Author: Richard Bargas

Help for New Expositors: Choosing the Next Book From Which You Will Preach

/ Richard Bargas / 2 Comments

This blogpost assumes a few things: that you preach, that you use the Bible when you preach, and that you preach through whole books of the Bible. If all of those apply to you, then perhaps this post will be helpful.
Below I have listed a few thoughtful considerations when choosing the next book from which I will preach:

  1. Which books have I already covered in my expositions? This is important because it might show you the heaviest types of books you have emphasized in your preaching thus far. Perhaps you have favored the Gospels or Pauline Epistles in your preaching. Maybe you are about to finish preaching through a large book, like Psalms or Genesis. Maybe you will notice that you have preached exclusively in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Maybe you have preached one letter out of a series (1 Corinthians, 1Peter or 1 John for instance), and have not covered the other epistles. By asking this question you will have a better grasp of any places you need to avoid and others you need to seriously consider.
  2. What are the major needs of my church right now? If you have many newer believers, the Gospels would serve them well. If you have a church that is more spiritually mature, but could use some teaching in deeper doctrine, like soteriology, perhaps Romans or Ephesians would be a good pick. Maybe your congregation has been beat up spiritually, or they have just gone through a major upheaval or split. Which books would help bring healing and peace to their souls during this time? Along with their spiritual needs, you might consider the needs of the church body in practical matters. Are you seeing many families come in who could benefit on teaching about God’s plan for the family? Is your church financially wealthy and they need to see how God would have them use their wealth and spiritual gifts for the glory of God? Many times pastors think that to answer these practical types of questions they need to go to a topical sermon series to answer these needs, but a well chosen book can help while at the same time demonstrating the way that the Bible is to be read as the Word of God and not a “fix-it manual.”
  3. Where have I as a pastor avoided preaching because of my own weaknesses? Pastor, never forget that you are not just a shepherd, but a lamb, and you need to grow as well. Sometimes we pick what we know and are most comfortable in regard to books and subjects. Do you struggle with the discipline required to stick with preaching longer books—choose a longer book and preach it! Do you drag your church through minutiae in the text? Preach an overview of a book in a few short weeks. Do you struggle with your understanding of the Old Testament practices of Israel and how they relate to the Gospel? Preach through the book of Hebrews. Do you love long books? Preach through a few short books. Preach almost exclusively from the New Testament? Preach through an Old Testament book. If you only preach on subjects and from books from which you are comfortable, then you will not grow in your knowledge of the Word, but worse, you and your church will become anemic in the areas you fail to preach.
  4. Where do I see the church needing to go in the near future?Are you needing to develop deacons and elders in your church? Prepare their hearts to understand what the biblical requirements of these offices are by teaching them from the Pastoral Epistles. Are you seeing that your church has lost its heart for evangelism? Think about why that is, and then prepare to take them through a book like Acts, or the Gospels. I think it is always a good time to point out to the Church what it is like to live in a society that is hostile toward God, his Word and his people. This will prepare them to trust in God when times are bleak and will help them endure during persecution. The books of Daniel, Acts and Revelation are great for this purpose.

While it is true that the Spirit of God will use whichever book we choose to preach from, we should be more methodical and thoughtful as we prepare for preaching through a new book. This means we should begin with prayer, think thoughtfully about questions like those I pose above, and then use wisdom, depend upon the Lord that he will bless the preaching of his Word to your Church.

When Reading Your Bible Through the Year is Wrong

/ Richard Bargas / 5 Comments

Like many Christians, I have tried to make it my practice to read the Bible on a daily basis and to read through the Bible in a year by following a reading plan. I have been blessed by this practice and would recommend that every Christian be in the Bible on a daily basis.

On this New Year’s Day, fresh reading plans will begin and new Bibles purchased will be read with great anticipation and joy. I applaud these things. What joy the Word of God brings to those who would spend time plumbing its depths! There is no better use of one’s time than reading and meditating upon Scripture.

