Very, very few preachers are telling you to leave everything and follow Jesus. But that’s what Jesus does repeatedly in the Gospels. Why? Because Paul (in Ephesians 2 and Colossians 1, and the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 2) says God’s plan is for the whole world to be brought under the headship of Jesus Christ. And so if disciples are going to be won to Jesus Christ, they must be brought under the headship of Jesus Christ. And in order to be brought under the headship of Jesus Christ, there can be no one who is His competitor for Lord of your life. There can be no thing that is more important to you in this world than the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the refrain is said over and over, “They left everything and followed Him.”

Now let me quickly say that looks different for different disciples. . . . You even see it in Luke 5. The disciples who were fishermen, who left their boats and followed Him, does that mean that they never fished again? No. We find them fishing throughout the Gospels. Clearly that was one of the ways they fed themselves, so they continued to fish. And you remember after Jesus’ crucifixion some of them were prepared to go back to their fishing trade.

Matthew, on the other hand, when he left the profession that he left, he left it without the capacity to ever go back to it again. You didn’t just walk out on the Roman Empire and say, ‘That’s it. I’m done. I’m not collecting taxes anymore,’ and then just go back into the office of the provincial leader and say, ‘You know, I’m thinking about that again. I think I would like to collect taxes again.’ When Matthew walked away, he was walking away from a very lucrative profession once and for all. He really did leave everything and follow Jesus. But however that plays out in our lives, that is the demand for every disciple.

You know, it’s not a surprise, is it, that a few chapters later in Luke 18, we’re going to meet a fine  young man, a morally upstanding young man, a wealthy young man who is a leader in his synagogue. And he comes to Jesus and he asks Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And you know what Jesus says to him? “Leave everything and follow Me.” And you know what that young man does. He says, ‘I can’t.’ You understand, though, that that is the call to every disciple. That doesn’t mean that every disciple divests himself or herself of every last shred of his or her worldly goods and takes upon a vow of poverty for the rest of his or her life. But it does mean that there is no competitor to Jesus in your life (Ligon Duncan, sermon transcript).

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Tuesday 21 April 2009
2:00 pm | Session 1: Tim Keller, “The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry” (Acts 19:21-41)
4:00 pm | Session 2: John Piper, “Feed the Flame of God’s Gift: Unashamed Courage in the Gospel” (2 Timothy 1:1-12)
7:00 pm | Session 3: Phil Ryken, “The Pattern of Sound Words” (2 Timothy 1:13-2:13)
8:00 pm | Session 4: Mark Driscoll, “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:14-26)

Wednesday 22 April 2009
9:30 am | Session 5: K Edward Copeland, “Shadowlands: Pitfalls and Parodies of Gospel-Centered Ministry” (2 Timothy 3:1-9)
11:00 am | Session 6: Bryan Chapell, “Preach the Word!” (2 Timothy 3:10-4:5)
7:00 pm | Session 7: Ajith Fernando, “Gospel-Faithful Mission in the New Christendom”
8:00 pm | Session 8: Panel Discussion: Tim Keller, John Piper, Ligon Duncan and Crawford Loritts

Thursday 23 April 2009
9:30 am | Session 9: Ligon Duncan, “Finishing Well” (2 Timothy 4:6-22)
11:00 am | Session 10: DA Carson, “‘That By All Means I Might Win Some’: Faithfulness and Flexibility in Gospel Proclamation” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

I’m excited Dr. Duncan is in the panel discussion, but I’m bummed DA Carson isn’t in it.

But for those interested, here are the ways Dr. Duncan responded to my questions, to the best of my memory:

I am considering being rebaptized because, as best as I can understand the teaching of scripture on baptism, I think my previous baptism as an unregenerate infant was invalid.  What counsel do you have for me?

He said the first thing to settle is what I think baptism is, then I need to move to who baptism is for, and finally I need to examine personally how that fits into my own decision.  In other words, the first thing is wrestling with the theology.

How serious is the decision to be rebaptized if the original baptism might have been valid?

Baptism is very serious.  He said that even within his relationships with Together for the Gospel, he, Mohler, and Dever all strive to make it clear they believe their differences on baptism are significant.  They work together for the sake of the gospel because of their unity in the gospel but they in no way want to minimize the importance of baptism.  In order to demonstrate its importance, he went to the story of Moses’ son who was not circumcized and how God sought to put him to death because of it (Exodus 4:24-26).  He said it was even more significant in Moses’ case because the law had been given to him and he was a representative of it, but nonetheless these are very important issues for us today as well.

