New Life Presbyterian Church of La Mesa

Piper Responds to the Muslim Convert “Insider Movement”

Dean — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:16:54 +0000

From The Gospel Coalition: John Piper responds to questions about the Insider Movement .

Editors’ Note: Christians didn’t discover the need for missions in the Muslim world on September 11, 2001. The Middle East is the homeland of our faith, too, the site of many great acts of God’s miraculous redemption. Long before the Twin Towers fell in Manhattan that clear fall day, Christians debated why the church has struggled to gain a hearing for the gospel where the call once sounded freely. Yet in the last decade, debate has intensified as we agonized over the depth of many Muslims’ hostility toward Christianity. Missionaries and academics have wondered aloud whether the problem extends beyond Western politics, military intervention, and spiritual bondage to the very way we present the gospel. Could our methods be to blame? Could more sophisticated contextualization unlock many more hearts for Christ?
These are the questions we asked experienced pastors and missionaries to answer this week. Whether you’re planning to take the gospel overseas yourself or supporting those who do, we hope these articles will help you make wise, informed decisions about this great missionary challenge of our generation.
Previously:
• Leading Muslims to Jesus: Questions to Consider by L. D. Waterman
• How Islamic Can Christianity Be? by J. T. Smith
• How to Share the Gospel with Muslims by J. T. Smith
• Questions and Biblical Guidelines for Missionaries among Muslim Peoples by Erik Hyatt
**********
One way or another, every church leader who support missions among Muslims needs to answer this question with regard to contextualization: how far is too far? Missions agencies advocate different approaches, and missionaries often develop new theories and methods in the field, so many churches have studied the issue and developed their own guidelines for strategy and support.
John Piper depends on many experienced missionaries and pastors at Bethlehem Baptist Church who help him discern the related issues: whether new followers of Jesus Christ can stay in the mosque, continue to call themselves Muslims, refer to Jesus as the “Son of God,” and so on. In this interview, he tells me what he appreciates about the impulse behind the Insider Movement and why Westerners struggle to understand the consequences of belief among Muslim-background believers.
Piper also raises an important problem with the Insider Movement not always appreciated by its proponents: the staunch opposition of many Muslim-background believers who have sacrificed so much to follow Christ and reach their friends, family, and neighbors with the gospel.

Video at: http://vimeo.com/31092562

May 23, 2012

Salt & Light — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:00:37 +0000

Annual Ice Cream Social with the Cadets and our final Salt & Light night for the 2011-2012 school year.

May 16, 2012

Salt & Light — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:55:51 +0000

Dorcas Night, Part 2.

The End is Near!

Cadets — Sat, 12 May 2012 03:37:39 +0000

And no, I’m not just talking about The Rapture (see what I did there, with the cross-platform advertising?) — we have our final regular Cadet meeting of the year next Wed 16th (come at 6:30 to take advantage of the daylight for more practice with archery and marksmanship), our traditional closing ice cream social Wed 23rd (watch for more details…), and in between, our spring campout. All cadets, Dads, Grandpas, Uncles, etc. are welcome to join us!

The campout will be Friday night and Saturday (May 18-19), at the group campsite at Lake Jennings (here are directions to the park, and a closeup of the camping area, we’ll be in the group site). We’re asking for $5/head to offset the cost of dinner, breakfast, and lunch. We’d also like to help keep everyone safe by getting a parent release form filled out for each cadet, with contact & medical information. We should have those forms available at the Wed 16th cadet meeting.

If you’re interested in fishing, good news! The ranger office has offered free fishing passes to any boys in our group (under 16).

Come on out whenever you can make it on Friday. Our reservation details lists an after-hours (after 6?) park gate code of 4728, but it also recommends calling the ranger station 619-390-1623 to confirm the code (or you could call any counselor who is there, we should get that information on check-in). Also, note that we have paid for the group site for both Friday and Saturday nights, so although the “official” campout will be over Saturday afternoon, if anybody wants to stick around Saturday night, you’re welcome to!

Unfortunately Lucas and I can’t make the campout, as we’ll be in Yosemite on an awesome class trip. But the other counselors have things well in hand; you can contact Jamie Lindsey (barnabus56@hotmail.com, 858-345-0805) with any questions.

Many outcomes are possible across the ‘Arab Spring’

Dean — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:56:44 +0000

From MERF website: Noel Weeks, Professor of history at Sydney University is chairman of MERF Australia.

Anybody who thinks history is irrelevant should follow closely the events consuming many Arab countries at the moment and the attitudes of Western governments and commentators to those events. It can be argued that the West is seeing the events in terms of its own dominant theory of history and ignoring the alternate possibilities.

The Western hailing of the turmoil as a “Spring” flows from reading the movements as democratic with all that connotes in the Western mind: free, progressive, secular. In turn that flows from a theory that sees democracy as the inevitable direction of history. The Arab world is following us in demanding freedom and rights.

[Historical Background]

A little knowledge of history, especially of history as experienced by Arab peoples, might allow other possibilities. And that is not to deny the reality of Western influences in what is happening.