But on this New Year day, I want to add balance to some things I have heard regarding Bible reading. We live under grace, not Law. Bible reading is important—as Jesus said, it is our daily bread for our weary souls (Matthew 4:4). But there is a hidden danger in making Bible reading into a work of the Law rather than a means of grace. Beyond the self-righteousness that can come from those who do read their “Bibles before breakfast,” and expect that all Christians should do the same or they are out of fellowship with God, there is also the danger of making the Bible another “to-do” to be checked off from our list of chores every day. Rushed reading without any thought to what the verses say or mean produces Bible illiterate people as much as not reading the Bible does.

It reminds me of a saying my wife and I had in our bedroom which read, “Always Kiss Me Goodnight.” Can you imagine waking up to your spouse and saying to yourself, “If I don’t kiss her, I can’t eat breakfast, so I better get it over with and give her a kiss.” Surely this falls short of true love and the intention of this sentiment. Reading your Bible before breakfast is good in placing your relationship with the Lord above our fleshly appetites, but this can also easily slide into legalism. And legalism is powerless over the flesh. Rules eventually fail where only the Spirit of God can bring about change.

The Word of God is written for our benefit. We might not always want to read it, but this is not so much a matter of obedience as it is a matter of the heart and how it has grown cold. If we begin with this realization, we can go before our heavenly Father in confession, asking him to warm our heart and to remind us of his love for us. We can be honest, knowing that he already knows our hearts have grown cold, and we can ask him to help us in our weakness to draw close to him.

Then, with a humble heart of faith, we can draw near, knowing that as we drink from the well of the Word, our Lord will begin to give us a thirst for him. We become like the father in the New Testament who wanted to believe that Christ could heal his son, but yet he knew how weak his faith was, so he cried out, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We might know we need to read our Bibles, but we need to be honest when we also realize that we don’t want to, and that this is a spiritual problem that we must confess to God for his help.

Today, many Christians will begin their new Bible reading strong and with the best of intentions…but in the flesh and not in dependence upon God. This year, try something new—read your Bible in dependence upon the Spirit. Not just to begin reading it, but to continue reading through to the end. The goal is not finishing the Bible, nor is it reading it every day without fail. The goal is growing close to your Savior and God. From that relationship will flow rivers of living water.  

“I believe in…” the Nicene Creed and Christmas

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The idea of ‘belief’ is tossed around a lot at Christmas time. In this spirit, I thought I’d throw out the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) as a starting point for what separates Christianity from other world religions and many cults of Christianity. Although not sufficient to address all issues of faith and doctrine, the Nicene Creed is beautiful for its high Christology. This Christmas morn, may our hearts be steeped in the richness of these truths. Merry Christmas!

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic* and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

*catholic refers to the universal church, not Roman Catholicism.

John Piper and the Question of the Rapture

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Today John Piper posted a short audio question and answer on the subject of the rapture of the church on his ministry website, Desiring God. I first learned about his post when it came across my Facebook stream this morning. The responses were mixed. Some said it didn’t matter, as long as we make it to heaven–that’s pan-eschatology; it’ll all pan out somehow. Then there are those who were quick to dismiss the idea of a rapture with no proof or substance. Then there were those who were genuinely wondering about this important subject.

The confusion, mockery and indifference toward this question is troubling. Although I disagree with John Piper’s answer to the question, I am glad he brought it up.

In his short 13-minute audio clip, Dr. Piper shares his understanding of what a few passages teach on the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ and whether the Bible teaches that the Church will be removed before the future period of judgment that the Bible describes will come upon the whole earth. You can listen to it here and follow along with the transcription given.

I have great respect for John Piper and Desiring God, and I especially appreciate how he is very gracious in his treatment of the people who hold views that are different than his own. In this, I see true Christian humility in him.

With that said, I would disagree with him on his assessment of the pretribulational rapture and I would like to offer a few specific comments about his answer.

Although this is somewhat a minor point in this issue, it is still one worth mentioning. The listener’s question and the answer that John Piper gives are couched in such a way that Piper begins with the assumption that the rapture is an additional coming of Christ. This begins to formulate the idea that those who believe and teach this doctrine of a pretribulational rapture are said to believe in effect three comings of Christ—his incarnation, his coming to rapture the Church and his final return in judgment. Although there may be some who would describe the rapture as a separate return of Christ, many, if not most of those who subscribe to a pretribulational rapture would describe the return of Christ as being a singular event occurring in two stages. They would point to the fact that at the rapture as described in 1Thess 4:16-17, Christ does not fully descend to the earth, but partially descend to the earth and then the Church ascends and meets Jesus in the clouds, from where they return to heaven together.

