Where are our priorities?

I have been sitting here all day just feeling empty inside thinking about the lack of Biblical priority in the church. That emptiness is turning into white hot anger.

Prepare for a rant…

I don’t have statistics in front of me, but I am confident that a huge percentage of the budget of an average church goes to pay for staff salaries and buildings. We expect pastors to spend upwards of 15-20 hours a week reading and then telling us about what they read and the average church gladly pays them to do that. We have meetings ad nauseum about this program or that, about the budget, about all manner of inane stuff. I recall very recently reading something on a church webpage (I won’t name the church) and I about went through the roof. This is copied directly from their “fast facts” about their "church":

■ Located on 140 acres with land and buildings of current net worth near over 50 million dollars
■ 3,000 parking spaces on about 30 acres
■ Worship Center has seating for over 5,500
■ Pipe organ has 118 ranks; 6,737 pipes
■ Annual budget over $17 million
■ Give approximately 1.5 million per year to missions, the largest contributor of any Southern Baptist Church in the U.S. (my note: that means that 8% of their $17,000,000 budget goes to "missions")
■ Membership—15,000
■ Average Sunday morning Bible study attendance: 3,800
■ Over 300 Bible study classes for all ages.
■ Approximately 7,000 in worship attendance on Sunday mornings in three worship services
■ About 140 full-time staff, plus about 215 part-time
■ 24 pastoral staff
■ Purchased former RC Cola bottling plant, adjacent land, Fall 2001; over $3 million given in two months

What kind of a twisted view of the Gospel ministry would make someone put a list like that out in public and think it reflected well on them? The same sort of mindset that would print up matching T-shirts for over 300 people to wear when getting “baptized” in a circus atmosphere. This is not some postmodern, seeker sensitive megachurch, it is a conservative Baptist church. Is that list supposed to make me want to go there on a Sunday morning? I read that list and wondered what exactly the object of their worship is. It certainly is not a sign of God's providence, it is a sign of idolatry.

Meanwhile….

There are missionaries sitting around the states who are not going to the world to bring people the Gospel of Jesus Christ because of a lack of funds. Cults like the mormons make missions a priority, meanwhile we can’t be bothered to talk to our neighbors about Christ. Before we spend one nickel on an unnecessary building project (and most building projects are unnecessary in my opinion) or hire one more staff member, we better make sure that every Biblically sound missionary who has raised their hand and said “send me” is on a plane to minister to lost people overseas or right here in the states. Let me go even further. I would challenge pastors to step down and the rest of the men to step up so that staff salaries could go to missionary work. We shouldn't have to pay men to do what the rest of us are called and capable, but too lazy, to do ourselves.

There are innumerable families who desperately want to adopt children but cannot because of red tape and exorbitant costs and there are on the other side innumerable children in horrible situations that are waiting for a family to adopt them. In my time in banking I can tell you without hesitation that many churches are sitting on enormous sums of money, saved up for a rainy day. They save this money because they have such huge fixed costs in the form of buildings and staff. The church in America is enslaved by money. I am just sick inside when on the one hand I think of the gleaming, brand new “churches” in every town in America and on the other hand all of the orphans waiting to be adopted by someone, anyone, who will love and care for them. They don’t want a blackberry or an x-box, they just want a roof over their head, food to eat and to live each day and not be in fear.

There are Christians all over the world that don’t have Bibles in their own language and cannot afford to buy one. They are starving for the Word of God and vulnerable to false teachers and we buy $125 calfskin study Bibles. I probably have more Bibles on my bookshelf than many churches in China have in the entire congregation. We put Bibles in the pews for people too lazy to bring their own Bible to church that sit unread all week long and our brothers and sisters risk life and limb to smuggle Bibles to those without.

There are widows who are lonely and waiting to be visited, but no one does because “that is the pastor’s job”. We subcontract ministry to one or a few men and expect them to minister to everyone else. See the above challenge to “step down and step up”.

If you are involved in a church that meets in an old building, or in a school, or someplace else, don’t give in to the prevailing worldview and go into debt to buy a building that will sit empty all week. Use what you have. If you want to plant a church, don’t wait for a paid minister to come to town, just open your home to the saints. It worked 2000 years ago, it still works today. If your congregation is sitting on $25,000 or $50,000 or more in the bank for a “rainy day”, ask yourself what you could be putting that money to use for that would advance the Gospel.

I am glad Christ cared more about sacrificing Himself so that we could be adopted into His family than He was about building glorious temples to Himself. I wish we had that same level of care for others around us.

An argument against single parent adoption by a proponent of adoption

Voddie Baucham makes a great argument against single parent adoption in a recent blog post. I think adoption is a wonderful thing. I also think that having single people adopt is generally a bad thing for a variety of reasons. Not because single parents are bad people but because intact two parent families with a mother and father are proven to be healthier and frankly are Scriptural. We should not compromise because there are so many kids waiting for adoption by encouraging single parent adoption, we should exhort two parent families to adopt children whether they have their own kids or not, and the church should support that. I would rather see the church help offset adoption costs for couples willing to adopt than I would see yet another church building being built or more staff be added to a local church. A church with $100,000 in its "building fund" could help ten families adopt instead of building a new wing or sanctuary. I would rather have an old, run-down building full of kids who were adopted into Christian families than the finest, state of the art sanctuary. There is an opportunity cost for every penny spent in the church on staff, buildings, programs, denominational bureaucrats and that cost has a real impact on real lives. The more I think about this as I type, the more wound up I get. There are so many kids waiting to be adopted and yet we spend billions every year on staff and buildings. God forgive us for our neglect of the parentless in our pursuit of worldy success and glory.

I especially liked this paragraph:

I realize this argument is politically incorrect. And I am sure there are readers out there seething as they think about the child (or children) who found a home with some sweet, single, godly woman who gave them a wonderful life. However, we cannot make policy based solely on anecdotal ‘success’ stories. The fact that God can use ‘less-than-ideal’ circumstances is an argument for his providence, not an excuse to “put the Lord your God to the test.” (Matthew 4:7 ESV) God intends for children to have mothers and fathers. While he can and has, in his providence, allowed children to reach maturity and come to faith in spite of the absence of one of their parents, it does not negate his model for the family.

I think that is a great statement and contains an important principle. It seems that sometimes we look at anecdotal, “one off” incidents and use that to justify our deviation from Scripture. Pragmatism shouldn’t trump principle, although it often does in our homes, our families and in the church. From education to ministry, we use “reality” to explain away Scripture and that simply is not acceptable. The example does not negate the principle. If Scripture makes a clear declaration, I think it is dangerous to try to use a perceived real life success story to undermine what Scripture says.

Voddie Baucham is rarely politically correct and for that I applaud him. He often will say the things that no one else will say but still need to be said. I am really hoping we can get him to speak at the INCH home school convention in Michigan next year.

2010 Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology

The topic for the 2010 Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology is out and is: These Last Days: A Christian View of History. I am guessing we will not be getting a bunch of eschatology charts trying to pin down the identity of the Antichrist.

Looks like a good conference. I am excited that we are going to have Alistair Begg, Ligon Duncan, D.A. Carson and Cornelius Venema coming to Grand Rapids in 2010. Should be great and it also is not running at the same time as Together for the Gospel this year so I can go to both.

The myth of value neutral education

Check out this video by Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. I don't agree with everything he says, especially the "Christian America" talk, but I think he makes great points about the poison many kids are being fed daily in public schools. We let our kids get fed childish version of Biblical history dressed up as cutesy "Bible stories" and at the same time tell them they are getting educated in the public schools. We cannot say on the one hand say that the historical accounts in the Bible are mere "Bible stories" that are presented like fairy tales and on the other tell kids that they get "educated" in schools where the Biblical truth is denied without reaping the consequences.

