honored the Law and opened up its spiritual nature to give understanding to the self-righteous Pharisees. God only knows how many of them were awakened by the knowledge that they had sinned, and found themselves among the three thousand saved souls on the Day of Pentecost.

If we care about the salvation of the lost, we will want to awaken them and bring them to true repentance. Rather than sharing an inoffensive gospel that creates false converts (hypocrites), we must follow the biblical principle of “Law to the proud, grace to the humble.” . . .

What Can You Do?

I hope that through these pages you have become convinced that much of the Church today has moved far away from biblical evangelism, instead offering Jesus as the ultimate Fixit-Man for humanity. Unto us a Child was born, unto us a Son was given—the Savior came to this world to save His people from their sins, but we have presented Him as the Wonderful Life Planner, the Great Marriage Counselor, the Mighty God-shaped Hole Filler, the Prince of Peace of Mind, and the Everlasting Father figure. We have added what we think is necessary to attract people to the message, and taken away what we think is offensive.. . .

The fact that Jesus is the only hope for salvation is offensive to those who have not been taught by the Law. But once a sinner has seen how desperate his situation is, he is no longer offended by the great truth, “Nor is there salvation in any other” (see Acts 4:12). It becomes the most welcome and wonderful news. The rope is of little value to him . . . until he understands where he is going to end up without it.

How to Do What Jesus Did

Let me show you a structure I have used for many years to present the Law and the gospel. Remember that to do as Jesus did—to seek and save the lost—you have to seek them. Rarely will they come to you. So as you are going about your day, learn to initiate spiritual conversations with people you encounter. I often begin by greeting a person warmly and handing him a gospel tract. Tracts are great “ice-breakers,” giving you an easy way to start a conversation with strangers and to get the gospel into their hands if they don’t want to talk.

I usually say, “Did you get one of these?” That makes them think that they’re missing out on something—and they are—and then I follow up by saying, “It’s a gospel tract. Have you had a Christian background?” You could also say, “May I ask you an important question? Do you ever think about what’s going to happen to you after you die?”

After bringing up the subject of the things of God, ask the person, “Would you consider yourself to be a good person?” Most will answer that they do, as Proverbs 20:6 tells us: “Most men will proclaim each his own goodness.” Ask, “Do you think that you have kept the Ten Commandments?” Then gently go through the Law.

After you have opened up the spiritual nature of the Commandments, ask, “If God judges you by the Ten Commandments on Judgment Day, do you think you will be innocent or guilty?” Then, “Do you think you will go to heaven or hell?”

Here’s how to remember what you have just learned. Use the acronym WDJD (What Did Jesus Do):

W: Would you consider yourself to be a good person?

D: Do you think you have kept the Ten Commandments?

J: Judgment—If God judges you by the Ten Commandments on Judgment Day, do you think you will be innocent or guilty?

D: Destiny—Do you think you will go to heaven or hell?

The Bible tells us to “convince, rebuke, and exhort” them with patience and doctrine. If this person dies in his sins, he will spend eternity in hell. So we can’t be concerned with a fear of offending or even of angering him. If the person says that he doesn’t believe in hell, tell him that the electric chair still exists, even if the criminal doesn’t believe in it. Our beliefs don’t change reality. Reason with him about the “goodness” of God. Ask if he thinks that God is good. Most people do. If God is good, should He punish a vicious criminal who raped and murdered a woman and was never brought to justice? Most will naturally agree that He should, if He is good. Then ask the person if he thinks God is good enough to also punish thieves, adulterers, liars, etc. Tell him that God is so good, He’s even going to punish us for every idle word that we speak, and that His place of punishment is called “hell.” . . .

Don’t stay too long in the intellect, the place of argument. Get back to the conscience, the place of the knowledge of right and wrong. Never forget that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. This is a spiritual battle, so fight it with the spiritual weapons God has provided for this purpose: the Law, which He’s written in the heart, and the conscience, which bears witness to its truthfulness and brings conviction of sin. Gently and firmly take control of the conversation; let the person speak, but don’t let him sidetrack you. Remember, you are a doctor with an agenda—to convince the patient of the disease of sin so he will appreciate the cure.

As you speak with the lost, always be loving, kind, but obstinately uncompromising when it comes to the issue of sin. Tell them that the moral Law will be God’s standard on Judgment Day, that God will bring their every work into Judgment, and that it’s a fearful thing to fall into His hands. Keep an eye out for the encouraging “deer in the headlights” look, to tell you that you are heading in the right direction.

Taken from What Did Jesus Do? A Call to Return to the Biblical Gospel by Ray Comfort. © 2005 by Ray Comfort. Used by permission of Genesis Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
—1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Sixteen years ago, as an 18-year-old young man desperately battling unwanted same-sex attractions, there wasn’t much help available for me. But God knew what I needed, and He led me to the ministry of Exodus International. Since then many more resources have become available for men and women who struggle as I did. And yet there is still so much to be done.

Christians with “gay-identified” loved ones are eager to share the good news of Christ, but they wonder how they can do so without sounding judgmental. And can they actually promise those they love that change is possible—is change possible?

Churches too want to be involved with ministry to homosexuals, but they’re unsure of how to proceed. Should active gays be invited to church? Should the church start some sort of formal outreach . . . and what do they do when homosexuals do come to Christ? Are there effective ways to follow-up on new believers from a homosexual background?

As the president of Exodus International, I find the majority of the people I meet, regardless of their religious or political background, are anxious for answers to questions like these concerning homosexuality.

In fact, I recently had lunch with some friends, and the topic quickly turned to homosexuality. Feeling unequipped as Christians, they wanted answers to questions ranging from “Is it genetic?” to “Does the Bible really condemn homosexuality?” to “How can I love Christ and my gay neighbor without compromising what I believe?” Questions like these—and many others—are on the hearts and minds of Christians everywhere due to the increased awareness of homosexuality in our society. Fifty years ago a book like this could not have been published. Possibly not even twenty years ago. Being attracted to one’s own gender was simply not a topic for meaningful discussion in most circles.

But all that has changed. And yet in the church we’re lagging sadly behind in having a workable, scriptural response to the homosexuals who look to us for “good news.” For many, the church seems like a place where certain sinners aren’t welcome. With phrases like “turn or burn” and “get right or get left,” Christians have made those inside and outside the church fearful of being honest about their very real struggles. Many Christians don’t believe it’s possible that their church has members who deal with same-sex attraction—and yet most churches do indeed have such strugglers . . . and that probably includes yours. For the most part, these men and women struggle quietly. To admit to homosexual temptations is too risky.

We in the church have also given some wrong signals to those who do come to faith in Christ. For example, we’ve taken verses such as 2 Corinthians 5:17, which says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” and mistranslated it to mean, “Come to Christ and get fixed immediately. And if you struggle after you come to Christ, there’s something wrong with you.” . . . Transformation is a process. Many Christians struggle in their forward movement to maturity. God is gracious and more than able to love us in spite of our fallibility. And that’s our task: to effectively communicate God’s grace and power to change to a world that thinks to be a Christian one must either be perfect or a hypocrite.

