Just sitting here with my lovely wife watching “My Name is Earl” and noticed the Cold Beer sign in the bowling alley is the same one as here in the BHT.  I’m guessing I’m not the first to notice that, but it made this newbie laugh.

Pirate, the 15-20 minute point is a little non sequitir, but other than that, Amen and Amen.

Addicted to sermon-stealing? Try these three steps, and you’ll be writing your own sermons in no time flat!

1. Preach for 15-20 minutes instead of 45-60.


2. Preach a text, not a theme.


3. Write a little Bible study on the text before you preach. Ideas will come.


4. Know your people. Pastors on the intarnets aren’t preaching to your people.


5. Stop exhausting yourself planning some stupid, huge show every Sunday.

MOD: That’s five.

Jim: I appreciate your post, but I have to tell you that I have great problems understanding where Driscoll or anyone else is coming from.

1) Everyone knows a woman doesn’t want to have sex every day.
2) Reducing this to a “woman provides a release for the man” act is another issue entirely. Some women may freely choose this kind of relationship, but most women won’t, and no reading of “your body is not your own” implies that a woman should provide sexual release for a man on a daily basis.
3) I’m totally in awe of the lack of consideration for a woman’s emtional, physical and family stress that Driscoll’s comment implies.
4) In a real marriage, with illness, children, emergencies, whatever, it just won’t happen.
5) How can I say this? When Driscoll talks like this, it seems demeaning to men. Yes, we have physical/sexual needs, but to quote someone famous, “I am not an animal. I am a human being.”

peace MS

BTW….there were 20 comments waiting to be approved at IM when I got back on line tonight. A record for a few hours and one post.

Most of my good illustrations are attributable to others (and I do give credit). Mostly because I’m a boring jacka$$.

This, however, boils my blood.

Michael: Frankly, I think a lot of the fur flying over Driscoll’s comments is just plain jealousy; a lot of people are mad because he apparently is getting action every day, and they aren’t.

There is a large segment within the contemporary evangelical church that has bought just enough of the Oprah agenda of pop psychology and feminism to find the ammo they need to resist gaining an honest, human, biblical perspective on their husbands’ sexuality, desires and needs. “Mutual submission” is just new-speak for “She doesn’t have to put out.” Anyone who talks about headship or submission in the context of marital intimacy – treacherous ground on which to tread anyway, to be sure – is lambasted as a misogynist (or worse, as a closet bondage freak.) The rest of us tolerate this nonsense, and then march out for the hand-wringing ceremony over dirty pictures on the Internet. John had words for where that will take the church – cf. Revelation 2:18f.

I’m well past 20, and while I’m currently celibate, sex once a day strikes me as by no means excessive; Were the appropriate partner available, I’d do it for the obvious physiological benefits (sex is excellent exercise; it also relieves tension, evens out the testosterone cycle, and it promotes a healthy prostate), If that’s offensive to Christians, perhaps we take Paul’s better-to-marry-than-burn argument to its logical conclusion, and admit that for some men, the best situation would be to allow for Islamic-style committed polygamous marriages (which require financial arrangements and conjugal rights at parity for each wife), rather than giving our de-facto endorsement to the serial polygamy that no-fault divorce legislation has given us.

(I can’t wait to read the mail I get from this one…)

So it’s all there in the WCF! If you look hard enough, you can root today’s controversies in an uninspired, errant, man-made but wonderfully helpful and sound document, which by the way, I am grateful to God for. Especially now! Now my arguments are no longer subjective, but objective, and confessionally referenced. Pirate and I agree on this. (jn)

Bob, thanks for at least pretending to talk about the subject for a change. However, your rhetoric indicates to me that you are under the incorrect impression that I support the Westminster Standards or subscription to them by any church body. I don’t. I subscribe to the Book of Concord, which entails a rejection of most of Westminster. Thus, I think they’re chock-full of false doctrine. See, just because I’m interested in what a document means or how it’s used in a church body does not mean I believe in what it says. I’m currently writing a paper on two decrees of Vatican II, Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio, and what they mean for modern Roman Catholic theology. In my estimation, these two documents are garbage from beginning to end. But that doesn’t mean I have no desire to understand or interact with them. So stop acting so threatened when I suggest that WCF does or doesn’t say something. When I say “The Westminster Standards teach X,” that is not the same as saying “X is true.”

