Still He

God remains steadfast, and we give Him our whole trust

“Still He blesses those on whom He sets His love in a way that humbles them, so that all the glory may be His alone. Still He hates the sins of His people, and uses all kinds of inward and outward pains and griefs to wean their hearts from compromise and disobedience. Still He seeks the fellowship of His people, and sends them both sorrows and joys in order to detach their love from other things and attach it to Himself. Still He teaches the believer to value His promised gifts by making him wait for them, and compelling him to pray persistently for them, before He bestows them. So we read of Him dealing with His people in the Scripture record, and so He deals with them still. His aims and principles of action remain consistent; He does not at any time act out of character. Man’s ways, we know, are pathetically inconsistent—but not God’s.”

I am praying that a dear friend of mine, Steve, who has had leukemia return to his body over the past 45-50 days now, will set his hope and confidence in the One who remains constant, reliable, predictable and faithful. Steve is a disciple of Jesus Christ. He’s a young man of 22 years. He needs the healing hand of His Savior.

“[Our Gracious God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit] does not at any time act out of character. Man’s ways, we know, are pathetically inconsistent—but not God’s.”

Quote above from J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 71.

G. Mark Sumpter

Tattoos Up When Economy Down

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

December 19, 2010

By Paris Achen

Medford, Oregon  
Mail Tribune

While other downtown Medford shop windows went dark during the recession, Phat Kat Tattoo and Piercing on South Riverside Avenue was expanding and renovating.

Although owner Jeff Rahenkamp attributes much of Phat Kat's success to its clean and friendly environment, the shop is not an anomaly. In fact, the tattoo parlor is a microcosm of an industry that has continued to grow and thrive in spite of the economic downturn.

“When people are losing their homes, their cars and everything, you can't take tattoos away,” Rahenkamp says. “They're mine. Unless you're taking my skin off, you aren't taking it.”

Nearly one in four Americans had a tattoo in 2006, according to a study published in September of that year by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

“It's no longer just bikers, drifters and people who don't want to conform to society who have tattoos,” Rahenkamp says. “Now, we're tattooing doctors and lawyers.”

For the rest of this story go HERE.

Is it true that people still continue to tend to their appearance and persona even though their pockets jingle with only a little change and their bellies are hungry? Some point out that surrounding the times of the GREAT DEPRESSION the market was double bullish with respect to personal cosmetics and perfumes. 

Evidence from Avon, the famous perfume and cosmetics company:

“California Perfume issued its first product catalog in 1896, which contained descriptions of items but no photographs. In 1897, McConnell [David McConnell, a 28-year-old, who launched Avon] had a three-story, 3,000-square-foot laboratory constructed in Suffern, New York, to develop new cosmetic products for the company. In 1906, its first print ads appeared in Good Housekeeping and its first color catalog was issued. Disaster struck that year when CPC's San Francisco office was destroyed in the great earthquake that decimated the city. A new office soon opened, as did new branch offices in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, and Davenport, Iowa. By the end of the year, the company had ten thousand sales representatives and managers, and offered 117 different products. 

In 1914, CPC opened a sales office in Montreal, Canada, followed the next year by a manufacturing plant. By 1920, annual sales revenue had topped $1 million. Fueled by the economic boom of the 1920s, annual sales reached $2 million in 1928, powered by twenty-five thousand sales agents in the United States and Canada. The company moved into a new headquarters, a just-built skyscraper in Manhattan. It also introduced its first products under the Avon brand name: a toothbrush, talcum powder, and a vanity set. 

McConnell died in 1937 and his son, David Jr., became president of CPC. The company moved its headquarters to a larger building in Rockefeller Center in New York. The company also instituted a money-back guarantee on its products. Despite the economic hardships following the Great Depression (1929-34) when millions of Americans lost their jobs, CPC managed to flourish, doubling its sales revenue to $4 million by 1938.”

Read more: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/businesses/A-F/Avon-Products-Inc.html#ixzz18hqTuBXY

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters. 23

All to Him I Owe

“For, until men feel that they owe everything to God, that they are cherished by his paternal care, and that he is the author of all their blessings, so that nought is to be looked for away from him, they will never submit to him in voluntary obedience; nay, unless they place their entire happiness in him, they will never yield up their whole selves to him in truth and sincerity.”

