Below is a list of all of the new and notable books releasing this month. Be sure to check out all of our new titles from the last few months and browse by category, series, or author.

Being There
Dave Furman

Everyone has friends or family who suffer from sickness, disability, depression, or the death of a loved one.

Oftentimes, the people who love the hurting also struggle in their own unique ways. They tend to suffer in silence and without much support from others. Writing from the unique perspective of one who needs extra help on a daily basis, Dave Furman offers insight into the support, encouragement, and wisdom that people need when helping others. Furman draws on his own life experiences, examples from the Bible, and wisdom from Christians throughout history to address the heart and ministry of those who are called to serve others. Deeply personal and powerfully pastoral, this book points readers to the strength that only God can provide as they love those who are hurting. Afterword written by Gloria Furman, the author’s wife.

“As a long-term chronic pain sufferer, a pastor to suffering people, and a friend of Dave’s, I highly recommend this book. It is deeply personal, painful, and, above all, hopeful, and I am so glad he has taken the time to share his experiences. This book will point professionals, husbands, wives, and the friends of those who suffer from long-term chronic pain to the glorious truths found in the gospel of Jesus. This is not a book that offers easy solutions, but instead brings Bible-centered counsel to bear on the dark moments of life.”
Mez McConnell, Senior Pastor, Niddrie Community Church, Edinburgh, Scotland; Director, 20schemes; author, Church in Hard Places

Learn More / Free Excerpt

Married for God
Christopher Ash

Many people get married without ever understanding the real purpose of marriage — which leads to disappointment, dissatisfaction, and conflict. This raises the obvious (but often unasked) question: What is the purpose of marriage? Helping readers reorient their view of marriage so that they see it as part of God’s grand plan for the universe, this book offers a refreshingly God-centered explanation of one of the most foundational human institutions that exists. Christopher Ash helps us see that personal fulfillment is not the goal of a good marriage, but rather the by-product of a union focused first and foremost on glorifying God in and through everything. Only then will husbands and wives truly experience the joy that comes from loving and serving God together.

“Ash’s book is one I use for premarital counseling. Concise, thoughtful, intelligent, biblical, and full of that increasingly rare commodity — common sense. I heartily recommend it as a book to read and also as a basis for framing and informing pastoral discussions with Christian couples who are looking toward marriage and want a realistic but encouraging picture of what to expect. A great book.”
Carl R. Trueman, Paul Woolley Professor of Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary; author, The Creedal Imperative and Luther on the Christian Life

Learn More / Free Excerpt

Andrew Fuller: Holy Faith, Worthy Gospel, World Mission
John Piper; Foreword by Michael A. G. Haykin

Missionary biographies often inspire enthusiasm, zeal, and urgency for missions among God’s people. But how do Christians give their lives to missions if they feel called to remain in their homeland? In 1792, British pastor Andrew Fuller formed the Baptist Missionary Society, an organization dedicated to the promotion of mission work both at home and overseas. In this concise biography, best-selling author John Piper introduces readers to this incredible Christian who — although he never served abroad himself — inspired the modern missionary movement that gave rise to such figures as William Carey and Hudson Taylor. Working tirelessly to raise funds for missionaries in the field and championing the importance of sound doctrine for fruitfulness in missions, Fuller stands as an example to all Christians eager to devote themselves to knowing, guarding, and spreading the true gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.

“May it not only inform the mind, but also enflame the heart!”
Michael A. G. Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Learn More / Free Excerpt

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 19, 2016.

This is post is adapted from Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus by Jonathan Leeman.

Who Has Imperium?

Imperium. I recently discovered this word. It’s not a word you would pull out while chatting with friends over coffee. It sounds socially clumsy, like an overly intelligent thirteen-year-old. But I think it’s a useful word. It’s what you get when you turn imperial, a word that you just might hear in coffee-time conversations, into a noun. Imperium means supreme power or absolute dominion, and it gets at the idea of where the buck stops in a society. Who is the authority to which all other authorities must answer? Who can make heads roll, literally speaking, without threat of reprisal, because it’s in the job description? That’s who has imperium.

