Warfield on the Essence of Christianity

Quoted from Carl Trueman’s post of the same name:

It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continuously unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center everything else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

(HT: Reformation 21 Blog)

Trueman on Public Prayer

As are most things I read from Carl Trueman, this is worth your time to read the whole thing. Here is an excerpt.

To listen to a lot of public prayer in churches is too often like listening in to a private quiet time -- and that is not meant as a compliment.  The erosion of the boundary between public and private and the relentless march of the aesthetics of casualness have taken their toll here.  It seems that unless somebody prays in public precisely as we think they might do in private, we all fear that there is a affectation that prevents the prayer from being `authentic' -- whatever that might mean.  Yet oftentimes there are people in the congregation on Sunday who have come from a week of pain, worry and confusion; they may be spiritually shattered; they might barely be able to string two words of a prayer together; and at this moment a good pastor can through a well-thought out and carefully expressed prayer draw their eyes heavenwards, lead them to the throne of grace and give them the words of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and intercession which they cannot find for themselves.

Galatians Commentary by Schreiner

I have written before about Tom Schreiner being one of my heroes. It is good to have heroes. It is also good when they are mild-mannered scholars.

I have not written about the fact that every good preaching pastor should have serious, rigorous, pastoral, commentaries on their shelf that they see as their “go-to” commentary.

It is really cool when my hero writes such a commentary. In fact, he has written three on deep, rich, and difficult Bible books (at this level, they are all difficult). Schreiner’s commentary on Romans was the first commentary I ever bought—a story I love to tell about God’s providence in my life.

Recently, a good friend gave me the Galatians commentary as a gift. It holds the pride of place among my Galatians commentaries.

Guy Waters over at Reformation21 just reviewed Schreiner’s work. Here is his conclusion:

As one who annually teaches at the seminary level a course in the exegesis of the Greek text of Galatians, I have publicly lamented before my students the absence of a readable, recent, post-NPP, exegetically-rigorous, Reformationally-theological commentary on the Greek text of Galatians. Many of the theologically solid commentaries are older or do not engage the Greek text. Many of the exegetically rigorous commentaries, even the recent ones, give me theological pause. Finally, I can tell my students that if they ever preach or teach Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, then Schreiner’s Galatians needs to have a place on their study shelf. This work has the double benefit not only of yielding much exegetical fruit from the Epistle to the Galatians, but also of modeling what an exegetical commentary in the service of the church can and should be. And in this, our commentary-writing age, I hope that others take note.

Please get this commentary as your “go-to” commentary on Galatians. If you buy it from this link you will also be supporting BCS.

Ultimate vs. Proximate

I am re-posting this from my friend’s blog The Works of God. I find Sproul’s distinction between ultimate and proximate very helpful.

R.C. Sproul on Romans 8:28:

God, in his providence, has the power and the will to work all things together for good for his people. This does not mean that everything that happens to us is, in itself, good.  Really bad things do happen to us. They are only proximately bad; they are never ultimately bad. That is, they are bad only in the short (proximate) term, never in the long term. Because of the triumph of God’s goodness in all things, he is able to bring good for us out of the bad. He turns our tragedies into supreme blessings.

R.C. Sproul, in Be Still, My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering, edited by Nancy Guthrie, p. 47.

(HT: The Works of God)

Starting “The Freedom of a Christian”

In 2004, when we moved to Minnesota, I was convinced that I was coming to train to be a pastor. It is difficult to explain how convinced I was of this. Not only was I personally convinced, but I felt that God had specifically called me to this new vocation.

Now, over six years later, I don’t believe this anymore. I do not believe that I was called to pastor a church. This significant transition in my thought is a long story, and if you have an afternoon and like coffee I would be happy to recount it in great detail. Suffice it to say that there has been emotional pain and family turmoil around this shift in vocational direction. Ultimately, God is sovereign and he will do what he will do; we trust him. But the realization that we moved here for a dream that was ultimately not to be reality has been most difficult.

Out of this pain has slowly emerged the realization that God is much wiser than I am. However it was that I came to believe I was called to pastor, God has revealed that it was not the wisest course of action given my personality. I am moody and prone to extremes, as much of this blog will attest, which is a perfect example of God’s infinite wisdom. It is precisely these traits—moodiness and a penchant to go to extremes—that disincline me from pastoring a flock of imperfect people.

So, now what? Well, by God’s providence I am currently employed by Bethlehem College and Seminary as the Vice President of Administration. In this strange and unique position I can play to my strengths. It really is a tailor-made position for me. God is good indeed. But what about the Bible and my once strongly held opinion (whether a true and correct opinion remains to be seen) that once embarking on the trail into full-time ministry one should never leave it? I used to think less of people who went into a “normal” vocation after spending years training for ministerial work. The irony of God’s providence is that I am now in that precise position. I look upon those situations with significantly more patience and understanding. O what a hypocrite.

