Church Planting Novice + Creation Project = jonathandodson.org: On Christ, the Church, and our Culture.
Be sure to adjust your links accordingly, visit often, and join our Triune God’s mission in his Creation Project.
9. But doesn’t God do us an injustice by requiring in his law what we are unable to do?
No. God created humans with the ability to keep the law. They, however, tempted by the devil, in reckless disobedience, robbed themselves and all their descendants of these gifts.
Ge 1.31; Eph 4.24
Ge 3.13; Jn 8.44
Ge 3.6
Ro 5.12,18-19
10. Will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
Certainly not. He is terribly angry about the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge he punishes them now and in eternity. He has declared: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’
Ex 34.7; Ps 5.4-6; Na 1.2; Ro 1.18; Eph 5.6; Heb 9.27
Dt 27.26; Gal 3.10
11. But isn’t God also merciful?
God is certainly merciful, but he is also just. His justice demands that sin, committed against his supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty–eternal punishment of body and soul.
Ex 34.6-7; Ps 103.8-9
Ex 34.7; Dt 7.9-11; Ps 5.4-6; Heb 10.30-31
Mt 25.35-46
From the Heidelberg Catechism.
Another couple classes I’m currently in this semester are History and Philosophy of Christian Education and Theological Education in Intercultural Contexts. For the former course, the main objective will be to create my own philosophy of Christian Education; for the latter, the objective will be to develop a Manifesto (both in theory and practice) for Renewal in Theological Education. Of course, the layout and design of each depend greatly upon one’s vision, goals, etc., as well as on the setting (formal/informal) for the intended education/discipleship. As for the supplementary lists below, I included those titles I already have on hand. In my hopeful and strategic view, these two classes can best be worked through as complementary rather than at odds with each other. Again, you are welcome to suggest additional books that may deepen and broaden my own research. Thanks!
History and Philosophy of Christian Education
Required:
A Theology for Christian Education (Estep/Anthony/Allison)
A History of Christian Education (Reed/Prevost)
Philosophy & Education: An Introduction in Christian Perspective (Knight)
Supplementary:
On Christian Teaching (On Christian Doctrine) (Augustine)
Christian Knowledge (Edwards)
Theological Education in Intercultural Contexts
Required:
Reenvisioning Theological Education (Banks)
Theological Education Matters: Leadership Education for the Church (Cannell)
Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Farley)
Teaching Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Learning and Teaching (Lingenfelter)
Supplementary:
The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Alan Hirsch)
Total Church: A Radial Reshaping around Gospel and Community (Chester/Timmis)
The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Van Til)
Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Bertrand)
If you’ve registered and are planning to attend the (sold out) Verge Conference in Austin next week (4-6), here’s a little about its purpose, and what to expect.
A good bit on how we can be prayerfully preparing our own hearts between now and then:
What will happen at Verge? It largely depends on you. Will you come to engage, repent, adjust, encourage, affirm, critique, dialog, and strategize? If you do, great things could happen. Let’s pray they would, starting now. Let’s come, not just to consume, but to give and strengthen one another in the great task of gospel leadership and the mission of the church.
Here.
I believe in the Triune God. As a Tri-Personal Being, He is the Maker and Lord of the heavens and the earth. He is self-existent, self-sufficient, and absolutely free. He is simple, united, perfect, immutable, and passible. He is infinite, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. God is gloriously and happily true, wise, holy, just, good, faithful, love, and merciful. He is a missional God, who owns the universe and everything therein. He is a divine mystery, yet revealer of himself. The primary names of God include: Elohim, Adonai, and YHWH.
I believe in God who is the Holy Trinity. God is one God, yet he is three Persons in Divine Community, in Perichoresis. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God. The Father is Lover, the Son is the Beloved, the Spirit is Love. The Trinity is a missional God. He is both an immanent and an economic Trinity. Each Person of the Trinity is equal in being or existence. The Son is a revealer of the Father, who is the Creator of all things. He is both a revealer and a concealer of knowledge. The Father is the fons divinitates. The Son is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. He is even the eternal life, who was in the beginning with God, being very God himself. Jesus, the Son of God was and is both God and man. The Spirit is the Creator of all things, and is the Perfecter of creation.
I believe in this Triune God, in order to understand him. From whence does the knowledge of God come? The sources of this knowledge are: special revelation; general revelation; And, the law of this God is written on the hearts of all people. As well, God himself imparts knowledge of himself to those whom he so chooses.
