Nathan E. Lewis

I know a man who has become so sick and tired of his habitual sin that he has taken drastic measures. He has taken to wearing a blindfold. He cuffs his hands, wears a chastity belt (his wife is keeper of the keys) and he shackles his feet. He hires a retired mendicant (they work for almost nothing) to read the Holy Scriptures to him, as his blindfold prevents him from doing his own reading. He reports that as long as he is subject to these constraints, he has not fallen to his habitual sins. He tells me that the Word of God has been the cause of the cessation of his sin. When I mention his cuffs, shackles, blindfold, and belt, he quickly insists that the Bible has provided all of these for his prevention of his sin. He is wearing these in obedience to the Word of God. He listens to the monk read and he does his best to memorize as much as he can, hiding the very Words of God so that he might not sin against God.
He has even memorized Psalm 119:105, “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” I asked him if he had been doing much walking lately. “No, no I haven’t. When I get up and out of these shackles, I get into trouble. No I haven’t been on the path for a very long time. If I am going to stay away from sin, then I need to stay right here in my room, close to my Bible reading monk.” I told him I found it interesting that this memorized verse about the law of God enlightening our common life encouraged us to get up and out into the world where the Word of God could be applied to anything we might encounter. “Oh no! I am too sinful and weak for the world. I need to stay right here with my blindfold over my eyes, listening to the Word of God.”
“OK,” I said. “I am returning to the world now and when I return, I hope to find you in good health and spirits.” (more…)

The main story of the Bible is God redeeming his people. The following paragraphs outline the whole of the Bible showing how every bit of scripture points to Jesus Christ.
The Age of Adam: Adam is the one man who failed God, so the one man, Jesus Christ, came to represent all of us in his perfect obedience to God All of us who are united to Adam by natural birth, must be united to Jesus Christ for redemption and spiritual birth.
The Age of Noah: Noah preached the good news to a wicked generation. He and all his family were saved from destruction. All of us are to see Jesus Christ in the life and salvation of Noah, so that we might hear the good news and be saved from destruction.
The Age of Abraham: Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. All of us become spiritual children of Abraham, as we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the true Isaac, who has come to win the promise for us.
The Age of Moses: Moses, the great prophet and mediator of God’s holy law, led God’s children to faith and repentance in the face of God’s demand for perfection. All of us are driven to trust in Jesus Christ as we face the demands of God’s holy laws, taking comfort in Jesus, our one and only Mediator between us and our heavenly Father.
The Age of Prophets: The prophets delivered God’s judgment upon his chosen Israel, who had broken his covenant. The prophets announced the coming of the one, true Israel, the Christ, who would keep the covenant for all peoples of the world. All of us must heed the prophets’ warning and find refuge in Christ Jesus, who has kept the covenant for us.
The Coming of Christ: Christ Jesus came as the Son of Man, the divine second person of the Trinity, to seek and to save the lost children of God. Jesus Christ came as the Son of God, the second Adam, as our human representative, to perfectly keep the covenant and thus win the Father’s favor for all of us.
The Age of the Apostles: The Apostles were eye-witnesses of Jesus Christ, who were given the mission to preach the good news to the ends of the earth, to all generations in these last days. All of us must come under the authority of the Apostles, receive by faith their Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ, and join the mission until Jesus Christ returns to judge the living and the dead.
Biblical history places the person and work of Jesus Christ at its center. The Old Testament anticipates his coming, calling all those who lived before Christ Jesus to do so looking to Jesus by faith. The New Testament remembers his coming, calling all those who have lived after Christ Jesus to do so looking up to him by faith.

If you go to monergism.com you will find a rich source of free literature on a multitude of topics including the Gospel. This past week I had the privilege of visiting with a friend who was despairing. I listened to him for a good long time, prayed with him, read several Psalms to him. In our second hour together, he said, “I am told that you could read to me some Bible verses that would show me how I can put my faith in Jesus and be assured of God’s love.” I took him through a whirlwind tour of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, selecting several key verses. He tracked with me all along the way. At Romans 10 after I read, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved,” he said, “And you are going to help me do that right now.” Nothing replaces a working knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, but reading literature about the Gospel from people who are searching and applying the Scripture can be a fine aid. Every once in awhile, I meet someone who is ready to read extensively and enter into a conversation about the Gospel and its ramifications for life. I recommend the free files at monergism.