As usual, I turn to a book for answers to these questions. In this case, I am turning to Martin Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian. I have often heard this treatise quoted, usually something about the worthy role of changing diapers. My uninformed assumption was that this treatise by Luther was all about Christian vocation. Maybe it is, maybe not.

My experience in the pages penned by Luther so far is not one of vocation, but of justification. Because I am a bit brain-cell challenged, it takes me 20 minutes to get through each densely packed paragraph. The going is slow, to say the least, but having read the first three or four pages of Luther’s 30-page work, it seems he is spending all his time on the doctrine of justification.

“It is evident that no external thing has any influence in producing Christian righteousness or freedom, or in producing unrighteousness or servitude. A simple argument will furnish the proof of this statement. What can it profit the soul if the body is well, free, and active, and eats, drinks, and does as it pleases? For in these respects even the most godless slaves of vice may prosper. On the other hand, how will poor health or imprisonment or hunger or thirst or any other external misfortune harm the soul? Even the most godly men, and those who are free because of clear consciences, are afflicted with these things. None of these things touch either the freedom or the servitude of the soul. It does not help the soul if the body is adorned with the sacred robes of priests or dwells in sacred places or is occupied with sacred duties or prays, fasts, abstains from certain kinds of food, or does any work that can be done by the body and in the body. The righteousness and the freedom of the soul require something far different since the things which have been mentioned could be done by any wicked person. Such works produce nothing but hypocrites. On the other hand, it will not harm the soul if the body is clothed in secular dress, dwells in unconsecrated places, eats and drinks as others do, does not pray aloud, and neglects to do all the above-mentioned things which hypocrites can do.”

Luther’s argument is astonishing. Read the last italicized sentence again. How often do you cluck your tongue at other Christians for the way they dress or drink or eat or pray? Yet, Luther is arguing that these things have nothing to do with producing Christian righteousness or freedom, unrighteousness or servitude.

This may have a lot more to do with vocation than I thought. Stay tuned.

What is the Gospel?

Answer from John Piper:

Regarding Chapters and Verses

Gordon Fee writes regarding the chapter break at 1 Thess 2:1:

While these aid in "finding" things, they are unfortunate in that they cause people to read the Bible differently from the way they would read anything else; and, as here, they often create false divisions of thought. Even the language "chapter and verse" unwittingly advocates a kind of gnomic approach to Scripture that gets in the way of good reading. By taking out the numbers, one can easily see what Paul is concerned with.

—Gordon Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, NICNT, 51

True for All Men Everywhere

The first point that we must make is that it is impossible even to begin living the Christian life, or to know anything of true spirituality, before one is a Christian. And the only way to become a Christian is neither by trying to live some sort of a Christian life nor by hoping for some sort of religious experience, but rather by accepting Christ as Savior. No matter how complicated, educated, or sophisticated we may be, or how simple we may be, we must all come the same way, insofar as becoming a Christian is concerned. As the kings of the earth and the mighty of the earth are born in exactly the same way, physically, as the simplest man, so the most intellectual person must become a Christian in exactly the same way as the simplest person. This is true for all men everywhere, through all space and all time. There are no exceptions. Jesus said a totally exclusive word: "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality, p. 3.

Emerging or Emergent?

This is the best and shortest description of what it means to be emerging vs. emergent that I know of. If you care about the church, and recognize that there is a rift between traditional church and many so-called post-moderns, then this is a helpful read.

Would the Real Emerger Please Stand Up?

(HT: Reclaiming the Mind Ministries)

Calvinist Resurgence

Mark Dever (and others!) have noticed a resurgence in the Doctrines of Grace (or Calvinism), especially among younger Evangelicals. In an effort to analyze this movement, Dever posted 10 blog entries detailing where all these Calvinists have come from. The following is a lengthy quote from his tenth post:

My point in this already too-long entry is not how much Arminianism changed, but how incomplete their labors were. They said God hadn’t predestined and elected the way most earlier Protestant theologians understood Scripture to teach, but they didn’t say God couldn’t. In a nominally Christian culture, Arminianism may appear to be a satisfying explanation of the problem of evil—“God’s good; it’s our fault”. But as the acids of modernity have eaten away at more and more of the Bible’s teachings and even presuppositions about God, that answer is proving woefully insufficient to more radical critics. It appears merely like moving the wrinkle in the carpet. A backslidden United Methodist may be satisfied with such teaching, but a Deist, a Buddhist or an atheist would have no reasons to be. A. C. Grayling, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and their like will not for a moment be satisfied with someone saying “Well, God could have made this world without suffering, but in order to be loved with dignity by free beings, He decided He must allow such sin and suffering as we experience.”

