Justin Buzzard has published, at his blog, the foundational documents of the Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition is the outgrowth of work headed up by Dr. D. A. Carson and Dr. Tim Keller along with a host of other pastors which is aimed at defining and encouraging Bible centered doctrine and ministry across the Reformed spectrum. You’ll be hearing more about it from their website in the very near future.

I’m in the process of reading the foundational documents and am finding them very interesting. I have a thing for confessions and philosophies of ministry. If you get a chance, you should take a gander at them along with me. Hopefully I can post more fully on them in the future.

Update: Steve McCoy has posted the finalized version of the Gospel Coalition Foundation Documents.

I’ve been following with some interest Carl Trueman’s recent push to get more people reading and appreciating the early church fathers.  You can find his Ref21 posts on patristics here, here, and here.  You can also read an  interview with Trueman in three parts (part 1, part 2, part 3).  These posts resonated with something I had heard Dr. Peter Jones talk about at the Twin Lakes Fellowship.  He was advocating the view that our current culture is very much like the culture that surrounded the birth of the church in the New Testament.  With Trueman and Jones carrying on a convesation in my head, I decided to relieve some cognitive dissonance and pick up volume one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers set.

I read the first two letters in the book.  The first was The First Letter of Clement and the second was The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus.  What did I discover?  Well, of course, that Trueman and Jones were both very correct.  The letters were incredibly encouraging and helpful for modern ministry.

The Fist Letter of Clement was a letter from Clement to the church at Corinth.  Clement probably knew Paul.  He rose to leadership in the church before the first century.  As a part of his shepherding of the churches he wrote a letter to the church at Corinth.  What was this letter about?  It was an encouragement to handle disagreement in the church.  He confronts conflict within the body of Christ with a sweeping discussion of basic theology ranging from creation to redemption.  Listen to Clement speaking about the redemption we have in Christ:

Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God, which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world.  Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted unto Him.

What wisdom is here!  What does a church in conflict need to hear?  They need to hear about the blood of Jesus calling all to repentance.

The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus was written by an early disciple to a man named Diognetus.  It serves as a proto-apologetic for the Christian faith.  The author compares the emptiness of Paganism and Judaism to the fullness found in Jesus Christ.  Much like Clement, the author of this letter grounds his apologetic in the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal.  For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness?  By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God?  O sweet exchange!  O unsearchable operation!  O benefits surpassing all expectation!  That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!

I don’t plan to end my reading of the early church fathers here.  But what I have sound far has been encouraging and surprising.  Our problems are the same.  How do we handle conflict within the church?  How do we preach Jesus to the lost world?  And so our solution is the same as well.  Proclaim a crucified, risen Savior who alone is able to purge from sin, bring about repentance, and build his church.

We conclude chapter four of the Confession this week with the following section:

WCF 4.2 After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female,(1) with reasonable and immortal souls,(2) endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image,(3) having the law of God written in their hearts,(4) and power to fulfill it;(5) and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change.(6) Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil;(7) which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.(

(1) Gen. 1:27.
(2) Gen. 2:7; Eccl. 12:7; Luke 23:43; Matt. 10:28.
(3) Gen. 1:26; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24.
(4) Rom. 2:14,15.
(5) Eccl. 7:29.
(6) Gen. 3:6; Eccl. 7:29.
(7) Gen. 2:17; Gen. 3:8,9,10,11,23.
( Gen. 1:26,28.

Following Gerstner, Kelly, and Rollison in their commentary on the Confession, I’ll note the eight truths in this section concerning the creation of man.