So the whole point of this discussion is not to try to force you to hold one theological viewpoint or another in obedience to the Standards. I have absolutely zero affection for Westminster. The point is that I’m trying to understand what the Standards say, how the PCA uses them, whether how the PCA uses them is actually consistent with what they say, and how this all reflects on their internal theological integrity and clarity. That is why I have found you up to this point extremely unhelpful. I am trying to wrap my mind around a historical document. its doctrinal significance, and its historical and ecclesiastical context, and you’re talking about your personal feelings and giving these sarcastic answers (as though WCF I is talking about the order of service!). I do have some thoughts and questions, though, if you’re interested in actually talking about your Standards:

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On Slashdot of all places I saw a great Tennyson quote. Thinking about Mark Driscoll’s comments, or the debates we all love to have about Calvinism, Arminianism, denominations, confessions, the best beer, beans or no beans in chili, rock vs. classical, it all boils down to this:

Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be; They are but broken lights of thee.
-Tennyson

IM is updated with “Daily Sex With Pastor Mark.”

Michael, Driscoll actually said men want to know how to have sex with their wives “at least once a day”. Was this just men in their 20’s or is this giving hope to all men?

If he had said these men need to know how to have great marriages, including exciting sex that is godly and channeled completely in their marriages, then no problem. If he had said, most men are pigs, their lust is wrecking their lives and they need to be taught how to rejoice in their wives as co heirs of grace as well as lovers ala Proverbs 5:15-23… no problem. Michael, I’ll be interested to read your essay as this comment also made me cringe.

Re. the discussion I was having with Pirate, I guess my part ends this way. I believe the main issues the PCA has skirmishes about are not Confessional, like music style and what women can do in a worship service. Pirate states the confession does indeed reference these issues, at least providing the context these issues fall under and then asks me to discuss and list the parts of the WCF of that I believe have no relevance to the issues I see people fighting over. My position was that nothing in the WCF’s 33 chapters resolves these issues. Pirate asked me to prove that the WCF did not speak to these issues by citing the Confession and discussing it.

So then with Pirate’s encouragement spurring me on, I ransacked my WCF and found some references. On praise bands and drums, the WCF requires them.
WCF I Of the Holy Scriptures VIII “they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation ….the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship in an acceptable manner” This is a slam dunk for my position, and I thank Pirate for helping me find this since everyone agrees with me that music is just another form of speech and communication… This part of the WCF proves that the men who wrote it were culturally sensitive, and knew each culture would need the translation of scripture in their own “vulgar” (read street-Language) tongue. Hip Hop worship is required for Hip Hop contexts.

On women verbally speaking, WCF XXI I speaks to this when it states that “God … is to be feared, loved, praised, , called upon trusted in, and served , with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.” And on Baptists preaching in our Presbyterian churches, the WCF also requires that we not cut ourselves off from the communion we have in “each other’s gifts and graces and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outer man” (WCF 26:1). I argue that allowing John Piper, Michael Spencer, and Charles Spurgeon (were he alive) to preach to my Presbyterian congregation is a communion in their gifts and serves the mutual good. Another slam dunk for my position.

So it’s all there in the WCF! If you look hard enough, you can root today’s controversies in an uninspired, errant, man-made but wonderfully helpful and sound document, which by the way, I am grateful to God for. Especially now! Now my arguments are no longer subjective, but objective, and confessionally referenced. Pirate and I agree on this. (jn)

(leaves room…. plate crashes right as the door closes behind)

This sounds like the plot of a P.D. James mystery but it appears to be all too true. A conservative Anglo-Catholic vicar was poisoned after preventing the election of a liberal bishop in Central Africa [more here]. This is a most unpleasant turn in the ongoing Anglican conservative/liberal debate/battle.

Wondering why Bibles are getting increasingly pricey? Blame the Chinese nicotine addiction.

(EDIT: Thinkling Jared adds some good thoughts on this.)

Having watched the video, it’s not bad overall, with the exception of the quote Michael mentioned. It’s typical Driscoll. He’s on his typical point about male leadership, and by now everyone should know that about him. With that, I don’t think anything he said was specifically anti woman. His network is about producing male leaders. His comments were not really anti woman as they were about women not being on the radar of leadership in Acts 29. Again, it’s a known thing. With that, I think Bill Hybels’ off hand comment was out of line, and I have to ask, where’s the “Contageous Christianity” in that?