Really? Then hang being loved with dignity! Forget the whole experiment! It costs too much! Furthermore, what kind of God NEEDS to be worshipped? What kind of deity is this?!

And it’s this line of questioning that I think has quietly, deeply, perhaps subtly been re-shaping the field into one in which the half-measures of Arminianism are not even beginning to be satisfying. They are attractive to fewer and fewer people. Their adherents average age will grow even as their numbers shrink. They will be recruited mainly from the churched, and perhaps even those who’ve nurtured grievances against God, for allowing this or that to happen.

Reformed theology, on the other hand, teaches about a god who is GOD. The kind of objections that seem to motivate Arminianism are disallowed by the very presuppositions Calvinism understands the Bible to teach about God. This God is sovereign and exercises His sovereignty. This God is centered on Himself. And this God is understood to be morally good in being so Self-centered. In fact, it would be evil, wrong, deceptive for Him to be centered on anything other than His own glory. There is no apology about this.

I highly suggest you read all ten posts. Here are links:

Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 10 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 9 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 8 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 7 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 6 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 5 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 4 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 3 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 2 of 10
Where'd all these Calvinists come from? 1 of 10

Schreiner on Galatians

I had the amazing privilege of learning from Dr. Tom Schreiner this past week. I took a modular class on Galatians where we spent 9 months translating, diagramming and arcing our way through the Greek text. Then last week, for four hours a day for five days, Dr. Schreiner walked through the text with us and discussed every detail. It was such a joy.

Dr. Schreiner is currently working on a commentary on Galatians for a new commentary series to be published by Zondervan. The genius of this commentary series is that each commentary will be based on arcing or tracing the argument.

Not only was Dr. Schreiner brilliant, but he exuded Christian character. He was kind and polite, humble and happy. Our whole family picked him up at the airport and he genuinely seemed interested in talking with my kids. He has been a hero of mine since I taught through his Romans commentary at Brush Prairie Baptist Church about seven years ago.

Carson on the Transformed Life

D. A. Carson writes (Still Sovereign, Baker, 259):

One must not conclude…that new covenant believers are anywhere promised moral and spiritual perfection this side of the new heaven and the new earth. Nevertheless, both the Old Testament prophecies regarding the new covenant and the age of the Spirit, and the New Testament claims regarding their fulfillment, lead us to expect transformed lives. Indeed, it is precisely this unequivocal expectation that authorizes Paul to set up the tension we have already noted: the exhortations to live up to what we are in Christ are predicated on the assumption that what we are in Christ necessarily brings transformation, so that moral failure is theologically shocking, however pragmatically realistic it may be. Indeed, it might be argued that this accounts for some of the tension in 1 John….It is worth recalling John’s insistence that believers do sin, and people who claim they do not are liars, self-deluded, and guilty of charging God with falsehood (1 John 1:6-10). At the same time, he repeatedly insists that sinning is not done among Christians. Various explanations have been advanced, but the most obvious is still the best: although both our experience and our location between the “already” and the “not yet” teach us that we do sin and we will sin, yet every single instance of sin is shocking, inexcusable, forbidden, appalling, out of line with what we are as Christians.

Affections: How Important Are They?

Have you ever noticed that the Bible commands you to feel something? Here are some texts: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Rom 12:11). “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul?” (Deut 10:12). “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:4, 5). “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil 4:4).

In addition to commanding affections (an eighteenth century word for emotion), the Bible also expects Christians to have a certain kind of emotion: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Pet 1:8).

The conclusion that Jonathan Edwards drew from these (and many other) verses is “true religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” Edwards wrote a 377 page book arguing for this conclusion. Well, actually, he spent about 40 pages arguing for this proposition, and then spent 337 pages describing what holy affections are and what they are not. I have spent the last four months immersed in this book and I believe Edwards is right. This book has shattered my paradigms about Christianity, and is causing me to look at my walk and my faith in a new light. Don’t worry, I am not going off the deep end anytime soon, but understanding the role of both the head and the heart in Christianity has become critical in regard to assurance, the fight of faith, and the importance of deep heartfelt worship.

Since I have never been outside the U.S., I can say little about the thinking or mind-set of other cultures, but I am familiar with the culture I am immersed in. Our culture breathes air that says, “men are rational and women are emotional.” Or, worse, that “Christianity is a rational religion only, and we can never trust our feelings. After all, feelings lie, so we must not trust them. We can definitely not trust our feelings when it comes to religion.” Stop for a moment and think about some of the churches you have attended. Have you ever argued or been taught that love is a verb?