But in order to effectively communicate God’s love to the homosexual, one of the most important prerequisites for anyone—church or individual—is to be clear on your motivation and your message. Why do you want to reach gays? Do you truly love them as Christ loves them? And exactly what is your message for gay men and women? Here’s a hint: If you think the Christian message for homosexuals is to “love the sinner, but hate the sin,” then I really encourage you to read on. This book will change your way of thinking—and ministering.

Sixteen years ago, when I got honest about my struggles with same-sex attraction, my thought was: I will go to counseling for six months, do everything I’m told, and be set free from my homosexuality, never to struggle again. Of course, that wasn’t how reality played out for me. I didn’t get a lobotomy. I did, however, get a foundational education on who God really is, why He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, and how grace could be the single most healing factor in my life . . . if I grasped it. Today, I—like you—am still in the daily process of learning how to apply grace to my own life. And as I learn, I try to live out that message of grace and pass it along to those I’m called to minister to—men and women and youth who are dealing with unwanted attractions to their same sex.

God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door is about redemption, mercy, compassion, love, and, of course, grace. The simple truth is that Christ died for all of us or He died for none of us. As we consider ministering to those whose lifestyle we don’t understand, we must always remember to offer them the same grace, understanding, and love that Christ offered us.

There isn’t a special antidote for ministering to those with same-sex attractions any more than there is one for ministering to those with an unhealthy love for money, food, heterosexual sin . . . or whatever. The same God who sent His Son for you, sent His Son for the homosexual.

It really is that simple.

After all, God wasn’t after my homosexuality; He was after my heart. Once He had that, everything else began to change. I have watched that same wonderful scenario play out in the lives of thousands of men and women over the years as their eyes have been opened to the truth of God’s grace, redemption, love, and healing.

At Exodus International, we work every day to get the message of God’s grace out to as many as will listen. The combined experience of my colleagues at Exodus, who have pooled their vast wisdom on the following pages, should go a long way in answering your questions about reaching the homosexuals you know. I am convinced that as you read, you’ll find the confidence to go out and share God’s love and grace with your gay neighbor, or the one at work, or the close relative, or perhaps the one you’ve yet to meet.

God bless you as you go in His name.

Taken from God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door by Alan Chambers and the Leadership Team of Exodus International; copyright © 2006 by Alan Chambers and the Leadership Team of Exodus International; Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR; Used by permission.

Characteristics of an Effective Evangelistic Service

Know Your Listeners

Some preachers study the Bible. Others study people and culture. Effective preachers analyze both. Why? Because the effective evangelistic preacher will preach differently to a group of senior adults than he preaches to a group of high school seniors. Likewise, he will preach differently to a group of unchurched, white-collar, upper-class people in suburban Los Angeles than he preaches to a group of church-oriented, blue-collar, middle-class people living in a rural area in the southeastern United States. Although the message of the gospel never changes, how it is presented should connect with the cultural persuasions and unique personalities of the people addressed.

Fishermen who are successful do not keep only one type of bait in their tackle boxes. Nor do they insist on using one technique as they attempt to land a catch. Sometimes they fish on the bottom of the lake or ocean. At other times they troll, allowing the bait to drag along as the boat moves forward. On other occasions they work the bait around trees or underwater debris. They have lures and jigs of many shapes, sizes, and colors. Why? Because different kinds of fish are attracted to different kinds of bait. Thus, if a preacher wants to be an effective “fisher of men” from the pulpit, he must know what kind of fish he is trying to catch and the most appropriate ways to reach them.

The bottom line is this: Preachers need to think and speak like missionaries! To be successful, we must learn the culture, customs, and “language” of those we are trying to reach. For instance, you are in for a rude awakening if you try to reach most of today’s teenagers by singing two-hundred-year-old hymns and preaching out of a four-hundred-year-old version of the Bible. That, my preacher friend, is definitely “poor fishing.” Indeed, I love the great hymns of the church. I also have read the King James Version of the Bible through several times, and I personally appreciate it. These have their place. But they are not always the best way to reach certain groups. Get to know the people you are trying to reach for Christ. Sing Christ-honoring music to which they can relate. Use a version of the Bible they will understand. Remember, Jesus never spoke English!

It will be a great day when the preacher asks himself these questions: What are the people whom I am trying to reach? What are their religious backgrounds? What kind of music do they prefer? What is their level of education? What are their predominant cultural customs? What do they like and dislike? When you start evaluating these and other issues like them, you will be well on your way to being more effective in making an initial evangelistic contact with your audience.

Focus on God, Not Man

The most important emphasis of a worship service is focusing on God. Worship services should be God-centered, not man-centered. Those who lead in worship will do well to steer clear of elaborate introductions of those who sing solos, lead in prayer, etc. Elaborate introductions of preachers should be avoided. The more we emphasize Jesus and deemphasize people, the more anointed a worship service will be. Worship services should not exalt people; they should exalt Jesus Christ. Likewise, worship services should not be designed primarily to attract people. Instead, they should seek to attract the manifest presence of God. When He “shows up,” He will attract the people. “In [His] presence is fullness of joy” (Ps. 16:11 NNAS).

While evangelistic churches should try to be seeker friendly, their priority is to be Savior focused. We should strive to be gracious to those present in a worship service, providing comforts such as good lighting, relaxed seating, and appropriate temperature. But we should never focus on the people who are attending the worship service to the neglect of God. Jesus said that if we will worship and seek Him in spirit and truth, He will in turn seek us to be His worshippers (see John 4:23-24). If people leave a worship service saying, “What a preacher!” “What a sermon! ” “What a choir!” or “What a church!” then we have failed. But if they leave a worship service saying, “Hallelujah, what a Savior!” then we have succeeded!

Present a Warm Atmosphere

Evangelistic preaching is most effective in a friendly, hospitable environment. Someone has said, “You cannot hatch eggs in a refrigerator.” Likewise, you cannot expect to see people converted to Christ in a cold, inhospitable setting. Those who attend an evangelistic service should be met by greeters (in the parking lots and at every door) and ushers who welcome them warmly after they enter the place of worship. Christians in attendance should be sensitive to the presence of lost people in the service and seek to be cordial to everyone sitting near them.

Those who lead in worship should be genuinely enthusiastic and positive. The preacher should convey an inviting, positive, encouraging message through his facial expressions, the tone of his voice, and the content of his message. After all, the word gospel means “good news.” The preacher should emphasize the salient demands of the gospel without shouting and snarling at his listeners. When the atmosphere is warm and friendly, people are more receptive to what the preacher has to say. “The wise in heart will be called understanding, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness” (Prov. 16:21 NNAS). Evangelistic preachers are called to “feed the sheep,” not “beat the sheep.”

Emphasize Jesus

If we want to win people to Christ through our preaching, we need to intentionally focus on Jesus Christ. We need to speak the name of Jesus frequently. The words God, Lord, and Christ, are all biblical, but there is something particularly powerful about the name of Jesus. That is why the angel said to Joseph (stepfather of Jesus), “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21 NNAS). It is also the reason Peter said, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12 NNAS). The name Jesus literally means “God is salvation.”

