The Thoughts of Ryan-C

So today I went to Starbucks and read Evangelism & The Sovereignty Of God by J.I. Packer. I must say that this is a very helpful book for all Christians, Reformed or not. Packer outlines what evangelism is Biblically and how human responsibility and God’s sovereignty coincide in evangelism. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who actually cares about being a Christian.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“It is God who brings men and women under the sound of the Gospel, and it is God who brings them to faith in Christ. Our evangelistic work is the instrument that He uses for this purpose, but the power that saves is not in the instrument; it is in the hand of the One who uses the instrument.”

“For where we are not consciously relying on God, there we shall inevitably be found relying on ourselves.”

“The right to intimately talk to another person about the Lord Jesus Christ has to be earned, and you earn it by being his friend and really caring about him”

“The desire to justify the meetings by reaping a crop of converts may prompt the preacher and the councilors to try and force people through the motions of decision prematurely, before they have grasped what it is really all about, and converts produced in this way tend to prove at best stunted and at worst spurious and, in the event, gospel-hardend.”

“Some fear that a doctrine of eternal election and reprobaion involves the possibility that Christ will not receive some of those who desire to receive Him, because they are not elect. The ‘comfortable words’ of the gospel promises, however, absolutely exclude this possibility. As our Lord elsewhere affirmed, in the emphatic and categorical terms: ‘whoever comes to me I will never cast out.’”

1. I wonder if Joel Osteen has ever read the book of Job?

2. I read The Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll this week. Its a great read if you are a Christian and care about actually being one.

3. “I’m delighted that Liberal theologians do their best to do what Pio Nono said shouldn’t be done– try to accommodate Christianity to modern science, modern culture, and democratic society. If I were a Fundamentalist Christian, I’d be appalled by the wishy-washiness of their version of the Christian faith. But since I am a non-believer who is frightened of the barbarity of many Fundamentalist Christians, I welcome theological Liberalism. Maybe Liberal theologians will eventually produce a version of Christianity so wishy-washy that nobody will be interested in being a Christian anymore. If so, something will have been lost, but probably more will have been gained” -Richard Rorty - Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University

This is something that scares me. If relativistic, egalitarian, limp-wristed, pro-gay, hippie “Christians” keep on neglecting the Gospel, then much more harm will be done in the name of God than redemption.

4. I ordered the new ESV Study Bible yesterday… according to the internet it will be here by Thursday.

5. I really started looking at Wayne Gruedem’s Systematic Theology this week and I have already learned a ton.

6. Up next on my reading list is Death By Love by Mark Driscoll and Evangelism & The Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer.

7. I think that is about it for now.

“…You might want to be healed from a disease or get a good job or find a spouse. Then you hear that God can hep you get these things, but that first your sins would have to be forgiven. Someone tells you to believe that Christ died for your sins, and that if you believe this, your sins will be forgive. So you believe it in order to remove the obstacle to health and job and spouse. Is that gospel salvation? I don’t think so. In other words, it matters what you are hoping for through forgiveness. It matters why you want it. If you want forgiveness only for the sake of savoring the creation, then the Creator is not honored and you are not saved. Forgiveness is precious for one final reason: It enables you to enjoy fellowship with God. If you don’t want forgiveness for that reason, you won’t have it at all. God will not be used as currency for the purchase of idols.”

-John Piper, Pierced By The Word

Check the book out here… its free.

So as I am sitting here waiting for my Urban Sociology class to start, I figured I would take a look at DesiringGod.org. As I was searching through there resources I realized that they have most of John Piper’s books online for free. Wait.. what? Yeah… 90% of his books are on this site available for download in PDF format. I would still prefer to have a hardcopy of the book, but for friends who just want to take a gander or if you need to quote Piper, this is a great and useful resource.

Enjoy!

Desiring God: Online Books

Ryan, a bondservant of Jesus Christ by the grace of God through Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement.

To those whom are followers of Christ and my blog. Your comments, thoughts, and own personal blogs have given inspiration and joy to me in times of endless web searching. Grace and peace to you from our Heavenly Father and Lord Jesus Christ.

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So I have been reading some of his work in my Philosophy class and I love him.

Here is my favorite quote from today:

“When a person has felt the intensity of duty with all his energy, then he is ethically matured, and then duty will break forth within him. The fundamental point, therefore, is not whether a person can count on his fingers how many duties he has, but that he has once and for all felt the intensity of duty in such a way that the consciousness of it is for him the assurance of the eternal validity of his being.”

So life has been pretty crazy lately and a lot has been going on. On Sunday we went to Cross Pointe Church Winter Park. It was their first service and they are a church plant off of the more established Cross Pointe, but this one is closer and it is always nice being somewhere where you are not the only new person. Everyone there was very friendly and welcoming. There were about 30-40 people, mostly in the early/mid 20s, which is nice because that means people that have already gone through what we are just about to go through and such… Also the pastor went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando which is a possibility for where I might end up. So basically it is the church that Lauren and I have been looking for and we are both very excited for it. (Yay, no more female pastors! lol)

more after the jump…
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Thanks to Matt Chandler this will be the title of a chapter in one of my books: Open your Bibles to Hosea, you whores.

Also, here is another thought from Matt Chandler… but its serious.

“I’m not talking about singing. I am talking about just living, breathing, thinking, eating worship…. Like fajitas and the fact that God created skirt steak, tortillas, guacamole, cheese, and the flavor that is all those things combined, should create an unbelievably worshipful experience… There is something about the softness of a woman that should create a sense of worship in her man. There is something about getting up in the morning and the strong smell of coffee with the coolness of the morning that should create worship in us; a pleasure in the Christ who created and spoke those things into existence. This is how we should live: with a constant pleasure in Him who did these things.”

That’s how I want to live, with a constant pleasure in Him who did these things.

Also, I am reading Hosea. It’s pretty freaking awesome.

And for your enjoyment…

Whenever I drive long distances I listen to sermons instead of music. I usually don’t have the attention span to listen to them in my room without getting distracted, so listening straight through whole ones in the car is a great thing for me. So a couple of things stood out to me over the past couple of days and I figured I would post them for your enjoyment and edification.

John Piper talking about prayer…

“Prayer should be the visible engine of your church. The visible engine of your church is reliance on God by puting your face in your hands and saying ‘I can’t do this…’ We need to pray a lot, but American’s don’t believe in prayer, we’re too pragmatic; it just feels inefficient. You’re sitting at your desk… and doing nothing? Just talking to God and asking Him to change the world. I like to get in Calvinists face and say things like, ‘You have not because you ask not (James 4)’ meaning if you would have prayed God would have saved that person… Calvinists don’t like that, that doesn’t fit election… well it does… it really does.”

Matt Chandler talking about some problems in missional churches that can be solved…

“As mission has been removed from our people and has been protect yourself from sin (in this context he is referring to the sin of those around us, not our own), sanctification has slowed to a halt. Because sanctification occurs as you engage a lost and dying world in the neighborhoods and workplaces in which you have been placed.”

Those just really stuck out to me.