As a start this is not the first movement in living memory which owes something to Western influence. When European imperial powers such as Britain, France and Italy withdrew progressively after World War II from the sections of the Arab world they had dominated, Arab thinkers saw the possibility of the resurgence of Arabic culture and power to the position of influence it had known in the Middle Ages. Coming together in that movement were memories of the former greatness of Arab civilization, the importation of nationalistic ideas from the West and a sense of resentment at the outside powers who had held them in subjection during the age of European empires.

Since the great age of Arab power had been under Islam, that was the model, yet the movement was not sectarian. One of the founders was Michel Aflaq, who was a member of an Arabic-speaking church whose lineage goes all the way back to the church of the Eastern Roman Empire. The aim was to unite Christian and Muslim, Sunni and Shi’ite, in a movement whose characteristics were that it was Arab, non-sectarian and democratic. Hence arose Pan-Arabism, the United Arab Republic and the Ba’ath Party.

What happened to that great dream? Saddam Hussein and the Assad family in Syria were, or are, the remnants of it, claiming Ba’ath affiliation. Yet both represent a form of military dictatorship built around a religious minority. If there is a remnant of the Ba’ath lineage it is in their attitude of toleration to the Christian church. Egypt and Libya were also military dictatorships. The fall of Saddam unleashed a wave of persecution of Christians in Iraq that forced a very large proportion to flee the country. There is a very real prospect that the same could happen in Syria, if Assad falls. There are ominous signs of a similar threat in the new Egypt.

The rest of the article can be read here.

Knowing God

Brian — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:44:06 +0000

We started out by saying that the knowledge of God is the goal of life—yes, even life itself (John 17:3). Then, last week, we noted that God is, in his essence, incomprehensible (cf. 1 Tim. 6:16; Rom. 11:33-36). How are these two seemingly antithetical propositions reconciled? For starters we remember that while it is impossible to comprehend God, it is not impossible to apprehend God. Even apprehension of God is a gift from God, which is to say, these two seemingly contradictory propositions are overcome by God himself by means of revelation. As Bavinck notes, “All knowledge of God rests on revelation. Though we can never know God in the full richness of his being, he is known to all people through his revelation in creation, the theater of his glory.” Revelation is the great foundation of Christianity. It is not an overstatement to say that without it there would be no salvation and there would be no Christianity.

By definition, revelation is something that comes from without. Humans, then, do not possess an innate knowledge of God. That said, Reformed theology has walked the fine line of affirming natural theology and rejecting a pure form of innate knowledge of God. “For, strictly speaking, no knowledge, either of God or of the world, is innate” (Bavinck). Rationalist and mystics lean upon innate knowledge of God. For them, a knowledge of God is implanted to humans at birth. Consequently they reject an outside revelation of God, choosing to lean upon human reason and empirical evidence (rationalists), and existential experiences (mystics) instead. All one needs to do is look within. In contrast to this, the Bible teaches that humans made in the image of God—that image being marred, but not completely lost after the fall—possess the capacity of knowing God and that that knowledge of God comes from without. This difference cannot be overstated.

All knowledge of God rests on revelation.Bavinck

This capacity was referred to as the “seed of religion” (semen religionis) by Calvin. But this seed “takes the whole field of human life to make it germinate and grow” (Bavinck). And this germination takes place by the special revelation of God. Even natural revelation needs to be interpreted through the lens of Scripture, for sin infects and affects even the mind (noetic effects of sin) causing men and women to come to wrong conclusions about God’s self revelation in nature. And, this is why so-called “proofs” for God’s existence ultimately fail. To quote Bavinck again, “The proofs may augment and strengthen our faith, but they do not serve as its grounds. They are, rather, the consequences, the products of faith’s observation of the world. The proofs do not induce faith, and objections against them do not wreck it. They are, instead, testimonies by which God is able to strengthen already-given faith.”

Hopefully you can now see how central the idea of revelation is to our faith and what a wonderful gift of grace it is. Apart from it we would be utterly lost and there is no hope of knowing the God who created us and redeemed us in Christ. However, thanks be to God, that he has not left himself without a witness. He has revealed himself to us in nature, but most clearly in his Word and in that final Word, his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The noetic effects of sin affect Christians too. We have not arrived. Therefore, in our pursuit of knowing God we must constantly take our place under the Scriptures, seeking to know Him where He has deemed to be known. And when we give our attention to the Scriptures we are inevitably led to His Son, in whose face God’s glory and revelation is preeminently seen (2 Cor. 4:6).

