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Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to write the foreword for a book by R. T. Kendall entitled The Lord’s Prayer. I was glad to write it, not only because R. T. is a friend of mine, but also because it is a great book. I went back and adapted it to share some of my thoughts on prayer here at the blog.
Praying to Speak and Listen
We live in a world where communication feels like a pandemic at times. Words, ideas, and even emotions move about with unstoppable velocity. The human race has honed the science and art of transporting our content to one another. But I fear that we are at the mercy of the mediums and are losing our own messages.
A century ago, people communicated through a limited number of methods. Primarily, we spoke to one another. Over the last few decades, all of that has changed. Mobile phones, email, blogging on the Internet, and a myriad of instant messaging options has transformed our communication methods. In the current technology available, Twitter is the most popular form of communication. To participate, you “tweet” your message for the entire world to read via the Internet. But there is one caveat–your message must be less than 140 characters. Even with this required limitation, many people willingly use Twitter as a primary form of communication to give and receive information. Correspondence is occurring more frequently and at a faster pace, but possibly with an atrophying impact.
We dance along a tightrope of increased communication lacking any depth or significance. With such self-imposed limitations placed on our communications to one another, there must be a spiritual consequence. It cannot be denied that in a time when the tools for communication are growing more powerful, our ability to relate is weakening. In speaking more rapidly, we are listening less intently.
But by God’s blessing, there is an answer to such a predicament. He has endowed us with a form of communication which can be ignored by man but never loses its power with God: Prayer. It remains the ever-present answer to our communication weakness. It requires no great skill of oratory. Prayer humbles us before God and emboldens us before man. Prayer can be as short as an Internet instant message or as long as a great work of literature. Whether brief or lengthy, God is awaiting our response to His initiatives through prayer.
One of the great lessons we learn about prayer is that though it is a form of communication between God and His people, it is not merely for communication. Prayer is one of the primary vehicles by which God delivers us into the middle of His plan and purposes. As Jesus taught His disciples to pray, it was to show them how to both speak and listen to the Father. Whereas we live in a world where it is easy to make our declarations in a one-way fashion, prayer demands a listening ear as well. Prayer is, after all, not just our opportunity to speak. It is a sacred moment in which to listen as well.
Pastors often hear the question: “How can I know God’s will for my life?”
Unholy Trinity: Outraged at TBN’s Brazen False Teaching
John MacArthur
Grace to You
I don’t watch much television, and when I do I generally avoid the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). For many years TBN has been dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy. I wrote about the false gospel they proclaim and the phony miracles they pretend to do almost two decades ago in Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. See especially chapter 12). I had my fill of charismatic televangelism while researching that book, and I can hardly bear to watch it any more.
Recently, however, while recovering from knee-replacement surgery, I decided to sample some of the current fare on TBN. From a therapeutic point of view it seemed a good choice: something more excruciating than the pain in my leg might distract me from the physical suffering of post-surgical trauma. And I suppose on that basis the strategy was effective.
But it left me outraged and frustrated – and eager to challenge the misperceptions in the minds of millions of unbelievers who see these false teachers masquerading as ministers of Christ on TBN.
I’m outraged at the brazen way so many false teachers twist the message of Scripture in Jesus’ name. And I’m frustrated because I’m certain that if these charlatans were not receiving a large proportion of their financial support from sincere believers (and silent acquiescence from Christian leaders who surely know better), they would have no platform for their shenanigans. They would soon lose their core constituency and fade from the scene.
Instead, religious quacks are actually multiplying at a frightening pace. One thing I discovered to my immense displeasure is that TBN is by no means the only religious network broadcasting poisonous false doctrine around the clock. The channel lineup I receive includes at least seven other channels whose schedules are filled with false teachers and charlatans. There’s The Church Channel, Daystar, GodTV, World Harvest Television (LeSEA), Total Christian Television, and several others. Some of them feature blocs of family television programming and a few fairly sound teachers who provide moments of escape from the prosperity preachers. But all of them give prominence to enormous amounts of heresy and religious claptrap – enough to make them positively dangerous. And TBN is singularly responsible for kicking that door open so wide.
