We work to figure out the expectations in every situation. It is our default response. When we are faced with a new environment, classroom, group of people, or opportunity, we have been hard-wired to ask, “What is expected of me to succeed or thrive?”

Consider the student entering the classroom on the first day, eagerly searching through the syllabus for rubrics and class assignments. At each due date, it is clear this is what is expected to pass or fail this course. The same dynamic is featured in a longstanding relationship between kids and parents. As kids move out or have children of their own, the next chapter of relationships must see clearly defined expectations for them to thrive. It occurs when the project is presented at your job, when the team steps onto the practice field, or when the vows said at the altar now impact the day to day. Expectations carry weight, but when they are clear, prioritized, and upheld they are also beautiful.

The negative, however, is when people regard expectations as the minimal way to get by. Instead of seeing it as a bar to surpass, we are tempted to skate by with the least amount of effort or time. If the professor were to claim at the beginning of a semester that the student need only show up one time to pass the course, how many (despite the benefit of sitting under his teaching) would take that as license to skip the rest. The same could be said of so many avenues where we dismiss the good for lesser because we would rather have a surplus of time, money, or energy for our own entertainment or pleasure.

A few months ago, I wrote about a book that changed my life – Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray. The book, based on the passage of John 15 and the illustration of Jesus as the True Vine, reoriented my understanding of what the Lord expects of His own. Because as much as we don’t like to admit how recurring is the mindset of low-bar expectations, we can identify when we bring it into our own walks with the Lord. It may not be as explicit as other ways, but even how we approach the longevity of our need for the gospel signals what we believe about God’s expectations for His children. I think two ways are especially prominent in the Christian life.

First, the Gospel as solely initiation. The reality is that my need for the Gospel of Christ is never something I lose. The nature of my need is fulfilled by my Savior, but all the more He calls me to repent and believe. Yes, already I am cleansed because of the Word spoken to me – and yet I am called to abide in Him, His love, and His commandments. (John 15:4, 9-10) Christian, maintain the expectation that Gospel rehearsal is a daily need. Far be it from us to think we have matured past the wonderful, Good News of Christ’s suffering, death, resurrection, and glory. And even more so, it is a grace that we are not given Good News, called to believe, and then left on an island to perform good works. Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are equipped to bear fruit in accordance with our abiding. (John 15:8) It was never meant to be about our ability, but the source of the Vine. “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” (John 15:4)

Second, the Gospel as limited. The power of God is on display through the Gospel. Yet, we are a people consistently tempted to be deceived by worldly philosophies that call for rest to be found in entertainment, happiness to be known in virtual escape, and experience to serve as our truth. Each of these spit in the face as to what Christ offers us in Himself. It goes in tandem with our need for consistent Gospel belief. Far too often we succumb to the temptation to shortchange ourselves from what Christ offers in the Gospel. We discount the joy He offers for just right standing and autonomy over our own happiness. But far be it from us to think that we ourselves know our need better than the Father who is the Vinedresser over the Vine and therefore, the branch. For those in Christ, it is expected we participate in what the Vine is doing. Allow the pruning process, as difficult as it is in the moment, to bring fruit and glorify the Father. (John 15:2, 8) It was not ever meant to be about us. And yet the invitation is extended by our God for our good. That is why the fullness of joy, something we are all after, is a rightful expectation only met when we are united to Christ and participate in Him. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11)

I found freedom in John 15. Freedom from thinking my initial belief is all God wants. That after a profession of faith, I am good to live a good, successful life. The freedom came in realizing apart from Christ, I am unable. Simultaneously, the expectation increased all the more as I realized that the Vinedresser will always care, the Vine will always produce, and the Vine’s branch will always bear fruit. And this will glorify the Father, will prove our faith in the Son, and allow us as branches to know the fullness of joy. Joyful freedom is found in knowing our own inability and balancing it by accepting the invitation of the Son to abide in Him.

Persevere, Nick Boucher Pastor of Student Ministry

Years ago a friend challenged me to spend an entire day alone with God. Nothing but me and my Bible and maybe a journal and a devotional book or hymnbook. You get the picture, very low-key, very unplugged. I took a day off work and went to a local reserve where I could walk and pray and sit at the picnic table and read and pray and spend the entire day alone with God.

That day changed my life. But not in the way I expected.

I expected dramatic changes. After all, wouldn’t spending hours alone with God revolutionize my life? Surely it would!

What I discovered at the end of that day was that I was pretty much the same man I was at the beginning of the day. I carried the same burdens, I struggled with the same sins and anxieties. Whatever dramatic spiritual revolution I was expecting didn’t come about.

But I said that day changed my life, and it did.

That day didn’t live up to my expectations of sudden transformation, yet I knew that over the years God had wrought changes in my life. I knew that God had been changing me, but He had changed me slowly, over time.

That’s the day I realized that the way God changes us isn’t usually through dramatic experiences but through the rhythm of holy habits, things we do every day, every week, the liturgy of the routine. I gained a new appreciation for the vital role that rhythms and routines have always played in my spiritual formation. Prayer and Bible reading every day, worshiping with the body of Christ every week. That day I gained a new appreciation for the ordinary.

Trevin Wax’s article “Routine Bible Reading Can Change Your Life” looks at just this difficulty. He urges us not to mount unreasonable expectations on ourselves but to commit ourselves to the daily habit of reading our Bibles. Not because the thunderbolt will strike every day, but to feed ourselves, to eat.

You may ask yourself: Why should I read the Bible even if I don’t “get anything out of it”? Why should I sit in church and listen to a sermon if I don’t “get anything out of it”? After all, how many sermons or Bible-readings have been truly memorable and life-changing?

But this line of questions reduces our spiritual growth to the level of a consumer experience; if it doesn’t thrill, it’s not worth the effort. I don’t ask why I should continue to eat even though so few dinners have been memorable. I continue to wash my hands and brush my teeth even though these are not dramatic experiences. If I have established healthy daily rhythms that support my physical well-being, it certainly makes sense that I would commit myself to daily routines that will support my spiritual well-being.

Committing myself to spiritual routines is not dramatic, but it is essential.

If you haven’t established a daily routine of setting aside a few minutes to talk to God, start now. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or complicated; this is your Father we’re talking about, and He’s glad to spend time with you. Listen to Him in His Word and speak to Him about what’s on your mind.

Start from where you are.

If you’ve started that habit, don’t give up, even if you feel you’re going through a dry spell. After all, it’s not about you and your experiences. The time you set aside to be with God is an act of worship, an act of sacrifice. It’s for Him.

And if you’ve come to the place where you look forward to your time with God, think about sharing your delight and your method with someone else. Show someone else what you do when you spend time with God.

In a future post, I’ll talk about five ways to engage with Scripture: reading, studying, memorizing, copying, and listening. I’ll share with you the method that has worked for me.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

Has it every puzzled you – maybe even bothered you – that God would insist that we worship Him? From one point of view, it might look as if God has a cosmically large inferiority complex. In fact, atheists have sometimes argued just that point: God must be a pitiful Deity if He had to create beings to worship Him.

But it is not His insecurity that compels Him to demand our worship; it is His love.

There are two reasons God’s love makes Him want us to worship Him.

1. God’s love compels Him to demand our worship because He knows that worship is the language of heaven.

God knows that there is a vast chasm between us and Him. We are the finite and fallen; He is the Eternal One, the Holy One of Israel. He knows that worship is the language of heaven, the tongue the angels use to speak to and of Him. He knows that the only way we can approach and address Him is in the language of worship.

He also knows that our union with Him is vital to our well-being; we need Him far more than we realize. He wants us to approach Him and be with Him. He has in fact designed and executed a Plan of epic proportions – a Plan that spanned dozens of generations – to create a path for us ruined sinners to come Home to be with Him.