Imperium is what Caesar had in Rome, as well as those kings in the medieval days who were always shouting, “Off with their heads!” In modern times, we would say that the state has imperium. There is no higher power than the state. The state is where the buck stops. The state alone has the power over life and death — the power of the sword.

So if you want to start a business or a school, you need the state’s permission. The same is true for soccer clubs, trade unions, or charity organizations. They exist by permission of the state, and the state regulates them. They don’t regulate the state. They don’t have imperium.

Okay, what about local churches? Do local churches exist by permission of the state? Now that brings us to an interesting topic. In fact, it’s a topic that just might turn our present ideas about the local church and its membership upside down.

Jesus Has Imperium

Most people in Western societies lump churches into the same category as soccer clubs or charity organizations. Churches are one more kind of voluntary association, we say. Alternatively, we regard churches as a service provider, like a mechanic who services your soul or a gas station that fills up your spiritual tank.

But are local churches clubs or service providers that exist by permission of the state, one more supplicant who depends on the mercy of the lord of the land? It’s true that you as an individual Christian should submit to the authority of the state. But remember that the state is God’s “servant” and God’s “agent” for bringing judgment (Rom. 13:4). Yes, the state possesses the “sword,” but it does so only at God’s behest.

It’s also true that churches should abide by the laws of the land when it comes to regulations such as adhering to building codes (if it has a building) or paying any taxes on staff salaries (if it has a paid staff). In that sense, churches are like every other business or organization.

At the same time, there is one thing that should be utterly clear in a Christian’s mind: the local church does not exist by permission of the state. It exists by the express authorization of Jesus. After all, Jesus has imperium, not the state.

To be a Christian is to know this: Jesus is where the buck ultimately stops. Jesus is the authority to which all other authorities must answer. Jesus will judge the nations and their governments. He is the one with final power over life and death. The state exists by Jesus’s permission, not the other way around. States typically don’t acknowledge this fact, of course. But churches know it’s true (John 19:11; Rev. 1:5; 6:15–17).

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus, and he gave his church the authority to march on the nations. His church will therefore advance like an army that cannot be stopped. The boundary lines of the nations won’t stop it. The executive orders of presidents and prime ministers won’t stop it. Not even the gates of hell itself will slow it down.

Jesus has imperium.

We Need to Change Our Thinking

In case we are tempted to overestimate the authority of the state, the fact of Jesus’s imperium should diminish it. The state is merely one of his agents with a specific mandate.

But the fact of Jesus’s imperium should have the opposite effect on our view of the local church: it should raise it. The local church is also one of Jesus’s agents, and he gave it an authority that you and I as individual Christians do not have. And this has radical implications for what the local church is and what it means to be a church member.

If you are a Christian living in a Western democracy, chances are that you need to change the way you think about your church and how you are connected to it. Most likely, you underestimate your church. You belittle it. You misshape it in a way that misshapes your Christianity.

We’ve all been thinking about the local church and its membership as if it’s one thing, when really it’s another. If you are a Christian, the local church is not a club. It is not a voluntary organization where membership is optional for you. It is not a friendly group of people who share an interest in religious things and so gather weekly to talk about the divine.

We falsely assume that we have the authority to conduct our Christian lives on our own and include the church piece when and where we please. That is to say, we treat the local church like a club to join — or not. And this assumption leaves us conducting our Christian lives somewhat aloof from the local church even when we do join one: “Sure, I’m a member, but why in the world would I ask the church to help me think through accepting that job in Albuquerque?”

Please understand, I’m not just pointing the finger. These are my cultural instincts, too. I confess that I want to do things my way. I want to avoid taking responsibility for others. But this is not the biblical picture.

What is the local church? The local church is the authority on earth that Jesus has instituted to officially affirm and give shape to my Christian life and yours.

