Two Timely & Important Resources
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, as you've done a number of times over the past couple of years on this podcast, you have some resources you want to recommend to us to help strengthen us and equip us. Tell us about the first one.
Mark Prater:
Yeah, I'd love to. It's a book just recently published entitled Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age, written by Rosaria Butterfield. And Let me just tell you why she wrote this book. She writes in the preface that “this book is for Christians, especially Christian women who aren't ashamed of the Bible and its teachings, or who are and want to change. For young married women, my hope is that this book will encourage you to press on in holy faith and living. For young single women, I hope that you'll aspire to be faithful and fruitful Christian wives; that is to be helpers, wise counselors, and devoted homemakers to a godly man, raising children to the glory of God.” And then she goes on to talk about really that she's also written this book for moms and grandmoms, grandparents who have children or grandchildren who are wrestling with gender ideology issues or sexual orientation. And she has written this to help them as well. That's kind of who is on her heart.
And even though the book is written primarily for women in view, I would encourage guys to read it. I would encourage the pastors in Sovereign Grace to read it. I'm making my way through it and have benefited greatly from it. And I would also recommend, before I tell you a little bit about the book, Kevin DeYoung did a podcast with her recently that was really excellent. I would encourage you to listen to it. It was on September 27th, just an interview that you can find it by the title of the book: Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age. And it just gives you a little bit more about who Rosaria is and her passion for why she's written this book. So I recommend the podcast, as well.
She's written it because of the times we are living in. I think she sets that up by saying this. She says, "the world is in chaos and the church is divided because we have failed to obey God. And value is planned for how men and women should live. We foolishly believed that we could permanently extricate the gospel from the creation ordinance, key point, that we could have the New Testament without the Old. We foolishly believe that personal piety and love for Jesus require no doctrinal integrity and no foundation in the Bible as God's inerrant sufficient and inspired word. We foolishly believe that we could reinvent our calling as men and women, defy God's pattern and purpose for the sexes, and somehow reap God's blessing. God's plan for men and women, the creation ordinance, is first found in Genesis 1, and it is central, not peripheral to the gospel of Jesus Christ."
So I thought that was just well-written and well said in just a few sentences that describes why the world is in chaos. And here in the states, she mentions a couple of Supreme Court decisions in the last several years that she felt like shifted the culture. So the 2015 Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage that happened in 2015, and then the Bostock position of 2020, giving LGBTQ rights to those that identify that way. She writes this about those two things. She says, “after Obergefell and Bostock, LGBTQ describes who someone is, rather than how someone feels. Freudian ideas about sexuality replaced biblical ones and became the new and preferred anthropology, The study of what makes us human.”
And I think that is a wonderful cultural observation as well. When those laws codified into law, same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights, it shifted anthropology in that sense, at least in the way that the culture looks at it and is a shift away from biblical anthropology in particular. So she then unpacks five lies of the anti-Christian age. Lie number one: homosexuality is normal. Lie number two: being a spiritual person is kinder than being a biblical Christian. Lie number three: feminism is good for the world and the church. Lie number four: transgenderism is normal. And lie number five: modesty is an outdated burden that serves male dominance and holds women back. So that's the five lies that she addresses. And she speaks not only very biblically and theologically, but very humbly as well, because she is one who embraced these lies in her past and has come to Christ and repented of them and now is really wanting folks to know the truth that not only set her free, the truth that shaped her whole worldview. She wants others to know about that. So highly recommend Five Lies of the Anti-Christian Age by Rosaria Butterfield.
Benjamin Kreps:
Excellent. I just got the book, but I haven't started reading it yet. But I did watch the podcast or listen to it with Kevin DeYoung. I mean, if you want your appetite stoked for this book, go listen to that. It's a little easier maybe. I'm thinking about sharing it with the church even because it's a little easier expectation to have someone listen to an hour long podcast than necessarily read a long book. But she is just a model of biblical conviction, courage, clarity. But at the same time, there's a discernible, like you said, humility and kindness in the way she talks about these things. So she's really modeling a posture, I think, to be emulated, as we continue to hold fast to God's word, providing and preaching about the beautiful alternative to the chaos in our culture when it comes to biblical anthropology and sexuality, the way God has designed it.
Mark Prater:
I really encouraged my wife, Jill, to listen to it because I wanted her to benefit from it. She listened to it and greatly benefited from it. So if you are a husband or a pastor and have listened to that podcast or do listen to it, encourage your wives to listen to that. A particular interview that Kevin does with Rosaria, it will be, I think, really beneficial to them.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah, it's very good. Now you have some other books that you want to commend to us and they're written by one of our very own, tell us about them.
Mark Prater:
Yeah, I want to commend one more book. It's written by Marty Machowski, a pastor that I have the privilege of pastoring alongside at Covenant Fellowship Church. Anybody that knows Marty Machowski knows that he has been actually a prolific author for a number of years now. Marty just cranks out books and he's got a routine. He writes very early in the morning before he comes to work and it just really works for him. And he's produced some wonderful books for children in particular. That's the niche that he's in. But he's got a new book out called The Treasure. And I wanted to mention this book because first of all, it's wonderfully illustrated. So you can read this with your children and it'll hold their attention. And really The Treasure is broken down into two books.
Book one is an adventure through Luke, the Gospel of Luke. And then book two is an adventure through Acts. So what Marty, I think, skillfully does is he not only teaches through Luke and tells stories that kids can benefit from not only to understand the Gospel of Luke, but to hear the gospel itself, which is really important as you're raising children who you hope come to know the Lord Jesus as their savior. And then he wisely combines that with Luke's second writing, the book of Acts, after Jesus' ascension. The gospel continues to go forth, including in our day. And he walks the kids through the stories, some wonderful stories as we all know, not only in the Book of Luke, but in the Book of Acts as well. And it's just a book that is just really well done, not only in terms of content, but in terms of, as I mentioned, in terms of illustrations.So you have illustrations that kids will enjoy and benefit from.
So, that is produced by New Growth Press and wanted to mention this to all the parents that are listening or to grandparents that are listening, I'm a grandparent. And we can use those with our grandchildren, in my case, or with your children in your home. And if you're thinking about what do I do to help train my kids in biblical teaching, what do I do with family devotions? If you can say it that way, Marty's solved that problem for you, especially with younger kids, just read through The Treasure and you will cover Luke and Acts and that will greatly serve your children and strengthen your family.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's great. Shout out to Marty. Thank you Marty, for so many valuable contributions to helping our families grow and our kids grow. And not just in Sovereign Grace churches, but far beyond. And so that looks like another excellent resource from Marty.
So Mark, thank you for sharing these recommendations with us. I know your heart is to see us strengthened and equipped in all manner of areas and we feel that coming through these recommendations. So thanks for that. And thank you all for watching, listening or reading. I just discovered (this is how dense I am) that you can actually listen to it. There's a podcast feed on your podcast app or wherever you hear most the podcasts. So, how would I know? I'm only posting this podcast, right? But thank you all for joining us. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.