—John Calvin, Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 2

G. Mark Sumpter

Happy Sabbath

The Steady Diet of the Sabbath

“God’s intention was to bless his people through the constant and conscientious observation of the day, week after week and year after year. Believers are sanctified through a lifetime of Sabbath observance. In other words, the Sabbath is designed to work slowly, quietly, seemingly imperceptively in reorienting believers’ appetites heavenward. It is not a quick fix, nor is it necessarily a spiritual high. It is an “outward and ordinary” ordinance (WSC 88), part of the steady and healthy diet of the means of grace. North American Protestants, we have noted, are generally not in sync with this rhythm. Attracted to the inward and extraordinary, they commonly suffer from spiritual bulimia, binging at big events, then purging, by absenting themselves from God’s prescribed diet. The problem with the spirituality of mountaintop experiences is that no one can live on the mountain. We all have to return to our day jobs. When people leave the retreat or Bible camp, or even the midweek small group, they discover their life is still the same: jobs are unpleasant, marriages are shaky, sickness and disease afflict. In contrast, the Sabbath is supposed to be a discipline that provides an oasis in the desert for pilgrims, whose life is marked by suffering. Unlike the church activities that clutter the rest of the week, the Sabbath is when believers spiritually assemble on Mount Zion to meet with their God, to hear him speak, and to partake spiritually of their Savior’s body and blood.”


With Reverence and Awe by Darryl Hart and John Muether, pp. 65-66.


HT: In Light of the Gospel

G. Mark Sumpter

What is Theology?

John Frame envelops theology with persons who use the Scriptures

“THEOLOGY is the application of the Word of God by persons to all areas of life… TEACHING is the use of God’s revelation to meet the spiritual needs of people…. By defining theology as application, I am not seeking to disparage the theoretical work of theologians. Theory is one kind of application. It answers certain kinds of questions and meets certain kinds of human needs…I am, however, seeking to discourage the notion that theology is ‘properly’ something theoretical, something academic, as opposed to the practical teaching that goes on in preaching, counseling, and Christian friendship.” John Frame in his, DOCTRINE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD—pp. 81, 84.

Frame’s definition of theology throws the mandate and task of the church of knowing, loving and serving our great God into Trinitarian faith and life. In order to show forth our image after God’s likeness, we are persons bound in relationship to one another—the church, who study, learn and mutually nurture in such a way as to show submission to the Bible’s promises and commands aiming for life-application in the nitty-gritty of every area of thinking and living.

G. Mark Sumpter

Teachers, Not Missional Pace-Setters

Biblical Authority, Strong Conviction for Repentance and Revival

“If there is going to be a renaissance of religion, its bearers will not be people who have been falling all over each other to be ‘relevant to modern man’…Strong eruptions of religious faith have always been marked by the appearance of people with firm, unapologetic, often uncompromising convictions—that is, by types that are the very opposite from those presently engaged in the various ‘relevance’ operations. Put simply: Ages of faith are not marked by ‘dialogue’ but by proclamation…I would affirm that the concern for the institutional structures of the Church will be vain unless there is also a new conviction and a new authority in the Christian community.”

From Peter L. Berger. Quoted in The Presbyterian Journal, 1971—as cited in J.M. Boice’s systematic theology called, Foundations of the Christian Faith IVP, p. 673.

The crowds were astonished with Jesus because He taught with authority. That reference to His authority meant, no doubt, the method of teaching without having to quote the accepted rabbinic traditions of His time. So true.

But I wonder about something more. Wasn’t there a manifestation of His authority seen in additional attention-getting, pressing and forceful ways?

His loyalty to be the learner of God—His sinless life matched His words. Holiness.

He quoted and exposited the Old Testament. He rooted His claims about His own person and work fulfilling God's promises in the provision of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms. Using the Scriptures.

He cried out at times in a loud voice to teach, to proclaim; and at times, He refused to answer a question. Conviction.

He taught in informal occasions—on mountainsides, at the waterfront, privately, at night, while walking, with crowds about their hubbub. In routines, known as Teacher.

