I was drawn to this book for a few different reasons: firstly, the forward is by D.A. Carson and I respect his works so much (plus, he's Canadian which gives him a little extra dose of cool); secondly, it has a lot of names on the cover of men who's books I wanted to read or who I had heard a lot about. The subtitle of the book is 'The Old Faith for a New Day'. It's twenty-, thirty- and forty-something guys who are 'coming up' in the Reformed circle of theology. I went into it thinking that if they could write in a way that wasn't overwhelming to those who don't spend all day with their nose in a tome from some long-dead evangelical, it would be a wonderful book to pass on to people who are inquiring about the Reformed belief system. What I found was so much more. This is a book that I would give to anyone who claims faith in Christ! The purpose of the book, according to the forward is "to introduce young Christians, new Christians, and underdisciplined Christians to the most important article of our faith and what it looks like to live out this faith in real life" (p. 16). They also desire "to reassert the theological nature of evangelicalism" (p. 17). I was on board from the very start.
There are 18 chapters, each written by a different gentleman. The beauty of this is if you aren't loving the style of one writer, you just have to hang in there until the next chapter and it all changes. I am not going to offer up copious quotes from each section but will give you some of what were highlights for me.
In Part 1, Evangelical History, Kevin deYoung looks at 'The Secret to Reaching the Next Generation'. The main thrust of his point is "the one indispensable requirement for producing godly, mature Christians is godly, mature Christians" (p. 27) and we get this by challenging people with the truth and encouraging them to go deeper into their faith all the time. Collin Hansen then gives an interesting history of evangelicalism in Chapter 2.
Part 2 is focused on Evangelical Theology. This was the part to which I was really looking forward. Jonathan Leeman spends his chapter showing how God is not like us. "We know that God knows more than we do, and that he's morally superior - 'better'. But we still assume that God, broadly speaking, shares our sense of justice and morality, our views on love and sex, our politics, our ideas of an evening well spent and a life worth living. He's basically like us...like me. It is this assumption that's at the heart of what the Bible calls our sin...When we belong to Christ, less and less do we believe that God is like us, and more and more do we become like God (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2)" (p. 48,57). Andy Naselli (a man who grew up in a Mormon home) follows with a wonderful chapter on Scripture. His explanation of Biblical inspiration on pages 59-60 is, for certain, the best I've ever come across as a way to explain it to almost anyone. Chapter 5 is by Greg Gilbert and deals with the Gospel. I appreciated his perspective, "The death of Jesus is - and must be - the heart of the gospel because the good news is precisely that Jesus saves sinners from their sin" (p. 73). He fleshes this out by saying,
We've forgotten, and even in some cases deliberately disregarded, what sin is and how profound is its offense to God. The Bible tells us plainly that 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God' (Rom. 3:23), and that at its root, sin is rebellion against God the Creator-King. He made us, Genesis tells us, and therefore he has the right to tell us how to live. When we sin against him, breaking his law, worshipping idols, searching for satisfaction in created things rather than in him, we reject his kingship over us and thereby make ourselves liable to his good and righteous judgment (p. 74).Ben Peays discusses the requirement of being born again and why it matters so much. Jay Harvey then delves into justification in his chapter. He fleshes out a key concept regarding justification by faith alone,
The strong language about our righteousness before God is intended to counter one of our strongest sinful tendencies: pride. We constantly want to justify ourselves before God, to be good enough without Christ. But God does not want us to trust in our goodness. He does not want us to make up for our past sins through present obedience. He does not want us to think that we are good enough to go to heaven by comparing ourselves to the Hitlers and Stalins of the world. Comparisons are useless when it comes to establishing righteousness before God. God crucified his one and only Son for our justification, and he wants us to trust in him alone. When it comes to being justified, faith plus anything else is quicksand. The only ground for right standing before God is Christ Jesus grabbed ahold of by faith (p. 101)This is logically followed by a chapter on sanctification written by Owen Strachan. It's convicting in it's picture of what sanctification looks like when truly lived. "We need to saturate our minds and hearts with the riches of biblical theology, such that we think and act from a profoundly scriptural base. We need to be in the Word constantly. We need also to pray hard and regularly, asking God to give us wisdom for our daily lives and power to kill our nagging sins" (p. 115). Russell Moore then discusses the Kingdom and how "the kingdom of God is life, not an afterlife" (p. 125). Tim Challies (another cool Canadian) finishes up the second part of the book with a look at Jesus Christ and how He is our only way and our only hope. Focusing heavily on Romans, he says "All men reject [the] revelation of God...Anyone who wishes to be saved without placing his faith in Christ ought to have lived a sinless life...There is only one kind of man - the man trapped in the total depravity of his sinful nature, inherited from his father Adam. And since there is only one kind of man, there is only one kind of salvation - faith through the second Adam, Jesus Christ" (p. 135).
