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Tag Archives: Discipleship

A Biblical Counseling Ministry in a Local Church: A Core Function

16 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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Biblical Counseling, Discipleship, Training

(These are notes for the final session of a Biblical Counseling conference which will be held in August in Chile. The previous posts for this conference are found here and here).

At this point, I you want to think more broadly about a biblical counseling ministry. Up until this point, we have been discussing biblical counseling as a response to a crisis. The person who comes to biblical counseling is someone who is suffering a significant trouble; whether a significant circumstance like a difficult marriage; or a significant sin which has led to trouble. This leads us to think that biblical counseling is unique in life of the church; it is somehow detached from the normal functioning of the church.

All that we have done so far and all that we will do next week may seem to support that idea: here you are going through serious sustained training on some very difficult subjects. I just spent a session telling you to be very careful whom you choose to be a counselor in your church.

At this point I want to adjust your thinking slightly. Biblical counseling is specialized, and it is part of the core function of a church.

Matthew 28 records the resurrection of our Lord. That chapter ends with the Lord’s instruction to the Church:

Matthew 28:18–20 (NASB95)

18        And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

19        “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

20        teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 

The main verb in that sentence is to “make disciples”. We will do this as we go out into the world. We will baptize them and teach them to observe all that Christ has commanded. That is the job of the church. We are given no other commission, beyond making disciples of Christ.

So let’s turn the question around: We need to ask if Biblical Counseling fits into that job description for the Church. Is Biblical Counseling the work of making disciples? If the answer is “no”, then it has no place in the church. Yes, it might be a good work, like caring for the poor or bringing blankets to the cold.

On the other hand, if biblical counseling is included within the scope of making disciples, then it is a necessary function of the church.

So let’s consider what it means to give Biblical counsel. It simply means to tell someone what the Bible says about their circumstance. It means to teach someone what Christ has said. Moreover, as Jay Adams noted it includes giving instruction. Biblical Counseling is precisely the act of teaching one to obey all that Christ has said.

When the street evangelist speaks to someone on the corner about Christ tells them of sin and repentance, they are giving counsel from the Bible. When parent tells a child the importance of not lying or working diligently as onto the Lord, the parent is giving biblical counsel. When a pastor opens the Bible on Sunday morning and explains the text and applies the text, the pastor is giving biblical counsel.

In an essay in from Scripture and Counseling, Kevin DeYoung and Pat Quinn write:

The ministry of the preacher and the ministry of the counselor are not different kinds of ministry but rather the same ministry given in different settings.

When a pastor sits with dear saint who is on her death bed, and the pastor sets her gaze upon Christ; the pastor is giving biblical counsel.

What you need to understand is that front to back, beginning to end, the duty of the Church is to give biblical counsel. That counsel starts with evangelism, leads them to baptism, to the Lord’s Supper, to knowledge of how to renounce ungodliness, to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present evil age and to live in earnest expectation of the Lord’s return. That is all biblical counsel.

 Baptizing Them.

We fit the counsel to the person and the circumstance. The street evangelist does not debate the details of difficult doctrine involving last things or the order of the decrees of God. His message is fit to the circumstance: sin and repentance. We do not teach four-year-olds like we teach college students.

Some questions are very difficult. We refer tricky theology questions to the pastor. We send young mothers to older mothers to learn from their experience.

Already in all of your churches, you have made some divisions in the way in which discipleship instruction is taking place.

When we bring in biblical counseling to the congregation, we are doing nothing new. Rather, we are doing what we should always be doing: teaching people to observe all that Christ has commanded.

We are merely saying that we have too often restricted Christ’s counsel. We have said that Scripture has something to say about repentance, but nothing to say about depression, anxiety, sorrow, loneliness, shame, conflict, laborious work, fear. We are saying that Scripture has nothing to say about all the troubles which came into the world with sin; well, nothing other than you need to leave the world.

When we restrict the scope of the Scripture’s counsel, the people in our congregation are going to get counsel. However, they are going to get it from someone other than the Lord.

I want you to imagine that your congregation has many well-trained counselors who know how to speak of difficult marriage problems. They can speak with sympathy and wisdom from the Scripture and give hope to trouble marriages.

I want you to imagine that your church once a week gives free marriage counseling to people in your area: unbelievers who are desperate for something that will work. Your counselor sits down with this frightened desperate couple and explains that their troubles with communication and selfishness and anger all have a cause: human beings don’t work correctly because we are estranged from the source of the one who speaks with perfect clarity, the God who loves and gives from an endless fountain of grace, that the love of the perfect God drives out fear and calls us in as children.

