The past two months have marked a big change in 3ABC’s leadership with the resignation of three elders (Left to Right: Jeremy Yong, Greg Gilbert, Aaron Menikoff).  This was a bitter sweet moment as we said good-bye to these beloved brothers who have been called to serve other churches full-time.  Jeremy will be serving as Director of Ministries at church in Dubai City in the UAE.  Greg is going on staff as an Associate Pastor/Church Planter at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C..  In partnership and with the support of CHBC, he will plant a church in Annapolis, MD, Lord willing, in a few years.  Aaron left at the end of May and has been serving as the senior pastor of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA.  We thank God for the years these brothers served formally and informally and we look forward in anticipation to how God will use their gifts else where.

This parting does, however, leave me with an opportunity to reflect on how relational unity was and can be fostered among elders.  Needless to say, doctrinal unity and like-mindedness is absolutely essential for an effective elder board and should not be taken for granted.  But, unfortunately, what often divides leaders are personality differences and conflicts.  So here are a couple of practical ways to foster relational unity.

First, be regular disciplers of one another.  It’s easy for leaders to spend nearly all their time discussing church matters and not their personal lives.  In the long run that can lead to unnecessary conflict and disagreement because the time hasn’t been taken to care for one another.  It is much easier to have fruitful discussion about the church’s direction when you know that the brothers around the table have a deep love and care for your spiritual well-being; that they have taken the time and energy to invest in you.  One of the practical ways I do this is by having intentional conversations with the elder I ride with to a meeting.  (If that’s Wheeler, it’s pretty short because of how fast we’re going.  JK, Wheels!)

Second, become close friends.  That may sound too simple, but I promise you that it works.  Some of my closest friends at church and in life are the other elders.  You do this by going on couple dates and vacations.  Have dinners together regularly.  Encourage friendship among your kids.  We take a weekend retreat each year.  We use that time to discuss the church’s future and the larger items we can’t fit into an elders meeting.  But it is also a great opportunity to hang out and laugh together.  At one of our lunches last year we discussed who was the most talkitive and in the best shape.  Plenty of laughs to go around at that.  Another fun way we share laughs is by keeping a “quote bank.”  This is a collection of sayings from our meetings that are priceless. You can do whatever you want.  The point is that the elders must make an effort to become good friends.

Do you see anything wrong with this sign?  Of course!  It’s discriminatory because women are commonly found on construction and road repair crews holding these signs and working equally along side men.  At least that’s the argument from Cynthia Good, founding editor of PINK Magazine, as reported in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Good demanded that the signs be removed and the Atlanta Public Works Commissioner, Joe Basista, agreed.  “Public Works officials are replacing 50 ‘Men Working’ with signs that say ‘Workers Ahead.’ It will cost $22 to cover over some of the old signs and $144 to buy new signs, said Public Works spokeswoman Valerie Bell-Smith said.”  To a city like Atlanta, the largest in the South, that amount is like pennies in an ash tray.  But it is Good’s response to the city’s action and her future intentions that indicates a larger discussion - “Score one for gender equality.  (Atlanta) gets it.  (Now) we’re calling on the rest of the nation to follow suit and make a statement that we will not accept these subtle forms of discrimination.”

If you’re like me, part of you may just laugh when you hear of such actions.  In the end, however, it is no laughing matter because it brings up a host of questions.  For example, did the manufacturers of the sign mean mankind in general when they wrote “men working”?  It’s doubtful given the nature of the job where such signs are normally found.  And, yes, I’m being partly playful here.  Nonetheless, such a question probably could be raised when deciding a formal complainant.

More importantly though, at what point does the wrongful “discrimination” and rightful “inclusion” end?  At the end of the day, who will decide what is and is not offensive?  Who sets the standard for what is and is not discriminatory?  The standard, as illustrated in this case, is set by the defended party.  Good brought it to the city’s attention that she had been offended and working women were being discriminated against.  Thus, it was Good’s standard that was set and had to be decided on by the city.  This goes to illustrate just how powerful the individual’s “rights” have become in our culture.  If one person is offended then he or she has the “right” to file whatever form of complaint he or she deems suitable.  (David Wells notes this in The Courage To Be Protestant.)

One of the more obvious questions and particularly important ones to the church is at what point can we use “cultural artifacts” (to use one of Dr. Mohler’s terms) to make gender distinctions?  Can we ever use anything to distinguish our God-given gender roles?  If Good can make a case for “men working” signs then who’s to stop someone from filing suit against the church for saying, “In accordance with 1 Timothy 2:12 and 3:2, women shall not serve as Elders” (Article 3, Section 2, Clause 4 of TABC’s Constitution)?  This is not a question for a later generation.  It is one that is already being taken up now.

