Last November, I took a month-long hiatus from blogging in order to give more time to other things I felt more important. Since I have been back, I confess that I have not enjoyed blogging as much. Part of the reason for this is because I feel a sense of pressure to maintain some degree of regularity in posting. In and of itself, this is not really a problem; I always have something on my mind I could blog about. The problem is that I am something of a perfectionist when I write, and I'm not satisfied until I have said everything I want to say in just the right way. And so I can have a blog post I started on Monday that is not ready to be published until Saturday because I constantly read over it, rework it, and polish it until it is right. When I'm already working fifty hours a week and have all kinds of other things going on during the week, that is additional stress that is entirely unnecessary.

I have been thinking about changing how I blog. The time factor is one of the reasons. But there is another, more significant, reason for my decision to make this change. In an opinion piece in the March web edition of Christianity Today, John Dyer, the web development director at Dallas Theological Seminary, observed that with the advent of blogs and social media, anyone can publish anything with the click of a button. He noted,

What few of us realize is that when we press those 'Publish,' 'Post,' 'Comment,' and 'Send' buttons, we are making the shift away from merely 'believing' truth and stepping into the arena of publishing that belief. In doing so we are effectively assuming a position of leadership and teaching.

Jamie Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, recently articulated the idea that just because you can publish something, doesn't mean you should. There used to be a difficult process you had to go through in order to get published, requiring one to submit manuscripts, get the approval of an editor and a big-name publisher. Smith argues that there is wisdom in that process:

I just wonder if there might be a few young theologians out there who are willing to at least pause and consider the possibility that there remains some wisdom in the establishment--and so might, for the sake of their work, submit to the disciplines of the process, even find the gifts hidden in rejections, rather than scurrying to find what upstart press will get their book into print. They might be grateful later, and theology might be better for it.

The point, I think, is that few of us are learners. We either don't want to be, or we just don't know how to be. Lately, I have become increasingly aware that I need to be a learner again. Human nature inclines many of us to want to be teachers, or to be complacent with the knowledge and wisdom we have already acquired. Being a learner, however, requires deliberate effort. It requires being willing to listen, think, read, contemplate, and digest. A few weeks ago, I was talking about how little I have been reading lately, and I noticed that even as I said that, I have an ongoing impulse to spit out thoughts whenever they come to me (using the outlet that is this blog).

It seems to me that there is an unhealthy disconnect there. As I move closer to taking up a role that puts me in the position of a teacher, I am growing more conscious of the need to assume the posture of a learner. I need to be much more intentional about taking in the knowledge and wisdom of others who are far more learned than I am. There are any number of ways to do this – reading books, listening to lectures, having face to face conversations with others.

So, for now, this means I will be putting down my own pen in order to learn and grow from what has flowed from the pens of others. I have a few ideas for how the format of this blog might change in light of this:

• I have a pattern already of quoting portions of books I am reading that offer something interesting and insightful. But up to now, I have usually framed the post with my own commentary on the quote. With the new format, I will offer a lot less commentary and let the quote speak for itself.

• In the same vein, I will post links to articles around the web that I find interesting and worth reading and thinking about. I already do this regularly on Facebook, but will probably do it less there and more here since I have a bit more space to make notes on it (Facebook limits you to something like 450 characters).

• There will be very few posts that contain content I have written entirely by myself. These are the types of posts that usually take me the longest and cause me the most stress. This is not to say there will not be any of these, but they will be very infrequent.

Instead of this being a place where I just air out my own thoughts, I want it to be a space that facilitates learning by pointing to the wisdom and thought of others and gives us a forum to interact and converse about all kinds of different topics and ideas. In addition, this may provide us with more opportunities for conversations. One of the goals I have had with this blog is to post about three times a week. This has been a big challenge up to now, but I suspect that with this change that goal will be much more within reach. As always, thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the new format.

Some weeks ago, I posted about the recent trend among evangelical Twitter users to tweet the gospel. A couple of days ago, Anthony Bradley, associate professor of theology and ethics at King's College, discussed the same thing at the WORLD magazine blog, garnering a lot of attention and prompting Jared Wilson, who pastors a church in Vermont, to issue a lengthy response defending the practice. By no means am I a big player in the blogosphere, but since both of them linked to my original post on the subject, I wanted to offer a few additional thoughts in response to Wilson's post in particular. You will need to read both for the background to this post.