Dorcas Night

Salt & Light — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:01:15 +0000

Wednesday, April 18, 2012, Salt & Light will be sewing wheelchair bags for the Joni & Friends ministry, Wheels for the World. We will need some mom-helpers with sewing machines. Thanks! http://www.joniandfriends.org/wheels-for-the-world/

The Incomprehensibility of God

Brian — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:42:13 +0000

At the heart of any theological enterprise is the knowledge of God. To know God is “life itself” (Bavinck). There is one small problem, though. How can the creature know the Creator? God’s ways are unfathomable and his judgments are unsearchable (Rom. 11:33). No one has ever known his mind and he has never sought counsel from any of us (Rom. 11:34). He is the Lord and his “greatness is unsearchable” (Ps. 145:3). He is “invisible” (1 Tim. 1:17), “whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16) and who dwells in “unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16). To describe God as unsearchable, unapproachable, and invisible is to speak more like a contemporary agnostic than a contemporary Christian. Contemporary Christians have all but stopped emphasizing the incomprehensibility of God in exchange for the comprehensibility of God. Bavinck’s comments about rationalism are insightful and sadly descriptive of our age. “It is as if people had lost all sense of the majesty and grandeur of God. Disregarding all so-called metaphysical questions, people rushed on to the will of God in order to know and do it. Eternal life, they maintained, does not consist in knowing God but in doing his will.” Sound familiar? Christianity is about “deeds not creeds” we are told. This is why current preaching is dominated by how-to approaches to Christianity and living rather than extended reflections upon the majesty of God.

But God is not like us. God is not just like me but bigger, stronger, and smarter. God is not like me on steroids. Rather God is altogether different. He is holy. He is majestic. He is exalted. In a word, he is transcendent. This is why Reformed theologians have always stated, “the finite cannot contain the infinite.” We have been clear that “God has no name” and that “God cannot be defined.” Any attempt to name God or to define him is always a mere scratch of the surface. God’s essence is hidden from us. “Of ourselves we know no more about the nature of God than beetles know about the nature of humans.” Even our knowledge of God is analogical and never equivocal. What that means is that our knowledge is not merely quantitatively different, but that it is radically qualitatively different too.

At the heart of any theological enterprise is the knowledge of God. To know God is “life itself”.Bavinck

This, however, poses a problem. How can a being that is so radically different from me be known? How can knowing God be life itself and yet God be unknowable? In speaking like this we need to remember that he can be apprehended, just not comprehended. We need to keep in mind that there is some knowledge of God, but no thorough grasp of God (Bavinck). As Augustine put it, “We are speaking of God. Is it any wonder if you do not comprehend? For if you comprehend, it is not God you comprehend. Let it be a pious confession of ignorance rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To attain some slight knowledge of God is a great blessing; to comprehend him, however, is totally impossible.”

Next week we will bring these two together. The incomprehensibility of God and the knowledge of God meet uniquely in Christ

Back in Action

Cadets — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 05:18:45 +0000

OK all,

We’re back on for Cadets this week; here’s a few things to remember.

Pancake Breakfast this Saturday. Although the advertised time is 8, Cadets should show up around 7 if possible, to help set up, and eat their pancakes before the guests arrive. Cleanup should be done by 11. Also, everybody don’t forget to contact Andy with any food items they would like to donate.

Also, please ask your cadets to think about which of the badges they’ve earned they’d like to speak to the club about. We’re not looking for much, just think 3 sentences or 30 seconds.

See you Wed!

Easter Day

Allison — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:35:38 +0000

Want to have some fun? Do the following Google search: . I dare you! You’ll find some weird stuff out there. I think the same guys writing about this also wrote the stuff about 9/11 being an inside job and that President Obama and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney are not really citizens. When it comes to Easter, though, they are writing about you, about us, because we are pausing to remember in a very pointed way the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, a celebration that they regard as having pagan roots. But is that the case?

Our word “Easter” is old English and may come to us from the Germans who named the month of April Eosturmonath. Obviously it is something that relates closely to the month of April. A lot depends upon what Eosturmonath actually means. The Venerable Bebe (673-735) suggested that it was a month named after the goddess Eostre. Hence the implication that this is actually a pagan holiday. The problem is that this goddess is nowhere else attested. Further, none of the other months are named after gods or goddesses. In fact, they are far more earth bound. Solmonath (roughly February), for example, meant “Mud-Month” because that’s when there was a lot of rain and Blotmonath (roughly November) meant “Blood Month” because that is when the animals were slaughtered. In that vein, it has been suggested that Eosturmonath (roughly April) simply meant “the month of opening” or “the month of beginnings” because of its relationship to spring. If you have ever been in the country or on a farm or ranch during the spring everything you see is teeming with life. You see the men working late nights. You see the animals giving birth. You see rabbits everywhere! You see plants and flowers bursting forth from the ground. You see new life.

Another suggestion is that “Easter” found its way into our vocabulary from the Old High German eostrarum meaning “dawn.” Some have suggested this came from the Latin phrase in albis meaning “in white.”

Whatever the case, we celebrate Easter because of Christ’s victory. To suggest that the celebration is tainted because of a “pagan name” is like suggesting that you are a pagan worshiper because you call the fourth day of the week, “Wednesday” which is from the Anglo Saxon, “Woden’s day.”

A better way forward is to smile at the devil and say, “Happy Easter” because Jesus has won the victory over him and death and sin.

(Please note: the bulk of the information presented here came from a very good Christianity Today article by Anthony McRoy, “Was Easter Borrowed from a Pagan Holiday?”)