The continued growth and influence of TBN is baffling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the thick aura of lust, greed, and other kinds of moral impropriety that surrounds the whole enterprise. A long string of scandals involving notable charismatic televangelists between 1988 and 1992 should have been sufficient reason for even the most credulous viewers to scrutinize the entire industry with skepticism. First came the international spectacle of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s moral, marital, and financial collapse. That was followed closely by the revelation of Jimmy Swaggart’s repeated dalliances with prostitutes. Shortly afterward, an episode of ABC’s Primetime Live exposed clear examples of deliberate fraud on the part of three more leading charismatic televangelists. Those incidents were punctuated by a score of lesser scandals over several years’ time. It is clear (or should be) – based on empirical evidence alone – that preachers promising miracles in exchange for money are not to be trusted. And for anyone who simply bothers to compare Jesus’ teaching with the health-and-wealth message, it is clear that the message that currently dominates religious television is “a different gospel; which is really not another” (Galatians 1:6-7), but a damnable lie.
TBN is by far the leading perpetrator of that lie worldwide...
| Christianity Gone to the Dogs
Every Sunday at 5 p.m., Pilgrim Congregational Church in North Weymouth, Massachusetts, opens its doors for a special pet worship service called “Woof ‘n Worship.” There, dog owners can attend church together with their four-legged companions and be led in prayers such as, “Dear Lord, please make me the person my dog thinks I am.” In the event of any accidents during the service, the church equipped its sanctuary with “doggy clean-up stations.” The initial Woof ‘n Worship included a special blessing of the animals. Pastor Rachel Bickford explained that she prayed about opening services to dogs before deciding that “it would be just so much fun.”1 Unfortunately, including dogs in worship services is part of a larger pattern—spending more time relating to critters than to God. This is a society where the canine companions of Martha Stewart have their own blog,2 and many Walmarts stock an extensive collection of pet clothes. More than 500 American churches have performed blessings for animals, and at least half a dozen hold services for them.3 One such congregation is Los Angeles’s Covenant Presbyterian Church, where interim pastor Tom Eggebeen conducts a weekly 30-minute service for dogs and their owners. It includes individual doggie beds, bowls of water, prayer requests for the animals, and even a way for them to participate in the offering—as ushers collect donations, they also pass out rainbow-colored dog biscuits. At one service, they used the hymn, “GoD and DoG,” but as an Associated Press reporter observed, “The pooches who showed up at Covenant Presbyterian on Sunday didn’t seem very interested in dogma.”4 Chicago’s Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd picks up the theme with a summertime “dog walker” service, which allows pet owners to pause at the church for prayer during Sunday morning walks. On one Sunday, Pastor Mary Appelt-Graves led worshipers in a “Dog Psalm” by Herbert Brokering entitled “I Growl.”5 Laura Hobgood-Oster, an expert on animals and Christianity, noted that, though followers of Jesus have traditionally believed only humans have redeemable souls, the new wave of pet-inclusive services may have opened the door to reassessment. “It’s the changing family structure, where pets are really central and religious communities are starting to recognize that people need various kinds of rituals that include their pets,” she said. “More and more people in mainline Christianity are considering them to have some kind of soul.”6 Referring to Covenant Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler has observed, “Churches concerned with the preaching of the Gospel, committed to authentic evangelism and biblical preaching, are not going to demonstrate the confusion that leads to ‘Canines at Covenant.’”7 This is not to say that Mohler dislikes pets; in fact, he is very fond of his beagle, Baxter. “But Baxter does not go to church.” And neither should Spot, Tabby, and Tweety.
