With Clayton Erb on piano, John MacArthur led us in singing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place.” Then we were ministered in song by Aubrey Seibert (?) singing, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”

She sang it in the familiar tune but with much more jazzy styling than I’ve heard it before:

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

John MacArthur then again stepped up to start the Q&A session with encouraging folks to visit the Grace To You website for more complete answers to questions.

(The remainder from the perspective of the speaker)

For the past few months, I’ve been doing a series on doctrines, particularly the Doctrines of Grace. So there are a lot of resources on the GTY website, including questions like, “How do I respond to the problem of evil?” Before opening the floor for questions, I wanted to address a couple of questions that came up from his sermons.

The first is regarding my strong statements regarding contextualization. I believe that byword has become a curse. “We have to change the way we dress, look, sing, in order to ‘contextualize,’ to connect with people at the level of their exposure to broader culture.” This isn’t anything really now. I can think of just 15 or so years ago, when a prominent pastor in the U.S. took his whole staff into a X-rated movie so they could experience what their people were experiencing; and this was advocated in a national magazine. That’s actually 15 years ago, the first time I’d seen something like that, and it seemed very extreme. But it’s become a symbol of where the church growth movement was going to go.

But the way to have an impact in ministry is not to have great stories, but the way is to help people to understand the Bible. If an illustration helps with their understanding, that’s great, but remember you’re trying to get people into the Scripture. The authority & impact can’t reside with you, your cleverness, etc. They must understand that the message you preach transcends you. The authority is the Word of God, and they have to be brought under it. They have to see that God is holy, God is angry with the wicked every day, and He has a right to be angry. That God has a severe aversion to sin. I’m going to preach on the garden on Gethsemane on Sunday, because that’s where we see the wrath of God played out. The agony is so great in the garden because he’s abandon His righteousness and embrace sin and its consequences. This is an agony beyond comprehension. People wonder why Jesus agonized; but this is the most normal thing for Holy God to do. These are simple thoughts that we can convey to anyone. You don’t have to wear certain clothes, act a certain way, be cool; to communicate that.

All ministry is mind to mind. The sooner you can learn to leapfrog the culture, the better.  We’re after how people think, and how they think about truth and God and sin and salvation. In any context, all you’re endeavoring to do is to help them understand the authoritative Word of God. You start from where they are, sometimes you have to show them the Bible is the Word of God. Compare Acts when preaching to Jews, you start with the Old Testament. You start where they are, but eventually you have to tell them, the God you identify as unknown, is the God who made heaven and earth… and commands all men everywhere to repent, because He is going to judge the world by the man Jesus Christ. You want to get to the gospel in the Word of God as soon as you can. You want to bind people’s fear & conscience to the Scripture. And you have an ally in the heart because God has written His law in their hearts (Romans). All we’re trying to do is bringing to bear on people the truth of Scripture about man, judgment, forgiveness, heaven, hell. The explanation in the end is what the Scripture says, not trying to get people to tremble under your preaching per se, but under the weight of divine authority.

I say this because we have people coming into our church and joining. And 85% of them are in their 30’s and under, and they’re the very people that the church growth movement says we can’t reach. And they’re from all cultures, languages. And yet all we’re doing is striving to help people understand what the Bible says and its indication in their lives. Some people ask, why do I wear a tie? Because I have respect for this responsibility. I wear a suit because this is a more elevated experience for people. I’m trying to convey what people convey at a wedding: this is more serious than any normal activity. This is the most serious occasion anyone will attend in their life: the preaching of the Word of God. I don’t want to join with our culture in sinking into the casual. We have a generation that’s never been to anything formal. And if my dress goes down, the people at the bottom go down, and then we gym shorts!

All I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter. It’s the ability to convey the meaning of Scripture. Superficial things aren’t the issue. I never use an illustration from a movie or song or a TV program, because I really don’t want to affirm anything in that culture. I am largely clueless about that. People ask if I read things to get in touch with culture. Are you kidding, you can’t avoid it! But I understand that culture changes, but the human heart never changes! There’s this new trend to get away from the law, because the law doesn’t recognize the need for contextualization. We have to shift away and talk about idols of the heart, because people don’t believe in absolutes. Which they understand, because everyone worships, etc. I understand the significance of idolatry, but the themes of NT are all about bringing the law of God to bear on the sinner, so the sinner is driven to the ground under the full weight of his guilt! I’ve been here at Grace Church for 40 years, on the radio for a long time on GTY, and there’s a sermon on GTY radio that may be 6 months old, or 32 years old. And the people listening to it wouldn’t know the difference. Because all I’m trying to do is explain the meaning of the Word of God. And you want to use any avenue to do so short of affirming the culture. I don’t need to borrow or certainly not to accredit the culture by being overly familiar with it. Becoming all things to all men means looking into the situation and seeing where they are in their religious thinking, to find a starting point to move them into Scripture.