Also check out Do You Know What Your Children Are Being Taught in School? as an additional resource.

I got a chuckle out of this

I was reading about something else and followed a link to the webpage of the Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics, which is a useful webpage and one I have book marked. The link led to an electronic book of sorts called The Anabaptists and their Stepchildren, I assume that was intended as a clever play on on the title of Leonard Verduin's book "The Reformers and their Stepchildren". I didn't read much of it, but I did read the final chapter: (Ana)Baptists of all countries -- repent!. I laughed out loud at this gem....

Karl Marx, himself a stepchild of the communistic Anabaptists, loved to enjoin: "Workers of the world -- unite!"But, standing upon Scripture, Christian Calvinists now say to all such stepchildren: "Anabaptists of all countries -- repent!"

We therefore call upon all of the various stepchildren of the Anabaptists -- including justified Baptists; heretical Seventh-day Adventists; apostate "Jehovah witnesses"; polytheistic Mormons; and atheistic Communists -- to repent of their great sin of antipaidobaptism (and of all their other sins).

Standing upon Scripture -- Matthew 28:18f and Revelation 7:2f & 9:4 & 12:17 & 14:1 & 21:2,24 & 22:3f -- we now call upon them all to repent of their antipaidobaptism. We call upon them: to bring their babies and their other children to that great King of men and divine Leader of angels, the mighty Archangel Jesus; to get them all baptized on their foreheads with the seal of the Triune God; and then to urge them life-long to improve that baptism.

I think the guy is serious. I have seen a lot of misrepresentations of Biblical, i.e. believers, baptism but I am not sure I have ever seen "antipaidobaptism" linked with Karl Marx, mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and atheistic Communists before.

A looming gender and age crisis in China

There is a report out from China Daily referenced in the Wall Street Journal and it contains a horrifying statistic regarding abortion in China. 40% of all Chinese pregnancies end in abortion. That is 13,000,000 unborn children that have had their lives snuffed out in the womb. That sort of carnage is really unimaginable. The number of lives lost to abortion every year in China is about the same as the number of lives lost during the entire Holocaust.

Even worse, that number, as horrific as it sounds, it might be far too low:

Wu said the true number of abortions is much higher than the reported figure of 13 million, which doesn’t include abortions performed in unlicensed clinics or account for the use of abortion pills in the early stages of pregnancy.

Meanwhile, China continues to see an increase in gender imbalance and will continue to see an age imbalance as their population grows older and that elderly population finds fewer young workers to support them. There is a very dangerous demographic trend in China that is repeated on a smaller scale in other nations: an overrepresented population of young men and a swelling population of elderly. To get a sense for this, it was recently reported just how dramatic the gender imbalance is in China:

A new study published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) puts an alarming number on China’s gender gap. In 2005, it says, there were 32 million more males than females under the age of 20.

The cause is no surprise: A one-child policy combined and a cultural preference for boys that leads some prospective parents to abort female fetuses

32 million more males than females. Millions of men unable to find spouses. That spells social and economic catastrophe for China and that can only have ominous consequences for the rest of Asia and the world. The last thing the world needs is a nascent economic and military superpower, armed with nuclear weapons, with an economic crisis and an overpopulation of young men.

We have a smaller scale but just as pressing problem in America. In America we abort 1,200,000 babies on an annual basis. Those are workers who will not be buying products or paying taxes into the gaping maw of the social security system and the rest of the Federal government. We are faced, before we even start to think about adding an enormously expensive and undoubtedly inefficient single payer universal health care system, with an unattainable promise in the Social Security system. The system is already running out of money, a situation that is only going to get worse in the coming years as the ratio of workers paying into the system and elderly receiving benefits continues to tilt in a gray-ward direction. Fewer workers cannot support great numbers of elderly with the same level of benefits without drastic changes or frankly unreasonable tax increases.

The worldview that sees children as a burden on the family, the economy and the environment is leading to a world full of the elderly with no one to support them. How long can it be before the reality of this situation leads to calls for selective euthanasia, to eliminate the inconvenient and the unwanted elderly? That logic seems to work fine for the priests of the goddess “Choice” when it comes to unborn children and given how little we value life anymore, why not eliminate the weak so that the strong may survive and thrive? Undesirables are growing ever more expendable and where in the world does it stop?

The architects of the Final Solution would be proud.

Washing the feet of the saints

Is foot washing normative in the church today?

I am clearly a big advocate of headcovering, both from an obedience standpoint and, if I am honest, from the standpoint of calling the church to consistent practice where Scripture speaks and silence where Scripture is silent. An issue that I find to be similar to headcovering is foot washing. It is similar in terms of it being something practiced by the church for a long time, being more recently abandoned and dismissed as a cultural relic. I fully admit that I have not been as diligent when it comes to foot washing but it is something I have been mulling over for a long time.

We have two sources here, one a passing reference and one big one that really is hard to explain away.

First, we see Jesus actually washing the feet of His disciples in John 13: 1-15. Let’s look at the whole passage, because it is a lengthy account:

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.” When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. (John 13: 1-15)

The key I think is in verse 14-15 where Christ says: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” Well, that seems pretty straightforward. Foot washing is obviously a more personal and intimate practice. You can pass around a plate of bread and cups of wine/grape juice but washing the feet of another person is, well, kind of in their personal space.

We also see mention of the washing of feet in 1 Timothy 5:9-10, where we see Paul speaking positively of widows who have “washed the feet of the saints” as being one example of a good work. So in the early church, people still washed the feet of the saints and this practice is not merely described but spoken of approvingly. That is a major qualifier, there is a difference between a mere recording of an event and an affirmative remark accompanying the recollection of an event. It seems like a minor thing but I think it is vital to examine recollections to see if they are merely recollections or if they are accompanied by a qualifier, either positively or negatively.

There is additional mention of the washing of feet in the Old Testament as an act of hospitality and of purification in several places, but I don’t think that those examples are necessarily all that useful in the church under the new covenant. As a practice, we do see the continuity of foot washing into the New Testament and the traditional practice clearly tempered Peter’s response to Jesus washing his feet. The washing of feet has a clear connotation to Peter and other Jews based on the Old Testament, which is at least in part why Peter has such a visceral reaction when Christ says He is going to wash Peter’s feet. I don’t think we should use Old Testament verses to support or perhaps deny the normative nature of footwashing for today.

Based on some slim pickings, we do see mention of foot washing apparently in the early centuries of the church from Tertullian and Augustine (I don’t have solid documentation to back that up). We also see footwashing being a practice of many of the radical reformation churches and still practiced today in some Baptist, Pentecostal and Anabaptist descendent groups (there are quite a few resources about this practice online that I am digging into). I tentatively would say that the washing of feet was a relatively common practice in the early church and all the way up to at least the Reformation and the Radical Reformation era.

Roman Catholics (and apparently some of the Orthodox) still practice foot washing, but is seems to have (like most Roman practices) devolved into a mere ritualistic observation once a year that has lost the meaning of the early church. I am no more interested in rote, ritualistic repetition here than I am in the Lord’s Supper or anything else in the church.

This all raises the obvious question. Is foot washing normative today? Boy it is easy to throw out the cultural card here, well we don’t wear sandals so we don’t need to wash feet today, the purpose is merely symbolic of serving one another, etc. That is always a copout without doing the work of really examining the Scriptures and seeing if the practice is normative today.