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Clowney: A Biblical Theology of Prayer
Here’s a PDF of Edmund Clowney’s classic 39-page essay, A Biblical Theology of Prayer, courtesy of Beginning with Moses. It was originally published in Teach Us to Pray: Prayer in the Bible and the World, ed. D. A. Carson (Baker/Paternoster, 1990), 136-76, 336-38. (HT: TGC)
Below is an outline of Clowney’s essay:
I. PRAYER ADDRESSES THE PERSONAL GOD
A. God’s glory is personally revealed
1. In his works
2. In his name
3. In his presence
B. The response of prayer is personal
1. Prayer by persons in God’s image
2. Prayer by the whole person
C. The response of prayer is effective
II. PRAYER ADDRESSES THE COVENANT GOD
A. Prayer in the bond of the covenant relation
1. Prayer is grounded in God’s covenant
2. Prayer pleads the covenant relation
3. Prayer and the ceremonies of covenant worship
4. Prayer in the community of the covenant
B. God’s covenant Lordship shapes prayer
1. God’s zeal for pure worship
2. Our zeal for our Lord
a. Expressed in submission to his will
b. Expressed in confession seeking forgiveness
c. Petitions
d. Thanksgiving, praise, and hope
C. The renewal of the covenant restores and renews prayer
III. PRAYER ADDRESSES THE TRIUNE GOD
A. The renewal and fulfillment of prayer in Christ
1. Fulfillment of the petition of the faithful remnant
2. Fulfillment in Christ transforms prayer
a. Christ comes as Lord to receive prayer
b. Christ comes as Servant to offer prayer
3. Christ’s teaching renews prayer
a. Prayer to the Father
b. The prayer of trust
c. Prayer in the name of Jesus
4. Christ the Mediator of Prayer
a. The Mediator foreshadowed
b. His mediatorial office
c. His mediatorial sacrificed.
d. His mediatorial ministry
B. Prayer in the Spirit
1. The presence of the Spirit
2. The gifts of the Spirit
3. Union with Christ in the Spirit
C. Prayer to the Father
1. Prayer to the First Person of the Trinity
2. Prayer to the Father in the Son through the Spirit
INCARNATION GOD SENT HIS SON, TO SAVE US
by J.I. Packer
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. JOHN 1:14
Trinity and Incarnation belong together. The doctrine of the Trinity declares that the man Jesus is truly divine; that of the Incarnation declares that the divine Jesus is truly human. Together they proclaim the full reality of the Savior whom the New Testament sets forth, the Son who came from the Father’s side at the Father’s will to become the sinner’s substitute on the cross (Matt. 20:28; 26:36-46; John 1:29; 3:13-17; Rom. 5:8; 8:32; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; 8:9; Phil. 2:5-8).
The moment of truth regarding the doctrine of the Trinity came at the Council of Nicaea (A.D.325), when the church countered the Arian idea that Jesus was God’s first and noblest creature by affirming that he was of the same “substance” or “essence” (i.e., the same existing entity) as the Father. Thus there is one God, not two; the distinction between Father and Son is within the divine unity, and the Son is God in the same sense as the Father is. In saying that Son and Father are “of one substance,” and that the Son is “begotten” (echoing “only-begotten,” John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18, and NIV text notes) but “not made,” the Nicene Creed unequivocally recognized the deity of the man from Galilee.
A crucial event for the church’s confession of the doctrine of the Incarnation came at the Council of Chalcedon (A.D.451), when the church countered both the Nestorian idea that Jesus was two personalities—the Son of God and a man—under one skin, and the Eutychian idea that Jesus’ divinity had swallowed up his humanity. Rejecting both, the council affirmed that Jesus is one divine-human person in two natures (i.e., with two sets of capacities for experience, expression, reaction, and action); and that the two natures are united in his personal being without mixture, confusion, separation, or division; and that each nature retained its own attributes. In other words, all the qualities and powers that are in us, as well as all the qualities and powers that are in God, were, are, and ever will be really and distinguishably present in the one person of the man from Galilee. Thus the Chalcedonian formula affirms the full humanity of the Lord from heaven in categorical terms.
