Churches have few responsibilities more urgent and few honors more profound than teaching and training children. Every week these little ones show up with their parents and every week there are opportunities to reach them with truths that will change their hearts and transform their lives. It is little wonder, then, that there are multitudes of books, resources, and programs available to reach them.

But what about books for the teachers? What about books that teach the teachers the principles and practices they need to instruct children with conviction and competency? Now the field grows narrower, doesn’t it? And this is just where a new book titled How to Teach Kids Theology: Deep Truths for Growing Faith comes into its own.

I’ll say from the outset: If you are in any way involved in teaching children, this is a book you should consider reading. It is for pastors, ministry leaders, Christian schoolteachers, or anyone else who is involved in helping big truths make sense to little hearts. I don’t think I could recommend it too highly.

Here’s why. The authors, Sam Luce and Hunter Williams, provide both the big-picture vision and the practical pointers that could transform any children’s ministry. They steer readers away from the allure of ministries that are fun and attractive but devoid of significant content, for “Unless God is rightly taught and highly honored, our ministries are nothing more than glorified babysitting services.” Yet they also know the importance of making learning age-appropriate and enjoyable. “God should be the goal and prize of our ministries! Teaching about him should be the most exciting thing we do. Kids can love the activities we create and enjoy the snacks we supply, but they especially should look forward to the times when God is taught. Seeing him should be the most exhilarating thing they experience.”

If this is going to happen, there must be a relentless focus on God. There must be a great deal of effort invested in knowing God and displaying his glory. “If kids can leave our classrooms or small groups without having their view of God expanded, we’ve missed the mark. With every Bible lesson and interaction, God should become bigger in their eyes. That’s the goal! Anything less is distortion.”

This is their goal for a children’s ministry. It takes them a book to describe the pathway and the process, but it is a brisk and enjoyable read. Through 8 chapters they explain what theology is and why it is so crucial that we teach it to children. They tell how to explain difficult concepts to young minds. They describe how to structure and organize church-wide teaching programs. They give churches the tools they need to build a ministry that will harmonize with what parents are teaching in their homes, for “without the local church, theological training from parents would be lacking, and without parents, theological training from the local church would be limited.” Home and church are to function in harmony in bringing up children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

“The need for depth and richness of theological truths in our children’s ministries and churches has never been more necessary,” the authors say. “It is not something we can ignore in our day and hope for the best. It is necessary that we understand our times and know that the answer to those times is not political activism or spiritual pessimism—it is a robust understanding of what is true and what has always been true.” Their hope, and mine, is that this book can serve as a catalyst to help children in their lifelong pursuit of God through his Word. I hope you’ll consider reading it or passing it to the person in the church who is best positioned to read, enjoy, and implement it. It’s that good.

We all want more of God. Anyone who professes to be a Christian will acknowledge a sense of sorrow and disappointment when they consider how little they know of God and how little they experience of his presence. Every Christian or Christianesque tradition acknowledges this reality and offers a means to address it.

Mystics may promise that a deeper experience of God can be had through contemplation. Monastics may promise that a deeper experience of God can be had through practicing his presence. Roman Catholics may promise that a deeper experience of God can be had through the Mass. Proponents of Higher Life theology may promise that a deeper experience of God can be had through a second blessing. Pentecostals may promise that a deeper experience of God can be had through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Though the means are different, the core issue is the same—we feel intuitively that we do not know God or experience his presence as completely as we wish to. We live out our Christian lives with a sense of longing for more—more of God, more of knowing him, more awareness of his nearness and power.

I write here for other Christians who hold to Reformed theology and especially for younger ones. I want you to know that you make yourself spiritually vulnerable when you determine that your spiritual longing necessarily indicates a weakness in your faith or practice. For every longing there is a tradition, a church, a book, or a program that promises to satisfy it and people like you can often become spiritual nomads, sojourning among the various traditions to try their solutions. Or you can become spiritual hybrids, integrating a bit of this, a bit of that, and a bit of the other thing, even when they are mutually contradictory. You may even be tempted to reject Reformed theology and practices altogether in favor of something else. But I want to encourage you to be patient, to be wise, and to be content.

Here is something that needs to be said about any tradition: None of them will ultimately satisfy us. None can or will actually deliver us to a higher plane of spiritual experience and none will fully satisfy our longing for more. Why is that? Because the longing is unresolvable at the present time. We can certainly know God better than we do now and can certainly have a deeper experience of his power and presence, but we will never experience it to the degree we long for. At least, not until we are finally welcomed into God’s immediate presence.

In contrast to so many other traditions, the Reformed tradition offers no higher tier of Christian living. Neither does it offer rapturous experiences or second blessings. Rather, it looks carefully to Scripture and offers ordinary means of grace—means that are equally available to all of us as we participate in the local church and live out our faith through a personal relationship with the Lord.

I know the word “ordinary” sounds very plain and uninspiring. What are ordinary means when compared to extraordinary visions or ecstatic experiences? But this is what we need to understand: God does not owe us anything other than complete separation from him. Anything more than being eternally banished from his presence is breathtaking evidence of his mercy and kindness. Though we deserve to be forever separated from God’s presence, he lovingly offers us means through which we can relate to him and through which he lavishes his grace upon us so we grow in joy and sanctification and satisfaction in him. Because of what we have done, it is God who now sets the terms of our relationship. The question is: Will we be content with this or will we demand more? Will we accept what he has so graciously given us or will we demand the right to relate to him on our terms? Will we invent or adopt means he has not prescribed or endorsed?

I hold to Reformed theology and am convinced it is most consistent with Scripture. I understand why many people believe that Reformed theology works itself out in a faith that is coldly intellectual instead of warmly experiential. We have probably all known people who have exemplified that aloof intellectual approach to the faith. But this is not the way it has to be and not the way it is meant to be. Reformed theology is experiential, but crucially, it constrains itself to the experiences the Bible permits. Perhaps you would do well to read up on experiential theology which “teaches that Christianity is not only a creed and a way of life but also an inner experience resulting from personal fellowship with God through the indwelling Spirit.” Instead of resenting the tradition or walking away from it, fully embrace it! If you have been discouraged by the examples you have seen, go deeper into the tradition and resolve to display what it means to live a life that flows out of the soundest doctrine.

With all that in mind, let me speak to you as a kind of spiritual older brother. My call to you is to remain resolute in pursuing God through the means that he has prescribed. Come to see that when we speak of ordinary means, we are not indicating the means are plain, pedestrian, or prosaic. They are ordinary in the sense that all of us can ordinarily expect God to bless them and sanctify them to his purposes. God has granted them to us and it now falls to us to receive them gratefully and practice them faithfully. It falls to us to resist looking for solutions that will deliver a higher life, a second blessing, or a mystical rapture, and to resist being swayed by those who promise there is so much more to be had if only we will follow this ancient discipline or subscribe to that modern program. Instead, I’d call upon you to embrace the reality that your longings will never be fully satisfied on this side of the grave, that so much of what you desire today is the right longing, but at the wrong time.

This is not a call to apathy but a call to remain steady and resist chasing what will always remain out of reach. Acknowledge that your sense of longing is part of God’s will for you right now and that it cannot be resolved in this world. And embrace this reality: that you can only be spiritually content when you admit, identify, and accept your spiritual discontentment. Instead of trying to satisfy that discontentment in ways God does not invite or permit, let it deepen your longing for the day when you will finally be in God’s presence—the day when you will at last know and experience God in all the ways your heart has ever longed for.

It was around 150 years after the birth of Christ that the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy determined that the earth must be at the center of the universe. If the earth was at the center, then the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets must orbit around it. Though many people had observed and assumed such geocentrism in the centuries prior, it was Ptolemy who standardized the view and who proved it to the satisfaction of very nearly all of humanity.

It was not until nearly 1400 years later that Copernicus first posited and then proved that it is not the earth but the sun that is at the center of our solar system. The sun does not orbit the earth, but the earth and the other planets the sun. This finding was met with a mix of curiosity and censure and, eventually, for Copernicus’ successors, outright persecution. But over time everyone came to understand and admit that it is heliocentrism rather than geocentrism that properly describes the position and the movement of the stars and planets within our solar system.

I once read the words of an old preacher who was indicting Christians for too easily falling into Ptolemaic tendencies when it comes to matters of disputed theology between believers. Christians are prone to take a relatively minor point of doctrine, one we might identify as second- or third-order, and set it like the earth at the pivot point of Ptolemy’s universe. Their love of this doctrine and their conviction that it is key to a right understanding and practice of the Christian faith means that soon everything begins to orbit around it. It becomes the center of their beliefs in such a way that any other point of doctrine is understood only in relation to it. It becomes the measure of their affirmation of faithfulness or their indictment of unfaithfulness. And eventually, it leads them toward legalism and draws them away from Christians who may not set that particular doctrine at the center of their own theological universe.

So it is far better, this preacher argued, to pursue Copernican tendencies by ensuring that we always set Christ himself at the center of all things. In this way, all of our beliefs, all of our convictions, and all of our doctrines will orbit Christ who is himself the pivot point of our faith. As we do this, Christ becomes the center of our beliefs in such a way that any point of doctrine is understood in relation to him—to his life and death, to his resurrection and ascension, to his rule and return. He becomes the measure of our affirmation of faithfulness or our indictment of unfaithfulness. And this leads us away from legalism and draws us toward other Christians—toward everyone else who acknowledges Christ as the center of all things. For we understand that despite our differences, we are all bound together by the One who is the very center.