The worship music prior to the evangelistic sermon should highlight Jesus Christ. Songs that speak His glorious name are powerful and persuasive tools for softening the hardened hearts of lost sinners. Whether it is a familiar hymn that says, “My Jesus I Love Thee,” or a less traditional song that says, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there’s just something about that name,” or a more contemporary chorus that says, “My Jesus, My Savior, Lord there is none like You,” music in an evangelistic setting should magnify the name above all names—the name of Jesus.

Likewise, throughout his sermon, the evangelistic preacher should focus on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He should talk about the cross and the redemption that Jesus purchased for lost sinners. . . .

We should emphasize His virtuous life, His vicarious death, and His victorious resurrection. According to the apostle Paul, these are the essential facts that constitute the gospel (see 1 Cor. 15:1-4). Like Philip, we must open our mouths and preach Jesus to a lost world (Acts 8:35). What greater news could one man tell other men?

Emphasize Participation, Not Performance

People today do not come to church to be entertained. The truth is that the world can entertain them better than the church can. Through television, videos, movies, and the Internet, people are exposed to the highest level of artistic performances and productions. When they come to church, they are looking for something that Hollywood cannot give them. That “something” is the presence and power of God. Evangelistic churches and preachers must remember that the world will always be able to outsing, outspeak, and outperform us. But the good news is that they will never be able to “out-God” us!

To promote a sense of audience participation, effective evangelistic worship services should emphasize songs that sing to God instead of about God. Sing songs that address God directly. Sing, “My Jesus, My Savior, Lord there is none like You,” or “I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship You, O my soul, rejoice,” or “You are good, You are good, and Your love endures!” Songs sung about God help educate people. Songs sung directly to God are more effective in helping people encounter Him. . . .

Reverence? Yes! Formality? No!

Those who would reach people for Christ in the coming years must realize that our society is becoming less formal. Churches that would reach people for Christ also should avoid excessive formalities such as having their preachers, worship leaders, deacons, and choir members making a grand entrance by “filing in” at the beginning of a worship service. The preacher and other leaders should not bring attention to themselves through such pompous displays of ceremony. The preacher could well be one of the greeters mentioned earlier. Then, as the service begins, the preacher should be seated near the front. When the time comes for the preacher to speak, he can move from the pew among the people before proclaiming the message.

Taken from Preaching Evangelistically by Al Fasol, Roy Fish, Steve Gaines, and Ralph Douglas West. © 2006 by Al Fasol, Roy Fish, Steve Gaines, and Ralph Douglas West. Used by permission of Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN. All rights reserved.

Battling Impatience

In God’s Place, At God’s Pace, By Future Grace

Impatience is a form of unbelief. It’s what we begin to feel when we start to doubt the wisdom of God’s timing or the goodness of God’s guidance. It springs up in our hearts when our plan is interrupted or shattered. It may be prompted by a long wait in a checkout line or a sudden blow that knocks out half our dreams. The opposite of impatience is not a glib denial of loss. It’s a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience, and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience—to wait in his place, and go at his pace. And the key is faith in future grace. . . .

The Inner Strength of Patience

Strength is the right word. The apostle Paul prayed for the church at Colossae, that they would be “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience” (Colossians 1:11). Patience is the evidence of an inner strength. Impatient people are weak, and therefore dependent on external supports—like schedules that go just right and circumstances that support their fragile hearts. Their outbursts of oaths and threats and harsh criticisms of the culprits who crossed their plans do not sound weak. But that noise is all a camouflage of weakness. Patience demands tremendous inner strength.

For the Christian, this strength comes from God. That is why Paul is praying for the Colossians. He is asking God to empower them for the patient endurance that the Christian life requires. But when he says that the strength of patience is “according to [God’s] glorious might” he doesn’t just mean that it takes divine power to make a person patient. He means that faith in this glorious might is the channel through which the power for patience comes. Patience is indeed a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22) but the Holy Spirit empowers (with all his fruit) through “hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:5). Therefore, Paul is praying that God would connect us with the “glorious might” that empowers patience. And that connection is faith.

Trusting God to Make All Barriers Blessings

Specifically the glorious might of God that we need to see and trust is the power of God to turn all our detours and obstacles into glorious outcomes.

If we believed that our hold-up at the long red light was God’s keeping us back from an accident about to happen, we would be patient and happy. If we believed that our broken leg was God’s way of revealing early cancer in the x-ray so that we would survive, we would not murmur at the inconvenience. If we believed that the middle-of-the-night phone call was God’s way of waking us to smell smoke in the basement, we would not grumble at the loss of sleep. The key to patience is faith in the future grace of God’s “glorious might” to transform all our interruptions into rewards.

In other words, the strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours. This requires great faith in future grace, because the evidence is seldom evident. . . .

Key to Patience: “God Meant It for Good”

For example, the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50 is a great lesson in why we should have faith in the sovereign future grace of God. Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, which must have tested his patience tremendously. But he is given a good job in Potiphar’s household. Then, when he is acting uprightly in the unplanned place of obedience, Potiphar’s wife lies about his integrity and has him thrown into prison—another great trial to his patience. But again things turn for the better and the prison-keeper gives him responsibility and respect. But just when he thinks he is about to get a reprieve from the Pharaoh’s cupbearer, whose dream he interpreted, the cupbearer forgets him for two more years. Finally, the meaning of all these detours and delays becomes clear. Joseph says to his long-estranged brothers, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. . . . As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 45:7; 50:20).

What would have been the key to patience for Joseph during all those long years of exile and abuse? The answer is: faith in future grace—the sovereign grace of God to turn the unplanned place and the unplanned pace into the happiest ending imaginable. . . .

The Lord Is Compassionate and Merciful

We have stressed that this grace is “sovereign.” We also need to stress that it is grace. It is merciful and full of good will toward us. This is what James stresses about Job’s experience of suffering, and his struggle with impatience. James commands us to be patient and gives us the key . . . (James 5:7-11).

James wants us to see the purpose of Job’s suffering. The word for “purpose” is telos and means “goal.” It was God’s goal in all his dealings with Job to be merciful, and fit him for a greater blessing. This is what Job had missed and why he repented from his murmuring the way he did: “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). The power of patience flows from faith in this truth: In all his dealings with us his goal “is compassionate and merciful.” Faith in future grace is faith in grace that is sovereign, and sovereignty that is gracious.

Through Faith and Patience We Inherit the Promises

Patience is sustained by faith in the promise of future grace. In every unplanned frustration on the path of obedience God’s Word holds true: “I will not turn away from doing good to them. . . . I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul” (Jeremiah 32:40-41). He is pursuing us with goodness and mercy all our days (Psalm 23:6). Impatient complaining is therefore a form of unbelief.

Which is why the command to be patient takes on such immense significance. Jesus said, “By your [patient] endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19). And the writer to the Hebrews said, “[Be] imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). We come into our inheritance on the path of patience, not because patience is a work of the flesh that earns salvation, but because patience is a fruit of faith in future grace.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that we are saved for good works, not by good works. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10). Faith alone unites us to Christ who is our perfect righteousness before God. In this righteous standing, which we have by faith alone, we are given the Holy Spirit to help us endure to the end in growing likeness to Christ. This endurance in patient and imperfect obedience is necessary (since fruit proves the reality of faith and union with Christ), but it is not the ground of our right standing with God. Christ is. Because of this confidence and all it implies for our future, we endure through hard times.

