Counting the Cost

Here’s a helpful passage from J. C. Ryle’s Holiness on counting the cost to be a Christian:

I am bold to say that it would be well if the duty of “counting the cost” were more frequently taught than it is. Impatient hurry is the order of the day with many religionists. Instantaneous conversions, and immediate sensible peace, are the only results they seem to care for from the Gospel. Compared with these all other things are thrown into the shade. To produce them is the grand end and object, apparently, of all their labours. I say without hesitation that such a naked, one-sided mode of teaching Christianity is mischievous in the extreme.

Let no one mistake my meaning. I thoroughly approve of offering men a full, free, present, immediate salvation in Christ Jesus. I thoroughly approve of urging on man the possibility and the duty of immediate instantaneous conversion. In these matters I give place to no one. But I do say that these truths ought not to be set before men nakedly, singly, and alone. They ought to be told honestly what it is they are taking up, if they profess a desire to come out from the world and serve Christ. They ought not to be pressed into the ranks of Christ’s army without being told what the warfare entails. In a word, they should be told honestly to “count the cost.”

Does any one ask what our Lord Jesus Christ’s practice was in this matter? Let him read what St. Luke records. He tells us that on a certain occasion “There went great multitudes with Him: and He turned and said unto them, If any come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after Me, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:25–27. I must plainly say, that I cannot reconcile this passage with the proceedings of many modern religious teachers. And yet, to my mind, the doctrine of it is as clear as the sun at noon-day. It shows us that we ought not to hurry men into professing discipleship, without warning them plainly to “count the cost.”

J. C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots (London: William Hunt and Company, 1889), 109–110.

J. C. Ryle on The Christian’s Fight

We may take comfort about our souls if we know anything of an inward fight and conflict. It is the invariable companion of genuine Christian holiness. It is not everything, I am well aware, but it is something. Do we find in our heart of hearts a spiritual struggle? Do we feel anything of the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that we cannot do the things we would? (Gal. 5:17.) Are we conscious of two principles within us, contending for the mastery? Do we feel anything of war in our inward man? Well, let us thank God for it! It is a good sign. It is strongly probable evidence of the great work of sanctification. All true saints are soldiers. Anything is better than apathy, stagnation, deadness, and indifference. We are in a better state than many. The most part of so-called Christians have no feeling at all. We are evidently no friends of Satan. Like the kings of this world, he wars not against his own subjects. The very fact that he assaults us, should fill our minds with hope. I say again, let us take comfort The child of God has two great marks about him, and of these two we have one. HE MAY BE KNOWN BY HIS INWARD WARFARE, AS WELL AS BY HIS INWARD PEACE.

()Ryle, J. C. Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots. London: William Hunt and Company, 1889.)

Chapell on Preaching

“At some point in your preaching career, you must make a decision: Will you preach to people, or will you preach for preachers? The latter may win you acclaim, but the former will far more likely win souls. Deep thought, plainly expressed, most clearly exposes a pastor’s heart” (Christ-Centered Preaching, p. 341).

Quotable on Great Sermons

“Great sermons are not prepared. At least they do not become great by preparation. They are great because they issue from a preacher whose littleness has dissolved in the immensity of God; from such a life nothing that is little or without consequence can spring forth. … Great sermons are not born in illustration books but in the needy lives of preachers. Here, where the preacher’s inwardness is fashioned by yearning and desperation, is the womb of important preaching.”

Miller, Marketplace Preaching (1995), 9–10

A Word for Disheartened Pastors

“You can mark it down that if you are a preacher God will hide from you much of the fruit he causes in your ministry. You will see enough to be assured of his blessing, but not so much as to think you could live without it. For God aims to exalt himself, not the preacher.”

Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching (1990), 19

Quotable

“It is difficult to find many articles that so richly combine exegetical errors, historical misconceptions, and purple prose in so finely honed a synthesis.”

These are the words of D. A. Carson, in “God is Love” ([BSac] 156: p. 141) in commenting on Gilbert Bilezikian’s “Hermeneutical Bungee-Jumping: Subordination in the Godhead” ([JETS 40] 1997: 57-68).

This is probably not how you want to be cited.

Fortunately for Dr. Bilezikian, it’s in a footnote, and no one reads those anyway, right?

Saturday Evening Gospel for Preachers

“Evangelism of the humorous type may attract multitudes but it lays the soul in ashes and destroys the very germs of religion.”