It’s true that for those who are in Christ, God is our Father. And He is a good, good Father. But He is also the Almighty, the King of the Universe. And when we approach the Almighty, it is the language of worship we must use to speak to and of Him.

So, yes, God does want us to worship Him, because in His love He wants us to be near Him and commune with Him. And He knows that worship is the tongue we must employ to speak with Him.

2. God’s love compels Him to demand our worship because worship is the way the universe works.

Remember in Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when His enemies demanded He silence the praises of the people, Jesus told them that if the people didn’t praise Him, the very rocks would cry out (Luke 19:40). Jesus knew that the entire cosmos is tuned to sing the praises of its Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says the psalmist (Psa 19:1).

Worship is the way the entire universe works.

Of all the created beings in the cosmos, only Man is out of step with the way things work. We are the rebels who run against the grain of the universe by turning our worship toward created things (that is, we are idolators).

When we worship God, we are singing in harmony with the entire cosmos. When we worship God, we are joining in a mighty chorus of creation speaking the truth about the Almighty:

To describe Him is to praise Him.

To describe Him precisely is to praise Him greatly.

God wants us to worship Him because He wants to see our lives aligned with, not against, the grain of the universe, which is aflame with praise for our Creator.

So, yes, it is true that God wants us to worship Him.

But it is His great love for us, not His insecurity, that prompts Him to insist that we “enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise” (Psa 100).

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

There was a time when everyone pretty much lived in the same information bubble. Our options for television viewing were limited to three broadcast networks (three main sources for news). We laughed at the same jokes and shared the same basic sensibilities. Sure, we had Democrats and Republicans, right-wingers and left-wingers and moderates, even conspiracy theorists. But because we shared so much in common, we were able to understand one another more easily, and we didn’t distrust one another so much.

I don’t need to tell you that all of that has changed.

Surveys have shown that progressives and conservatives tend to view one another not just with suspicion but also with disdain, even contempt. Each camp finds the other incomprehensively ____________ (fill in the blank: naïve, corrupt, racist, brutish, etc.) We have devolved into warring tribes whose only common language is mutual outrage; civil debate has become the art of the insult. No shot is too low.

It is one thing to bewail the sorry state of politics and cultural discourse in our country. It’s quite another for Christ-followers to be swept up into the maelstrom as if we didn’t know better, as if our pet economic or political theory is all that matters in this world.

Thanks to algorithms, the point of view I see in social media merely reflects my own biases and prejudices. The more I hear my own point of view articulated and defended, the more obvious it is that my tribe is right and everyone else is not just wrong but dangerously wrong. In other words, each of us inhabits our own little Echo Chamber where we rarely hear opposing viewpoints, except in caricature. Our views are never challenged, only reinforced.

The Echo Chamber is a dangerous place for a believer to live.

1. The Echo Chamber is dangerous because it warps my perception of reality and unnecessarily heightens my anxiety.

If I am constantly hearing how bad things are and am simultaneously being told that my tribe is the only one that can sort things out, I will be justifiably alarmed at what I see in our culture. What’s worse, when I stoke those anxieties by listening to the voices I already agree with, I will limit my perspective to what I hear on Fox News and my Facebook feed, and I will forget that God is sovereign. In fact, when I hear only the echoes of my own anxieties, the very idea of the sovereignty of God will seem more and more naïve and irrelevant, the kind of thing we say to children and simple-minded people who can’t possibly understand how things really are.

Anything that diminishes my confidence in God is a danger to my spiritual formation.

2. The Echo Chamber is dangerous because it makes me more gullible.

When we get our news from our social media feed (which is saturated with accusations of “fake news” and “misinformation”), we are far more likely to believe wild speculations and dark rumors and hair-raising conspiracy theories.

Naïveté and gullibility are dangerous for the people of God.

3. The Echo Chamber is dangerous because it damages relationships.

When we get all our information from the Echo Chamber, we don’t see controversies as differences in opinion about what is prudent; we see everything in morally catastrophic terms. All our debates are about apocalyptic issues like “the survival of democracy” or “the survival of our way of life” or “the moral fabric of the nation” (expressions we can expect to hear repeatedly in the coming months).

When the stakes are so high it’s hard to have a calm, rational conversation about problems and solutions. And it’s hard to see people who disagree with me as sane, rational people with a different point of view.

This is how we end up with Christians questioning the salvation of other Christians who vote differently or who voice a different point of view on the hot-button issues. This is why we see Christians vilifying others for having a differing opinion on gun control or immigration.

Unnecessarily offending my brothers and sisters in Christ is dangerous to the spiritual formation of the fellowship.

4. The Echo Chamber is dangerous because it relegates God’s Word to a minor role.

This is the biggest problem. When I constantly feed on the information I hear in the Echo Chamber and simultaneously neglect the Word of God, I am creating my own dilemma. Diminishing the role of God’s Word in my life is dangerous to my spiritual formation.

We need to hear the voice of the Scriptures. CS Lewis observed that we are like the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied France, where Nazi officers strutted down the street. Those underground French fighters depended on the BBC to give them the truth about the progress of the war; they needed to know their cause was not as hopeless as it appeared.

We too see around us every day irrefutable evidence that tells us the enemy is supreme and invincible. The brokenness of our world and the corruption of human nature are on full display every day in our news and in our own hearts. The story we inhabit is full of despair.

But when we attend to the Scriptures, we hear another Story.

This is a Story not just from our times but from before time began, when God had already planned to redeem and restore all that is broken. The sweep of that Story is so grand that the convulsions of our cultural moment are a mere footnote. If we neglect to feed on that larger Story, we are tempted to despair.

But when we listen to God’s Word, we know better than to panic. By re-reading the stories of God’s mighty acts in His people’s history and drinking in the psalms and rehearsing the Gospel stories of Jesus and hearing the epistles, we recalibrate our expectations and outlook.

Let’s make this a social experiment.

Try starting and ending your day by reading one of the psalms aloud. There’s plenty in the psalms to reflect our emotional states – outrage, lament, exhilaration, hope, despondency – it’s all there. As you make psalm-reading a habit, you’ll begin to acquaint yourself with the rhythms and cadences and themes of God’s song-book, the same song-book Jesus used in his own troubled and turbulent times.

See if a week or two of daily psalm-reading doesn’t shift your point of view… from cynicism to hope in the promises of God, from despair to joy at the prospect of seeing Him someday make all things right.

Let’s feed on God’s Story, and let’s trust Him to manage the chaotic scene we’re in right now.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

Thanks to a generous policy approved by the elder council, pastors are allowed (even encouraged) to take time away for a sabbatical. I concluded my sabbatical last week.

I thought you’d like to know what Nanette and I did during our three weeks away. Our time broke into four parts:

1. The Christian Writer’s Conference.

We spent the first weekend at the Billy Graham Cove in Asheville, NC, where we attended a conference for Christian writers. There were about 200 people there, including the faculty. I learned a lot about the publishing industry, and I won Honorable Mention in one of the writing contests!

2. A week and a half of lollygagging.

After we left the conference, we worked our way through North Carolina and Virginia, stopping in three places, where we had absolutely no agenda. Every morning, we got up when we wanted to and went where we wanted to (antique stores, thrift stores, historical sites) and ate when and where we wanted to. It was gloriously unproductive and restful.

3. Museum of the Bible

Ever since the Museum of the Bible opened in 2017, I’ve wanted to go and see it. On the advice of others who have been before, we allocated two days to take it all in. And it did not disappoint. This was a bucket-list experience for both of us, a world-class museum experience.

4. Visiting with family

Even though our entire family had gathered at our house in February, we couldn’t be so close to our two sons and their families and not drop in for a visit before we came home. We spent a couple of days with our son Benjamin and his wife in Maryland, then headed north to spend a couple of days with our son Nathan and his family before we headed home last week.

And in case you’re wondering, I didn’t make as much progress on the reading as I had hoped.

