The good people at Crossway have kindly sent me an advance copy of David VanDrunen's new book, Living in God's Two KIngdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture. It's an excellent book that will be of enormous benefit to believers as they live as citizens of heaven, exiled on earth. VanDrunen draws the readers' attention to a number of  biblical dichotomies (common kingdom/redemptive kingdom, Noahic covenant/Abrahamic covenant) however none is more pervasive than the two kingdoms of the First Adam, and of Jesus Christ the Second Adam, who will come again to end this world and to reveal the world to come:

The new Testament looks forward to one awesome day at the end of history, the “day of the Lord,” when Christ will return, all the dead will be raised, all people will stand before the final judgment, and the present world will give way to the new heaven and new earth... Thanks to Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension believers have already passed through judgment with him (justification) and been made citizens of the world-to-come. They stand on the very brink of eternity. The only thing left for them to receive is entrance into Christ’s presence in the world-to-come with resurrected bodies. They are waiting for nothing else and nothing less can satisfy them. 

Living in God's Two KIngdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture will be released on 31 October, and is available for pre-order now.

J. Ligon Duncan III speaks about the work of the Alliance.

Amen!

(HT: Ref21)

I don't really have a favourite celebrity preacher, but as many people know, my favourite celebrity Church-History-Professor-and-Academic-Dean is Carl R. Trueman. And here's some of what the revered academic dean has to say on the matter in his latest post at Ref21:

The church leader was simply too busy, with countless external demands on his time; and now, presumably protected by a praetorian guard of personal assistants and associate pastors, he was essentially as unavailable to the masses in his large congregation as the average rock star is to the punters who buy his concert tickets.

Three things occurred to me as I heard this story:

First, I am immensely grateful that I have only ever held membership in churches of a size where the pastor has always been accessible and available. Indeed, my pastors have always even known my name, my wife's name, my kids' names, and even what sports they play...Indeed, each of my pastors has cared about his people, not as a concept or a good idea or as an indeterminate mass, but as real, particular people with names and histories and strengths and weaknesses; and this surely reflects the character and love of God who, after, calls his sheep by name and cares for us all as individuals. If I gave you the names of said pastors, few reading this post would ever have heard of them: they have written no books; they have never pulled in huge crowds; and they have never spoken at megaconferences. But they have always been there when even the humblest church member has called out for advice, counsel or even help with bailing out a flooded basement.

Of course, too often we think that such pastoring represents something less successful and less influential than the man who writes the bestseller or gets quoted in the broadsheet press. The more successful a pastor, the more his time is spent doing little more than honing his writing and speaking skills. Ironically, in the past this was not the model of pastoral success; and neither did the increasing wider importance of a pastor necessarily take him away from daily pastoral duties and distance him from his people. For example, Luther not only ran the Reformation, he also had time, at the height of his international influence, to write a treatise on prayer for his hairdresser, a man called Peter, when the latter told him he was struggling in his devotional life...And, putting theology and ecclesiology aside for just a moment, when Cardinal Newman died, the streets of Birmingham were filled with ordinary, working class people who turned out to honour him. The reason? Newman never allowed his brilliance, his importance, or indeed his natural shyness and preference for study, to stop him from pastoring the ordinary people in his locale. That's why, when Birmingham endured a bout of the plague, Newman stayed put in order personally to tend to his people: he cared for them, he really did care for them, more than he cared for his own person. It was as simple as that.

Third, I was reminded of a passage in Bonhoeffer's Life Together.  OK, I'm aware that these days quoting Bonhoeffer is like quoting Bono: you have to do it if you want the soul-patched thirty-somethings to take you seriously. But, unlike quotations from the sayings of the insufferably pretentious and self-promoting Bono, the words of Bonhoeffer do not just sound as if they mean something; they often really do mean something. This is the passage: `The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him.  Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.'
...
And one final word of wisdom: if you don't know the names of your people, then don't recommend that they read Bonhoeffer.  Quote Bono to them instead. Invariably vacuous but oh-so-conveniently cool. If you start referring to Bonhoeffer, they might start expecting you to pastor like him too.

The full post is here, and worth a read. 

Our precious daughter, Annabel, was baptised into God's church last Sunday. The service was conducted, and the sacrament administered, by our minister, Rev. Steve Jeffrey, and the sermon was preached by my favourite prince of the church since J. C. Ryle,¹ Bishop Glenn Davies on the topic of infant baptism. Neither minister mentioned or quoted the Book of Common Prayer. So I will.²

BELOVED, ye hear in this Gospel the words of our Saviour Christ, that he commanded the children to be brought unto him; how he blamed those that would have kept them from him; how he exhorteth all men to follow their innocency. Ye perceive how by his outward gesture and deed he declared his good will toward them; for he embraced them in his arms, he laid his hands upon them, and blessed them. Doubt ye not therefore, but earnestly believe, that he will likewise favourably receive this present Infant; that he will embrace him with the arms of his mercy; that he will give unto him the blessing of eternal life, and make him partaker of his everlasting kingdom. Wherefore we being thus persuaded of the good will of our heavenly Father towards this Infant, declared by his Son Jesus Christ; and nothing doubting but that he favourably alloweth this charitable work of ours in bringing this Infant to his holy Baptism; let us faithfully and devoutly give thanks unto him, and say,

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, heavenly Father, we give thee humble thanks, for that thou hast vouchsafed to call us to the knowledge of thy grace, and faith in thee: Increase this knowledge, and confirm this faith in us evermore. Give thy Holy Spirit to this Infant, that he may be born again, and be made an heir of everlasting salvation; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

SEEING now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers unto him, that this Child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning.

I still can't believe I'm doing this, but below is a video about the new (not sure when) Hillsong church in New York City. The cynic in me can't believe it's taken so long for the false teachers out at Norwest to go after the Big Apple, but the gospel-loving Christian in me is shocked, thankful and encouraged that this video at least suggests that they are on about reaching people with the good news of forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.

Last month I wrote a letter to the Anglican Diocese of Sydney newspaper, Southern Cross. They didn't publish it, possibly because it would hardly be a strategic move by them to allocate much space to views contrary to what the diocese is currently spending inordinate amounts of time and money on. 

So it turns out that Wednesday was Machen Day. It would hardly be added to D. G. Hart's liturgical calendar, but the 28th of June was Machen's birthday (in 1881) and Hart offers his tribute to the founder of the OPC and of Westminster Seminary, and the discipline of Systematic Theology, here.

But biblical theology is not all the theology that will be taught at Westminster Seminary, for systematic theology will be at the very center of the seminary’s course. At this point an error should be avoided: it must not be thought that systematic theology is one whit less biblical than biblical theology is. But it differs from biblical theology in that, standing on the foundation or biblical theology, it seeks to set forth, no longer in the order of the time when it was revealed, but in the order of logical relationships, the grand sum of what God has told us in his Word.

David Buzzard has written an excellent exhortation to pastors to visit the men of their congregations at their workplaces. He writes about how it helps the men:

It showed them that I care about their callings, how they spend 50+ hours of their week, and the people they work with. 

Each will bear and swallow the discomforts, vexations, weariness and anxieties in his way of life when he had been persuaded that the burden was laid upon him by God. From this will arise also an impressive consolation that no task will be so sordid and menial, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God's sight.

At the risk of disrupting the liturgical year, I would love to sing this song at church sometime soon. But not because I'm getting sentimental about Christmas, rather I think it's a beautiful song that looks forward to Emmanuel's second coming as much as his first.

Apparently the ESV Study Bible and ESV Atlas will give you a pretty good idea, as does this post. I love these illustrations.