So what say you? From a consistency stand point, should we wash the feet of the saints literally today? Should we dismiss this as a cultural issue of that day? Should we try to replace the washing of feet with another form of selfless service that makes more sense in today’s world? Keep in mind as you respond some of the other practices we assume are normative today and whether or not the evidence in the text is as supportive of those practices as it is of foot washing.

My conclusion will come later.

So here is a question

If a man has all of the qualities of an elder and has been in fellowship with a local gathering of the church for an acceptable length of time (say, two years) but is not a formal "member" of that local body, can he be recognized by that body as an elder?

Drawing the sword on behalf of the Gospel

Romans 13: 1-7 speaks of the relationship between the civil government and the Christian. Christians are to be subject to civil authorities and indeed, as hard as it can be sometimes to accept for some of us, those in authority over us are not there in spite of God's will but because of it. We also should see in Scripture a clear line of difference between the sphere of the secular world and the Church.

What then do you think of this from the Belgic Confession, one of the Three Forms of Unity for Reformed denominations and beloved by many of the Reformed denominational churches (emphasis added)?

Article 36: The Civil Government

• We believe that because of the depravity of the human race our good God has ordained kings, princes, and civil officers. He wants the world to be governed by laws and policies so that human lawlessness may be restrained and that everything may be conducted in good order among human beings.

  For that purpose he has placed the sword in the hands of the government, to punish evil people and protect the good.

  And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, subject to God's law, of removing every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship.

  They should do this while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them, with the means belonging to them.

  And the government's task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word.

  Moreover everyone, regardless of status, condition, or rank, must be subject to the government, and pay taxes, and hold its representatives in honor and respect, and obey them in all things that are not in conflict with God's Word, praying for them that the Lord may be willing to lead them in all their ways and that we may live a peaceful and quiet life in all piety and decency.

  And on this matter we denounce the Anabaptists, other anarchists, and in general all those who want to reject the authorities and civil officers and to subvert justice by introducing common ownership of goods and corrupting the moral order that God has established among human beings.

Keep in mind that the Belgic Confession is still used widely among those who are in historically Reformed denominations (I differentiate between being "Reformed" versus being in a church that is part of a "Reformed denomination"). Many of them have modified the content of this article because it is so patently unbiblical but the same mindset that wrote Article 36 in its original form is what crafted the rest of the Belgic Confession.

I was curious to see what Reformed commentators had to say about this. I didn't find much but I did find a commentary on the Belgic Confession by Kim Riddlebarger. Riddlebarger’s defense of article 36 focused far more on the alleged errors of the Anabaptists than it did on the erroneous view of the relationship between the church and the state intended by the authors of the Belgic Confession. I find the mindset that lumps all Anabaptists in with the Muenster Rebellion and therefore arbitrarily rejects anything they wrote or believed to be intellectually lazy.

I agree with Leonard Verduin that the Reformers, Luther and company, were faced with a difficult task. To stand up for the Gospel in the 1500’s was to invite being struck down by the sword, so the Reformers by and large embraced the protection of the state and in doing so preserved their own lives but dangerously intertwined the church with the state. Out of fear of the sword, they in many cases embraced the sword. We can look back and be critical of that but we also aren’t facing a slow death by being burned alive at the stake. Nevertheless, we need to keep that context in mind when we read the confessions and where the confessions or the magisterial Reformers or the Anabaptists are incorrect or need clarification, we should be willing to do so.

I am not anyone's idea of a pacifist. However, I find the idea that the church should embrace the state to raise the sword to strike down heretics repugnant. There is a legitimate role for the state to promote an orderly society but the church should not use the state as muscle to enforce its doctrines and promote one faith over another. We see the results of this sort of thinking with the turmoil after the beginning of the Reformation, when Rome had "heretics" put to death, where Protestants killed Catholics and where both magisterial Reformers and Roman Catholics had Anabaptists put to death. In every case, the state was used as the sword for the church to enforce its doctrines. I think you are hard pressed to argue that the time between the rise of Constantine and the beginning of the Reformation was a golden age in the church. In times and places where the state has used prison, the sword and the stake to enforce loyalty to the church, the Gospel witness has suffered. Even men we admire like John Calvin need to be held to account where they err. In places where Calvin approved of and later defended the state taking the life of Servetus, he erred and we should not fear to say so. In places where the confessions call for things that are unbiblical like the state enforcing doctrine with the sword, we shouldn’t try to explain it away, we should acknowledge that the authors of the confessions were in error.

Having too high a view of the creeds and confessions leads to defenses of things that are on their face indefensible. I appreciate the confessions as useful aids to our study. I would be in fundamental agreement with most of the 1644 and 1689 London confessions, and find much I agree with in the Belgic and Westminster confessions especially where the confessions address the nature of God and justification. Taken to an extreme however, confessional devotion can be dangerous. I think you see signs of this when men respond to questions of doctrine with quotes from confessions, as if the confessions are settled matters and unquestionable. As Article 36 proves, there are plenty of places in even the most cherished confessions where we need to hold what is written up to the light of Scripture. Being old and carrying the label “Reformed” does not place a document above examination or reproach.

Heat, light and perceived gender inequality

When it comes to the issue of women in the church and the home, there tends to be a lot more heat than light. I want to take a step back and move beyond dueling prooftexts and look at the issue from a systematic way. When we approach this issue, it is easy to devolve into empty and angry rhetoric. It can be an emotionally charged issue in contemporary culture. One side claims that the other is capitulating to feminism and ignoring Scripture and the other retorts that their opponents are subjugating women and using the Bible to perpetuate an ancient patriarchal system. That isn’t very helpful. Let’s examine what the text says and make note of what the text does not say.

I want to start off in 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35. I think 1 Cor 14: 33-35 should be our baseline when we approach this issue because 1 Cor 14: 33-35 is the most restrictive passage when it comes to the role of women in the church. Let’s look at the verses in question:

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Co 14:33-35)

Lets look at what the text says and doesn't say. Paul says that in all of the churches of the saints (a universal principle), women should keep silent. Not at certain times, not in particular context. To clarify, Paul gives us an alternative. If women have questions, they should ask their husbands at home. It is kind of hard to reconcile that with a nonexistent context that permits them to speak. Paul closes with a similarly hard hitting statement that it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. He doesn't qualify that statement.

Taken at face value, women shouldn’t make a peep in church based on 1 Corinthians 14: 33-25. Silent is a pretty strong word in English and I assume it is similarly unambiguous in the Greek. So is shameful. There is nothing in the text itself or the surrounding context, nothing, that would imply that Paul means anything other than what he says here.

So we are left, taking 1 Cor 14: 33-35 in a vacuum, with women prohibited from so much as clearing their throats in church. When we are faced with a text like 1 Cor 14: 33-35, we have a couple of choices. We can decide it is just too draconian and that Paul must not have meant what the text says and find some way to disprove it or at least find a loophole around it. Or we can do the work of clarifying what Paul meant with the tools we have been given, i.e. the rest of Scripture.

In order to figure out what these passages in 1 Corinthians 14 mean and are intended to convey, we need to examine the context. By that I mean the context that is provided, not assuming a context that isn’t there. If the Scriptures are truly sufficient and inerrant, we must assume that the Holy Spirit led these men to write what was needed and in such a way that it would be clear to those who need to use it in the first century as well as the twenty first century. Fortunately, this is not the only mention of the “silence doctrine”. We also have 1 Tim 2: 11-15 which gives us a more complete picture.

