Episode 41: Books and Such

The Church Is Not a Democracy but a Monarchy

To the Ruled Church podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy.

It's a monarchy.

Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Eddie, we're on the eve of one of the most important holidays in America. Are you ready?

What holiday is it, Mother's Day?

Well, I mean, Mother's Day's important,.

But I think that will be passed by the time this podcast comes out.

Yeah, I know, but while we're recording, tomorrow is obviously May the 4th.

Oh, it is. It is, man.

So what are you doing this year to celebrate Star Wars Day?

Well, it's actually the National Day of Prayer, and so we're having a

Oh, you're gonna get spiritual, okay.

Yeah, we're having a Mystery Alliance prayer meeting tomorrow at the Veterans Hall here in town, so that's what I'm doing.

Are you gonna dress like a Jedi or anything?

Yeah, I think that's what I'll do. I'll really impress everybody at the Veterans Hall if I've gotta look like Obi-Wan.

Theology in Pastoral Crisis and the Practicality of Providence

Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I'm your co-host, Alan Nelson. With me, as always, is my brother in the Lord and good friend, Eddie Ragsdale. So how you doing today, Eddie?

Man, I'm doing good. I actually woke up a little late, and so I missed a meeting already this morning, but I feel like I'm doing all right. How are you today, brother?

I'm doing okay. You know, I shared with you some things before the show, and I just can't talk about them, but I can say this. My cell phone's left on, and man, just sometimes, and you know this, and we've done a whole episode on this.

Sometimes just difficult things happen in pastoral ministry, and this particular situation is a medical situation and a tragic situation, really. And I guess I'll just say this. You know, we talked about this not long ago, so I don't wanna rehash a whole episode, but for anybody that says, you know, give me something practical.

I don't want all that theology. Theology is practical.

That's right.

And you need to have your theology worked out now. During the times of peace, as it were.

Yeah, that's right.

And so when we handle situations, and let me just give you this counsel. Not you, Eddie. I know you know it, but anybody that listens may need it. Sometimes you have to be in a situation, and here's the answer to the question.

I don't know. You know, why did this happen? Why did this go back? Like, the answer is, I don't know. Deuteronomy 29, 29, right? The secret things belong to the Lord. But here are some things I do know.

I do know before the foundation of the world, God decreed everything that happens. And you say, well, how does that help me? It helps me because I know that he is good, and it helps me because I know that there's nothing that is without purpose.

That's right.

And so, anyway, we've talked about that, I think, with the tornadoes a few weeks ago, but it's practical. You need this stuff now, and so I highly recommend chapter three of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.

It's one of the most beautiful things ever written, I believe, about God's decree, and then chapter five on providence, so good. Well, what we want to do in this episode is we want to update you on a couple things that we've been reading lately, and just kind of make some plugs for that.

Reading Books That Drive Us Back to Scripture

The first thing, let's mention, Eddie, I know because you read a little bit, but Lord willing, we'll be able to have an episode. We kind of started out today's episode with the plan to interview Ronnie Martin, who's just written a new book, Pastoring Small Towns, co-authored by Donny Griggs, and we just had some connection issues.

But, Eddie, you read a few chapters of that book. You want to mention anything about that? It's put out by B &H?

Yeah, specifically, I think just in the parts that I was able to read up to now of the book, and I'm going to go back and finish reading it. I've only had it for a couple of days, but I noticed that they were really speaking to pastoral needs, and I think a lot of times, these kinds of books can focus on what you need to do to grow, or what's the strategies and things like that, and really, they were getting down into the heart of what the pastor needs to do for the sake of his own soul, and really for his developing his affection for the sheep, and for perseverance and longevity in the ministry.

And so, just the parts that I've already read have really helped me in thinking through those things, and I think that's the biggest takeaway that I've already had from the book.

Yeah, that's good. Christians should be readers. I don't want to take away from your busy schedule or whatever, but the Lord, on purpose, gave us a book, and the reason that we should think about this, I think you could go to whatever.

I'm not going to give you any kind of studies. I don't have any studies in front of me, but the Lord knows how the human mind works better than anybody, and I think that reading is more of a benefit in so many ways than watching a YouTube video or whatever, so Christians ought to be readers.