On to the sex comment. This is, sadly, another in a string of cringe-worthy comments pastor Driscoll has made. He likes to go for the edge in his approach, and needs to get more people around him to keep him from occasionally jumping off. I’m curious if he and John Piper are communicating regularly. There’s potential for a good mentoring relationship there. Back to the comment: someone should encourage pastor Driscoll to recheck the Bible here. I don’t see scripture telling us that to be manly men, we have to be exercising our libidos daily. I’m sure all of our physical natures are thinking “WOOHOO” at that, but I get the impression from scripture that God is more concerned with us being faithful wives and husbands, chaste if we’re not wives or husbands, and being willing to put the body on hold every so often for prayer. Seriously, it’s the Bible, not the Kama Sutra.

When pastor Driscoll boldly calls on men – everyone for that matter – to exalt the risen and glorious King Jesus, the one who conquered death and is exalted at the right hand of the Father, I’ll shout Amen! But when he turnes the call men to be Godly men into discipleship plus a good sex life, he lets his hyperbole hang out too far.

Watch the 9 minute video that’s got Mark Driscoll in some hot water. (This is the video that Mars Hill produced for a conference Mark couldn’t attend. After it was shown, Bill Hybels apparently criticized its male-only tone and the conference then refused to distribute the videos. You can read all that at the link.)

About half way through, Mark says that twenty-something men want to be taught how to have sex with their wives once a day. (Listen please, and get the context.)

Excuse the Freudianism, but something about that statement bugs me. It’s pretty revealing of what bothers me about a guy I basically like a lot. I’ll blog about it later at IM.

Any thoughts?

Oops. I forgot to mention that we use coffee and chicory. I actually like Community Dark Roast but Bruce likes Louisianne. He drinks it at all hours.

About coffee,

Matthew is right on the money. The one/third cup measure is the trick. The variation is the amount of water. Louisiana  oil rig coffee is eight cups. Regular dark roast is ten cups.  Regular see the spoon in the bottom of the cup is a completely full coffee maker—that’s twelve cups.

At my house we do the eight cup version. My husband drinks it with sweetener and enough creamer to lighten it a bit. My way is like coffee shop gourmet:

1/3 c. coffee to an eight cup pot. Pour 1/2 cup of fresh coffee into a 1/2 cup scalded milk. Add 1/2 teaspoon good vanilla and if you had a pile of beignets you’d be in heaven.

Aaron, we’re in Auburn—just up 316 from you about eight miles.

Whatever happened to Jennifer Knapp?

I’ve often wondered that myself. She was one of the bright spots in the recent history of CCM. The only info I could find was on the Wiki, where it said she was taking some time off from the music business. I wish her well, but it’s a loss for the  rest of us.

Regarding coffee, Michael, just grab a 1/3 cup measuring cup and stick it with your coffee can. 1/3 cup and a full pot of water (I can’t remember if it’s 10 or 12 cups) will get it for you. That’s what I do when I make it.

From hearing in her in concert a couple of times and from what little I truly know about her, I speculate that Jennifer Knapp has a real soul and didn’t want to sell it to the CCM monster.

Good for her if that’s the case.

Google Shakespeare.

Whatever happened to Jennifer Knapp?

Anyone else feel like the National Day of Prayer has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP?

I’m thinking about some kind of movie discussion group this summer. If it doesn’t get in the way of baseball.

I really wish there was a coffee shop nearby. I can’t make coffee and it drives Denise nuts. I just have a mental block about amounts.

The parallels between my life and Thomas Merton are really freaky. Especially lately.

I need some banner and button work done. Here’s the short list if you want to become incredibly famous.

A banner for Coffee Cup Apologetics. There are exact specs for the size: 740×180 pixels.

A sidebar button for Coffee Cup Apologetics.

A new banner for Internet Monk. Something that graphically grabs the idea of post evangelicalism. Empty churches appeal to me, but so do empty churches, prayer in empty churches, urban churches in the middle of the city, abandoned church buildings.

An Internet Monk sidebar button

A BHT sidebar button

If you think you might have some foo, talk to me. NO PROMISES on using your work, but if I do, I’ll loudly give you credit.

Mark Devine makes it clear what he believes about Acts 29 and what he said to the MBC committee: the same reasonable, analytically careful and missionally truthful things he’s always said. (It’s in a pdf linked on his page.) So it appears to me that the MBC committee hears this kind of analysis and decides to go 180 degrees the opposite direction to protect the MBC from beer.