Just as Jesus instituted the state, so he instituted the local church. It is an institutional authority because Jesus instituted it with authority. Now, I’m doing my best to avoid getting into a conversation here about the relationship between church and state, but here is what you must understand if we’re going to have a paradigm-shifting discussion about church membership:

Just as the Bible establishes the government of your nation as your highest authority on earth when it comes to your citizenship in that nation, so the Bible establishes the local church as your highest authority on earth when it comes to your discipleship to Christ and your citizenship in Christ’s present and promised nation.

So Jesus has instituted the state by giving it the power of the sword. Narrowly, this means the state can take your life (under the authority of God’s Word). By implication, this means it has the enforcement mechanism necessary for establishing the basic structures of society, such as deciding who is publicly recognized as a citizen.

Similarly, Jesus has instituted the local church by giving it the “power of the keys.” Narrowly, this means it can remove a person from church membership (under the authority of God’s Word). By implication, this means it has the enforcement mechanism necessary for establishing the basic structures of the kingdom life, such as deciding who is publicly recognized as a citizen.

Looking for the Right Things

So instead of starting with the idea of a church as a voluntary association, we need to start with the idea of it as the people of a kingdom or nation. When people ask, “Where is membership in the Bible?” the problem is they’re looking for something like a club to join, because the word membership is a club word. Clubs and political parties and labor unions have memberships. But you don’t often use the word membership in relation to governments and the citizens of nations. You don’t say, “So how’s the membership of the British nation doing? Aren’t you guys running, like, sixty million members these days?”

Clubs begin with a point of common interest. Service providers begin with a common need or desire. Churches have all this, but they have something more: a king who requires the obedience of his people. The church begins with this fact: Jesus is Savior and Lord. He has died on the cross for the sins of everyone who would believe and follow him.

This means the Bible doesn’t talk about church membership quite as you might want it to. It talks instead about how God’s people gather together under his supreme rule. It’s interested in the citizens of a kingdom, not club members.

Jonathan Leeman (PhD, University of Wales) is the editorial director for 9Marks and an elder at Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, DC. He has written for a number of publications and is the author or editor of a number books. He is also an occasional lecturer at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and teaches adjunctively for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Jonathan lives with his wife and four daughters in a suburb of Washington, DC.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 18, 2016.

This is a guest post by Kathleen Nielson, author of Ezra and Nehemiah: A 12-Week Study.

Be Drawn to the Story

There’s nothing like a really good story. That’s the first reason I often give for studying the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

People in all times and places are naturally drawn to stories. We live daily in stories, moving from beginning to end — and leaning forward to see what will happen next. A good story has a shape we recognize: with characters in a setting, some sort of conflict that rises, and then some kind of resolution. How wonderful that God inspired his revelation to us in a whole array of genres, with narrative playing a central role in revealing salvation history. Ezra and Nehemiah together give a compelling account of the final piece of Old Testament history, in which God’s people are restored to the land he promised them, after suffering exile because of their sinful rebellion.

This sounds like resolution — but conflict arises from the intense struggle to rebuild Jerusalem and to be restored as God’s people called to live and worship there. The prospects are bleak: they are a poor remnant serving a foreign king; Jerusalem and its temple are broken down; enemies threaten outside the walls; sin arises among them.

The main character in this narrative is the Lord God. Other central characters serve God by leading his people — Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. We might be tempted to focus exclusively on their wise and godly leadership; these men are great examples indeed, and Nehemiah especially is a forceful and dramatic figure. The writers, however (including Ezra and Nehemiah as first-person narrators), consistently point to the sovereign God directing the action. It is God who moves the hearts of the Persian kings to enable this restoration. Repeatedly we see God’s hand: guiding kings, delivering from enemies, restoring his people to his promised place.

Holding the Biblical Story Together

We’re already glimpsing the second reason to study Ezra and Nehemiah: they hold the Bible’s story together. This post-exilic history is the final Old Testament episode in a story God himself began in Eden — really before the foundations of the earth. This main character is the eternal God who created the earth and everything in it; who mercifully promised salvation to the first sinners back in that garden; who created a people for himself through the seed of Abraham and promised blessing on and through that seed.

