Almost 500 raucous students and twenties just created a whole lot of noise in this place. But, as a hotel guest who was not part of the conference noted, it was not because of too much drinking. The music sounded at times like it would not have been out of place at a party. There was dancing, there were hands lifted. We celebrated our Great God. There is truly no one like our Jesus. Our God really does reign. We were served well by a band that enthusiastically led us into God’s presence.

Tope Koleoso spoke about the text “Watch your life and doctrine closely , . .” (1 timothy 4:16)

He began by asking, what is it all about ? His answer was simply, that your life may glorify God. He explained that Paul wanted Timothy to be an example to the other believers, despite his relative youth. He urged the crowd to follow Piper’s advice: Don’t waste your life. Live a God centered live.

Your life is a gift. Use it wisely lest you throw it away. How do you handle a life carefully? How do you live a God centered life?

1. An anointed life – Set apart for a particular role. The one who anoints you is saying, my presence will be with you. You have an anointing from the almighty. You live for an audience of one. God has set you apart. He called you when you were in a messed up state. The only thing I added to my salvation is my sin. Because of grace, you want to live for him.

2. Abide in Christ – Enjoy him. John 15 tells us that Jesus is the vine. We must stay in Christ, live in him, and he in us. We must value Jesus, love him. Take the word of God and so read it, study it, so it is inside you. That Christ may be formed in us. The goal is that we don’t have the word, the word has us. Your advice comes from the Scriptures. Your worldview comes from the Bible and not the world. Abiding is also about worship. How long will you live between two kingdoms? Choose one and live in that one.

3. A Spirit-Filled Life. Every Christian has the Spirit, but at some point an in-filling happens. No longer led by your own ideas but by God almighty. We need ongoing encounters with God. Salvation is not just a destination that we have arrived at, it is a destiny set before us. Not just about your position in Christ, but finding your purpose. The heart becomes tenderized.

4. Godly Character – We live in a world that is anti-authority. Many do not want to listen to the Bible. Psalm 2 could be paraphrased “God is in his holy temple, let everybody shut up!” Watch your life closely. You need someone above you who cares for you and loves you enough to tell the truth. People want to hear what they want to hear. Don’t be like Samson who was anointed but had a flawed character.
Proverbs 6 tells us the things that God hates.

5. An ordered life - Ephesians 5:15 tells us to be careful how we walk. Discipline and order. If you just go with the flow, you will end up in the gutter.

6. A Trusting life – Trust God. Numbers 16. They had to learn to trust him after the manna stopped. Trust in him every day for everything in your life.

7. A life of gratitude – Learns to say thankful to God. Be grateful and thrilled with what God has done for you. We do not deserve what God does for us. The more you thank him, even when things are tough, the more he paves the way for your future.

John Piper is a great preacher—not just to listen to, but also to watch. I find God stirring my heart through him every time I play one of his videos. It also reminds me of what I’m aiming for when I preach, which is “logic on fire.” I pray that God will draw many into his purposes in the way he has drawn John Piper.

Today I want to highlight one of the sermons in his series on the new birth – Why Do We Need To Be Born Again? (Part 2). Here is an excerpt of this excellent sermon, which serves as a wonderful reminder of how desperately we need GOD to act in saving us. This is one of the sermons that form the basis for his forthcoming book, Finally Alive, which is now available for only $5 on preorder!

No man can make anyone else become a Christian. May God move and bring many into his kingdom.

1. Without the new birth, we won’t have saving faith, but only unbelief. (John 1:11-13; 1 John 5:1; Ephesians 2:8-9; Philippians 1:29; 1 Timothy 1:14; 2 Timothy 1:3).

2. Without the new birth, we won’t have justification, but only condemnation. (Romans 8:1; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 2:17; Philippians 3:9).
3. Without the new birth, we won’t be the children of God, but the children of the devil. (1 John 3:9-10).
4. Without the new birth, we won’t bear the fruit of love by the Holy Spirit, but only bear the fruit of death. (Romans 6:20-21; 7:4-6; 15:16; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:10; Galatians 5:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 John 3:14).
5. Without the new birth, we won’t have eternal joy in fellowship with God, but only eternal misery with the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:41; John 3:3; Romans 6:23; Revelation 2:11; 20:15).

