Gospel Translations

From Josh Harris:

Those doing or connected to work in international missions may be helped in their work by the volunteer-driven initiative Gospel Translations, which now distributes biblical resources in about 40 languages. Below is a sampling from their library.

Spanish

• David Powlison’s “X-ray Questions: Drawing Out the Whys and Wherefores of Human Behavior“
• Paul Tripp’s “Speaking Redemptively“
• John Piper’s “The Pleasures of God in Bruising the Son“
• R.C. Sproul’s “The Dark Night of the Soul“
• Jerry Bridges’ “Measuring Up“
• Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church

More authors and topics at Libros y Sermones Bíblicos.

Portuguese

• John Piper’s For Your Joy evangelism booklet
• Alfred Poirier’s “The Cross and Criticism” (CCEF/JBC)
• Mark Dever’s “Raising Up Pastors Is the Church’s Work“
• R.C. Sproul’s “The New Birth“

More authors and topics at Livros e Sermões Bíblicos.

Chinese (Simplified)

• R.C. Sproul’s “The Book of Job: Why Do the Righteous Suffer?“
• John Piper’s “The Suffering of Christ and the Sovereignty of God”
• Mark Dever’s “Expositional Preaching“
• Mike Bullmore’s “Gospel Implications“

More authors and topics at 圣经的书和布道.

Other sites

• Italian: Libri e Sermoni Biblici
• French: Livres et Prédications Bibliques
• German: Biblische Bücher und Predigten
• Russian: Библейские книги и проповеди
• Dutch: Bijbelse Boeken en Preken
• Arabic
• Hungarian
• Malaysian
• Tagalog
• Swedish
• Indonesian
• Romanian

See all 40 at the Gospel Translations homepage.

Bunyan’s Blunder

Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon “Christ Crucified” (No. 2673), said the following:

…let me tell you a little story about Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I am a great lover of John Bunyan, but I do not believe him infallible; and the other day I met with a story about him which I think a very good one.

There was a young, man, in Edinburgh, who wished to be a missionary. He was a wise young man; so he thought, “If I am to be a missionary, there is no need for me to transport myself far away from home; I may as well be a missionary in Edinburgh.”

Well, this young man started, and determined to speak to the first person he met. He met one of those old fishwives; those of us who have seen them can never forget them, they are extraordinary women indeed. So, stepping up to her, he said, “Here you are, coming along with your burden on your back; let me ask you if you have got another burden, a spiritual burden.”

“What!” she asked; “do you mean that burden in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress? Because, if you do, young man, I got rid of that many years ago, probably before you were born. But I went a better way to work than the pilgrim did. The evangelist that John Bunyan talks about was one of your parsons that do not preach the gospel; for he said, ‘Keep that light in thine eye, and run to the wicket-gate.’ Why—man alive!—that was not the place for him to run to. He should have said, ‘Do you see that cross? Run there at once!’ But, instead of that, he sent the poor pilgrim to the wicket-gate first; and much good he got by going there! He got tumbling into the slough, and was like to have been killed by it.”

“But did not you,” the young man asked, “go through any Slough of Despond?”

“Yes, I did; but I found it a great deal easier going through with my burden off than with it on my back.”

The old woman was quite right. John Bunyan put the getting rid of the burden too far off from the commencement of the pilgrimage. If he meant to show what usually happens, he was right; but if he meant to show what ought to have happened, he was wrong.

We must not say to the sinner, “Now, sinner, if thou wilt be saved, go to the baptismal pool; go to the wicket-gate; go to the church; do this or that.”

No, the cross should be right in front of the wicket-gate; and we should say to the sinner, “Throw thyself down there, and thou art safe; but thou are not safe till thou canst cast off thy burden, and lie at the foot of the cross, and find peace in Jesus.”

Update

This weekend it was a lot of fun traveling with CJ to North Carolina for the God Exposed Conference (9Marks) and to visit SovGraceNC. Throughout the weekend it was great reconnecting with friends at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 9Marks, and the church. One unexpected treat was hearning a provocative summary of Churchill’s “alone” years (1932-1940) from the luminous Phil Sasser as he drove us around. Amazing!

Overall, I thought the GE conference went well. CJ’s Friday night message to pastors was excellent and instructive. I hope to have video of his message on 2 Tim 4:1-5 up on Vimeo as soon as possible. Nobody I know cares for pastors more carefully, more realistically, more humbly, and with more faith in God, than CJ. To hear CJ address pastors publicly is rare and always special. …

Returning to Maryland we were welcomed home with cool fall weather. This is my favorite season of the year, October my favorite month. This is mostly due to the cool wind the blows in (and partly because I despise pollen and cherish professional baseball). But the air is changing and I couldn’t be happier.