Excerpted from Battling Unbelief © 2007 by John Piper. Used by permission of Multnomah Publishers, a division of Random House, Inc. Excerpt may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of Multnomah Publishers.

Introduction

Welcome to Turnerville. I only wish this town existed someplace besides in my imagination. Everything moves slowly in Turnerville. People take time to think. They discuss issues that typically get rushed or ignored. Even the leaves seem to change colors more slowly there. When city planners drew up blueprints, they strategically placed benches all over town so people would stop and chat. The mayor boasts of a higher bench-per-capita ratio than any other locale.

Don’t you long for that kind of community? Don’t you hunger for relaxed conversations instead of anxious fly-by messages? I do. In a day when most conversations take place through e-mail, instant messaging, or on cell phones with intermittent reception (”Can you hear me now?”), taking time just to listen and interact seems luxurious.

It also sounds scary. Such a level of intimacy requires vulnerability, reflection, and humility. But I say it’s worth the risk.

I also long for conversations with people who disagree with me—conversations, not arguments. Do these still exist anywhere? When I turn on the television and catch one of those so-called “talk” shows, I hear something other than talk. I’m assaulted by people yelling at and interrupting each other. I cringe as participants make sarcastic cracks about points their opponents really aren’t making. I observe simultaneous monologues instead of respectful dialogues. Such noise makes me thankful for that great technological wonder—the remote control.

Don’t you sometimes wish you could express doubts without someone jumping down your throat? Wouldn’t it be helpful to have friends who correct you (gently!) when you say something foolish, but also let you formulate thoughts without condemning you? Wouldn’t it be nice to speculate and then, once you’ve heard something come out of your mouth, have the freedom to say, “Oh, wait a minute. I don’t really believe that”? And wouldn’t it be great to have people listen to your uncertainty and just say, “Oh, that’s okay”?

People in Turnerville give each other that kind of liberty. I dream that such conversations will become more the norm—for real and not just in my imagination. And in what area do we need this kind of freedom and respect more than in religion and spirituality? We live in a more pluralistic and diverse age than ever but we sound more intolerant and fearful than ever.

In the midst of this tense atmosphere, Corner Conversations addresses difficult and complex topics:

• Can we really know God?
• Why does God allow evil and suffering?
• Aren’t all religions basically the same?
• Should we believe the Bible?
• Whose morality is best?
• Why are there so many hypocrites among believers?
• Is there life after death?

How often are subjects like these addressed in healthy, robust exchanges? How common are the commodities of careful listening and reflection? It’s my hope that we can change a disturbing pattern and promote respect without compromise, convictions without arrogance, and listening without patronizing.

Before you start eavesdropping on the residents of Turnerville, let me explain a few things.

The conversations written in this book aren’t real—but they are realistic. I didn’t transcribe them from actual tape-recorded chats. But after working on college campuses for the past twenty-five years, sharing many a cup of coffee with students and professors, I can assure you these kinds of exchanges between people of differing perspectives do take place.

Corner Conversations is also drawn from situations besides the university campus. Sideline chats at soccer games, exchanges with neighbors and relatives, and question-and-answer sessions with my sons (and some of their peers) have provided plenty of fodder for what you find on these pages.

You should know, too, that I’m a follower of Jesus. Everyone has some bias. Mine favors what Christians have traditionally believed for the past two thousand years. I try to focus my life around the core beliefs that all Christians affirm—what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity.”

At the same time, I value fairness and respect. I’ve tried to model those virtues in the conversations I’ve created and have sought evenhandedness. Several friends with contrary viewpoints read my work to see if I was erecting straw men. They assured me I represented them fairly.

I value healthy exchange between people of different faiths. I grew up in a Jewish home in a Catholic neighborhood, went to public schools, and came to follow Jesus as the promised Messiah at Temple University, a diverse urban university. That decision came after years of debate—with others, within my own mind, and with consultation of two thousand years’ worth of dialogue between two different yet connected worldviews.

I’m comfortable with the process of holding these differing values in healthy tension, but I also press for conclusions. Regarding process, I realize this book is only one of many steps on your spiritual journey. I hope it won’t be the last thing you read about Jesus, his teaching, his work, and God’s plan for your life. After each conversation you’ll find a section of endnotes suggesting further reading, Web sites to visit, and parts of the Bible to investigate. If you have to choose only one additional read, I hope you’ll choose the biblical section.

This love for process might frustrate you. I ask more questions than I answer. Some of these dialogues leave issues unsettled. I’m okay with that, but I thought it best to warn you.

On the other hand, I put a premium on landing the plane, not just enjoying the flight. Years ago, I saw a sign outside a professor’s office that intrigued me. It said, “Better to debate an issue without settling it than to settle an issue without debating it.” I guess. But I wonder if we have other alternatives. How about settling an issue after debating it? Many people today pride themselves for searching without ever finding. I think we’d all, deep down, rather search and find.

Here’s one more preference that has shaped this book. I hate interruptions. So I didn’t want to flood the pages with footnotes. I didn’t even want those little numbers luring you toward the back of the book. Instead, the sections of endnotes, entitled “Keep the Conversation Going,” give credit where credit is due, along with references to page numbers and key words.

Sorting out religious beliefs can be taxing—intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. But can you think of anything more important, more foundational, or more influential in shaping who you will become? You’ve picked up this book because you have some level of interest in clarifying or expanding your beliefs. Maybe a good friend gave or lent it to you with the hope that you two will engage in some lively conversations and enhance your friendship. Wouldn’t that be great?

For whatever reasons you’ve arrived at this point, I’m grateful for the opportunity to join you in your quest for answers and insight. Maybe someday we could sit on a bench somewhere and chat about it. I’d like that.

Taken from Corner Conversations by Randy Newman. © 2006 by Randy Newman. Used by permission of Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc., Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.

Criteria for Good Church Music

Many people are on the lookout for a short list of acceptable pieces or composers of church music. Some authors have penned articles or books in which they attempt to guide others with such a list. These are compiled with the best of intentions, no doubt, but are not adequate because of their subjectivity. So other questions arise. What composers write well for the modern church? What pieces from previous generations are still valid for our services? What publishing companies should we trust? What is good church music? Who should decide?

The two difficulties in providing answers to these questions are: (1) doing so objectively, and (2) doing so knowledgeably. Music is a very personal matter to most people. In fact, it has been said, “When it comes to music, everybody’s an expert.” Naturally, this is not the case; but each individual will know what he or she likes. Liking a piece or style of music, however, does not mean that it is appropriate music for church. Sacred text alone does not make a piece of music worthy of use, either. When an attempt is made to please everyone by doing a little of this and that, or by trying to select music enjoyed by all, we of necessity degenerate toward the lowest commonality. Yet biblically we are called to give our best in worship, and this requires effort and choice. Change for the better does not come easily, but education assists in achieving positive results. So let us consider some criteria to help discern what is good church music.