In fact, I'll say this, probably, maybe if you're listening to this, it's not true. We probably have a sort of a slanted segment of the population that is listening, but a lot of people out there, you spend too much time watching TV, watching shows, and by the way, I'm not trying to hurt your conscience.

If you have a show that you like to watch or something, I'm not saying that's in and of itself bad, but I am saying a lot of times we spend so much, we say, well, it's so too busy to read, but you should read.

You should make time to read. It's one of those things that every Christian should do. I think even at the basic level, most Christians, most Christians easily, in the West, that is, can read four books a year.

You say, look, each quarter, I've got this book I'm gonna try to make. I think that's very lower level. Most can probably read four to six or eight or 10. If you're in the pastoral ministry, you easily can read a book a month, but it's not just about reading books just to be reading books, but to read books for the purpose of growing.

It's okay to read fiction, stretch your imagination and stuff, but the vast majority of the reading that I do is something to do with theology. The book that I just finished, I just finished this book actually yesterday, is a book called The Great Awakening by Joseph Tracey.

This book is put out by Banner of Truth, but it was actually written in 1842, I believe. And so what Tracey did is gathered a lot of primary sources and wrote his assessment of The Great Awakening. Yeah, first published 1842.

It's a wonderful book, man. I mean, it's really good. In fact, Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote an endorsement. He said, I can recommend without hesitation the reading of The Great Awakening. It is really one of those marvelous, heartwarming books, and I cannot imagine a better way of spending a summer holiday.

What Tracey gives us is an account of true revival. It was so good, man. It's so good. If you're new to The Great Awakening era or you know everything about The Great Awakening era, either way, if you haven't read this book, it's worth it.

It'll tell you some of the mistakes that were made. Whitefield was really hard on unconverted ministers or perhaps there were some excesses of trembles and shaking and shrieking and those sorts of things.

And so there were some things that needed to be cleaned up and Jonathan Edwards wrote about that, but all in all, it was true revival. Man, whole towns were changing. They were talking about how no one was visiting the taverns.

They were just empty. And people were hungering to meet together, not just on Sundays, but they were getting together some days just singing all day and preaching and multiple meetings during the day and they were talking about their souls and eternal matters.

And then one of the things too is it was a big movement among young people, among teenagers and even Whitefield. I think Whitefield, when he first came over, he was only like 23. You know, and God used him mightily.

So just a reminder, if I can make this plug, don't discount the ministry in your church to young people and also don't water it down either. You know, the revival didn't come about because they were putting whipped cream on people's face and throwing Cheetos, right?

That's right.

They were teaching and preaching weighty doctrinal truths. Of course, one of the center points of the Great Awakening was the recapturing, as it were, of the preaching of regeneration. You know, you must be born again.

And we talked about that, of course, not long ago with my book. But anyway, so that's what I've been reading or just finished recently. How about you? I know you've been reading for your Baptist Covenant Theology class, and we're actually gonna do an episode on Baptist Covenant Theology, Lord willing, in the future.

But what about you, Eddie?

Spiritual Disciplines, the Gospel, and Reading for Godliness

Yeah, I would say there's a few different things I would wanna point to books. One thing I wanna say, a person may hear us talking about these books and say, well, isn't it enough? I'm gonna read my Bible.

I just need to read my Bible, right? And you and I would both say, yes, read your Bible. I mean, if you're only gonna read one book, that needs to be the book. However, we wanna read books and we wanna listen to books and we wanna listen to sermons that drive us back to the scripture.

Yeah, amen.

It's not just any book. We want books that are gonna help us to think through the word of God. One of the things that books do is they're like a conversation. And that's one of the things that may, I used to struggle with this and I'm still not the greatest reader, but if you struggle to make it through a book, maybe it's because you're just trying to get through it and you're just reading it and you're not letting it bring up questions in you.

And actually, even if you have to just sit the book down and say, okay, I have this question, I'm gonna kind of play both sides of it and think through those arguments, that can be so beneficial to your soul because it can bring up thoughts from the scripture that you haven't thought of because the author is having that conversation with you.