I want you to imagine that you have unbelievers who come to your church to hear the hope of the Gospel because the pain of sin has become too great to bear. When unbelievers hear sin, they often think you simply don’t like them. But when their pain is great and you explain that sin is not your dislike of them, but rather the cause of their sorrow; that sin is irrationality that ruins human life; and that there is an answer to that sin: an answer which will relieve of us the guilt and power of sin and that we can learn to live differently; when you can say that in a way that the one who is now lost can understand: you are putting the Gospel to work.

As Dr. Baker said, If unbeliever think you can help them with their marriage, they will line up to hear the Gospel.

And so these people who had “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12), are brought into the Church. They are baptized. They entered into membership; and now comes the task of teaching them to observe all that Christ as commanded.

Teach them to Observe

Imagine a brand-new Christian who comes to your church. While this person is in true faith, they are far from mature. They need to be taught and admonished so that they may be presented complete in Christ. Col. 1:28. Certainly the normal work of the Church, preaching, teaching, singing, praying, receiving the Lord’s Supper in the assembly of believers will have a real and profound affect of people.

But two hours on Sunday when weighed against the entire pressure of the world for all of the other hours of the day and week will hamper our growth. Moreover, it is a truncated understanding of Christianity. There is an entire aspect of the life of a Christian which goes beyond Sunday.

Please do not hear that I am in any manner making light of Sunday worship: it is the apex of our week. But if try to box our Christian life into just that time, we fail to honor the life of the Church:

Colossians 3:16 (NASB95)

  16      Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms andhymns andspiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

The work of teaching and admonishing is a work of everyone to everyone. The Christian life is public worship but is also life together. In Acts 2 it describes the life of the very earliest Church:

 

Acts 2:42–47 (NASB95)

            42        They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

            43       Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.

            44        And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common;

            45        and they beganselling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.

            46        Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart,

            47        praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Without going through the elements of that passage, you can see that there was substantial life together.

Now let’s think again about discipleship: to be discipled is to be trained to a manner of life. Everything in your life and everyone with whom you interact is busy discipling you. You are discipling others.

There is a meaning which takes place when you try to limit one’s Christian life to merely Sunday morning. That Sunday-only Christianity means something different than a Christianity which entails one’s entire life.

One of the reasons that we have so much “crisis counseling” in the Christian church is due to the fact that we are not doing a better job discipling the people within the church.

Here is an example: When a couple comes in for marriage counseling, you will work them through what the Scripture teaches about marriage. A faithful pastor in the pulpit who is working through the Scripture will preach through the Gospel of Mark and have maybe a sermon or two which even touches on marriage.

The failure there is not because the pastor has failed, it is because the congregation has failed:

Titus 2:3–5 (NASB95)

            3          Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good,

            4          so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,

            5          to besensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

Did you hear that? The Holy Spirit has delegated to the older women in the congregation the task of teaching the younger women the work of being a wife and mother. How many marriages would be in better shape today in our churches if the older women were continuously teaching the younger women godliness in marriage and motherhood?

But instead, we wait until there is a crisis and the wreck of a marriage shows up in need of help.

Imagine a young husband who comes to you because he has hurt his wife by not loving and caring for her? What if there had been a man in your congregation who had been weekly meeting with this man, asking him questions about his marriage (and other things)? What if the questions had revealed two years ago that the marriage was suffering? How much easier would it have been to help this family two years ago, when the problems were less, when the pain was less, when the bad habits were not so firmly put into place?

What I want you to see is that giving counsel from the Bible is something which needs to be built into the fabric of our church, so that the work of discipleship is done.

Where then is the pastor in this process?

Ephesians 4:11–16 (NASB95)

  11      And He gave some asapostles, and some asprophets, and some asevangelists, and some aspastors and teachers,

  12      for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;

  13      until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

  14      As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;

  15      but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspectsinto Him who is the head, evenChrist,

  16      from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Look at verse 12: the head teachers in the church have the job of equipping others for ministry. Those who have the most knowledge are to pass on that knowledge to others in the church.

Those others, under the direction of their pastors, are busy equipping still others: the work of the ministry is spread out through the church.

There are people in the church who are masters at caring physically for others. Those people must know how needs help and how to give that help. Some are especially gifted at hospitality. Others at teaching. Some at preaching. Some are more proficient at evangelism. Some people are quite good at answering questions. There are mothers and fathers to help give wisdom. There are employers who can help employees learn how to work well; and employees who can help employers learn to be not abusive or unfairly demanding.