Textual Considerations

Considering a text is a first avenue of critique. It almost goes without saying that any text sung in worship should harmonize with biblical principles. I say “almost” because this basic principle is increasingly being forgotten or missed. Pastors should be involved at this point if the church’s musicians lack sufficient theological training to select appropriate texts or if they have questions. This consideration does not apply to new music alone. Some hymns, anthems, and solo songs, particularly those with sentimental texts, may distort or contradict basic doctrines of the faith. Everything sung in worship should be examined in light of Scripture, and only what passes the test should be employed.

When a song quotes the Bible, the setting should take contextual meaning into account. In other words, Scripture should not be taken out of context in music any more than in a sermon or in prayer. This is an issue with many modern worship songs. It is fine to praise God and to say that we are praising God, but the example from the psalms and biblical canticles is to say why one is praising God—always for his acts or attributes. Songs in the Bible about the acts of God continually strike two main themes: his acts of creation and his acts of redemption. His attributes (holiness, justice, mercy, love, faithfulness, omnipotence, etc.) are many and make wonderful subject matter for worship music.

Worshipers should always be pointed to God, who is both the subject and the object of worship. Songs or hymns of encouragement that relate personal experiences are fine to include in worship, as long as they can be considered the common experience of the general body of believers. The testimony of John Newton’s “Amazing Grace,” for example, is true for every Christian. Songs or hymns of personal experience should always point one to Christ. Sentimental Christian folk narratives that describe someone’s Sunday-school teacher, old stringed instruments, or some other human-interest story should be kept out of worship services. Their place is elsewhere.

Appropriateness is another textual test. One must determine whether the text is appropriate to the service itself, to a particular place in the service, and to the congregation. Finally, the text must be able to be understood in terms of both language and delivery. . . .

Musical Considerations

Musical considerations include level of difficulty, melody, harmony, rhythm, form, and required forces. The acceptable level of difficulty will vary according to who will sing or play. A choir will be capable of singing more challenging music than the congregation. In this vein, it is preferable to sing something simple well rather than to attempt a complex work with poor results. At the same time, congregations, choirs, and other ensembles need to grow and to be stretched. In general, melodies for a congregation should be singable and memorable without being monotonous or overly predictable. Harmony should be interesting and should follow rules of good counterpoint and voice-leading. These are perhaps the most commonly missing elements of much new church music. Rhythm should match the text, placing strong syllables on strong beats, and should invigorate the singing. None of these musical features can be permitted to obscure the meaning of the text. In the case of contrapuntal music with multiple layers of text, printing words in the bulletin will help the listener follow the message.

Many of these basic musical features are found wanting in much Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Melodies tend to be monotonous or to move in extreme ranges. Harmony often is simplistic and consists of repeated standard chords that have little direction or contrapuntal logic. Rhythm, especially, is often much different in “performance practice” from the way it is notated. And since the congregation will rarely have access to printed music or know how to read it (much less follow the particular rendition by the praise team of the morning), the soloistic nature and rhythmic complexity of most CCM pieces will elude the congregation, rendering successful unison singing difficult. Many “gospel hymns” (which should really be called “gospel songs” because they do not regularly manifest the characteristics of hymns) also exhibit trite harmony and melody and repetitive rhythm. Inclusion in a hymnal does not make a piece a hymn, nor does it make it worthy of use.

The fourth musical parameter by which music is judged is form. A piece of music, like any other type of art or literature, must have form. Form determines the overall structure, and phrasing defines the inner structure. Some pieces have lovely melodic/harmonic elements or a strong rhythm, but they lack good form. Judgments about musical parameters such as these require the insight of trained musicians. There is not one ideal form: many types are acceptable. But the ideal is for the musical form always to be well wedded to the text, so that what it communicates will reinforce, rather than contradict, the message of the text. Form, like melody, harmony, and rhythm, communicates musical meaning.

The performing forces available to present the music also factor in to determining its usage. If the necessary instruments, solo singers, or choral musicians are not available, certain music should be avoided. Aesthetic considerations are significant, although we will not discuss them here. Variety comes into play, as does association as an including or excluding parameter. For instance, if certain music is associated with the shopping mall, a baseball game, or a nightclub, its appropriateness for the church service should be questioned even though there may be nothing intrinsically wrong with the music in and of itself. Music that predisposes one to lightheartedness, frivolity, rebellion, or sensuality does not befit the worship of our great and holy God. . . .

Association and appropriateness to the text/occasion are factors that will help to determine how fitting a certain style may be. The corporate worship of God should be somehow set apart from the mundane tasks of everyday life (though it should be a regular activity). Thus, one may conclude that music used to worship God should be meaningful and other than ordinary (in other words, extraordinary). May the Spirit help us to write it, find it, rehearse it, and offer it for the glory of God.

Three Principles That Would Change Church Music Today

Although this book has espoused ideas that may differ from modern practice in many evangelical churches, none are more significant or powerful than the three concepts that will be reiterated here. These three ideas, examined in light of Scripture, found to be biblical (as I submit they are), and adopted as the philosophical and practical underpinning of ecclesiastical music-making and musical worship, would transform the church. This is not an overstatement, because that is precisely what happens when worship is accomplished according to Scripture.

We must measure our worship practices by the Word of God.

Scriptural principles should inform all our thinking, traditions, and practices in worship. Evaluating our actions and thinking by the Bible implies several things. First, we must believe that the Bible delivers God’s will to us and that it is authoritative. Second, there must be the desire to live according to God’s will through the work of the Holy Spirit. Third, knowing God’s will and doing it are different things—but obviously one cannot do it without knowing it, and will be judged for knowing it but not doing it. Therefore, when we discover that our practices are in conflict with biblical teaching and principles, we must change. Change can be difficult. As creatures of habit we do not like it; yet we need to explain it to our congregations and embrace it even when doing so is costly. Such decisions may cost us personally, corporately, and financially. We may need to release certain things that we like or to which we have grown accustomed; but we will also gain the blessing of God. God blesses those who honor his Word.

We need to comprehend the pastoral nature of music ministry.

Music is not in competition with pastoral work. It is pastoral work in the sense that it can provide many of the same kinds of spiritual care and leadership that pastoral ministry provides. Music can comfort, encourage, exhort, teach, proclaim the gospel, and reach the spirit. Musical ministry also requires the work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when and where there are parallels, the parameters that one applies to ministerial staff should be applied to church musical staff, and those applied to sermons and prayers should be applied to church music. Pastoral musicians, irrespective of title, should be qualified, trained, spiritual, mature, humble, accountable, and aware of their role. They should be afforded honor, respect, authority, and sufficient, even generous, remuneration. The music presented in worship should be excellent, the best the congregation can offer, spiritual, joyful, thoughtful, intelligible, fitting, God-honoring, theocentric, properly rehearsed, live, instructive, functional, and artistic. Musicians other than the director should be skilled, devoted, prepared, service-oriented, and aware of their roles. What a difference it would make if every person involved—congregation, musicians, pastors—came to think about church music this way.

We should ensure that budgets and practices are informed by these truths.