So I just wanna urge people in case they may be having their minds that we're saying, read these books instead of the Bible. Well, we're certainly not saying that. And we are saying you need to read books that are gonna drive you to the scriptures.

Yeah, yeah. Good. I was gonna say, yeah, we're not saying just read just to be reading. Read for the benefit of your soul. Very good. All right, go ahead.

Right.

So the first book I'll point out, I just finished teaching through this. So I first read this book probably 10 years ago and it is Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney. And then I just reread it because I taught through it at our local, we have a local women's ministry here that I teach at on a regular basis.

And so I use that book for the basis of my teaching basically for this last semester and just took a chapter a week, a couple of weeks, it took more than that week to teach through a chapter, but we just worked through that.

And so I was rereading the book as I went through. And so it was very helpful. Even if you don't come away convinced of all of the different disciplines that Dr. Whitney points out in the book, because there's one or two that you might be like, I don't know that you can make a great case for that.

And even he admits in his chapter on journaling that you can't exactly make a case for that you have to journal from anything in the scripture. However, I do think you'll come away understanding that the things we engage in, we need to be engaging in them for spiritual purposes.

It's not enough to read your Bible. We read our Bibles for the purpose of growing in godliness. It's not enough to say your prayers. So oftentimes people say, have you said your prayers? No, we pray for the purpose of growing in godliness.

And so I would really encourage everyone to grab that book. I mean, that's one of those basic books that if I could get every Christian to read, if there were 10 books I could get every Christian to read, that one would probably be one of them just because it is so practical for the Christian life.

A second book that I have consumed just lately is called Souls. Have you heard of this book, Souls?

I thought that was a Disney movie or something.

No, this is a book, Souls, and it is how Jesus saves sinners. And it's a short book. And so if you're somebody that you get intimidated by a large tome, this is a small book. It's a short book. It is written by Matthew Everhard.

And Matthew Everhard, he's a PCA pastor, Presbyterian pastor in Pennsylvania. But it's a great little evangelical book just about the gospel. I would say it's a lot like, it's actually a lot like From Death to Life.

I would say it's that type of book. It's a lot like your book, From Death to Life. So I would encourage people, read From Death to Life, of course, and read A Change of Heart also. But this book, Souls, would be in that category of book, a really, really good evangelical book.

You know, there's one place where he talks a little bit about baptism, and you and I would disagree on covenant theology with this brother. But it's not a big enough part of the book that I would encourage anybody in my church to read it.

I wouldn't be concerned. So really great book.

And then

Oh, go ahead, go ahead, yeah.

Go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna say that I had another book I was gonna mention, but I was just gonna say, you know, you and I were talking about before the show about there's a place out there called Accelerate Books.

And it's basically a company that offers book reviews. I shouldn't say book reviews. It's like Cliff Notes of books.

Right.

Now, I don't recommend that for, say, just the average person, but I can see how it would be extremely helpful for those in ministry, you know, if there's, because let's just be honest, we're not gonna, and you can't read, like, number one, it's an impossible goal.

You can't read every book that's out there.

That's right.

Number two, if you were even gonna try, it'd be sinful. You know, you don't got that kind of time. But there are shortcuts out there in the world that we live in, and sometimes you can look at books. I'm looking at their page right now, and, you know, we've got Tim Challey's Seasons of Sorrow and Embracing Complementarianism.

I'm not sure if I've heard that one. Anyway, there's so many, Francis Schaeffer book, I'm just kind of scrolling through here right now. Anyway, that can be a place that you can turn to to get an idea of what's out there.

But go ahead, I'll let you, I had one more book I was gonna mention, but you go ahead.

Local Church, Baptist Covenant Theology, and Worth Any Price

Well, a few years ago, I was utilizing Accelerate Books, and I'll tell you how I was using it, is I would go in and I would pick the titles that I thought were books that I might would wanna read, and then I would read, you know, the synopsis there, and then I would use that to whittle that list down further, and then I would actually go and read some of the books.

So it was like, okay, I've got 20 books here, I know I'm not gonna read these 20 books, but I can read the synopsis on all 20 books and pick the five that I'm actually gonna read. So that was how I utilized that as a tool.

