David Garner is the Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. His blurb for Tim Keller's newest book Counterfeit Gods helped me today: 

"Combining biblical theology with experienced surgery on the soul over the years in modern Manhattan, Pastor Tim Keller performs an M.R.I. of our hearts and graphically exposes its results… Read this volume, but only if you dare submit your heart to the surgical probe of the Gospel…"

"And like any good surgeon, Keller doesn't leave us merely exposed, but compellingly points us to the cure: the One exposed, ravaged, ruined and resurrected for us."

To think of Jesus as "the One exposed, ravaged, ruined, and resurrected for us" is the great gospel-soaked reminder I needed this morning.

         "In my place condemned He stood and sealed my pardon with His blood, hallelujah what a Savior!"    

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After much prayer and discussion with friends, I've decided to preach through the book of Colossians at the beginning of the new year. I'm really looking forward to it.

As I prepare for that series, I have been going back to the theme of Christ's supremacy. The Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Colossae was written to show the superiority of Christ over all-over all human philosophies, traditions, personalities, and accomplishments.

As I've pondered this, I was reminded of the lines below from Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)-lines that I have gone back to time and time again since I first read them in college. Muggeridge was a British journalist who, later in life, became a winsome defender of the Christian faith (if you have never heard his debate from the 1960's with the atheist Charles Templeton, track it down somehow-it is wildly entertaining). Muggeridge's unique journalistic perspective on 20th century world history (he lived it and wrote about it) and the preeminence of Christ is both true and poetic. 

He wrote this in the 1970s. Enjoy…   

We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counterrevolutions, wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon.

I look back upon my own fellow countrymen (Great Britain), once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that ‘the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.'

I've heard a crazed, cracked Austrian (Hitler) announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown (Mussolini) say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin (Stalin), acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as being wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.

I have seen America wealthier and, in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together-so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

England, now part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one, because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace: the person of Jesus Christ.

I present him as the way, the truth, and the life.

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(I've been preaching on the subject of outreach and thought it might help to post a short excerpt from Unfashionable on what Christians can realistically expect as they engage culture.)  

Contrary to what some have concluded, a transformational approach to culture does not assume an unrealistic optimism about what's possible in our fallen world. Because the world will remain sinful until Christ returns, we know we can never achieve any utopia here and now. "Heaven on earth" will become a universal reality only when Christ comes back.

In this regard, it's been helpful for me to understand the distinction Abraham Kuyper made between "persuasion" and "coercion." For Kuyper, persuasion is the Christian's role and responsibility toward culture here and now—seeking to influence every sphere of society (such as the family, government, education) for Christ and bringing the standards of God's Word to bear on every dimension of human culture. Coercion, on the other hand, is the role and responsibility of Christ, not Christians. Jesus alone possesses the right and power to "coerce," or force, culture in a Godward direction, and this is a right he will fully exercise only when he returns to make "all things new" (Revelation 21:5). Understanding the difference between persuasion and coercion—between our role and Christ's role—helps us serve God with realistic expectations.

Of course there has always been considerable (and somewhat distracting) debate on whether, before Christ returns, things will get markedly worse, get markedly better, or just go on about the same. The answer to that is God's business, not ours. We're told to plant and water; God alone controls the results.

Our task as faithful disciples is proclaimed by the Welsh poet Ethelwyn Wetherald:

My orders are to fight;
Then if I bleed, or fail,
Or strongly win, what matters it?
God only doth prevail.
The servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might.
I was not told to win or lose—
My orders are to fight.

What we do know is that many Christians throughout the ages have sought cultural transformation, and in so doing they've had a huge impact on the world. One of them was the English politician William Wilberforce, whose conversion to Christianity impelled him to fight against the slave trade throughout the British Empire. He did this for decades, paving the way for the abolition of slavery and the reformation of morals in England. He was truly a man who changed his times. When Christians take the cultural mandate seriously, real change for the better can and has happened. No Christian has ever "turned earth into heaven, or the world into the church," says John Frame. "And sometimes they have made tragic mistakes. But they have also done a great deal of good."