Robertson Nicoll quoted in Iain Murray,
The Forgotten Spurgeon, p. 38.

Quotable

A certain South African missionary society once wrote to David Livingstone: “Have you found a good road to where you are? We want to know how to send some men to join you.” Livingstone wrote back: “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road.”

In Gary McIntosh, Finding Them, Keeping Them: Effective Strategies for Evangelism and Assimilation in the Local Church, pp. 29-30.

I recently saw where George Washington said that most things attributed to him on the internet were not things he actually said. In that same spirit, I have no idea if Livingstone actually said this. But if he didn’t, he should have. It’s a thought worth considering.

Quotable

“Holiness is far more than an inclination toward occasional acts of kindness and charity. It is a commitment to persistent surrender before God …

Persistence doesn’t make sense unless we live with a keen sense of eternity. …

Christian endurance is based on the idea that there is another life, commonly known as heaven, which is eternal, and for which this life is preparation. The coming world is so glorious, weighted with so much honor, that it is worth making sacrifices now to receive glory and honor and immortality there.”

(Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy, culled from pp. 108-110)

Quotable: J. C. Ryle on the Necessity of Sanctification

Let us all awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord;” without sanctification there is no salvation. (Heb. 12:14.) Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless! What an immense proportion of church-goers and chapel-goers are in the broad road that leadeth to destruction! The thought is awful, crushing, and overwhelming. Oh, that preachers and teachers would open their eyes and realize the condition of souls around them! Oh, that men could be persuaded to “flee from the wrath to come!” If unsanctified souls can be saved and go to heaven, the Bible is not true. Yet the Bible is true and cannot lie! What must the end be!

J. C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots (London: William Hunt and Company, 1889). 46.

Quotable: Moo on the Indivisible Law

As has been often pointed out, the threefold distinction of moral, ceremonial, and civil law as separate categories with varying degrees of applicability is simply unknown in the Judaism of the first century, and there is little evidence that Jesus or Paul introduced such a distinction.

Douglas J. Moo, “ ‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,” Westminster Theological Journal Volume 45 (Spring 1983), 85.

Rummage on Expository Preaching

"Some pastors who preach through books make the mistake of loading their messages with irrelevant details about the background of the passage or the technicalities of the biblical language. This turns the sermon into a dry commentary on the text rather than a living and dynamic explanation and application of the Scripture. Such preaching is monotonous and hard to get used to. In fact, no pastor should force his congregation to become accustomed to such boring preaching."

Stephen Rummage, Planning Your Preaching, p. 78

Quotable – On the Olivet Discourse

It is unfortunate that Harold Camping, for all his claims to teaching the Bible, never grasped what Jesus made clear in Mark 13 as evidenced by this excellent word from James R. Edwards:

Most importantly, Mark 13 admonishes readers against attempts at constructing timetables and deciphering signs of the Parousia. Disciples are admonished to be alert and watchful (vv. 5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37), reminded that they do not know the time of the end (vv. 33, 35), and warned not to be led astray by even the most obvious signs (vv. 5, 6, 21, 22), for the end is not yet (vv. 7, 13). No one is either encouraged or commended for attempting to be an eschatological code-cracker. That is folly, for even the Son of Man is ignorant of the End (v. 32). The premium of discipleship is placed not on predicting the future but on faithfulness in the present, especially in trials, adversity, and suffering.

(James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, The Pillar New Testament commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002], p. 386.)

Quotable

Read a great deal less on the internet and a great deal more of books.

Don Carson on how you can become a better theologian and better pastor if you are a young pastor or a middle-aged pastor who can’t return for more schooling.

Piper’s comments on reading that follow Carson’s quote are also fascinating, such as when he says that we have been taught not to read by teachers who assign twelve books for one class.

Quotable on Preaching

Great sermons are not prepared. At least they do not become great by preparation. They are great because they issue from a preacher whose littleness has dissolved in the immensity of God; from such a life nothing that is little or without consequence can spring forth.

…

Great sermons are not born in illustration books but in the needy lives of preachers. Here, where the preacher’s inwardness is fashioned by yearning and desperation, is the womb of important preaching.

Calvin Miller, Marketplace Preaching, pp. 9-10

E. B. White on Reading and Writing

Andy Naselli has a short post today about author E. B. White’s book Charlotte’s Web. He (E. B., not An.dy.) is also the author of one of my favorite books growing up, The Trumpet of the Swan. as well as children’s favorite Stuart Little.

