Tag: Gospel

Special Sale on “The Gospel Story Bible”

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

Westminster Bookstore is offering 65% off on an exciting new title from New Growth Press: The Gospel Story Bible: Finding Jesus in the Old and New Testament by Marty Machowski. This could be the perfect Christmas gift for families with young children. And it’s only $9.99 now through Wednesday.

You can preview the entire book for free here. Included below are some of the many endorsements for this new book.

“For over five years Marty Machowski’s products have been a mainstay in our children’s ministry, which serves approximately 600 kids per week. We have seen great spiritual fruit from its use in a wide variety of age groups (preschool to fifth grade) and class sizes (10 kids to 200). We love how every product points children back to the most important message of the Bible — God’s plan of salvation through the atoning life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” – Joshua Harris, Senior Pastor, Covenant Life Church author of Dug Down Deep

“Marty Machowski gets the gospel and knows how to transfer it to kids in a way that delights the soul and engages the mind. The Gospel Story Bible is a treasure for parents of young children. But it’s not just for children, Marty traces the gospel through the Bible with crystal clarity and traction for all ages. Few pastors I know are this skilled in making the glories of Scripture so accessible in narrative form. It’s a must buy.” – Dave Harvey, Sovereign Grace Ministries; author of When Sinners Say “I Do” and Rescuing Ambition

“More good news for parents (and grandparents)! Marty Machowski has once again delivered an excellent resource to help us lead children spiritually. The Gospel Story Bible explains the storyline of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation in 156 chapters, with vivid illustrations and thoughtful discussion questions for each reading. I fully anticipate that as you read this to your children (or grandchildren), you will be amazed together at the grace of God revealed in Scripture.” – C.J. Mahaney, President, Sovereign Grace Ministries; author of The Cross Centered Life

“If you want your children to grow up loving the Bible, then introduce them to The Gospel Story Bible. Here you have a simple, readable, understandable, and engaging account of 156 of the most powerful stories in the Bible. Every story is of manageable size, and even the most energetic child will be able to remain attentive for an entire story. In fact, you may be pleasantly surprised that your children will want to hear more than one story. The most important feature of the book is that Pastor Machowski sees the gospel in every story! Listen to how his book opens: ‘God’s gospel story starts at the very beginning’! I assure you that it doesn’t end there. The gospel permeates every chapter of this book. I highly recommend it.” – Nancy E. Ganz, Author of Herein is Love: A Commentary Series for Children on Genesis – Numbers

“I could speak at length about how much I recommend Marty Machowski’s books to churches – and indeed I do, along with books from a long list of other authors. But Marty’s resources for families and children also appear on a far shorter list that places them in a more significant category for me: they are books that I actually use in my home. Again Marty has provided us with a God-centered, Scripture-grounded, gospel-driven resource that orients the minds of children toward the wondrous works of God.” – Timothy Paul Jones, Associate Professor of Family Ministry, Southern Seminary; editor of The Journal of Family Ministry.

~cross-posted from my team book blog, CrossFocusedReviews.com

The Gospel Grid: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

~ Bob Hayton

Last night we just started going through The Gospel-Centered Life by Bob Thune and Will Walker (New Growth Press & World Harvest Mission, 2011) in the college-aged small group at our church. I was struck once again at the beautiful way this curriculum describes living the Gospel-Centered Life.

I’m going to provide an excerpt here from the first lesson (the entire first lesson is available as a sample .pdf), along with the graphic you see to the right. How are we doing on making the Gospel grow in significance to us? I find these thoughts both liberating and challenging.

Many Christians live with a truncated view of the gospel. We see the gospel as the “door,” the way in, the entrance point into God’s kingdom. But the gospel is so much more! It is not just the door, but the path we are to walk every day of the Christian life. It is not just the means of our salvation, but the means of our transformation. It is not simply deliverance from sin’s penalty, but release from sin’s power. The gospel is what makes us right with God (justification) and it is also what frees us to delight in God (sanctification). The gospel changes everything!