1.       A Burning in My Bones, by Will Collier, a biography of Eugene Peterson, translator of The Message. I finished the book on the trip. Peterson was a fascinating man, a pastor who became a writer.

2.       The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, by Dallas Willard. I got a good start on this excellent resource, which is available on our Discipleship Resource shelf.

3.       A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, by Paul Miller. I also got a good start in this book but didn’t finish it.

4.       I began reading Gentle and Lowly with Nanette. I’ve read the book twice before, it’s that good. I wrote about it in my post “That Time I Was So Wrong about God,” December of 2021. Now I am sharing it with my bride, reading it aloud. I can’t recommend this book too much.

5.       And it should come as no surprise that I bought several books while I was gone, which is part of the reason I didn’t finish the books I took with me.

We enjoyed safe travels all the way, and good health. We are grateful to PPC for allowing us this time to rest and refresh, and we are so very glad to be back home with our church family. We tuned in to the Livestream, but we missed being with you.

 
Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

When Pastor Paul left for his sabbatical he asked me if I could fill in to write a couple Discipleship Weekly’s while he was gone. I agreed. Having not devoted much time to what topic I would write on this week I am indebted to Tephany Martin for this writing prompt that she observed from my life circumstances this past Tuesday: A 38-year-old man who had just left a birthday celebration of his 13-year-old son, to attend the funeral of a 97-year-old woman.

Tuesday morning, I woke up early with my wife to prepare breakfast to celebrate the life of our son. Family birthday breakfasts have become somewhat of a tradition in the Turner household and I had to leave early to attend a funeral out of town, so our “birthday breakfast” began at 6:15am. Even though it was early the kids all woke up relatively excited for the meal/celebration. We thanked the Lord for our son and enjoyed breakfast together. Afterwards we gave him birthday gifts and then I said goodbye and joined Pastor Joe and Pastor Boo to drive up to attend the funeral service for Pastor John’s mother.

                The funeral was for Mary Louise (Yost) Mohler Perkins, who departed to be with our Lord on February 28th, 2024. As her sons paid tribute to the Lord for their mother, and honored her memory, I looked around and admired all the people who came to this small country church because they either knew Mary or her family. The funeral was standing room only. She clearly exemplified Proverbs 31:28, “Her children rise up and call her blessed.” While the family was sad, you could also sense a deep gratitude to the Lord for blessing them with a dear mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

                After the service we traveled back to Beavercreek. We enjoyed great fellowship in the car on the way up and back down, but when I returned, I was greeted by the excitement of young children that dad had returned (I’m still enjoying that as I know it will be gone at some point). We enjoyed dinner together, played one of the games my son received for his birthday, and after the younger ones went to bed my son and I started watching Lord of the Rings (his birthday request). What does all this have to do with following Jesus?

                The connection can be found in Psalm 90. The psalm has a phrase in it that people often use as a proverb, “teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” but within the context there is something greater being proclaimed to God’s people. Psalm 90:1-2 proclaims the greatness of God, “before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Then Moses proclaims the sovereignty of God over man, creation, and time. Psalm 90:3-6 says, “You return man to dust…For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past…” Moses continues to articulate to our God’s omniscience in relation to man’s sinfulness, “you have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” In Psalm 90:8-11 Moses asks the question, “who really considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?” The implied answer is “No one.”

So, if you are tracking Moses’ prayer, it begins with God is greater than we can imagine, we are smaller than we imagine, He knows all of our sins, and we don’t fear Him as we ought. It is in light of these realities that the psalmist asks God to do something that he (Moses) is incapable of doing: number his days that he may gain a heart of wisdom. It’s the realization that in comparison to eternity, our life is but a breath. But this is not all that Moses requests. He requests the following of the Lord:

Teach us to number our days.

Have pity on us.

Satisfy us.

Make us glad.

Let your work be shown to us.

Let your favor be upon us.

Establish the work of our hands.

Psalm 90:12-17

At Mary Louise (Yost) Mohler Perkins’ funeral I got to hear testimonies of a sister in Christ who depended on the Lord and not on her own understanding. God’s Word was her food. She planted herself by streams of living water and her life bore fruit. It was humbling to return home and reflect upon my life, yet instead of being discouraged by all the ways I am not like Mary, I was encouraged that Mary’s faithful steadfast God is mine as well. The same God who taught her, pitied her, satisfied her, placed his favor upon her, and established the work of her hands is my God as well, and the God of my son. It was a privilege to celebrate both of those lives on Tuesday, and a needed reminder of God’s faithfulness. May you be encouraged as well.

Persevere, Joey Turner Pastor of Student Ministry

Last week my family had the privilege of going on vacation. It was great! We played games, swam in a pool, were hosted with great generosity and hospitality from my in-laws, and enjoyed great weather. I always like to take a book that is not something I really have the time to read when not on vacation but want to read. This time, I asked our very own Jan Lloyd if she had a copy of her new book, Glory in Disguise: Seeing God in Our Every Day, for me to read while on vacation. I’ve wanted to read it since it came out.

Glory in Disguise is like reading a pilgrim’s journal. The book is broken up into short stories that exemplify biblical truths from Jan’s own life. Saturated with Scripture and complimented with poems written by her friend Penny Mandeville, each entry reveals the beautiful reality of life with Christ. This book is approachable and edifying for all. It would be a great starting point for any family wanting to establish a family devotional time, or personal devotions, or a discipleship group. The short chapters are accompanied by a written prayer and reflection questions.

As a pastor and a younger brother in Christ to Jan, it was a joy to hear of God’s continued work in her life and to be edified by the ways in which he has uniquely gifted her to build up the church. It made me think of a quote I heard one time, “At any given point God is doing a million things in your life, and you may be aware of one of them.” And it challenged me to consider how God is at work in the everyday moments of my life and the lives of those around me. Glory in Disguise is a heralding cry out to Christians to not miss out on the glory of today by forgetting that Christ is with you. Even if today is filled with business meetings, inconveniences, or dirty diapers, it is a day filled with Glory in Disguise.

I commend to you brothers and sisters to read Glory in Disguise.

 Persevere,         Joey Turner Pastor of Student Ministry

I am not someone who inherently likes to practice. It may be the nature of sheer monotony or the feeling that all I do is redundant practice of the basics. It can be frustrating, especially for the impatient person who loves efficiency, problem solving, and productivity. Just ask my former coaches or piano teachers; you could even ask my parents. I have never been one to invite rehearsal as a part of my life, but in fact found the thought of it to be restrictive and unnecessary.

I am not sure if this is your disposition when someone mentions the concept of practice. Maybe your default is to reason why you do not have the time to commit to an ongoing task or maybe you have counted the cost of what practicing a certain skill will be and therefore have decided to forego that opportunity. Nevertheless, this concept is one we all resonate with and one that strikes a chord; whether the child trying to figure out how to do the last loop with shoelaces, the greek student attempting to understand the function of a participle, the husband who has been wanting to cook a romantic dinner but has not advanced past the delicacy of frozen food, or the employee needing to recertify and practice their discipline for an upcoming promotion.

Rehearsal is not only for the gain of life skills. However, it does seem like the older I get the more I am faced with even more past opportunities I bypassed, especially when sitting in attendance at a basketball game, piano recital, or school musical. How the success of the athletes in front of me stems from their commitment to the fundamentals and habits in the weight room. How the musicians’ performance is dictated by the dedication to run their fingers through reps of scales and sight-reading. How the quality of those on stage are heightened because of the consistency with which they rehearsed and studied both the literature and script of the play.

Even though we want to wish ourselves to be better than having to rehearse, we should not be so naïve to think of ourselves this way. Every person is a creature in need of refinement through practice. It’s how we are created as well as the result of living in a broken world.