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1Ti 2:11-15)

So Paul is clarifying here what is prohibited by giving two specific examples. This is not a complete prohibition on women speaking, but it is a prohibition nonetheless. Women are not to teach men and women are not to be in authority over men. Paul makes no mention of singing, he makes no mention of praying. Teaching and having authority regarding men. So when you take these two passages together, you get a picture and one that has been the standard in conservative Christian circles for a very long time. Something being around a long time never is proof in and of itself, but with passages like these two that are pretty unambiguous that have received pretty consistent treatment throughout the centuries, longevity and universality are excellent supports for the doctrine.

When it comes to women teaching men or being in authority over men in the church or the home, Scripture is unequivocal that this is not to take place. I feel quite comfortable in making that assertion without qualification.

Similarly, when we look at the issue of elders, there is no room for varying interpretation. Every mention of elders where we can draw a conclusion assumes that elders are only men. This makes sense given the above passages. Elders lead and elders should be able to teach. If women are permitted to be elders but not permitted to teach, that quality makes little sense (note: I understand and agree that the Paul’s letters to Timothy are not qualifications for being an elder, but they do contain qualities to be sought in an elder).

So what does that allow women to do? Watch kids in the nursery and prepare potluck meals? Hardly. Women have a cherished and valuable role in the church and in the greater Christian community. It is a patently false notion that because women are not called to lead and teach in the church, they have no value. Dare I say again that this is perhaps the result of the same sort of mindset that exalts clergy over the laity? It is another false dichotomy, either women must be allowed to teach and exert authority over men regardless of what Scripture says or women are unequal and being degraded in a patriarchal system. I say that is rubbish.

How about prophesy? There are several mentions of prophetic utterances by women in the New Testament. We read first of Philip’s four daughters prophesying. That is all we know about them, so we should be cautious to applying doctrine based on that verse. We also read that women should cover their heads when prophesying and praying in 1 Corinthians 11. (As a side note, if you are going to defend women speaking in church by using 1 Corinthians 11, you better have a wife who covers her head. Similarly, if you are going to use 1 Cor 14: 33-35 literally to prohibit women from teaching, you probably should have you wife cover.) This is important to emphasize: women prophesying does not negate the commands of Paul regarding women teaching or holding authority over men. That then raises another question: what do we know about prophesying and does that mesh with what Paul is saying in 1 Cor 14: 33-35 and 1 Tim 2: 11-15? In Acts 2: 17-18 we see a repeating of the prophecy of Joel that when the Holy Spirit comes upon people, men and women will prophesy. In Acts 19:6 we see prophesy being spoken of again in conjunction with the outpouring of the Spirit. In 1 Cor 14 we see prophecy alongside speaking in tongues, again a working of the Holy Spirit. We have the verse in Acts 21:9 about Philip's virgin daughters prophesying, with no detail and no specifics. I think it is safe to say that speaking prophetically is a miraculous working of the Holy Spirit and as such is different than the regular teaching that occurs when the church gathers. It certainly seems that prophesy is not limited to men. It also is equally clear that prophesy is a sovereignly designated event through the power of the Holy Spirit and is not normative in the church.

What about praying? We also know that women prayed when the church gathered. We see this from the depiction in Acts 1:14. We also see that women are involved in prayer in 1 Corinthians 11. What is not specified is if they were in silent prayer or if they audibly prayed. What would be consistent with the overall theme is that they prayed along with the men, but that the men audibly prayed and “led” the prayers in the assembled body. Again, this is seeking consistency in practice and not creating contradictions where none appear. Is a prayer uttered by a woman silently or in her home or in a group of women less authentic than one uttered in public by a man? If it is not, and it is clearly silly to even think so, why the concern? It strikes me that again we see a subconscious reverting to the idea of a clerical superiority.

As a side note, there are several excellent treatments of the prophesy/prayer issue at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood site. Here is one I liked, Gender Based Boundaries for Gathered Congregations: An Interpretive History of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. I don't agree in lockstep with every conclusion but it covers a pretty wide range of topics including several from other viewpoints and even minor quibbles within the complementarian ranks.

Women are not only permitted to teach but are encouraged to teach other women. Titus 2: 3-5 speaks of this. No one ever would assume being a wife and mother is easy work. We have so many wise older sisters in the church and yet we also have a lot of young wives and mothers. Get them together. We don’t need more preachers and we don’t need more Sunday school teachers. We need more intergenerational wisdom being passed on.

There are some ancillary issues that we need to work on regarding the roles of the different genders in the church. When Paul is writing about restrictions of women, he is referencing the home/family and the church. So what does that mean for women in the secular world? What about women witnessing to men who aren’t Christians? There are plenty of issues that still need prayerful consideration. Our approach should always be to prayerfully consider what is in the text and if something is unclear, search the Scriptures for clarification. In our sinful state, the Scriptures are not always as clear as we would like. That is why we have a Bible instead of a pamphlet. We should seek clarification from within the text, not outside the text. I am confident that everything we need to know in this life can be gleaned from the Scriptures and that we should never find ourselves “filling in the blanks”. Our task is a difficult one, working through these issues in the Scriptures takes hard work. But to paraphrase Lionel Woods on an unrelated subject…

“Whenever we come to the bible and something is tough, we must find ourselves surrendering to it, or we find ourselves shaping the God of the bible in our own image.”

Amen to that brother!

Showing honor to our wives

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1Pe 3:7)

How do we honor and esteem our wives?

We do not esteem our wives by asking them to do what we have been called to do. Abdication of leadership in the church and the home is not a sign that we honor our wives, it is a sign that we are lazy. I fear that some of my brothers who are seeking a Biblical ecclesiology have not only cast the baby out with bathwater, they have inadvertently slipped backed into the institutional thinking that places a premium on preaching and teaching over all other callings in the church. All callings in the church have value and by exalting the role of leadership and preaching by insisting that Biblical roles be set aside betrays the idea that all members of the Body of Christ have a vital but different role to play. More on this later.

We do not honor our wives by telling them that how they were made and to what they were called by our mutual Creator is inferior and that in order to be valuable in the eyes of God they need to ignore His Word and listen to the values and standards of the world.

We esteem our wives by recognizing and taking joy in their unique womanhood. We honor our wives by honoring their callings. We honor them by not only recognizing but taking joy in the differences in nature and calling that God has ordained. Equality in salvation does not equate to uniformity in calling.

We honor our wives by taking joy in them and in recognizing their unique and irreplaceable call as our helpmeets. We show honor to our wives by protecting them and by leading in the home. By respecting her and demanding that same respect from our children and from others toward her.

Most of all we honor our wives by loving them as Christ loved the church. He loved His elect so much that He laid down His life for us. How many of us can say that we love our wives in this way? I know I fall far short of that but I strive to live up to that lofty goal in my own imperfect and inadequate way. Our wives are heirs with us in salvation and the blood that Jesus Christ shed for them is as precious as the blood He shed for us. The same one who died for His sheep, men and women alike, ordained roles that suit and complement one another in the church and the home.

Honor His Word by honoring our wives and by honoring womanhood.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27)

If only Sodom and Gomorrah had a single-payer health insurance system

Wow.

Every now and again someone makes such a mind-numbingly ignorant claim that it just demands a response. An article Monday in USA Today’s On Religion column is fits the bill precisely. Most of the articles published in the On Religion column are written from a weird, wishy-washy ecumenical position but the one today takes the cake. Titled Would God back universal health care?, the author Oliver Thomas makes a (very poor) case that God supports universal, government run health care. His logic is a faulty as Pat Robertson’s when calling for the U.S. government to assassinate Hugo Chavez.