This distinction is important because by stating the issue in terms of a second and third return of Christ strikes those considering the issue as being out of tune with what most Christians are familiar with—the Second Coming of Christ. By couching it in terms of “two comings of Christ in the future,” the issue is already slanted toward the view that this idea of a pretribulational rapture is unbiblical.

Additionally, the listener “Nick” who posed the question that John Piper answers describes the question of the rapture as a “huge debate,” and Nick is correct in this. And although Dr. Piper is gracious in his explanation and response to Nick, his answer does not address the depth of this issue with any seriousness at all. I would not expect that John Piper would spend much time answering this question in the format that he has on Desiring God’s blog, knowing that many books have been written on this subject. Neither would I expect that the arguments that John Piper gives would wrestle with the complexities surrounding the timing of the rapture.

But what I would expect is that the question would not be answered in such a way that a reader would be given the impression that the answer is easily arrived at with a cursory look at a few passages. This is evidenced in the way that Piper sets up his argument. He pits his teenage self against someone he describes as a “very reputable Old Testament scholar—a really scholarly Old Testament scholar” with the question of the rapture. Young John Piper gives the scholarly scholar one shot—give me your best verse! I thank the Lord that this is not the way that doctrine is decided!

However, Dr. Piper does not explain his post-tribulational view of the rapture with one text. To do so, he uses 1 Peter 4:12, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-8 and 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 8. He adds to these 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Matthew 25:6 and Acts 28:15 to bolster his argument. The problem here is that just as Piper uses multiple texts to uphold and defend his view of the rapture being at the end of the tribulation, he does not allow for those who hold to a pre-tribulation rapture to do the same. Instead, he sets up a straw-man argument—the scholarly Old Testament scholar gets one single text to prove his view—his best text! And then Piper dismisses it with these words, “God’s promise to keep us from the hour of trial probably doesn’t mean that we are taken out of the world, but rather that God will keep us from the faith-destroying effects of the hour of trial. He will guard us. He will protect our faith.” (Emphasis mine)

Dr. Piper doesn’t defend his understanding of this text exegetically, but theologically. I agree with him that God guards and protects us and guides us through time of trial, in general. But Scripture also removed some of God’s people from trials as well—such as men like Enoch and Elijah, who also were taken from this world without dying. The existence of these men being translated from the earth without dying doesn’t prove the rapture is pretribulational, but neither does John Piper’s dismissal of Revelation 3:10 as “probably” not meaning what he already has said he doesn’t believe.

The answer to the rapture’s timing is not as simple as John Piper’s answer makes it seem. I need to say this because all too often I have seen more and more people mock and vilify those who hold to a pretribulational or premillennial viewpoint with absolutely no proof or substance. John Piper has not been this way in his responses, as is evidenced by his respectful comments about his father and his childhood church which both held to the pretribulational rapture view.

But Dr. Piper might do his readers a great service to point them to those who can fairly represent both his view as well as the views he does not believe and allow the truth of the text to stand. A good place for someone to read a stronger representation of the pretribulational rapture view would be Richard L. Mayhue’s “Why a Pretribulational Rapture?” in The Master’s Seminary Journal. For a more scholarly response to John Piper’s post-tribulational view and the objections he makes to a pretribulational rapture, see Paul Feinberg’s article here.

When all the texts are considered and the Bible is examined, I still believe that the pretribulational rapture view is the most biblical. I know many will not agree. What I would like to see is not division and mean-spirited name-calling, but rather a humble desire to study the Word for ourselves and to graciously contend for our convictions with others in a spirit of grace and love. One day, we will know more fully those things which are not so clear right now. Until then, may we seek truth in love.

Humble Submission to Christ the Lord

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“And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.”

Luke 1:38, ESV

This morning I read from the book of Jonah. I have been pondering the incarnation for the last several days and the wonder of Christ’s birth, and then I read Jonah. To put it lightly, Jonah had problems. Massive spiritual problems. I’ll come back to him in a bit.