First, both Bradley and I argued that one of the problem with the gospel tweets is their lack of context, a point Wilson takes issue with. He argues that all tweets, regardless of content, assume a context and that to understand what a person is tweeting about, you need to know this context. This is a logical point, of course, but there is a difference of degree in the contexts needed. For example, let's say that I tweet something like, "Heading to Sanford to have dinner with some folks from the church." You will need to understand a few things to make sense of this: clearly, I don't live in Sanford as I need to travel to get there, but obviously I live close enough that I can go there to have dinner with people. You will not know where Sanford is unless you know that I live in the Orlando area, and so it must be in that area as well. Also, you will need to know that I am a member of a church, and quite involved to the point that I'd share a meal with some of the people who belong to it. But these are all things that are easily deduced.

As another example, recently I tweeted a link to a blog post discussing the problems of consumerism and poverty in America. The tweet contained a brief quote from the post, "While iPad sales show no sign of slowing, one in five children in America are living in poverty," and was followed by the link. What context do you need to understand this tweet? You need to understand that what the iPad is and that it is being sold in large quantities, and you need to understand that there is a significant portion of the American population living in poverty. Further, you need to understand that a comparison is being made between the two statistics in order to demonstrate that our culture values consumerism more than it does justice. Again, though, this is not difficult to figure out.

Now, let's take one of the examples of a gospel tweet I originally cited, which both Bradley and Wilson reproduce in their posts: "Legalism says achievement leads to approval, the gospel says that approval leads to achievement" (and by the way, Mr. Wilson, if I recall correctly this one belongs to Tullian Tchividjian. I didn't see the need to cite the authors of these sample tweets originally because it wasn't important for the purpose of making a general observation). What context will you need to understand this? In the first place, you will need some of the terms defined, particularly legalism and gospel, because the extent of the definition of gospel at this point is, "not legalism," and vice versa. Then, what is the achievement spoken of? Approval by or from whom? Unless you have some sort of theological foundation, these questions are not so easily answered.

Interestingly, Wilson also points to John 3:16 as an example of a presentation of the gospel in tweet-sized form (he notes that the verse is 126 characters long). It is true that this is a concise expression of the gospel—and indeed, much clearer than many of the gospel tweets out there—but again, it is not understood by everyone without further explanation; Nicodemus himself needed the entire discussion with Jesus in John 3 to make sense of what he was talking about. The point is simply that there is a much greater context needed to understand a gospel tweet. Now, while this in and of itself is insufficient reason to abandon the practice altogether, it should raise some questions about the how and why of tweeting the gospel.

If you do the gospel-tweet thing with the purpose of trying to evangelize, hoping that it might plant seeds, I cannot imagine this practice bearing much fruit. I certainly would not deny that in some cases it might, but I do not think that something like, "Only the gospel glow of the New Jerusalem can make the city lights of Tarshish appear as bling bling," (this one belongs to Scotty Smith, by the way) is going to bring people to their knees. It surprises me, too, that many of these who engage in the gospel-tweeting practice are the same people who emphasize the need for building relationships in the process of proclaiming the gospel to the world. If, instead, you do it as a means of discipleship, what level of depth are you bringing to that relationship? These are just some of the questions this practice raises in my mind.

Second, Wilson makes a big deal over the discussion of the simplicity of the gospel. I am not sure what the problem is here. Bradley is right to say that there are times where gospel-tweeters attempt to say something profound or clever and in doing so, "frustrate the simplicity of the message." There is a sense in which the gospel is profoundly simple, and trying to dress it up with a slew of over-the-top adjectives only obscures that. But this does not, as Wilson insists, contradict the fact that the gospel is also far bigger than any tweet can encompass. I simply don't see the tension here.

Third—and this is the biggest issue I have with Wilson's post—at one point, he mentions that gospel-tweeters understand that the gospel is a "big deal" and later goes on to say that because he believes in the Lordship of Christ over all of life (the title of his blog is a reference to that oft-quoted statement of Abraham Kuyper), he can't help but use his Twitter stream for proclaiming the gospel. What comes across in these statements is an implication that those who don't use Twitter for this purpose—myself and Bradley included—don't get how big the gospel is and don't believe in the Lordship of Christ. Now, I am sure that Wilson would not want to say this (his words could have been more carefully chosen at this point), and indeed it is not true.