In these books we see Abraham’s seed restored and blessed — again. Repeated blessings throughout generations had been answered only by repeated rebellion, and yet God in his mercy kept his hand on them, forgave them when they repented, and remained faithful to his promise that through their seed all nations would be blessed. So here they are, still a people, still privileged to worship in Jerusalem’s temple, still looking for the fulfillment of all God’s promises.

These books form the crucial lynchpin holding the Old and New Testaments together. We often ignore this post-exilic period as a time when nothing much happened. And yet in this period God was manifesting his faithfulness. He was restoring his people to hear and obey his Word. He was preparing the way for the promised king that would come from their seed.

Be Drawn to Jesus

Here’s the third and greatest reason to study Ezra and Nehemiah: they draw us to Jesus. The redemption from exile is so marvelous and yet so inadequate; reading these books makes us yearn for a greater redemption. At the close of Old Testament history, there is light but it is still dim. Only with the coming of Jesus does the light break forth.

We live out our part of the story today having seen the fulfillment of all God’s promises, in Christ; these books highlight our privileged part in salvation history. But until the story’s final consummation, we are called to live as God’s people under his good hand, listening to his Word, believing the revelation of God’s promises. Ezra and Nehemiah help us hear that call and follow it, as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Kathleen B. Nielson (PhD, Vanderbilt University) serves as the director of women’s initiatives for the Gospel Coalition. She is a popular conference speaker and the author or editor of numerous books, including Ruth and Esther: A 12-Week Study, and coeditor (with D. A. Carson) of Here Is Our God and (with Gloria Furman) Word-Filled Women’s Ministry. Kathleen and her husband, Niel, have three grown sons, two beautiful daughters-in-law, and a growing number of grandchildren.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 17, 2016.

This is a guest post by Christopher Ash, author of Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be.

A Big Deal

I guess being married or not married — or, as our culture has it, “in a relationship” or not — is a really, really big deal. It’s one of the first things we want to know about someone: Is he/she “in a relationship”? If you’re a follower of Jesus, you know that sex is for the marriage of one man and one woman and not outside the safety of that publicly-promised covenant. But it’s still a big deal. It affects us deeply in all the dimensions of life: physically, emotionally, and socially.

. . . But Not the Biggest Deal!

The trouble is, it can become too big a deal. The really big deal is to love God. Each one of us is called to love God with every fiber of our being. So we must keep our “marital status” underneath our wholehearted discipleship, rather than letting it trump discipleship. What does your mind go to when you are just chilling? Is it the relationships question? Or is it the “how can I love God?” question? The latter is the main one!

Marriage: Sex in the Service of God

So here’s the thing: when the first man was given God’s parkland in Eden to care for (Gen. 2:15), God said it was not good that he was there on his own (Gen. 2:18). That didn’t mean he was lonely, but that he couldn’t do his job of looking after the garden all on his own. That’s why God gave him a “helper” to work alongside him. Marriage is given by God in order that together we may serve God. It’s outward looking — it’s not a discipleship-free zone in which we gaze soft-focus into one another’s eyes, but a relationship of love from which we look to love the people and the world God has made.

If you’re married, ask yourselves this question: how can we serve God in and through our marriage? There may be different kinds of answers. It’s children for many — and that’s what my next post will be about. A relationship of faithful love in which the husband loves his wife as Christ loves his church, and his wife respects and honors him as the church submits in love to Christ; something people see and that helps them catch a glimpse of a much bigger and better marriage.

Being a reliable social glue is the basic building block of society. But ask yourself that question again. Not “how can we enjoy marriage?” (though I hope you can!); but “how can we together serve God in our marriage?” It’s a game-changer question.

Not Married: Still in the Service of God

And if you’re not married, don’t mope; don’t let your unmarriedness dominate your life. It may be tough; it may be very, very tough; but get on with loving God in your unmarried state. Think how the condition you are in now enables you to love and serve Jesus now, and to promote his gospel. That too is a game-changer attitude.