— John Piper, Why Do We Need to Be Born Again? (Part 2)

I had planned on an early night tonight! However, despite my best intentions, this session looks like it will keep me up late once more tonight. I may duck out half way through if I can’t keep my eyes open.

Driscoll began by claiming that, statistically, the only variable that makes a difference to the life or death of a new church plant is the gifting and qualifications of its leader. Driscoll will be bringing a book out on church leadership this summer.

The first and most important officer in the church is God—Jesus is the Senior Pastor of your church. Jesus should be on the organizational chart! He is the Chief Shepherd. Don’t assume ANYTHING. Under Jesus are qualified men, both pastors and elders. The words “pastor” and “elder” can be used interchangeably.

To be qualified, you must be called by God. Driscoll confessed to being functionally charismatic “with a seatbelt.” God calls people today. Acts 20—“Shepherd the flock over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you.”

There has to be a sense of call or desire—it’s not just a matter of being nominated and voted on. There must be a desire to be an elder. God has to clearly call you. Not in an arrogant, proud, or controlling way. If you don’t have that sense of call, you will end up quitting the ministry. You must not limit the ways that God can call you. There needs to be a strong desire to care for God’s people.

1 Timothy 5. The ministry can be described as “ox-like” in the sense of carrying a load, grinding it out, staying faithful.

1 Timothy 2:12 ff—gives the qualifications of an elder. Once you sense a call, then look at the qualifications.

Don’t call the trained. TRAIN THE CALLED.

Driscoll strongly supports the complementarian position. He was very clear that anyone wanting to plant an Acts 29 church needs to agree with the teaching that eldership is male. The government of home is the foundation on which eldership is built. In the family the woman is the helper, the man is the head.

Driscoll made the point that you have to get to know someone over a period of time to see if they are qualified to be an elder. There are lots of character issues. “Beyond reproach” is a catch-all. Must be able to teach in some context or another, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be preaching. This could be in smaller groups—one-on-one or in a discussion group. All your elders do not need to be preachers.

You have to take care of your family first. God takes care of your family THROUGH YOU. God first, family second, ministry third. Be a one-woman man. Ministry will magnify and expose holes in your character. Do you help your wife? Do you care for her? Do you pay attention? Do you train her? Are you alive in conversation with her? Paul and Jesus were single. But in our culture it is very hard for an elder to be single. Most of what you learn about being a pastor will be by being a daddy. Pastors are fathers. Don’t let your children think that the church stole their father. Let your kids love what you love—the church, etc. Take kids whenever possible. Seeing your kids love Jesus is so much more important than church leadership.

Must be emotionally stable. Eldership is a front row seat for sin and depravity. Must be able to live there. Must have self-control. An elder needs to be disciplined in every area of life. Think through every decision and make a plan. No addictions. It is not biblical that alcohol is a sin in and of itself. Jesus took it, and gave it to others. Basically elders should be examples such that others are able to point to them and say, for example, to their daughter, “I want you to marry a man like that.”

Hospitality is crucial. Elders should be welcoming to strangers, new people, non-Christians, etc. Pastors need to be evangelistic. BUT, be discerning and guard your home and family. Don’t close your home.

Anger is more of a challenge to the average pastor than many people realize.

Also, you will need a gift of apostleship—a church planting/missionary gift. Someone who pastors a church that is an existing body is a different guy from one who starts something new. In planting a church, you need to be entrepreneurial and have the ability to attract people to follow you.

You will also need to have the ability to preach and defend the gospel. You will need to refute false doctrine. You can’t be frightened by wolves! Too many shepherds are just sheep. You don’t know if you have a sheep or a shepherd until a wolf turns up!

You must also be an equipper of others. (Ephesians 4:13)

Define the role of your wife. Don’t make her sit in the front row or be present at every event. It’s not a two-for-one deal. You want her to be a mature Christian who is serving in the church as appropriate. She must love you and care for your children. The pastor needs emotional support and sexual companionship. Marriages in the church will imitate the leaders.

Some elders are like prophets, some like priests, some like kings. As a prophet, Jesus proclaimed the truth—corrected elders. Some elders are like that. Can call to repentance. The priest loves people. They do hospital visits and weddings. They are compassionate. They like to encourage people and shepherd them. The prophet yells over them at the crowd. Kings like systems, teams, measurable results, leadership.