It became fashionable a few years ago to speak of being “gospel-centered” and to call every Christian to embrace and exhibit it. The term was too abstract and undefined to last for long and it has already largely fallen out of fashion. But perhaps this celestial illustration shows a part of what gospel-centrality was meaning to convey—that there must always be something at the center of our system of beliefs. We are prone to put a favorite doctrine or pet practice in that place and to make it the center of our faith and the basis of our Christian unity. But we can only do this if we shove Jesus out of the way, for he is already there at the center, already upholding all things by the word of his power, already holding all things together in himself, already ruling and reigning from his throne.

And so to have a Copernican conception of our solar system is to simply acknowledge what is proven and true—that the sun is at the center and that all else orbits around it. And to have a Copernican understanding of the faith is, likewise, to simply acknowledge and practice what God tells us to be true—that Christ must be the pivot point of our beliefs and unity, for he is the very Sun of Righteousness.

For every truth of the Christian faith, it seems there is a corresponding fallacy. For every great doctrine there is an opposite misconception. It is a constant challenge to sort the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the truth from the error.

Yet that is exactly the task Mike Wittmer takes on in Urban Legends of Theology. An urban legend “is something popularly believed—in the church or culture or both—that is not true.” Yet not all errors are created equal. “Some legends are more wrong than others, and some are more damaging than others. Some legends will rob you of peace and joy while others will damn you to hell. We must discern one from the other so we know how to handle each. Briars and wolves are both detrimental to sheep, but not in the same way. Wise shepherds gently guide sheep away from dense thickets, whereas they shoot wolves dead. Likewise, some of these legends will merely scratch your faith, while others will have you for lunch. Still others are setups, meant to slow your walk so you are easier to catch.”

He tackles 40 urban legends divided into four theological categories. Under the categories of “God and Theological Method” he addresses issues like these:

• It is important to believe in something, and it does not matter what
• Theology puts God in a box
• Doctrine divides while love unites
• You should pray like it all depends on God and work like it all depends on you

Under “Humanity and Sin” he tackles:

• This world is not our home
• My body is a temporary residence for my immortal soul
• Freedom explains the problem of evil
• The safest place to be is at the center of God’s will

And so on. He also covers issues related to “Jesus and Salvation” and “Church and Last Things.” In each case, his answer takes about five or six pages to describe and then unravel the legendary belief while also offering some application. His answers come from a Calvinistic and Baptistic perspective. While it’s unlikely that anyone who reads this review will strenuously object to any of his answers, it’s also unlikely that everyone will agree with each one of them in their entirety. Such is the nature of addressing such a diverse collection of issues.

But he does address them well and in ways that are consistent with Scripture and sound doctrine. Urban Legends of Theology is a book that will prove a help and blessing to those who read it, whether they are young Christians still trying to put all the pieces together or seasoned Christians who may find, to their surprise, that they have somehow come to believe a few of these legends.

What can a heart do? What actions do we associate with the human heart? A heart can beat; a heart can race; a heart can stop. That’s all very literal and speaks to the heart as a physical part of our bodies. But we also speak of the heart metaphorically as the place of our emotions. And so we say that a heart can long and love, it can hurt and break. We even say that a heart can be given: “I give you my heart.” The heart, then, in our way of thinking, is physical and emotional.

But then how does the Bible use “heart?” Did you know that the New Testament uses the word “heart” well over a hundred times, but never once to refer to the organ in your chest? It only ever uses it as a metaphor, as a word picture. So what can the heart do according to the Bible?

I looked up all the uses in the New Testament and came up with a list: A heart can think, a heart can understand, a heart can desire, a heart can speak; a heart can doubt or believe, it can love or hate, it can repent or remain impenitent. A heart can be dull or sharp, hard or soft, open or closed, downcast or refreshed, right or wrong, sincere or hypocritical, pure or impure. The heart can have longings and secrets and intentions and purposes. It can produce good or evil, it can be filled by the Holy Spirit or by Satan, it can stay near to God or stray far from him. And though that list is quite long, it accounts for only the New Testament which represents merely 15 percent of the times the word is used throughout the Bible.

So, in the way the biblical authors thought, the heart is far more than emotion. It’s the place our actions originate. It’s the place our thoughts and words originate, as well as our intentions and motives, our convictions and worship. The heart is the place of affection and emotion and reason from which we issue orders to the rest of our faculties.

You might say the heart is the controller for the drone. That drone will sit there and do nothing until you touch a dial or knob. And then it will respond, then it will obey the commands it is given. You might say the heart is the mission control center at NASA that tells the astronauts when to blast off and when to touch down. We will not do anything or say anything or even desire anything without the heart first issuing the order. None of our abilities or faculties operate independently of the heart.

The heart, then, is the place where God’s influence comes into contact with man’s will to be accepted or rejected, to be obeyed or disobeyed. This makes the heart the very moral center of a human being. And it’s for this reason we need to ask God to search the heart, to examine it and look for anything there that dishonors him or threatens our well-being. It’s for this reason we need to monitor all of our words and actions, knowing they are the overflow of the heart and that they expose the state of the heart. It’s for this reason we need to keep the heart, tend the heart, guard the heart, and feed and satisfy the heart with good spiritual nourishment. It’s for this reason that nothing matters more to the Christian life than the heart. For, in God’s eye, the heart is always the heart of the matter.

The Bible can be an intimidating book. I suppose any book of the Bible’s size can be intimidating merely by virtue of its page count. But then there’s also the claims people make about the Bible—that it’s a book that transforms lives, that it’s a book that reveals the mind of God himself, that it’s a book that is without error. And beyond that, there’s the nature of the Bible as a collection of writings that span centuries, peoples, cultures, and genres, not to mention the outsized importance of the Bible in shaping the Western world as we know it. For these reasons and many others, the Bible can intimidate people to such a degree that they read it without confidence or perhaps fail to read it at all.

It’s little wonder than that Christians have often written books meant to help introduce people to the practice of reading the Bible and to help them read it profitably and in its entirety. New among them is The Epic Story of the Bible: How to Read and Understand God’s Word by Greg Gilbert. Using his own trek to Mount Everest (base camp, not summit) as a backdrop and illustration, Gilbert says his book is meant to “give you a briefing about what you’re going to see, what you’re going to experience, what you should look for and look out for as you set off on the long trek of reading the entire Bible.”

The key to reading the Bible well, he says, “is to understand that all of those authors and books—all 1,189 chapters of them—are actually working together to tell one overarching, mind-blowing story about God’s action to save human beings from their high-handed rebellion against him, and from the effects and consequences of that rebellion.”

That story is nothing short of epic as he illustrates in this very brief overview: “Wars between angels rage in the spiritual realm, while on earth kingdoms rise and fall, empires clash, cities are built and destroyed, priests perform sacrifices, and prophets point their bony fingers to the future. And in the end, a great throne is toppled and a great crown falls to the ground, only to be given finally to one thirty-year-old man—a subjugated peasant from a conquered nation—whom God enthrones over the entire world as the one who alone can and does offer mercy to rebels. If there’s ever been an epic story told in the history of mankind, this one is it!”

A story so epic is certainly worth reading and Gilbert means to help by introducing his readers to some of the things they will encounter and come up against as they attempt to do so. He begins with a description of what the Bible is and where it came from. From there he traces its grand storyline in a way that may be at least somewhat familiar to those who have read Graeme Goldsworthy—an author whose work on this subject Gilbert much admires.

Having done this, he turns to some of the major themes readers will encounter as they make their trek from Genesis to Revelation, which is to say, he introduces some biblical theology, a practice that “tries to see how different truths sit and develop as the storyline of the Bible unfolds.” In other words, rather than systematically studying what the whole Bible says about a theme, it studies how a theme develops from beginning to end and how it helps propel the narrative forward. Thus over four chapters he traces the theme of God’s presence, the theme of covenant, the theme of kingship, and the theme of sacrifice. The final chapter, “Setting Out,” offers a number of tips and practices that will assist people to make the journey well and to take it all the way to completion.

It is an unfortunate fact that many Christians have read parts of the Bible, but have never read the whole Bible. They have read parts of the narrative, but never followed it all the way through. They don’t know what they are missing! The Epic Story of the Bible is meant to help them not only learn what they are missing but also help them to set out and complete that epic, beautiful, and rewarding trek. And I am convinced it will serve well in accomplishing that very purpose. I highly recommend reading it—and highly recommend buying a few extra copies to give away to others so they, too, can embark on a life-changing journey.

If you pay attention to Christian publishing, you’ll observe that certain themes come and go, rise and fall. One author will write a book on a subject and that may ignite interest so that several others follow up to challenge that person’s view, to affirm it, or to pursue it from a different angle. A recent theme, at least in one little corner of the Christian world, has been the notion of “home.” And now Ian K. Smith has added an excellent little volume that examines earth as our home and the renewal of the earth as God’s plan for it.