We all start life unmarried. Half of us end life unmarried. Some of us never marry. Many times it can be tough and frustrating and disappointing. But when we look outward and resolve to love and serve the God who has loved us in Jesus, there is a core change of mindset.

. . . And Always Hope!

And always there is hope. If you are loyal and faithful to Jesus, your wedding day is still to come. That great day when the Lord Jesus consummates his marriage to his people. On that day all the longings of the human body and heart that may be partially fulfilled in a happy marriage will be gloriously fulfilled and surpassed in the eternal delight of Jesus in his bride, and his people in their Bridegroom. Keep your eyes on that day!

Christopher Ash works for the Proclamation Trust in London as director of the Cornhill Training Course. He is also writer in residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge, and is the author of several books, including Job: The Wisdom of the Cross and Married for God. He is married to Carolyn and they have three sons and one daughter.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 16, 2016.

God Was Still at Work to Save the World that He Loved

This month, Crossway is excited to announce the release of The Biggest Story: The Animated Short Film.

Today, we want to give you another glimpse into its rich content, striking animations, and beautiful storyline by allowing you to preview chapter 2. We trust you will enjoy this sneak peek into the chapter highlighting the story of Noah and the flood, and anticipate viewing the rest of the film! You can also preview the first chapter highlighting the story of creation and the fall.

Learn more about the film (DVD, digital download), the audio book (CD, digital download), and the book.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 15, 2016.

This post is adapted from Andrew Fuller: Holy Faith, Worthy Gospel, World Mission by John Piper.

The Unleashing of Modern Missions

It is totally possible that Andrew Fuller’s impact on history, by the time Jesus returns, will be far greater and different than it is now. My assessment at this point is that his primary impact on history has been the impetus that his life and thought gave to modern missions, specifically through the Baptist Missionary Society’s sending of William Carey to India in 1793 with the support of Fuller, the society’s first secretary. That historical moment — the sending of William Carey and his team — marked the opening of the modern missionary movement.

William Carey was the morning star of modern missions. Between 1793 and 1865, a missionary movement never before seen in the history of the world reached virtually all the coastlands on earth. Then in 1865, Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission, and from 1865 until 1934, another wave of missionary activity was released so that by 1974 virtually all the inlands — all the geographic countries of the world — were reached with the gospel. In 1934, Cameron Townsend founded Wycliffe Bible Translators, which focused not on geographic areas or political states but on people groups with distinct languages and dialects and cultures — and gradually the church awakened, especially at the Lausanne Congress in 1974, to the biblical reality of “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9; cf. 7:9) — and the missionary focus of the church shifted from unreached geography to the unreached peoples of the world.

We are in the midst of this third era of modern missions. Today the great reality, as documented in Philip Jenkins’s The Next Christendom,[1] is that the center of gravity in missions is moving away from Europe and the United States to the South and East. Places we once considered mission fields are now centers of Christian influence and are major missionary-sending forces in the world.[2]

Andrew Fuller’s Impact

You won’t read it in the secular history books or hear it on the nightly news, but judged by almost any standard, this modern missionary movement — the spread of the Christian faith to every country and almost all the peoples of the world — is the most important historical development in the last two hundred years. Stephen Neill, in the conclusion to his History of Christian Missions, wrote,

The cool and rational eighteenth century [which ended with William Carey’s departure for India] was hardly a promising seedbed for Christian growth; but out of it came a greater outburst of Christian missionary enterprise than had been seen in all the centuries before.[3]

So how did it come about that the “cool and rational” eighteenth century gave birth to the greatest missionary movement in world history — a movement that continues to this day, which, if you’re willing, you can be a part of? God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his judgments are unfathomable and inscrutable (Rom. 11:33). More factors led to this great movement than any human can know.

The life and work of Andrew Fuller is one of them — just one of ten thousand things God did to unleash this great Christ-exalting, gospel-advancing, church-expanding, evil-confronting, Satan-conquering, culture-transforming, soul-saving, hell-robbing, Christian-refreshing, truth-intensifying missionary movement.