I. Preconditions of Renewal: Preparation for the Gospel
A. Awareness of the holiness of God { his justice / his love
B. Awareness of the depth of sin { in your own life / in your community
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II. Primary Elements of Renewal: Depth Presentation of the Gospel
A. Justification: You are accepted —–> in Christ
B. Sanctification: You are free from bondage to sin —–> in Christ
C. The indwelling Spirit: You are not alone —–> in Christ
D. Authority in spiritual conflict: You have authority —–> in Christ
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III. Secondary Elements of Renewal: Outworking of the Gospel in the Church’s Life
A. Mission: following Christ into the world, presenting his gospel { in proclamation / in social demonstration
B. Prayer: expressing dependence on the power of his Spirit { individually / corporately
C. Community: being in union with his body { in microcommunities / in macrocommunities
D. Disenculturation: being freed from cultural binds {destructive / protective
E. Theological Integration: having the mind of Christ { toward revealed truth / toward your culture
From Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal by Richard Lovelace
One of the five classes I’m in this semester is Evangelism, emphasizing the personal aspect of sharing one’s faith (in contrast with the emphasis on the evangelistic or missional role of the church community). The following is a list of books both required for the class, and ones I’m adding for supplementary reading (or re-reading). Feel free to suggest others, as well.
Required:
True Evangelism: Winning Souls Through Prayer (Chafer)
The 7 Principles of an Evangelistic Life (Cecil)
Supplementary:
God is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself (Piper)
The Heart of Evangelism (Barrs)
Tell the Truth: The Whole Gospel to the Whole Person by Whole People (Metzger)
The Study of Evangelism: Exploring a Missional Practice of the Church (Various Contributors)
Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community (Chester & Timmis)
Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (Kostenberger & O’Brien)
In his book, Jonathan Edwards and the Bible, Robert E. Brown proposes: “[Edwards’] End for Which God Created the World, Nature of True Virtue, and ‘History of the Work of Redemption’ form a tightly woven trilogy intended to address the serious challenges to traditional Christian thought in contemporary religious rationalism” (144). The following insights comprise a reflective synthesis of the aforementioned works, evidencing warrant to Brown’s description.
If given the opportunity to ask Jonathan Edwards why God created the world, he might possibly answer: There is but one double-sided end for which God created the world—God’s glory and man’s happiness. This one end for which he created the world, is both “the end of the virtue of God’s people” and “the end of the work of redemption” (Y9:500-501). Indeed, the means by which God aims to accomplish this end is the work of redemption. More particularly, from all eternity, “the persons of the Trinity were as it were confederated in a design and a covenant of redemption” (Y9:118). The Triune God carries on this work from the fall of man to the end of the world. And, as this general work of redemption continues throughout history, the special work of true virtue is consequentially affected in God’s people—to the praise and glory of God.
From Jonathan Edwards’ God-entranced perspective, he conceives God’s being and existence as prior to any of his acts or designs. And, God’s being and existence must be presupposed as the ground of his acts or designs. So, in this case, he asks, what is the design of God’s act of creation in relation to his making himself his end (Y8:469)? Edwards answers, by showing that from the very fullness of God’s being, he wanted to communicate himself to his creatures in these emanations: 1) divine knowledge; 2) virtue/holiness; 3) happiness. When divine knowledge is communicated to the creature, it is God’s own knowledge of himself that the creature receives. And so, since God’s glory is the object of this knowledge, he delights in the manifestation of it in the creature as it reflects his own glory (Y8:441). When the emanation of God’s fullness communicates virtue and holiness to the creature, “the creature hereby partakes of God’s own moral excellency, which is properly the beauty of the divine nature” (Y8:442). And as God delights in his own beauty, he must also necessarily delight in the creature’s holiness and virtue. Here, Edwards shows how “True Virtue should first be read as [his] ethics of creation,” as he considers “wherein this holiness in the creature consists…in love [primarily to God], which is the comprehension of all true virtue” (Y8:34, 442). Lastly, the happiness that God communicates to his creatures from his fullness, is that happiness which consists of joy in himself. So, when his creatures rejoice in God, he himself is magnified and exalted, since “joy, or the exulting of the heart in God’s glory, is one thing that belongs to praise” (Y8:442). And, God’s glory or praise of his glory is spoken of as “the end of the work of redemption” (Y:487).
So, to conclude this brief reflective synthesis of Edwards’ ‘trilogy,’ I wholeheartedly agree with Edwards when he says, “the glory of God is the ultimate end of the work of redemption” which is “that work by which good men are, as it were, created, or brought into being, as good men, or as restored to holiness and happiness [i.e., true virtue]” (Y8:488-489).