When someone makes a statement like this, the entire argument is cast in poor light:

In ancient Israel's agrarian society, even the land itself was to be returned to its original owners every 49 years so that a family's underlying source of income could be protected and sustained. While some Christians conclude that the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their militant homosexuality, I think the Bible reports otherwise. Instead, Ezekiel 16:48-49 suggests that it was because they neglected to care for the needy.

Really? God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of a failure to provide single payer health care? That is funny because Jude 1:7 specifically references the sin of sexual immorality, i.e. homosexuality, when speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not to mention the fact that the account of Sodom and Gomorrah itself depicts the desire for ungodly sexual congress as at the very least a contributing factor in the destruction of Sodom. Was there other sin going on in Sodom and Gomorrah? Surely. In their pride they lived in all manner of ungodly ways and indeed they flaunted their ungodliness. The final straw was the desire to commit ungodly homosexual acts with the angels staying with Lot. Regardless, it is dishonest to suggest that the account of Sodom and Gomorrah is a support for government run universal health care in America in 2009.

The silliness continues with a paragraph that suggest that the parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable about health care. The parable about the Good Samaritan is a response to the question of “who is my neighbor” and not a recommendation that health insurance is a universal right. Notice that in the story of the Good Samaritan, he freely and willingly gave from his own pocket to care for the man waylaid by robbers. That is vast difference from a confiscatory tax system run by a secular bureaucracy.

Here are the problems (two of the myriad of problems starting with playing fast and loose with the text) in this column. First, America is not ancient Israel. If Mr. Thomas wants to return us to ancient Israel’s theocratic system so that the poor are cared for, perhaps he would also like to return to the systems of capital punishment that came along with it. You can’t cherry pick the parts of the Old Testament you like and leave out the stoning.

Here is the other problem. Jesus cared for the poor. He called on His people to care for the poor. To make the leap from that to a system of confiscatory taxes that provides lower quality care at higher costs is unwarranted and dishonest. You cannot substitute Christian charity with a secular national system of health insurance. Jesus commanded His followers to care for the poor themselves, not to overthrow the Roman government and institute universal health care. The New Testament is not any more a support for universal health care than it is for socialism because the early church freely gave all that they had and shared all things in common. A secular government cannot be substituted for the Body of Christ.

So what should Christians think of universal, government run health care? Well, the most important thing I think to keep in mind is that there is not a “Christian” position on universal, government run health insurance. Not in support and not in opposition. The government providing a system of insurance funded through taxes is not a Christian issue. Jesus was neither a socialist nor a libertarian. Trying to use the Bible to support or oppose universal government run health insurance is false on its face. I oppose government health insurance because I think that the history of government interventions like this universally have poor results. I don’t oppose this system based on Christian convictions because it is not a Christian issue. Government programs are not a form of Christian charity.

If you want to make an argument in favor of single-payer, government run health care, I say go for it. I don’t buy it, but go ahead and make it. Just don’t twist the words of the Scriptures to support a position that is not even vaguely referenced in the Bible.

I too am a man

I was reading in Acts chapter 10 tonight and read this:

And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am a man." (Act 10:24-26)

As I read that I pondered. If Peter is the first pope and all other popes follow in his line of succession, and if Peter refused to let Cornelius bow before him and worship him, why then is it considered proper to kneel before the current pope and kiss his ring or in prior traditions kiss his toe?

We came, we saw...

We broke bread, we fellowshiped, we opened the Word of God and we prayed this morning with God's people. That was good enough for the earliest church. Why do we make church so complicated?

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Act 2:42)

To my egalitarian friends

Here is a rock solid rule: Whenever you find yourself standing alongside Jimmy Carter, it is time for you to move! Run, don't walk!

Jimmy Carter says religion used to subjugate women

ATLANTA (ABP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter has urged religious leaders to repudiate teachings that he says justify cruelty to women.

Carter, a Nobel laureate, described in an article in the British newspaper The Observer his "painful and difficult" decision in 2000 to leave the Southern Baptist Convention after six decades.

Carter, who teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., said the decision became "unavoidable" when SBC leaders adopted a new consensus faith statement "quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be 'subservient' to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service."

Carter said that went against his belief "that we are all equal in the eyes of God."

President Carter used this as his excuse to announce that he has indeed left the Southern Baptist Convention. He has only announced it around 23 times, just in case anyone missed it the first couple of dozen times. For some reason he seems to think that people care and miss him in the Southern Baptist Convention. As Dr. Mohler points out in an excellent blog post on this grandstanding by America's most attention grubbing former President: Individuals are not members of the Southern Baptist Convention, and there is no mechanism for individuals either to join or to resign from the denomination. Dr. Russell Moore dealt with this issue with just a touch of smarminess filling on the Albert Mohler show along with Dr. Randy Stinson, Executive Director of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Good stuff, give it a listen here.

At least President Carter admitted this much:

Carter acknowledged that some New Testament teachings can be used to support male superiority, but he countered that carefully selected Bible verses can also be used to defend slavery.

"The truth is that male religious leaders have had -- and still have -- an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women," Carter said. "They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter."

The canard that the Bible supports slavery is as ridiculous as the idea that the Bible supports incest because it deals with the subject and describes events. An honest reading of the Bible will show that the Bible not only does not support slavery, it also does not support the subjugation of women unless you wrongly define subjugation as Scripture mandated boundaries based on gender.

President Carter was a pretty poor President and he makes an even worse theologian.

Who needs family anymore?

Family is the core foundation stone of civilization. Always has been. Man marries woman, they have children, they raise children to adulthood and then those children get married, etc. The survival of the species depends on humans reproducing themselves and the family has provided the primary means by which that happens.

It is also true that the family has always been under assault. This attack is not something that has happened since the beginning of the Obama administration or even back to the Clinton administration. It should be obvious that for a very long time, the family unit has been the target of those who see any sort of boundaries on behavior to be akin to repression. All the way back to the first few chapters of Genesis we see this, from the Fall involving the first married couple to the murder of Abel. Having said all of that, we are seeing the pace of deterioration accelerating. The new administration gives a nudge and a wink to homosexuals. The mass media portrays family life as repressive and celebrates all manner of sin and perversity. The family is crumbling all around us and there is plenty of blame to go around. Here are a few of the culprits…

Marriage

The first and the most obvious form of assault on the family is the redefinition of marriage. Make no mistake, homosexuals dressing up and having a “wedding” is not about expanding the joys of marriage to everyone, it is about making marriage irrelevant for anyone. If a couple of guys can marry one another, if marriage is redefined to be primarily about health insurance and seeing people in the hospital rather than being about a covenantal relationship between a man and woman for life and the having and raising of children, then marriage stops having any meaning whatsoever and might as well be chucked as a quaint historical anachronism. Even setting aside the issue of homosexual marriage, marriage is under duress from all corners. Marriage has become just one possible outcome from dating, instead of being an expected state. More and more people are perfectly content to cohabitate and never get married, and no one seems to see this as a problem.

Day Care and Public Schools

The public school system has taken on the task of not merely “educating” kids, but warehousing them. Many parents dread summer because they have to figure out what to do with their children after 9 months of shipping them off all week. Not to be cruel, but many parents spend an obscenely small amount of time with their kids. The baby is born and mom is back to work in six weeks or less. Off goes the infant to daycare to be stored until mom or dad can pick them up, being cared for by a stranger. It is heartbreaking to see women at daycares carrying tiny babies in to a storage facility in their car seats or half awake toddlers stumbling in the wee hours of the morning to a daycare. Public school is daycare writ large with hordes of barely controlled kids overseen by a handful of disenchanted teachers.

