This week I was honored to attended the Acts 29 DWELL conference in Manhattan. There was a rainy, cold, and foggy theme to my first time in the Big Apple, but that didn’t dampen the experience.
Around 400 church diverse church planters–some wearing suits, others wearing faux-hawks and tattoos–gathered on the edge of Central Park in an 170-year-old, baroque church building owned by the Fourth Universalist Society in upper Manhattan. You get a sense of the impressive architecture, stained glass, paintings, and pipe organ from this photo I took with my phone.
The attendees were seated (by the dozen) around tables where application discussions took place between addresses. It was great to see a few old friends and meet some new one’s, too. It was an impressive lineup and location for a church planting conference.
C.J. Mahaney opened with a message titled, Pastoral Priorities, Watching Your Life and Ministry, centered on 1 Timothy 4:16: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
C.J. closed his message with these words on the second half of the passage.
Paul is not teaching self-atonement. Instead he is accenting human agency in the experience of salvation. … Calvin comments on this passage, “Although salvation is God’s gift alone, yet human ministry is needed as is here implied.” In this passage we are reminded of the vital importance of human ministry and godly leadership as a means of grace. And in this passage we are assured that if we watch our life and doctrine closely and persist and persevere in these practices, we can expect God to preserve us, and those we serve, for that final day. Here in this passage we find a promise of effective ministry in a most unexpected place.
And, most importantly, what stands behind this profound promise? The reason Paul can make this promise is the one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (2:5). The mediator stands behind this promise. What stands behind any effective pastoral ministry is the mediator Christ Jesus. What stands behind our watching our life and doctrine, what empowers our watching our life and doctrine, what guarantees the effectiveness of watching our life and doctrine, is the Savior.
Listen, if it were not for the work of the Savior, the burden of this verse would be simply too much to bear! But because of the Savior we have hope this morning for our pastoral ministry and in our pastoral ministry. We have hope that our lives, by the grace of God, will, in ever-increasing ways, faithfully reflect the transforming effect of the gospel. We have hope! We have hope that our preaching will faithfully proclaim our Savior. We have hope that our ministries will contribute to the preservation of ourselves and the congregation we serve. So, brothers, as we watch our lives, as we watch our doctrine, we are confident we will also watch the Savior work.
For me, sitting off to one side, there was dramatic irony in these closing paragraphs. C.J.’s voice rose a few decibels reminding us of the ministry-sustaining power of the gospel. The amplified emphasis of his voice, proclaiming the importance of the gospel, echoed through the old unitarian church built intentionally hollowed of the gospel and doctrine.
As I listened to the echo it was not only a great reminder to persist in watching my life and teaching, but in looking around at the church’s ornamentation it was also a reminder that failing to watch our life and teaching may not mean our churches will empty out for us to see our failures in this lifetime. A very sobering reminder we can take into all areas of life as we walk by faith, seeking to please God.
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A longer version of this message was delivered in the 2006 Together for the Gospel conference message, “Watch Your Life.” Download here.
“If you find me short in things, impute that to my love of brevity. If you find me besides the truth in anything, impute that to my infirmity. But if you find anything here that serves to your furtherance and joy of the faith, impute that to the mercy of God bestowed on you and me. Yours to serve you with what little I have.” John Bunyan (Works, 1:336).
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“In the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theater, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross, in which there was a wonderful change of things—the condemnation of all men was manifested, sin blotted out, salvation restored to men; in short, the whole world was renewed and all things restored to order.” John Calvin
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Welcome to The Shepherd’s Scrapbook, a blog serving sinners who seek their daily food in the Cross of Christ. Our goal is provide thoughts on Cross-centered living, theology, preaching and pastoral ministry. We review books considered excellent, announce new books that look interesting, and encourage biblical discernment with both. All of this should fuel our pursuit of the Cross. [Meet the winners of the TSS book of the year awards: 2006 winner and the 2007 winners.]
Email: crede.ut.intelligas AT mac.com
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Current reading …
Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought
Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (3rd ed.)