Does it do harm to the gospel to be rebaptized when the initial baptism was valid?

Yes.  He said you see this problem among credobaptists who have been baptized several times.  He said it is often a result of a lack in the understanding that our salvation is not about what we do but about what God does.  Our baptism is meant to be about what God has done, so it should only be performed once because those who God has called he will keep to the end and there will not be any falling away or the need to be saved again, so when people are rebaptized, even if it’s because they think they weren’t really believers the first time, they send the wrong message.  They should, rather, go before the congregration and tell them about the faith they have found rather than being baptized a second time.

If a member of your church was rebaptized, would it be an occasion for church discipline?

No.  He said historically it would have been, but for the past 150 years (I think that was the number he said, I might be wrong) Presbyterians have in general tried to be more lenient in matters of conviction.  In other words, if someone is convinced by conscience they should be rebaptized, they will not be disciplined for doing so.  He said that the Presbyterian church wants membership in the church to be available to all who are genuinely Christians, and so they don’t make matters of non-essential doctrine an area that would in any way exclude someone from the church.

What is baptism?

It signifies regeneration, and it indicates faith, but it is fundamentally about what God does, not what we do.

Why were John’s disciples rebaptized?  (Acts 19:1-7) What was the purpose of John’s baptism?  Did it have any covenantal meaning?

When they were baptized by John, they underwent a baptism of repentance which signified that they were in need of a savior, but they didn’t know who the savior was.  It was a different kind of baptism from the Christian baptism we practice.  They were acknowledging their need for a savior, but when they are asked about the Holy Spirit, they don’t even know who the Holy Spirit is.  They would have at least heard of the Holy Spirit if they had been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so they hadn’t received a Christian baptism.  They had simply received a baptism of repentance, which was not uncommon for Gentiles, but John gave it to Jews and the point in that baptism was the Jews admitting they too were unclean and in need of a savior.  John’s baptism did not have any covenantal meaning.

If a man, who had no family connections to the church, was baptized and later came to the conviction he had not been saved at the time of his baptism, would it be right or wrong for him to be rebaptized?

The man should not be rebaptized because even though he may not have had faith at the time, he did receive a valid baptism, which again is not about what man does but what God does.  He also said they do rebaptize people who were baptized as Mormons or other non-Trinitarian chruches or people who come from Catholic backgrounds and in their conscience do not believe the gospel they received from the Roman church was the true gospel.

If I understand correctly, the parents who are members of your church are given the option not to have their children baptized.  Is this true?

Yes.

How do you counsel parents who have a hard time deciding or disagree?

Parents go through some teaching before their first born is baptized and are given the opportunity to ask questions.  If they cannot come to a firm conviction on whether to baptize their children, he suggests they delay the baptism until they can come to a firm conviction.  He said his own mother was wrestling with this when he was born and it took her three years to come to a paedobaptist conviction, and his father was patient with her, so he was not baptized as an infant.  He said this was a good model to follow.

I attend a church that desires me to be rebaptized.  In the future I hope to either attend the Bethlehem Institute or the Sovereign Grace Pastors College.  I would assume they would want me to be rebaptized as well.  At what point does a person who finds these matters difficult to resolve simply submit to the elders of his church and those who are his spiritual leaders?

He was convinced that if I kept wrestling with it I would come to a firm conviction one way or the other.  I am not so convinced I will ever satisfactorily resolve the issue in my own mind, but he encouraged me to keep working on it until I was firmly convinced one way or the other, and seemed quite certain that it would happen.

Is there anything you would recommend for me to read?

He gave me Baptism in Scripture and History by Rowland S. Ward.

Questions I didn’t have time to ask:

I have heard Reformed theologians say that the children of believers are members of the new covenant.  Is that your position and if so what do you mean by members?

How do you resolve the problem Paul was wrestling with in Romans 9: namely, the “people of the promise” are often not the recipients of the promise?  How has God kept his promise to the members of the covenant who are not saved?

Scripturally, what is the most convincing argument to you either in favor of paedobaptism or against credobaptism?

The following questions are posed from the viewpoint of a paedobaptist just to make the questions simple (ie using the word “rebaptism” when the credobaptist would of course hold that I haven’t been baptized in the first place).