Most of the prophets are reformed. Most of the priests are doing the whole emerging thing. Most of the kings are in the mega-churches. Some will be both. Need an eldership that has each of these aspects and learn. Read outside of your tribe. For example, learn to get organized by reading a book and get some systems together. Be humble enough to learn from all of them! And be discerning enough to know what not to agree with.

We want to build biblical, loving, effective churches.

Well, I kept my eyes open, but am off to bed. If you want to follow other sessions, you can do it live online at http://www.theresurgence.org/live.

It is now almost a week since I made the decision to stop comments here on the blog. In the next few days I will also be deleting all the old ones. I have to say that, so far, I have not missed them. It’s not so much that I don’t want interaction with my readers—that, in any case, continues in other ways. Rather, I’m glad that the immediacy of that interaction is less, and its constant demands on my time have abated. Having one less demand on my time is so welcome!

Previously I felt constantly under pressure to monitor the stream of comments coming into my inbox to determine which ones should be approved. Part of the nature of these comments was that the majority of them seemed to disagree with the original post. I think this is partly because those who read a post and like it are unlikely to say so in a comment. I know that I myself am more inclined to respond to something that I dislike online. It is this argumentative aspect of comments that has bothered me somewhat. I genuinely believe that, for me at least, removing comments is a way of taking a step away from being quarrelsome.

I came across the following verse this week which made me think that I have done the right thing—at least for me in my situation.

“So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” (1 Timothy 2:22-26)

* * * * * * * *

If you miss making comments, you can always pop over to one of my reader’s blogs who has begun an interesting discussion on Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ views of guidance. He said to tell you that he would welcome your opinions! Or, you could go and read Alistair’s transcription of what Driscoll really said about God hating sinners and join in the conversation over there.

UPDATE
In response to this post Rick asks, “Are Blog Comments Unscriptural?” whilst Dave Warnock collects the posts from those who think I should not have stopped publishing comments.

Last month Mark Dever was on tour. In the middle of central London, somewhere off Picadilly in a large church—complete with organ—I sat with a gathering of church leaders and others eager to hear Mark speak. (OK, so it’s been a long time since I sang a hymn to an organ!) Anyway, Mark began the day by turning to 1 Timothy 1:12-17.

True to form, Dever began with the Gospel. Paul reminds his son in the faith of the dramatic call he himself had received to preach the Gospel. He wanted to be sure that his hearers who had decided to spend a day listening to theology were really saved. He established Paul’s credentials. It was Jesus who had appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul’s teaching came with the authority of God. Timothy had also received that call. Timothy’s theology was critical. The Bible really is God’s words.

Grace was abundantly poured out on Paul. In contrast to his previous life, God gave him the power to preach. Timothy was to be encouraged that God would provide. Christianity is not merely a religious way to talk about self-help, self-effort. Much modern “Christianity” is a-theological. We need God to actually act to change us. He gives us things we don’t deserve, and loves us in ways that we can’t imagine.

Paul is humble and joyful, yet also hopeful, as he is confessing where he has come from and what God has done for him in Christ. Paul is aware of great sin, but also of great grace. This chapter is almost like a personalized Ephesians 2—BUT GOD!

Paul was a wolf who had become a sheep. A man full of pride became humble. A persecutor became a pastor. He wanted nothing but to serve Christ Jesus. Paul uses the word “sinner,” a word which is rarely said today. He says still I “am” the worst sinner. Dever was anxious to point out that even the best Christian remains in some sense a sinner. Sin has ruined our world. None of us are immune from its effects.

Paul was shown mercy, not because his ignorance and unbelief were mitigating factors—rather his ignorance was culpable. He was shown mercy, not because his sins were more excusable, but precisely because they were so great. So Paul’s ignorance was part of what made Paul into the greatest sinner. His very opposition to the Gospel demonstrated God’s power. Paul became a pattern for those who would follow. God saved Paul to demonstrate his patience towards sinners to the world.

God uses people we feel are beyond the reach of God’s mercy to display his glory to the maximum. It is through us that his glory is revealed!