The goal of this post isn’t necessarily to inspire you to start practicing that thing you’ve always wanted to learn, such as gardening or picking up the acoustic guitar sitting in your basement (although I highly recommend doing both if you feel any compulsion). Rather, I want to suggest that spiritual rehearsal is actually a faithful and necessary act of the Christian. We need to practice our faith in God and commit to the disposition of the psalmist in Psalm 9:1 -2.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

I have really enjoyed learning and studying the tone, style, and nature of liturgies, whether personal or corporate. I admit that liturgy has been done both extremely poorly and extremely well within the church, so I know it holds a different connotation to a variety of people. But when done well what could happen is that the recitation and the rehearsal of doctrines and creeds of the past, prayers through Scripture, or reading numerous portions of Scripture bolsters the faith of the participant. (I know this is not always the case, but bear with me - It can be).

Recently I purchased a book, O Sacred Head, Now Wounded by Dr. Jonathan Gibson, which is a daily liturgy for believers meant to lead you from Pascha all the way to Pentecost. Each day is filled with Scripture, confessions of past saints and church fathers, prayers, etc. that you can read through the season of Easter. While I do recommend this book as well as his two others (Be Thou
My Vision and O Come O Come Emmanuel), the primary reason I mention it is due to the content of his introduction. He writes,

We human beings are forgetful by nature. I do not mean in a finite sense but in a fallen sense. We forget because we choose to forget – at least that is the case when it comes to our response to God’s character and covenant and commands, to his ways and works and words. We forsake our Maker because we choose to forget our Maker.

Gibson goes on to show how a number of our favorite people from Scripture testify to this precise truth. We see Abraham’s forgetfulness displayed when he takes matters into his own hands for a seed or David’s as he strikes down a faithful husband and devoted warrior to cover up his own sin. Forgetfulness is inherent to every man and woman. But this is why Gibson’s following remarks place us in front of the text of Scripture to obey by remembering and rehearsing. He writes,

Given this aspect of our fallen humanity, it is unsurprising to find commands in the Old and New Testaments to “remember” God and what he has done for us. In the Old Testament, we are exhorted to “remember” God as our Creator in the days of our youth (Ecc. 12:1); we are encouraged to “remember” him as our Redeemer and the “wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered” (Psa. 105:5). The psalmist exhorts us, “Bless the Lord…and forget not all his benefits” (Psa. 103:2).

May we not forget his benefits and be disciplined to do the spiritual practice of rehearsal.

A reason I bring this up is because Easter has been one of those holidays and seasons that sneaks up on me (even more so this year, since Easter is in March!). By the time I am sitting in that Sunday service, I feel like I missed an opportunity to reflect upon my need of the gospel and to rejoice considering the Savior having been slain and resurrecting to life. My deepest need is answered in the cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ. I pray I continually rehearse, through the Spirit, how great is my need and how much greater is His redemption.

…and p.s. how much more beautiful does it become that one of the benefits I am to not forget is the gift of the Spirit, who Jesus declares helps us in this very thing:

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and
bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you . (John 14:26)

Persevere, Nick Boucher Youth Pastor

Thanks to a generous policy approved by the elder council, pastors are allowed (even encouraged) to take time away for a sabbatical. I begin my sabbatical this week.

I thought you’d like to know what Nanette and I will be doing during our time away.

Their policy stipulates that there should be both a professional development component and plenty of time for rest during the sabbatical.

For the professional development component, we will attend the Christian Writer’s Conference at the Billy Graham Cove in Asheville, North Carolina. I have submitted one of my blog pieces for a contest, and I have scheduled an hour with a consultant, who will give me professional feedback on my blogs and study guides.

After the conference, we will stay a few more days in the Asheville area, then head north to Washington, DC, for me to check off an item from my bucket list: two days to visit the Bible Museum.

From there we will go visit our sons and their families in Maryland and Pennsylvania. We plan to get back in the middle of March.

And in case you’re wondering, I’m taking three books with me. Time permitting, I’ll read these three titles in this order:

1.   A Burning in My Bones, by Will Collier, a biography of Eugene Peterson, translator of The Message. (I’m already about a third of the way through it. Fascinating.)

2.  The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, by Dallas Willard, a classic on the spiritual disciplines (available on our Discipleship Resource shelf).

3.   A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, by Paul Miller (the book our women are studying in our current women’s Bible studies).

We should be back for the March 17 Sunday services, Lord willing.

Pray that God will give us safe travels and good health and refreshing rest.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

(reposted from June, 2021)

If you read the literature on discipleship, you’ll often see exhortations to “make disciples the way Jesus did.”

That expression was off-putting for me at first. On its face, it seems absurd. After all, Jesus employed the methods of training common in first century Judaism. He, the rabbi, called His men away from their vocations, trained them on the move for three years, then after His resurrection commissioned them as apostles to fan out and tell everyone what they had learned.

Clearly, we can’t make disciples the same way a first century Jewish rabbi made disciples. But if that’s not what it means to “make disciples the way Jesus did,” what does it mean to learn from Jesus how to make disciples?
 
So how can we learn not only from Jesus how to make disciples in our own cultural context? I think the New Testament reveals the answers to these questions.
 
1. Jesus concentrated on the few to reach the many.
 
This is part of what the discipleship literature means when it tells us to “make disciples the way Jesus did.” Jesus had many opportunities to build a large following, to create a mass movement, to reach the multitudes. But He focused most of His energies on training His men.
 
Even though Jesus had compassion for the multitudes, He steadfastly refused to pour His energy into building a mass movement. His strategy was long-term: in the time He took to train His men, he was setting up His new community for long-term growth.
 
In our Western obsession with numerical growth, this approach seems counter-intuitive, almost elitist. But the discipleship literature is right: when we tailor our ministries to reach the multitude and neglect the individual training of leaders, we end up with entire congregations full of people whose faith is a mile wide and an inch deep.
 
We see Paul replicating Jesus’ method of disciple-making in his ministry. Paul was both recruiter and coach for his ministry team. He understood that disciple-making is a team sport, and he excelled in creating ministry teams of leaders in training.

Paul’s main thrust was church-planting, but he was always thinking long-term. That’s why we see so many names in the salutations of and closings of Paul’s letters: he was always training young leaders to expand the work and carry on after he was gone.
 

 
We don’t know whether the other apostles employed a similar method (perhaps they did), but there was clearly more to disciple-making in the early church than training leaders in small teams. So the question arises: what other means of disciple-making do we see in the early church?
 
2. The early church created a vibrant community life that attracted people.
 
This is the other part of what the books mean when they tell us to “make disciples the way Jesus did.” Jesus worked in the context of relationships, not just programs.
 
And it is here where we see most clearly that disciple-making was a team sport in the early church. It was as those early believers “one-anothered” well that they cultivated the kind of vibrant community life that not only discipled one another but also created a hunger in outsiders to be part of that kind of community life.
 
Think of the wide variety of exhortations clustered around “one-anothering” in the New Testament. A quick Google search brought up an impressive list:

·         Be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10)

·         Honor one another above yourselves (Romans 12:10)

·         Live in harmony with one another (Romans 12:16)

·         Build up one another (Romans 14:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:11)

·         Be likeminded towards one another (Romans 15:5)

·         Accept one another (Romans 15:7)

·         Admonish one another (Romans 15:14; Colossians 3:16)

·         Greet one another (Romans 16:16)

·         Care for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25)

·         Serve one another (Galatians 5:13)

·         Bear one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2)

·         Forgive one another (Ephesians 4:2, 32; Colossians 3:13)

·         Be patient with one another (Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:13)

·         Speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15, 25)

·         Be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32)

·         Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19)

·         Submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21; 1 Peter 5:5)

·         Consider others better than yourselves (Philippians 2:3)

·         Look to the interests of one another (Philippians 2:4)

·         Bear with one another (Colossians 3:13)

·         Teach one another (Colossians 3:16)

·         Comfort one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

·         Encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

·         Exhort one another (Hebrews 3:13)

·         Stir up [provoke, stimulate] one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24)

·         Show hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9)

·         Employ the gifts that God has given us for the benefit of one another (1 Peter 4:10)

·         Clothe yourselves with humility towards one another (1 Peter 5:5)

·         Pray for one another (James 5:16)

·         Confess your faults to one another (James 5:16)

Think of what a fellowship would look like – what it would feel like – if this kind of “one anothering” were deeply embedded in the culture, if these kinds of interactions were normal and customary for a group of believers, if we were always about the task of encouraging and edifying one another.
 