Another question came, what verses do advocates of the church growth movement use to justify their movement? I don’t know of any. The only exception I can think of is Rick Warren referring to unbelievers coming into the church in 1 Cor 14, that if unbelievers are present, we have to change what we do. That’s not what that is talking about, it’s saying “don’t ever do that because people think you’re crazy.” But in terms of serious exposition/defense, I haven’t seen anything like that. Tomorrow, Phil Johnson will preach on Acts 17, talking about tweaking/contextualizing your message.

Another question, how do I shepherd my people with respect to the upcoming presidential election, esp. with no clearly pro-life candidate? My answer is it has nothing to do with the kingdom of God! He then made some deprecatory quips about Jimmy Carter taking the office of president too seriously [sorry, past my historical familiarity to go into detail]. In all seriousness, you do what your conscience tells you to do. But one thing: if you’re going to have your brain operated on, you might like to have a Christian. But I’d rather have someone in there who knew what a brain was, and had done it before. This subject of presidential politics, really, though, is really nowhere on my priority list. I voted for Huckabee in the primary, that was my best shot based on other’s thoughts; but the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are entirely separate entities. I think we’re experiencing Romans 1 wrath in the church (I have a message on Focus on the Family about this) right now. When God turns a nation over, there’s a sexual revolution, then a homosexual revolution, then the minds stop working… and you vote those realities into law. I’m not surprised this nation has the kind of interest in the kind of leaders it has. But to clarify, I’m not indifferent: whenever I can actively vote for something that is righteous I do that.

Next question: there’s been a lot of movement toward home churches, please comment. I’m wondering, Is this coming out of Barna’s book? Barna has an aversion to preaching and it shows up in his writing. He says we gotta get the pontificating monologues out. I don’t think the church and the home are the same thing. I think the church can meet anywhere, in a home included; but they’re not the same thing. It’s the idea that we’re going to rescue the church, only by shutting down traditional Christianity and get into homes and have dialogue and personal touch and hear from everybody, and this is exactly what the emergent church is saying. My assessment is that movement is insignificant in the picture of the true church, and it will die. The more you fragment Christianity into little things, the more it tends to disappear. There’s always going to be a zillion forms of false churches. But if Christ builds His church, it will be built around the proclamation and application of the Bible. I don’t get too exercised about where these anti-church meets; it’s their theology & eccelesiology that’s aberrant; and the seed for their destruction is already built in. If you want to guarantee the obsolescence of your ministry, then over-define yourself by the culture, and you’ll be obsolete. It took Willow Creek 15 years to say we’re doing it all wrong? They’re done! if you never want to be obsolete, you’ve got to stay on track doing what the Word of God says to do! Stay in a ministry that’s Biblically defined.

Now taking questions from the aisles:

Q: Could you give us some advice to a young pastor/elder on balancing work of the ministry with being a godly husband & father in his home?

A: You probably want to ask my wife on how I did all these years. I think, first of all and critically, you need to love your wife. Cultivate that, in your own mind, in your own heart. Don’t let any other women get your attention. Don’t get drawn into any prolonged counseling with women, who are likely to look at you as the paragon of Christian virtue, etc. I don’t see marriage as complicated. If I know something that will bring my wife joy & benefit, I do it! Is it sacrifice? Yeah, sometimes. But I do it. It’s that simple. It’s not a question of time & hours. It’s simple things. I just think that’s where it starts where you really work at cultivating your relationship with your wife. Same goes for your children. I love being with my children, even more than any other children. Invest in their lives, so they know you love them, you will sacrifice for them. It’s an adventure as you try to work it out; but you’ve got to cultivate that affection in your own heart for your wife.