Dear reader, you may not agree with me on this. And I don’t desire to be right in my fears. But it seems to me and others (many who are younger than myself) that this issue of egalitarianism and complementarianism is increasingly acting as the watershed distinguishing those who will accomodate Scripture to culture, and those who will attempt to shape culture by Scripture. You may disagree, but this is our honest concern before God. It is no lack of charity, nor honesty. It is no desire for power or tradition for tradition’s sake. It is our sober conclusion from observing the last fifty years.

Paedobaptism is not novel (sadly). But, on the good side, evangelicals who have taught such a doctrine have continued to be otherwise faithful to Scripture for five centuries now. And many times their faithfulnesses have put those of us who may have a better doctrine of baptism to shame! Egalitarianism is novel. Its theological tendencies have not had such a long track record. And the track record they have had so far is not encouraging.

Of course there are issues more central to the Gospel than gender issues. However, there may be no way the authority of Scripture is being undermined more quickly or more thoroughly in our day than through the hermenuetics of egalitarian readings of the Bible. And when the authority of Scripture is undermined, the Gospel will not long be acknowledged. Therefore, love for God, the Gospel, and future generations, demands the careful presentation and pressing of the complementarian position.”

UPDATE
In January of 2008, the following post was identified as the 29th most widely read post on this blog. The 30th most-read post was “How to Use the Google Calendar.”

This is the first of several interviews that appeared in the top-30 list. In this interview I talked with Josh Harris about being discipled by C. J. Mahaney.

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Adrian
Welcome to the blog, Josh. In this interview I’d like to focus a bit on the important role C. J. Mahaney, who I also interviewed awhile back here on the blog, played in discipling you and how that mentoring benefited you.

Josh
Thanks, Adrian. I’m grateful to be with you. And I’m glad you’re giving space on your blog to the topic of mentoring. I think it’s important, and I hope I can add something useful to the conversation.

Adrian
To start with, tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to be leading Covenant Life Church at such a young age. (A DVD set is available which documents the key transition that led to this.)

Josh
I think I may have stumbled upon a theme verse for my life this morning. I was reading Ecclesiastes 9:11, which says, “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.” I laughed when I read it and thought, “That pretty much sums up my life!” I’m not the fastest, the strongest, the smartest, or most knowledgeable, and yet God has shown me such kindness.

I do have the joy of serving in the role of senior pastor of Covenant Life Church. And this year I’ll turn 31. I get quizzical looks from people when they find out my position. There’s a wonderful Pakistani man who works at the local grocery store who still can’t get over the fact that I’m a pastor, let alone a senior pastor. I think his picture of a pastor is an austere older gentleman with a robe and collar. So when he looks at me in my jeans and T-shirt, he’s just baffled.

But the story behind me serving in this role is more about my good friend, C. J. Mahaney, and his investment in me. He invited me into his home and family, trained me for pastoral ministry, gave me various opportunities to lead, and then eventually asked me to step in and assume his role. It was the fall of 2004 that he “passed the baton” so to speak and set me in place so that he could devote himself to leading the family of churches known as Sovereign Grace. His office is still next to mine. We meet every Tuesday for lunch. C. J. wanted to give me a chance to lead while I was young and while he was around to serve me. And that’s what he does. He’s a sounding board for ideas, and a trusted source of counsel.

Adrian
How did you and C. J. meet each other?

Josh
We met ten years ago. I was publishing a small magazine for homeschool teens at the time, traveling the country doing teen conferences, and writing my first book. Things were going very well. I joke now that I was “living the evangelical American dream.” All I needed was a TV show and I’d have had it all. Thank heaven God intervened. I got a tape set from a friend called Passion for the Church that featured C. J. teaching on the importance of the local church. I tell this story in my book Stop Dating the Church. That teaching deeply influenced me and caused me to rethink the course I was on.

C. J. was aware of what I was doing. His daughters subscribed to my magazine, and one of the Sovereign Grace churches in Pennsylvania had hosted one of our conferences. C. J. had the youth pastor invite me to speak at Covenant Life, and later I came to an event the church hosted for men who felt called to ministry. That was the first time I actually spent time with C. J. and got to know him.

One night I asked him point blank, “What do you think of what I’m doing with my life?” He told me that he felt what I was doing was important and needed. But he asked if I had an exit strategy. He told me he had seen too many guys on the conference circuit who never got off of it. He asked how I was going to invest in and build my life into the local church. I remember him asking, “What are you going to build with your life?” He was directing me to think long-term and consider the importance of the local church.

