Pastor V’s Shout-Outs by Vermon Pierre

Shout out to:

1. Tim Challies and his post, 8 Features of the Best Kind of Calvinism.

His post highlights what looks like a great booklet by Ian Hamilton. Hamilton makes the compelling point that Calvinism is “natively experiential.” If Calvinism doesn’t produce in us eager, passionate, affectional delight in God, then we haven’t gotten Calvinism right. I couldn’t agree more!

He also lists eight features of the experiential Calvinist:

·      The experiential Calvinist honors God’s unconditional sovereignty. 

·      The experiential Calvinist cherishes God’s grace.

·      The experiential Calvinist has a deep sense of the sinfulness of sin. 

·      The experiential Calvinist lives before God’s face. 

·      The experiential Calvinist shapes all of life by the revelation of God’s unimpeachable holiness.

·      The experiential Calvinist is content and satisfied with scriptural worship. 

·      The experiential Calvinist pursues godly catholicity. 

·      The experiential Calvinist cultivates communion with God. 

2. Russell Moore and his post, Kindness is not Weakness (which is adapted out of his new book, Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel). Like Moore, I am a bit concerned how dehumanizing and unloving so much of the rhetoric coming from Christians is today. Yes, speak truth, but the Scriptures tell us how we should speak truth – namely, with love!

Here are a couple of good quotes from the post:

“Quarrelsomeness, the desire to fight for the sake of fighting, is a sign of pride. How often are our most bitter, sarcastic clashes with those who disagree with us less about persuading them and more about vindicating ourselves?”

“Listen to Christian media or attend a ‘faith and values’ rally, and you’ll hear plenty of warfare speech. Unlike past ‘crusades,’ however, such language is directed primarily at people perceived to be cultural and political enemies. If we are too afraid of seeming inordinately Pentecostal to talk about the Devil, we will find ourselves declaring war against mere concepts, like ‘evil’ or ‘sin.’ When we don’t oppose demons, we demonize opponents. And without a clear vision of the concrete forces we as the church are supposed to be aligned against, we find it very difficult to differentiate between enemy combatants and their hostages.”

“The Scriptures command us to be gentle and kind to unbelievers, not because we are not at war, but because we’re not at war with them (2 Tim. 2:26). When we see that we are warring against principalities and powers in the heavenly places, we can see that we’re not wrestling against flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12). The path to peace isn’t through bellicosity or surrender, but through fighting the right war (Rom. 16:20). We rage against the Reptile, not against his prey.”

“The gospel commands us to speak, and that speech is often forceful. But a prophetic witness in the new covenant era never stops with ‘You brood of vipers!’ It always continues on to say ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’”

 

3. Paul Miller and this diagram from his book, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. The whole book is great. One of the best and most personally influential books on prayer I’ve ever read. But here, I'd like to highlight this great diagram he has in the book that strikes the right balance on how to be led by the Word and by the Spirit.