He harnessed a range of methods—parables, illustrations, a refusal to answer questions, metaphor, lecture, handling objects, discussion, reviewing a lesson, preaching, scratching in the dirt, reading, citing quotes, referring to songs, comparisons, spoken and direct confrontation. Brought the truth in relationship to others and their capacities.

He was known as Teacher. 45 times, at least, He was addressed with that title.

Our times are ones where we note quality leadership and authority stem from plans, goal-setting and contagious-infectious modeling. We’re told about influential, missional pace-setting pastors. These same folk tell us of the importance to rally around the man, or more, to rally around the vision of the man.

Also, what compounds the short-change of the practice of faithful authority in the local church springs from the ready acknowledgment that the REAL teaching gifts and their application reside in the seminary or Bible college. The academy gets the first-priority nod about authority.  

So how can we get started on Berger's renewal?

Without teaching a people perish, we’re told in Proverbs (Proverbs 29:18). It has to be exposition of the Bible where the Scriptures are providing both the diagnosis of circumstances and people, and then as well, giving that same kind of attention to Jesus Christ, His glory, and our union in Him—His life, death, resurrection and ascension. Biblical exposition must be working at such authority that provides for sound church health and growth.

Pastors must hunger for correction and improvement about their teaching. Ruling elders should have an open door to the pastor for his needful, fruitful correction.

Where can we go to access helpful resources that aim at improving the teaching gifts of our men?

Should pastors try to be more collegial in some of their endeavors in the practice of teaching? There should be times of pastor to pastor modeling and evaluation.

When pastors write, they get the chance to work at clarity, expression and fluidity. Giving pastoral interns writing assignments might be a start.

Teaching in large groups and in small groups, with the ebb and flow of diverse settings, can help with adjustments and improvements.

The growing churches—Berger’s renaissance churches—are well-grounded with Biblically expositional feeding and care for God’s flock; such an endeavor speaks of faithful, penetrating Biblical authority.

Unapologetic, convicting teachers of the Word, not missional pace-setters are what we’re talking about.

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.22

C.H. Spurgeon on discouragement

“O brethren, be great believers. Little faith will bring your souls to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your souls.”

Cited in Dallimore’s book, SPURGEON, p. 187.

What is great faith? It's living in and through Christ---putting into practice God's gracious and glorious promises, acting on His commands, heeding His warnings, anticipating His presence.

G. Mark Sumpter

Leon Morris—a Note on John 10 and Shepherding

A Shepherd’s Care for the Sheep

“It is plain enough that dangers could arise for the shepherd at any time. But the Palestinian shepherd did not reckon on dying; he thought he would survive. The job has its dangers, certainly. But men have never been deterred from jobs simply because there are dangers (as we can see from modern life as well as any other). Men always think that there are ways of dealing with the danger and never expect the dire results to follow for them---it is always other people who get caught! So with the shepherd in antiquity. Allowing for the fact that there would be problems as he looked after the sheep, he though he could cope; otherwise he would not be a shepherd. He knew that there was the possibility that he would be wounded or even die, but he knew the resources he had and was optimistic. No man willingly dies for animals like sheep.

But the one thing Jesus says he will do for people in his capacity as Shepherd is die for them. That for him was the central thing. He had come to bring salvation, and that meant death on behalf of his sheep.

A Palestinian shepherd might sometimes die in the exercise of his duty as a shepherd, but that was always a mishap, something that occurred as a result of some miscalculation. If he was thinking of the welfare of his sheep, the shepherd thought of what he could do by his life, not of what he could by his death. Jesus’ attitude was quite different. He put his death in the forefront. That is what the Good Shepherd would do.”

G. Mark Sumpter

To God Be the Glory

Encore!

Why are we biblical Christians? Yes, we use the Bible. But why? Because it is the book that God has given. And why is that important? It is to the Bible we go, where we learn about God. And why be concerned about God? Because God is at the center of all that God is about. And to see God at the center, God for His own glory…God for His own honor…God for His own name… God for His own purposes… God asking the questions, God answering the questions… God in the midst… not to the side… God in fore-thought, not an after-thought… this is to confess what the God of the Bible confesses: for Yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever and Ever and Ever………. And we can yet ask again, why be God-centered about God? Because God is centered on God.

