The Reason for God

Tony Reinke Gospel, Gospel in Culture, Timothy Keller

reasonforgod.jpgOften, the way Timothy Keller articulates the gospel (and the implications of the gospel) in his new book–The Reason for God— are incredibly thought-provoking. Take this one for example,

“A central message of the Bible is that we can only have a relationship with God by sheer grace. Our moral efforts are too feeble and falsely motivated to ever merit salvation. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has provided salvation for us, which we receive as a gift. All churches believe this in one form or another. Growth in character and change in behavior occur in a gradual process after a person becomes a Christian. The mistaken belief that a person must ‘clean up’ his or her own life in order to merit God’s presence is not Christianity. This means, though, that the church will be filled with immature and broken people who still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually. As the saying has it: ‘The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.’

… Now imagine that someone with a very broken past becomes a Christian and her character improves significantly over what is was. Nevertheless, she still may be less secure and self-disciplined than someone who is so well adjusted that she feels no particular need for religious affiliation at all. Suppose you meet both of these women the same week. Unless you know the starting points and life journeys of each woman, you could easily conclude that Christianity isn’t worth much, and that Christians are inconsistent with their own high standards. It is often the case that people whose lives have been harder and who are ‘lower on the character scale’ are more likely to recognize their need for God and turn to Christianity. So we should expect that many Christians’ lives would not compare well to those of the nonreligious (just as the health of people in the hospital is comparatively worse than people visiting museums).”

-Timothy Keller, The Reason For God (Dutton: 2008), pp. 53-54.

Tim Keller on Suffering and Evil

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Evil, Suffering, Timothy Keller, Trials

reasonforgod.jpgA choice excerpt from Tim Keller’s new book (written primarily for skeptics) …

“The death of Jesus was qualitatively different from any other death. The physical pain was nothing compared to the spiritual experiences of cosmic abandonment. Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power excels ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken. Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us. … If we again ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?’ and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself. … So, if we embrace the Christian teaching that Jesus is God and that he went to the Cross, then we have deep consolation and strength to face the brutal realities of life on earth.”

-Timothy Keller, The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York City: Dutton, 2008) p. 30.

Engaging Culture with the Supremacy of God (pt 2)

Tony Reinke Culture, John Piper, Preaching

tsslogo.jpgIn the first post in this series we noted the supremacy of God and how a proper theology unlocks our true self-identity. Job learned this lesson. On the other hand, the only way a sinner can preserve a life of unbelief is to suppress the true character of God. The Apostle Paul explains this in the opening chapter of Romans.

How amazed I am that God broke into the life of this Pharisee so I could behold his supremacy, see the depth of my sin, be broken, and embrace the cross as my only eternal hope! In nothing I’m saying in these posts do I want to self-righteously stand over those in unbelief. It’s only by God’s grace that I’m saved. I hope you feel the same.

Let me move on to a broader topic.

As important as it is that we identify with the contours of culture I think we would be mistaken to miss the reality that an honest understanding of God precedes an accurate self-identity. Calvin was right here. And so at some level it seems perplexing that we exert so much time identifying with those who remain yet un-self-identified. We should become all things to all men, yet in loving those in our culture I believe includes helping those in our culture develop a self-identification. And this self-identification is forged by the un-suppressed supremacy of God—a work of grace through Scripture.

Supremacy of God in culture

But let me get into a specific illustration. Today I want to take this principle of self-discovery in light of God’s supremacy into one specific non-Christian cultural context. I don’t think there’s better illustration in Scripture than Paul’s sermon in the Areopagus in Acts 17:16-34.

After having a look around Athens—a city “given over to idols”—Paul was summoned by the city’s intellectual elite (v. 16).

The content of Paul’s address is striking. Here we find no lengthy philosophical defense of monotheism. Paul opens with no apologetic for his source of ultimate truth (Scripture). Amazingly there is no mention of the cross, either (though we can assume Paul got to this point quickly with those who followed him after the sermon). As we listen in to the message we hear a clear, bold, and blunt exhortation of the supremacy and transcendence of God.