The reason that Andrew Fuller’s impact on history, by the time Jesus returns, will be far greater and different than it is now is that three volumes of his writings are still in print, and he was an unusually brilliant theologian. So, quite apart from his influence on the rise of modern missions, his biblical insights may have an impact for good on future generations all out of proportion to his obscure place in the small town of Kettering, England.

Notes:
[1] Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). See also Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
[2] Andrew Walls would view it a little differently than Jenkins: “While some scholars such as Philip Jenkins emphasize a shift of power from Western churches to those south of the equator, Walls sees instead a new polycentrism: the riches of a hundred places learning from each other.” Tim Stafford, “Historian Ahead of His Time,” Christianity Today 51, no. 2 (February 2007): 89.
[3]Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions (New York: Penguin, 1964), 571.

John Piper (DTheol, University of Munich) is the founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and the chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. He served for thirty-three years as the senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the author of more than fifty books, including Don’t Waste Your Life, This Momentary Marriage, Does God Desire All to Be Saved?, and Bloodlines.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 12, 2016.

This post is adapted from Quest for Joy, a short-form tract by John Piper.

1. God created us for his glory.

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth . . . whom I created for my glory. (Isaiah 43:6–7)

God made us to magnify his greatness — the way telescopes magnify stars. He created us to put his goodness and truth and beauty and wisdom and justice on display. The greatest display of God’s glory comes from deep delight in all that he is. This means that God gets the praise and we get the pleasure. God created us so that he is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

2. Every human should live for God’s glory.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

If God made us for his glory, clearly we should live for his glory. Our duty comes from his design. So our first obligation is to show God’s value by being satisfied with all that he is for us. This is the essence of loving God (Matt. 22:37) and trusting him (1 John 5:3–4) and being thankful to him (Ps. 100:2–4). It is the root of all true obedience, especially loving others (Col. 1:4–5).

3. All of us have failed to glorify God as we should.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

What does it mean to “fall short of the glory of God?” It means that not one of us has trusted and treasured God the way we should. We have not been satisfied with his greatness and walked in his ways. We have sought our satisfaction in other things and have treated them as more valuable than God, which is the essence of idolatry (Rom. 1:21–23). Since sin came into the world, we have all been deeply resistant to having God as our all-satisfying treasure (Eph. 2:3). This is an appalling offense to the greatness of God (Jer. 2:12–13).

4. All of us are subject to God’s just condemnation.

For the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23)

We have all belittled the glory of God. How? By preferring other things above him. By our ingratitude, distrust, and disobedience. So God is just in shutting us out from the enjoyment of his glory forever. “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess. 1:9).

The word hell is used in the New Testament twelve times — eleven times by Jesus himself. It is not a myth created by dismal and angry preachers. It is a solemn warning from the Son of God who died to deliver sinners from its curse. We ignore it at great risk.

If the Bible stopped here in its analysis of the human condition, we would be doomed to a hopeless future. However, this is not where it stops . . . .

5. God sent his only Son Jesus to provide eternal life and joy.

The good news is that Christ died for sinners like us. And he rose physically from the dead to validate the saving power of his death and to open the gates of eternal life and joy (1 Cor. 15:20). This means God can acquit guilty sinners and still be just (Rom. 3:25–26). “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). Coming home to God is where all deep and lasting satisfaction is found.

6. The benefits purchased by the death of Christ belong to those who repent and trust him.

Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out. (Acts 3:19)

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. (Acts 16:31)

Repent means to turn from all the deceitful promises of sin. Faith means being satisfied with all that God promised to be for us in Jesus. “Whoever believes in me,” Jesus says, “shall never thirst” (John 6:35). We do not earn our salvation. We cannot merit it (Rom. 4:4–5). It is by grace through faith that we are saved (Eph. 2:8–9). It is a free gift (Rom. 3:24).

We will have it if we cherish it enough to receive it and treasure it above all things (Matt. 13:44). When we do that, God’s aim in creation is accomplished: He is glorified in us and we are satisfied in him — forever.