It is like a symphony hall…. The Father is the conductor…. The entire orchestra is the Son of God; and the audience who bears witness is the Holy Spirit. He, our God, enjoys the hall… for it’s His hall… it’s His score of the music, His conducting of the score, His playing of every note—each section perfect in pitch, time, with skill and peformance; He is the display, the witness, the response, the eyes that are fixed in wonderment and awe, the One who moves to the edge of the seat to turn His ear to melodic and pastoral textures, and then stands to cheer, “bravo, bravo!” This is the symphony hall called Trinity Hall… the marquee board reads, “For from Him and to Him and through Him are all things. To Him be the glory for ever and ever.”

G.Mark Sumpter

After the Lord’s Supper

The part about “to...fulfill their vows…”

Question 175 from the Westminster Larger Catechism


Q. 175. What is the duty of Christians, after they have received the sacrament of the Lord's supper?


A. The duty of Christians, after they have received the sacrament of the Lord's supper, is seriously to consider how they have behaved themselves therein, and with what success; if they find quickening and comfort, to bless God for it, beg the continuance of it, watch against relapses, fulfill their vows, and encourage themselves to a frequent attendance on that ordinance: but if they find no present benefit, more exactly to review their preparation to, and carriage at, the sacrament; in both which, if they can approve themselves to God and their own consciences, they are to wait for the fruit of it in due time: but, if they see they have failed in either, they are to be humbled, and to attend upon it afterwards with more care and diligence.


At Faith Presbyterian, we left worship renewed in the covenant mercies and covenant marching orders of the Lord last week, and there was the stress of fulfilling our vows to one another; after all, we had just heard from the Lord of His renewal with us, now it was time in our own renewal to walk in the vows. So, there was the exhortation: “we’ve just sat at the Table together; we say we enjoy the Table Fellowship, let us go forward and be the family we are in Christ Jesus.”


I like this question: What is the duty of Christians, after they have received the sacrament of the Lord's supper?


G. Mark Sumpter

Presbytery—the Work of the Church, moving “Like a Mighty Glacier!”

Jack Phelps, thanks for the pix!

Last week, the Presbytery of Anselm of the CREC met in the Matanuska Valley, Alaska. What a shot—huh? In high school and then later in ministry years up there, we used to climb around on this giant—as do so many Alaskans. Pastor Jack Phelps serves Covenant Bible of the CREC in the Great Land.

This is the Matanuska Glacier; her sprawl is able to be seen at about mile 90, 95 or so on the Glenn Highway.

G. Mark Sumpter

The Doctrine of Adoption, II

God's filial love--the apex of grace

“Adoption, as the term clearly implies, is an act of transfer from an alien family into the family of God himself. This is surely the apex of grace and privilege. We would not dare to conceive of such grace far less claim it apart from God’s own revelation and assurance. It staggers imagination because of its amazing condescension and love. The Spirit alone could be the seal of it in our hearts. ‘Eye hath not seen, no ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God’ (1 Cor. 2:9, 10). It is only as there is the conjunction of the witness of revelation and the inward witness of the Spirit in our hearts that we are able to scale this pinnacle of faith and say with the filial confidence and love, Abba Father.” John Murray, p. 134 in his Redemption Accomplished and Applied.

Murray elsewhere says that adoption reigns as the chief fruit of Christ’s redemptive work for His children; here he calls it the apex of grace. I've been accustomed to think of justification as the apex of grace.

The Spirit works with the Word to confirm, to seal the eternal inheritance; but more, the Spirit enables us to grasp the promises and reality regarding God's good pleasure and delight in us and for us.

The Word convinces, and the Spirit convinces. A double testimony to the truth.

G. Mark Sumpter

O Lord, I Repent From Wanting to Get People Saved

Ken Myers writing about C.S. Lewis on method of presenting Christ

“Lewis’s imaginative skills were thus focused less on the mere credibility or plausibility of belief (which are the concerns of most apologists) and more on the ramifications of belief: If the gospel is true, here is how the world would look. Even ‘belief’ had a more comprehensive scope in his thinking than most apologists recognize. The gospel wasn’t just a message about getting saved; it was a message of salvation in the context of a bigger story about the meaning of everything. It presupposed a cosmology and a rich anthropology. As in the Creed, Lewis’s defense of the faith began with a tacit but rich affirmation of the Maker of heaven and earth, who made all things in a particular way, the shape of which his creatures would do well to honor.” Ken Myers in the recent Touchstone Magazine, “Contours of Culture,” Sept/Oct 2010.