Music in worship cannot be truly conformed to biblical standards and examples of excellence unless it is actively supported by the church leadership in word and deed and is adequately funded. Church musicians, too, like pastors, need this support in a world where there are no more Levitical cities to care for ministerial staff. Priorities in our churches need to demonstrate our care for people, even when a temporary focus may be placed on programs or buildings. Our practices and priorities need to be informed by our knowledge of what God has revealed to be important—rather than by the status quo, common opinion, or “the way it has always been.” Our evaluation of what is good and appropriate in worship must be conformed to scriptural principle, not to popular taste or acceptance of unsubstantiated practice by assumption. We must ask three questions:

• “Why do we do what we do in the way that we do it?”
• “How should we be doing it according to Scripture?” and
• “What will it take to make it so?”

See Ryan Martin’s review at PastorBookshelf Reviews.

Reprinted from Singing and Making Music by Paul S. Jones, © 2006 by Paul S. Jones. Used by permission of P & R Publishing, Phillipsburg, NJ. All rights reserved.

The purpose of this short book is to provide theological students and ministers with a handy survey of the resources, especially commentaries, that are available in English to facilitate an understanding of the NT. The mature scholar is not in view. On the other hand, commentaries that are written at the popular level are generally given less attention than more substantive works. Theologically I am an evangelical, but many of the positive assessments offered in these notes are in connection with books written from the vantage point of some other theological tradition: the usefulness of a commentary sometimes turns on something other than the theological stance of its author—assuming, of course, that commentaries are read critically, as they should be whatever one’s theological heritage.

Conversely, just because a commentary stands within the evangelical tradition does not necessarily mean it is a good book. It may be thoroughly orthodox but poorly written, uninformed, or quick to import from other biblical passages meanings that cannot rightly be found in the texts on which comment is being offered. In other words, this Survey is a guide to commentaries, not orthodoxy. . . .

The need for several types of commentary

For an effective teaching and preaching ministry, commentaries take their place among other essential tools. But since different tasks often require different tools, useful commentaries are of more than one kind. Those listed in this little book may serve in at least three or four distinct ways, which correspond to the following needs.

The dominant need is to understand meanings accurately. Postmodern sensibilities notwithstanding, the issue at stake is that of sheer faithfulness to the biblical message rather than smuggling one’s own ideas into the interpretation under the cover of the authoritative text. Even so, commentaries in this category can be subdivided further. Some commentaries seek to establish the text and provide basic help in translation, choosing among variant readings and offering elementary help at the level of Greek syntax and semantics. Grammatical and linguistic commentaries help to ensure faithfulness to the meanings of words and phrases in their literary setting. Theological commentaries set words and phrases in the wider context of chapters, books, corpora, and even the canon. Of course, these three sub-categories often overlap—indeed, they should do so, for it can be seriously misleading to try to understand a word or concept in isolation from its linguistic and theological context.

To understand a passage (let alone to expound it forcefully) often requires a faithful and imaginative historical reconstruction of events. Actions and sayings cannot accurately be cashed into today’s currency until the preacher (although not necessarily the congregation) has seen what these presuppose and involve in their original setting in the ancient world. The best response to those who argue that history, archaeology, and other related disciplines are irrelevant to the interpretative enterprise is to give them a copy of, say, Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches (JSOT 1986/Eisenbrauns 1990) and suggest that they revise their theory. Rightly done, this kind of study contributes toward a vivid, colorful, and honest reconstruction for the congregation or classroom. Admittedly, it is disastrous when historical information becomes an end in itself . . . . But even purely historical commentaries can do a useful job if they project readers faithfully into the ancient world.

Unfortunately, not a few commentaries in this camp attempt historical reconstructions that are long on speculation and short on even-handed weighing of evidence. Some of these historical reconstructions have become so powerful that they serve as a grid to authenticate the primary sources: for example, because a consensus has been reached among some scholars about the flow of early church history, the biblical documents are forcefully squeezed into the theory and counterevidence is dismissed as anachronistic or the like. Moreover, these kinds of reconstructions are probably the most difficult theories to evaluate for those not trained in the primary sources.

Nevertheless, these commentaries often include histories of the text (including form- and redaction-critical analyses), plus information of a geographical, historical, cultic, and socio-cultural nature, that cannot easily be found and weighed elsewhere without doing a lot of work in the primary sources.

Some commentaries offer useful guidance on the legitimate range of practical application. If one danger is to read one’s own applications into the passage, books of the sort already mentioned may serve as the remedy. But equally, most students and pastors must be reminded of the many directions in which practical lessons can be found. Expository lecturing is not the same thing as expository preaching; the Word must not only inform but also wound and heal, sing and sting. Some of the older commentaries are exemplary in their concern to apply the Scriptures to later readers. But these hints and helps must be reviewed in the light of strictly exegetical considerations, for practical concerns can so control the text that no one hears the Word of God. Worse, the search for relevance frequently degenerates into the trite or the trivial.

A few commentaries perform all of these functions, but they are rare and usually dated. . . .

Individual commentaries or series?

Series are almost always uneven, and the temptation to collect uniform sets of volumes should be seen for what it sometimes is. Often an author writes an individual volume because he or she has something to say that is worth saying. By contrast, series are often farmed out by publishers to well-known and therefore very busy scholars for whom the invitation is merely part of a day’s work. This does not call into question the value of any particular series; it is certainly not meant to brand all commentaries that belong to a series with the label of mediocrity. But it does mean that volumes in series should ideally be judged only on individual merit.

Taken from pp. 8-10, 15-18 of New Testament Commentary Survey by D. A. Carson. Used by permission of Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group. Visit http://www.BakerPublishingGroup.com

Most people—believers as well as non-Christians—cannot give a credible answer to the question “What is Christianity about?”

How do we account for this state of affairs? Given the life-and-death urgency of Christianity, we stand desperately in need of a reversal of the damning disparity between the eternal importance of the Christian faith and the apprehension of it by its advocates. Christianity is a revelatory religion. This means that God has revealed himself, his ways, and his will most clearly and fully in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Christianity is, therefore, a religion of the book. Thus, if believers do not understand the core issues of the Christian religion, it is because they fail to grasp or appreciate the Bible in some fundamental way.

Why might people have failed to understand or appropriate the message of the Bible? It can be a confusing book. To the casual reader it might appear a perplexing mix of historical stories, legal codes, doctrinal discourses, apocalyptic tales, morality plays, and proverbial sayings. Yet we confess that the Bible is the Word of God. This implies that we expect it to comprise a coherent message within a unified whole. If not, we should not call it the Word of God but perhaps the words of God or an anthology of revelation. . . .

When we look a bit more closely at the Bible, we find that the majority of its content is narrative in character. It is a storied revelation. This fact suggests that the unifying, insight-producing feature that gives the Bible its coherence as revelation is the story it tells. Indeed, the Bible as a whole is best understood as a story or drama. To be sure, the Bible does more than tell a story. Scripture includes psalms and proverbs, songs and prayers, moral instruction and doctrinal reflection. But what holds all of it together, what makes it a unified revelation is the storyline, what theologians often call the drama of redemption. The non-narrative pieces fit into and make sense only within their appropriate contexts in the biblical storyline.

