Contending for the Faith

Centuri0n, like his fellow Pyromaniac Phil Johnson, is also looking at the issue of contending for the faith, from the viewpoint of a Christian retailer:

The first thing to say about ‘arguing’ is this: we are supposed to contend for the faith, amen? The Gospel is not some truth-less blanket that just gets thrown over things, and whatever happens to be under it this morning as we cast it out wide is not ‘the Gospel for today’. The Gospel is the power of salvation for everyone who believes. But believes what?

That’s my second point: the two most-vivid proclamations of the Gospel in the NT are unquestionably Acts 2 and 2Cor 15 — and both of those proclamations place the authority of God’s word as the centerpiece of how and why Christ died. That is to say: whatever it is Christ did (died for our sins, was buried and was raised on the third day) was “in accordance with Scripture”: it happened because Scripture said it would happen. In that, Scripture is our most precious possession in the Christian life. While we have an interior witness of the spirit, the Gospel doesn’t go out by means of interior witness: it goes out by the Gospel being proclaimed. What gets proclaimed — if we follow Paul’s example and his own words — is the testimony of Scripture.

I’m always troubled when I go into a “Christian” bookstore and see things that are decidedly borderline at best. Christian bookselling is a ministry, not a business (at least not exclusively a business).

Side note – if anyone knows of any really good Christian bookstores in the north suburbs of Indy, even independent ones, email me. I usually shop at the big Christian “chain” stores in the area, but it’s harder and harder to find really good Reformed content at those stores.