Lord, help me show people just how great You are; what Your world is like and what it will be like more and more since Jesus is subduing more and more for His own name, and Dear Father, You show them life in the Big Picture of things—for the glory of Jesus’ Lordship. Amen.

G. Mark Sumpter

Gather the People

In prayer

Joel 2:16 “Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes…”

There’ll be corporate prayer—summoned by the elders of Faith Church on October 24, 10:00 AM, and we’ll be praying for the church in the Northwest and around the USA for faithfulness and truth in the family, church and state.

G. Mark Sumpter

Other Prayers

A Lutheran Prayer Book, 1960

O GOD, who givest daily bread without prayer, even to all the wicked, we pray thee that thou wouldst give us to acknowledge these thy benefits; and enable us to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. Amen.

O MERCIFUL, PATIENT FATHER, who dost protect and preserve us, guide us by thy grace and banish the blindness of the world and our minds, that we may apply ourselves wholly to the keeping of thy commandments, and do our work without care, like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, because thou hast promised to care for us and bade us cast all our cares on thee, who livest and reignest for ever. Amen.

THE LORD preserve us from all evil. The Lord preserve our souls. The Lord preserve our going out and our coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. Amen.

G. Mark Sumpter

The Whole Thing

Total Truth

I am grateful for the insights into the unity of the Bible given by Douglas Wilson. I first heard a CD from him maybe 3 years ago, where he began citing the English Bible where there’s a quote or citation of the Old Testament referenced in the New. He went one by one, and then turning to examine the New’s citation and use.

The New Testament is full of themes and direct quotations from the Old Testament. It contains a range of uses of the Old—from faint allusions to specific, definite quotations. Some 224 direct citations of the Old that are introduced by a formula, “it is written” or something like “where it says.” Beyond the 224 another 71 references cite Old Testament verses without the formula. That means one verse in every 22 ½ verses of the New mentions the Old. Some teachers have sought to make a case that there are over 4,100 passages “reminiscent of the Old Testament.” In a striking manner there’s a broad sweep about this—consider the spread of the Hebrew Bible quoted in the New: 94 times the Pentateuch is directly quoted or has direct allusion, 99 from the Prophets, and 85 from the Writings (Psalms, Job, etc.). Out of the 39 Books of the Hebrew Scriptures only 6 fail to get an explicit quotation or direct allusion (Judges-Ruth literature, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah literature, and Chronicles literature). But no doubt all the Books of the Old Testament are faintly alluded to in the New.

There are volumes and volumes published that provide Insight Mountain about this: 1) The integrity of the Bible’s inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility; 2) The case for the closed canon of God’s revelation; 3) The centrality of the message of Jesus Christ on the page or in the scene of every OT story, and much, much more. Only one matter that I have time for—have you considered that one reason we fail to prize and act on the integrated whole and unity of God’s world in education is because we fail to prize and act on the unity—the integrated whole and unity—of God’s Word? We divide Chemistry from Literature; we separate English Grammar from Geography; we isolate Political Science from Cinema Studies. We fragment. We set disciplines off from one another turning them into self-contained, self-regulating, self-governing entities. Idolatry abounds. The One—anyone one of the subjects of life—becomes an overachiever; and it swallows up the Many. When the church fails to prize the unity of the Bible and act on it, she loses ground in her responsibility to sit under God as Lord working to bring every discipline of learning under Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). We fragment and break apart the Bible; and we fragment and break apart God’s world.

G. Mark Sumpter

The Doctrine of Adoption

What used to be a lonesome doctrine in the field of applied salvation

“If you want to know how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.”


J. I. Packer, Knowing God

I am working on prayers for our congregational worship on the theme of adoption; on the subject of our standing, privileges and responsibilities in the bosom and heart of our God.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, you might have found two books on the topic of adoption, sonship and so on. But today: Peterson, Ferguson, Hoekema, Needham and the various writings of Jack Miller and his son, Paul. We're loaded for bear in our day.