Institutionalized Churches

How can the church be blamed for this collapse of the family? Isn’t the local church the only bulwark against the storm? It has tried but it also has failed and in fact may have made it worse. Not out of malice but out of a misplaced sense of duty. More and more the local church has taken on a life of its own and become the place where we “do church”. By providing a neat and compact package that only takes a few hours a week, where a paid professional and a small group of dedicated volunteers has done all the prep work, “doing church” has become easy, painless and mindless. You just show up at the predetermined time, we will whisk away your kids, give you a lesson that you don’t need to prepare for or think about ahead of time, provide you with songs to sing, prayers to listen to and a sermon performance. After an hour or two of your time, you are free to go and not worry about your faith for another week. If you think your kids need something more than that, you are free to drop them off at a number of preplanned activities but don’t worry, we don’t expect you to participate or even stay at church for them. Just drop them off and away you go, we will do the rest! Many local churches divide up families as soon as they hit the door. You don’t worship together as a family, you worship with other demographically similar people.

Social “Security” and Medicare

When family units are the foundation stones of a society, families care for one another. You can hardly argue that to be the case today. Little wonder. Why would a child shipped off to daycare out of convenience feel compelled to care for their elderly parents? Good for the goose is good for the gander. Children do not feel obligated and society does not encourage children to care for parents as they age. Better instead to warehouse them in nursing homes until they die, to be visited as often as guilt requires but certainly not so often as to cause inconvenience.

Family requires some sacrifice and setting aside personal desires for the good of others. Families are inconvenient and the response to that inconvenience is to pay someone else to do the work for us: daycare, schools, clergy, nursing homes, the government. As a society we value individual convenience over shared sacrifice. Whether intentional or not, we see many forces that are working to make families obsolete by replacing them with government/schools/churches/social contracts. What was once focused on the home is now focused on the external. Where we had families, now we have networks.

This toxic environment will not be overturned by legislation or by sermons. The only way this will be changed is one family at a time saying enough is enough. I am terrible about setting aside what I want to do for the good of the family, but I am trying to get better so that my kids will not grow up seeing family as an onerous burden but as a joy to be cherished and shared. We need to spend time with our kids, and you can’t make up for that with a nice vacation once a year. We need to make marriage and family the expectation for the future for our kids, more so than college and career. We need to care for one another and especially the most vulnerable among us: children and the elderly. If we don’t make a change and make it soon we are going to end up like Europe where family means very little, where getting married is something to be ashamed of. We don’t have many generations left before it will be too late.

A church by any other name

Alan Knox posted a very interesting look at the word translated "church" in English translations, ekklesia. The ekklesia in context looks at the different ways ekklesia is used. I think it is a useful study, we far too often superimpose what "church" means to us in contemporary culture when we read "church" in our Bibles. We must always be careful to read what is actually in the text rather than what we think/wish was there. We are all held captive to some extent by our presuppositions, but studies like this help us cut through our presuppositions and get to the meaning of the text.

Free Book from John Piper

You can download the new book from John Piper, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ. Click here.

This is from the description. It is a PDF file, not terribly huge.

The price William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton paid to translate the Word of God, pave the way for missionary mobilization around the world, and lead the hostile to Christ was great. Yet their stories show how the gospel advances not only through the faithful proclamation of the truth but through representing the afflictions of Christ in our sufferings.

A liturgical two-fer!

Children to be baptised as their parents are married

The Church of England unveils a two-in-one wedding and baptism liturgy today as it seeks to make peace with families “living in sin”.

The “hatch-and-match” service allows couples to baptise their children after the wedding ceremony. Parents can even get baptised themselves.

The aim is to encourage cohabiting parents to marry as the Church tries to become more relevant to the way people live their lives, but critics said that it appeared to sanction having children out of wedlock. One bishop described the idea as “nutty”. The liturgy, costing £272, is being sent out to dioceses and parish clergy today.

Hmmm. Not sure what to say about that. I do have plenty to say about this paragraph later in the story though...

Stephen Parkinson, of the Anglo-Catholic group Forward in Faith, said: “The proper place for a baptism is not during a wedding but during the Sunday morning act of worship so the congregation can welcome a new Christian. It is a shame that what should be a bride’s day now stands to be hijacked by screaming kids.”

Um yikes. There is so much that is wrong with that statement: the "proper" place for a baptism is Sunday morning. That is Biblical for sure, "What prevents me from being baptized?" said the Ethiopian eunuch? "It isn't Sunday morning, you will have to wait" said Philip. Baptizing a child makes them a Christian? Um, no. The picture in the article shows a small child, a child that probably can't talk. Baptizing them is not welcoming a new Christian, it is getting a little kid wet. The wedding is the "bride's day"? Isn't there a dude there as well and isn't a wedding about a covenant before God?

What is really scary is that the Church of England thinks Episcopalians are too liberal!

Career paths for our daughters

My buddy James sent me this YouTube video from a homeschool convention in Illinois...



I loved near the end when one of the young women was asked what she wants to be. She said "I want to be a mom and homeschool my kids". Praise God for this young woman and her parents! That is a far nobler aspiration than being a business executive or a lawyer or even a doctor.

What is our desire for our children, particularly our daughters? To conform to the world’s view of success or to conform to the quiet, humble life of those called to follow Christ? I don’t think that there is anything wrong with them being a doctor or a teacher or a business leader. I also think we do them a disservice if we don’t raise our daughters to view being a mom as being at the very least as important as having a “career” and in fact we should be raising our daughters to view motherhood as the preferred “career”! It is hard in our parental pride to look at our daughters and not see them as special, as different from other kids. Our two older girls are 16 and 12 and are incredibly bright. Blessed with being natural and voracious readers, with creative minds and appetites to learn it is easy to dream of them being doctors or vets or any number of professions. Sure being a mere “stay at home mom” is fine for the daughters of other parents but my girls are special. They certainly are, as are yours. All them more reason to encourage them to make their own choices but to view being a wife and mother (and educator!) as being a wonderful, God honoring choice and one that is even more valuable to society and the church than being a lawyer or an engineer. We have let the world’s idea of success and prestige infect our thinking and in doing so have neglected to place the proper importance on parenting in general and motherhood in particular. Few Christians would deny the beauty and value of motherhood. Let’s make sure our daughters hear that message from us, loud and clear.

Two more blog posts on being Biblical over being traditional

The first is from Seth McBee, an initial post in a series on examining the Lord's Supper. Check it out at The Ins and Outs of Communion: Introduction.

The other is at Eric Carpenter's blog Must we follow the biblical model in all things?

Both are excellent looks at how we worship in light of the Biblical record. Check them out!

Another Review of "The Jesus Paradigm"

Deliver Detroit: Book Review of "The Jesus Paradigm"

My friend James also posted a review of The Jesus Paradigm...

Are baptism and the Lord’s Supper (exclusively) a function of the local church?

Well of course they are!

Aren’t they?

It is a settled matter in most church traditions that baptism is carried out under the auspices of the local church by clergy or at least by ordained men. The same holds true of the Lord’s Supper. Designated “the sacraments”, these two activities have been given a special place in the life of the church. Why is that? Yes they are vitally important but are they restricted Scripturally to a ceremony in an officially recognized and defined organization?

Saying that “It is our tradition” does not mean that it is proper and especially does not mean that other expressions are inherently wrong. Does the command and example of the Bible demonstrate to us that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are functions of the local church? Or is it the case that people hear the Gospel in concert with the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, repent of their sins and are baptized. After they are baptized they begin to fellowship in community and joy with other believers and that includes the breaking of bread.