1. Man was made male and female. This simple truth cuts through many of the modern debates concerning evolution, homosexuality, and family structure. God’s original design for man was for male and female to exist in covenant relationship, living their lives cooperatively in service to their Creator.
2. Man was made rationale. He is able to reason logically. This God given capacity is God’s means of communicating to man through God’s word and creation. Man can understand, words, sentences, and concepts. He is able to think about God and make decision accordingly. He is able to study creation and know the glory of God in it.
3. Man was made with an immortal soul. Our souls will never die. They will live on past our time on this earth in either eternal bliss or eternal punishment. We must remind ourselves that words like immortality and infinity are words we use to describe things that are beyond our understanding. Who can grasp infinity? Who can grasp our never ending identity as individuals? It is in light of this truth of the immortality of our souls that makes heaven so wonderful and hell so terrifying. We will either live with God forever or without God forever.
4. Man was made with knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. This is the image of God in man, the imago-dei. Man is intellectual, moral, and spiritual. What is interesting to note in this doctrine is that these three characteristics are drawn from parallel verses in Colossians and Ephesians concerning the Christians renewal into the likeness of Christ. How should we understand man as he was created? We should, at least in part, understand our original purpose in creation by considering the image of Christ into which we are being crafted by the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification.
5. Man was able to obey or not obey. Following Boston and his Four Fold State, this would be an ability that man lost after the fall, only to be renewed in redemption.
6. Man was given liberty to act according to his will. Adam and Eve could choose to do that which they wanted to do without hindrance. Pre-Fall Adam would have no concept of Romans 7:15.
7. Man was made under the law. As this section states, this law was internal and external. It was written on the heart (Romans 2:15) and was given verbally concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
8. Man was made happy. More specifically, man was happy in communion with God. What blessed estate did Adam and Eve enjoy in the garden with God before sin entered the world! They were perfectly happy and satisfied in their communion with the almighty Creator.

These eight facts are a prelude to the next two chapter dealing with God’s providence and with the Fall. Until then, take this coming week to consider the glory of God’s creation and the crowning of it with the creation of man. For just a little while, push back the dread and gloom of the impending Fall and look upon a creation that was not just good, but very good. Look upon a man and woman who were perfectly free to enjoy God to the utmost.

I’ve been reading a good many commentaries on the book of Amos over the past few weeks.  My two main desires as I’ve approached preaching through Amos have been:

1. Be textual.  I want my congregation to really interact with the text.
2. Be Christ centered.  I didn’t just want to preach a good Jewish sermon.  I want the incredibly rich redemptive historical themes of Amos to shine through, pointing to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the textual study, I have found this commentary to be most helpful.  He approaches the text with depth and is incredibly helpful in showing how Amos, in his prophecy, is pooling an enormous amount of Old Testament history.

For the Christ-centered angle, I have found nothing as good as this commentary.  It doesn’t read like a normal, verse-by-verse commentary.  Instead it presents each chapter as an exposition of the entire pericope being considered.  It makes it very easy to grasp major themes highlighted throughout Amos.  And all of those themes are presented as an unfolding of redemptive history leading up to the appearing of Christ.

I highly recommend both for any study of Amos.

Tim Challies has written and excellent series of posts on the history, pitfalls, and usefulness of blogging. Tim is considered by most, though probably not by himself, as one of the premier Christian bloggers around. Whether you’re new to this blogging thing or if it is old hat to you, Tim’s articles are a great read.

1. Blogging - My Story
2. Blogging - History and Societal Trends
3. Blogging - State of the Blogosphere
4. Blogging - Wrapping It Up

On a personal note, I got to meet and chat a good bit with Tim at the Twin Lakes Fellowship. He is a humble guy who sincerely sees his blogging as a God given ministry. I happen to agree with him.

It’s been a while since I focused a post in on a great online resource. Today I wanted to briefly highlight The Cyber Hymnal. It is a website that specializes in all things concerning hymnody. Here are just a few things you can do there:

• Find the lyrics to your favorite hymns
• Find an audio file of your favorite hymn tune
• Find historical information on hymns, tunes, hymn writers, and tune writers
• In addition to this there are pictures, trivia, Scripture cross references, bibliographies, etc

You may be wondering who runs this site. The site owner(s) have chosen to keep that information private, saying,

This is a pri­vate Web site, do­ing our best to ad­vance God’s king­dom, us­ing the tools He gives us. We be­long to the same de­nom­in­a­tion as Je­sus: “Christ­ian.”