Faith is a well-used word in our culture and it has a range of meaning. In some contexts we closely connect it to the verb “to believe,” referring to firmly held convictions. Within this group of references we describe our spirituality, religion, morality and philosophy. But we also closely connect faith to a general positivism. We might use faith to describe our inner hope or emotion supporting a future reality desired by us. Most Christians go looking in the Bible for definitions of words like faith and such a search usually ends in a tangled confusion. Meaning in the Bible, like any literature, is determined by context and always presents a range of meaning. (more…)

I am reading Daniel Radosh’s “Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture,” published in 2008 by Simon & Shuster. Radosh describes himself on page 2 as a “liberal New York Jew in my middle-thirties.” Half-way through the book, I am wondering, “how does he see the problems of the evangelical/fundamentalist movement so clearly?” I am also asking, “Why do I agree more with a liberal New York Jew in his middle-thirties, than I do with many of my evangelical, fundamentalist family and friends?” Please do not tell anyone that I am recommending that you read this book, because I am not doing so. If you are an evangelical Christian in the mainstream of Christian pop culture, then you will be disgusted, if not offended, by Radosh’s presentation of Christian pop culture. You will think that he is bitter, critical, doesn’t understand the church and is bereft of the Holy Spirit. But I am writing to tell you that part of common grace is God allowing a liberal New York Jew to yell out, “The emperor’s naked!” Here is a man who does not embrace the gospel but he knows that a large segment of the church has at least blurred the gospel and is interested and vested in that which is not the gospel. It’s chilling. (more…)

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The Power of the Gospel
I Corinthians 1:18 -2:5

Members of the Corinthian Church were engaged in the culture of their day. David Jackman, in the introduction to his book, Let’s Study I Corinthians, identifies four “buzz words” from Corinthian culture impacting the Church. These “buzz words” were factors in the division of the Church. The first “buzz word” is “knowledge.” The second, “wisdom,” the third, “power,” and the fourth, “spiritual.” As Paul addresses the lack of unity in the Church, he addresses these four parts of the Corinthian’s cultural awareness.
Actually, these four parts of Corinthian culture are shared by our present day culture. Knowledge is highly valued by us. Our culture accumulates knowledge and dispenses it at high volume and rate. (more…)

Last night, Frank LeClerg and I visited the elders’ meeting of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Newberg, Oregon. For two years now, this church has allowed us to use their facilities to launch Chehalem Valley Presbyterian Church. As one of our ministers, Eric Costa, says, “That Seventh Day Adventist Church building in Newberg is the best church building in our presybtery!” Frank and I thought it a good idea to visit the elders’ meeting to express our gratitude to this church for her generosity and willingness to work with us. If you are an evangelical Christian of any sort, then you most likely have been taught that the Seventh Day Adventists are legalists, who don’t get the gospel, who are wholly dedicated to practicing the Mosaic laws and thus, a Christian cult. For the past two years we have been discovering something quite different from what we have been taught. (more…)

This was John Calvin’s personal seal: “My heart I offer to You, promptly and sincerely.” And so, he must not have denied human action, reducing human beings to robots. (more…)

I opened my snail mail to read a four-page hand-written letter from Terry, a prisoner in a state prison, requesting that I correspond with him for the final three years of his 33 year sentence. He’s thinking now about getting out and he needs real contacts, undoubtedly. He may even need to show the parole board some proof of connections, or perhaps, he has attended a class on what to do to prepare to get out of prison after rotting for 22 years. The reason he offers for contacting me, a stranger, after all these years in prison is that he recently has professed faith in Christ Jesus. (more…)