To be clear, this is not a book on the environment or on environmentalism. Rather, it is a book that essentially asks whether the ultimate home for God’s people will be heaven or earth, something entirely new to our experience or something familiar. Christians like to talk about those who die as “being in heaven” or “being called home,” and our eternal destiny as being “going to heaven to live forever with Jesus.” And while none of these statements is exactly wrong, neither are they precisely or fully correct. While we can be confident that Christians who die are immediately ushered into the presence of Jesus, they do so in an “intermediate state” where body and soul have not yet been reunited. They go to a temporary home, not yet a final one. As for that final home, the Bible seems to indicate that it is not “out there” but right here on earth. In other words, God’s plan is not to destroy the earth and create us a new place to live, but to restore the earth and put us right back here.

This distinction may seem pedantic, but sound theology always has real-world implications and real-life applications.

An understanding of the future of the earth has significant implications for how we see it now. When we understand that the end of all things is the renewal of all things, then all things become important. No longer will we see the spiritual as more important than the physical; such a dualism is more indebted to Greek philosophy than to the Bible. God is committed to his creation. It’s all important, whether Bible study, employment, church, hobbies, family, the arts, or community involvement. When we understand that the impact of the resurrection is much bigger than we ever imagined, our worldview will be changed. No longer will our sermons be just about what happens after death (important though that is), the gospel will also resound with relevance to this life, to the earth, to the places we inhabit and call home. The knowledge that our home will be renewed will give relevance to life.

The purpose of this book, then, is “to reawaken (resurrect even), a biblical understanding of the earth and God’s mission to it.”

To do this, Smith first lays a solid foundation of biblical theology—a survey of the notion of home as it stretches from creation in the distant past to new creation in the distant or not-too-distant future. He shows how earth was meant to be our perfect home, how its perfection was disrupted by the fall into sin, how God chose to make a place and a land his home, and how we are given the promise of an even better home to come. He shows—convincingly, to my mind—that God’s intention for the future is to restore this earth to its former glory and to dwell with us here forever. Our mandate to exercise dominion over God’s creation on God’s behalf will remain, but this time we will be able to carry it out perfectly and eternally. “When we understand that the earth was made by God and declared to be very good, and that it will be renewed, and that many of our current achievements will be purged and have eternal significance, the merit of our activities is measured very differently. Such a worldview is holistic and gives so much meaning to so many of our current pursuits.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was challenged by it. So, too, was Sinclair Ferguson who indicates as much in his endorsement, which I’ll borrow as a fitting conclusion to this brief review. “Home must surely be one of the most emotion-filled words in the English language. It is where we belong. But where is home for the Christian? Are we living in a far country here on earth, just waiting for a better day when we can leave the earth and simply enjoy heaven? Think of Ian Smith as your friendly theological realtor. He knows about the home God has created for us. With theological skill and deft simplicity, he can explain its long history. He understands where we fit into its story. He is also sensitive to the responsibility Christians have to our ‘home,’ even though we have not yet seen its final reconstruction. Brief as Not Home Yet may be, you will find it instructive and challenging beyond its size.”

(Not Home Yet is available at Amazon, Westminster Books, and wherever else you buy good books!)

For years now, I have made it my goal to release something every day that will encourage people, or challenge them, or instruct them, or otherwise bring them some kind of spiritual benefit. Not surprisingly, I receive all sorts of feedback, and there are a couple of kinds that, more than any other, discourage and dismay me. It’s when people who have been Christians for a long time reveal that they have only the smallest amount of theological knowledge or, even worse, reveal their belief that theological knowledge is an unnecessary or even evil thing. This is sadly common and always tragic.

Ignorance is the expectation, of course, when it comes to new believers—we all begin with knowledge that is minuscule and faulty. But ignorance is a great concern when people have professed faith for many years or been in church for many decades, yet have never advanced beyond the basics. In many cases, people have simply never been told that there is such a category as “theology.” Perhaps they’ve only ever been told that “Christianity is not a religion but a relationship.” And while it’s true and precious that we get to have a relationship with God, the Christian faith is also a substantial, established, orderly, cohesive body of truth. Perhaps they’ve only ever been told that theology is dangerous, that “doctrine divides.” Or maybe they’ve been told or taught that theology is boring, the purposeless or even prideful pursuit of knowledge that compels us to body slam others with facts. Admittedly a lot of people abuse theology in that way, but theology is far more and far better than that.

Understood properly and practiced biblically, theology is not the accumulation of cold facts, but of accurate and true knowledge that is meant to work its way out in our thoughts and lives. When we have great knowledge of God, we can think great thoughts of God. When we think great thoughts of God, we can live great lives for God. When we live great lives for God, we bring great glory to God. In that way theology is not meant to serve self, but to serve others and, through them, to glorify God. We can’t truly know God or live for God until we know the facts God gives us about himself. Which is to say, we can’t truly know God as he is or live for God as he desires as long as we reject or downplay theology.

We are all responsible before God to know these things truly and rightly, to align our knowledge with the source of truth God has given us in his Word. We are all responsible to deepen and sharpen this knowledge, to gain greater knowledge and to ensure it becomes more accurate over time. What else is “guarding the good deposit” than this? How else could we be “transformed in the renewing of our minds” but this?

What many people fail to understand is that the issue is not whether we have theology, but whether the theology we have is factual or false. We all have thoughts about the existence, character, and actions of God. We all have thoughts about humanity, about our place and purpose in this world, and about our relationship to God. We all act on the basis of our thoughts, our convictions. We are theologians, and the only question is whether we are good or poor ones.

I was recently privileged to speak at a conference in Quezon City, Philippines. The question and answer session yielded some interesting questions like this one: “If forgiveness is guaranteed and there is no longer any condemnation for me, why not sin?” This was my answer in the context of the sermon I had just preached.

Transcript

If forgiveness is guaranteed and there is no longer any condemnation for me, why not sin?

I think Paul anticipated this in the book of Romans because Romans chapter 6 verse 1 sees them talking about the Gospel, right. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? His answer, of course, by no means. So, the Gospel is really, really good news. The Gospel is far better news than we often even dare believe, right. The Gospel really does forgive us for all we’ve ever done. It really does remove the condemnation for the sins we’re committing now and the sins we will commit. It really does free us in that way. The Gospel is very, very good news. We may have the tendency to think that if we tell the Gospel as it really is, if we share the full Gospel, then people will actually be drawn to sin. Right, if they really understand the freedom they have, if they really understand the full extent of forgiveness. And what is there, what fear is there in them? Isn’t fear what they need to restrain them from sinning? Don’t we need to kind of hold over them some guilt or some fear in order to restrain them from sinning? But, I don’t think the Bible goes there. I think what the Bible holds out is, you so delight in Christ, when you really understand the Gospel, you so delight in Christ that sin becomes unthinkable. Right, it’s not fear that restrains you, in that sense, it’s not the weight of guilt that restrains you, it’s joy, it’s delight in Christ.

So, the Gospel is, the Gospel is amazing news, it’s such wonderful news that I hope you can’t hear the Gospel and repent and believe in Jesus and now see that as being a way of endorsing your sin. Right, saying, now that I understand the Gospel, that I’m free from condemnation, I’m free from guilt, I’m free from sin, now I can go out and sin. Then, you haven’t really understood the Gospel. The Gospel makes you think, I’ve been freed from sin, I am no longer under guilt, I am no longer under condemnation, so praise God, I am going to honor God, I’m going to serve God. I’m going to delight in Christ. The last thing I want is to sin against this God. The last thing I want to do is sin against this savior who’s given so much to me. So, as Christians, I don’t think we’re using fear to motivate obedience in that way, right, I think we’re using delight as the greatest motivator to obedience.

The movement called the New Calvinism has been around for quite a long time now, but still hasn’t solved one of its most basic questions: Do the miraculous or revelatory gifts of the Holy Spirit continue to the present time or have they ceased (positions that are generally labeled “continuationism” and “cessationism” respectively)? And is there room within the movement for people who hold to opposite positions? At the beginning of 2018 I suggested this would be one of the themes of the year and I continue to believe this will prove to be the case. My cause is helped by Tom Schreiner’s new defense of cessationism, Spiritual Gifts: What they Are and Why they Matter.

Schreiner sets the book’s tone in its dedication: “To Wayne Grudem, John Piper, and Sam Storms. Beloved friends and coworkers in the gospel of Christ.” These men are among the leading Reformed, continuationist theologians, and this dedication proves that Schreiner means to speak as a friend to friends. An eminently gentle man, he never comes close to being harsh or offensive. He very much wants to position this as a discussion between friends on a matter of secondary importance.

After the dedication and introduction, Schreiner commits a chapter to expressing the strengths and weaknesses of the charismatic movement and here he draws largely on J.I. Packer’s Keep in Step with the Spirit. He then defines spiritual gifts as “gifts of grace granted by the Holy Spirit which are designed for the edification of the church.” These must be carefully distinguished from ministry roles, desires, and skills, even though there may be a large amount of overlap between them. He looks at each one of the gifts described in the New Testament and provides a brief definition. It will later prove key that he defines prophet and apostle (as used in Ephesians 4:11) as spiritual gifts.