Part 3 examines various ways of Evangelical Practice. Ted Kluck shows how we can be evangelicals in our vocation, no matter what that is. We just need to be doing something, doing it with humility and doing it to the best of our ability. Darrin Patrick discusses the Christian's role in social justice and encourages us to make sure that the Word and the Gospel are what inform us as we go about this task. In a chapter on homosexuality, Eric Redmond and Kevin deYoung look at what the Bible says about this 'lifestyle' that is becoming ever more prevalent in our society. "Heterosexual monogamy is God's normative design for marriage. The Bible refuses to comment whatever deviates from this pattern - be it adultery, bestiality, polygamy, fornication, or homosexual behavior" (p. 169). The authors ask us to be aware that grace is at stake in this debate and "at our best, we who oppose homosexual behavior do so motivated by love - love for the hurting, the struggling, the ostracized, and the confused" (p. 177). I really appreciated how they handled this topic. Justin Taylor tackles the topic of abortion (which is such a hot topic in these early days of 2013 with the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade). He talks about common objections to the pro-life stance and offers responses. He believes that God "does not give us the option of sitting this one out. May God give us the grace not to grow weary in doing good (Gal. 6:9; 2 Thess. 3:13)" (p 190). Denny Burk offers his thoughts on gender confusion and has the Biblical descriptions of marriage and sex as the foundation of his points. Thabiti Anyabwile wrote a great chapter on the local church, stating "the local church and your active membership in it are essential to your spiritual well-being and that of the entire congregation. Two things prosper when we make the local church central to our understanding of the Christian life: our individual souls and the souls of other Christians in the congregation" (p. 202). He writes about where the church came from, what our attitude toward it should be and why we need it. Tulllian Tchividjian (who just happens to be Billy Graham's grandson) offered his learnedness regarding worship. "All this means we ought to come to worship expecting first and foremost to see God. We come to encounter his glory, to be awestruck by his majesty" (p. 217). At the very end of his chapter, there was a portion that I highlighted and all I wrote in the margin was 'Beautiful!'
I look forward to corporate worship more than any other time of the week because when I am worshipping together with other sinner-saints, my anticipation for the Great Gathering on the last day intensifies. What we do together in worship is nothing less than a glorious rehearsal of what we will experience when the "ultimate assembly" is fully and finally brought together by Christ. Our weekly worship is a foretaste of that day when our feasting will be permanent and our fasting will be over - when we will finally be able to "enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbound energy and passion forever" (quote from John Piper) (p. 224)And that is why we need to go to church every Sunday!! David Mathis explains missions in the final chapter and why we should all be part of it. "It doesn't matter how much a church may say that it is being missional; it is not fully missional in the biblical sense if it is not both pursuing mission at home (traditionally called evangelism) among native reached people and being an engaged sender in support of missionaries to the unreached" (p. 234).
Sorry, I know this went on a bit longer than I have stated I want to go but I didn't want to leave out the effort of any of these men. Get this book and read it!! Then pass it on to others, either as an introduction for newer believers or a refresher on their faith for the those who are mature in their walk with God. This is one of those books that will probably always stay on the most accessible book shelf so when someone asks me about any of the topics I will have some good, reliable support from some trusted men readily at hand.
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