Let me start out by saying that this is a response to Dave Marriott’s blog post entitled Guarding What Is Primary: Second Degree Separation which was posted today on The Gospel Toolbox. But with that said, let me add that I say “response” for lack of betters words. “Response” makes it sound like I am arguing with him, which is not what I’m doing. (For all I know, he may agree with me!) I am more so continuing the conversation.
It’s been about 2 years since I read Mark Dever‘s Deliberate Church: Buidling Your Ministry on the Gospel. (The book is great; I highly recommend it.) His chapter on “Music,” in reference to music used in corporate worship, still sticks out in my mind. In this post I’d like to share with you a quote from the chapter as well as some of the reflections I had (including some of the notes I took in the margins) when I first read this chapter.
This past Spring I was privileged to be able to go the 2012 Together for the [Underestimated] Gospel conference. I heard various well-known speakers such as John Piper, Al Mohler, C.J. Mahanney, Matt Chandler, Mark Dever, etc. But my favorite sermon was “Divine Sovereignty: The Fuel of Death-Defying Missions” by David Platt, based out of Revelation 5, delivered on Wednesday, April 11th.
The following was my favorite message I heard at this years Together for the [Underestimated] Gospel conference. I recommend it to you either in video or audio form. In this message David Platt seeks to show how divine sovereignty is the fuel of death-defying missions.
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Every semester I have this habit of overachieving on certain projects, not for the sake of spending tons of time on them or to assure that I get a good grade, but because I like to push myself in my study of God’s word. This last semester (Fall, 2011), one of the projects in which I overachieved was a paper I wrote on church discipline for a class on pastoral counseling. This was also the semester I got married, and so things were a bit busy to say the least. But I was still able to put together a pretty substantial work. My goal was to try and set forth a rather exhaustive “system” of church discipline that takes into account all of the relevant passages and answers every practical question of which I could possibly think. Continue reading
Kirk E. Miller 