Gospel centrality

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Bill Nye wants to sacrifice children for his Earth Goddess...

It's long been evident to me, at least, that greens and Scientism's Calamity Janes will get government to take reproduction in-house, granting some the right to bear children and forbidding others. At first parents like my own who had bad genes that passed on cystic fibrosis and hemophilia will be told "no." Dad wrote the novel Winterflight with this premise as its plot. The book was published back in the late seventies and if you haven't read it, you should.

In time, the justification won't be the cost of healthcare and eugenics, but a one or two-child policy similar to the one China is trying to leave behind. Our policy will only differ from China in that we won't be able to justify it by saying there's not enough food. There always will be...


Learn to share the gospel like Jesus...

The weight of the law is crushing. And Jesus used that weight all the time. (Image credit: peasap)This guy comes up to Jesus and asks him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus' initial response is sort of a shock: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." He does not say this as though to contrast Himself with God, but rather to make a point about man vs God, generally. Nobody is good. Only God is good. This is a huge hint to help us understand where Jesus is going with the next part of his answer: "You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’"

Now let's be honest. This isn't anything like the answer you were expecting, is it? This guy just wants to know how to be saved. In our thinking Jesus is supposed to share the Gospel now. This man is open to instruction now in a way he might never be again. His question was like a giant lob in slow-pitch softball, just waiting for Jesus to connect with "the Gospel bat." All Jesus needed to do to make us happy was tell him to "believe" or maybe "repent and believe." Instead, Jesus whips out a can of law, and starts laying it on thick. Murder. Adultery. Theft. Lying.

If somebody did that today, we'd tell them it was a terrible waste of an excellent opportunity to share the Gospel. But we don't really feel free to do that with Jesus. So what do we make of this, and how do we apply it as we seek to learn from Jesus and become more like Him? Before we can answer that, we should probably read the rest of the story.

The man responds to Jesus with, "Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up." Then it says, "Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him..." (Here we all breathe a sigh of relief. Aha! Here comes the good news, right?) "...and said to him, 'One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.'"

Did you catch that? Jesus felt love for him. So He... gave him more law. Ugh. Jesus just doesn't seem to have the same "gospel centered” message we have, does He? But wait. It gets worse. The story continues: "at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property."

Here was a man who wanted to know how to be saved. He asked Jesus how to be saved. Jesus' answer was, "keep the law." When the guy says he's been keeping it, Jesus shows him where he hasn’t been, and how to change it. Jesus discourages the man so much with all the talk of the law that the man walks away sad.

There are a few choices for how to understand this:


Tullian's therapeutic grace...

Saw this piece from Tullian Tchividjian applauded by another R2K advocate. In the article, Tullian sets out to rescue the world from the church. You see, the church has broken the spirit of wordlings and that's why people are abandoning churches and faith in God, altogether.

On the surface, he says some things that are true. In the end, however, the Gospel is, ironically, reduced to little more than a coping mechanism for an overarching sense of failure. This is Tullian's approach to the law: he does not preach it. He assumes...


The heart of our opposition to R2K...

Here on Baylyblog, David and I are pastors first, second, and last. Thus it is our purpose to call men and women who are former gays or lesbians, fornicators and adulterers, those unbiblically divorced alongside gossips and materialists growing old with their first wife to be witnesses to their neighbors and thus to fulfill the law of love.

Sincere Christians willing to obey their Lord in this matter of loving their neighbor by being salt and light ought not to be ridiculed and shamed into silence by professional intellectuals claiming the Name of Christ. We aim to protect them from this abuse. By exposing the Biblical and spiritual—not to mention theological, legal, and historical—errors of R2K, it's our purpose to create a safe space for faithful men and women of God to witness to their Lord without fear of...


Theological critique of Escondido Two Kingdoms Theology (II): Sodomy now, incest later...

(NOTE: This post is part of a series showing the errors of so-called Two-Kingdom Theology. We refer to it as "so-called" Two-Kingdom Theology because what the church historically has meant by "Two-Kingdoms" bears little resemblance to what Escondido Theology men mean when they write it today. Thus sometimes we write "Two-Kingdom Theology," but more often we write "Radical Two Kingdom," "Rigid Two Kingdom," or "R2K.")

So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people. But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison. - Luke 3:18-20

Where are the men of God preaching the Gospel today by reprimanding our civil magistrates for their incest and sodomy and adultery—as well as "all the other wicked things they have done?"

Among the brave and Reformed, we read this account of Godly John and learned our lesson, so we invented R2K to justify the betrayal of our calling. Right now it doesn't seem so very bad since it's just gayness being condoned and gayness has become mainstream, but what other sins will we find ourselves supporting out in the naked public square a few years from now?

