Each entry was assigned a random number and the drawing was done using a random number generator.  There was a separate drawing for each book.  Here are the winners of the 2mites.com Easter Giveaway:

1.  Trevor Maitland – Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl, by N.D. Wilson

2.  Darlene Taylor – The Meaning of the Pentateuch, by John Sailhamer

3.  Matthew Lanser – John Calvin: A Heart For Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology, edited by Burk Parsons

4.  Michael Littell – Finally Alive, by John Piper

Congratulations!  You should receive your book within 2 weeks.  Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest, and keep your eyes open for more chances to win.

Last day to enter the 2mites.com Easter Giveaway. 4 winners, 4 excellent books, no cost to enter.  Click here to learn how to enter (takes 2 minutes).  Tomorrow is the drawing!

Here is the link to his letter to the church

Here is the video of him sharing with the church about his leave:

I thank God for him.  Yes, as an apprentice/student in his seminary I am going to greatly miss his instruction and leadership over the coming 8 months.  However, he is teaching me something through his actions that can’t be absorbed in a lecture, and this is exactly the reason I have come to sit under him for pastoral training.

All too often a pastor is resistant when his elder team begs him to step down for a season to examine his own heart and relationships.  It is a genuine grace from God when a pastor is perceptive to his own sin and honest enough to take initiative in stepping down from public ministry for a season.

I love to listen to good live music.  The energy of a tight band and a poetic singer who becomes a part of their music.  It is a beautiful experience.  There is something in the air that elicits a response from me, especially if there is a groove.  My heart rises up into my throat and sinks into my belly at the same time, my knees bend, my body sways, my head nods, and my feet fight my inhibitions and often get the best of me.  When I go away from a great musical experience I talk about it with my friends and family, all the while knowing I can’t capture the magic of those moments in words.  I remember great musical moments with fondness and desire.  This is a good and proper way to respond to good music.  Yet, we are not to respond merely in this way to the proclaimed word of God.

your people who talk together about you by the walls at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.’  And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it… And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. (Ezekiel 33:30-32)

Saying “amen!” out loud or in our hearts, will not do.  Feeling the amen deep within our beings will not do.  Thinking about a sermon and allowing it to lift our spirits, and looking forward to more times of sermonic bliss with desire, simply will not do.  It is not God’s desire that the preaching of his word merely elicits a response of momentary emotion.  Rather, God desires that preaching elicits a doing that flows from true faith.  The amens, the feelings, and the lifting of our spirits is not bad.  No, quite the contrary.  Yet if our disposition does not change, our faith does not increase and our lives are unaffected, then our experience was another exercise in hypocrisy which is only useful for quenching genuine affection for God and inoculating us to the preaching of his word.

The 2mites.com Easter Giveaway is less than 1 week away, click here to enter!

Propositions are important, but they depend on the stories out of which they arise for their power, meaning, and application.  Imagine having all the propositions of faith but none of the stories.  They would be true, but we wouldn’t know what to do with them.

Propositions are shorthand for story.  They stand in for stories that we don’t have the time to tell.  And the Bible doesn’t ask us to choose between proposition and story.  They are both there, and they need each other.

Propositions serve as a check on story, clarifying how they ought to be interpreted, and stories serve as a check on propositions, keeping them from being shallow, inert, or legalistic.  So we need them both.  But take warning: never let your propositions get far from the stories out which they came.

- Dan Taylor, “The Life-Shaping Power of Story”

A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate.  When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story.  The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experience meaning, the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.

- Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (p. 96)

(HT: Joe Rigney)

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Denny Burk writes an excellent review of a new book, In the Land of Believers: An Outsider’s Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church.  This book is the autobiographical account of Gina Welch, a secular writer who studies Evangelicalism by infiltrating Jerry Falwell’s church through faking a conversion experience.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

I was reading through the first few verses of Titus in Greek today when I noticed this.