But two more books I would like to mention. One, we were talking about, you know, we need doctrine, and doctrine is practical.

Yeah.

And I think it was actually you that introduced me to this book, but I'm getting ready, hopefully, either this summer or this fall, to start a class with some of our younger men, and by younger, I mean like our 12, 13-year-old guys in our church.

And I think what we're gonna do is work through this book on, it's from Free Grace Press, Basic Christian Doctrines by Kurt Daniel.

Yeah, it's excellent.

And so we're gonna use that. And the way it is structured, I think is just gonna be great for working through, especially with your kids, with especially kind of that age, that older elementary, junior high, even high school age, but working through these thoughts, I'm excited just because of the way it's structured.

So I'm gonna be using that for that. And then a book that I'm gonna bet nobody has heard of, and I wish, once again, I wish everybody would read, this is such an easy read. I'm not a great reader, and I read this book in a day, in a day.

And it is written by a good friend of mine in Conway, Arkansas, and it is called Worth Any Price, The Staggering Eternal Value of the Imperfect Local Church by Kerry Cox. Kerry pastors a church in Conway, Arkansas, and he's a good friend of mine, but he wrote this great little, it's such a super easy read.

And I can't imagine that you won't read this book and come away with just a greater love for your local church and desire to serve and care for your local church. Worth Any Price by Kerry Cox, you can get it on Amazon or wherever, but it is a very helpful little book on thinking through life in the local church.

Yeah, wow. That sounds good, that interests me. You know, you got me anytime you say local church. That's good, brother. Well, one other book I was gonna mention, and I've read through like the first seven chapters, but I've, with other readings, set it down, but I'm fixing to pick it back up again, but that's Dr. Renahan has written that book for founders, well, he's written two for founders, but to the judicious impartial reader, Baptist Symbolics, Volume Two.

I read Volume One. Volume Two is a tome, it's wonderful. I mean, it's really good, you know, and so helpful, helpful reading and encouraging, especially to know a little bit about the history of the 1689.

So that's our church's confession is the 1689. And I encourage people to read through the confession, if nothing else, that's a short little read, but yeah, this is something I'm working through. And Dr. Renahan has really gone above and beyond in his scholarship, so anything else?

Man, I think that's about it. You know, the, of course I was written through, like you said, the books for the Baptist Covenant Theology class. I know we're gonna do a podcast on that. Doctor, I will also mention this, and we'll probably mention it again when we do the podcast on Baptist Covenant Theology, but Dr. Jeff Johnson's book, The Kingdom of God, is actually about to come out.

So if you're interested in Baptist Covenant Theology, I would tell you, be looking for this. They're about to split his Kingdom of God book into two books, one on the Covenant of Redemption, I think it's, I can't remember exactly how they're titling the two of them, but they're basically taking the two halves of that book and making them two books.

And so I'm excited for those to come out. I think that'll be really helpful. I'll just tell you, I was greatly helped by, and I can't say his name correctly, but Pascal Deneau, is that correct? Is that how you say it?

Yeah, I think it's pretty close.

Yeah, but his book on the distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology was really helpful to me. It really helped me to, and you know what was so helpful about that, not to get off into the Baptist Covenant Theology stuff, but what was so helpful was I already believe, I was reading it and I'm going, yeah, this is what I believe from reading the Bible.

I was just learning some of the terminology.

Yeah.

But the concepts were, the concepts were what you believe if you've read the Bible.

Amen, that's, yeah, I'll leave this, I'll make this comment, but that's how I came to Baptist Covenant Theology as well. As I read, as I was reading stuff, I was like, well, now I'm able to put definitions on things I already believe.

That's right.

Anyway, well, we hope this episode's been helpful for you and hopefully that you pick up a book and read. If you gotta turn off our podcast to do it, so be it. But as they say, leaders are readers, pastors are readers, Christians ought to be readers, and hopefully that you find something that edifies your soul like Eddie and I have over the years.

So thanks for listening to this episode of The Real Church Podcast. Say goodbye, Eddie.

See you guys next week.

The Church as God's Work and the Meaning of Ephesians

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing, this is His work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?