Issues 32-33
And an explanation for why two issues at once
Those of you on the mailing list should be receiving issues 32 and 33 soon. They went out in the mail on Friday.
For everyone else, you can access digital versions of the latest issues below.
Clicking on “Keep reading” below will open/download a PDF of the mailing
From here, you can either read on your screen, or print it out yourself
If you do print, make sure to select 2-sided printing, flip on short edge
Why two issues at once?
All too often, the errors in Christianity come not from believing something objectively false, but from embracing a certain truth to such a degree that we minimize another truth.
As I heard a pastor recently say, the hardest thing to do is to hold the whole counsel of God together in equal tension. Or, put another way, to let each of the truths perfectly complement the other. It must be said — this is a danger we are all prone to.
We may mention one historical example, Martin Luther, in the 1522 preface of his German translation of the New Testament wrote, “St. James’s epistle is really a right strawy epistle, compared to these others [Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, 1 Peter, and 1 John], for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.”
Luther, in light of the glorious revelation of salvation by faith he had received, had become tempted to believe this truth at the expense of the truth found in the book James, feeling that at least in some way, they were in conflict. Though he later removed this sentence from future editions, it’s clear he wrestled with this tension for some time. How does James complement Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians? How do faith and works go together? How does grace and obedience relate? Sovereign choice and human response? Surely it must be one or the other?
I’ve written about the importance of preaching the whole counsel of God before. And how easy it can be to favor one part of the story over another, one aspect of His character, or one time period of His dealing with humanity. Yet we must be faithful to declare it all. That’s what these two issues seek to do, and really three in all if you include Issue 31 — A Delight-Based Gospel.
If you read only about God’s sovereign choice in grace, you may not ever feel the urgency to respond. If you hear only about our need to respond, you may never understand the security that comes when we truly understand the One who works all things according to the good pleasure of His will.
And in all of this, we may then grow out of balance, technically speaking truth, but to such a degree that it turns into a half-truth, a partial deception, a semi-veiling of the light.
To give one more short example — I speak often of having a high and a near view of God. Too high and He becomes distant, disinterested, objectively good but not personally good, generally caring for the needs of the world, but not individually caring for me. Too near and He becomes one of us, just like us, no longer perfectly and intricately governing the affairs of men, lacking the power to bring His will to pass, and stripped of His right to do with His creation whatever He pleases.
Never forget, He brings us out, in order to bring us in. He acquits AND He adopts. All of this summarized so perfectly in David’s confession, “He delivered me because He delighted in me.” High enough to deliver. Near enough to delight. We must see and be convinced of both.
So, to these ends, to see and be convinced of both, to declare the whole counsel of God, and that we may avoid the errors of excesses, I submit to you two issues at once.
ISSUE 32 | KINGDOM HEARD
A Grace-Based Gospel
Where do fears of the future, restlessness, and anxiety come from? Speaking evil of dignitaries, refusal to submit to authority, and an unwillingness to bless those who oppose us due to contradictory views? Do they not all come from the same place? A failure to see and embrace the great incontrolledness of God.
ISSUE 33 | KINGDOM HEARD
A Response-Based Gospel
As we studied in the last issue, God initiates, we respond. Not, and never, the other way around. But what does this response on our part look like?
As a final note of encouragement, the day after I mailed out the two issues, I read the daily entry in Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional, an excerpt of which is shared below:
Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee--it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee--it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument--it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith.
We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by "looking unto Jesus." Keep thine eye simply on him; let his death, his sufferings, his merits, his glories, his intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to him; when thou liest down at night look to him. Oh! let not thy hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never fail thee.
I wanted to include this here because I felt it so perfectly captured what I was trying to communicate in issue 33 especially. In fact, if I had read it even one day earlier, I probably would have found a way to incorporate it into the issue.
May the Lord bless us, whether through my writing, Spurgeon’s, the Scriptures, or sovereignly through some other means, to see Christ this clearly — who He is, what He has done — that our faith may rest fully on Him as the object, not ourselves.
In love,
Derek