Titus 1:2-3a

…ἐλπίδι ζωης  αἰωνίου ἣν ἐπηγγείλατο ὁ ἀψευδὴς  θεὸς πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων ἐφανέρωσεν δὲ καιροις ἰδίοις τὸν λόγον αὐτου ἐν κηρύγματι ὃ ἐπιστεύθην ἐγὼ κατ’ ἐπιταγὴν του σωτηρος ἡμων θεου…

My Translation

…hope of eternal life, which the lie-less God promised from eternity past, but in his own time unveiled in his word in preaching, which I have been entrusted according to the command of our savior, God;

ESV

…hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;

God brings the revelation of the hope of eternal life through Christ, through the preaching of his word.  It is important to note how the ESV makes an interpretive decision when it says “in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted…”  In the Greek there is no article before κηρύγματι (preaching), and so this could (and I believe should) be translated “in his word through preaching, which I have been entrusted.”

The difference between these two translations seems small.  One translation includes the definite article, the, and the other translation does not.  Do you see the significance in such a small, seemingly insignificant, translation decision?  By inserting the definite article, this passage only refers to the revelatory nature of Paul’s preaching of the word of God.  If we translate it, more naturally, without the definite article, this passage refers to the revelatory nature of preaching the word of God, to which Paul was particularly entrusted.  I think the reason why the ESV and many modern translations utilize the definite article is so that they can emphasize that the relative clause is clarifying its antecedent.  It is important make note of this, because it is true that a relative clause “describes, clarifies, or restricts the meaning of the noun” (Wallace, 336).  So, if we choose not to utilize the definite article because of the way it restricts preaching to the preaching of Paul alone, in our exposition we must take care to emphasize that it is the kind of preaching that Paul preached which is being referred to.

While the ESV is my favorite overall translation I prefer the KJV rendering of this passage, which leaves the definite article out:

…eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior;

The 2mites.com Easter Giveaway is less than 2 weeks away, so be sure to enter!

My wife had exploratory surgery on Friday morning to determine whether or not she has endometriosis.  The symptom: a considerable amount of consistent pain.  When she woke up from the anesthesia after surgery, she heard the diagnosis, or lack thereof.  No endometriosis, and a clean bill of health.  Reason to rejoice?  Absolutely.  Yet, in another way it is also discouraging.  What about the pain?  How is this undiagnosable pain supposed to be cured or coped with?  No diagnosis can, in many cases, be more discouraging than a diagnosis of a disease that can be treated.

So it is with the person who doesn’t “hear” the diagnosis of the source of all real pain in this life.  Those who refuse to acknowledge their sin will be continually frustrated with life, wondering why life is so difficult.  Why is life hard, frustrating, and sometimes ugly?  Because of my sin and your sin, which has created a world of chaos and hurt, and ultimately leads to death.  The good news is, there is a cure to this sin and death, and his name is Jesus.  For those who are made children of God through Jesus Christ (the one who cancels our sin), sin loses its power and death loses its sting.  “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good [read: even sin, here], for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)  While sin is always damaging, ultimately God will use what was meant for evil, for the good of those who love him, and for the glory of God.  Don’t get me wrong, sin is our enemy, but God has defeated it in such a way that it is powerless to be of any ultimate damage to God’s children.  Moreover, sin is even utilized in the plans of God to bring about good for the children of God.  (Just think about the crucifixion of Christ.  It was obviously sin for the Jews and Romans to nail Jesus to the cross, but it was Jesus’ work on the cross that culminated in our redemption.  God certainly used this sin for our good!)

However, if we never really “hear” the diagnosis of our disease (sin), then we can’t ever receive the cure (Jesus), and the power of sin will rule us, leading us into more and more misery and ultimately destruction.  The diagnosis brings hope for a cure.  Be quick to see your sin, to admit your sin, to believe others when they see sin in your life, and with all eagerness apply the cure.  Believe the gospel.

And as far as my wife is concerned.  Pray for her, and for us, that we won’t be discouraged, and that she would have strength to endure.  Pray that I would take care of her and joyfully serve her, especially when she is in pain.  Pray that this trial will make the real diagnosis of our deepest disease all the more precious to us (in light of the cure).  Praise God that we can look with eager anticipation towards the day when our bodies will be restored in the presence of our King.

For more on this topic, download the book History’s Most Spectacular Sin by John Piper for free right here.

The 2mites.com Easter Giveaway is less than 2 weeks away, so be sure to enter!

Here is the trailer for one of tilt-a-whirl (which is a book I am giving away in the Easter Giveaway).

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl trailer from Gorilla Poet Productions on Vimeo.