I want to pull out two or three quotes from John Murray too. He surprises us. Stay tuned.

Westminster Shorter Catechism
Q34: What is adoption?

A34: Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges of the Sons of God.

G. Mark Sumpter

Go-To Guy

Dr. Steve Baugh of Westminster Seminary

Steve taught me Greek in his home in 1982-83. I get to visit with him in 2010 roughly once a week in this 2nd Edition.

He's pictured here in the back left.

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.21

The Bible talks right at us

“The Bible is brutally honest, presenting people and situations with a candor we probably would have softened had we written it. It refuses to gloss over sin’s impact on us and our world. But it is also honest for another reason: to demonstrate how the wisdom of the Lord and the transforming grace of Christ are powerful enough to address the deepest issues of human experience. If you read Scripture carefully, you will never get the idea that the work of Christ is for well-adjusted people who just need a little redemptive boost. It never presents any human condition or dilemma as outside the scope of the gospel. Redemption is nothing less than the rescue of helpless people facing an eternity of torment apart from God’s love.”--Paul Tripp

Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, p. 195, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co, 2002.

G. Mark Sumpter

Hospitality Levels the Field

Eating together minimizes, maybe reduces altogether hierarchical notions

“Because eating is something every person must do, meal-time has a profoundly egalitarian dimension.

...Often we maintain significant boundaries when offering help to persons in need. Many churches prepare and serve meals to hungry neighbors, but few church members find it easy to sit and eat with those who need the meal. When people are very different from ourselves, we often find it more comfortable to cook and clean for them than to share in a meal and conversation. We are familiar with roles as helpers but we are less certain about being equals eating together. Many of us struggle with simply being present with people in need; our helping roles give definition to the relationship but they also keep it decidedly hierarchical. As one practitioner observed, eating together is the ‘most enriching part but also the hardest part. When we were first here it was so hard. We didn’t have any specific things to do, just be with people.’”

I am convicted to the core.

I have been a part of congregations that serve meals to the homeless; I don’t think I ever remember a practice of sitting down with those dear folks. Serving them is safer; it's just too risky to be with them.

This quote comes from the penetrating, well-written volume, Making Room—Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Eerdmans, 1999), p. 74.

G. Mark Sumpter

Trying to Force Him to be King

A constant temptation with which Christ was faced

D.A. Carson makes a connection between the temptation of Satan, where he holds out the kingdoms of this present world to Jesus (Matthew 4:8-10), and the time that our Lord recognized “that they [the crowd of the Jews] were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king” (John 6:14-15).

We see it as the temptation to rule apart from God’s plan, purpose and way. This slick temptation sought to lure Him away from the devotion and purpose of His mandate—a temptation to forfeit the foundational characteristic of a son’s relationship unto His father via the simplicity of trust, obedience and faithful service.

I had not thought about that temptation plaguing our Lord so repeatedly. I thought it was a Matthew 4 wilderness temptation matter with Satan alone; like a one-time thing and it’s over. But the vulnerability to slide into self-service always dogged Him, whether from Satan, the Jews, the Romans soldiers, one of the robbers beside Him on Golgotha, the disciples, and even a close friend in ministry like Peter. Carson’s comment made me start ticking through the Gospels and their stories on this.

It’s a huge temptation throughout Christ’s life.

“A man’s pride will bring him low…” Proverbs 29:23

Our Lord, who considered equality with God nothing to be held to tightly (Phil. 2:5-6), served His Father out of the abundance of thanksgiving and humility. Every gift of God was His; He used it all for God’s greater glory, not His own. He met this temptation for us, to be our Savior through and through; we can say that from the manger to the empty tomb He served as King all the way.

G. Mark Sumpter

Baseball Anniversary 20 Years Ago for Father and Son

1990 Headline: Griffey Jr & Sr – First Father/Son Tandem To Go Back-To-Back Rockets!!

Yesterday afternoon, as the 20th Anniversary-----September 14, 1990, the fans of the California Angels, sitting at Angels stadium in Anaheim, witnessed the very first father-son duo hit back to back shots out of the park. I think it was Ken Griffey, Sr. hitting just ahead of Jr.

The Seattle Mariners lost to the Angels, but the historic occasion is well-remembered.