Adrian
How did you respond?

Josh
Basically I said, “What do you think I should do?” You see, I was beginning to understand the importance of the local church, but I didn’t see how that translated into specific decisions. I was going to church and I was faithfully involved, but I knew I needed training and oversight and it wasn’t clear to me where I’d get that. C. J. answered by saying, “You need a Paul in your life. You’re a young man; you’re like Timothy—and you need a Paul.” I was thinking, “Thanks a lot, but that’s not super helpful.” I mean, where in the world would I find a Paul? And how would I convince him that I’m a Timothy worth investing time in?

A year or so earlier, on my 21st birthday, my father, Gregg Harris, who is a very godly, wise man, had encouraged me to find men that I wanted to be like and then to sit at their feet and learn from them. My dad’s a big believer in the apprenticeship model of learning. So I had been on the lookout for a role model.

And there I was sitting across from C. J. Mahaney, a man who at the time had been a senior pastor for twenty years—he had done the national conference circuit, he understood the issues I was facing, and he was saying, “Go find a Paul.” I was sitting there thinking, “You’re lookin’ pretty good to me!!”

Adrian
So how did you ask him to mentor you?

Josh
I didn’t ask him that night. C. J. very wisely pointed me to the local church in which I was involved back in Oregon. He told me I needed to go back there and look for that relationship in my church.

This is where I need to pause and emphasize God’s providential leading in my life. I don’t want anyone reading this to think that if you just do the right things, say the right things, you’ll be able to find a mentor who can train you and disciple you. There are things people can do, but the main point of my story is that God sovereignly orchestrated it and provided for me—it had nothing to do with my worthiness or planning!

The next day two friends who are pastors approached me at the conference and basically shared that they felt I needed to be discipled. They did this totally unaware of my conversation with C. J. or the questions swirling in my mind as a result. It was an unbelievable confirmation of what I’d been praying about. They said, “We think your biggest priority should be to find a man who can train you in ministry. God is blessing your work and you’re gaining a larger audience, but you’re an idiot and know nothing!” Of course they said it all so much nicer than that, but the point was clear and I agreed with them. I told them about my growing conviction that C. J. was the man who could help me.

That was a holy moment. Ray Randolph and Bill Houghery from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were the two men sharing with me. They told me I should talk to C. J. about my desire, and then we prayed. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so powerful in that room. We were all weeping as we prayed. I look back now and understand the significance of that moment. But at that time I couldn’t grasp the full significance of what God was doing.

Before I left the conference for home, I shared my desire with C. J. Unbeknownst to me, God had already been laying on his heart a burden to train young men for the future. So again, you see the quiet providence of God. My asking C. J. was almost like a confirmation from God of what the next season of C. J.’s life was supposed to be devoted to. He and the leadership team of Sovereign Grace had just decided to launch the Pastor’s College. So God timed it perfectly. He showed me that I needed mentoring, and he showed C. J. that he needed to give himself to mentoring. About seven months later I moved from Oregon to Maryland. Two months after I arrived, I Kissed Dating Goodbye was released. A year later I was engaged to my wife Shannon. Seven years later I became senior pastor. It’s been an amazing adventure.

Adrian
There has been a lot of interest in the blogosphere recently in your relationship with C. J. following Tim Challies’ admission that he is jealous of you for having such a mentor, or indeed, for having any kind of mentor. Can you tell us about how this worked out in practice?

(UPDATE: Challies has posted again about this today independently of this interview!)

Josh
First, C. J. brought me into his life. So many things can’t be passed on through a book or a sermon. They have to be observed. They have to be modeled. Living with C. J.’s family for over a year gave me an up-close look at his faithfulness as a husband and father. I witnessed his purposefulness in every situation. I learned from him the importance of taking the initiative. I learned how leading is serving, and that it requires a willingness to expend energy and set direction for others to follow. C. J. spent time with me. He brought me into his thinking. He trained me about the importance of sound doctrine centered in the gospel. He talked with me about issues and concerns he had. He directed me to books and tapes to study.