Let’s look first at baptism.

When we are baptized, who are we showing our relationship with? Each other or with Christ? With the Church, the Body of Christ, or a local church organization? Is it not the case that when we are baptized it is into the one body, that is the Body of Christ, and not into a local body? We don’t read that we are baptized into two bodies, the universal/invisible church and the local/visible church. Rather, in Ephesians 4 we read…

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Eph 4: 4-6)

Also there is this…

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12: 12-13)

Keep in mind here that 1 Corinthians is addressed to the church in Corinth but has universal application to all Christians everywhere (and I would say for all time as well). I would argue that the Scriptures indicate that baptism is into the one Body and we are members of that same Body, and that therefore baptism into a local church and membership in a local church are extra-Biblical traditions. Baptism is an identification with Christ, with His death, burial and resurrection (Romans 6:4). We are all baptized into one body, whether you are baptized as a 12 year old in Topeka or an 80 year old in Tallahassee.

What other examples do we see in Scripture?

Acts 2 is the best example because it has both the breaking of bread and baptism in the earliest days of the church. By earliest days, I mean basically the first day! We read in the latter half of Acts 2…

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2: 37-47)

So what does this tell us? It says that some 3000 men repented of their sins and were baptized. How and by whom we have no idea. Maybe in the river and probably by Peter and the other 11? There was no local church to be baptized into, at least not in the sense that we think of a local church. There were about 120 persons meeting in the upper room of a home (or maybe an inn?), devoting themselves to prayer. That doesn’t really qualify as a local church by our contemporary standards. We read that after these 3000 were baptized, they gathered regularly with other believers, “attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes”. They also had all things in common but defenders of a sacramentalist view rarely espouse that! There are no local churches mentioned.

We also see the example of several baptisms of households where all of the members of a given household believed and were baptized and in none of those accounts does the local church play a role. In Acts 10 we see Cornelius and his household believe and be baptized. Peter was in his house along with some of the other brothers who travelled with him to Caesarea. There is no indication that this was done in conjunction with a local church. In Acts 16 there is Lydia who was baptized along with her household. No mention of a local church. Later in Acts 16 there is the conversion and baptism of the Philippian jailer, and he was baptized the same night: “And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.”(Acts 16: 33) There was no examination by the consistory or new member classes or a vote before the congregation. They believed and were baptized. Acts 18 Crispus is baptized. No mention of the local church.

We see the most detailed description of a person being baptized in Acts 8: 26-39. Um, what church was the Ethiopian eunuch baptized into? The eunuch lived in Ethiopia and was on his way to Jerusalem. No mention from Phillip that the eunuch should find himself a good Bible believing church to become a member of. We don’t know much about him but it seems likely that he went up to Jerusalem and fellowshipped with other Christians there, but then he went home. Perhaps he planted a Baptist church in Ethiopia? Or more likely he went on his way with joy and preached Christ when he got back.

Presumably all of the people who were baptized gathered with other believers afterward. That does not mean that they were baptized by or into a local organization. I don’t think we find the identification of baptism with the “local church” anywhere in Scripture. Maybe I am wrong and I missed something but I don’t see it. That is not to say that we can’t be baptized at a local church by a pastor, but I certainly can’t see where we must do so. I don’t see that it is required and normative, nor do I think that baptism is restricted to a local church organization and can only be performed by an ordained individual. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it seems that these traditions and restrictions have at their core not the Scripture but Rome. Control baptism as an entry in the local church, mandate membership, blur the distinction between the Church and the local church and you have a pretty effective control mechanism. This control mechanism was used in medieval times by Rome to control monarchs and other wayward individuals and it seems that the form, if not the function, has survived the Reformation and lives on today in evangelical churches.

So what about the Lord’s Supper? Certainly that is a function of the local church, to be presided, administered and protected by those with the proper authority!

Maybe not.

In Acts 20:7, we see the words “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread”. Does that imply a formal church meeting? It was on Sunday, so it must be a church meeting! In fact they probably started promptly at 11 AM and finished by noon so everyone could make it to Cracker Barrel. So what if they talked together all night to the point that Eutychus fell out of the window and that afterward they talked with Paul even more and broke bread and ate. Does that sound like the last Lord’s Supper worship service you went to? If you read the account, I am sure Paul did most of the talking but we read that he “Paul talked with them” and “he conversed with them a long while”. At your local church, does anyone but the one administering the Supper speak?

What about 1 Corinthians 11, the most detailed exposition on the celebration of the Supper? That is certainly an intentional, purposeful meal but there is no mention of officiating in a local church, no mention of a particular person overseeing it. It is a meal among the gathered church, not a ceremonial ritual as part of the liturgy of a local church. The only way that a liturgical ritual officiated by clergy can be implied is if you approach the text with that presupposition firmly in hand.

Even when the Lord’s Supper is instituted in the Gospels, on the night when Christ was betrayed, it was an intimate gathering and a full meal with Christ and His disciples.

Many of our brothers seem to take more interest in “fencing the table” to keep people away from the Lord’s Supper than they are in examining the Scriptures and following the form and mode we see there. “Fencing the table” is great sounding Reformed rhetoric and has a great example every good Calvinist has heard about Calvin throwing himself in front of the table to keep the Libertines away, but a great story and a church tradition shouldn’t dictate our practices.

The problem is, yet again, that when we read things like “gathered together” and see references to “breaking bread”, we automatically have a picture in our minds of what that must have looked like based on our contemporary experiences. When we read about baptism, we see in our minds a preacher in waders with a microphone over his head immersing a new believer or a minister in robes sprinkling water on a baby. Our contemporary experiences, the traditions we have seen over and over again in church gatherings, is what is comfortable for us and it is all we know. We read things like 120 people gathering in an upper room and that doesn’t register to us. As I have mentioned before, it is the phenomena of “recency bias”, where what is most fresh in our memories becomes how we view history.

So what are the practical ramifications here? Is a meeting in a home, an intentional and purposeful gathering of believers, where the Lord’s Supper is celebrated an invalid expression of the Lord’s Supper and a meeting in a local church organization valid? Is a father who has Biblically raised up his children who then baptizes his children overstepping his bounds but a pastor in a church who has a cursory knowledge of a child exercising proper authority in baptizing those same children? We read often, especially in reformed circles, about fathers leading their family in family worship and making the home a “little church” but when it comes to the “sacraments”, we have to bow to tradition and abdicate the administration and practice to the duly authorized professionals. My four oldest children have all been baptized and they were all baptized by men in the clergy with only a passing relationship with my kids. That won't happen with the other four. The only prohibition I can sense that prevents small groups of believers from intentionally gathering for the Lord’s Supper or one Christian baptizing another is tradition.

(I am certain that all of this has received better treatment by others already, these are just my ideas that I jotted down.)

A very thought provoking post

I am not always (or even frequently) in agreement with Michael Spencer, the iMonk, but I thought this post tonight was one of the most open, one of the most honest blog posts I have ever read. I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

Cooperation with a faith that condemns people?

Should Christians cooperate with other faiths or even no faith at all, even for good causes? It is a tough question, because we want to see ills ended. We want to see abortion end, we want to see starving kids fed, we want to see young girls in third world nations learn to read.

The reason I am thinking about this are two recent events. The first is the appearance of a famous evangelical pastor who addressed an Islamic group. I won't give his name but I will say he is famous for his book that rhymes with "Porpoise Livin' Wife"

"Some problems are so big you have to team tackle them," evangelical megachurch pastor XXXXX addressed the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America.