G. Mark Sumpter

Charles Spurgeon 1

Spurgeon’s Pastors’ College

“Many of my readers will have read Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students, recalling with joy such subjects as ‘The Minister’s Self Watch,’ ‘The Call to Ministry,’ ‘Sermons—Their Matter,’ and ‘The Faculty of Impromptu Speech.’ The lectures are evidence of the standards set in the college. At the time he gave them Spurgeon was only thirty-four.

The college now had three instructors beside Mr. Rogers. They were Alexander Ferguson, David Gracey, and J. R. Selway. The school majored on the study of theology, but the whole course was similar to that of many seminaries, and Rogers listed other chief subjects as ‘Mathematics, Logic, Hebrew, the Greek New Testament, Homiletics, Pastoral Theology and English Composition.’ Spurgeon mentions astronomy also as part of the course in physical science, and some of the men became, like himself, particularly interested in the stars and the laws governing the heavenly bodies.”

Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon (Moody Press, 1984), p 107.

I agree with so many writing and teaching on the reformation of the purpose and philosophy of education happening in Reformed and Evangelical circles nowadays. The seminaries of the Reformed stripe in North America will be richly blessed as the years continue to tick by. The high school students of the late 1990s and moving into these early decades of the 21st Cent will be (are) top-shelf kids. They are top-shelf regarding their training and preparation for college and seminary. Like Spurgeon’s practice regarding education, the classically trained students are orbiting the Sun taking rides on the planets of life, faith, truth, revelation, the sciences, the languages and literature, and the fine arts, and they move in concert, and call up awe. The relationship between the Sun and planets are known, as well as the relationship between the planets themselves. It’s a splendid universe.

Note that all of life was on the menu at the Pastors’ College. It was getting grounded in an array of subjects as mentioned above. For Spurgeon, no question, it was training for bold faithfulness in the pulpit.

The students today anchored in the regiment of English Grammar, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and in the basics of reading widely, and writing and speaking as rhetoricians are the students who will be the community of joy as a sound, robust Christian witness for the whole earth. Take notice—the Lord is doing marvelous things.

G. Mark Sumpter

Eyeball to Eyeball on Commitment in Marriage

A Couple in for Counseling—Wanting to Get Married

Woman sitting next to her boyfriend, her live-in: Who wants to marry somebody and commit to a relationship that might not work out? We’ve actually been living as if married, in every sense, and it’s been good to have sort of a test drive about one another.

Pastor: Having that view about marriage worries me, actually.

Woman: (Stunned look) What do you mean?

Pastor: (Going eyeball to eyeball with both of them): You have been living in an experiment, and there is no reason why the formality of marriage would change your habit of treating the relationship as an experiment. Christian marriage is a commitment, not an experiment.

I was taken in with this paraphrased piece from an old edition of Touchstone Magazine.

Tomorrow I am leading off with a talk on sex, sexuality and self-control for men. The test-drive age in which we live has been so formative. Experimental live-in situations assume man’s self-sufficient ways and answers for life. It’s all very person to person focused. It borrows just a teaspoon of Christianity—it’s not good for man to be alone, but then gives shape to life on man’s own standards. What worldly standards? I’ll live with you so long as I am still able to be at the center getting my way, according to my likes. Anything that pushes me too far out of the center no longer serves my purposes.

Rather than acknowledgement about heart issues of man’s sinful state, and his self-serving choices and pleasures, it’s the confession of “I have needs, you know.”

Where’s the binding agreement, a covenant that takes the focus off of each person, and places it on commitment? One of the assumptions above on the part of this couple is that love gives special permission, it places them in an unique spot: they think that experimenting with love is acceptable.

Is one of the attributes of love experimentation? Would it be found in 1 Corinthians 13? Love is patient…does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up… bears all things…experiments with all things….

G. Mark Sumpter

Young Men, Sex and the New Testament Times

Reading William Barclay’s Letters to the Seven Churches

I used to read to book store customers this quote from Barclay’s own pen:

“It is not that Jesus is God. Time and time again the Fourth Gospel speaks of God sending Jesus into the world. Time and time again we see Jesus praying to God. Time and time again we see Jesus unhesitatingly and unquestioningly and unconditionally accepting the will of God for himself. Nowhere does the New Testament identify Jesus and God. He said: `He who has seen me has seen God.' There are attributes of God I do not see in Jesus. I do not see God's omniscience in Jesus, for there are things which Jesus did not know...”