And now I want to return to our question of training counselors. Not every person in the congregation needs to be a preacher; not every person needs to be fully trained to handle depression and severe anxiety. Some people need to know how to ask questions, give encouragement, and provide basic instruction about the daily life of a Christian.

Think of the entire church as all having a role in the work of discipleship. You can think of the training you give in giving biblical counsel as something which moves from the most general and basic to the most particular and difficult.

If you have small groups, you train the small group leaders in a level of counseling so that they can give accurate instruction on daily life, know how ask questions and also know when they come across a marriage which needs substantial help.

When I oversaw a counseling ministry in a church, I learned that there were people who were especially fit for various tasks. Some people needed a great deal of intense structure. Some young men needed very direct rebuke and unquestioning follow-through. Others were discouraged and needed help and encouragement and support. I had people in the congregation who were fit for all sorts of tasks.

Think of your congregation as an army and the battle being, the World, the Flesh and Devil. The Holy Spirit has given you many, many weapons in this fight: all of the people in your congregation. And now think of how few weapons we use. Do we really deploy our congregations to serve in building up the body of Christ?

In most congregations, very few people do most of the work. And since the needs are great, we do not always use people to the best of their gifts. Imagine you have a tremendous evangelist whom you are using to keep the church clean. There is nothing wrong with cleaning the church; it must be done. The way we use the misuse the people in our church is sort of like using a racecar to pull a plow across a field. It might work, but it is not the best way to use the racecar.

Counseling training is more than just training a counselor who looks exactly like you. Your congregation has been called to be a counseling center: a place where people are taught to observe all that Christ has commanded.

And when the entire congregation is busy in this work, it frees up those who have been fully trained to be able to help unbelievers and believers at other churches. You create capacity for everyone to work at their full potential.

This model also takes enormous burdens off of the church leaders so that they can do their work. Too often we expect the pastors to do all of the visiting and preaching and counseling and caring and evangelism. When we do this, we crush our pastors under enormous burdens.

Now this is only introducing you to this idea: it is not a full-fledged plan with all of the details.

 

[ask for questions]

 

Sermon, Discipleship. Hebrews 3:12-13

02 Thursday May 2019

Posted by memoirandremains in Discipleship, Hebrews, Sermons, Uncategorized

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Discipleship, Hebrews, Hebrews 3:12-13, Sermons

A sermon from October 16, 2011

http://media.calvarybiblechurch.org.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/sermon/2011/20111016p.mp3

Some Notes on the Mechanics of Discipleship in the Church

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Discipleship, Titus, Uncategorized

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1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Discipleship, Titus

Primary obligation:

Create disciples: Matthew 28:18-20

1) Baptism — introduction into congregation

2) Teach them to observe

 

Means of instruction:

1) Propositional

A) Congregational

i) Entire congregation

ii) Smaller gatherings

iii) Personal (counseling)

iv) Other than elder

a) one – another

b) particular elements, e.g., Titus 2

2) Example

A) Right life

i) Elders

ii) Everyone in congregation does this whether good or ill

B) Exhortation/encouragement

i) Elders

ii) One-anothers

Immediate discipleship of the Spirit.

Shepherding:

  1. Confirming that everyone in our charge is being instructed

A) Generally

B)Specifically approriate instruction

2) Confirming that everyone is leading a godly life

Mechanism: Instruct enough men well enough so that the individual instruction, exhortation, example and confirmation can take place. [2 Timothy]

 

Outline of the argument in 1st Timothy

Thesis: We seek to create a godly life (1:5). This is done primarily by giving propositional instruction –which includes confronting error & selecting appropriate instructors (1:3-4; 1:18-20; 2:1; 2:12; 3:1-7, 4:1-5, 4:6-10; 4:11; 6:2b; 6:20-21). Right doctrine leads to right life (1:6-11; 1:18-20). In addition to propositional instruction, be a tangible example of proper (1 Tim. 4:15-16; 6:11).

 

This is implicit in the qualifications of elders: First, they must be of a godly character: their character demonstrates their fitness for office and fitness as an example. Second, they must be able to instruct.

 

The letter is structured around the command to teach right doctrine:

 

1:3-4: Initial command

 

3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine,

4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

 

6:20-21: Closing command

 

20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,”21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.

 

Command: Protect the doctrine delivered to you.

Enemy: those who teach a different doctrine.

Purpose: Right doctrine leads to faith.

End sought:

1:4

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Doctrine leads to life: Throughout the letter, Paul ties proper doctrine to proper conduct.