Through the next two chapters he lays out 10 important pastoral truths about spiritual gifts: they fall under the Lordship of Jesus Christ; we must think reasonably about our gifts; it is God who distributes gifts in a diverse way; our gifts don’t make us superior or inferior to others; our gifts are useless without love; and so on. As he does this, he provides a brief theology of spiritual gifting and little of what he says will be controversial among Reformed Christians (though a few may disagree that we are baptized with the Spirit at conversion or with the level of importance he places on the mind—“The way the church is edified is through understandable words.”).

After a chapter of questions and answers (Does every Christian have a spiritual gift? How do we discover our spiritual gifts? Why does Paul say to desire the greater gifts? Etc.), he has finally laid enough of a foundation that he can get to the real reason people are reading this book.

In chapter six he defines the gift of prophecy. He denies the views that it is either charismatic exegesis of existing revelation or simple preaching of the Scriptures. Rather, a prophecy is a spontaneous message from God delivered through a human being that is meant to instruct, encourage, or warn God’s people. “Those who prophesy bring to light what is hidden and reveal what isn’t accessible to ordinary human beings.” In the chapter that follows he looks at the view held by leading continuationists like Wayne Grudem and Sam Storms who insist that New Testament prophecy differs from its Old Testament counterpart in that it may now err. Where Old Testament prophecy was inerrant and demanded immediate obedience, New Testament prophecy is potentially-flawed and demands discernment, evaluation, and sometimes rejection. He insists, though, this position is wrong and that the New Testament standard for prophecy is no different: It is equally inerrant and authoritative as it was before Christ.

Key to his argument here is the role prophecy played in the New Testament. Ephesians 2:20 says the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” There is an important implication: “The foundational role of the apostles and prophets points to the authority of their words, suggesting that prophecy in the New Testament has the same authority as prophecy in the Old Testament. If prophecy still exists today, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the foundation established by the apostles and prophets hasn’t been completed, and that the New Testament prophets are still adding to the foundation of apostolic teaching.” He also shows that it is a mistake to distinguish between the prophet and his prophecy as if a true prophet can bring a false prophecy—something continuationists must permit.

So what is it that continuationists are doing when they claim to be prophesying? He believes they are sharing mere impressions. Schreiner takes an unexpected turn here when he affirms that God often impresses matters on our hearts that may be true and beneficial to others. “God may lay something on someone’s heart, and it may be exactly right and exactly what a person needs to hear. Sometimes the impression may be astonishing and clearly miraculous, though this is quite rare.” To be clear, “God can use impressions for our good, but they aren’t the same thing as prophecy and need to be distinguished from prophecy. They can’t be of great importance because Scripture doesn’t address them.” What perplexes me here is that he does not turn to the Bible to prove the existence, value, or definition of such impressions. It’s not that I necessarily disagree with him, but that biblical support is suddenly conspicuous by its absence. This is especially noteworthy since all through the book he has gone to great lengths to prove every point through Scripture. How can we know what impressions are, or that they are divine, or that they may be true and beneficial? We are never told.

He turns next to the matter of tongues and defines them as languages spoken by and understandable to human beings. In other words, tongues never differ from what is described at Pentecost, where people spoke in intelligible languages they themselves did not understand. This leads to an inevitable conclusion: “Contemporaries who say they speak in tongues—like those who say they have the gift of prophecy—aren’t actually practicing the biblical gift. Those who think they are prophesying are actually sharing impressions, and those who claim to have the biblical gift of tongues aren’t speaking in other languages but in ecstatic utterances. It doesn’t follow that what they are doing is necessarily evil, but neither is it the same thing as the gift we find in the Scriptures.” The next chapter looks at the significance of the gift of tongues and shows that, like all gifts, it was meant particularly for serving brothers and sisters in Christ.

After putting aside what he considers a couple of uncompelling defenses of cessationism, Schreiner finally makes his case. “The basis for cessationism is the claim that the church was ‘built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets’.” Because the foundation of the church has now been laid and the authority of the apostles enshrined in Scripture, we have no need for apostles. As for prophets, they spoke infallibly and authoritatively until that foundation had been laid. But with the foundation complete, they are no longer needed. In fact, any contemporary claim to prophecy is nothing short of dangerous since any true prophet must speak infallibly and authoritatively. “If such authoritative apostles don’t exist today (and many continuationists agree on this point), and if prophets spoke infallible words like the apostles, and if the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, then there are good grounds to conclude that the gift of prophecy has ceased as well.” This is a position he considers “nuanced cessationism.” It’s nuanced because he keeps open the possibility that God may continue to grant great signs and wonders in certain “cutting edge missionary situations.”

What about healing and miracles? We pray for miracles, knowing that it is sometimes (though rarely) God’s will to do what cannot be explained in any other way. As for the gift of healing or working other miracles, a continuationist must grapple with the vast difference between what is claimed as a miracle today and what was displayed in the early church. “If a continuationist says that the gifts are operating today but to a far inferior degree than what we see in the New Testament, then they seem to be saying that the gifts aren’t operating as they did in the New Testament. But how do they know that? The argument actually sounds like a form of cessationism to me.”

So, acknowledging there are still significant differences between close brothers and sisters, what do we do? We continue to pursue the truth and we continue to pursue love. To expand on the Apostle Paul’s great “love” text, “If I have the right view of spiritual gifts, but don’t have love, then I am nothing.”

What do I, as a convinced cessationist, make of Schreiner’s position? I very much enjoyed reading it and want to continue to consider it. I suppose I had been hoping he would make a slam-dunk case for cessationism, but I don’t think he did (and neither do I think he would make such a claim). Such a hope was probably naive. The reason this is a debate at all is that it is much tougher to prove that something has ceased than to assume it has continued. This is what cessationists have to prove and it is no small task. Yet the challenge for continuationists is just as daunting. They need to prove that what they count as tongues and prophecy carry even the least association to what we see modeled in the New Testament. I appreciate Dr. Schreiner’s argument and find it compelling, but know we wouldn’t be having this discussion if our continuationist friends would simply (and verifiably) speak in a real but unknown language or heal more than a backache, case of depression, or the always-popular slightly shorter leg. Continuationists begin their case with Scripture, but offer unconvincing real-world evidence of the operation of the gifts; cessationists acknowledge that unconvincing real-world evidence of the operation of the gifts, then turn to Scripture for an explanation.

As for the near future of the New Calvinism, I continue to be convinced of cessationism and concerned about continuationism, though I find my cessationism becoming increasingly nuanced (though not in the same way as Schreiner’s). I don’t think the differences between the two as they work out in the life of the local church and the faith of individuals are as insignificant as perhaps Schreiner suggests. To this point in time, Reformed continuationist practice has been almost indistinguishable from Reformed cessationist practice. To be a continuationist has meant being “open but cautious,” which has essentially equalled “functionally cessationist.” Yet a movement is afoot to remedy this and to begin to “practice the power,” to borrow the title of a recent work from Sam Storms. Storms is taking the lead in teaching other church leaders how to implement and practice the gifts in the local church through prophetic words, healing ministries, casting out demons, and so on. His recent Convergence conference meant to instruct Reformed folk in the spiritual benefit of practicing the gifts and his forthcoming workshop event is meant to tease out its implications through seminars dedicated to dream interpretation, prophetic evangelism, and equipping children to be active in prophetic ministry. I don’t think we’ve yet seen Reformed continuationism at its full bloom. Frankly, I hope we never do.

What makes Dr. Schreiner an ideal candidate to write this work is not only his understanding of the key biblical texts and his long labor to arrive at a firm position, but also his kind character. His affection for his continuationist friends is a regular theme in the book and he gladly offers them every benefit of the doubt. The combination makes for a solid book and an important contribution to a discussion that shows few signs of being solved any time soon.

Search through the long history of the Christian church and you’ll see that false teachers have been present at every time and in every era. They were in the early church, the medieval church, the Reformation church, the Puritan church, and of course they are in today’s church. They’ve been a plague since the beginning and they are a plague today. But what’s interesting is that while the times and circumstances may have changed, their methods really haven’t. Whether you’re looking at the first century or the twenty-first century, you’ll soon spot seven sure marks of a false teacher. Watch the video or read the transcript to learn more!

Transcript

You search through the long history of the Christian church and you’ll see that false teachers have been present at every time and present at every era. They were in the early church, they were in the medieval church, they were in the Reformation church, they were in the Puritan church and of course, they’re in today’s church. False teachers have been a plague since the very beginning. They are a plague in our day. But what’s interesting to me is that while the times change and while the circumstances change, the methods of these false teachers really don’t change very much. Whether you’re looking at the first century or you’re looking at the 21st century, you’ll pretty quickly spot seven sure marks of a false teacher.

Today we’re looking at seven sure marks of a false teacher. And here is the first one. False teachers are man pleasers. At heart, these false teachers, they’re not interested in looking good in the eyes of God. They’re really only interested at looking good in the eyes of men. They’re what the apostle Paul referred to as ear ticklers. Teachers whose great skill is learning what other people want to hear and then just giving it to them, just regurgitating what people already want to hear. Instead of challenging them, they flatter them. Instead of exposing sin, they affirm sin and they coddle sin. Listen to what the Bible says about a true teacher. “But just as we had been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.” False teachers speak to please man.