We’ve got a denomination here that believes it is one thing when it’s something else. Somebody better wake up and remember what cooperation means. Every young church planter who hasn’t left the SBC is doing this denomination a favor.

It’s time for those actually doing evangelism and church planting to speak forcefully and truthfully.

Aaron, did you ever get relocated back up here to Goergia? Winder, no less?

I owe you a pot of soup.

Timmy Brister has a good post on the MBC/Acts 29 situation. Read it all, but go to the end and read the amazing information that Mark Devine’s contribution was misstated by the state Baptist paper. (Surprise.)

Does this mean that Ed Stetzer will not be able to do any work with the MBC?

MOD: Ed Stetzer was just hired as the Director of Research for Lifeway, so he’s out of the denominational thang. Barely.

My conviction is that no confessional standard is sufficient to spell out all issues.

Agreed. But what about the issues it does spell out? That is what I have been talking about, and now you’re sidetracking into whether or not Africans should be forced to use traditional English metric in their hymnody. You’re kind of fixated on musical meter, which is about the least relevant thing even tangentially related to what I’m talking about, and I assure you, it is no more than tangentially related. The Standards actually do say things about creation, images, baptism, and fellowship. I’m interested in talking about what they actually say, their internal theological integrity, and how that’s relevant to current PCA controversy and practice. In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t even mentioned my own beliefs.  But you seem interested in talking almost exclusively about what goes on inside your own head, using language like “My conviction,” “I would let,” and “I can’t relate.” I’m raising questions about Westminster, and you’re ignoring them to talk about yourself. Talk about your postmodern discourse.

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What’s to understand?

1. The MBC loaned Journey church money for a building. They paid it back.
2. Journey has a theology pub.
3. Some guy in the MBC went #@#%!@#....or something similar.
4. The MBC started having meetings wringing their hands over the evil that is Acts 29.
5. They read a lot of Ken and Ingrid.
6. Since these state denominational bureaucracies are increasingly irrelevant to younger pastors, the best way to become relevant is to declare a crisis with the emerging church, Calvinism, charismatics, wine at communion or excessive use of toilet tissue.
7. The Baptist Press covers the story with a serious look on their face. God knows we must save our churches from men like Joe Thorn.
8. Books and CDs by John Macarthur are passed out.
9. Mark Driscoll saying “hot sex” is put to a backbeat and played continuously on a MySpace page.
10. Stay tuned for more this summer, as we unite the SBC under the banner of “No Dark Lager With Spaghetti!”

Seriously, let me say one thing: Listen to Journey Church’s podcasts for a few weeks. At the same time, read the coverage of this story. You will come away convinced that certain parties in the SBC have lost their minds.

I really do not get this.  Maybe yall folks that are smarter than me can explain it.

Driscoll video banned at conference.

I say, that’s what you get for mixing it up with people like Ed Young Jr. and T.D. Jakes.

Pirate,  My conviction is that no confessional standard is sufficient to spell out all issues.  Shame on anyone who tries to use a European/Western produced confessional standard written centuries ago to rule on whether African churches can have music that is indigenous to their culture.  Use the Bible, and do it carefully.  Use the Creeds, but humbly.   Ransacking any creed for answers it never intended to give, and guidance it is silent on is a vain task.   John Frame sets this up well in his book on Contemporary Worship Music. 

Scripture= sufficient, but we must respect the silences of scripture and the areas of Christian liberty. Calvin thought at best theologians get it 80% right. 

It’s not necessarily the weakness of WCF, or system of doctrine subscription, or even your much weaker and mushier Lutheran creeds (jn…. kind of…. Presbyterians don’t really take Lutherans all that seriously either…. )  It’s just that manmade creeds were never meant to be timeless and culturally universal.  They’re flawed….. always will be….. kind of like me….

Not sure anyone else in here is interested in a Presbyterian and Lutheran comparing notes….

Matthew and Sharon: should we expect news of a Methodist version of the AMiA in the next 5-10 years? (h/t Glenn). (Sorry if I left out any other BHT Methodist fellows.)