The following model [see image above] has been helpful to many people in thinking about the gospel and its implications. This diagram does not say everything that could be said about the gospel, but it does serve as a helpful visual illustration of how the gospel works.

The starting point of the Christian life (conversion) comes when I first become aware of the gap between God’s holiness and my sinfulness. When I am converted, I trust and hope in Jesus, who has done what I could never do: He has bridged the gap between my sinfulness and God’s holiness. He has taken God’s holy wrath toward my sin upon himself.

At the point of conversion, however, I have a very limited view of God’s holiness and of my sin. The more I grow in my Christian life, the more I grow in my awareness of God’s holiness and of my flesh and sinfulness. As I read the Bible, experience the Holy Spirit’s conviction, and live in community with other people, the extent of God’s greatness and the extent of my sin become increasingly clear and vivid. It is not that God is becoming more holy or that I am becoming more sinful. But my awareness of both is growing. I am increasingly seeing God as He actually is (Isa. 55:8–9) and myself as I actually am (Jer. 17:9–10).

As my understanding of my sin and of God’s holiness grows, something else also grows: my appreciation and love for Jesus. His mediation, His sacrifice, His righteousness, and His gracious work on my behalf become increasingly sweet and powerful to me. The cross looms larger and more central in my life as I rejoice in the Savior who died upon it.

–Excerpted from the sample copy of Lesson One from The Gospel Centered Life.

Learn more about The Gospel Centered Life at World Harvest Mission’s product detail page. You can purchase a the curriculum at the links below.

Leader’s Guide: Westminster Bookstore, ChristianBook.com, Amazon.com, or direct from World Harvest Mission or New Growth Press.

Participant’s Guide: Westminster Bookstore, ChristianBook.com, Amazon.com, or direct from World Harvest Mission or New Growth Press.

Kevin Bauder’s Eight Characteristics of Hyper-Fundamentalism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 72 Comments

A new book forthcoming from Zondervan includes a chapter from Dr. Kevin Bauder of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis. I won’t talk about the book other than to mention its title, and that it is worth getting! The book is Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, edited by Collin Hansen and Andrew Naselli.

I’m still only about half-way through a galley copy of this book, but my eyes lit up when I came across Bauder’s characteristics of hyper-fundamentalism. I think he has captured lightning in a bottle with this list of descriptors, since for a very long time I’ve struggled to pinpoint the cross-over line from reasonable fundamentalism to fundamentalism run wild.

I just have to share Bauder’s eight characteristics of hyper-fundamentalism with you, but I strongly encourage you to get the book and read his entire essay. This quotation is from a pre-published version of the book so it may diverge in part from the final published product.

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First, hyper-fundamentalists often understand fundamentalism in terms of loyalty to an organization, movement, or even leader. They equate the defense of the faith with the prosperity of their organization or its leader. Someone who criticizes or contradicts it is subjected to censure or separation.

Second, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a militant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. [He sites KJV-onlyism as an example.] …When individuals become militant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism.

Third, hyper-fundamentlists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error….

Fourth, hyper-fundamentalists are marked by an inability to receive criticism. For them, questioning implies weakness or compromise. Any criticism — especially if it is offered publicly — constitutes an attack….

A fifth characteristic of hyper-fundamentalism is anti-intellectualism. Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being…. Colleges, when they exist, are strictly for the purpose of practical training.

Sixth, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists…. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers.

Seventh, hyper-fundamentalists occasionally treat militant political involvement as a criterion for fundamentalist standing. During the 1960s and 1970s, anticommunism was a definitive factor for some fundamentalists. Its place has now been taken by antiabortion and antihomosexual activism. Most fundamentalists do agree about these issues, but hyper-fundamentalists make militant activism a necessary obligation of the Christian faith.