Every good story has at least four fundamental elements. The first element of a story or narrative drama is the prologue, an introduction to the principal characters and their starting relationships. The prologue also sets the stage for the unfolding drama, the context within which the story will transpire. Any good story will also include a conflict that arises and that the characters must face. The conflict forms the dramatic problem of the story. Third, the conflict must be resolved or dealt with in some fashion. And finally, there is a summing up or a conclusion in which the reader or listener is told how the original relationships were modified by the dramatic problem and its resolution.

In its most basic structure, the Bible follows this dramatic pattern. It has an introduction, a dramatic problem that arises, a resolution to the problem, and a summing up or conclusion. We might refer to these four elements within the biblical storyline as creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. The story that the Bible relates has a prologue that sets the context for the entire drama: God’s creation of a wonderful universe. It describes a conflict of cosmic proportions: our first parents’ fall into sin and God’s response to their sin in covenant curse. Yet the biblical story does not end there. In the midst of God’s judgment of sin, the Bible presents the resolution to the fall in God’s mighty acts that judge sin and bring redemption, deeds which culminate in God’s redemptive purpose in Jesus Christ. Finally, the Bible’s story ends with a summing up: God brings his creation and humankind to his promised consummation. . . . The triune God acts covenantally in history: the Father creates, the Son redeems, and the Holy Spirit recreates.

The creation-fall-redemption-consummation storyline is the central theme of Scripture, and it forms the Bible’s overarching literary structure. This storyline, in its given sequence, is fundamental to the drama Scripture relates. Each successive event in the story assumes the entire preceding sequence. Creation is the environment that the fall and redemptive events modify. Fall and redemption are meaningless outside of the context of God’s good creation. From what do we fall? God’s good creational intention. To what standard are we redeemed? God’s intention that his creatures glorify him, an intention given in creation. Creation is the presupposition of the fall story, and creation and fall together are the presupposition of the history of redemption centering in Jesus Christ.

As the story that Christians believe is the one true story that tells us the truth about God, ourselves, and our world, the Bible is a progressive revelation. God’s revelation of his response to sin and its effects upon humankind and the world takes place not in an instant but rather over centuries, through a series of redemptive historical acts. These special events in the biblical story are often characterized by covenant making or are otherwise typified as covenantal in character.

But what does history have to do with the covenant? And what is a covenant? While no single definition of covenant can do it justice, a covenant is nothing less than a historical relationship between persons. To say that a personal relationship is historical is to state the obvious, but it is this very reality that is so often overlooked when we talk about God’s ways and relationships. God works in history, which is to say that he works covenantally. God enters into relationship with his people, which is to say that he calls them into covenant.

God’s promises to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David find their culmination and definitive fulfillment in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:20). He is both the goal and the key to “the covenants of promise” (Eph. 2:12), for the entire biblical story pivots upon Jesus of Nazareth. Thus we will begin our discussion with Christ. Indeed we begin with the resurrection. While it might seem odd at first that our telling of the story begins at Easter morning, the empty tomb is the most fitting time and place to embark upon the drama of redemption and the covenantal purpose of God that undergirds it. All that comes before Christ’s victory in rising from the dead looks forward to it, and all that comes after the resurrection in the biblical story is an explication of it.

The theme that undergirds the first two chapters is that the Christian religion and its gospel are about God’s acts in our world on our behalf. . . .

Biblical religion holds that the central event in all human history was the execution of a wandering first-century Palestinian preacher and his rising from the dead two days later in fulfillment of God’s covenant promises. This is the gospel. To return to Lewis’s and Hooper’s question: What is the real issue of Christianity? We must answer that the biblical story is the message of the God who “so loved the world” as to enter into it, and ultimately to die for it. What was promised to Adam and Eve in the midst of their guilt and shame, what was prefigured over and over again throughout the Old Testament story of Israel (another story often characterized by guilt and shame) came to pass in a Judean backwater town when God “became flesh and made his dwelling with us.” . . .

All of this suggests that the Christian religion is not an ethereal or eternal doctrine about the nature of deity or a polite philosophical discussion about the relation of spirit to matter but the historical unfolding of God’s covenantal involvement in the world, the acme of which is God’s coming into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. It is unfortunate that when many believers think of revelation or doctrine, what comes to mind all too often is a somewhat sterile collection of eternal ideas and notions about a transcendent and unchanging realm of pure thought, a realm that is safely removed from this world and its vicissitudes, alterations, and complexities.

The saving events to which Scripture testifies, however, take place within our world. It is the history of this world—not some metaphysically timeless heaven—that is the sphere of God’s redemptive plan. It is in history that he triumphs over humanity’s sin through Christ and reconciles the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). It is in history that God acts to bring man to himself. To be sure, God is transcendent; he stands supremely above our world in immutable majesty. But the biblical story is that God is neither locked up in heaven nor remains there. He is ever the coming one, condescending to his creatures in order to forge relationship, judge sin, redeem his people, shower them with the benefits of Christ, and ultimately to bring them and his creation to the consummation of recreation. And God’s way in all this, his way in the historical drama, is the way of covenant. . . .

To tell it we must first hear it ourselves. And to tell it as it is—a dynamic historical drama of God’s creative and redemptive actions within our world—we must hear the unfolding story of the covenant.

Our goal is to tell the biblical story through the episodic unfolding of God’s covenant way in history. The first two chapters will concentrate on the two premier redemptive events in Scripture: the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the New Testament and God’s deliverance of Israel out of Egypt in the Old. These two chapters of the redemptive drama were—and are—fundamental moments in God’s revelation of his true character, his historical purpose, and the destiny of his covenant people. We will then follow the covenant storyline of Scripture from creation to new creation by examining each of the biblical episodes in the developing drama. This will constitute the greater part of our study. Finally, we will examine the question of Christ’s relationship to each of the covenant episodes, and briefly reflect upon the post-biblical epoch in covenantal perspective by asking what significance the covenant has for those who live the contest of faith in what Lewis called “the cosmic spring” of the resurrection.

Reprinted from Far As the Curse Is Found by Michael D. Williams, © 2005 by Michael D. Williams. Used by permission of P & R Publishing, Phillipsburg, NJ. All rights reserved.

Contemporary! Traditional! Divisive words—particularly when referring to methods of worship. Some churches commit themselves to one particular style while others divide themselves into distinct congregations with separate services to accommodate a mismatched membership with dissimilar preferences regarding music or dress. For some reason music always seems to be at the heart of the issue. Should the congregation find the words to hymns in hardback hymnals or the words to choruses projected on a screen? Should soloists sing to recorded music with microphone in hand or to organ accompaniment with arms passively at the side? Should the congregation applaud or whisper “amen” when blessed? Should drums and guitars be allowed in church? Should music styles reflect changing cultural models, or are some melodies and rhythms inherently inappropriate for worship? These are tough questions with answers that almost always fail to convince or change the other side.

