VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark as you well know, and guys watching, reading this know, good leaders are learners, lifelong learners, and you certainly are one of those and you consume a lot of content. And so on this episode, you wanted to make us aware of some resources to help us as pastors,

Mark Prater:

Thanks for your encouragement, I'm trying to be a learner. I always think I can be reading more and studying more, but I did want to recommend some resources in this podcast. The first one I wanted to mention is Kevin DeYoung's podcast: Life and Books and Everything. And specifically an episode that he recorded on August 24th, entitled Thinking Biblically About Abuse with Jim Newheizer. And it was just Kevin and Jim Newheizer. You don't know Dr. Newheizer. He is the Director of Christian Counseling and the Associate Professor of Christian Counseling and Pastoral Theology at a reformed theological seminary in Charlotte, where DeYoung is a professor. And I think this is just good for our pastors to listen to. It's one of the most balanced discussions on the issue of abuse and caring for survivors of abuse that I've heard. So I would I would just recommend that you guys check out that podcast.

Also, I wanted to remind everyone listening to the podcast about the Sovereign Grace Journal. We have our second edition published which is subtitled, A Christ-Centered People. And that is available in print on Amazon. It's also available online. A couple of articles there that I wanted to draw your attention to. Andy Farmer has written a helpful article titled Trauma and the Treasure of Christ. And when he speaks about trauma, he's not only speaking about trauma that is the result of abuse, but he's using it more broadly; trauma that could come from military service, or if you're a frontline worker experiencing trauma. That was a helpful article. And for anyone that's reading or listening to this podcast, and you're currently walking through suffering, it would be really good for you to read an article by Todd Peterson entitled To Live as Christ: Lessons Learned in the Valley of Darkness. So a plug for the Sovereign Grace Journal, and I think some very helpful articles that are in this particular edition.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's excellent. So grateful for the pastors that are working hard to write content for us that serves the pastors and our churches. You held up the Sovereign Grace Journal. Let me hold up the original.

Mark Prater:

All right. (Laughter) People of Destiny.

Benjamin Kreps:

This is how it started and that's how it's going.

Mark Prater:

Right. Exactly. (Laughter)

Benjamin Kreps:

You also were telling me about a book that you've been reading with a fascinating title and topic.

Mark Prater:

Just finished it about a week ago, a book entitled Against the Darkness. That's the fascinating title: Against the Darkness, subtitle: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan and Demons. It's written by Graham Cole. It's in the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series. He also wrote a book on the holy spirit called He Who Gives Life. It's a great series. He is a professor right now at Trinity Evangelical School up in Chicago. This was the best book I've read on the topic. And I find there's not a lot of good resources out there on the topic of Satan and demons and of spiritual warfare.

Just to kind of give you a little bit of an idea, let me just mention some of the table of contents. He talks about angels, their kinds of heavenly activity, angels activity on earth, Satan, demons. Jesus Christus Victor is the title of that chapter six. Spiritual Warfare, a really, really good chapter on that topic; The Destiny of the Darkness and the Victory of the Light, where he just does a wonderful, I think just exegisis of Revelation there as well. So it's just a great, again, balanced book on this topic; well-researched and well written theologically and in an accessible way.

Just a couple of quotes. This would illustrate the balance of the book. In his introduction, he wraps up the introduction by quoting JC. Ryle, a good man to quote. JC Ryle wrote a seminal essay on evangelicalism titled Evangelical Religion. In it he discusses how the gospel may be spoiled in various ways. And one of the ways it draws attention to its spoiling is through disproportion or through disproportionality. By this he means attaching an exaggerated importance to the secondary things of Christianity, and a diminished importance on the first things. And the mischief as Ryle says, is done. Ryle's concern for a gospel spoiled by disproportion is especially relevant to this study, says Graham Cole: recall CS Lewis' warning of two dangers concerning Satan and demons. One is an excessive interest in them, or second, an excessive disinterest in them. And it's really hard for me to just sort of evaluate where we're on that issue with Sovereign Grace. If I had to guess at all, I would say we probably lean on the disinterest side and we need to be more aware of Satan and his activity.

Let me just read you his definition of spiritual warfare in that chapter. I found it really helpful. So this is Graham Cole. So as a working definition for spiritual warfare,

Let me define spiritual warfare as that aspect of our common struggle as Christians against the machinations of malevolent spiritual creatures that are intent on thwarting God's redemptive plan for his human creatures.

And it's just a well balanced, accessible, non sensationalistic definition. And it really is a very, very helpful chapter. So I would commend that resource as well.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. A really important topic. I would imagine for many of us, often neglected, so I will be picking up a copy of that book and reading it and who knows. We might end up returning to our roots in Sovereign Grace and on Sunday mornings, march around the building binding and loosening, yet again.

Mark Prater:

(Laughter) Right. That wouldn't be a recommendation in the book.

Benjamin Kreps:

Okay. It's not. (Laughter) Thank you, Mark, for for your thoughtfulness and pointing us to some helpful resources. Thank you all for watching. We'll see here next week, Lord, willing. Bye for now.