The Incarnation, this mysterious miracle at the heart of historic Christianity, is central in the New Testament witness. That Jews should ever have come to such a belief is amazing. Eight of the nine New Testament writers, like Jesus’ original disciples, were Jews, drilled in the Jewish axiom that there is only one God and that no human is divine. They all teach, however, that Jesus is God’s Messiah, the Spirit-anointed son of David promised in the Old Testament (e.g., Isa. 11:1-5; Christos, “Christ,” is Greek for Messiah). They all present him in a threefold role as teacher, sin-bearer, and ruler—prophet, priest, and king. And in other words, they all insist that Jesus the Messiah should be personally worshiped and trusted—which is to say that he is God no less than he is man. Observe how the four most masterful New Testament theologians (John, Paul, the writer of Hebrews, and Peter) speak to this.
John’s Gospel frames its eyewitness narratives (John 1:14; 19:35; 21:24) with the declarations of its prologue (1:1-18): that Jesus is the eternal divine Logos (Word), agent of Creation and source of all life and light (vv. 1-5, 9), who through becoming “flesh” was revealed as Son of God and source of grace and truth, indeed as “God the only begotten” (vv. 14, 18; NIV text notes). The Gospel is punctuated with “I am” statements that have special significance because I am (Greek: ego eimi) was used to render God’s name in the Greek translation of Exodus 3:14; whenever John reports Jesus as saying ego eimi, a claim to deity is implicit. Examples of this are John 8:28, 58, and the seven declarations of his grace as (a) the Bread of Life, giving spiritual food (6:35, 48, 51); (b) the Light of the World, banishing darkness (8:12; 9:5); (c) the gate for the sheep, giving access to God (10:7, 9); (d) the Good Shepherd, protecting from peril (10:11, 14); (e) the Resurrection and Life, overcoming our death (11:25); (f) the Way, Truth, and Life, guiding to fellowship with the Father (14:6); (g) the true Vine, nurturing for fruitfulness (15:1, 5). Climactically, Thomas worships Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (20:28). Jesus then pronounces a blessing on all who share Thomas’s faith and John urges his readers to join their number (20:29-31).
Paul quotes from what seems to be a hymn that declares Jesus’ personal deity (Phil. 2:6); states that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9; cf. 1:19); hails Jesus the Son as the Father’s image and as his agent in creating and upholding everything (Col. 1:15-17); declares him to be “Lord” (a title of kingship, with divine overtones), to whom one must pray for salvation according to the injunction to call on Yahweh in Joel 2:32 (Rom. 10:9-13); calls him “God over all” (Rom. 9:5) and “God and Savior” (Titus 2:13); and prays to him personally (2 Cor. 12:8-9), looking to him as a source of divine grace (2 Cor. 13:14). The testimony is explicit: faith in Jesus’ deity is basic to Paul’s theology and religion.
The writer to the Hebrews, purporting to expound the perfection of Christ’s high priesthood, starts by declaring the full deity and consequent unique dignity of the Son of God (Heb. 1:3, 6, 8-12), whose full humanity he then celebrates in chapter 2. The perfection, and indeed the very possibility, of the high priesthood that he describes Christ as fulfilling depends on the conjunction of an endless, unfailing divine life with a full human experience of temptation, pressure, and pain (Heb. 2:14-17; 4:14-5:2; 7:13-28; 12:2-3).
Not less significant is Peter’s use of Isaiah 8:12-13 (1 Pet. 3:14). He cites the Greek (Septuagint) version, urging the churches not to fear what others fear but to set apart the Lord as holy. But where the Septuagint text of Isaiah says, “Set apart the Lord himself,” Peter writes, “Set apart Christ as Lord” (1 Pet. 3:15). Peter would give the adoring fear due to the Almighty to Jesus of Nazareth, his Master and Lord.
The New Testament forbids worship of angels (Col. 2:18; Rev. 22:8-9) but commands worship of Jesus and focuses consistently on the divine-human Savior and Lord as the proper object of faith, hope, and love here and now. Religion that lacks these emphases is not Christianity. Let there be no mistake about that!
From: Concise Theology: A Guide To Historic Christian Beliefs
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