1:6-11 charts the movement from wrong doctrine to wrong life. He ends the proposition that a sinful life does not “accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (v. 11).

vv.12-17: Paul gives praise that God who transformed him by faith.

vv.18-20: Paul makes two argument to encourage Timothy to this work: (1) God selected him for this work (v. 18; 2 Tim. 1:6); (2) those who have swerved from the doctrine have shipwrecked (v. 19-20).

Mechanics of instruction:

Prayer for leaders/peaceful life: 2:1-7

Selection of instructors

Men, not women: 2:8-14

Only certain men: 3:1-7

Selection of deacons (men and women): 3:8-13

Encouragement and warning:

The supernatural redemptive nature of faith: 3:14-16

Warning about false teaching: 4:1-5

Train yourself: 4:6-10

Avoid needless wrangling 4:7

Train to godliness: 4:8

Remember the end: 4:9

 

Train others: 4:11-16

Propositional instruction: 4:11

Be an example for others to imitate: 4:12-15

 

Details on manner of life: 5:1-6:3

Effectively fleshes out the household codes in Ephesians and Colossians.

Notes: a defective life denies the faith (5:8).

Special rules involving widows: 5:9-16

Special rules respecting elders: 5:17-25

These rules concern the conduct and treatment of elders. Thus, this relates to the imitation basis of discipleship.

Instruction about instruction: 6:2b-5

Give these instructions: 6:2b

Those who pursue a different doctrine will be those who create division: 6:3-5

Instruction about example: 6:6-16

Warning about contentment: 6:6-10

Warning about godliness: 6:11-16

 

Side note for the rich :6:17-19

Guard the doctrine. Remember doctrine affects life. 6:20-21

Second Timothy

 

Encouragement to the work: chapter 1.

Train men to do the work: chapter 2

Train faithful men to do the work 2:1-2

Don’t get distracted from this task: 2:3-7

Content of the Gospel 2:8-13

Doing the work:

Do not permit digressive quarrels 2:14

Be competent  with the Scripture 2:15

Protect doctrine! 2:16-19

Prepare for work: 2:20-21

Avoid distractions: 2:22-26

There will be false teachers: 3:1-9 [Titus 3, the “factious man”, ie. false teacher]

But Scripture is sufficient for the work: 3:10-17

Preach the word: 4:1-4

Counterpart to the encouragement of chapter 1: I am being poured out (4:6-8). Remember to encourage me (4:9-18)

closing 4:19-22

 

TITUS

Appoint elders to do the work: 1:5-9

Good conduct

Able to teach

Watch out for the sins of your environment 1:10-16

Instruct: 2:1

Household codes 2:2-9

Teach them to be instructors and examples of one-another

Note the conduct of the intra-congregational instruction

You be an example 2:8-9

The doctrine creates right conduct 2:11-14

Instruct: 2:15

Instruct in good works: 3:1-10

Watch out for those who cause division [i.e., teach a different doctrine]

Anne Bradstreet, Meditation XXI, Walking among thorns

18 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Anne Bradstreet, Uncategorized

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Anne Bradstreet, Briars, Discipleship, Meditations, Thorns, Wilderness of this World

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

He that walks among briars and thorns
will be very careful where he sets his foot.
And he that passes through the wilderness of this world,
had need ponder all his steps.

Discipleship

26 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Hebrews, Preaching, Sermons

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Discipleship, Hebrews, Hebrews 3, Hebrews 3:12-13, Preaching, Sermons

Hebrews 3:12–13 (ESV)

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

https://memoirandremains.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/20111016p.mp3

The two-fold stamp of discipleship

21 Thursday May 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Discipleship

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An Infinite Journey, Discipleship, Sanctification

To attain this goal, the die metal had to be much harder than the blank coin, so the coin’s metal conformed to the die rather than the other way around. Every single coin had the exact same image of Caesar on it. This is a picture of sanctification, for God the Father wants to conform all of us to his Son: “ for those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers ” (Romans 8:29). Amazingly, God has designed a two- fold “die system” to conform us to Christ. The Greek word for the die struck on the blank coin was tupos , and it is used in two key places in the New Testament, in both places translated by the word “pattern”:

 Sound doctrine: What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 1:13). 

Godly lifestyle: Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you (Philippians 3:17).

An Infinite Journey, Andrew Davis

A Congregation of Tassels

09 Saturday May 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Discipleship

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congregation, Discipleship, Hebrews, Hebrews 10, Numbers, Numbers 15, Stir Up, Tassels

By Pastor Ed Wilde

In Numbers 15, we read of the Lord’s command concerning tassels:

“37 The LORD said to Moses,38 “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their gar- ments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.39 And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the command- ments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.40 So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.41 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD your God.”