All too often in Protestant churches, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has scorn heaped upon her because there are some who have taken this woman of God and have worshipped her. But that isn’t Mary’s fault! From my reading of the New Testament, Mary was a gracious and beautiful example of incredible faith that we should emulate–such as the passage I cite in Luke 1:38 above. Yes, Mary was a sinner, and she too needed a Savior. But look beyond this and see her humble submission as well.

I’ll let the scholars handle the age of Mary, but I think most agree that this woman was still very young. But her words, particularly in what has been called the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55), show a spiritually mature child of God. She is not a scholar, nor of the priestly line. She is a simple, humble woman from a back-woods town who is preparing to marry a humble carpenter. That is why her words should stop us in our tracks: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

She is saying through the angel to the Lord God, “I am yours. Do with me whatever you see is right. I am nothing, you are everything. Whatever you want, I will submit to you wholly.” O, how we need more people of God with this heart! But she isn’t alone in the Bible.

In the Old Testament, we find Abram willing to leave everything he has ever known–land, family, language, comfort, safety, the familiar, the safe. He leaves it all because he is following his God (Gen 12:1-4). Again, the spirit of Father Abraham is that the Lord is Sovereign. He commands, and we joyfully follow; even into the unknown darkness. Later, when he has received his son Isaac after many years of waiting, Abraham is asked to sacrifice this beloved gift (Gen 22:1-19). There is no argument, or pleading with God to reconsider what he is asking. Genesis 22:3 simply says that Abraham rose early in the morning and set out to obey his Master.

I saw this same commitment to humble submission when I recently re-read the book of Hosea. In Hosea 1:2-3 it says:

“When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” 

(Hosea 1:2–3, ESV)

We can understand the purpose of God in doing this because the Bible is clear about the reason for this request–to be a shockingly visible illustration of the way that Israel was toward the Lord God. But that didn’t make Hosea’s obedience and heartbreak any easier. The shame he endured as God’s man must have been unbearable at times as his unfaithful wife continued to bear children fathered by other men. Yet, Hosea continued to faithfully and humbly submit to all that the Lord asked of his servant.

That brings us back to Jonah.

Mary endured shame, scorn and great pain in order to bring the Savior into the world. Abram left everything and was willing to sacrifice his most beloved son. Hosea walked his entire life in the darkness of a broken relationship for the cause of illustrating the enduring love of God in the face of rebellious and idolatrous Israel.

And Jonah…he sulked and ran and was enraged because he wanted to be the master of his life. Jonah wouldn’t rejoice at the repentance of the lost. He wouldn’t rejoice at his salvation from the fish’s belly and a new opportunity to be used by God. He wouldn’t even enjoy life, but would rather be struck dead because he was such an angry little man.

John Paton

I recently read the biography of the great missionary to the Pacific, John Paton. In Paton’s day, the church had taken on the attitude of Jonah. They loved their comfort and ease. They didn’t like it when men and women of God wanted to take the gospel to the world because they didn’t want their comfort to be unsettled. Some were bribed with money to stay. Some were belittled and treated with contempt–being told that God would’t use them because they were ungifted. Some said that the primitive people would never be able to appreciate the fine education they had earned, so why waste it? Others were so fearful of the dangers of cannibalism and disease that they forbid anyone from going to these people. Serve Jesus in England, where it is safe. You can serve Jesus here. WE need him too!

But Paton, and a few others accepted the call and braved the hardship and ridicule heaped on them back home and face the dangers in the Pacific. They humbly submitted their lives to the Sovereign they loved more than life itself. Most died, but the Lord raised up many more servants until the Pacific was won for Christ.

But the Jonah spirit is alive and well in many hearts and churches today. I take comfort in the fact that there are also still in Christ’s church Mary’s and Abraham’s and Hosea’s among us. Those who will submit to the Lord their God with joy and humility. If that is you, don’t allow the Jonah spirit in the church to dissuade you. See the joy in the hardship. Know that the Lord is greater than any hardship you may endure. As Luther wrote,”Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever!” 

And if you see too much of Jonah in your own heart, then Jonah’s message to Ninevah is God’s message to you too. Repent. This life isn’t for you. It isn’t about you. It’s about Jesus. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God, and he will lift you up (1Pet 5:6).