When you see the word “preacher” below, feel free to plug in your role(s) - are you a husband responsible for leading his family, a parent responsible for teaching your children, a baseball coach, a community group or Bible study leader, a high school teacher, or a Christian who wants to read their Bible better?

“A preacher should be a logician and a rhetorician, that is, he must be able to teach, and to admonish; when he preaches touching an article, he must, first distinguish it. Secondly, he must define, describe, and show what it is. Thirdly, he must produces sentences out of the Scriptures, therewith to prove and strengthen it. Fourthly, he must, with examples, explain and declare it. Fifthly, he must adorn it with similitudes; and, lastly, he must admonish and rouse up the lazy, earnestly reprove all the disobedient, all false doctrine, and the authors thereof; yet, not out of malice and envy, but only to God’s honor, and the profit and saving health of the people.”

-Martin Luther, Table Talk, pg. 264

In the last few years many people within the faith have critiqued Christianity - more in particular evangelicalism - for being more about ‘what they are against than what they are for’. There is some truth in that. It is always dangerous when a political party, social activism, or a cause becomes more important than the Gospel.

But at the same time, we do have to draw some lines in the sand. It’s not enough to be for ‘love’ without defining what we mean by that. It’s not enough to be for ‘community’ without defining what we mean by that. Sadly, in some cases it’s not enough to be for Jesus without defining what we mean by that. I came across these thoughts from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones’ What is an Evangelical, written in the middle of the last century.

One of the first signs that a man is ceasing to be truly evangelical is that he ceases to be concerned about negatives, and keeps saying, We must always be positive. I will give you a striking example of this in a man whose name is familiar to most of you, and some of whose books you have read. This is what he has written recently: `Whether a person is an evangelical is to be settled by reference to how he stands with respect to six points’, which he then enumerates. His definition is by reference only to what a person is for rather than to what he is against. He goes on: `What a man is, or is not, against may show him to be a muddled or negligent or inconsistent evangelical, but you may not deny his right to call himself an evangelical while he maintains these principles as the basis of his Christian position.’

Now that is the kind of statement which I would strongly contend against. I believe it is quite wrong. The argument which says that you must always be positive, that you must not define the man in terms of what he is against, as well as what he is for, misses the subtlety of the danger.

What do you think; is it enough to positively state what we are for?

(posted by NDMB)

Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of his eternal plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards.

—J. Cambell White

(via John Piper)

Another substitute for discipleship I would mention (though these do not exhaust the list) is zealous religious activity.

Working for Christ has today been accepted as the ultimate test of godliness among all but a few evangelical Christians. Christ has become a project to be promoted or a cause to be served instead of a Lord to be obeyed. Thousands of mistaken persons seek to do for Christ whatever their fancy suggests should be done, and in whatever way they think best. The what and the how of Christian service can only originate in the sovereign will of our Lord, but the busy beavers among us ignore this fact and think up their own schemes. The result is an army of men who run without being sent and speak without being commanded.

To avoid the snare of unauthorized substitution I recommend a careful and prayerful study of the Lordship of Christ and the discipleship of the believer.

—AW Tozer

This are excerpts from a letter from Martin Luther to his good friend Philip Melanchton. We all need friends who can speak to us with Gospel truth and Gospel promises when we are afraid, weak, or anxious. Thanks to Justin Taylor for posting this.

Those great cares by which you say you are consumed I vehemently hate; they rule your heart not on account of the greatness of the cause but by reason of the greatness of your unbelief… .

If our cause is great, its author and champion is great also, for it is not ours. Why are you therefore always tormenting yourself?

If our cause is false, let us recant; if it is true, why should we make him a liar who commands us to be of untroubled heart?

Cast your burden on the Lord, he says. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him with a broken heart. Does he speak in vain or to beasts? …

What good can you do by your vain anxiety?

What can the devil do more than slay us? What after that?

I beg you, so pugnacious in all else, fight against yourself, your own worst enemy, who furnish Satan with arms against yourself… .

I pray for you earnestly and am deeply pained that you keep sucking up cares like a leech and thus rendering my prayers vain.

Christ knows whether it is stupidity or bravery, but I am not much disturbed, rather of better courage than I had hoped.

God who is able to raise the dead is also able to uphold a falling cause, or to raise a fallen one and make it strong.

If we are not worthy instruments to accomplish his purpose, he will find others.

If we are not strengthened by his promises, to whom else in all the world can they pertain?

But saying more would be pouring water into the sea.