Far afield from Scripture and historical Reformed theology, the R2K (Radical Two-Kingdom) movement is a modern novelty perfectly suited to our decadent age. This is the reason R2K men are currently arguing for the repeal of sodomy laws and the passage of sodomite marriage rites instead of arguing for the repeal of laws against incest and bestiality. The mainstreaming of the sodomite perversion is all around us right now whereas the mainstreaming of bestiality and incest are still down the road a piece. Take any R2K argument for the legality of sodomy and sodomite marriage, replacing the sin of sodomy with the sin of "bestiality" or "incest," and clarity of thought will return.

Thus R2K men arguing for sodomy rights and rites are demonstrating now where they'll be in twenty years. Whatever form of wickedness liberals are working to normalize right now is the wickedness R2K men will argue for right now. They just go with the flow. Having argued that Christian conscience and charity should be entirely private with respect to sodomy, they'll port their arguments to the normalization of whatever sexual perversion...


Looking for a church in Toledo, Bloomington, or Indianapolis?

Looking for a church home in Toledo, Bloomington, or Indianapolis? We'll put up a post about Christ the Word soon, but much of what is said here about Clearnote Church Indianapolis and Clearnote Church, Bloomington is characteristic of Christ the Word, Toledo, also.

CNBHomePageIt's hard to move and have to find a new church home. All of us have done it and those of us a part of Clearnote Fellowship want to make your work a little easier by telling you why we love our Clearnote churches in Bloomington and Indianapolis. So read on and spend a little time learning about the work God is doing within Clearnote Fellowship.

First, a few words about our doctrine and denominational roots. If this stuff isn't your brand of coffee, click through and start reading about our ministries.

ClearnoteFellowshipDoctrinal and denominational roots...

The roots of Clearnote Fellowship are deep into the Presbyterian Church in America: I've served as a teaching elder of the PCA in Wisconsin and Indiana for almost twenty years; six of Clearnote Church, Bloomington's elders have been members of PCA churches; son Joseph Bayly who pastors Clearnote Church, Indianapolis was a part of the PCA's campus ministry (RUF) and attended a PCA congregation while studying at Vanderbilt; we have referred many families moving away from Clearnote Church, Bloomington to PCA congregations across the country; and several sons of our church now serve as PCA pastors.

This to say the people of Clearnote Fellowship have decades of experience as members and officers of the PCA, so those of you moving and looking for a PCA church in Bloomington or a PCA church in Indianapolis will find the congregations of Clearnote Fellowship to be spiritual homes where you and your children will thrive. Come and visit our Bloomington or Indianapolis congregations...


Your mission giving should be reformed to support work like this...

We're hoping later to make available to you a movie documenting Doug Wilson's Gospel witness a week ago on the campus of Indiana University. Meanwhile, watch the very short video above. This video provides a clue why campus ministries have become gnostic societies sharing secret knowledge for their trusted initiates only.

God's Word, His authority, His Moral Law, His Judgment, His Hell are met with hatred and mob fury on secular campuses today. They've been publicly abandoned by campus parachurch workers making a living off church support, because not to abandon them is to run the sort of gauntlet you see Doug and Clearnote Campus Fellowship running in this video clip.

Knowing a bad thing when they see one, parachurch ministries have run for their lives. Few of them have any grid to understand the Holy Spirit's use of conflict and martyrdom as Gospel-centered, missional tools, so any hint of conflict or rebellion teaches them what never to do again. Thus no teaching on God's authority. No proclamation of fathers' authority. No declaration of Church authority. No discipline of members. No teaching on the Created Order  and the nature of manhood and womanhood. No warning and condemnation of sodomy. No warning against baby-slaughter (abortion). No mention of submission or repentance.

Just "the pure Gospel," which means the Gospel eviscerated of repentance...


Gentleman farmers and preaching...

This is funny. I've know a couple gentleman farmers who are a little better at it than P. J. O'Rourke.

The boarding stable where P. J.'s daughter's pony now lives does, in fact, have someone who deals with the (stuff) his daughter preferred to avoid. For several years in junior high school I worked cleaning a boarding stable's stalls. Here's a proverb I love:

Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue comes by the strength of the ox. (Proverbs 14:4)

Faithful ministry always gets us dirty. It's unavoidable. Anyone contending for God's Truth should first roll up his pants legs and shirt sleeves...


'Sodomite' is the most accurate, loving word (part II); or, what does Jay Leno remember that everyone else has forgotten?...

SodomMountainIn response to the post "Sodomite is the most accurate, loving word (part I)," one reader objects, declaring:

"The use of 'sodomy' "provide(s) an unnecessary offense to the gospel."

To which I respond: I'm grateful we agree 'sodomy' is an offensive word, but why is it offensive and is the offense bad or good?