He also took risks and gave me opportunities to lead. The New Attitude conference (an annual conference for singles that I ran for six years and which is now being restarted under new leadership) was a way for me to learn how to lead with C. J. by my side. I remember so many sessions at the conference where he would whisper in my ear about how to transition between worship and preaching, how to lead in times of ministry, how to close the meetings.

There was no text book, no class. It was on-the-job training. And after every meeting, every session, every Sunday—he always took time first to give me purposeful encouragement. Sometimes I would do the right things, but not completely understand why they were right. C. J. would say, “Great job when you said, such and such. You were pastoring people through that statement. That was a leadership moment. Well done! Keep it up.” C. J. always started with evidence of grace in what I was doing before he moved to critique. He taught me to evaluate everything at all times and look for ways to make things better.

And, of course, he always managed to make this fun and memorable. I remember the many Sunday mornings when, in the midst of the meeting, he would lean over and whisper, “A good leader would notice what just happened that was wrong.” I have to admit—I hated it when he did that! But it helped me to keep my eyes always open.

But it was his friendship and care that meant the most to me. We spent hours together. We confessed sin to each other. We experienced fellowship. That was a big investment of C. J.’s time. He could have been doing something else. But he invested in me. And he continues to do so.

Adrian
What advice would you give to people who are not currently being discipled? I urge people to do anything they can to position themselves in the right place—to enable them to have such an experience. Would you agree? Do you have any other advice?

Josh
I do agree. I think that the starting point is an attitude of humility (and I don’t pretend to be a model for this by any means) that acknowledges that you need help. I think my relationship with C. J. can sound very glamorous from a distance. The reality is that being mentored requires that you believe and embrace the reality that you don’t know everything, that you need to learn. Let’s be honest, our pride, our sin, opposes this. My question for a person who desires to be mentored would be, “How are you learning from those God has already placed in your life? Are you humbly asking them questions? Are you studying people you respect?” And then, are you gleaning what you can from them, even if you don’t have an “official” mentoring relationship with them? I wish I could clone C. J. so that 5,000 young guys like me could have their own private Mahaney mentor. But it’s not possible. What is possible is to read his books. Start with Humility: True Greatness. And today, with the web, you can listen to dozens of his sermons. And hopefully, if I can convince him, C. J. will have his own blog so his influence can be more frequent. There are many godly older men like C. J. from whom we can learn and benefit. In some cases, that will be in a close relationship; at other times it will be from a distance.

Next, it’s vital that you be in a strong local church headed by men that you want to emulate. Whether or not you feel called to ministry, you should be in a place where there are men whose character and teaching, whose life and doctrine, provide you with a compelling example. A church led by such men should be well-stocked with godly men, many of whom are not pastors, who can mentor and disciple.

Finally, I’d encourage men to cry out to God for this good gift. And even if that prayer isn’t answered in the fashion or time that you’d like, don’t forget how important this is. Because one day you’re going to be the older generation that can invest in others. I think a big part of the reason C. J. has been so faithful in training younger men like me is because he never had that benefit in his own life. So much of what he learned he had to learn through books and through trial and error. He wanted a mentor, but though he learned from different older men, he never truly had that. I think it spurred him to be that mentor so that men like me could have what he missed.

Adrian
Unfortunately, that’s all the time we have. Many, many thanks for joining us today and sharing so personally about your relationship with C. J. I pray that this conversation will have a massive impact on young guys who are desperately seeking discipleship. I’m sure that for some of them the New Year may be a time of difficult decisions, even leading to church moves. I, for one, am delighted to be a part of a church which is headed by a godly man who I want to spend the rest of my life following as he follows Christ.

One last thing for my readers. If you want C. J. Mahaney to start a blog, please let him know in the comments section of this blog and in a post on your own—let’s see if we can’t call him out!

Todays McCheyne reading from 2 Tim 3:

“10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. 12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom [6] you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God [7] may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

Paul reminds Timothy that he has set him an example to follow, not JUST in his teaching but also in how he lives his life. Relations with others, and certain characteristics including importantly persistance in suffering makes him worthy of being listened to. This is a good reminder for preachers of the need to share their lives with their hearers and is why despite the fact I love the internet and blogging I still believe that it should never take the place of a local church where all this teaching can be worked out in intimate relationships like the one Paul had with Timothy. Reading words doesnt change us rightly HEARING a preacher proclaiming not just with words but with his life will.