Things to Ponder

These are some great posts/articles that were passed my way today:

•  Andy Naselli on D.A. Carson's "Jesus' Sermon on the Mount" "I suspect that there is no pride more deadly than that which finds its roots in great learning, great external piety, or a showy defense of orthodoxy."'

• The Modesty of Personal Restraint by Lydia Brownback "Are you as modest with your heart as you are with your clothing?" NEXT Conference on Twitter

• Losing our Virtue by David Wells "Worldliness is that part of culture "which makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange."  (WOW!) MonergismBooks on Twitter

• Too Mature for Community by Jonathan Dodson "Consider how to make the gospel central, and community will follow" the Resurgence on Twitter

HT: Heather Humphrey & Cameron Morgan

Comments

[Rick]

Will pray for you. Colossians came to mind as a good book for prayer. As we season our tongues and our lives by God's inscribed Word, we learn how we use our tongues and the fruits of our lips for our own glory, and we learn how God has shown His own glory and grace in Jesus, the Word born from above and the Word born in flesh, and the substitutionary Word for our lives. Jesus speaks for us at the cross. Where our words fail, Jesus' words succeed.

And as we learn to bridle our tongues, cutting off words of self-glory and self-righteousness, by the testimony of the cross of Jesus in God's inscribed Word, we learn to substitute our false language for God's gracious language in the Gospel, and we shape our lives by this new language in new grace-rooted relationship with the Lord. And we gather into the body life of the church of Christ to speak to fellow Christians by seasoned tongues of grace, and we learn to admonish each other by psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and we sing by the foundation of Christ to the glory of the Lord.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

. . . Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." (Col. 3:16; 4:5-6)

As we look to Christ's righteousness and substitutionary language, His language for our language, at the cross in God's inscribed Word, we kill our false language by faith and repentance, and we substitute our false language for new language of singing with new joy and self-effacing humor and happy fellowship among each other and to the glory of God our Father. Christ's righteousness must live, and our righteousness must die, by our killing of our false words, and by our singing of new words out of the Gospel to God.

This is how we apply the Gospel to all walks of life, whether in blogging or in Sunday worship service, or, in your case, preparing a music album. We sing by the substitutionary grace of Christ crucified to God our righteous Father. And this is how we present the Gospel as real grace and counterculture to our lost and self-praising and self-righteous peers.