For two thousands years Christians have used words with 'Sodom' as their root to refer to men copulating with men. And this use has always been offensive because those reading or listening understand that it's an explicit reference to what happened at Sodom--namely God destroying them by his fire from Heaven. Make no mistake about it. That's the center of the issue and it's why I asked in my original post whether we are ashamed of God's judgment of the Sodomites? Whether we are willing for that judgment to live on in our language as an example, warning those souls tempted by this sin? If this association is not "Gospel," what is it? What exactly do I need to hear when my heart is unbelieving and I am having sex with other men?


'Sodomite' is the most accurate, loving word (part I)...

Brimstone calls to mind the foul odors of the flesh, as Sacred Scripture itself confirms when it speaks of the rain of fire and brimstone poured by the Lord upon Sodom. He had decided to punish in it the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment emphasized the shame of that crime, since brimstone exhales stench and fire burns. It was, therefore, just that the sodomites, burning with perverse desires that originated from the foul odor of flesh, should perish at the same time by fire and brimstone so that through this just chastisement they might realize the evil perpetrated under the impulse of a perverse desire.

                                                                 - Gregory the Great

A seminary professor who's been a lifelong friend wrote taking issue with my use of the word 'sodomy' to refer to same-sex carnal knowledge:

I find your use of the word 'sodomites' a bit inaccurate, because the sin of Sodom was not solely homosexuality, but also (maybe primarily) lack of concern for the poor.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. (Ezekiel 16:49-50)

 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 7)

I hear this objection frequently. One close friend told me several months ago that he thought my use of 'sodomy' and 'sodomites' made me look to our readers like I was a member of the lunatic fringe...


Christian courage...

Northview Opinions PageAs the Obama administration works to advance the wickedness of homosexuality around the world, the gay battle against God and His Word progresses at home. 

Into this battle this week stepped a thoughtful and talented young woman who attends Christ the Word's youth group. Asked to provide her thoughts on homosexuality for a views page in her high school newspaper she wrote:

"Hearing about an individual choosing the way of homosexuality is disappointing. They have given in to the temptation to sin. Am I afraid of the person because of this choice? No. Do I hate the person because they have chosen to give in to a sin? Of course not. Christians are called to love others, even our enemies. I would not love a person any less for the reason of a sin they are committing. Fact is, we all sin and have struggles of our own, whether they are big or tiny, and it makes no difference to God. What makes the difference is overcoming the sin.


Amazon and pastoral care...

There are two views of the pastoral ministry that are diametrically opposed to each other and locked in conflict. The competing views, though, aren't spoken of or written about, and the conflict passes without public notice. Jeff Bezos highlights the conflict in this explanation he gave of Amazon's view of customer relations:

Interviewer: Two years ago, you bought Zappos. Was that an attempt to absorb their so-called culture of happiness and customer service?

Bezos: No, no, no. We like their unique culture, but we don't want that culture at Amazon. We like our culture, too. Our version of a perfect customer experience is one in which our customer doesn't want to talk to us. Every time a customer contacts us, we see it as a defect. I've been saying for many, many years, people should talk to their friends, not their merchants. And so we use all of our customer service information to find the root cause of any customer contact. What went wrong? Why did that person have to call? ...How can we fix it?

That, good reader, is the view of pastoral ministry prevailing in our Reformed churches today. I say this from long and close observation. Most Reformed men run from intimacy...


Salt losing its savor...

This is Dad's column from the June 1963 issue of Eternity magazine. Dad chose the title when the column was first published.

Men have long been claiming to hold to Gospel-centrality while running in terror from any declaration of God's holiness and authority. But now, instead of procaliming God's moral absolutes, Inter-Varsity staff workers here on the campus of Indiana University promote homosexual perversion. (TB)

* * *

This year, speaking to college students (as an Inter-Varsity staff member)—especially in dormitory and fraternity discussions—I’ve been asked once question again and again. It almost always takes this form: “Why is premarital intercourse wrong?”

Often there are explanatory or qualifying clauses: “—with the girl you’re going to marry some day;” “—when it seems to work out well in parts of Europe where it’s pretty commonly accepted;” “—if neither of you sees anything wrong with it;” “—since he may be shipped overseas any minute;” “—when it seems, like the psych professor says, to be merely a normal response to a human appetite.”

Those clauses reveal the more basic question, one that is foundational to the Christian religion: Are there such things as moral absolutes, or is everything relative, subject to the conditions of time and place and opinion? The latter view, probably held (consciously or unconsciously) by a majority on today’s academic scene, was expressed by the scientist Sir Julian Huxley in a recent issue of Nature...


"For the wrath of man shall praise you..."

Here's the manuscript for the sermon I preached the Lord's Day following 9/11 ten years ago, and then again yesterday on its tenth anniversary. I should add that the manuscript usually serves only as my loose outline for the preaching of God's Word.


