Avoid Burnout

I found a helpful link today at the following blog: http://betweenthetimes.com/index.php/2012/04/26/avoiding-burnout-part-2. It is for a "time budget." It may sound a bit awkward, but in this day and age of burnout, we perhaps need to think in these terms. Now, if I just had the time to fill the darn thing out...

Here is the link for the document: http://www.jdgreear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Burnout-Time-Budget-copy.pdf

The Tyranny of Multitasking

I thought I could do it. I thought I could make it work. But I was wrong- it wasn't working. In fact, I now believe it can't work.
You see, I had fallen into the trap of thinking I could multitask.
Many of us live under the tyranny of productivity. We fear being still and silent. Rest we see as a great enemy, something to be slain savagely through endless toil and, of course, multitasking. It is not enough to constantly be doing- we must be doing multiple things simultaneously. The problem is we can't do it. At least not efficiently. If nothing else I must admit that as soon as I add another task on top of the one I'm already doing, I have to some degree cut my level of focus on the first task. As soon as that happens, productivity wanes. And therein is the irony: that which was to increase productivity - multitasking - actually decreases it. In some cases this is fine and acceptable. But in those things that truly matter, we owe it the task to be as focused as possible.
So, let me encourage you (and myself): be liberated from the tyranny of multitasking. Your productivity depends on it.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Seminary

Well, after a bit of a hiatus due to work-related demands on my time, here is at least something for the ol' blog. It deals with David Murray's thoughts regarding the advantages/disadvantages of seminary. I particularly appreciate his final thought under "Disadvantages." Read the whole thing at: http://www.challies.com/writings/podcast/thinking-about-seminary#more.

Benefits for students

Some of the benefits of a Seminary education are:

• Well-trained teachers whose primary task is preparing men for Gospel ministry
• Emphasis on original language training equips for a long ministry of fruitful and varied expository ministry
• Forces you to study subjects you would not choose to but which you need to
• Discipline of daily lectures/assignments/tests is good training for ministry routine and responsibilities
• Access to well-stocked library
• Fellowship and lifelong friendship with students from other cultures and nations (this is a huge plus).

Disadvantages

However, I know all too well that there are disadvantages, and I highlight them here, not as deal-breakers but as areas that require extra thought and care if we are to avoid Seminaries becoming a hindrance rather than a help:

• Uprooting of family to live as “pilgrims and strangers” for a few years
• Cost - is it right to leave Seminary with $20,000+ of debt?
• Emphasis on PhD qualification attracts academic and scholarly staff, who are often lacking pastoral ministry experience in a local church
• Students may become attracted to the academic life and lose the burden of ministry and mission
• Pressure of academic success may quash spiritual life and even push out responsibilities to minister to your family, neighbors, etc.
• Unless you choose your Seminary wisely you will expose yourself to unchallenged liberal theology and practice that may ultimately undermine your faith and your confidence in Scripture.
• Living in an “unreal” world for a few years might disconnect you from everyday reality for most people (TIP: try to work, for a few years at least, in the “real” world before coming to Seminary)
• Too much focus on the intellectual at the expense of the practical
• Seminary becomes the master rather than the servant of the Church

Are the Original Languages Important?

Here are four reasons given for the necessity of certain persons knowing the original languages of the Bible (i.e. Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). They are taken from an article found in the latest issue of Themelios (the whole article is accessible at http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the_profit_of_employing_the_biblical_languages_scriptural_and_historic).

1. Using the biblical languages exalts Jesus by affirming God's wisdom in giving us his Word in a book (God's Word as foundation).
2. Using the biblical languages gives us greater certainty that we have grasped the meaning of God's Book (studying God's Word).
3. Using the biblical languages can assist in developing Christian maturity that validates our witness in the world (practicing God's Word).
4. Using the biblical languages enables a fresh and bold expression and defense of the truth in preaching and teaching (teaching God's Word).

Knowing God

Jeremiah 31:33-34       “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Let us never feel it a cliché to say that God offers us a “personal relationship” with him. As the verses cited above make clear, this “personal relationship” just happens to be the central aspect of our salvation- the diamond in the crown of our redemption. Let us rather marvel that so holy and transcendent a God would condescend so lovingly to bring such sinners as us into his fellowship. Let us each day- indeed, each moment of each day- cultivate our relationship with the Creator, blessing the blood of Christ by which our reconciliation with the Father was obtained. And let us, having drawn near to God ourselves, do all we can to draw others to him as well, that their joy and ours might be full.

The Elements of Effective Preaching

I have been, as I mentioned a ways back, loving listening to Bryan Chapell's lectures on preaching. They are chock-full of helpful wisdom.

Today, I listened to his lecture entitled "Word and Witness." In it, he mentioned that three elements have, since ancient times, been considered essential to persuasive speaking, including preaching. These three are: logos, pathos, and ethos (all from Greek words).

Logos, Chapell explains, has to do with the verbal content of the message. This involves not only the words spoken, but the logic and the organization of what is said. For preachers, this boils down to bringing the Word of God to others in clear and accurate ways. This is an essential element of preaching.

Pathos, by contrast, refers to the "emotive" content of the message. Here is where passion comes in to the message. Nobody is gripped by the message of a monotone preacher. It ought to come through loud and clear that we actually believe what we are saying! Logic alone is not usually enough, passion too is an essential aspect to effective preaching.

Finally, Chapell considers ethos the most important element of all. Ethos is our "perceived character." Do people sense we care about them? Are we viewed as men of compassion and integrity, worth listening to? Of course, there is always the danger of being misunderstood. This happened to the apostle Paul frequently. But insofar as we have the capability by the grace of God to be preachers marked by loving concern for the people of God and for the lost, we ought to pursue such a path.

Now, to be clear, Chapell's theology is sound: he knows the man is but an instrument in the hands of God, incapable of effecting even the slightest change in the hearts of men and women. Still, though, I believe Chapell is right: the ordinary way in which God works is through preachers whose logos, pathos, and ethos are, by the grace of God, in order in His sight.

Spurgeon and the Old, Old Story

From the Spurgeon sermon titled, "The Old, Old Story":

"There is a mysterious softening and melting power in the story of the sacrifice of Christ. I know a dear Christian woman who loved her little ones and sought their salvation. When she prayed for them, she thought it right to use the best means she could to arrest their attention and awaken their minds. I hope you all do likewise. The means, however, which she thought best calculated for her object was the terrors of the Lord. She used to read to her children chapter after chapter of Alleine's Alarm to the Unconverted. Oh, that book! how many dreams it gave her boy at night about the devouring flames and the everlasting burnings. But the boy's heart grew hardened, as if it were annealed rather than melted by the furnace of fear. The hammer welded the heart to sin, but did not break it. But even then, when the lad's heart was hard, when he heard of Jesus's love to his people, though he feared he was not one of them, still it used to make him weep to think Jesus should love anybody after such a sort. Even now that he has come to manhood, law and terrors make him dead and stolid, but thy blood, Jesus, thine agonies, in Gethsemane and on the tree, he cannot bear; they melt him; his soul flows through his eyes in tears; he weeps himself away from grateful love to thee for what thou hast done. Alas for those that deny the atonement! They take the very sting out of Christ's sufferings; and then, in taking out the sting, they take out the point with which sufferings of Christ pierce, and probe, and penetrate the heart. It is because Christ suffered for my sin, because he was condemned that I might to acquitted and not be damned as the result of my guilt: it is this that makes his sufferings such a cordial to my heart.

"See on the bloody tree,
The Illustrious sufferer hangs,
The torments due to thee,
He bore the dreadful pangs;
And cancelled there, the might sum,
Sins present, past, and sins to come."