F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame: The Rise and Progress of Christianity from its First Beginnings to the Conversion of the English
Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms: 73-90, Boulding trans. (vol. III/18 )
Colin Duriez, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life
Do-it-yourself Blank Bible. Of all the books we promote, none compare with God’s Word. We pursue the Cross as God opens His Word to us. In this anticipation, we encourage you to make your own blank bible like Jonathan Edwards.’ Building a blank bible shows both a commitment to serious, life-long reflection and the anticipation of God’s illuminating Spirit. To date, over 15,000 readers have accessed the TSS Blank Bible Index.
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FREE book! What is God saying to us? How can we know Him? I wrote a little book — Come Unto Me: God’s Invitation to the World — to answer these questions. You can download the book as a PDF and you can read more about the background of the project here.
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Humble Calvinism.Early this year we started a series on Humble Calvinism, a study through John Calvin’s Institutes. Especially noteworthy is Calvin’s experiential sensitivity to the contours of godliness. Join us as we continue learning humble and holistic Calvinism as Calvin intended. See the Humble Calvinism series index here.
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The Puritan Study. The Puritans were Cross-boasters. So how do we use the wealth of Puritan literature in our personal devotions and expositional studies? Our series on building and using a Puritan Study answered this important question. For more see the full Puritan Study series index.
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Who am I? My name is Tony Reinkebut call me “chief of sinners.” For 22-years I hid from God in self-righteous religious ‘faithfulness’ until my stubborn heart was subdued by God’s sovereign grace (Eph. 2). In one moment, after a sermon by Paige Patterson in Lincoln, NE on Luke 18:9-14, I perceived the Gospel as the great exchange, and by God’s grace I released my self-righteousness to cling to the saving righteousness of Jesus Christ. That day I recognized I was a sinner playing the part of the Pharisee. It was the day I was reborn. Now nothing is more precious than knowing Christ — the God-man who died for me and gave me His righteousness in place of my sinfulness (Phil. 3:7-9). Pursuing further up and further into the Cross has become the center of my life and this blog is intended as a place to share this pursuit.
Educationally, I graduated from Bellevue University in Omaha, NE with a degree in Liberal Arts. Theologically, I’m an autodidact under the wise direction of a local church. I’ve been married for 10 years to my best friend, Karalee (a more gifted writer and blogger than myself) and we have three precious kids, a majority of whom are named after dead preachers. Last year I was interviewed by Joshua Sowin about life, books and reading (if you want more info)
God has given me the rare privilege and joy of serving as personal assistant to C.J. Mahaney (if you really want to learn from blogs, navigate away from this sorry one and check out what C.J. is saying on his.)
Misc stuff you don’t need to know but will read because you’re bored and surfing the Internet to kill time anyway: My nicknames include any variation of The Scribe, T-Scribble, Scribs, Big Blog Daddy, Big Honkin Blogdaddy, Big Blog Papi, T-Rex, Blogzilla, and Scribola (take your pick). Curtis Allen calls me by the name Tone Capone. Do I look like an Italian mobster? Here’s my mug.
Email/comments. I’m grateful for your readership and would love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on any post to get in touch. Depending upon time restraints I usually respond to email. You can email me at: crede.ut.intelligas AT mac.com .
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My book wishlist. Hopefully one day these valuable books will be added to my library. All from the The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Yale editions) …
Vol. 10: Sermons and Discourses ( 1720-1723 )
Vol. 14: Sermons and Discourses ( 1723-1729 )
Vol. 19: Sermons and Discourses ( 1734-1738 )
Vol. 25: Sermons and Discourses ( 1743-1758 )
Vol. 17: Sermons and Discourses ( 1730-1733 )
Vol. 22: Sermons and Discourses ( 1739-1742 )
Vol. 13: The ‘Miscellanies’ ( No. 1-500 )
Vol. 18: The ‘Miscellanies’ ( No. 501-832 )
Vol. 20: The ‘Miscellanies’ ( No. 833-1152 )
Vol. 23: The ‘Miscellanies’ ( No. 1153–1360 )
Vol. 15: Notes on Scripture
Vol. 8: Ethical Writings
Vol. 21: Trinity, Grace, and Faith
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Princeton Cemetery. I don’t know how I did it, but in the Spring of 2006 I convinced my wife and kids it would be fun to spend the day at Princeton cemetery. Princeton is famous for its school and less famous for its rich evangelical history. I took several photographs at Princeton Cemetery (where Edwards, Hodge, Warfield and the Alexanders are buried). These photos always remind me to be Cross-centered.