In general, I consider intentional internet anonymity a red flag. However, I’ve used The Cyber Hymnal for years and have not found any objectionable material or ulterior motives.

How do I use The Cyber Hymnal? Let me give you two anecdotes.

Since today is Friday, I’m in the process of concluding my sermon preparation for Sunday. The end of that process usually includes me picking a suitable hymn with which to conclude the service. If at all possible I want that hymn to be a fitting response to what I preach. Often I will find a great hymn but am unsure whether the tune is one with which my congregation is familiar. Enter The Cyber Hymnal. I simply go over to cyberhymnal.org and listen to the tune. If the tune is easily sing-able I include it. If it isn’t, I pass on it for another hymn. This morning I passed.

I’ve also gotten into the habit of singing the psalms. I ordered a copy of the old Scottish Psalter. I went with that version because I’m not musically gifted in any way. Some of the tunes in the Trinity Psalter are intimidating to me. The Scottish Psalter puts almost all of the psalms to common meter. Put simply, I could sing every psalm to the tune of Amazing Grace if I had to. But I’d rather not do that. Enter The Cyber Hymnal. I simply searched for all of the tunes that are in common meter. I picked the ones I liked and continue to use them for my private devotional singing.

The Cyber Hymnal is the most useful online resource for those interested in the traditional hymns. It is certainly worth a glance. You won’t regret it.

I’m 17 days now into my caffeine free month of May. All has been smooth sailing for about a week but something strange happened last night. I dreamed about coffee. I’ve never done that before. But sure enough, I dreamed I was partaking of a grande of deep brown java. Strange…

We’ve finished chapter three and are on to chapter four.  When I first started this series I wasn’t even sure I’d make it past chapter one.  Thank you to all of you who have encouraged me to continue through the Confession.  It has profited my soul immensely to study the great truths of our great God.

Chapter three, as you remember, was on God’s decree.  When the divines considered the outworking of God’s decree they thought in two categories: creation and providence.  See question 8 of the Shorter Catechism and question 14 of the Larger Catechism for more on this distinction.  It is enough at this point simply to say that when we consider the activity of God we need to speak in terms of his creation of all things and his care over all that he created.  Chapter four of the Confession will cover Creation.  Chapter five will cover Providence.

This week we consider section one of chapter four which is a clear, introductory statement on the biblical doctrine of creation.

WCF 4.1  It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,(1) for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness,(2) in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.(3)

(1) Heb. 1:2; John 1:2,3; Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13; Job 33:4.
(2) Rom. 1:20; Jer. 10:12; Ps. 104:24; Ps. 33:5,6.
(3) Heb. 11:3; Col. 1:16; Acts 17:24.

Here are a few things to note about this great doctrine of creation.