We cannot miss the content of Paul’s engagement of this non-Christian culture.

Paul tells them God is not created but the creator of all things (v. 24). God is not domesticated and caged into religious temples (v. 24). Nor is God like some idol produced by human crafting (v. 29). God needs nothing from us. In fact, we receive all from him and it’s only in him that we live and move (vv. 25, 28). God has planted all the races of the earth and marked out the boundary lines of the nations (v. 26). God is over all. And this God is sending his judge (Christ) back into these races and nations to punish all unrighteousness (v. 31).

Paul preaches to the Athenians that God was before them, God planted them, God is free from them, God is the reason for their existence, God now reigns over them, and God is returning to judge them. Wow. Notice how Paul, in expressing the supremacy of God, defines this supremacy in relation to those in the Athenian culture! Paul is helping them to form a true and biblical self-identification in light of God’s supremacy.

I take Paul’s example to mean that into arenas of intelligent non-Christians, God’s spokesmen are commissioned to speak boldly of God’s supremacy. Which is to say our faithfulness (and fruitfulness) does not hinge on the closeness for which our theology conforms to cultural expectations, but rather on the faithfulness of our articulation of the thrice-holy God in his transcendence above culture.

This preaching of God’s supremacy as the hope of culture is challenged (as you would expect). In 2005 a prominent emergent church figure published a book on preaching with the aim of replacing the terminology of one-way communication in the church (like “preaching” and even “speaking”) for the phrase “progressional dialogue.” Obviously, his intent was deeper than clarified semantics.

In Acts 17, Paul had the perfect opportunity for “progressional dialogue” and he chose to “preach” the supremacy of God. His example lives on for us today.

Theology of Theology

In part I want to see my generation of Christians develop a theology of theology. What I mean is that in our day the term “theology” has become a synonym for our articulation of God. This however is not, strictly speaking, an accurate definition. In Revolutions in Worldview (edited by W. Andrew Hoffecker) John Currid writes,

“The term theology—a combination of two Greek words: theos (god) and logos (word)—in the biblical worldview is not a word about God or man’s thoughts about God—what some people call religion—but properly speaking is God’s word to man about himself.” (p. 43)

Our engagement with contemporary culture is theological. As our reference point, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-glorious, and eternal God ultimately transcends cultural influence and contemporary analogy. It’s helpful to remember that theology is not merely how we can explain God, but how God has chosen to explain himself. As Job discovered, God is not interested in “progressional dialogue.” God is interested in proclaiming his supremacy and he uses preachers and pulpits to this end.

John Piper notes in his excellent book The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 1990):

“The keynote in the mouth of every prophet-preacher, whether in Isaiah’s day or Jesus’ day or our day, is ‘Your God Reigns!’ God is the King of the universe; he has absolute creator rights over this world and everyone in it. Rebellion and mutiny are on all sides, however, and his authority is scorned by millions. So the Lord sends preachers into the world to cry out that God reigns, that he will not suffer his glory to be scorned indefinitely, that he will vindicate his name in great and terrible wrath. But they are also sent to cry that for now a full and free amnesty is offered to all the rebel subjects who will turn from their rebellion, call on him for mercy, bow before his throne, and swear allegiance and fealty to him forever. The amnesty is signed in the blood of his Son.” (p. 23)

And earlier Piper wrote,

“I don’t mean we shouldn’t preach about nitty-gritty, practical things like parenthood and divorce and AIDS and gluttony and television and sex. What I mean is that every one of those things should be swept up into the holy presence of God and laid bare to the roots of its Godwardness or godlessness.” (p. 12)

Well said.

Conclusion

I’m aware that preachers should think carefully about applying Scripture to their cultural scenarios. But we need to admit the content of the biblical proclamation has probably never fit nicely into any cultural context. In every age and in every culture, God alone is the final reference point for us to discover the nature of sin, the health of our souls, and the source of all our good.

The preacher who proclaims the supremacy of God from the pulpit will be classified as culturally irrelevant. It’s not just the preacher but the theologian, too (as we will see next time), who feels the pressure to relinquish God’s supremacy in cultural engagement.