A Spiritual Autobiography Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975, p. 56.


Evangelicals standing at the front counter, who had asked why we refused to carry Barclay’s material, would be shocked to hear this quote from such a popular writer. That huge matter aside, I have been reading his little study on the background of the churches of the Revelation.

One quote related to the church of Pergamos (Barclay commenting on Revelation 2:14c…, “to commit sexual immorality.”)

“It has been said that chastity was the one completely new virtue which Christianity introduced into the ancient world. In the ancient world sexual morals were loose; relationships outside of marriage were entirely accepted and produced no stigma whatsoever. Demosthenes has laid it down: ‘We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure; we have concubines for the sale of daily cohabitation; we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately; and of having a faithful guardian of our household affairs.’ He was not saying anything which was in the least shocking; he was simply laying down what accepted pattern of sexual life. Cicero in his Pro Caelio pleads: ‘If there is anyone who thinks that young men should be absolutely forbidden the love of courtesans, he is extremely severe. I am not able to deny the principle that he states. But he is at variance, not only with the license of what our own age allows, but also with the customs and concessions of our ancestors. When indeed was this not done? When did anyone ever find fault with it? When was such permission denied? When was it that that which is now lawful was not lawful?’ To Cicero such relationships were an accepted part of life of a young man.” pp. 39-40


The Pauline admonitions, “…abstain from sexual immorality…,” and from Hebrews, “…Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge…,” and last, a text like, “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife…” are watershed passages for the will of our Almighty—and He counsels us for blessing, emotional and physical security and so that we might be His witness of holiness, that we might not be in “fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”


I’ve been working on preparation for helping men with sexual lusts, pornography and related snares. The Lord Jesus Christ addressed this topic with both churches—Pergamos and Thyatira.


G. Mark Sumpter

100 Bible Verses

New Book Released Next Month

“Change your life from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:20.

With the immediacy of Internet searches and ease of handheld devices, the custom of memorizing Scripture may not seem necessary, but best-selling author Robert J. Morgan makes an airtight case for reviving this rewarding practice in 100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart.

It's vital for mental and emotional health and for spiritual well-being, he writes. It's as powerful as acorns dropping into furrows in the forest. It allows God's words to sink into your brain and permeate your subconscious thoughts. It saturates the personality, satiates the soul, and stockpiles the mind. It changes the atmosphere of every family and alters the weather forecast of every day.”

Broadman and Holman publishers supplies THIS BLURB HERE.

G. Mark Sumpter

Preaching within the Glorious Stream of Grace

Situating exposition into God's faithfulness

“Moralism, which merely tells people that what they are doing is wrong and tells them several practical steps to take that will correct that wrong, falls far short of preaching Christ. Preaching isolated biblical texts as examples of how to live without placing each story in the stream that leads to Christ falls short of preaching Christ.”

In the book, Reforming Pastoral Ministry, p. 120 (Editor: John Armstrong, a Crossway Publication, 2001).

Keeping the exposition and application in the stream of grace, keeps the preaching in an historical context. God works through persons and events, thus, we’re brought back to God’s work by His faithfulness, wisdom and power. That’s preaching that centers on Him. The persons and events of the Old and New Testaments feed into the person and events of Jesus Christ—His person and His work. Our union with Christ, by faith in Him, is one with His person of righteousness, of penal substitution and His glorious triumph at His empty tomb. In Christ, we’re given release from slavery to sin, and we’re given incentive and strength to live for God’s glory. Because He lives, we may live too. Lord, help me to preach the person and work of Jesus.

G. Mark Sumpter

Big Daddy Cabbage

At the Alaska State Fair

Speaking about the size of the vegetables grown in the Matanuska Valley as a sermon illustration has been overused by me, but it still provides an Alaska-size kick in the pants.

See this STORY.

As a kid, we enjoyed getting close to these creatures; obviously, it would take two, maybe three Shaquille O’Neal-size men to get their hands locked around these beasts.

G. Mark Sumpter