As the air transitions from heavy and humid summer air to the dry and cold air of winter, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness. Seasonal change should remind us of our heavenly Father. The seasonal shifts point us to the steady hand of God.

In Genesis, after the catastrophic flood destroyed the world, God made a covenant promise to Noah promising him never again to destroy the earth with a flood. Moreover, God chose to display his covenant faithfulness (in part) through the repetition of seasonal change. God promised Noah: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Gen 8:22). This promise of seasonal transition was—for agrarian ears—good news! The changing seasons would make possible an annual harvest.

So there are many reasons why I love the changing seasons and why I love experiencing the cool air of October. But one reason why I love to experience the change in seasons is this—it reminds us that seasonal shifts occur by the steady faithfulness of our covenant-keeping God. His goodness and generosity is as tangible as cool air of fall and the coming harvest.

————

UPDATE: GE conference audio/video here.

Did You Know 4.0

On the rapid change of technology…

HT:JT

Tolkien’s Dendrology

Tolkienian scholar Tom Shippey is a hoot. You may enjoy his address: “Trees, Chainsaws, and the Visions of Paradise in J.R.R. Tolkien” recorded at the 2002 Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Symposium. Watch the 37–minute video here:

ASU English on Vimeo.

On General Revelation

IMHO: The most careful and thoughtful statements on the value of general revelation have come from the pen of Dutch reformed scholar Herman Bavinck. Here, for example, are few of his thoughts taken from the first volume of his magnum opus, Reformed Dogmatics:

—–

“… To deny that natural religion and natural theology are sufficient and have an autonomous existence of their own is not in any way to do an injustice to the fact that from the creation, from nature and history, from the human heart and conscience, there comes divine speech to every human.

No one escapes the power of general revelation. Religion belongs to the essence of a human. The idea and existence of God, the spiritual independence and eternal destiny of the world, the moral world order and its ultimate triumph—all these are problems that never cease to engage the human mind. Metaphysical need cannot be suppressed. Philosophy perennially seeks to satisfy that need. It is general revelation that keeps that need alive. It keeps human beings from degrading themselves into animals. It binds them to a supersensible world. It maintains in them the awareness that they have been created in God’s image and can only find rest in God. General revelation preserves humankind in order that it can be found and healed by Christ and until it is. To that extent natural theology used to be correctly denominated a “preamble of faith,” a divine preparation and education for Christianity. General revelation is the foundation on which special revelation builds itself up.

Finally, the rich significance of general revelation comes out in the fact that it keeps nature and grace, creation and re-creation, the world of reality and the world of values, inseparably connected. Without general revelation, special revelation loses its connectedness with the whole cosmic existence and life. The link that unites the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of heaven then disappears. Those who, along with critical philosophy, deny general revelation exert themselves in vain when via the way of practical reason or of the imagination they try to recover what they have lost. They have then lost a support for their faith. In that case the religious life exists in detachment from and alongside of ordinary human existence. The image of God then becomes a “superadded gift” (donum superadditum). As in the case of the Socinians, religion becomes alien to human nature. Christianity becomes a sectarian phenomenon and is robbed of its catholicity. In a word, grace is then opposed to nature. In that case it is consistent, along with the ethical modems, to assume a radical break between the power of the good and the power of nature. Ethos [morality] and φύσις [nature], are then totally separated. The world of reality and the world of values have nothing to do with each other. In that scenario we at bottom face a revival of Parsism or Manichaeism. By contrast, general revelation maintains the unity of nature and grace, of the world and the kingdom of God, of the natural order and the moral order, of creation and re-creation, of φύσις and ethos, of virtue and happiness, of holiness and blessedness, and in all these things the unity of the divine being. It is one and the same God who in general revelation does not leave himself without a witness to anyone and who in special revelation makes himself known as a God of grace. Hence general and special revelation interact with each other. “God first sent forth nature as a teacher, intending also to send prophecy next, so that you, a disciple of nature, might more easily believe prophecy” (Tertullian). Nature precedes grace; grace perfects nature. Reason is perfected by faith, faith presupposes nature.”

—Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena (Baker Academic, 2003), 1:321—322.

Pillaging Pagans

Speaking of what to do with ancient Pagan literature, here was Augustine’s take:

Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it.

For, as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use, not doing this on their own authority, but by the command of God, the Egyptians themselves, in their ignorance, providing them with things which they themselves were not making a good use of; in the same way all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen, ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God are found among them.

Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God’s providence which are everywhere scattered abroad, and are perversely and unlawfully prostituting to the worship of devils.

These, therefore, the Christian, when he separates himself in spirit from the miserable fellowship of these men, ought to take away from them, and to devote to their proper use in preaching the gospel. Their garments, also—that is, human institutions such as are adapted to that intercourse with men which is indispensable in this life—we must take and turn to a Christian use.

—Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, II, 60.

The Glory of Christ and Parenting

From my friend William P. Farley’s latest book, Gospel-Powered Parenting: How the Gospel Shapes and Transforms Parenting (P&R, 2009):

“Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), a Scotch Presbyterian, wrote a famous essay entitled The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. In it Chalmers proposes that the best way to overcome the world is not with morality or self-discipline. Christians overcome the world by seeing the beauty and excellence of Christ. They overcome the world by seeing something more attractive than the world: Christ, ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Col. 2:3). A man who owns an Acura is not interested in a Geo Metro. In the same way, Christian parents try to make Christ and his kingdom glorious. Their children conquer the lusts of this world with a higher passion: the moral beauty of Christ.

By contrast, defensive parents have little confidence in the attractiveness of the gospel. They think the world is more powerful. Fundamentally, they are not confident in the gospel’s power to transform their children from the inside out. They do not believe Jesus’ words, ‘Take heart; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33). They have little confidence in the world-conquering power of new birth.

My wife and I have seen the fruit of this approach in our own experience. My five children all attended public high schools, and then the eldest four matriculated to a state university. Despite the raunchy non-Christian—even anti-Christian—environment (and it was foul), they thrived spiritually. Why? Through the miracle of new birth, God changed their hearts. To them the Holy Spirit had begun to unveil the superlative value of Jesus Christ. The conviction that all their happiness was tied up in their relationship with Christ had begun to bud and grow. The world’s allurements could not compete.” [pp. 24—25]

Plato’s Prayer

Speaking of prayer and Plato, note this excerpt from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion:

“Plato, on seeing men’s want of skill in making requests to God, which, if granted, would often have been disadvantageous to them, declares this, taken from an ancient poet, to be the best prayer: ‘King Jupiter, bestow the best things upon us whether we wish for them or not, but command that evil things be far from us even when we request them.’ And, indeed, the heathen man is wise in that he judges how dangerous it is to seek from the Lord what our greed dictates; at the same time he discloses our unhappiness, in that we cannot even open our mouths before God without danger unless the Spirit instructs us in the right pattern for prayer.” [McNeill/Battles; 3.20.34; 2:897-898]

Of course this does not mean Calvin is uncritical of Plato. He certainly is critical of Plato in other places. But it’s interesting to me that Calvin feels the freedom to incorporate pagan literature into his instruction upon the Lord’s Prayer.

Prayer and Blood

Prayer is multidimensional and it can be defined in several ways and taught through many principles of scripture. But one of the most foundational themes—especially obvious in the Old Testament—is that prayer is a bloody thing.

Take these few examples:

• The Lord blesses Solomon’s desire to build a temple, a place of sacrifice, and says it will be a place where “I will hear their prayers” (2 Chronicles 7:11—17). After the temple was completed it was dedicated and in this dedication ceremony Solomon offered a prayer on behalf of the people (1 King 8:22—53), said a corporate benediction (8:54—61), and this was followed by a blood sacrifice (62—66). In the temple, prayer and sacrifice went hand-on-hand, as God intended.

• In one place David builds an altar and his prayer is heard (2 Samuel 24:18—25). At another place, David entered the presence of God with sacrifice (Psalm 66:13—15) in the hopes of answered prayer (19—20). The Psalmist commonly weds together the themes of prayer and sacrifice (Psalm 4:1,5; 54:2,6; 54:2,6).

• The value of Job’s prayer for his friends is inseparable from the sacrifice made by his friends (Job 42:7—10).

• The prophet Isaiah decried the hypocrisy of Israel which made the sacrifices useless and, as a result, God closed his ears to their prayers (Isaiah 1:10—13 with v. 15). Without proper sacrifices there was no hearing.

• The nations were invited to worship God by assembling at “a house of prayer” where God would hear their prayers because offering and sacrifices were offered (Isaiah 56:7).

For the Old Testament saint, prayer and sacrifice were linked. And the same is true today. No prayer from our lips reach the ear of God without the sacrifice of Christ for our sins. The only pathway to the Living God is paved with Blood.

So we mustn’t grow content with the absence of Blood in our contemporary books on prayer.