Second, false teachers bring their harshest criticism against God’s most faithful servants. And I’m sure you’ve seen this before. False teachers, they always save their most brutal attacks for the people who love God the most and serve God the best. Just think of the apostle Paul. All right, his whole ministry was constantly threatened by people. His letters are weighty and strong they said, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech is of no account. Right? Even more so, you can think of Jesus Christ who suffered constant attacks, from who? From the religious authorities. Religious teachers continue today to rebuke and to belittle God’s most faithful servants.

Third, false teachers teach their own wisdom rather than God’s wisdom. False teachers always teach their own foolishness instead of divine wisdom. This means then, that the ultimate source of their teaching is their own minds. It’s their own hearts, it’s their own sinful desires. Listen to what God said through the prophet Jeremiah. He said, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I commend them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.” That was true in Jeremiah’s day, it’s just as true in our day.

Fourth mark of a false teacher. False teachers ignore what is of greatest importance to focus instead on what’s of lesser importance. False teachers, they always place great emphasis on small commandments, while they blatantly ignore the great ones, the important ones. They skip over what the Bible emphasizes the most, to focus instead on these little verses and these minor characters. Think again of Jesus when he spoke against the religious authorities, the religious leaders of his day. He said, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” That’s from Matthew 23. You can tell a false teacher when he governs godliness by keeping the smallest rules even while he gladly and blatantly breaks the big ones.

The fifth mark of a false teacher. False teachers mask their false doctrine with eloquent speech and impressive logic. You see a false teacher can’t bring a consistent interpretation of the Bible. So what does he do? He hides blasphemy and he hides dangerous doctrine behind what seems to be a powerful argument. Behind this eloquent use of the language, he offers to his listeners the spiritual equivalent of this beautiful attractive piece of candy that’s laced with deadly poison. It appears scrumptious, valuable, delicious but it will still kill you dead. Paul had to remind the church in Corinth. He said, “when I came to you brothers, I did not come to you proclaiming the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.” Paul came with a simple message that had all the power of God behind it.

Sixth mark of a false teacher. False teachers are far more concerned with winning others to their own opinions than in actually helping people and bettering people. Honestly, they don’t care about you, they care about themselves. They want your loyalty, they want your money, they want your body, they want something, anything. Jesus said, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” See false teachers, they’re ultimately not in the business of bettering lives and saving souls. They’re ultimately in the business of winning followers and then gaining power, gaining authority for themselves.

The seventh, the final mark of a false teacher. False teachers exploit their followers. False teachers, they take advantage of people. They take advantage of their ignorance, advantage of their greed, advantage of their lust or immaturity or anything, something so that they can exploit them. They find people who long for money, they promise them money. They find people who are consumed with lust, they promise, you can fulfill those lusts. That’s exactly why Peter warns, listen to what he said. He said, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.” What will they do? “who will secretly bring in destructive heresies… and in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.” See, false teachers, they’re concerned with your goods, not with your good. They don’t want to save the lost, they want to serve themselves. These false teachers they are perfectly content for Satan to have your soul, as long as they can have your stuff.

False teachers, they’ve always been a plague in the church. They always will be a plague in the church until the day the Lord returns. But we know their methods. Even better, we know the scripture, which always exposes them, for who they are. Always exposes them for what they are. See our best defense against false teachers is to know the Word of God so well, that we immediately spot and we can immediately shut down any deviation from that precious truth, that is the Word of God.

(Inspired by Shai Linne and Appendix II of Thomas Brook’s Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices.)

It’s a funny little story that could only have happened during the church’s earliest days. Paul has been on one of his missionary journeys and, while traveling through Asia Minor, stumbles upon a little group of believers. But there’s something unusual about them, something missing. Here’s how Luke describes it:

And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all.

Acts 19:1-6

There in Ephesus, Paul comes across a group of disciples. What exactly it means that they are disciples has been the subject of much debate. Are these genuine pre-Pentecost believers who have trusted in Jesus Christ but not yet heard about the Holy Spirit? Or are they disciples of John who have simply never been told of Jesus? For our purposes it probably doesn’t much matter. Whatever the case, Paul quickly comes to see that something isn’t quite right.

Perhaps he notices behavior displaying a lack of the sanctification that is the inner working of the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps he hears them speak of their faith, but never of the Spirit. Either way, he soon identifies that their theology is seriously and dangerously deficient. They have not yet experienced the indwelling of the Spirit. Why? Because no one has told them. They have not been instructed in his coming, in his presence, in his work, in his utter necessity to the believer. So Paul quickly corrects this oversight, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Immediately they are granted the gift of the Spirit so they speak in tongues and prophesy.

The problem with these disciples was easily diagnosed. Paul might have been tempted to believe he had stumbled upon a nest of hardened heretics. He might have assumed these people had rejected the Holy Spirit, that they had been told of him and determined they could not believe in such a God. But it was simpler and far more innocent. They were ignorant. “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

I find myself pondering these people as I consider the state of the church today. I have been writing about the necessity of sound doctrine and the plague of false teachers. I see mounting evidence of the sad lack of sound doctrine in the church today. And I suspect that among many Christians we would find a situation not unlike the one we read about in Acts.

If we were to speak to Christians at many churches today and ask them about their theology, we might hear responses like, “We have not even heard that there is theology.” Many of these people have not rejected sound doctrine; they’ve never even heard it! Many have never even been exposed to the very existence of theology, to the reality that the Christian faith is established upon a body of knowledge revealed in God’s Word. Many have never been told that God holds each of us responsible to know, to believe, to teach, and to defend the truths he reveals in his Word. Many have never been told that we are all theologians and that the only real question is whether we will be good theologians or bad ones.

Those Ephesian disciples were victims of ignorance, but this was easily diagnosed and easily addressed. They responded with obedience and humility, and God affirmed their faithfulness by not only giving them his Spirit, but by pouring out his Spirit upon them in miraculous ways. In the same way, I trust many disciples today will respond with obedience and humility as they come to learn that they, too, are victims of ignorance. May God be pleased to send teachers to diagnose their ignorance, to explain their woeful lack of theology, and to instruct them in the sound doctrine that will encourage, edify, and preserve them to the day of Christ’s return.

Matt Chandler says he has been waiting for this book for fifteen years. Mike Bickle assures the potential reader it “combines sound theology with inspiring personal examples.” Jack Deere describes it as “an immensely practical” work while Gregg Allison believes it is just what his church needs to experience a deeper outpouring of God’s grace. The book is Sam Storms’s Practicing the Power: Welcoming the Gifts of the Holy Spirit In Your Life.

Over the past couple of decades, the church has witnessed a great resurgence of Reformed theology. While many of these believers and their local churches hold to a cessationist view (that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased) there is a growing minority who hold to a continuationist or charismatic view (that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are still available and operative). Yet even while the ranks of the continuationists swell, few churches have adapted their worship accordingly. There are only a small number of Reformed churches structured in such a way that they pursue and exercise these miraculous gifts. Sam Storms means to remedy that.

Practicing the Power is an implementation guide of sorts, a handbook for integrating the practice of those gifts into the life of the local church. “I’ve written this book for those of you who, like me, are of the mind that the power of the miraculous charismata is still available for those who believe, pray for, and humbly pursue it. And it is my hope that this handbook on how to implement spiritual gifts in a local church will prove to be helpful and useful.” He has written it especially for people who are convinced that the miraculous gifts continue in the church today but don’t have a clear idea of what to do next. “You’re a bit hesitant, maybe even frightened, by what might happen if you were to move forward and pursue and practice the full range of spiritual gifts that we read about in 1 Corinthians 12-14.” For those who are convinced of charismatic theology, Practicing the Power is meant to demonstrate how a church can structure itself to deliberately practice all of the miraculous gifts.

I will provide an overview of the book and then highlight several strengths and weaknesses.

Practicing All the Gifts

Two chapters discuss prayer and fasting. Storms begins here because those who earnestly desire the gifts must pray for them, even with fasting. “It seems to me,” he says, “that Paul believed that the reception of a spiritual gift is dependent on one’s prayer for it. Ask and you shall receive. Don’t ask, and you shouldn’t expect to receive.” Not only are prayer and fasting necessary to receive the gifts, but also to properly practice them. These chapters serve as primers on two important Christian disciplines for charismatics and cessationists alike.

One chapter focuses on miraculous healing, and especially the relationship between healing and prayer. Storms teaches that different Christians are gifted with a spiritual gift of healing which is activated only through prayer. Contrary to what many teach, there is no one gift of healing that allows a single person to heal every disease. Rather, he teaches, individual Christians are gifted to heal different ailments in particular circumstances so that “some are able to pray more effectively for back problems while others see more success when praying for migraine headaches.” He lays out a step by step process for healing prayer that begins with an interview, advances to a diagnosis, and then to the laying on of hands, prayer, and declarations: “In the name of Jesus, be healed!”

Three chapters are dedicated to prophecy which he considers “the most important (and most challenging) spiritual gift to practice and employ in the local church today for the edification of all.” He defines prophecy as “the human report of a divine revelation.” He expends great effort to distinguish prophecy from the ordinary conviction of the Holy Spirit and the ordinary application of God’s Word to our hearts and lives. He reserves prophecy for the times “the Holy Spirit supernaturally discloses information, facts, or insights not otherwise available by natural avenues of knowledge.” God communicates in this way through “dreams, visions, impressions, internal audible voice, symbols, sympathetic pains, providential occurrences, etc.” Later, he adds trances to the list. His understanding of continued prophecy must admit the possibility of error, so he turns to the book of Acts to interpret two familiar passages in that light. Failed prophecies “do not disqualify people as prophetically gifted nor do they render prophecy unimportant for the church.” Finally, he lays out a practice of prophecy first for small groups and then for gatherings of the whole church.