The early church grew so rapidly at least in part because outsiders saw this kind of community and knew they wanted to be part of it. As a result, they were more open to hearing the Good News about Jesus. Their vibrant community life created the itch and gospel proclamation provided the scratch.
 
3. There are different roles for each of us in making disciples.
 
God’s Spirit has equipped each believer with a different set of skills and passions to carry out this disciple-making work. While all of us are exhorted to be devoted to one another and be compassionate toward one another, some are specially equipped to teach or provide hospitality or serve or provide comfort.
 
This then is another way we can see how disciple-making is a team sport: each member of the team has a special role to play. Teams are made up of different athletes carrying out differing roles. Not every football player is a lineman or a quarterback or a linebacker. Not every baseball player is a catcher. In the same way there are various roles for each of us to play in discipling one another.
 
So then, identifying the gift God has given me is an essential part of me playing my part in the disciple-making that goes on in my fellowship. And I am responsible both to God and to the Body of Christ for how I steward those gifts. As Peter put it, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies” (1 Peter 4:10-11, ESV).
 
The old cliché is true.
 
I was in eighth grade when I first heard the well-worn maxim from my soccer coach: “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” I’ve never forgotten that key insight into how team sports work. Each individual member has a crucial role to play and must play it well. Sure, there are players who excel and draw a lot of attention, but in team sports everyone has a role to play.
 
Jesus assigned us the task of making disciples. But none of us are sufficient to carry out that mission alone. We need one another to get the job done.
 
Let’s do our part, whether that means being involved in leadership training or contributing to vibrant community life or utilizing our gifts in service to the Body.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

“Spiritual formation” is a phrase that often appears in the conversation on discipleship. It speaks to the
ways we cultivate our life with God. Usually, conversations about spiritual formation will revolve around
the holy habits of Scripture engagement, prayer, service, etc.

But I heard a sermon recently in which the pastor pointed out some of the ways we are spiritually
formed unintentionally, ways in which our spiritual life is shaped without our knowledge.

One of his points resonated with me:

We are unintentionally shaped by the storyline we inhabit.

The “storyline” of our life is the way we understand who we are and why we matter and what our life is
made for. We hear that storyline in that interior voice that interprets and comments on our daily life.

We first learn about that storyline in our family of origin. But that story is expanded and deepened by
our life experiences (success, failure, trauma, etc.) and our culture (history, traditions, mass media,
social media, etc.).

We “inhabit” that story by absorbing and embodying the assumptions that run like operating system
software in the background of our minds. These assumptions are not all toxic, but for good or for ill they
deeply impact the way we see ourselves and our lives.

These are some of the assumptions that dominate our hearts and minds and create our inner dialogue:

·         how our parents did or did not express affection for us

·         what our parents thought about our capacities and prospects

·         what we think we deserve and why we deserve it

·         why we have the gifting/deficits/opportunities we have and whether we are living up to our potential

·         our standing in our social group

The problem with these assumptions is that they are so deeply embedded.

We can’t easily dislodge them, and the storyline they create seems obvious and irrefutable. This is why it
is so difficult for us to find our identity in Christ; our interior dialogue keeps trying to make our Christidentity seem indistinct and irrelevant.

There are then, multiple storylines vying for my attention: the true storyline (in the Son I am beloved by
the Father, and I have a bright future with Him) and any number of false storylines that seem more
compelling:

·         If people knew the real me, no one would love me.

·         My life will not be complete until… (we complete that sentence by naming some sort of idol, which will surely
fail us).

·         I’ll never live up to my potential…

·         …or If I try just a little harder, I’ll live up to my potential.

You get the picture. And you can see how – without any conscious effort on my part – I will be spiritually
formed by the voice that narrates the story of my life. My spiritual life can rise no higher than the story I
am constantly telling myself about myself and about God and about what my life means before the eyes
of God.

This is why we need to hear from God frequently.

And, yes, this does get us back to the holy habits, the ways we intentionally cultivate our life with God.
We cannot hope to ingest enough truth about God in one hour on Sunday morning to carry us through
the week. We are forgetful creatures, and we live in a world where competing storylines are trumpeted
every day everywhere, both around us and especially in our heads.

This is why we must often spend time with God in His Word and in prayer if we want to resist the
powerful seduction of the false storylines that crowd into and shout into our minds.

Here’s the storyline I want to remind myself of today, the story I see in God’s Word and hear in the voice
of His Spirit:

He really is my good, good Father.

That’s who He is.

This is the storyline I need to rehearse every day.

I am loved by Him.

That’s who I am.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

I’ve been thinking a lot about pain lately.

A couple of things have made me want to write about pain. For one thing, there are several in our fellowship who have been experiencing pain for months, even years. I saw one of them at church recently, and she was (as always) smiling. I asked her how she’s doing. She told me she had listened to Joni Eareckson Tada speak about pain.

Joni has been a quadriplegic since her teens. When Joni speaks about pain, she speaks with wisdom and authority. She has experienced a lifetime of both psychological and physical pain, so she knows whereof she speaks. Something Joni said helped my friend reframe her pain. When I inquired about how she was feeling, my friend told me that no, she is not feeling better, but she is doing better.

“Not feeling better but doing better.” That phrase has created a whole new paradigm for me to think about pain.

In my sermons I have sometimes described faith as “an expanded frame of reference.” Clearly, my friend had heard something from Joni that made her realize that there is a larger reality than her physical and psychological pain. My friend could “do better” not because Joni’s words alleviated her pain but because what she heard put her pain into a broader, hope-filled context.

I mentioned that there were two things that had made me want to write about pain.

The other thing is an author interview I heard on the podcast Mere Fidelity. John Andrew Bryant has suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder for many years. His new book – A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ – describes what it’s like to deal with mental illness as a Christian.

In his interview Bryant speaks of how he manages the intrusive thoughts of his OCD. Like those in our fellowship who struggle with persistent pain – Bryant can’t make the unwanted thoughts go away, but he can respond to them from a broader context. Those intrusive thoughts, he said, are like a neighbor’s car alarm. You might not be able to silence the alarm, but you can realize that you don’t need to respond. It’s not your car, so you can go about your business even though the noise continues.

In other words, Bryant learned to reframe the pain of his intrusive thoughts by expanding his imaginative frame of reference.   

He also said that traumatized people are sometimes uncomfortable with being around others in a church setting. When they are reluctant to commit to fellowship, the church’s best response is patient engagement offline: a cup of coffee and casual conversation with a Christian friend away from the church building. It may take years, says Bryant, but that’s the kind of patient, healing work that we must commit to if we want to help traumatized people.

In other words, if we want to play a role in helping traumatized people heal, we need to reframe their pain and healing by expanding our chronological frame of reference.

Scripture has much to say about suffering.

The Psalms are full of lamentation – “How long, O Lord?” – the cries of a man whose suffering is caving in on him, causing him to lose his frame of reference. “How long?” is a cry to God for rescue from a world that is collapsing, and hope is slipping away.

The New Testament epistles encourage us to reframe our pain by explaining suffering in terms of God’s greater purposes:

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom 5:3-4).

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (Jam 1:2-3).

And from our sermon series in 1 Peter: “You have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:6-7).

So long as we live in this broken world, with our own broken bodies and minds, among others who are likewise broken, we will both cause and experience pain.