• A Trinitarian Creation - When we combine Genesis 1:1, John 1:2-3, and Hebrew 1:2 we get a clear picture of the activity of all three persons of the Trinity in the work of creation.  It is important to highlight this because we are Trinitarians.  At the essence of our belief in God is of God as the three in one.  This not only extends to the works of providence or salvation but also to that beginning work of creation.
• A Glory Manifesting Creation - God did not need to teach himself about his own glory.  The three persons of the Trinity are perfectly enraptured in the divine glory of God and have been for all eternity.  If God did not manifest his glory to himself then to whom did he manifest his glory?  The simple answer is: to his creation.  Creation is the manifestation of God’s glory.  That glory is manifested to all of creation, birds, rocks, streams, angels, and men.  Even the most in depth study of atomic structure is a study in the glory of God.  The most extravagant of astronomical conquests is still primarily a study in the glory of God.  From him, through him, and to him are all things.  To him be GLORY forever, Amen.
• An Ex Nihilo Creation - For God to be God he must create all things out of nothing.  If there was something here before God’s work of creation then who made it?  God did not pick up created matter like a sculptor scoops clay onto a potters wheel.  He created the clay and the wheel from nothing.  It is necessary for his God-ness for him to be the source and creator of all things.  He is the only being capable of claiming ex nihilo creation and he is the only being who must claim creation ex nihilo.
• A Six Day Creation - It is not my intent to rehash the creation day debate that so occupied evangelicalism and my denomination in particular some 10 years ago.  I do not see how the creation narrative allows for a day-age view or for a framework view.  My own study in both science and Scripture has left me thoroughly convinced in a 6-24 hour day view of creation.  I do however have dear brothers in Christ who believe otherwise.  What is of note here is that our Lord created the world to run on a 7 day week (6 days of work with a day of rest).  Each day of the week should point us back to God’s good work in creation.  Today is Wednesday, the fourth day of the week.  God worked on the fourth day of the week manifesting his glory, so I work on the fourth day of the week manifesting his glory.
• A Very Good Creation - We are coming to sin and the fall later in the confession.  Those chapters would be difficult to explain if we did not boldly state that creation was created very good.  It was made mutable, and so underwent change but that does not change the state in which it was originally designed.  The mutability of creation does not erase the end goal of creation, namely the glory of God.  So we simply note this fact in passing and will pick it up again in chapter six.

It is at this point in the confession that the divine drama has begun.  Everything else has been preface.  The chess board has been set.  The world has been created and set in motion.  Glory has been announced as the end goal.  The rest of the Confession, following Scripture, will be an unfolding of God’s care over and relationship with his creation.

Amos 1:13 “Thus says the LORD: ‘For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border.’” (ESV)

The sermon I preached two weeks ago included this statement of God’s wrath against the Ammonites. In this section of judgment upon Israel’s neighbors there are different sins epitomized by each of the six nations mentioned. What was the sin of the Ammonites? It was waging a particular war on the unborn. It is presumed that the Ammonites were not strong enough to wage war against Israel in open battle and so they decided to wage war against Israel’s pregnant women. This focused assault would not destroy Israel immediately but would certainly diminish her population over time.

But when we see this prophecy against the Ammonites paired against the sin of the Moabites which follows we get a clearer view of what was going on. The Moabites had burned to lime the body of a dead king of Edom. What is the big deal with burning a dead king? It was an offense against the past and tradition of the Edomites. It was a tremendously heinous thing to desecrate the dead, as evidenced by other passages of Scripture as well. When we put the Moabites next to the Ammonites, both of whom are the result of Lot’s incest with his daughters, we see one waging a war against the future and one waging a war against the past.

But why were the Ammonites waging this war against the unborn, against the future? In order, “that they might enlarge their border.” It was financial and political prosperity that they sought. They were willing to wage a war against one of the most sacred of societal emblems, a mother with child, in order that they as a people might prosper. They had chosen prosperity over human dignity. They had chosen riches over godliness.

We certainly see direct correlations here to abortion in our day. Our nation sees unborn children as expendable for the sake of future prosperity and comfort. Through the increase of prenatal testing and the availability of abortion providers, we are seeing an increase in the number of “undesirable traits” that constitute a reason for abortion. We are not far from seeing abortions allowed or suggested for such traits as gender, perceived intellect, or cosmetic attributes such as blue eyes or blond hair.

All of this is intended to be preface to get you to read Dr. Al Mohler’s blog post for today, Sliding Fast Down the Slippery Slope. His critique is much more thorough and insightful than mine. Read it and do what you can in prayer, conversations, and political action to see the practice of abortion outlawed in our country.

Ever since I saw the opening chase scene of Casino Royale, the new Bond movie, I’ve been interested in free running (ie parkour). I found the following videos and include them for your enjoying pleasure.