Eight and last, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes hold a double standard for personal ethics. They see themselves engaged in an ecclesiastical war, and they reason that some things are permissible in a warfare that would not be permissible in ordinary life. They may employ name-calling, half-truths, and innuendo as legitimate weapons. They may excuse broken promises and political backstabbing.

Hyper-fundamentalism takes many forms, including some that I have not listed. Nevertheless, these are the forms that are most frequently encountered. When a version of fundamentalism bears one or more of these marks, it should be viewed as hyper-fundamentalist…

Hyper-fundamentalism is not fundamentalism. It is as a parasite on the fundamentalist movement. For many years it was simply a nuisance, largely ignored by mainstream fundamentalists. Ignoring the problem, however, permitted it to grow. While statistics are not available, hyper-fundamentalists now constitute a significant percentage of self-identified fundamentalists, perhaps even a majority. They have become the noisiest and often the most visible representatives of fundamentalism. They may be the only version of fundamentalism that many people ever see.

–Excerpted from Kevin Bauder’s chapter on Fundamentalism, in Four Views of the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Zondervan, 2011).

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Let me know what you think. Doesn’t Bauder nail it with this description? I think so.

Free PDF Download of “The Gospel Centered Life” Curriculum

~ Bob Hayton

Westminster Bookstore has a great deal on a fantastic resource for Sunday Schools and small groups: The Gospel Centered Life. I am already planning on using this curriculum for our college-aged class this Fall at our church. It is an excellent resource from World Harvest Mission.

The message is life-changing and very much in the flavor of some of the Gospel meditations that Tim Keller brings. I’m looking forward to using this with our young people.

For the next two days you can get a Leader’s edition as a free pdf download from Westminster Bookstore. Just click here for the download. The print copy (I have one) from New Growth Press is really sharp and well done. You’ll love this book.

Click the image above for more details on this special offer.

Parenting in a Distinctively Christian Way

~ Bob Hayton ~ 6 Comments

Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and her daughter Jessica Thompson, is truly a must-read book. It is a parenting book that promises to rock your world! That’s my assessment after watching a 90 minute interview of Elyse Fitzpatrick on Desiring God Live.

The thing that struck me the most in watching the interview, was the author’s burden that we parent in a distinctively Christian way. She said something like this: “If your kids were transplanted into a Mormon home, would they notice anything different?” Mormons, Jews, and Muslims even, want their children to respect authority, be nice to their siblings, fit into society and grow up to be good, moral people. Is that all we’re after as Christian parents?

I thought immediately of Bryan Chapell’s point from his book Christ-Centered Preaching. He said something like: “If the sermon you preached could be equally preached in a Jewish synagogue, Mormon Tabernacle or Muslim mosque, then you didn’t preach a Christian sermon.” (I’m totally paraphrasing by the way….)

What is distinctively Christian about our parenting? Are we sending the wrong message when we chide our children for disobeying the rules claiming they should have been able to obey them? Do we expect our kids to have the power to just obey by will-power? Is that how we live the Christian life?

Fitzpatrick went on to say how there are two kinds of children, basically. Prodigals and elder brothers. The law has an effect on prodigals, it causes them to chafe and run. The law has an opposite effect on elder brother-types, the Pharisees. They enjoy the law because they can keep it, and it’s an occasion for pride to them. Both of these types of children (and there are often more than one type inside one kid), need to understand that mercy trumps judgment. Mercy is better than law. Sadly, too often, all we give either child is a healthy does of law with little idea of Christian mercy and God’s grace.

When we praise our children, too, we can subtly instill in them a love of praise and the notion that if they try hard and do well, they’ll earn favor. But this idea is antithetical to the Gospel and is NOT how God views them.

All this is from the interview, and it really makes me want to pick up this book. I highly encourage my readers to pick up a copy of it as well. For now watch the interview, it will be worth the investment of your time. Once I get the book, I hope to blog some more about the themes covered in this book.

The book just released and is available at these fine retailers: Westminster Bookstore, Christianbook.com, Amazon.com, and direct from Crossway Books.