Hey Guys, 
Friends,
We are grateful to God that Jenny gave birth to our daughter this
morning. Both Jenny and the little girl are doing well. While we
don't have a name yet, she weighs in at 7 lbs. 14 oz. and is 19.5
inches long. I hope this finds you all doing well!
Josh
--
Garrett Conner
It seems to me that we are always falling off the horse on one side or the other in this matter of being tough and tender—wimping out on truth when we ought to be lion-hearted, or wrangling with anger when we ought to be weeping. . . .
Oh how rare are the pastors who speak with a tender heart and have a theological backbone of steel.
I dream of such pastors. I would like to be one someday.
A pastor whose might in the truth is matched by his meekness.
Whose theological acumen is matched by his manifest contrition.
Whose heights of intellect are matched by his depths of humility.
Yes, and the other way around!
A pastor whose relational warmth is matched by his rigor of study, whose bent toward mercy is matched by the vigilance of his biblical discernment, and whose sense of humor is exceeded by the seriousness of his calling.
I dream of great defenders of true doctrine who are mainly known for the delight they have in God and the joy in God that they bring to the people of God—who enter controversy, when necessary, not because they love ideas and arguments, but because they love Christ and the church. . . .
[Acts 15:1-3] is my vision: The great debaters on their way to a life-and-death show down of doctrinal controversy, so thrilled by the mercy and power of God in the gospel, that they are spreading joy everywhere they go.
Oh how many there are today who tell us that controversy only kills joy and ruins the church; and oh how many others there are who, on their way to the controversy, feel no joy and spread no joy in the preciousness of Christ and his salvation.
Ed, I've been meaning to say a few things on contextualization for a couple of weeks. You're helpful post Contexualization and Consistency provides me with the opportunity. One question from your remarks: in your second to last paragraph, you pit "fitting in like an insider" against "making hard choices." Can you give some concrete examples from Paul's life of what you mean by the latter category that does not also fall into the former?
What occurs to me about contextualization is that people often think of it in terms, as you suggest, of making ourselves like the culture we're trying to reach. It attempts to build a bridge on the power of similitude.
But watching Mark Dever for years now has taught me about a different kind of contextualization. He has a good eye for locating the particular weakness of a culture and then adopting practices that directly run against those weakness. For instance,
I could keep going with the examples, but you catch my drift. He's a contextualizing "yin" to the typical contextualizing "yang."
Now that doesn't mean he doesn't do the "yang." Clearly there's a time to build on similitude. His sermon introductions are all about meeting people "where they are at." But what I've learned watching him is that a pastor should also have a willingness to build on points of dissimilitude.
This takes humility and trust in God because building through similitude will almost always build the numbers more quickly. Building on points of dissimilitude may hurt the numbers in the short run. But you do it because it builds a firmer foundation for the long haul. You do it when you see that certain cultural preferences are in fact borderline idolatrous (e.g. entertainment, emotivism), and not finally usable for building healthy Christians and churches.
I haven't read much contextualizing literature, and perhaps the literature says all of this already. But the bottom line: my hunch is that we need a larger vision of contextualization. One needs discernment for knowing when to build with the YIN and when to build with the YANG.
Leadership means we must take the lead in reconciliation.
I don't mean that wives should never say they are sorry.
But in the relation between Christ and his church, who took the initiative to make all things new?
Who left the comfort and security of his throne of justice to put mercy to work at Calvary?
Who came back to Peter first after three denials?
Who has returned to you again and again forgiving you and offering his fellowship afresh?
So husbands, your headship means: Go ahead. Take the lead. It does not matter if it is her fault. That didn't stop Christ.
Who will break the icy silence first?
Who will choke out the words, "I'm sorry, I want it to be better"?
Or: "Can we talk? I'd like things to be better."
She might beat you to it. That's okay. But woe to you if you think that, since it's her fault, she's obliged to say the first reconciling word.
Headship is not easy. It is the hardest, most humbling work in the world.
Protect your family. Strive, as much as it lies within you, to make peace before the sun goes down.
For you seminary students-
When I was a seminary student I struggled immensely. I did not have the back ground at all to support me academically or intellectually. By God's grace and many tears the Lord got me through and even with success. What a blessing some of you have going to seminary post CHBC!
In speaking of the typical college experience and what kind of students he encountered at the seminary as a professor, Wells described my background specifically.
" Some how they manage to graduate students who have no mental connections with the past, little knowledge of its literature, less of its great thinkers, scant ability to think for themselves, and for whom the prospect of writing a research paper is a matter for great consternation. I looked out on that class, I guessed that at least some of theses victims of the educational system were present. Yet here they were, gamely exposing themselves to what must have seemed to them like grave peril. Their desire to be in seminary was a powerful compensation for - indeed, a counter force to - the habits and disposition they brought with them."[1]
[1] David Wells,
