español 9Marks Explained : A Letter From Mark Dever

Book Review: Turning to God

By David F. Wells
Print

Baker Books, 1989.
192 pages. $13.99

She’s about eight years old, slightly taller than your desk, an explosion of curls, precocious. She appears suddenly, without her parents, between church services. She’d like to know how to become a Christian. Several days later, another visitor approaches you. This time it’s the polite fiancé of a deacon’s daughter. He tells you about his relief when the campus minister told him that Buddhism was compatible with Christianity, and that the fruit of the Spirit looks like smoking a little less pot.

The Beauty of Conversion

Editor's note: Like last week's two previews, 9Marks thought you would enjoy one more preview of the upcoming 9Marks Journal on the underestimated doctrine of conversion (stay tuned).

Concepts of Conversion in the Inner City

What do people in America’s inner cities think about conversion?

I’m not referring the geographic center of cities, but to the urban areas that are often riddled by crime and characterized by social and economic blight. From west Philadelphia to Chicago’s south side; from the Flatbush section of Brooklyn to Watts in Los Angeles; from Anacostia in southeast Washington D.C. to the north side of St. Louis—what are the common understandings about how one becomes a Christian?

TOUGH QUESTION

Book Review: Finally Alive

By John Piper
Print

Christian Focus, 2009.
160 pages. $14.99

The last time I visited my hometown, I received a history lesson from an old family friend at the dinner table. She told us how two churches in our town had multiplied into six over the past fifty years. That might sound like a pretty impressive church planting strategy for a town of 2,000 people, at least until you discover that all this “growth” was due to a number of church-splits. The splits were the result of bitter feuds between families, a stubborn refusal to forgive, and quarrels exploding well beyond the walls of the church.

Six Ways to Give Your People False Assurance

As a pastor, I interact with a lot of people who struggle to have confidence in the authenticity of their conversion. To their mind, their sin clings closely and their failings are always at hand. Most of the time, I find that these are faithful brothers and sisters who need comfort and reassurance.

Testimonies of the Underestimated Gospel

9Marks asked all the T4G plenary and break-out speakers and panelists to provide us with a one sentence answer to this question:

What were the human means and instruments of your conversion?


Thabiti Anyabwile: I was converted during the preaching of Exodus 32 in a Sunday morning worship service.

Matt Chandler: I was converted by the witness of a good friend.

Conversion and Your Church’s Architecture

In 2004, our church building project hit a wall.

Up to that point, our plans to expand the church facility had moved forward slowly but surely. The congregation had approved drawings, voted to build, raised funds, and hired specialists to acquire the necessary building permits. And one by one the town granted our permits, until we came to the Board of Health. In 2004, the Board indicated that our septic system plans would not pass. So we withdrew our application from the town.

GOOD INTENTIONS

Book Review: Revival and Revivalism

By Iain H. Murray
Print

Banner of Truth, 1994.
480 pages. $33.00

“How did we get here?” is a question that is always relevant and often illuminating. Yet contemporary evangelicals don’t ask it as often as we should.

In his book Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858, Iain Murray tells a story that helps explain how evangelicals—Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and more—got to where we are today.

FROM REVIVAL…

The Corporate Component of Conversion

If your doctrine of conversion is missing the corporate element, it’s missing an essential piece of the whole. A covenant head comes with a covenant people. 

VERTICAL FIRST, HORIZONTAL INSEPARABLY SECOND

Conversion, God, and the Whole Self

From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture is clear that conversion is absolutely necessary for individuals to experience salvation and know God. Unless we turn from our sin and turn to God, unless we know experientially what the Bible describes as a spiritual, supernatural circumcision of the heart (Deut. 30:6; Rom. 2:25-29), we will not know God savingly and will stand under his judgment and wrath (Eph. 2:1-3).