Justin Taylor | Community Fridays

[Fridays are a day we exult in community. We'll try to highlight blogs that we read, churches that we like, pastors that we respect, books that we enjoy, and then briefly explain why. You can expect Community Fridays to be short, snappy, and pointing to all the wonderful things God is doing in the church at large!]

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Justin Taylor requires little introduction for those of our readers who are already active members of the blogging world; he is well known and well regarded throughout the blogging community. At his blog, Between Two Worlds, he posts links to good content around the web, excerpts from various books (including some yet to be released), and occasionally his own thoughts on life, doctrine, and Christianity.

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Alcohol is of the Devil!

—Chris Krycho

The following is one article in a series on dealing with alcohol Biblically. You can read the rest of the series here.

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Alcohol is a powerful drink, and a potentially dangerous one. Many people have experienced the pain of families wracked by alcoholism; others have seen friends go down a dark hole of drunkenness. These risks have led many well-intentioned believers to unequivocally condemn alcohol. We must ask, however: what does God say?

Condemnation of drunkenness:

Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

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Alcohol is of the Devil! [Series]

—Chris Krycho

For almost two hundred years, alcohol has been a source of controversy and dispute among believers. Particularly among Southern and Independent Baptists, absolute teetotalism has been the rule for much of that time. Even as the political abolition movement came and went, hardliners on the evils of alcohol steadfastly preached from their pulpits. Alcohol is evil, drinking is sinful, abstain!

Drunkenness is indeed the cause of much pain and suffering in this world. Abuse skyrockets, fatalities from drunk driving climb, and people waste their minds and lives, enslaved by a powerful drink. Yet here, as everywhere, we must pause and ask: is the problem with the substance or with those who abuse it? Most of all, we must be faithful to ask what God has said in His word about it, and seek to glorify Jesus Christ in the way we handle it.

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Alcohol is of the Devil!

1. Alcohol is of the Devil!
2. Alcohol is from God
3. Tripping People With Beer
4. Confessions of an Ex-Teetotaler

What is a Pastor? [Pastors and Practice]

—Ben Arbour

[Editor’s Note: In the midst of writing a book on the same topic, Ben Arbour has agreed to offer us a series, Pastors and Practice, arguing that Christ is our true model for pastoral ministry. Throughout this series, Ben will explain how Christ’s example should affect the governing of the church and the ministry of pastors.]

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So far in this series, I’ve sought to raise concerns with the practices of churches in a couple of different areas. First, if a church has multiple elders leading her, the members should recognize the several elders as the pastors of the church rather than just acknowledging one elder. Second, pastors should have relationships with the people that call them pastor. Why is this? What’s wrong with calling someone pastor even if you don’t actually know that person?

The issue fundamentally boils down to the meaning of words.

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He's Not Your Pastor [Pastors and Practice]

—Ben Arbour

[Editor’s Note: In the midst of writing a book on the same topic, Ben Arbour has agreed to offer us a series, Pastors and Practice, arguing that Christ is our true model for pastoral ministry. Throughout this series, Ben will explain how Christ’s example should affect the governing of the church and the ministry of pastors.]

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In my last post, I explained why I believe that multiple-elder leadership in a local church means that it should never be the case that members identify the church’s pastor as one individual person. There are many reasons for this; preeminent, though, is the fact that the New Testament uses terms like elder and pastor interchangeably. Any methods of pastoral identification that single out one elder as somehow different or more important than any other elder are unfaithful to the patterns of leadership given to us in the New Testament.

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Divorce and Remarriage: A Permanence View [Book Review]

—Chris Krycho

PJ and I have written at length on the topic of divorce and remarriage [go to the series home page]. We have also highlighted Jim Elliff and Christian Communicators Worldwide (CCW), thinkers we agree with on many aspects of church life. The two overlapped recently, when the CCW team graciously sent us a copy of their book, Divorce and Remarriage: A Permanence View, by Daryl Wingerd, Jim Elliff, Jim Chrisman, and Steve Burchett, all elders at Christ Fellowship of Kansas City.

We summed up our own study on divorce and remarriage by saying

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Adopted for Life [Book Review]

—PJ King

I was born into an adoptive family. 

You see, my oldest sister was adopted by my father before I was born. She has never been my half-sister—only my full-sister. We have the same parents, the same family, and we shared the same home. We are equal heirs to our family’s estate. There is no distinction between us.

I was baptized into an adoptive family.

You see, when I was younger

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Sometimes, Life Sucks

—Stephen Carradini

[The following is a guest post by Chris’ longtime friend, Stephen Carradini. If you enjoy the post, drop by his author page to check out his bio and some of his other writing. Stephen will probably be a semi-regular voice on Pillar on the days ahead, so make sure you give him a warm reception in the comments.]

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Perseverance has been on my mind often as of late. It’s been a miserable 2010, on top of a difficult three years. How do I persevere as a Christian when it’s hard to remember the last time I was pleased with the conditions and sentiments of my life?

The verse that I have been clinging to —and confounded by — is an old standby

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New book reviews page

Over the next few weeks, you will see several more book reviews appear here. Since we already have four reviews, and anticipate this to be a regular feature, we've started compiling a list of all of our book reviews. Hopefully this will be a helpful resource for our readers! Go the book reviews page »

The Current State of Things [Family Fridays]

—Jaimie Krycho

[Ed. note: This week's Family Friday's post is a slightly edited post from Jaimie's own blog, Refining Process. If you like this, you should pop in and take a look at the rest of her writing. Thanks to Jaimie for letting us steal her post for Pillar!]

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Dear reader,

We're overdue for a general life update, so here goes.

Chris and I are doing well, all things considered. We enjoyed having Chelsea live with us for a time (she's not anymore).  We often see our friends in the newly/nearly-marrieds Bible study, who have been an incomparable blessing to me. Unfortunately, in other relational news

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Teaching is Hard Work

—Chris Krycho

Several months ago, I wrote a post called “Preach Hard Things.” At the time, I mostly focused on deep, theological topics—an area that has been neglected too often in our preaching. There are many other issues which are not theologically deep but still terrifically complex that many preachers fail to handle with Biblical justice. We must be willing to grapple with all areas of faith and practice

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Where Have We Been? [Finding a Flock: Part 6]

—PJ King

As you may have heard before, Katie and I have recently moved to Fort Worth. Now, we need to go through the difficult (and important!) process of finding a local church to join.

I don't presume to have all the answers, but I would like to publicly go through this search, so that perhaps we can all learn something. In this series, I hope to explain what I am specifically looking for in a church, detail how I am going about looking, and perhaps, relate some of my experiences to you.

Be sure to read the entire series of Finding a Flock.

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The last time I updated you on our church search was back in April. Since then, we have spent much time in Oklahoma, visited Waco a number of times, and took a vacation to Washington D.C. We ended up being out of town each weekend in May, but managed to be in town for most of June. Katie is now well into her work as a pediatric nurse; this will (hopefully) help us stay in town on the weekends.

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