Now, love certainly has its verbal aspects; we are to love our neighbor as our self. Nevertheless, when it comes to God, is love only a verb, or is it part verb and part state of being? What about joy? Yes, we are to rejoice, but what do we do when Peter declares we rejoice with joy?

The point of this discussion is that when we examine our faith and our Christian walk, we need to examine the state of our affections. For Christians, affections are not necessarily charismatic outward signs. We don’t have to raise our hands and cry and be overcome during worship. But we must feel something! If we do not feel anything, we are at the best disobedient, and at the worst not even Christian. Peter’s statement is present tense: “though you do not now see him, you [do now presently] love him and you [presently] believe in him and you [presently] rejoice with inexpressible joy.” This is how, in great part, our Christian lives should be.

I beg you to chase this idea down. Summer is a good time to read. Pick up Religious Affections and read it for yourself. Here are some quotes from Edwards: “God has given to mankind affections…. And yet how common is it among mankind, that their affections are much more exercised and engaged in other matters…which concern men’s worldly interest, their outward delights, their honor and reputation, and their natural relations…. How they can sit and hear of the infinite height and depth and length and breadth of the love of God in Christ Jesus, of his giving his infinitely dear Son, to be offered up a sacrifice for the sins of men, and of the unparalleled love of the innocent, holy and tender Lamb of God, manifested in his dying agonies, his bloody sweat, his loud and bitter cries, and bleeding heart, and all this for enemies, to redeem them from deserved, eternal burnings, and to bring to unspeakable and everlasting joy and glory; and yet be cold, and heavy and insensible and regardless! Where are the exercises of our affections proper if not here? …. How great cause have we therefore to be humbled to the dust, that we are no more affected!” (Edwards, Religious Affections, Yale, 122-124.)

Humility in Ministry, Part 3

Jonathan Edwards writes (Religious Affections, Yale, 312-314):

The essence of evangelical humiliation consists in such humility, as becomes a creature, in itself exceeding sinful, under a dispensation of grace; consisting in a mean esteem of himself, as in himself nothing, and altogether contemptible and odious; attended with a mortification of a disposition to exalt himself, and a free renunciation of his own glory.

This is a great and most essential thing in true religion. The whole frame of the gospel, and everything appertaining to the new Covenant, and all God’s dispensations towards fallen man, are calculated to bring to pass this effect in the hearts of men. They that are destitute of this, have no true religion, whatever profession they make, and how high soever their religious affections may be; “Behold, his soul which is lifted up, is not upright in him; but the just shall life by his faith” (Hab. 2:4): i.e. he shall live by his faith on God’s righteousness and grace, and not his own goodness and excellency.

Humility in Ministry, Part 2

C.H. Spurgeon writes (Lectures to My Students, Zondervan, 331):

Have you not by this time discovered that flattery is as injurious as it is pleasant? It softens the mind and makes you more sensitive to slander. In proportion as praise pleases you censure will pain you. Besides, it is a crime to be taken off from your great object of glorifying the Lord Jesus by petty consideration as to your little self, and, if there were no other reason, this ought to weigh much with you. Pride is a deadly sin, and will grow without your borrowing the parish watercart to quicken it. Forget expressions which feed your vanity, and if you mind yourself relishing the unwholesome morsels confess the sin with deep humiliation. Payson showed that he was strong in the Lord when he wrote to his mother, “You must not, certainly, my dear mother, say one word which even looks like an intimation that you think me advancing in grace. I cannot bear it. All the people here, whether friends or enemies, conspire to ruin me. Satan and my own heart, of course, will lend a hand; and if you join too, I fear all the cold water which Christ can throw upon my pride will not prevent its breaking out into a destructive flame. As certainly as anybody flatters and caresses me my heavenly Father has to whip me: and an unspeakable mercy it is that he condescends to do it. I can, it is true, easily muster a hundred reasons why I should not be proud, but pride will not mind reason, nor anything else but a good drubbing. Even at this moment I feel it tingling in my fingers’ ends, and seeking to guide my pen.” Knowing something myself of those secret whippings which our good Father administers to his servant when he sees them unduly exalted, I heartily add my own solemn warnings against your pampering the flesh by listening to the praises of the kindest friends you have. They are injudicious, and you must beware of them.