But the hope of the Gospel reframes our pain twice over:

1. Our lives are in the hands of our Sovereign Lord, and He is wise and good. He knows what He’s doing, as He knew what He was doing with the pain of His own Son. He can be trusted, even when our pain is intense and persistent. Because we know His character – His wisdom and His love – we can be sure that our pain is never for nothing.

2. Our pain will not have the final word. When we get to the End, we will be not just satisfied but delighted. As Paul put it so well, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18).

And we can say with the old Puritan prayer:

Grant that I may be salted with suffering,

with every exactment tempered to my soul,

every rod excellently fitted to my back,

to chastise, humble, break me.

Let me not overlook the hand that holds the rod,

as Thou didst not let me forget the rod that fell on Christ,

and drew me to Him. (Valley of Vision)

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

You’ve got to understand Middle Earth a bit before you can get into the adventure of the Hobbits. Likewise, parents, you need to understand a few things about how God interacts with His people and the historical setting a bit to explain the beauty of what God is doing in the book of Daniel (and all other prophetic books) to your kids.

God is Like a King to His People

Clans, tribes, wars, treaties! Who doesn’t love these things? In ancient times a conquering king was described as a suzerain, and the conquered king then became a vassal. A suzerain often had multiple vassals (kings he had conquered). The suzerain would establish a covenant with his vassal that included

·         A preamble: “The Suzerain is so Great!”

·         A historical prologue: “I am the king who….”

·         Stipulations: commands, and sanctions (blessings, for obedience and curses, for disobedience)

·         Divine witnesses to the covenant and documentary clause.

Often these covenants were written on stone.

With this understanding we can see that God communicated with His people in a manner in which they understood. God is like a suzerain (but far greater) and the people of God are like his vassal. He has made a covenant with them. They are His people, and He is their God.

Prophets are the Messengers of the King

What does a good king do if he hears of a subject who is disobeying his rules? He sends a messenger to warn them of what will happen if they continue. Then he admonishes them to stop what they are doing and turn back to the king. This is the role of the prophets in the Old Testament. They are divine messengers chosen by the suzerain (God) to communicate blessings of covenant obedience and the punishment of covenant breaking to the vassal kingdoms (Israel & Judah).  

God speaks through His Divine Chosen Messengers.

2 Chronicles 36:15-16 says, “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers (prophets), because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.”

The covenant punishment for worshipping other gods and following man rather than God is exile. The reason Daniel is in Babylon is because God’s people refused to listen to God’s messengers. Now even in exile God is going to communicate to His people through Daniel’s life actions, and through visions given to Daniel.

Like a Star Wars Timeline

Episode 4 of Star Wars was the first one to premiere, followed by episodes 5 and 6. Then came episodes 1, 2, and 3. After that came episodes 7, 8, and 9. When someone says I like the original Star Wars they are not talking about episode 1, they are speaking about episodes 4-6.

In the same way the timeline of Biblical books does not match the order in which we find them in the Bible. Daniel is dated around 605-535 BC. This means that he probably saw the destruction of Assyria and the conquest of Babylon. He most definitely lived through the fall of Babylon to the times of Persia and the Medes. It is important for the reader to understand that Daniel is writing to a persecuted community who has been completely overtaken by other nations as a result of not keeping covenant with God. Unlike many of the other prophets writing prior to exile, Daniel is written from exile in Babylon. 

Hard to Over-Exaggerate

Once God’s people were exiled they would’ve thought of themselves as good as dead. Other nations now rule them. Their temple, where God’s presence resided, has been destroyed by pagan nations. Their families have been dispersed. Their daughters are marrying into other nations. Their children are being educated under a completely different worldview. The scene is not just bad for God’s people, it is hopeless. You have to understand exile to understand Daniel. 

The Perfect Setting

But not all of God’s people ignored His messengers. There has always been a remnant who trusted in Him and yet have found themselves suffering the consequences of the people. During the exile (God’s just punishment) of God’s people the Lord gives us the story of Daniel. Daniel is written to give hope to God’s people who find themselves in exile!

What we find in Daniel is that exile is a perfect setting for God’s people to witness the sovereignty of the true God who transcends all other kings and powers; to witness the faithfulness of God to His chosen messenger, and to witness the hope God gives His people of a future victory where God reigns over all.

Death to Life

Parents, as you read/teach Daniel to your kids there are many gospel parallels to draw out. God is our King (suzerain) and we are His people (vassals). He has commanded us to love Him and love others (Old Covenant). We have broken God’s covenant (sinned) and the consequence of that is exile (death).

It is hard to over-exaggerate how hopeless we really are in our sin. Those who are in exile cannot save themselves, their salvation must come from outside themselves. Ultimately, the people of God find their salvation later in the story where Christ, who is the King, the Prophet, and the Lamb will come as a man representative of God’s people to obey the covenant perfectly. He will give his people all of the blessings promised for covenant obedience, and He will take upon Himself, finally, all of the curses deserved for God’s covenant breaking people. He will establish a new covenant of grace to be received by faith in this Great King, and Prophet, Jesus. Further, Jesus will give us an even better example than Daniel of what it means to live faithfully as God’s new people in Christ in exile.  

Persevere, Joey Turner, Pastor of Student Ministry

When we sang songs about the blood of Jesus a few weeks ago (“There Is a Fountain Filled with the Blood” and “Thank You, Jesus, for the Blood”), I wondered if all that talk of blood might make some folks uncomfortable.

I’ve grown up singing about the blood of Jesus, all the way back to the children’s song “Deep and Wide” (which doesn’t specifically identify the contents of the fountain as blood, but we all figured it out).

Some are not just squeamish but positively offended by all this talk of blood. Some liberal denominations have deleted references to the blood from their creeds, confessions, and hymns.

Why such a preoccupation with blood in Christian and Jewish thought?

Our theology speaks of blood because our sin is so deeply offensive to a holy God. The sacrifices He ordained for Israel were a graphic illustration of what was required to separate the sinner from his sin. The Holy One, who loves the sinner, couldn’t simply overlook the sinner’s wrongdoings. The sinner’s rebellion had created a debt that must be paid, and the life of the animal was given in payment for that debt.

Once we get to Jesus, we see that all those centuries of sacrifices – those hundreds of thousands of animals slaughtered in Jewish ceremony – were one long rehearsal designed to help God’s people see what He was giving us in Christ: the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

But this leads us to a more basic question: why must there be such a violent solution to the problem of our sin?

If God loves us, why can’t He just forgive us?

When we question the need for such a radical solution to the problem of our sin, we betray ourselves: We wonder if God might be overreacting. That is because we want a God who hates what we hate and tolerates what we tolerate.

We know that there are some kinds of wrongdoing that demand ferocious justice: human trafficking, the abortion industry, the abuse of children, rape, war crimes, and the like. These are the things that make our blood boil, and we would applaud God’s holy wrath poured out on those wrongdoers.

But we all have another list, a secret catalog of the misdeeds that we are prone to overlook both in ourselves and in others. And when we see God’s wrath poured out on those seemingly minor offenses, we wonder why God can’t align Himself with our moral sensibilities.

In other words, we want a God who is made in our image. And we do not have that option.

This is the God of the Bible: The Holy One loves us sinners, but our rebellion has created an insurmountable debt that stands between the sinner and the holy God. In His perfect justice, He could have walked away and left us to our destruction. Instead, He gave us His own Son, who gave Himself up to cruel tormentors to spill His blood, paying the debt for all who put their trust in Him. Jesus had to die to reconcile us to a holy God, and like the death of the sacrificial animal, His death had to be violent.

Without Jesus’ brutal death, we would be without God and without hope.

So, yes, blood is an essential component in our faith.

So essential, in fact, that we don’t just tolerate the presence of blood in our theology, we actually celebrate the bloody death of the Lamb every time we take Communion, to remember His broken body and spilled blood.

Thank you, Father, for giving us your Son.