Really important: you need to continually convey to your wife your profound love for your ministry and the church. Because if you don’t, and she turns on the church, the conflict will never end. You need to convey the most thankful, satisfying attitude toward your church. You need to show them the most positive, because if they don’t love what you do, they will have a hard time letting you do it.

And of course, you’ve been given the mission field of your children. And when they come to know Christ, which is the most joyful thing in the world (and I’ve baptized about four deep generatoinally), there’s a commonality in our family. Instead of “Why is dad doing this or that?” it transcends it because of the cultivated love relationships.

Practically, I used to say, “I’ll come to your games if you come to my sermons.” Take advantage of the flexibility you have with your ministry. If you can take your children with you, and love what you do, and know that people love what you do, that’s for the best. Your children, if they know that people love what you do, they will love those people as well.

And have fun with your family. Don’t be so somber that life loses its joy. Kids need to have fun. But again, it starts with cultivating relationship with your wife.

Q: How important is it that a wife be on the same page with her husband in ministry? Can a man be an elder if his wife isn’t even in the same church?

A: No!!! Dead giveaway that you can’t manage your own household.

Q: I understand you have a writing pen collection. Can you talk about it?

A: I don’t use a computer. Trying to get me on a computer is ridiculous. They tried in the past with a huge computer. So I write everything with a pen, from rough drafts to final. “Man Writes Study Bible by Hand” was an article in the L.A. times about me. I don’t own a computer, so people give me pens. I think have 20-some pens. I get them as gifts, when I go places. They all have some relationship connected to them. They’re kind of a history for me. But please note: I do not need more pens!

Q: Regarding justification, the idea of Christ’s righteousness, does that include his active obedience in life or only in death?

A: It includes the righteousness of Christ which includes both. It’s an artificial bifurcation. How can you say Christ granted his active righteousness and not his passive, or vice versa. There’s only one righteousness in Christ, and it’s that which is granted to us. When He told John the Baptist, “I must fulfill all righteousness,” there was no other righteousness left to fulfill.

Q: Give us a clear definition of the difference between inerrancy and infallibility.

A: Inerrancy takes it down to the words. Infallibility goes up to the totality. An inerrant text is one without errors in the original autographs, therefore all it says is infallible. That’s the way theologians refer to these words. Infallible is broader. Some folks seem to use the word ‘infallible’ as an excuse to say it’s not ‘inerrant.’ But they just don’t want to deal with the purity of the Word, but they want to maintain the totality. You can’t do that.

Q: Is there a reason you’ve recently begun to more commonly refer to yourself as a Calvinist? Why use that term?

A: I don’t define myself as a Calvinist openly, typically on radio or TV. Here with you in this setting I’ll do that, at Ligonier conference I would; because there’s an accurate understanding of what that means. But in the open, you’d have to deal with all kinds of misconceptions. Truth is, I’m really not a Calvinist, I’m a “biblicist.” I think Calvin would feel sick if he knew folks were identifying themselves as Calvinists.

The reason I haven’t done it historically is for the very reason you identified, that people misunderstand or get hostile toward Arminians or Calvinists. I simply go in and teach the Word of God, and let it do its work, and they see the sovereignty of God in salvation (the light goes on), they see it everywhere. But I think it’s a lot better to sneak up on ‘em! I really don’t use labels, because I think they tend to play to misconceptions. People want to overidentify people. People used to ask, am I dispensationalist or not. I try to avoid labels, and just try to explain the Word of God and explain it. Eventually if you study the Word, you end up with the things we affirm as the true Biblical doctrines of salvation.

Q: Given that God saves only the elect, and that He desires all men to be saved (1 Tim 4a), does He desire that the non-elect to be saved; and if so what prevents that desire from being met?

A: That goes to the question of is God not willing that any should perish. Who are the ‘any,’ it can be shown is the elect. Who are the “all” in 1 Tim 4, you have to qualify it in context. In both 1 Tim & 2 Peter you can define those clearly in a context that indicates that our Lord has a desire for the salvation of all who have been chosen, and all who have been chosen will be saved. And you have to understand those passages in the broader context of Scripture. My commentary on 2 Peter has some morethoughts on that.

Q: If we join a church and suddenly discover they’re emerging, should we continue to stay?

A: Find out their view of Scripture, and if they reject the perspecuity and inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, you got to go. What’s their view of Jesus Christ and the gospel? If any deviation, you have to go.