John Piper (DTheol, University of Munich) is the founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and the chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. He served for thirty-three years as the senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the author of more than fifty books, including Don’t Waste Your Life, This Momentary Marriage, Does God Desire All to Be Saved?, and Bloodlines.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 5, 2016.

This post is adapted from Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches by Russell D. Moore.

Proving Darwinism Wrong

The contemporary Planned Parenthood movement was started by a woman named Margaret Sanger, who defended abortion rights on the basis of eugenics, the search for “good genes” based on the racist and evolutionary notions of “social Darwinism” prevalent in her day. Sanger’s grandson, Alexander, continues her viewpoint, updated with contemporary notions of sociobiology, in virulent opposition to the viability of an adoption culture — on Darwinist grounds. “Adoption is counterintuitive from an evolutionary vantage point of both the biological mother and the adoptive parents,” Sanger argues. “Adoption requires a person to devote time and resources to raising a child that is not genetically related. Adoption puts the future of a child in the control of a stranger.”[1] It’s easier for a woman to have an abortion, Sanger argues, or for a family to refuse to think about adopting because evolution and biology “conspire to thwart adoption.” Evolution has programmed women to be nurturers of the children they bear.”[2] That’s why, the abortion industry heir contends, adoption “as the ‘solution’ to the abortion problem is a cruel hoax.”[3]

Sanger has an ideology, a family heritage, and the financial viability of the abortion industry to guard; so his words aren’t going to convince many followers of Jesus. But aren’t they sad, and telling?

Perhaps what our churches need most of all in our defense of the faith against Darwinian despair is not more resources on how the fossil record fits with the book of Genesis and not more arguments on how molecular structures show evidence of design. Perhaps the most practical way your congregation can show Darwinism to be wrong is to showcase families for whom love is more than gene protection.

“As You Did It to the Least of These . . .”

This orphan-protecting faith is personal as well as corporate. At the judgment seat of Christ, all of us will be evaluated as to the authenticity of our faith on the basis of our reaction to “the least of these” (Matt. 25:31–46). At first blush, this looks like works-righteousness, the very kind of thing away from which the rest of the Bible is calling us. You might wonder, if we’re judged on this basis, then shouldn’t each of us adopt as many children as we have square footage in our homes — and then buy more square footage?

No. The remarkable thing about Jesus’s revelation about the judgment seat is that neither the “sheep” (those who inherit the kingdom) nor the “goats” (those who inherit hell) seem to know what Jesus is talking about. When Jesus tells the righteous they sheltered and fed and clothed him in his distress, they ask, “Lord, when did we . . .” (Matt. 25:37). And when Jesus tells the unrighteous they refused to do such things, they also ask, “Lord, when did we . . .” (Matt. 25:44).

At issue isn’t a list of righteous deeds. At issue is whether Jesus knows us, whether we are “blessed” by the Father (Matt. 25:34). The faith that sees Christ presented in the gospel sees Christ in his brothers when they appear providentially in the life of the believer. Jesus tells us there’ll always be people who appeal to their knowledge of the King, their “personal relationship to Jesus.” Do they recognize him, though, apart from his sky-exploding glory? Do they see the covert Christ in the suffering of the vulnerable?

What Every Believer Is Called to

Not every believer will stand praying outside an abortion clinic. Not every believer will take a pregnant teenager into his or her guest bedroom. Not every believer is called to adopt children. But every believer is called to recognize Jesus in the face of his little brothers and sisters when he decides to show up in their lives, even if it interrupts everything else.

Notes:
[1] Alexander Sanger, Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 142.
[2] Ibid., 143.
[3] Ibid., 144.

Russell Moore (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the eighth president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the moral and public policy agency of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. A widely-sought commentator, Dr. Moore has been called “vigorous, cheerful, and fiercely articulate” by the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several books, including The Kingdom of Christ, Adopted for Life, and Tempted and Tried, and he blogs regularly at RussellMoore.com and tweets at @drmoore. He and his wife, Maria, have five sons.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 4, 2016.