• I am considering being rebaptized because, as best as I can understand the teaching of scripture on baptism, I think my previous baptism as an unregenerate infant was invalid.  What counsel do you have for me?
• How serious is the decision to be rebaptized if the original baptism might have been valid?  Does it do harm to the gospel and if so in what way and to what extent?  Is it sinful to be rebaptized if remaining in the current state goes against conscience?
  • If a member of your church was rebaptized, would it be an occasion for church discipline?
• What is baptism?
  • Why were John’s disciples rebaptized?  (Acts 19:1-7)
  • What was the purpose of John’s baptism?  Did it have any covenantal meaning?
  • If a man, who had no family connections to the church, was baptized and later came to the conviction he had not been saved at the time of his baptism, would it be right or wrong for him to be rebaptized?  In other words, what are the necessary requirements for a valid, covenantal baptism.  How does this relate to the rebaptism of John’s disciples?
• I have heard Reformed theologians say that the children of believers are members of the new covenant.  Is that your position and if so what do you mean by members?
  • How do you resolve the problem Paul was wrestling with in Romans 9: namely, the “people of the promise” are often not the recipients of the promise?  How has God kept his promise to the members of the covenant who are not saved?
• Scripturally, what is the most convincing argument to you either in favor of paedobaptism or against credobaptism?
• If I understand correctly, the parents who are members of your church are given the option not to have their children baptized.  Is this true?
  • How do you counsel parents who have a hard time deciding or disagree?
• I attend a church that desires me to be rebaptized.  In the future I hope to either attend the Bethlehem Institute or the Sovereign Grace Pastors College.  I would assume they would want me to be rebaptized as well.  At what point does a person who finds these matters difficult to resolve simply submit to the elders of his church and those who are his spiritual leaders?
• Under what circumstances do you recommend rebaptism and why? (Baptism performed by heretical churches, etc.)
• Is there anything you would recommend for me to read?

All of our actions are ultimately rooted in our deepest desires.  And the bible tells us that our deepest desires apart from Christ are set on the wrong thing.  And that means that everything we do, even if the thing we do is good in and of itself, is evil because our motive is not right, our desire is not right.  That’s the problem that confronts humanity in its freedom.  We may be free to do what we want to do, but we’re not free to do what we ought to do, what God made us to do, apart from God’s intervening grace.  It’s only when God reaches in by grace and changes our desires so that we want him that we reach the kind of true freedom that is found in Christ.  And that is a freedom not only to choose what we want to choose, but to choose as God would have us to choose for his glory and our good (Ligon Duncan, edited transcript).

In this clip, Ligon Duncan describes a common misconception we have of the Pharisees and how Jesus interacted with them.

The following is an edited transcript:

Dever: So what is the work that EP Sanders has done in the first century context useful for?

Duncan: I think if there is one thing that we could get out of this for evangelicals, it would be to reorient ourselves to the Pharisees.  I think for a long time evangelicals have viewed Pharisees as people who care too much about the law; they’re nitpickers; they love minutiae; they’re harsh; they’re mean, etc.  So I think if you could get anything out of these guys, one thing you’re going to get is a reorientation to the Pharisees.

Jesus never accuses these men of caring too much about God’s law. He always tells them, your problem is you act like you care about God’s law, and you trash it.  So what he ends up doing is holding the law up in front of them and showing them the law is much greater than they ever thought it was, and that they have never ever done it service.

Even in stories like the rich young ruler. Remember the question, “What must I do?”  And the answer is, “Keep the law.”  That’s an interesting answer from a gospel preacher. . . . And then the retort, “I’ve done that since I was a child.”  But Jesus’ response, “Okay, sell everything you have.”  He holds up the first commandment before the man, thus showing that he has not kept the law.  It’s a very interesting interaction — not accusing him of caring too much about the law, but of not appreciating the demands of the law.

We paint a picture of the Pharisee that would not look anything like us, when the fact of the matter is, we look a whole lot more like the Pharisees than we would like to admit. . . .

We don’t think of them as a dedicated, evangelizing, lay movement, which it was.

The full interview, “Justification & the New Perspective”, is available at 9marks.org.

The Gospel Coalition has overflowed YouTube with clips of Christ-centered answers to some weighty questions.  Check out their channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGospelCoalition.

When: Tue Apr 21 – Thu Apr 23, 2009
Where: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL
Speakers: Bryan Chapell, DA Carson, John Piper, K Edward Copeland, Ligon Duncan, Mark Dricoll, Phil Ryken, Tim Keller, Ajith Fernando
Website: Entrusted with the Gospel: Living the Vision of Second Timothy

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