The principle remains in the NT, yet the tassels have been replaced:

“12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitful- ness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”

Hebrews 3:12-14. It is interesting to note that this command to exhort one-another comes in the context of warning against the hardness of heart of the people in the wilderness (quoting Psalm 95).

It is for this reason that failing to congre- gate is so dangerous and thus carries such a grave warning:

“23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us con- sider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacri- fice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.”

Hebrews 10:23-27. Here is a central aspect of discipleship: Jesus has defined discipleship as teaching others to ob- serve Jesus’ commands (Matthew 28:20, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”). The OT command is to wear tassels to constantly remind oneself of the commands of God. In the New Covenant, the work pictured by the tassels becomes the command for the entire congregation: all of you ex- hort, encourage, provoke one another:

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,” Hebrews 10:24. This work is a core work of discipleship—and it is given to the entire congregation. This is the mes- sage of the NT, not just of Hebrews:

“I, myself, am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another .” Romans 15:14

By way of application, we must consider being filled with the Scriptures so that we have something to say—discipleship is teaching what Jesus has commanded, not what we have invented (Matt. 28:20). Second, the power of transformation is in the Scripture:

“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the en- couragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” Romans 15:4.

Third, we must realize that we each have this obligation to exhort one-another, it is not merely the duty of some pastor or overseer.

Fourth, we must pray for the wisdom and grace to perform this work.

Fifth, we must repent of failure to do so, whether for laziness or a fail- ure of love.

Sixth, we must do the work.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation 4

25 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in affliction, William Spurstowe

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Art, Discipleship, Meditation, Painting, Sculpture, Spiritual Formation, The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe

Upon a Picture and a Statue

Klopfholz_mit_Beiteln

In what a differing manner is the image and representation of the same person brought into these two pieces of art. In the one it is effected by the soft and silent touches of the pencil, which happily convey likeness and beauty together. And the other is formed by the rough and loud strokes of the hammer, and by the deep cuttings and sculptures of instruments of steel.

In a strange and far differing way is the heavenly image of God formed in the souls of the new converts, when first made partakers of the divine nature. In some, God paints (if I may so speak) his own likeness by still and calm delineation of it up on the table of their hearts.

And in others he carves it by afflicting them with a great measure of tears, and wounding their souls with a thorough sense both of the guilt and defilement of sin.

But in this diversity of working, God is in no way necessitated or limited by the disposition and temper of the matter, as other agents are, but is freely guided by the counsel of his will — which is the sole rule and measure of all his actions towards the creature. (as his word is of theirs towards him).

Lord therefore do with me what you please,

let me be yours,

and I will not prescribe your wisdom the way to make me yours:

Bruise, break, wound, yea, kill, Lord

so that I may be made alive again by your power,

and bear your holy image,

according to which I was first made,

and to which by your grace and might only I can be restored.

Pilgrim’s Progress Study Guide 8, Christian and By-Ends

24 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in John Bunyan

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By-ends, Discipleship, John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, Study Guide

The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/pilgrims-progress-study-7-vanity-fair/

https://memoirandremains.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/20150412p-2.mp3

Christian and By-Ends

  1. Why do you think Christian and Hopeful immediately meet By-ends and his friends, after leaving Vanity Fair? How do these people differ from, and how are they the same as the people of Vanity Fair?
  1. Why is Mr. By-ends rich?
  1. When is By-ends willing to be religious? (Btw, for Bunyan “religion” has no bad overtones. He simply means being a Christian.)

Continue reading →

Pilgrim’s Progress Study Guide 5

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Discipleship, Humility, John Bunyan

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Communion, Discipleship, Fellowship, Humiliation, humility, John Bunyan, Lord's Supper, Pilgrim's Progress, Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide, Puritan, Study Guide

The prior study guide may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/pilgrims-progress-study-guide-4/

https://memoirandremains.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/20150308p-2.mp3

Pilgrim’s Progress, Study Guide 5:

Christian and the Valley of Humiliation

In this section of the trip, Christian descends first in the Valley of Humiliation

Background: Christian has been refreshed and encouraged in Palace Beautiful. He has eaten of the Lord’s Supper. He has known fellowship with the Church, spoken of the wonders of Christ and God’s work with his people. Then before he leaves, Christian is brought to the armoury where he is outfitted for battle, “lest perhaps he should meet with assaults in the way.”

Christian’s Departure.

  1. Notice that Palace Beautiful is at the top of a hill. One must go up the Hill of Difficulty and go down into the Valley of Humiliation. Why is that?

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