Together for the Gospel

A lot has happened since the last post. One of the biggest things was a trip to Louisville, Kentucky for the Together for the Gospel Conference. About thirty pastors and TBI students from Bethlehem left at 6:00 AM on Tuesday, April 25, for Louisville. We took the church bus and van, and made the trip in about fourteen hours. While it was long, it was also filled with good conversation and a chance to rest and read.

On Wednesday morning, we had breakfast with Tom Schreiner, professor of New Testament Studies at Southern Seminary, and then went to chapel at the seminary, where R.C. Sproul gave the address. After chapel we had lunch with a bunch of TBI alumni and Pastor John Piper who flew in from his sabbatical in Cambridge, England to speak at the conference. It was good to see Pastor again and hear about his studies. A new book will come out from these studies, I am sure.

After a stroll around the Southern Seminary campus, we headed to the conference in downtown Louisville. The conference was put together by four friends from different denominations who are "Together for the Gospel." They are Mark Dever, pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC; Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary; C.J. Mahaney, pastor of Covenant Life Church in Maryland; and Ligon Duncan III, pastor of First Presbyterion Church in Jackson, Mississippi. For the conference, they invited three guests, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, and John MacArthur. It was a delightful three days of fantastic sermons, worship, and encouragement for pastors. While these men differed on certain issues (like the mode of baptism), they certainly agree on the gospel. It was a joy.

Click on the title to this post for a link to the T4G website. You can download each man's talk for a small fee. I think the two best talks were John Piper's and Ligon Duncan's. Pastor Piper spoke on why expositional preaching is particularly glorifying to God. Duncan spoke on preaching from the Old Testament. Please download these and listen to them. Even if you never preach, they are worth hearing.

I arrived back early on Saturday, April 29, and spent the rest of the weekend catching up with Wendy and the kids. What a joy it is to come home.

Men Like These

I know that seminary professors do not make the top-fifty-most-famous-people edition of your favorite tabloid; however, it is amazing to me how many truly amazing men I have had the chance to meet since coming to Minneapolis.

Everyone needs a hero, and of course, John Piper is mine. However, I have several other heroes who are all of the same ilk: extremely brilliant, bible-saturated, God-fearing, Christ-exalting, and well seminary professors. In the last year and a half, I have met most of my heroes. John Piper in August 2004, Tom Steller in October 2004, Tom Schreiner and Wayne Grudem in November 2005, and Grudem again in March 2006.

I am also finding new heroes since we have been here. For instance, Sam Storms has become a hero. He is brilliant and exalts Christ. Get this, he also asked his future wife to marry him on their first date. They have been married for 34 years. He seems like a down-home country boy, but his alter-ego has taught systematic theology at Wheaton College (which is the Harvard of evangelical institutions.) In May I will get to meet Dr. Douglas Moo, who was a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity school and is now heading up the doctoral program at Wheaton.

(I hope you all know that I am not writing this to drop names or sound cool. On the contrary, I am like a kid in the candy store who can't wait to tell everyone what he as seen!)

Last night, was definately a highlight. I was able to listen to a lecture by and shake hands with Donald A. Carson. He isn't as well known as Wayne Grudem, maybe, but he is an incredible man.

Now, forgive me for being so excited about all these men. I am more excited about Jesus Christ. But the thing about these men is that they point me to Christ in ways that few other mere mortals can do. They have such amazing grasps of the languages, and history and, most importantly, the Bible itself that they make it come alive. To listen to them both thrills me and depresses me. It thrills me because they shine light in areas that had only been darkness; and it depresses me because I don't think I could ever have the wisdom, knowledge, or insight that they have.

I pray for that often. I want to be able to teach like them. I believe that God has called us to Minnesota to teach me how to teach. And I have been blessed to sit at the feet of men like these.

Playing Chauffeur to Grudem

Nine times in two years our church holds TBI seminars that are open to the whole church and required for the TBI Track 2 guys. These seminars include topics like, Desiring God, TULIP, Future Grace, Why We Believe the Bible, etc.

Last night and this morning was the seminar on Gender Complimentarianism. This is the idea that the genders complement each other. In other words, men and women are equal before God, yet have different roles.

Because Pastor Piper is on sabbatical in Europe, he did not teach the seminar. Instead, his good friend, Dr. Wayne Grudem, taught the seminar. Since coming to BBC, this is the fourth time that I have seen Dr. Grudem live.

Dr. Grudem has had a big impact on my spiritual development as I found his major book, Systematic Theology, back in the late nineties. It has been very influential in my learning.

In getting to the point, Wendy and I had the honor of driving Dr. Grudem to and from his hotel to the seminar today. It was a joy to ride with him and talk to him about his children and family and his career.

Anyway, it was a small joy for us, and another of those neat things that have happened to us since we came to Bethlehem Baptist Church.