Andy’s post reminded me of a post I almost wrote about a year ago.

At that time, while sitting in the jury room awaiting my opportunity to serve my fellow citizens (is jury duty missional???), I came across a book of interviews of authors, published by the New York Times (I believe).

I was unfamiliar with most of the authors, but I am almost sure that one of them was E. B. White. The reason it stuck out to me was because of White’s comments about reading. He said he barely ever read anything.

I can’t seem to find the book now, but I did find a few other articles about E. B. White that were interesting.

In an interview with the NY Times, he said, “I was never a reader. I was arriving at conclusions almost independently of the entire history of the world. If I sat down to read everything that had been written--I'm a slow reader--I would never have written anything. My joy and my impulse was to get something down on paper myself.”

I tend to believe this a good reminder for pastors preparing sermons. As bad as it sounds, I think we should do less reading, at least in the early stages of sermon preparation. Spend your time in the text, hours just reading, rereading, jotting notes, drawing lines, underlining words, making connections between verses and ideas. At this stage, use outside sources only to clarify meanings of words and to establish basic historical context where necessary.

Only after this work should we go to commentaries.

White also makes some other fascinating comments about writing.

A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
(Writers at Work, Eighth Series, Penguin, 1988) (Here).

 

It is my belief that no writer can improve his work until he discards the dulcet notion that the reader is feebleminded, for writing is an act of faith, not of grammar. Ascent is at the heart of the matter. A country whose writers are following the calculating machine downstairs is not ascending--if you will pardon the expression--and a writer who questions the capacity of the person at the other end of the line is not a writer at all, merely a schemer. The movies long ago decided that a wider communication could be achieved by a deliberate descent to a lower level, and they walked proudly down until they reached the cellar. Now they are groping for the light switch, hoping to find the way out (Here).

And are a few bonus quotes from the NY Times piece. I repeat them here because I think they are great, but don’t really fit the theme of reading or writing.

"I lived in an age when parents weren't scared of their children; they commanded respect, enforced discipline and maintained an orderly household. It can still be done, but the motor car and the TV have clearly added to the burden of the task of discipline and of communication."

 

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

 

I do have a tremendous respect for anyone who does something extremely well, no matter what. I would rather watch a really gifted plumber than listen to a bad poet. I'd rather watch someone build a good boat than attend the launching of a poorly constructed play.

Quotable

Ed Stetzer writes on How to Offer Criticism.

Criticism hardly ever goes well when you do it in a hurry. To do criticism in grace may cause you to miss the moment in blogtown, but it is better to take the time and do it well.

This is a point well worth considering. Perhaps I will offer some criticism … tomorrow. This this is part three of this series. It is worth reading.

Russell Moore writes on the Pre Tribulational Rapture.

Dispensationalists still hold to a distinction between the church and Israel, but the idea of two peoples and two programs, is almost wholly abandoned by contemporary dispensationalist theologians, evacuating the primary theological reason for a pretribulational rapture.

Interestingly, my systematic prof (Dr. McCune) was saying this fifteen years ago when I was sitting in his class.

Overall, my belief in a pre-trib rapture is not shaken by Moore’s writing. The arguments offered by Moore have been pretty well answered, IMO. They are not persuasive to me. At the end of the day (or the age), if I am wrong, I will gladly change my position. At the end of the day, if Russ Moore is wrong, it will be too late to change his .

Stott on the Cross of Christ

The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 160

Quotable

File under “Change Takes Time”

A congregation’s potential is like an egg. You can’t hatch an egg with a blowtorch. You must wait for the egg to mature. But it is also true that unless the eggs are warmed continuously, they will never hatch …

Stetzer and Dodson, Comeback Churches, p. 172.

Quotable

Self-help appeals to the will of the people by challenging them to apply biblical principles without necessarily applying the gospel to their hearts. In self-helpism Christ as example is placed above Christ as Savior … Self-help preaching does not take the pervasiveness of sin seriously because it assumes that people want to obey and can obey, they just need to be told how to do it. Such preaching is not biblical because completely discounts the reality of human resistance to obeying God.

Self-help preaching many times makes the Bible character “like us.” We are David, and our problems are like Goliath, and so forth. A straight line is drawn directly from the character’s struggle or victory to us without connecting any of it to the person and work of Christ.

Thus, it produces consumeristic, shallow people because it does not bring them face-to-face with God.

— Darrin Patrick,Church Planter, p. 139.