Advocates of contemporary methods charge traditionalists with dead formalism, and traditionalists accuse those who use modem methods with appealing to the flesh. Unhappily, the whole controversy about worship style has degenerated into arguments based on personal preference. Far too frequently, advocates on both sides, while giving verbal testimony to their concern for God’s glory, defend their positions with man-centered reasoning. Although proponents of neither position would admit it, what pleases the people often takes precedence over any consideration of what pleases the Lord. Worship as entertainment prevails over worship as service rendered to God.

The music controversy, however, is just a surface symptom of a far greater malady. That the modem church has lost “the art of worship” is a common lament. Whether or not it is proper to designate worship as an “art,” it is the tragic truth that worship practices in many of today’s evangelical, orthodox, and fundamentally conservative churches have departed from the precepts and patterns of worship set down in the Scripture. Some even question whether or not the Bible provides a mandatory guide for how to worship.

This question is not new to the church. Whether the church, tradition, or Scripture owns the right to direct methods of worship has been a matter of disputation for centuries. Theologians have debated the issue in terms of the regulative and normative principles. Simply defined, the regulative principle allows only such practices of worship as the Scripture sanctions, whereas the normative principle allows any practice that the Scripture does not expressly forbid. Extreme applications of both principles exist. Some who rigidly adhere to the letter of the law use the regulative principle to prohibit any expression of worship that is not on the inked surface of Scripture. On this basis, for instance, special services commemorating Christ’s incarnation at Christmas or His resurrection at Easter would violate what the Bible prescribes and thus would be inappropriate. On the other hand, following the normative principle can lead to the extremes of rigid liturgical ritual established by years of tradition, or seeker-sensitive services flexibly designed to eliminate religious shock by infusing cultural norms into a bit of gospel.

Given the intensity of this worship controversy that is increasingly dividing professedly Bible-believing churches into distinctive camps, I have felt inclined to make my contribution to the concern. I am neither so naïve nor so arrogant to assume that what I offer here will answer all the questions definitively or satisfy those who may disagree with my conclusions. I am neither a church historian nor a musician, so I will not presume to venture into those areas of my incompetence, although they are ultimately relevant to the issue. I am thoroughly convinced, however, that the Bible does establish clear guidelines for both what we are to believe (issues of faith) and what we are to practice (issues of obedience) and that this direction includes matters of worship. . . .

If there is any overriding biblical truth that must circumscribe every worship practice, it is that worship is all about God and not about us. The inspired Preacher issues an imperative for worship that sums up our duty and should protect us from unduly elevating self and personal preference.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2)

God is in heaven, and we are on earth. But amazingly while we are on the earth, the Lord invites us into His presence. Being in the presence of God is a privilege that ought to overwhelm us and create within us a sense of caution and reverent submission. “Keeping the foot” simply means to guard the steps, to be careful about conduct, to exercise personal restraint. As Moses removed his shoes before the burning bush and Joshua his before the Captain of the Lord’s host, so must every worshipper recognize that the place of worship is a holy place. As we become increasingly conscious that biblical worship brings us into the holy presence of God, we must become increasingly cautious that we do nothing to offend that holy presence.

How we act in God’s presence is important. David’s initial encounter with the Ark of the Covenant—the visible token of God’s presence—remains a vivid lesson of this sobering fact (2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13). David, the man after God’s own heart, planned to retrieve the Ark from Kirjath-jearim, where it had been exiled for over fifty years, and to restore it to its deserved place of preeminence. Notwithstanding his concern for God’s honor and glory, his fervent zeal succumbed to carelessness with tragic consequence. Although his desire was good and his motive was pure, his disregard of God’s order displeased the Lord he thought he was honoring. It is not sufficient to claim a worthy purpose and proper spirit without conforming as well to the clear mandates of God’s word. Many Christians desire the right things, but are lax in the modes used to achieve those desires. Methods of worship and service do indeed matter: Uzzah’s corpse testifies to that.

Happily, David learned the lesson, and his second attempt to exalt the Lord’s presence was “according to the word of the Lord” (1 Chronicles 15:15). The results were wonderfully different. My guess is that the lesson David learned early in his reign contributed at least in part to his becoming the sweet psalmist, whose inspired songs set the standard and provided so many patterns for proper worship. Significantly, one of the most sublime imperatives to worship that he issued links the logic and manner of worship: “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 29:2). The logic of worship is simply that God deserves it. Attention belongs to all His infinite assets; His infinite worth is the mandate for worship. Bowing down before the Lord in the beauty of holiness is the manner in which worship must occur. The expression the beauty of holiness is certainly suggestive. Although its exact meaning can be debated, the sense differs little whether the word beauty is an abstract concept or a concrete thing. Whether we are to worship with holy splendor or to worship dressed in the holy attire befitting priests, it is obvious that behavior and appearance in the place of worship is to be holy, distinct from the normal and mundane. At the very least, bringing the world into the holy place defies what worship is all about. To recognize the Lord’s infinitely august person, His infinitely attractive perfections, and His infinitely awesome works demands that the finite creature bow submissively. Acceptable worship flows from the true knowledge of God and follows His revealed will. Worship is holy service rendered to the Lord, not an occasion adapted to the likes and dislikes of would-be worshippers.

Not only must outward practices of worship follow the instruction of Scripture, but so must the attitude of the worshipper conform to God’s demands. The Lord Jesus Himself highlighted this mandate when He unveiled the formula for worship during His encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). . . . The Scripture makes it abundantly clear that worship must be both spiritual and according to truth, but Christ is teaching here that worship’s sum and substance is internal, not external. . . . In other words, biblical worship is directed to God with a sincere heart. Both elements are essential. Insincere worship directed to God is unacceptable. Sincere worship directed to any other than God is unacceptable. The “beauty of holiness” factor, however, means that even sincere worship directed to God in the wrong way is unacceptable.

In every way, worship is a serious matter. My concern, therefore, in this day of worship debate and perversion, is that we let the Bible be our guide. In this book I want simply to examine some of the Scripture’s guidelines concerning the object, the manner, and the heart of worship. A biblical theology of worship is foundational to any formulation of worship practice. Too much of the debate concerning worship focuses on application issues without paying due attention to the central and essential truths from which the practices must flow. Rushing to relevancy and practical application without careful exposition and understanding of doctrine is the unhappy tendency of too many evangelicals and fundamentalists today. Perhaps the reason there is such variance in the application of worship principles among Bible-believing churches is the failure to start from the clear precepts of Scripture. There is little hope of worshipping in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord if we do not start with the Bible and stress what it stresses. Although I cannot begin to make all the necessary applications or to critique particular music styles or liturgies, I can highlight what the Bible accents. My desire is that we simply let the Bible guide us and not be afraid to obey it. We must not shy away from what it says regardless of how out of sync with culture it seems to be. God’s Word, not culture—whether modern or medieval—defines the way of worship.

It is my prayer that the Holy Spirit will help us to see how big our God is and how small we are and to worship Him accordingly.

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Taken from pp. 1-7 of The Beauty of Holiness by Michael P. V. Barrett, © 2006 by Michael P. V. Barrett. Used by permission of Ambassador Emerald International, Greenville, SC 29609. All rights reserved.