One chapter speaks of deliverance from the power of demons. He says in his opening paragraphs, “I believe that believers can be demonized,” which is to say, “inhabited by a demon with varying degrees of influence or control.” After explaining why so many Christians avoid deliverance ministry, he discusses the Christian’s authority over demons and the importance of deploying that authority to restrict demonic activity, to restrain demonic effort, and to thwart demonic plans. Once more he lays out a step by step plan on confronting and casting out demons.

One chapter warns Christians, and especially cessationists, of the danger of quenching the Spirit. “We don’t want to be a part of the bucket brigade that stands ready to douse his activity with the water of legalism and fear and extra-biblical rules. Obviously, one of the ways we do this is with a flawed theology that claims his gifts have ceased and been withdrawn.” And again, “I don’t believe cessationists consciously intend to quench the Spirit, but yes, cessationism as a theology quenches the Spirit.”

Concluding chapters warn of the difference between ministry and manipulation and tell of the importance of worshiping in the Spirit. Here, Storms compares charismatic with traditional or cessationist worship to show the superiority of charismatic practice.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Before I highlight strengths and weaknesses, I wish to express my admiration for Sam Storms. I have read a number of his books on other subjects and benefited from them. I read his blog and enjoy it a lot. As far as I can see, he has shown himself to be a man of godly character and biblical convictions. Not surprisingly, then, Practicing the Power demonstrates a number of notable strengths.

• Whatever Storms says, he grounds in the Bible. I can’t agree that he always does this convincingly, but I identify and honor the desire to do so.
• He identifies and pushes hard against the excesses of the wider charismatic movement. Clearly, the charismatic movement has been a force for terrible confusion and the entryway for vast amounts of false doctrine and dangerous practice. Storms means to cultivate a form of charismatic practice that affirms sound theology and looks to the Bible for its instructions.
• His chapters on prayer and fasting are useful and convicting. He deepened my understanding of them and gave me areas I’d like to implement both personally and in my church.
• Where there are many who hold to charismatic theology, there are few who practice it. To his credit, Storms extends his convictions to a full range of practices. Thus, this book aptly displays what a church will actually look like when it fully embraces the theology it espouses.

Yet even while I affirm all of this, I believe Storms’s teaching on the miraculous gifts is in many ways deeply flawed.

• He does not accurately describe the cessationist position, which makes me think he must not understand it. There were several points when I read caricatures that in no way describe myself or my church. This is especially true in the final chapter where he describes shortcomings in cessationist worship.
• Sometimes key passages on a topic are conspicuously absent. For example, Storms grounds what he teaches on healing on James 5, yet makes no mention of what may be the single clearest New Testament passage on the practice: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14). Where Storms makes healing dependent on a spiritual gift given to church members, this passage grounds it in the ministry of local church leaders. He discusses all the surrounding verses, but makes no mention of this one.
• His understanding of prophecy hangs on a fatally flawed interpretation of those key passages in Acts. It ignores all the Old Testament restrictions on prophecy and its requirement that prophets be without error. It makes no distinction between the necessity of prophecy before God revealed the Scriptures and after the biblical canon was closed.
• His understanding that Christians can be possessed by demons lacks any biblical warrant or example.
• He so lauds the practice of the miraculous gifts that readers who have not experienced them could easily become discouraged with their church and convinced they are missing out on tremendous spiritual experiences. “To be the recipient of a prophetic revelation from God, whether in dreams, impressions, trances, visions, or words of knowledge and words of wisdom, can be nothing short of euphoric. The experience brings feelings of nearness to God and a heightened sense of spiritual intimacy that isn’t often the case with other of the charismata.”
• The book is at times pastorally insufficient. For example, there is little guidance for people who become convinced the miraculous gifts are operational, but who attend a church that does not. Should they leave their church? Should they confront their leaders? Should they begin to practice these gifts in their small groups? Likewise, there is little guidance for leaders who become convinced that the miraculous gifts remain operational. Should they necessarily lead their churches to begin practicing the gifts? What if the members disagree? Without addressing such concerns, this book has the potential to bring division.

Never did Storms prove to me that I would even want to practice these gifts or be part of a congregation that does. The Bible makes it clear that God heals when it is according to his will and it lays out a practice that expresses our desire to have him do so. The Bible makes it clear that believers cannot be indwelled by demons because they are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and he doesn’t share! I see no reason why I would want to spend time in small groups and worship services asking people to describe trances, dreams, and symbols so we can grapple at interpretations when in our laps we hold the plain, sufficient, inerrant, infallible, completed Word of God.

Conclusion

Despite such critiques, I am genuinely glad Storms wrote Practicing the Power. I am thankful that the publisher sent it to me (unsolicited) for review. I have long wondered what a church would look like if it full-out embraced and practiced the miraculous gifts. Now I know. I read this book carefully, taking copious notes. I believe it has given me a deeper and more accurate understanding of charismatic practice. Ironically perhaps, it has deepened my cessationist convictions and my confidence in cessationist practice. While acknowledging and appreciating the book’s strengths, I still found it concerning and unconvincing.

Here we are, five hundred years past Luther. You have to wonder to what degree that first protester would recognize today’s Protestantism. But you don’t have to wonder what he would think about contemporary attempts to bridge the gap he helped create. He, of all people, knew the necessity of defending the true gospel by separating from false gospels.

That doesn’t mean others haven’t tried. In 1994, Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus co-founded Evangelicals and Catholics Together in an attempt to bring unity between Protestants and Roman Catholics on the basis of shared affirmations. A number of leading Evangelicals either signed or endorsed the document. Still others refused, and noteworthy among them was R.C. Sproul.

In 1995, Sproul published Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification. He wrote it as a direct response to ECT and meant especially to challenge the Evangelical signatories along with any other Protestants who may have been enthusiastic at the prospect of some kind of reunification with Rome. For that reason, he framed his work around ECT, and as he evaluated the document, he explained the vast and unresolved differences between the two systems of theology. More properly, he demonstrated and explained the two very different gospels they represent. For in the final evaluation, the difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism is not a subtle distinction between two valid options, but a vast chasm between a gospel that saves and a gospel that damns. The difference between the two can be aptly summarized by the doctrine that stood at the heart of the Reformation, the doctrine that provides the book’s title: faith alone.

To some degree, Faith Alone is bound by time and by a document whose importance has faded. ECT did not accomplish what its creators had desired and its detractors had feared, partly because of Dr. Sproul’s unwavering, biblical response. Yet the book is no less important to read today, twenty two years after its initial publication. It remains a strong evaluation and refutation of Roman Catholic doctrine. Fittingly, it has been given a new cover treatment for 2017, as has its companion volume Getting the Gospel Right, a response to The Gift of Salvation, a second ECT statement.

For as long as R.C. Sproul has been involved in public ministry, he has stood firm against theological error while battling boldly for doctrinal truth. In Faith Alone, he demonstrates the critical importance of affirming and protecting that great Reformation doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone. Always respectful toward others, he proceeds carefully, biblically, and with unrelenting force. This book remains as important and relevant today as when it was first published.

We will leave it to future church historians to determine the reach and impact of the recent renewal of Reformed theology. While we do not know if, when or how it will fade out, we do know that John Piper has been one of the men at the forefront of the movement. His books, his sermons and his conferences have been instrumental in raising awareness of Reformed theology and in making it downright exciting. In his new book Five Points, Piper offers his explanation and defence of Calvinistic doctrine.

One of Piper’s great strengths in representing and defending Calvinistic theology has been in not merely defending this doctrine, but in making it lead to wonder and to worship. “My experience is that clear knowledge of God from the Bible is the kindling that sustains the fires of affection for God. And probably the most crucial kind of knowledge is the knowledge of what God is like in salvation.” Of course this is what the five points of Calvinism are about—“not the power and sovereignty of God in general, but his power and sovereignty in the way he saves people,” which is exactly why these doctrines are commonly referred to as the doctrines of grace. He insists that he does not begin here as a Calvinist who sets out to defend a system, but as a Christian who holds the Bible above any system of thought.

As with many modern Calvinists, Piper does not love the TULIP acronym that has become synonymous with Calvinism. He steps away from the acronym and the standard order, saying “I have found … that people grasp these points more easily if we go in the order in which we ourselves often experience them when we become Christians.”

1. We experience first our depravity and need of salvation.
2. Then we experience the irresistible grace of God leading us toward faith.
3. Then we trust the sufficiency of the atoning death of Christ for our sins.
4. Then we discover that behind the work of God to atone for our sins and bring us to faith was the unconditional election of God.
5. And finally we rest in his electing grace to give us the strength and will to persevere to the end in faith.