And thank you, Jesus, for the blood.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

Last week, you may have scrolled down to see an early draft of this post. It is an update of a post we published a year ago on high-quality Bible training courses available for free online.

I want to highlight one course in particular: Dallas Theological Seminary is offering a free course on 1 & 2 Peter, the two books in our next sermon series.

Take a look at the many other opportunities to sit under some of the finest Bible teachers in the world.

Cedarville University has made all five courses of its Bible minor available for free online. Our own Michael McKay teaches the New Testament literature course:

·         Bible and the Gospel

·         Old Testament Literature

·         New Testament Literature (McKay)

·         Theology I

·         Theology II

Dallas Theological Seminary, offers courses on more than a dozen books of the Bible. In addition to these book studies, DTS also offers several other free online courses on important topics:

·         Can You Trust the Bible?

·         Evangelism

·         How to Read the Bible Like a Seminary Professor

·         Lessons from Biblical Leaders

·         Luther

·         Names and Attributes of God

·         Return of Christ

·         The Life of Christ

·         The Story of Scripture

·         Understanding God’s Covenants

·         What Is Theology?

Denver Seminary offers four free courses:

·         Be Prepared to Give an Answer: Christian Apologetics

·         Finding and Following Your God-Given Calling

·         Unlocking the Parables of Jesus

·         What’s the Bible All About?

Ethnos360 is a missions organization. Michael McKay, our newest elder, and Lee-Ann McKay, our Women’s Ministry Director, were with that organization. They have six free courses:

·         Books of the Bible: Gospel of Mark, Zechariah, Book of Revelation

·         Topical courses: The Grand Narrative of the Bible, The Christian and Contemporary Culture, and Missions

Monergism.com lists five seminaries offering free online courses:

·         Reformed Theological Seminary

·         Covenant Theological Seminary

·         Westminster Theological Seminary

·         Masters Theological Seminary

·         Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary offers seven free courses:

·         Interpreting & Teaching the Bible

·         An Overview of the New Testament

·         Work & Worship

·         A Biblical View of Wealth & Poverty

·         Evangelism in the Local Church

·         Christian Theology

·         History of Missions

BiblicalTraining.org lists more than 150 free online courses. (We won’t list them.)

Although there is no financial cost for these courses, there are other costs.

Any time you enroll in a course, you commit yourself to the time and effort it will take to get the work done: sometimes only watching the instructional videos, but sometimes also buying and reading books, maybe even writing papers.

But the hours you commit to this kind of training will be time well spent as these resources can deepen your understanding of God’s Word and draw you closer to the Savior.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

It isn’t unusual for people to resolve to form new habits at the beginning of the year. This is a good and healthy kind of ambition. Even though we know we may fail to follow through, it’s still good to steer our intentions in the direction of better habits. Many Christians will resolve to cultivate the habit of reading the Bible, using a Bible reading plan.

The Gospel Coalition website has an excellent list of Bible reading plans, and I’m an enthusiastic supporter of our people engaging with Scripture (reading, studying, hearing, discussing, etc.) But because Bible reading plans are usually schedule oriented, I am conflicted about them. They can work well, very well by adding structure to the habit. Or they can create problems, real problems, by contaminating our hearts.

A Bible-reading plan that doesn’t work and creates problems

We must admit at the outset that a Bible reading plan is a checklist. The format isn’t the problem, but when I let the checklist drive my engagement, it changes my approach to reading Scripture.

When I read the Bible, I must do so with my mind and heart engaged and open to hear from God. There’s something leisurely about reading the Bible this way. It is not hurried or distracted. The focus of that mindset is on God Himself, not on a task to be completed.

But when I adopt the checklist mindset about my spiritual formation, the results are sure to be bad. A checklist approach to spirituality reduces holy habits to goal achievement, which will either fill me with spiritual pride or make me feel so guilty and discouraged that I give up. (I’ve been down both those roads, and they’re both dead ends.)  

My mindset will be most obvious when I miss a day or two.

Most of us who have attempted a through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan have faced the problem of falling behind. Faced with a Bible-reading deficit, am I filled with anxiety and guilt? If so, that impulse isn’t from God, and it reveals checklist mindset.

If I am to use a Bible reading plan, I need to guard my heart against a goal-achievement mindset. Scripture engagement isn’t about accomplishment; it’s about meeting with the living God in His Word.

A Bible-reading plan that works

I recently asked a friend what he was doing for Scripture engagement. I knew that he had launched into a through-the-Bible reading plan several years ago; I wondered if he had persevered or given up. He told me – to my delight – that he was continuing his study. Because of his thorough note-taking approach, he had fallen behind schedule. So he had given up getting through the entire Bible in a year; instead, he had simply recalibrated his expectations and continued his study. After all, what’s the hurry?

A Bible reading plan that works has two key characteristics:

1. I use it to engage with God’s Word, not just read it.

2. I keep using it.

No, really, it’s that simple.

Whatever plan you use, if it keeps you engaged with God’s Word – not just reading but reflecting – it’s a good plan for you.

Stick with that plan.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

We think of the Christmas season as a warm and sentimental time of the year. This is the time when we listen to music that makes us nostalgic and wistful, and we fill our days with celebrations. But life has a way of disrupting our plans. As I write these words, we are preparing for the funeral for one of our people, we got news yesterday of the passing of another, several in our fellowship are enduring long-term health problems, and still others in our church family are nearing the end of their days. Christmas is anything but merry for many in our fellowship.

This blog post, originally published in 2021, addresses the question of how the coming of the baby Jesus speaks to us in our darkness and sorrow.

For many people, the Christmas season evokes so many warm memories of family and tradition. Even people who are hard and cynical sometimes become soft and tender at the thought of fond Christmas memories. Christmas traditions invite us to go back to the wonder of childhood, and we revel in those memories.

But not all people feel this way about Christmas. For some people, the Christmas season brings back sharp and painful memories. So even the thought of carols and feasts and time with loved ones only opens up old wounds. They may not say it out loud because they don’t want to spoil the mood for everyone else, but it’s “Bah, humbug!” under their breath. Their pain is too deep.

For many other people, Christmas is bittersweet. Along with the warm and cheerful sentiments of the season, Christmas is also a painful reminder of loved ones who are gone from this world and will never again be part of those warm family scenes. And for those people, especially soon after they are bereaved, it is inconceivable that they could ever reconstitute the joy they once knew at Christmas.

But what if Christmas isn’t about nostalgia?

What if there’s something even richer and deeper in the story of the birth of the Christ Child?

When Paul wrote to the church in Philippi about the coming of Christ, he didn’t speak in nostalgic and sentimental terms. He struck a stirring, triumphant note, singing not only about Christ’s first humble coming as a baby and His humiliation and death but also about his ultimate victory and glory.

Though he was in the form of God,

he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but he emptied himself

by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

(Philippians 2:5-11)

Scholars think that Paul’s soaring rhetoric was a well-known Christian hymn. These were lyrics his readers knew well. In other words, when he quotes these lovely words about Christ’s humility in becoming a man and submitting himself to a shameful death, when he trumpets the news of his glorious triumph over death in his Resurrection from the dead, Paul is singing.

In God’s invasion of human history, Paul wants us to celebrate not just His gracious humility but also His glorious triumph over the forces of darkness that afflict us, the powers of sin and death and hell.

In other words, the Good News about Jesus is not that we will win the victory over sin. The Good News is not about our victory at all; it is about how Jesus has already won the victory.

This is Good News that makes the birth of our triumphant Savior a cause for celebration, even when we are in pain, even when we are sad.

We can celebrate because we know that in our long and exhausting battle with sin and death, the final outcome is no longer in question.

The King has come.

And He has triumphed. 

Persevere,  Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship                                                                                                                                                                                 

(There will be no Discipleship Weekly post for the next two weeks. Have a blessed Christmas, and we’ll see you in the New Year.)