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Related: Read part one of this series here.

Preaching the burden of the text

Tony Reinke Preaching

Today I had the honor to sit in on a preaching conference featuring Mike Bullmore, a former homiletics professor and now pastor. The following point really struck me:

“Preaching is less a treatise on the material of your text and more a communication of the burden of the text. Preaching is not coverage of biblical material, it’s the accomplishment of a biblical intention. A good expository sermon is one whose content and intent is controlled by the content and intent of a passage. You cannot just be satisfied with the content, you must accomplish what God was trying to accomplish in the preaching. The end of preaching is not information, it’s persuasion. Your sermon’s purpose needs to find itself completely in line with the purpose and burden of the text. This will give your sermons unity, focus, and effectiveness.”

–Mike Bullmore, message “Some Things I’m Learning About Preaching After Having Taught It For 15 Years” (2/12/08; Gaithersburg, MD).

Engaging Culture and the Supremacy of God (pt 1)

Tony Reinke Culture, John Calvin, Preaching

tsslogo.jpgI’m personally interested by discussions over how to engage culture. The discussions seem to challenge one’s theology and methodology all at the same time.

And so I was recently drawn (of all places) back to Calvin’s Institutes. Last year we opened Calvin and studied his thought and theology. As a man ministering under a hostile climate, Calvin applied theology to his contemporary culture. Though separated by centuries and continents, I’ve learned to respect Calvin on matters of engaging culture.

In an age where the message itself is molded by the contours of culture, worldview interpretation needs an unshaken, eternal context. It seems Calvin was aware of this, too.

Self-knowledge

Calvin was aware that for genuine Christian piety to take root, our worldview (and even our self-identity) must be rooted in the character of God. It’s in Him that we see our own sin, and in Him that we see our frailty, in Him that we see our need for the Savior.

Notice Calvin’s opening words in his magnum opus—“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”

We find eternal truth by looking at ourselves, not because we are the final reference point, but because in ourselves we can feel and experience the miseries of personal sin. We feel the “teeming horde of infamies” and are driven by our “unhappiness” to long for something outside of us. It’s in our perception of our personal sin and misery that this proper self-knowledge “not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him.”

By saying that we know God by first knowing ourselves is not Calvin’s attempt to make man the centerpoint of theology. Calvin uses self-knowledge of personal sin and unworthiness to point us towards God. By pointing us towards God, our reference is pushed beyond the sphere of cultural fluctuation.

By knowing ourselves truly, and assessing ourselves honestly, we are faced with our own frailty, sinfulness, unhappiness, and misery. Self-knowledge drives us to God.

Theology

Calvin’s next section opens with these words, “man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” By starting with God, and working backwards to interpret my heart, I will discover the hypocrisy or the “empty image” of self-righteousness. In the light of God’s holiness, I see my sinfulness and the rebellious tendencies of my wicked heart. As Calvin says, “man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.”

See, the ultimate reference point for my life is not “me.” It’s not my preference, and it’s not the shifting cultural interpretations of God. The ultimate reference point for my life, my soul, the church, and the eternal hope of our generation, is found in the supremacy of our eternally unchanging God as he reveals himself.

Calvin illustrates this point by looking at the self-effacing, self-discovery of Job. You’ll recall Job’s self-understanding and perspective gets turned on its head after God asks the questions. As Calvin says, “The story of Job, in its description of God’s wisdom, power, and purity, always expresses a powerful argument that overwhelms men with the realization of their own stupidity, impotence, and corruption (Job 38:1-ff).”

It was not in dialogue with friends that Job discovered himself. God’s one-way communication about his supremacy brought about Job’s true self-discovery.

I’m not opposed to communicating carefully to our culture. Certainly, we need to be sensitive to our hearers. But I would also argue what makes us relevant to contemporary culture is a commitment to explaining the supremacy of God (i.e. the priority of one-way proclamation in preaching).

Next time we’ll look at an example of how the preaching of the supremacy of God dominated the engagement of one non-Christian culture.