Two questions vs. ten cannons vs. what... (part 1 of 2)

(This is part one of two; here's the second post.)

Anyone who is familiar with Evangelism Explosion's two diagnostic questions...

  1. Have you reached the point in your spiritual life where you know for certain that if you were to die tonight you would go to heaven?
  2. If you were to die tonight and God were to ask you, "Why should I let you into heaven," how would you answer?

...knows how very effective they can be at revealing a hope of salvation based in good works rather than faith in Jesus.

When D. James Kennedy began Evangelism Explosion in 1962, America's primary Christian influences were mainline Protestantism (whose denominations had reached their numerical peak in the 1950s) and Roman Catholicism. Despite deep sociological differences, these two branches of Christianity were united in teaching a salvation by works: the social gospel in mainline churches; the infused righteousness of Roman Catholicism.

Dr. Kennedy's "Two Questions" provided a powerful tool for addressing the error of both camps.

But Evangelism Explosion (EE) entered the scene at a tipping point in American religious history. For a hundred years America's primary Christian heresy had been the works-based salvation (semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism) of mainline Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.


Perspectivalism and the sectarian political advocacy of R2K ecclesiastics...

It's glorious how God leads intellectuals to shout their blindness. Things the simplest plowboy sees clearly are obscured by the intellectual's highly nuanced mists and vapors, so the plowboy is left to his centuries-old occupation of making fun of them. He's not anti-intellectual--he's anti-intellectuals.

Plowboys aren't envious of the intellectual's degrees or salary or light teaching load or clean soft hands and time alone with books. And it's certainly not that the plowboy is careless with reason, logic, history, and right and wrong. He's as careful with his tax forms as any making-of-books man, and much more sophisticated.

No, it's not that the plowboy is stupid and thinks stupid is good. Rather, it's that he's got his feet planted squarely on the ground while the intellectual is up in the mists and vapors forgetting that he's made of dust and to dust he will return. The intellectual speaks from on high while the plowboy speaks from soil and manure. The Christian sizing both up may be able to grasp that the plowboy's perspective makes all the difference for his grasp of truth and his growth in righteousness.

Applications of these fundamental truths are everywhere.

R2K intellectuals are a special interest group hounding the nation's citizenry about their pet policy issue. They're a PAC whose primary work is not on K Street and in the halls of congress, but out across the land. They publish and yell and chivy and curdle and yap at and hector and dog their fellow citizens with their political dogma, and they do it in the Name of God citing His Word and Church as their authorities...


These ones were born in Zion...

It's time to do the numbers. Lucas and Heather and Tenile report there are twenty-four children under a year and sixty who are five and under at ClearNote Church of Bloomington. Including the fifteen or so mothers carrying unborn Covenant children, that brings us to about seventy-five children five and under. How God has blessed us!

Cutting the grass today, I was listening to the Psalms and heard this:

The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everything says, “Glory!”  - Psalms 29:9

If you think it's weird to talk about children and births, read the Old Testament. I dare you.


An exchange over at a blog hosted by First Things...

There's been an exchange concerning Cru/Campus Crusade for Christ International and parachurch organizations over at a blog hosted by First Things. Here's my latest comment. Really, someone should write a book...


Sin, temptation, and the Campuscrusadification of the Church...

When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?”

And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:25-26).

Again, here's a response to a question asked by "Jay" under the post, "Must a gay man go straight?" I thought it best to put the response here on the main page as a post.

Jay asked: "I do know other men and women who struggle with homosexual temptation, who not only reject copulation but also gay identity and culture, but who do not have any heterosexual desires. Are they saved?"

Sorry for the lack of response. The post took all my time for the blog yesterday so I'm playing catch-up.

First, I'm doubtful these men and women you know who struggle with homosexual temptation actually reject gay identity and culture as clearly and with the finality you indicate. If we live in a culture that hates sexuality as God made it; if we pursue androgyny in the pulpit in the way we preach (see the category of Baylyblog titled "gelded discourse"), in our appearance--hair length and style, for instance; if our  men are physically vain (whether macho buff or femmie bling and piercings or a sweet combination of both); it's likely no Christian tempted by homosexuality has really turned away from androgyny to Biblical manhood and womanhood. Made an effort, sure, but today within the Church there are precious few heterosexuals who pursue Biblical manhood or womanhood.

So being "straight" in our sexuality as the Bible presents manhood and womanhood is exceedingly rare, today. Men are narcissists and refuse to man up, taking responsibility for themselves or others...


The salvage yard church...

Salvage-yard-church ClearNote Church has gotten by without a sign ever since we moved into our new church-house. Why?

Don't ask. But if we were ever to get a sign, I'd like to copy this one. It's about as comissional as can be.

And here at ClearNote Church of Bloomington, it has the added benefit of accurately describing the origin of many cars in our parking lot...