In short, here is how he explains each of the points:

1. Total Depravity: Our sinful corruption is so deep and so strong as to make us slaves of sin and morally unable to overcome our own rebellion and blindness. This inability to save ourselves from ourselves is total. We are utterly dependent on God’s grace to overcome our rebellion, give us eyes to see, and effectively draw us to the Savior.
2. Unconditional Election: God’s election is an unconditional act of free grace that was given through his Son Jesus before the world began. By this act, God chose, before the foundation of the world, those who would be delivered from bondage to sin and brought to repentance and saving faith in Jesus.
3. Limited Atonement: The atonement of Christ is sufficient for all humans and effective for those who trust him. It is not limited in its worth or sufficiency to save all who believe. But the full, saving effectiveness of the atonement that Jesus accomplished is limited to those for whom that saving effect was prepared. The availability of the total sufficiency of the atonement is for all people. Whosoever will—whoever believes—will be covered by the blood of Christ. And there is a divine design in the death of Christ to accomplish the promises of the new covenant for the chosen bride of Christ. Thus Christ died for all people, but not for all in the same way.
4. Irresistible Grace: This means that the resistance that all human beings exert against God every day (Rom. 3:10-12; Acts 7:51) is wonderfully overcome at the proper time by God’s saving grace for undeserving rebels whom he chooses freely to save.
5. Perseverance of the Saints: We believe that all who are justified will win the fight of faith. They will persevere in faith and will not surrender finally to the enemy of their souls. This perseverance is the promise of the new covenant, obtained by the blood of Christ, and worked in us by God himself, yet not so as to diminish, but only to empower and encourage our vigilance; so that we may say in the end, I have fought the good fight, but it was not I, but the grace of God which was with me (2 Tim. 4:7; 1 Cor. 15:10).

Each of these points is not only explained and defended, but also celebrated. The passion that has marked so much of Piper’s ministry is fully present here; his desire is to elevate God and to draw his readers to see and revel in the glory of God. As the book draws to a close he provides a personal testimony of “What the five points have meant for me.” Here he describes how rightly understanding God’s sovereignty in salvation has led him to stand in awe of God and has led him into the depth of true God-centered worship; how these doctrines make him marvel at his own salvation; how they make him alert to any man-centered alternatives to this good news; how they make him hopeful that God has the will, the right and the power to answer prayer; and so much else.

Five Points was edited and published on the far side of the Atlantic and as with Finally Alive before it, I immediately noted a difference—a good difference. I consider Five Points as readable and enjoyable a book as Piper has ever written. He covers those five doctrines that have been the subject of so many books, but does so with a kind of fire, an infectious enthusiasm for the display of God’s splendor. This is sound doctrine in the hands of a skilled and passionate writer and it makes a great combination.

A few weeks ago a reporter from Macleans magazine got in touch to ask if I would be willing to talk about a whole new genre of books—books that claim the author has journeyed to heaven. He had been assigned the story and was baffled by their popularity. I am baffled too. He saw as well that even as authors are insisting that heaven is real and that they have seen it, hell is on the downgrade. He understood readers want the assurance that heaven exists and they want to believe that hell does not.

These books crowd bookstore shelves (as evidenced by this snapshot I took at a local bookstore). Every couple of months there is another book telling the story of a near death experience followed by a journey to the afterlife. Every couple of months one of these books hits the list of bestsellers. 90 Minutes in Heaven, Heaven Is For Real, Proof of Heaven, To Heaven and Back…it just goes on and on. While bookstores are now full of these books, there have been very few responses to them.

Enter the second edition of John MacArthur’s The Glory of Heaven. The first edition was written to combat New Age themes that were pervading the church in the early to mid-90’s. The second edition is angled specifically at exposing this genre of heaven tourism. While much of the content is the same, there is also much that is new, refreshed and updated.

In some ways this is two books: a look at what the Bible says about heaven and the afterlife, and a pointed critique of the many heaven tourism books cluttering bookshelves. In both ways it is successful.

As MacArthur sketches out a brief a theology of heaven, he is in his element, looking to Scripture and simply teaching about the glory that awaits us there. His views are traditional, orthodox and at times very literal. He shows again and again that the greatest promise of heaven is not meeting those who have gone before or being free from sickness and pain, but being in the presence of the Savior. He is equally strong in exposing and critiquing heaven tourism books. He pulls no punches as he points out the massive contradictions between the various books in this genre and as he draws attention to just how often they contradict not only the facts of what the Bible says about heaven, but also the Bible’s whole theme and tenor. This is classic MacArthur, looking to the Bible, showing contradictions, and saying, “No way!”

While there are many excellent books on heaven, this may be the only one that specifically addresses the heaven tourism books. MacArthur models how to think biblically–how to go to the Bible, how to think critically, and how to exercise discernment. This alone makes The Glory of Heaven a book you would do well to read.

In 1738 Williams heard a sermon by the revivalist preacher Howell Harris, a fiery Welsh layman who had been influenced by the Methodist movement in England. It was through this sermon that Williams discerned his calling to go into the ministry.

Williams first pursued becoming an Anglican priest (in the Church of Wales) and entered as a deacon in 1740. However, he soon came to discover that his heart was with Harris and his itinerant work, and before long he left his small curacy in the mountains to join with the traveling Methodist preachers.

The revivalists realized that the Welsh language was lacking in hymns—the church in Wales was still primarily singing metrical psalms in their worship services. In order to promote the creation of hymns, Harris put together a hymn-writing competition between the different preachers.

As Louis Benson relates, “the prize fell easily to Williams Williams, who had the poet’s passion and a gift of verse-writing. Therefore it was not very long before he was recognized as poet laureate of the Welsh revival.”

Williams would go on to write many hymns in both Welsh and English. “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” appeared in Welsh in 1745. Twenty six years later, in 1771, a Rev. Peter Williams translated the first verse into English, prompting William Williams to translate the rest of it into English as well.

It is fitting that Williams should be the author of a hymn about the Christian’s pilgrimage on earth since as a traveling Methodist preacher, he was a pilgrim in both the spiritual and physical sense.

Williams made an extraordinary record as an itinerant evangelist. He took the whole of Wales for his parish. His travels for forty-three years are said to make an average of 2230 miles a year, at a time when there were no railroads and few stage-coaches. In this way the greater part of Williams’ life was spent, not in a preacher’s study, but in the great world of out of doors. …

It was a picturesque life, but it was not an easy one; for nature is not always kind. It involved much exposure and constant fatigue. It incurred also that menace of the mob of which all these revival preachers were victims. …

Such self-sacrificing years of evangelism and those weary thousands of miles sum up the remainder of Williams’ life.

Here is the English text of the hymn (which is known also as “Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer”):

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy powerful hand:
Bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more.

Open now the crystal fountain
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through:
Strong deliverer,
Be thou still my strength and shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side:
Songs of praises,
I will ever give to thee.

Two stanzas have since been added. One appears to have been added by Williams when he translated it to English (“Musing on my habitation…”). I am not sure about the other.

Lord, I trust Thy mighty power,
Wondrous are Thy works of old;
Thou deliver’st Thine from thralldom,
Who for naught themselves had sold:
Thou didst conquer, Thou didst conquer,
Sin, and Satan and the grave,
Sin, and Satan and the grave.

Musing on my habitation,
Musing on my heav’nly home,
Fills my soul with holy longings:
Come, my Jesus, quickly come;
Vanity is all I see;
Lord, I long to be with Thee!
Lord, I long to be with Thee!

The hymn is especially powerful when sung by a choir and has been recorded many times. Here is a good example. You can see a lot of really bored-looking people singing it at the royal wedding of Prince William. Several people have rewritten the melody but, between you and me, I don’t think any of them touch the power and beauty of the original. Having said that, Whitney Houston’s way-too-short rendition sounds like it would have been special, though it also would have been about 20 minutes long.

Christianity is a bloody faith. It is a bloody faith because it is the faith of sinful people and the Bible tells us that sin requires blood. For sin to be forgiven, for sinful people to be made right with God, there must be a payment of blood. That payment was made by Jesus Christ on a blood-soaked cross and through the centuries Christians have been praising God for providing the one thing they need most that they cannot do themselves. So Christians speak of the blood of Jesus Christ, they thank God for accepting the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ, they sing of that blood, they praise God for it. This is an unashamedly bloody faith.

We can see the significance of blood in the pages of the Old Testament, where from the earliest verses there are bloody footprints leading away from the perfection of the Garden of Eden. The blood of millions of animals brings temporary peace between sinful people and a sinned-against God. We see the significance of blood in how frequently the New Testament mentions it—nearly three times as often as “the cross” of Christ and five times as often as the “death” of Christ. Says Richard Phillips, “At the very heart of our Christian faith is a precious red substance; the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In his new book Blood Work, Anthony Carter, pastor of East Point Church in East Point, Georgia, describes how the blood of Christ accomplishes the Christian’s salvation. Through 140 pages that are equally descriptive and meditative, he traces the New Testament’s blood motif and finds that blood is necessary for purchasing, propitiating, justifying, redeeming, cleansing, sanctifying, electing, freeing and so much else. Almost every benefit that is ours in Christ Jesus is explicitly connected to us through this trail of blood.

The reason for all this talk of blood becomes clear in the pages of Scripture. “In Genesis 9:4 we are told that life is in the blood. If life is in the blood and the blood represents life, then the loss or shedding of blood represents death.” Thus the blood of Jesus is a metaphor for the life and death of Jesus. “His precious blood signified His precious life and His precious death. Consequently, the redeemed do not receive a blood transfusion from God. We receive a life transfusion—His death for our death, His life for our life. It is all according to His precious blood, which satisfies God’s righteous requirements for life and justice.”

