Sermon Video: Keep away from those who teach a false gospel - Romans 16:17-20

The Apostle Paul takes a brief tangent from his closing greetings to warn the church at Rome about the likelihood that divisive false teachers will tempt them with a gospel contrary to that which they had received.  Throughout Church History we have seen those who proclaim a gospel that differs from that which is proclaimed in God's Word, Paul's advice to the Roman Church of his day and to the Church today is the same: keep away from them.

This is not, however, a message of anxiety or fear from Paul, on the contrary his next sentence proclaims both his faith in the church and in God's impending victory.  This then gives us context as we guard against false teaching, we must do so with confident hope in the outcome, for God's message of salvation will never fail.

Sermon Video: The team of servants every church needs, Romans 16,1-16,21-23

The Apostle Paul shares the large team, highlighting the crucial role of numerous women, that helped him accomplish the task that the Lord had assigned to him of founding local churches and building them up in the image of Christ.  It is also encouraging to see how much affection that Paul feels toward these co-workers, for him they truly are friends.

The Church today can learn powerful lessons from Paul's experience, lessons about teamwork, mutual respect and affection, and friendship within the Christian community.

Sermon Video: Sharing spiritual and material blessings, Romans 15:25-33

To the church at Rome the Apostle Paul explains why he is on his way to Jerusalem with a gift designed to help relieve the poverty of the Jewish Christian in Judea that he had collected from the Gentile Christians of the churches he had founded.  Why did this matter so much to him?  Paul had hopes that he could keep the Church united around its shared Lord and squelch the divisions of ethnicity and culture.  Why were they willing to give?  Gratitude.  They knew how great the spiritual blessings they have received from God, given through the Jewish Christian community, really was, and these first generation Gentile Christians were glad to be able to give a material blessing in return.

The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory, by Tim Alberta: A book review

 

1. I found the book to be deeply emotional, in a good way.  It connected with my own care and concern for the Church in America on a gut level, I could sense the authenticity of Tim's faith and his heartbreak at what has become of the Evangelical world he grew up in.  The personal sections where Tim wrote about his dad's death were at hard to read as expected, but that same heart-on-his-sleave aspect carries throughout the book.

2. Alberta interviewed, and got honest self-aware responses, from the heaviest hitters in the world of political evangelicalism.  This isn't a hatchet job from an outsiders, instead it is a look behind the curtain.

3. Although I knew about most of the episodes that he builds his narrative around (Jerry Falwell Jr.'s fall from leading Liberty University, for example, or Rachel Denhollander's crusade to help the SBC reckon with the sexual abuse in their midst), there were still gut wrenching new details and head shaking low points that were new to me.

4. While a cry for help, the book is not without hope.  In the midst of the most Christ-dishonoring actions of individuals who claim to be doing God's work are sprinkled the stories of other men and women, mostly less well known, who were/are willing to strive to be like Jesus and to do so with honor and decency.

5.  "Christian" Nationalism as a threat to the Church in America isn't going away anytime soon.  It took us generations to reach this point, a point where politics trump theology and ethics, where winning at all cost is met with thunderous cheers instead of the horror that it deserves, and so the path back to a more Christ-like attitude will be a long and difficult one.

Overall, this is an excellent book, sobering in its unflinching diagnosis of what ails the Church in America, Evangelicalism in particular, but also ones written from a man who firmly believes that God is in control and that his Church will triumph.

Under Jerusalem by Andrew Lawler: A book review

 

Having taken the trip of a lifetime to visit Israel and the Holy Land this previous May, I instantly ordered this book when I came across it this fall.  What then are my takeaways about Lawler's book?

1. He isn't writing from a Christian, Muslim, or Jewish perspective, this book isn't designed to bolster the claims of universal truth from any of them.

Archaeology being what it is, one part science and one part storytelling, Lawler's approach serves him well on this front.  He is able to talk honestly about both the finds that confirmed the narratives of each group, and the ones that confounded them, as well as present the characters who organized, funded, analyzed, or protested the digs under Jerusalem beginning in the 19th century according to the reputation their actions have earned, whether that be of a villain or a hero.

2. Even if you have visited Jerusalem, as I have, there is bound to be something shocking and/or wonderful in this book for you to still learn.

Part of me wishes I had read the book before we went, so I could have looked for some of the sites whose digs he describes, another part of me is glad I went there with less pre-conceived notions so I was able to soak in whatever my eyes were telling me.

3. While the book is written and published, the story of archeology under Jerusalem is, if anything, accelerating.

It was remarkable how much of the book takes place in the 21st century, and how many of the excavations he describes are still ongoing to this day.  More "shocking discoveries" in Jerusalem are inevitable, as are, sadly, more explosions of anger and violence because of them.

4.  Our tour guide in Israel emphasized over and over the layered nature of the area's history, how the new was built on top of the old again and again.  In Jerusalem, as emphasized in my recent seminar {What Every Christian Should Know About: The Holy Land} the layers run very deep, and each tells a story even if those digging are only interested in a fraction of it.

Overall, I'd highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to better understand the city in which much of the Bible's events take place, and the place where many of its pages were written.