In fact, I think that if you really believe in the Lordship of Christ, you will tweet more than your clever comparisons of the gospel and legalism or the gospel and religion (the latter of which, by the way, are not antithetical to each other). Your tweets will talk about all spheres of life because Christ is Lord over all of life. The gospel is not just about individual salvation (which is what receives the most emphasis in the gospel-tweets). It is about the transformation of all of life, and God's act of redeeming his whole creation. It is about the Kingdom of God that has come and the sovereign rule of Christ over all. I would think that your tweets would reflect that by going beyond the implications of the gospel for individual salvation and piety. Perhaps you might link to articles discussing how to think about politics, education, and justice from a Christian perspective. Maybe you would share some quotes from books you are reading on creativity and the arts. Even something more mundane, like mentioning that you are going to spend a quiet night at home with your family is not outside of this because it demonstrates that you understand the value of the family. What's more, it seems to me that this sort of thing would be a lot more effective if you want to reach non-Christians, because it gets them thinking about things they deal with on a regular basis. A good article on how to deal with the problem of poverty prompts your followers to ask questions: "Why does he think about poverty from this perspective?" That point of contact lays a greater foundation for a relationship instead of blasting them with the ills of legalism.

In the end, I think Bradley is right to say that this practice, in some ways, keeps believers on "spiritual milk." If the gospel doesn't go beyond the usual fare of the Twitter-gospel, it is not helping to transform all of life. 

Do I think the gospel-tweeting should stop altogether? No. I've seen some genuinely good tweets out there. Do you need to only tweet stuff that everyone will understand? Of course not. My main objection, and I think Bradley would concur, is when it totally consumes a user. As Bradley says, there are times when it is hard to imagine that this is all nothing more than a popularity contest, just like those who only tweet things like "how to grow your business" or "how to get more hits for your website." Perhaps Wilson is right that part of our dislike for the practice is because we find it annoying, but that is the least concern here. It is the glut of overblown adjectives, often-bizarre comparisons, and in many cases, banality, that makes us wonder what the point of it all is.

Abraham Sangha, one of the contributors for the blog, The Institute, mentioned in his most recent post that he was once asked how you would tweet the gospel, to which he quickly replied, "You don't." I'm inclined to agree with him.

In recent months, I've noticed that some people involved in church ministry have increasingly been using Twitter as a platform for talking – though perhaps it would be better to call it preaching – about the gospel, in some cases almost exclusively (I'll attribute it to mere coincidence that this started to happen with more regularity once John Piper started tweeting). Below, I pulled a sample of some of these tweets so you could see what I'm talking about:

Reading the sample tweets I've posted above, there were a few things that came to mind. First, while I don't disagree with anything said above (although I might word them differently), these short tweets are lacking context. Now, in the case of the persons who tweeted these things, the vast majority of their followers will be Christians, with many likely coming from a similar tradition of the Twitter user and able to supply the needed context. In one sense, then, they are preaching to the choir. But perhaps one of their followers is in a place where they need to hear one of these messages, and are encouraged by it.

However, if you have people following you who are not Christians, none of this will likely make any sense to them. And though having followers who aren't Christians shouldn't stop you from tweeting thoughts that resonate with you or inspire you, it is worthwhile to consider your audience and the medium of the message. One other thing bearing consideration is the nature of social media relationships – is there some semblance of a personal relationship when following someone on Twitter such that you are sharing the gospel in the context of relationship, or is tweeting the gospel a 21st century varient of tract evangelism?

Secondly, these types of tweets seem to restrict the gospel message to the singular idea that we are saved by God's grace apart from anything we can do. While this is entirely true and was one of the major themes of the message Jesus came to proclaim, is this all the gospel is about? What about Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God? The presentations of the gospel that come out of this recent Twitter trend seems to focus solely on personal salvation and individual piety. Again, while these are parts of the gospel, it is not the whole message. Is it a good practice to present bits and pieces of the gospel 140 characters at a time?

At any rate, I am probably reading too much into it this, and could just be missing the point. These are just some of my initial reactions to this increasing trend of tweeting the gospel. What do you think? If you like to tweet the gospel, why do you do so? Can you really present the gospel in 140 characters?

I have a number of reasons for blogging. However, I have never intended this blog to be a place to air grievances, a means of exposing "heretics," or a forum to tear down brothers and sisters in the church. Sadly, this is what a lot of blogs are used for.