Bob, I think you’re misreading me.  “The confession doesn’t give me details” and “this isn’t a confessional” issue are not equivalent statements.  For example, in Lutheranism right now, we’re having a lot of fighting about what “adiaphora” in the Formula of Concord’s statement on worship means, because it’s not really, really clear.  The fact that the FC doesn’t specifically say “You can/can’t throw out the hymnody and use crappy 70’s praise choruses” doesn’t mean that this activity has zero relation to what the FC is talking about.  It’s either adiaphora, or it’s not.
I think it’s the same way with WCF.  Either having women address the congregation, praise bands, and whatever is within the bounds of what WCF XXI calls “the acceptable way of worshipping the true God [which] is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will,” or it is not.  You can’t have a confession that sets up absolute, normative principles for worship and then say that controversies about worship don’t have any relation to the confession.

The same goes for what the Larger Catechism says about who should be restricted from communion.  Either Baptists are within that definition, or they are not.  Your personal opinions about how to conduct your church life don’t help me understand what the Catechism is getting at.  If either what you’re doing actually contradicts the Catechism, or the Catechism is so vague on this point that there’s no way to tell, then you’re just proving my point about the weakness of your own confessional standards.

The Father of Post-Evangelicalism died Friday. Robert Webber. Tireless to the end. A great scholar whose books and gentle spirit led me out of fundamentalism into what he called “The Majestic Tapestry” of the Great Tradition.

Thine is the glory, risen, conqu’ring Son;
Endless is the victory, Thou o’er death hast won; Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away, Kept the folded grave clothes where Thy body lay.

Thine is the glory, risen conqu’ring Son,
Endless is the vict’ry, Thou o’er death hast won.

Lo! Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb;
Lovingly He greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
Let the church with gladness, hymns of triumph sing; For her Lord now liveth, death hath lost its sting.

No more we doubt Thee, glorious Prince of life;
Life is naught without Thee; aid us in our strife;
Make us more than conqu’rors, through Thy deathless love: Bring us safe through Jordan to Thy home above.

Thine is the glory, risen conqu’ring Son,
Endless is the vict’ry, Thou o’er death hast won.

Pirate, what does WCF 21 say about what kind of music?  If you take Psalms as Exclusive psalmody then fine. That’s a way to stop all music controversies.  Presbyterians threw that interpretation out long before the PCA or OPC was formed. 

What does it say about Becky Pippert addressing my congregation, or Elizabeth Elliot?  Both of them would be welcome anytime. Hey, if they read this and want to come let me know!  : )

I would let a Baptist preach in my church any day.  Michael Spencer, John Piper, etc. could come and preach here, so could Sovereign Grace guys, Mark Dever, etc.   I would ask them not to preach on Baptism, or areas of difference, but I would use the occasion to trumpet our broader catholicity.  And yes, I have many Baptistic members who refrain from baptizing their children.  I respect their conscience, and gladly baptize them upon their profession of faith, even granting them immersion in a swimming pool.  Again, this is a strength, as it shows a sense of proportion, and  Biblical Catholicity with Baptists and Presbyterians celebrating this step together. 

Yeah, it’s true that I can’t relate to PCA’s who won’t grant Baptistic people membership.  But I would respect their consciences as PCA leaders, and expect them to respect mine.

I think this is healthy, realistic, and perhaps even the best ideal for working out these areas of difference.  I’m not for saying it doesn’t matter, but I also get my hackles up when people act like these areas of difference are more important than they really are.  And I think the Biblical emphasis is on the “things of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3).

A BHT Lurker sent along this link, and speculates that we might have several things revolving around the National Day of Prayer.

Pirate, WCF 21 and WCF 4 have nothing to say about the little controversies within the PCA.

Care to back that up with any evidence?  As I read WCF 4, it teaches literal six-day creation.  WCF 21 establishes the regulative principle, which would put all worship controversies under its jurisdiction.  So how am I wrong?

And finally, I reiterate, I believe the PCA is unified.  Very much so.  These little dust ups are not enough to really get inside any PCA church.

Well, I’m getting different stories from different Presbyterians.  Some are bemoaning the constant FIRESTR0M OF CONTROVERSIE!!! plaguing their presbyteries or congregations, with the notion of confessional subscription ill-defined, others say the denomination is unsure of its theological identity, with congregations allowing Baptists to teach or even preach from the pulpit, and others are telling me it’s very much united, and any purported controversy is just a matter of “nothing to see here.”  So ya got me.

It’s not covered in “The Parables of the Kingdom”, and I don’t have his other parables books yet, so could someone post or email me a brief summary of Capon’s take on the parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16)?