by Bret Capranica | Jul 15, 2015 | Christian Living, General Theology, The Gospel
Each Wednesday evening through the summer months, a group of adults are reading through and discussing the implications of John Piper’s book, Desiring God. If you have opportunity, come join us each Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. at Summit Woods Baptist Church. Here are a few highlights from chapter two. God’s pursuit of praise from us and our pursuit of pleasure in Him are one and the same pursuit. God’s quest to be glorified and our quest to be satisfied reach their goal in this one experience: our delight in God, which overflows in praise. …no one is a Christian who does not embrace Jesus gladly as his most valued treasure, and then pursue the fullness of that joy in Christ that honors Him. The best explanation of Romans 3:23 is Romans 1:23. It says that those who did not glorify or thank God became fools “and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.” This is the way we “fall short” of the glory of God: We exchange it for something of lesser value. All sin comes from not putting supreme value on the glory of God—this is the very essence of sin. The wickedness of sin is owing to the implicit disdain for God. Quoting Jonathan Edwards: Our obligation to love, honor, and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority.… But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty.… So sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment.… The eternity of the punishment of...
by Bret Capranica | Jul 8, 2015 | General Theology, Reading, The Gospel
The following are a number of significant quotes from John Piper’s seminal book, Desiring God. All of these are from chapter one; the chapter our church is discussing during our Mid-Week Fellowship tonight. I put a few of my thoughts in brackets and italics. Sorry, no page numbers – I’m using my kindle app. The ultimate ground of Christian Hedonism is the fact that God is uppermost in His own affections: The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy Himself forever. …we are more accustomed to think about our duty than God’s design. And when we do ask about God’s design, we are too prone to describe it with ourselves at the center of God’s affections. [I would say that we are more accustomed to think about our duty to the exclusion of God’s design; merely thinking on God’s design won’t do the trick either]. God’s saving designs are penultimate, not ultimate….The bedrock foundation of Christian Hedonism is not God’s allegiance to us, but to Himself. [Not to say that God’s saving designs are less important in the grand scheme. But his saving purposes have an end beyond themselves, namely, bringing God glory – and those saving purposes are essential to that end.] “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). The implication of this text is that God has the right and power to do whatever makes Him happy. That is what it means to say that God is sovereign….if none of His purposes can be frustrated, then He must be the happiest of all beings. The hardened disobedience of...
by Bret Capranica | Apr 15, 2014 | Evangelism, Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, The Gospel
I had the joy of attending last week’s Together for the Gospel conference. I could (and no doubt at some point should) list a series of personal blessings from the conference, but in this post, I want to merely encourage you to engage in some of the content for yourself. Below are a few of the moments of the week I found deeply encouraging. The Testimonies This is one of several. You should watch them all. Two Marriages from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo. The Messages While all of the messages were excellent and encouraged and convicted me in unique ways, here are those I found most impactful: Never Spoke a Man Like This Before: Inerrancy, Evangelism and Christ’s Unbreakable Bible, Kevin DeYoung The Gospel by Numbers, Ligon Duncan Mass Defection: The Great Physician Confronts the Pathology of Counterfeit Faith, John MacArthur Persuading, Pleading and Predestination: Human Means in the Miracle of Conversion, John...
by Bret Capranica | Apr 2, 2014 | Christian Living, General Theology, The Gospel
Here are a few more quotes from Tom Schreiner’s book, The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance. I really recommend this book as a helpful tool in understanding the purpose and use of the warnings of the New Testament and how they related to perseverance and eternal security. The Christian life is like a race, and we run to win a prize. Winning this race is the most important matter in our lives. If we lose this race, everything else we achieve in life is meaningless. 46 Two truths stand out in Paul’s assessment of his life. First, he was confident that he had lived in a way that pleased God….Second, the reason for Paul’s assurance was his perseverance in running the race. He had not quit halfway into the race; he had not abandoned the faith. 47 Both the present and future dimensions of salvation should be viewed as two aspects of an indivisible whole….Salvation is not merely a past reality; it is also our future destiny. 47 We are already saved, yet our salvation has not yet been completed or consummated. We must uphold the tension in the New Testament between the already and not yet when we think of salvation in the New Testament. Believers today are prone to oversimplify the biblical teaching and to think of salvation simply in terms of the present. When this happens, a crucial element of biblical teaching is surrendered… 52 If we wish to represent the New Testament correctly, we cannot say that eternal life is exclusively a present or a future...
by Bret Capranica | Nov 26, 2012 | Bookreviews, The Gospel, Video
Wasted Faith Click HERE for ways you can use this...
by Bret Capranica | May 15, 2012 | Christian Living, Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, The Gospel
How can we apply the gospel daily? What is the Gospel? Before practically answering that question, let’s quickly remind ourselves of what the gospel actually is. God The God who created all things is the standard of all that is right and wrong, and his standard is perfection – his standard is the reflection of his own character (Genesis 1:1; 1 John 1:5; Matthew 5:48; Isaiah 6:1-7). Mankind Mankind has violated that standard and continues to rebel against their creator and reject his standard, setting up for ourselves a new standard that tends to reflect the transitory whims of our own marred character. Man’s nature is one that rebels against God, does not seek God, does not desire God, thinks more highly of himself than of his creator, and is under the control of a humanness that follows the call of a God-hating system ruled by a demonically inspired leader, the devil himself. Thus, a perfect God who lovingly created all things for man to enjoy has been offended by the very crown of his creation in that they would rather serve themselves in a way that exalts sin and Satan more than God and his glory (Romans 3:10-18; Ephesians 2:1-3). Christ But the love of God and his wisdom have not only matched, but have overcome the depths of man’s depraved nature and choices. God has demonstrated the depths of his love in that he designed a way that would satisfy His perfect standard (the expression of His own character), accomplish justice for the injustice man has done against his holy standard, and apply the only sort of...