Last week, Bruce Waltke resigned from his position as professor of Old Testament studies at the Orlando campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. It was quite clear from the outset that his sudden resignation was linked in some way to a video he had appeared in posted by the Biologos Foundation, in which he argued for the necessity of accepting theistic evolution, although there was no official statement released giving the details of Waltke's resignation.

Not surprisingly, then, the blogosphere lit up as many took the opportunity to offer their opinions and speculations (disguised, of course, as factual statements) regarding what happened. Also of little surprise were the scathing remarks the vast majority of these bloggers had for RTS claiming that the seminary had forced Waltke to resign and criticising the school both for its limiting of academic freedom and for its adherence to a position regarding creation that science has proven to be untenable.

A lot of us around the campus spent time last week trying to figure out exactly what had happened because we were not being given many details. Having only received a very short email from the administration saying that Waltke had resigned, and nothing more, we were especially confused when the reports started coming out that RTS had forced Waltke to step down. I expressed my desire to some of the staff members at the seminary to see an official statement filling us in on the details. On the one hand, this would make us aware of what was going on, and on the other hand, could prove the wide-ranging speculations being promulgated on the internet wrong, which they later did. You can find chancellor Ric Cannada's statement here, and Uri Brito has also posted a letter Waltke himself wrote to his colleagues regarding the situation.

The best report available online right now is provided by The Aquila Report, who the other day posted this extensive and helpful statement. It was affirmed by some of the staff at RTS that this is indeed the most balanced and fair treatment of the events that have transpired in the past few weeks, and although there are some minor factual inaccuracies (the details surrounding the relationship of Enns and Waltke, I have been told, are somewhat inaccurate), it largely avoids the mud-slinging and finger-pointing that have characterised so many of the others "reports." To that end, I ask that you please read this report instead of the incorrect and speculative posts you find on most blogs, including the unhelpful piece Inside Higher Education recently posted

As with almost everything else, there is an ethic when it comes to publishing information, be it in a newspaper or magazine, or on a personal blog. Perhaps the power to click the "publish" button on the bottom of the screen overrides better judgment in some cases, but unfortunately there is no way to control who is publishing what online. One of our professors was remarking yesterday that actual investigative reporting is on the wane these days. Reporters now have their sources in various places and use the information they receive from these sources to make their reports. While these are often regulated as much as possible with the necessary checks and balances to ensure factual accuracy, this can hardly be said for the blogosphere. Using wisdom and abiding by an ethical standard becomes solely the responsibility of the blogger. More often than not, then, Lord Acton's dictum rings true: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Being a student at RTS Orlando, this hit very close to home. I was deeply saddened to hear of Waltke's resignation. Not only have we lost one of—if not the—most preeminent Old Testament scholar alive today, but we have lost a man whose love for the Lord was without measure, whose love for the church was inspiring, and whose love of the Word of God was infectious. One example I can share that demonstrates his character comes from working in the bookstore at the seminary. A number of times, Waltke has purchased some of his own books and shipped them, at great cost to himself, to pastors in countries in the developing world who had little or not access to good theological resources.

I do not believe the issue surrounding Waltke's resignation warranted such drastic action. While I do not adhere to theistic evolution myself, Waltke was clear in his affirmation of God as creator and of the historicity of Adam and Eve. As such, I do not think he falls outside the bounds of orthodoxy. It has been said a few times in the past week (though as far as I know, it remains unverified) that even one of the stalwarts of Reformed theology, B. B. Warfield, was an adherent of theistic evolution.

I never had the privilege of having Waltke as a professor, due to scheduling conflicts with my classes. But he has been an immense blessing to our community here at RTS, and to me particularly in his writing. Sad as we are to see him go, we wish him the Lord's richest blessings in whatever endeavour he undertakes next.

Welcome to the new site. The video below explains a little about why I transferred over to Posterous (and it allows me the opportunity to simultaneously make a bit of a fool of myself and test out some of their features). Be sure to update your feed reader with the new RSS feed so we can stay connected.

Update 13 March 2010: You may have noticed that there are several hundred posts that pre-date this one, and that is because I recently merged much of my old blog with this one. This was the first post I posted when I switched over to Posterous. All the previous posts were originally published on my old Blogger blog.