Tim Keller has a new book called The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith . I just finished listening to his sermon “The Prodigal Sons” from Luke 15:11-32. In it he has a wonderful observation about the repentance of the Pharisees whom Jesus was telling the parable to.  Keller said:

You need to learn how to repent of something besides sins. The younger brother comes back and repents of everything he did.  That’s what a lot people think you should do.  You repent of your list.  But do you see how radical this parable is?  The elder brother is lost but he’s got nothing on his list…So how does a person who’s lost, who’s got no sins on the list, get saved?  And of course there’s no such thing as a sinless person.  We know that.  But here’s the point: When Pharisees sin, of course they repent and they feel terrible some times.  But when they’re done repenting they’re still Pharisees.  The difference between a Christian and a moralist is this – Christians also repent of what they’ve done wrong. A Christian is also one who has learned to repent for the reasons you did right…Christians recognize that the reasons for even the right things that they do is self-justification and the desire to control God and others.  And when that penny drops; when you begin to see that you desire to be savior and lord, not only of the bad things you’ve done but also over the good things, when you see that changes everything.  It’s called a new birth because it’s so radical.

How do we receive this new birth?  By placing our faith in Jesus who paid the penatly on the cross; the penatly that we sinners owed.  Keller said on the cross Jesus cried “My God, my God” instead of “My Father, my Father” because at that point he was not being treated as a son so that you and I could be.

You’re probably asking yourself, “What is a word cloud?” That was my thought exactly when Justin Taylor pointed out this really cool website called Wordle.  Wordle takes large portions of texts that you provide to create a “word cloud.”  The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

The coolest thing is that Wordle allows you to use your clouds however you please.  Here is an example of Psalm 119.

AP reported early this morning that Sen. Barack Obama “laid claim to the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, taking a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation’s first black president.” It is quite true that this is a “historical step”; one that my children’s children will learn in American History classes. So where does this leave us now? Well, I’m not sharp enough to know exactly. But we can reflect on where we’ve been. And that’s exactly what Thabiti Anyabwile has done is this excellent timeline.

Here are some fairly new books worth mentioning that I’ve added to my “wish list.” While I’m noting book lists, check out Dr. Mohler’s summer reading list.

New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ by Tom Schnreiner (NT Theologies would be a massive task to take on.)

The Gladiators: History’s Most Deadly Sport by Fik Meijer (HT: MH. This is a “guys” book. I gave it as a gift to one of the biggest “guys” I know.)

Minority Report: Unpopular Thoughts on Everything from Ancient Christianity to Zen Calvinism by Carl Trueman (Trueman is a blast to read. I just wish I was British so I could better understand his humor. That’s why I have Bruce.)

Southern Baptist Consensus and Renewal: A Biblical, Historical and Theological Proposal by David Dockery (Large work for dirt cheap…$9.99. So what’s the state of the SBC? HT: JT)

The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief by Peter Rollins (You’ve got to read some things you don’t agree with.)

Fear Not! Death and the Afterlife from a Christian Perspective by Ligon Duncan with J. Nicholas Reid (It won’t be long before my generation will have to deal with the death of our parents. What will you say?)

Last Sunday I completed a two-part course on The New Perspective(s) on Paul in our Christianity Matters class. Now if you have any understanding of the NPP, you’re probably thinking the same thing I thought when I sat down to outline the class - this is useless and esoteric. A local church, especially Baptist, has no need discussing the NPP. Where’s its relevance? In hindsight, that question ended up being the hardest and the one I did the poorest job at answering. (Note to all teachers: make sure your audience knows the topic’s relevance.) Though it should have been obvious since all of my reading and research was on a semi-scholarly to scholarly level. Most people don’t even know what nomism is much less care if it’s covenantal or variegated. (To which you say, “Huh?” And I say, “My point exactly!”)

I’ll grant there is some relevance in the accusation that we’ve misunderstood Paul because of his interpreters, namely Luther and Augustine. In other words, the NPP says we’ve got Paul all wrong because we’ve spent too much time reading Piper, who reads Edwards, who read Luther, who read Augustine. Okay, now they’re getting a little closer to home. In addition, they say it is misleading to claim that all Jews in the first-century believed in a works-righteousness religion. That too is an accusation made of traditionally reformed people like myself. But even if those are relevant accusations, when was the last time you found church members discussing them after the evening service? Where’s the cool attraction in that for young people?

My point in all of that is to say the NPP discussion can be irrelevant to most congregations. (I emphasize “can” because any Christian or pastor that’s dealt with an errant member on this issue or some variation of it knows by experience its relevance.) So where is the NPP’s relevance for the rest of us?

I think it’s in the theological commonality with emergent theology, namely the emphasis on the gospel being about Jesus’ lordship, victorious kingdom, and inclusive community to the exclusion of a guilty sinner’s salvation from God’s wrath through Jesus’ substitutionary death and imputed righteousness. That’s the line, albeit perforated, connecting the NPP and Emergent. They use different cups to drink from the same theological well. They both talk about the traditional understanding of the gospel and justification being too small or individualistic. It’s “not about how someone gets saved.” Justification is not about “soteriology but ecclesiology.” Instead, they argue, it’s about the story of the Bible. It’s about God’s solution to Israel’s abiding problem - the exile - and his inclusion of the Gentiles. The gospel is much larger and cosmic in scope than the traditional church has affirmed. It’s about God overcoming all the sin and evil wrought by the Fall and not about individual sinners being guilty before God. Furthermore, they both conclude with with the same implications - social restoration. (If you want resources, read Brian McLaren’s The New Kind of Christian and N.T. Wright’s What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?)