He was well along in years, and his wife had never borne him a child. In that time, in that place, childlessness was catastrophic, even shameful. For some reason, God had withheld His blessing from this godly couple, and their grief was deep and painful.

But today something made the old man sing, and he wasn’t singing the blues.

As he sings, Zechariah speaks as a representative of a people who had been held captive, a people who were tempted to give up hope. All he and his people had known – for centuries – was bad news:

-- their humiliation in the Babylonian exile

-- their return to find the Land of Promise in ruins

-- their role as a helpless pawn in the land wars of a succession of superpowers

-- and now their occupation by Rome, the latest of those superpowers

All this was enough to cause many to give up hope in Israel’s God. Yes, He had delivered their fathers from Egypt, but now He has grown distant and silent.

Surely Yahweh has forgotten His people.

Then Zechariah’s world is upended by the announcement that Israel’s God is once again on the move.

So he sings a song of praise to God, and he celebrates more than the miraculous birth of his son, John. Zechariah celebrates the fact that Israel’s God is fulfilling His promises to His people.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

For He visited and accomplished redemption for His people,

And raised up a horn of salvation for us

In the house of David His servant—

As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—

Salvation from our enemies,

And from the hand of all who hate us,

To show mercy toward our fathers,

And to remember His holy covenant,

The oath which He swore to Abraham our father,

To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,

Might serve Him without fear,

In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High,

For you will go on before the Lord to make ready His ways,

To give to His people the knowledge of salvation

By the forgiveness of their sins,

Because of the tender mercy of our God,

With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,

To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,

To direct our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:68-79, LSB)

Zechariah’s despair dissipates like fog, and not just because he now has a son. He knows that Yahweh has crashed into history – Israel’s history, his own history – and the story of his people has turned a corner.

But this cataclysmic upturning comes as no surprise to the old man.

Why?

He knew his Bible.

In his song Zechariah recalls promises that were two thousand years old, as ancient to him then as the time of Christ is for us now. The old man rejoices that Yahweh is remembering His ancient oaths so that now His people “might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all [their] days.”

And why has all this come to pass?

It is not just because God keeps His promises (although that also is good news). Zechariah sings that Yahweh has come to rescue His people because His great heart is full of tender mercy, “with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.”

One of the biggest differences I’ve noticed between being a teacher and being a pastor is that I am more aware of the deep heartaches of people. As a teacher, the troubles I encountered had to do with school life: a girl or a guy or a grade or a game. This might have been the stuff of monumental catastrophe for teens, but as an adult who had survived his teens, I could see that things weren’t as bad as my heartbroken adolescents supposed.

Not so with the pastorate. Marriages do crumble. People do suffer long-term, debilitating health problems. Loved ones die.

In other words, there are times when we find ourselves trusting God for a future we cannot envision.

There are times when we’re so low and so discouraged that we can’t even imagine what healing and restoration would look like.

Sometimes we are Zechariah. Our own circumstances are bleak, and if we pop our head up to look around, we see that our culture is disintegrating.

Not much to hope for, no matter how we look at it.

That is when we have no choice but to put our confidence in the tender mercies of our promise-keeping God. We persevere in trusting Him not because we are desperate but because He is faithful and good.

This Christmas season let’s be sustained not just by the warmth of nostalgia and sentiment but by the sure knowledge that the God we serve is wise and good and faithful.

Because we know His heart, we can know that God is good, even when life is not. 

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship

I love how CS Lewis sets the scene of Gabriel’s announcement to Mary. Lewis says that God’s great plan “narrows and narrows until at last it comes down to a little point, small as the point of a spear— a Jewish girl at her prayers.”  

Later, after she’s had time to ponder it all, Mary bursts into song at what she has learned about the goodness and power and faithfulness of Israel’s God. 

My soul magnifies the Lord, 

And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. 

For He has looked upon the humble state of His slave, 

For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed. 

For the Mighty One has done great things for me, 

And holy is His name. 

And His mercy is upon generation after generation 

Toward those who fear Him. 

He has done a mighty deed with His arm; 

He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. 

He has brought down rulers from their thrones, 

And has exalted those who were humble. 

He has filled the hungry with good things, 

And sent away the rich empty-handed. 

He has given help to Israel His servant, 

In remembrance of His mercy, 

As He spoke to our fathers, 

To Abraham and his seed forever. Luke 1:46-55 (LSB) 

In the moments leading up to Gabriel’s appearance, Mary had no idea that the time had arrived for God’s ancient promises to come true, nor that she was to play such a pivotal (and painful) role in the fulfillment of those promises. 

In the moments before Gabriel appeared and changed her world (and ours), all Mary knew is that Yahweh had made lavish promises to her people and that He had demonstrated His fearsome power in delivering His people from their bondage to Egypt. 

We are all Mary.  

In the darkness of our own culture, in the utter chaos of our world, we, like Mary, can know this much: God keeps His promises, and His timing is always impeccable. 

And we can know that when He calls us to play our role in His work, He will give us the grace and strength to say, with Mary, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me as you have said.” 

Persevere,

Paul Pyle

Pastor of Discipleship

Lest the title alarm you (“Paul has gone over to the prosperity gospel!”), let me open with an explanation.

I heard it said once that every heresy is an over-emphasis on one doctrinal truth. Concentrating on one singular truth and ignoring the rest of the testimony of Scripture produces a warped doctrine that is all the more dangerous because there is some truth in it.

The prosperity gospel is just one such heresy. It emphasizes one precious truth – the generosity of our gracious God. Meanwhile, this heresy ignores such vital truths as the value of suffering, the sovereign wisdom of God, the wickedness of the human heart, and the necessity of generosity.

The prosperity gospel is wrong about a lot, but they are right about one thing: our God is generous and gracious beyond all telling.

I am reading the Gospel of Luke in my personal Bible study.

I am in the middle of Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (his version of Jesus’ famous “Sermon on the Mount,” probably a sermon Jesus delivered several times, which is why it appears in two gospel accounts).

As I was reflecting on Luke 6:27-36, I remembered something I first encountered in a book on the Exodus, how the Hebrew slaves had to recalibrate their thinking once they were free. Now that they were under the gracious rule of Yahweh, they had to pivot from a mindset of scarcity – all they had known as a slave nation – to a mindset of abundance. They had to begin to learn how to think of themselves as Yahweh’s covenant people: remembering that He is faithful and that He will provide and protect His people – a mindset of abundance.

I think this text in Luke demonstrates what a “mindset of abundance” looks like in the way Jesus’ followers interact with others:

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough honor (especially significant in an honor-shame society): “But I say to you who hear, ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either’” (Luke 6:27-29).

With a mindset of abundance, there are enough goods: “Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them” (v. 30-31).

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough good will: “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same” (v. 32-33).

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough money: “And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount” (v. 34).

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough mercy and grace: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (v. 35-36).

This all made me wonder how often my anxiety springs from a mindset of scarcity. Anxiety in a believer is a kind of forgetfulness, really.

I sink into a mindset of scarcity because I forget who I am. When I am anxious, it is because I forget who I am in Christ, His beloved, chosen and sealed by His Spirit (Eph 1:3-14).

I sink into a mindset of scarcity because I forget how attentively God cares for His own. When I am anxious, it is because I forget that the same God who clothes the glorious flowers is watching over me (Matt 6:25-26).

I sink into a mindset of scarcity because I forget how generous God has already been with me. When I am anxious, it is because I forget one of Paul’s most penetrating rhetorical questions: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).

And when I am anxious in this way, I cannot afford to be generous, and I conceal the beauty and power of the Gospel from people around me.

This is surely one of the key aspects of my sanctification, one of the most important ways God is bending the trajectory of my life toward holiness: by making the mindset of abundance more and more natural for me.

I want the mindset of abundance to take up residence in my heart. And I want to operate out of that relaxed and generous mindset in my interactions with people around me.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship