Stupid Reactions of an Idolatrous Heart - #5,683

I hear a great sermon by a great preacher who is used of God to show me the glories of Christ (and my need for Christ). I am confronted and deeply affected. Then I say to myself, "I need to get a lot more of this preacher . . ." and I prepare to start downloading all of his sermons I can find.

Do you see the problem here?

I don't need more of this preacher! I need more of Christ! But I am too easily distracted from Him, and too quick to depend on the arm of flesh . . .

HE is the point! HE is the ONE! HE is God incarnate and the one who became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God IN HIM. HE is the one who accomplished all that must be done for us to be saved. HE is the one who shed His blood, HE is the one who was raised from the dead for us, HE is the one who intercedes effectually, HE is the one who stands at the right hand of God, HE is the one who will return in a magnificence and splendor that will overthrow every evil in this world . . . not some preacher!

The preacher is not Christ. No man will ever be Christ for me but Christ Himself. The best I can do is become like Him by being with Him, and then lead others to Him by living for Him and abiding in Him and being changed by Him so that I am conformed to Him.

Christ is all, and is over all, and in all, and through all. Let a preacher, a disciple-maker or a friend play his limited part. But let Christ alone be magnified as a result.

Goal of Preaching

Not trying to coerce people into good behavior,
but calling them to the good Savior.

The Legitimacy of Paradox as a Theological Model - Part 12

Pastor Richard Ostella of Westminster Reformed Church in Plymouth, Michigan has graciously granted permission to re-publish his March 2009 ETS paper on theological paradox here at THEOparadox. To understand these thoughts in context, please begin with part 1.

3A. Implications

 Working from the nature of the paradoxicality model, we can draw some implications for biblical study by scholars, pastors, and church members alike.35

 1) The paradox model advances clarity in biblical study 

 Acquaintance with paradoxicality, teaching it, and grasping the model is helpful in handling difficult teachings. It is an organizing principle by which to identify threads of truth for clarity in the midst of complexity.36

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Pastor Ostella's Footnotes

35 There is much that is practical here for the church. Consider the illustration of a rope over a pulley hanging in front of someone stuck half way down a deep well. The person sees two ropes and cannot see that they connect or how they connect to form a single rope. To use the “ropes” to save his life, he must grab both at the same time. If he grabs one to the exclusion of the other, he will plummet to the bottom of the well. To receive the bread of life from Scriptural paradoxes for our benefit, we must believe and live by both threads/ropes of truth, even if our logic tells us that using one to the exclusion of the other is easier.  

36 As theologians, pastors, and church members encounter threads of truth that seem to exist in intractable tension (such as: the full humanity and full deity of Christ, Scripture is the word of man and the word of God, and so forth) having a handle for these theological boiling pots on the stove gives perspective and keeps us from getting burned by confusion. Serving clarity, the paradox model goes hand in hand with the perspicuity of Scripture. Thus, even the most profound teachings of Scripture are bread of life for the church. Both theological formulation and pastoral proclamation can make profitable use of this model.  

PART 13 - Click Here

The First and Last Entries

Below is an excerpt from the first entry in Jim Elliot's Journal, followed by the final entry, which was written about one week before his martyrdom by the Auca Indians in South America:

January 17, 1948

What is written in these pages I suppose will someday be read by others than myself. For this reason I cannot hope to be absolutely honest in what is herein recorded, for the hypocrisy of this shamming heart will ever be putting on a front and dares not to have written what is actually found in its abysmal depths. Yet, I pray, Lord, that You will make these notations to be as nearly true to fact as is possible so that I may know my own heart and be able to definitely pray regarding my gross, though often unviewed, inconsistencies. . . .

Help me, Lord, not to "mourn and weep" only for those things, once precious, which You teach me are but dead (whether desires, pleasures, or whatever may be precious to my soul now), but give me a willingness to put them away out of my sight (Gen. 23:4). Burying places are costly, but I would own a Machpelah where corpses (dead things in my life) can be put away.

December 31, 1955

A month of temptation. Satan and the flesh have been on me hard. How God holds my soul in His life and permits one with such wretchedness to continue in His service I cannot tell. Oh, it has been hard . . . I have been very low inside me struggling and casting myself hourly on Christ for help. Marriage is divorce from the privacy a man loves, but there is some privacy nothing can share. It is the knowledge of a sinful heart.

These are the days of the New Year's Believers' conference on the Sermon on the Mount. Yesterday I preached and was helped on "whoever looks upon a woman . . ."!

"Let spirit conquer though flesh conspire."

Out of such humility came fierce preaching and a willingness to die for the cause of Christ.

Below are the three parts of a sermon preached by Elliot in 1951.

The Resurrection - Jim Elliot (Part 1)



The Resurrection - Jim Elliot (Part 2)



The Resurrection - Jim Elliot (Part 3)


Certainly a passionate, Scripture-saturated preacher! Some thought-provoking things here. And some real challenges, too.