If blood is so central to our great problem and God’s great solution, “It should not be surprising that as recipients of God’s gracious salvation through the person and work of Christ we preach, pray, and even sing of the wonderful power of the blood, as the popular hymn by William Cowper (“There Is a Foundation Filled with Blood”) demonstrates.” In fact, every chapter of Blood Work is marked by Christian hymns that, in both sorrow and joy, speak of Christ’s blood. “And can it be that I should gain / An interest in the Savior’s blood?” “I’ll wash my garments white / In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.” “Sealed my pardon with his blood / Hallelujah! What a Savior!” “Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood / Shall never lose its power.”

All this talk of blood and all these bloody songs called me to ponder why the Old Testament and all its blood-soaked history had to come before the cross. All the blood of all those animals was preparing us to understand the blood of the perfect and final sacrifice. The bloody doorposts in Egypt made death pass over the homes of God’s people; the bloody cross of Calvary makes death pass over the souls of God’s people.

Blood Work is a powerful book that calls the reader to better understand why blood is such a integral, vile, beautiful necessity to the Christian faith. It is a book that calls the reader not only to understand, but also to marvel and to worship.

Stuff Christians Say obviously struck a nerve; it has racked up tens of thousands of views on YouTube and hundreds of thousands on GodTube. Two guys hop between various locations while offering a long list of “stuff Christians say,” those words and phrases distinct to Christianity. “God thing,” “secular music,” “my testimony,” “traveling mercies”–they are all here. It’s appropriate satire because it rings true. As Christians we can become oblivious to the fact that we have developed a lexicon all our own.

“Stuff Christians Say” got me thinking about not only the little words we use, but the big ones, the theological descriptors. I have often encountered articles telling us that we should avoid using big and unusual words to describe what we believe. The “-ologies” should be avoided–soteriology, eschatology and Christology. So too should the words that are used almost exclusively by Christians–propitiation, sanctification, hermeneutics. After all, what could be more seeker-unfriendly than inviting a person to church and then using words that have no meaning to him? Won’t this make that visitor feel like an outsider?

It seems to me that there are at least two varieties of words in the Christian lexicon, those that are trite and those that are specific. “God thing” is a trite phrase that has no objective meaning and there is not much to lose if we never use it again. “Propitiation” is a very precise term that has a distinct meaning. It is this second category that I believe we need to hold on to and we need to hold on to such words without shame. We impoverish ourselves when we lose these words. We impoverish ourselves if we never learn and teach these words.

I cannot think of any other field or area in which the use of unique and difficult words and phrases is deemed inappropriate or less than ideal. Instead, we educate people to understand what those words mean and then to use them appropriately. Any doctor will testify that a large part of his education was learning the precise terms for the various parts and functions of the body and the very precise ways of referring to conditions and diseases. It would not inspire confidence in your doctor to hear him say, “Well, it looks like you’ve got an owie on that dangly thing in the back of your mouth.” You would not want to turn your fridge over to an appliance repairman who pulled the fridge out, took a look, and said, “I think it’s leaking and you need some more of the cold-making stuff.” Or the radio play-by-play man who had no idea how to describe a play and who had no knowledge of the appropriate statistics. Or the professor of philosophy who had never heard nor used the word “epistemology.” We could dig up examples all day long.

As we grow in our knowledge of any field we necessarily begin to learn the words that are especially important to it. It is assumed that many of these words will be unique and that they will carry precise meanings. This is as true to the Christian faith as it is to any other area. We do not need to run away from these words, but to help people grow into them.

Of course this does not mean that we should use these words all the time and in every circumstance. We don’t all need to run around like young seminarians, thrilled with new words and assuming that everyone else shares that enthusiasm. But neither should we run away from them. Perhaps it is best to agree among ourselves that we will only use those big words if we can prove we understand them by first defining them in simpler terms.

The challenge is to not learn new words abstractly or mindlessly but worshipfully. In the Christian context “propitiation” carries a specific meaning that is absolutely crucial to a right understanding of God’s act of saving his people. There is no other word that carries all the nuance and significance of that word. To learn it and understand it is to grow in our knowledge of God and to grow in our understanding of his grace and glory. To learn the word and all it represents is to have new opportunities to worship God for being who he is. The study of theology, and even the study of a single word, is meant to lead not only to knowledge, but to worship.

There is a direct relationship between our knowledge and our worship. There is a time and a place for simplicity, but there is also a challenge before us to grow in our knowledge, or, to use a biblical metaphor, to grow from milk to meat. We grow in knowledge, at least in part, when we learn those advanced words and the crucial meanings they represent. And as we grow in our knowledge of who God is and what he has done, we grow equally in our ability to worship him on that basis. Those who worship God most fully are those who know God most fully.

I am rather a skeptic when it comes to many of the claims of global warming and environmentalism. However, this skepticism about the prognostications of doom and gloom does not indicate that I am unconcerned about the planet we live on. It is quite the opposite, really. I want my skepticism to allow me to find better solutions than those posited by the green movement. I want my diagnosis of the problem and my understanding of solutions to be grounded in the Bible. I have been helped here by Francis Schaeffer and his book Pollution and the Death of Man. It is, in my assessment, still one of the best treatments of a Christian understanding of creation care.

Schaeffer begins with the reassurance that as Christians we are able to acknowledge what today’s secular humanists cannot: That mankind has been called by God to exercise dominion over the earth. We are not here by chance and we are not here by mistake. We were placed here by God to care for this planet and have been called to be faithful stewards of it. But like everything else in this world, our ability to exercise this kind of stewardship has been affected by our sinful state. “By creation man has dominion, but as a fallen creature he has used that dominion wrongly. Because he is fallen, he exploits created things as thought they were nothing in themselves, and as though he has an autonomous right to them.” We no longer consistently tend the world in love, but instead ravage and pillage it. Though we may not believe in all of the dire claims being made about the state of our planet and its perilous future, we must at least acknowledge that we have not cared for the world as God has called us to.

The answers to this crisis lie not in our own efforts and not in the dictums of former Vice Presidents. Rather, if we are to understand the crisis, its roots, and its solutions, we must turn to Scripture. And this is precisely what Schaeffer does. Though his book was originally published in 1970, it reads as if it was written yesterday (if, that is, the reader is willing to replace the ecological crises of thirty years ago with those of our day, perhaps substituting global warming in place of DDT).

Schaeffer looks at the spirit of the day and examines how people are dealing with ecological issues. Perceptively, he understood that ecology, bereft of any firm, biblical foundation and without any consistent basis for morality, must breed a kind of pantheism. He saw that people would deal with environmental issues by making themselves one with the planet and it one with them, and this decades before the film Avatar. He responds with classic Schaefferian thought: “Pantheism,” he says, “will be pressed as the only answer to ecological problems and will be one more influence in the West’s becoming increasingly Eastern in its thinking.” Almost forty years later, his words have proven true. Witness the rise of Yoga right alongside and intertwined with the rise of the green movement.

Pantheism has elevated nature, lowered man, and discarded God. This is critical to pantheistic thought: “The only reason we are called upon to treat nature well is because of its effects on man and our children and the generations to come. So in reality…man is left with a completely egoistic position in regard to nature. … Having no absolutes, modern man has no categories. One cannot have real answers without categories, and these men can have no categories beyond pragmatic, technological ones. … A pantheistic stand always brings man to an impersonal and low place rather than elevating him.” In the end, pantheism pushes both man and nature into a kind of bog, leaving us unable to make any kind of necessary and rational distinctions between us and the world around us.

The Bible offers us a far better and far higher view of ourselves, our planet, and our responsibility toward it. Schaeffer affirms that our understanding must begin with God’s act of creation through which he created things that have an objective existence in themselves. Despite the claims of pantheism, creation is not an extension of God’s essence. It is only the biblical view that gives worth to man and to all that God has created. How? Because we understand both ourselves and nature when we see that, though we are separate from nature, we are related to it as something God has created. “So the Christian treats ‘things’ with integrity because we do not believe they are autonomous. Modern man has fallen into a dilemma because he has made things autonomous from God.” Because we love the Creator, we love the creation. As we love the creation, we express love to the Creator.

Even in the 1970’s Schaeffer was saying “We must confess that we missed our opportunity. We have spoken loudly against materialistic science, but we have done little to show that in practice we ourselves as Christians are not dominated by a technological orientation in regard either to man or nature.” He warned that “if we treat nature as having no intrinsic value, our own value is diminished.” Ultimately, he calls upon us to treat nature well because we are all products of the loving Creator; we are all creatures together.

While acknowledging that sin and its effects will not be eradicated until the Lord returns, Schaeffer believed there can and should be “a substantial healing,” of the planet and its environment. He says, “we should be looking now, on the basis of the work of Christ, for substantial healing in every area affected by the Fall.” As Christians we of all people are the ones who ought to be treating creation now as it will be treated in eternity. And this, I think, is our challenge: to treat the planet today as we will treat the new earth, exercising dominion without pillaging, exploiting without destroying, faithfully stewarding God’s great gift.