This post is adapted from notes by Jason S. DeRouchie in the ESV Men’s Devotional Bible.

Rejoicing in Salvation

Like the idols they would worship (Deut. 4:28), the majority of Moses’s listeners in Deuteronomy 4 had eyes that didn’t see and ears that didn’t hear. They were ignorant of God’s greatness, blind to his glory, and deaf to his word (29:4; cf. Ps. 115:4–8). Their rebellion and unbelief had led to four decades of discipline in the wilderness (Deut. 1:26, 32, 35), and even most of those from the new generation were stubborn, unbelieving, and rebellious (9:6–7, 23–24). Their obstinacy would lead to enactment of the covenant curses, climaxing in exile from the Promised Land (4:25–28; cf. 30:1; 31:16–17, 27–29).

How amazing, therefore, is Moses’s promise of new covenant redemption (4:29–31; cf. parallel promises in 30:1–10). After experiencing curse in the latter days, the people would seek the Lord and actually find him (4:29). They would return to God and obey his voice (v. 30). Verse 31 declares the reason why: “For the LORD your God is a merciful God.” Mercy stands at the forefront of Yahweh’s character (Ex. 34:6). It identifies God’s deep compassion for his people and often expresses the withholding of a judgment that they deserve. Without mercy, there would be no new covenant — no victory, no hope, no life. But mercy has come, and Moses stresses in Deuteronomy 4:31 that this new covenant mercy means that God’s presence as provider and protector is now sure (“He will not leave you”), that his wrath is now appeased (“[He will not] destroy you”), and that both Jews and Gentiles can rejoice in salvation. God has remembered “the covenant with your fathers” that through Abraham all the world would be blessed (i.e., justified; Gen. 12:2–3; 22:18; cf. Gal. 3:8, 14).

The Gift of Mercy

Like Israel of old, we begin our lives with a sensory disability: we are spiritually ignorant, blind, and deaf. We need God to overcome our illness. If you have sought the Lord and found him (Deut. 4:29), then marvel at his mercy. If, “according to his great mercy,” God has caused you “to be born again to a living hope” (1 Pet. 1:3), then make much of his mercy. If you find yourself today worshiping something worthless, then plead for more mercy, and by these same mercies present your body “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1).

The decisive cause of all new covenant relationship is blood-bought mercy. Stand in awe today of the mercy-filled gifts of justification (Rom. 3:24), sanctification (Rom. 6:17, 22), and eternal life (Rom. 6:23). “The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” has entered into our world in Christ (2 Cor. 1:3). May we marvel at mercy — such free, undeserved, yet costly love.

Jason S. DeRouchie is associate professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology at Bethlehem College & Seminary and a contributor to the ESV Men’s Devotional Bible.

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 3, 2016.

This is a guest post by Jen Wilkin, author of None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That’s a Good Thing).

Arriving at a Dangerous Place

As I was writing None Like Him, the thing that jumped out at me the most was my own personal sin patterns bound up with ascribing to myself something that is only true about God.

In particular, I struggle with self-sufficiency. I want to be a person that doesn’t need other people or other people’s stuff. I want to be free from dependence on anyone. And that ultimately includes God if you follow the idea out to its logical conclusion.

I began to realize that it wasn’t simply that I wanted self-sufficiency; it was that when I chased after self-sufficiency, it often drew the approval of man. People want to elevate a person who seems to be self-sufficient.

So it’s not just that I want to become like God in a way I ought not. Beyond that, when I try to become like God in a way I ought not, the result is that people put you on a pedestal. That’s a very dangerous place to get to.

Jen Wilkin is a speaker, writer, and teacher of women’s Bible studies. During her fifteen years of teaching, she has organized and led studies for women in home, church, and parachurch contexts. Jen and her family are members of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas. She is the author of Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds and None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That’s a Good Thing).

Originally published at www.crossway.org on August 2, 2016.