The good news is that Christ not only began the process but also will complete it. And by his Spirit, he now empowers us to carry on his work. Led by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we thus have all we need for our present task. In saving us, God has fully equipped us to carry out the cultural mandate he originally entrusted to us.

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Two weeks ago I mentioned in my sermon that God grows Christians by feeding them his Word. One way he does this is by providing the church with teachers and preachers. This means that if we are going to grow we need to be sitting at the feet of reliable carriers of God's truth. This, however, begs the question: how can we identify a reliable carrier of God's truth? The Bible makes it clear that there are many unreliable carriers of so-called truth. Satan masquerades as an angel of light seeking to deceive. So we need a lot of biblical discernment here. Just because a teacher or preacher comes in Jesus' name with a Bible under his arm doesn't automatically mean he is reliable.

Thankfully both the Bible and church history give us some direction here. So I want to provide you with a brief list of five questions (based on the five sola's of the Reformation) that can help you discern the reliability of a particular teacher or preacher.

Question 1 (Sola Scriptura): Does the preacher ground everything he says in the Bible? Does he, in other words, begin with the authority and sufficiency of Scripture? A reliable carrier of God's truth seeks to revel in, wrestle with, and expound from, the Bible. He starts with the Bible. All of his comments flow from what a particular passage in the Bible says. He doesn't simply use the Bible to support what he wants to say. That is, he submits to what the Bible says, he does not seek to submit the Bible to what he says. He cares about both the Old Testament and the New Testament. He refuses to take verses out of context. He recognizes the unity of the Bible. He acknowledges that both the Old Testament and the New Testament tell one story and point to one figure, namely that God saves sinners through the accomplished work of his son Jesus Christ.

Question 2 (Sola Gratia): Does the preacher freely emphasize that because of sin, a right relationship with God can only be established by God's grace alone? Beware of any teaching that emphasizes man's ability over God's ability; man's freedom over God's freedom; man's power over God's power; man's initiative over God's initiative. Beware of any teaching which subtlety communicates that a right relationship with God depends ultimately on human response over Divine sovereignty.

Question 3 (Sola Fide): Does the preacher stress that salvation is not achieved by what we can do, rather salvation is received by faith in what Christ has already done? It has been rightly stated that there really are only two religions: the religion of human accomplishment and the religion of Divine accomplishment. Does the preacher emphasize the former or the latter? A reliable carrier of God's truth always highlights the fact that God saves sinners; sinners don't save themselves.

Question 4 (Sola Christus): Does the preacher underline that Christ is the exclusive mediator between God and man? Does the explainer both affirm and proclaim that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life" and that nobody comes to the Father but by Christ? Does he talk about sin and the necessity of Christ? Preachers must learn how to unveil and unpack the truth of the Gospel from every Biblical text they preach in such a way that it results in the exposure of both the idols of our culture and the idols of our hearts. The faithful exposition of our true Savior from every passage in the Bible painfully reveals all of the pseudo-saviors that we trust in culturally and personally. Every sermon ought to disclose the subtle ways in which we as individuals and we as a culture depend on lesser things than Jesus to provide the security, acceptance, protection, affection, meaning, and satisfaction that only Christ can supply. In this way, good preachers must constantly show just how relevant and necessary Jesus is; they must work hard to show that we are great sinners but Christ is a great Savior.  

Question 5 (Sola Deo Gloria): Does the preacher exalt God above all? A reliable explainer will always lead you to marvel at God. A true carrier of God's truth will always lead you to encounter the glory of God. A God-centered teacher is just that: God-centered. He will preach and teach in such a way that you find yourself hungering and thirsting for God. You will listen to sermon after sermon and walk away with grand impressions of Divine personality, not grand impressions of human personality.

This is just a start, but I hope it serves as a resource to help you determine the reliability of a particular teacher or preacher.

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