I started reading Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity last night. Wow! Get a cup of coffee and make sure your next two or three hours are clear, because you will not want to put this book down. Let me share a couple of startling excerpts from the book.
“As heretical as it sounds today, it is probably worth telling Americans that you don’t need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality. Coming to the cross means repentance–not adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God’s drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makeovers.” 94
“The central message of Christianity is not a worldview, a way of life, or a program for personal and societal change; it is a gospel. From the Greek word for ‘good news,’ typically used in the context of announcing a military victory, the gospel is the report of an appointed messenger who arrives from the battlefield. That is why the NT refers to the offices of apostle (official representative), preacher, and evangelist, describing ministers as heralds, ambassasdors, and witnesses. Their job is to get the story right and then report it, ensuring that the message is delivered by word (preaching) and deed (sacrament). And the result is a church, an embassy of the Triune God in the midst of this passing evil age, with the whole people of God giving witness to God’s mighty acts of redemption.” 105
“When pastors are expected to be coaches sending in the plays and their parishioners are expected to be all-stars to take Jesus’s team to victory in the culture wars, the focus must necessarily fall on what we do rather than on what God has done, on our stories and strategies rather than God’s. But this means that much of our ministry today is law without gospel, exhortation without news, instructions without an announcement, deeds without creeds, with the accent on ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ rather than ‘What Has Jesus Done?’ None of us are immune to this indictment that we are losing our focus upon, confidence in, and increasingly even our knowledge of the greatest story ever told.” 106
“No longer threatened with hell or comforted with heaven, the new legalism is the upbeat and cheerful hum playing in the background. It’s still a form of works-righteousness, with its carrots and sticks. Follow my advice and you’ll really ‘connect’ with God’s best for your life. If you are not happy, perhaps you have fallen out of God’s favor and blessing. Only those who are ‘completely surrendered’ can be confident that they are in God’s Plan A. Now here are the steps to living the victorious Christian life. Are you following the steps? Do you have enough faith? Are you praying enough, reading the Bible enough, witnessing enough, serving in the church enough, loving enough? This diet of imperatives becomes just as burdensome and human-centered as the older legalism; it’s just Legalism Lite. And when we burn out on one program, there is always another best-seller, movement, or plan around the corner.” 123
Posted by jdrj 
Posted by jdrj 
Posted by jdrj 
ASBO Jesus
Steve Lawson considers distinctions of Calvin that make him so influential in the book 
Steve Lawson considers distinctions of Calvin that make him so influential in his book 