XXXXX said Muslims and Christians should be partners in working to end what he calls "the five global giants" of war, poverty, corruption, disease and illiteracy.

What about the giant of sin? There is only one cure for that and it is not going to be found in cooperation with Islam or Hinduism or Mormonism. It is only going to be found in Jesus Christ. What it boils down to is this. Every ill in this world can be traced back to sin. The only hope for this world is Jesus Christ. Everything else is slapping a band-aid on the problem.

The other event is an event in Portland called the Season of Service. Run in part by the ministry of Luis Palau, the event has caused something of a ruckus. The event included the participation of the mayor of Portland, an open homosexual who caused a stir earlier this year by first publicly lying and then finally admitting to a homosexual relationship at age 45 with a 18 year old teen. This odd pairing of a world famous evangelistic ministry and an open homosexual politician was the subject of a USA Today article, Evangelism 2.o. From the article:

Out of that realization was born the Season of Service. This year, some 500 area churches — mostly evangelical, but also some Catholic and mainline Protestant — are fanning out across the Portland area to feed and clothe the homeless, provide free medical and dental services, fix up local public schools, and support their low-income students with supplies, mentoring and other resources. All this with "no strings attached," Palau emphasizes, meaning the service comes without the proselytizing that is often associated with Christian missionary outreach.

Service without sermons, aid without the Gospel. FYI, I don't think you can preach the Gospel without using words or any of that other nonsense.

So, here we have two events done for a good causes, but they do so in cooperation with Muslims and a homosexual. Are these event giving tacit approval of Islam, giving it legitimacy, or looking the other way at open sin? Do the potential ends justify the means?

What say you?

Is there a limit? Should we set aside Biblical truth to alleviate suffering? Am I overreacting?

Pray for Dave Black

Alan Knox just posted that Dave Black is seriously ill....

He became sick last week, and the doctor’s diagnosed him with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and sent him home.

However, they have now changed their diagnosis to malaria. Apparently, he contracted malaria during a recent trip to Ethiopia. He is being treated in a local hospital. Please pray for his recovery

Dr. Black is a man who has been increasingly influential to my thinking. I would ask for your prayers to the Great Physician on behalf of Dr. Black

Piper on authors he disagrees with

Very sound words.

I am obviously not fan of the mormon church

and I think the events surrounding their "purchase" of this property in Salt Lake City was squirrelly. Regardless, if a couple of liquored-up gay guys started making out on the grounds of your church, you would have them arrested as well.

Mormon 'kiss-in' in Utah leads to shouting match

SALT LAKE CITY – A mass-kissing protest near the Mormon church temple Sunday drew a shouting match between gay activists and a group of faithful Mormons.

For the second consecutive weekend, about 100 people gathered to stage a "kiss-in" to protest the treatment of two gay men cited for trespassing July 9 after they shared a kiss on the plaza owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both gay and straight couples exchanged kisses during the protest.

Demonstrators were greeted at the south entrance by a group of faithful Mormons carrying large signs that denounced homosexuality, prompting a heated verbal exchange
---
Matt Aune has said he and his partner, Derek Jones, exchanged a modest kiss at the plaza 11 days ago, but church officials contend their behavior was lewd.

"There was much more involved that a simple kiss of the cheek," church spokeswoman Kim Farah said in a statement issued Friday.

"They engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol," she said.

If you were stranded on a desert island...

Eric Carpenter posted a just for fun blog entry, Which 10 Books of the Bible Would You Want?. The premise is asking which 10 books of the Bible wold you choose to have with you on a desert island. The books you would choose give some interesting insight into how we think and how we view the Bible. Run over to Eric's blog and make your selection!

America's number one export to the developing world?

...might just be heresy.

A guy I sorta know (as well as you can know someone from their blog), John Divito, has been actively trying to minister in Uganda to both preach the Gospel and serve as a counter to these false teachers that have flooded Africa. I got to know John because he, like me, was saved out of mormonism. Rather than seeking a nice church in America to pastor, after seminary John and his family have been part of the Africa Center for Apologetics Research, dedicated to refuting false teachers in Africa.

Cultic groups are multiplying and growing throughout Africa. Indigenous sects and extremist charismatic groups are operating almost unchecked—and doing tremendous harm. Making matters worse, pastors are severely underinformed and underequipped for the task of discernment and defending their flocks.

People receiving a false gospel is as harmful as receiving no gospel at all. Watch this series of videos of Benny Hinn in Uganda. People think this is Christianity and Hinn is just one of the litany of false teachers that is infecting Africa and countries around the world.



I would encourage you to check out the webpage of ACFAR and at the very least pray for their efforts and if possible help financially support the work they are doing.

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' (Mat 7:15-23)

The Baptismal Divide

From the Pew: R. Scott Clark Responds - Baptism: A Third View (Part 10)

VERY interesting post by Steve Scott that takes to task two well-known teachers in the church who have in turn called paedobaptism a sin on one hand and declared all churches that don't baptize infants to be false churches on the other. I have posted on both original articles earlier but I think Steve hits a more gracious and appropriate tone in his response to one of the individuals named.

I have long believed that baptism is an issue that requires some division. As I have tried to change my thinking on this, I am starting to think that baptism is not an official function that can only be carried out in the context of a duly appointed officer of the local church institution in an appropriate ceremony. That would necessitate division, because the local institution must declare one way or the other their baptismal stance. I don't see much support for that in the Bible. I still don't see a shred of real evidence in the Bible to support infant baptism but I also don't see a shred of evidence that Christians should divide or worse yet be divisive on this issue.

Still thinking this through...

Matthew Henry on 1 Cor 14: 34-35

I liked what Matthew Henry had to say about 1 Cor 14: 34-35:

They were not ordinarily to teach, nor so much as to debate and ask questions in the church, but learn in silence there; and, if difficulties occurred, ask their own husbands at home. Note, As it is the woman’s duty to learn in subjection, it is the man’s duty to keep up his superiority, by being able to instruct her; if it be her duty to ask her husband at home, it is his concern and duty to endeavour at lest to be able to answer her enquiries; if it be a shame for her to speak in the church, where she should be silent, it is a shame for him to be silent when he should speak, and not be able to give an answer, when she asks him at home.

Quite true. If it is shameful for a woman to speak in church, it is equally shameful for a man to be ignorant of Scripture. Brother, if you expect your wife to be submissive and quiet in church, then you better be ready to answer her questions when you get home!

1 Cor 11 and 1 Cor 14: A contradiction?

A post at The Assembling of the Church, 1 Corinthians 14:26ff – normal or particular? , regarding normative church practices got me thinking. There seems to be a quandary in 1 Corinthians 11: 2-15. On the one hand, we read that women are to cover their heads when the pray or prophesy. But on the other hand a few chapters later we read that women are to keep silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:33-34). Why have a command about women prophesying with their heads covered if they are not permitted to speak in church?

So is Paul contradicting himself here? Is this command incompatible? Maybe Paul is just musing about an academic issue since women are forbidden from speaking in the church gathering in the first place?

Here is my take. Paul is giving a number of commands in 1 Corinthians (and elsewhere). Women should cover their heads when they pray or prophesy, wherever they may be. Women should be silent when the church gathers. But 1 Corinthians 11: 2-15 doesn’t strike me as a strictly “when the church gathers” command. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul explicitly states: “When you come together”. In the second half of 1 Corinthians 11 when speaking of the Lord’s Supper he expressly states twice: “when you come together” and “when you come together as a church”. In fact, not being a Greek scholar it seems that Paul is making a contrast between the first and second half of 1 Corinthians 11 in terms of application. The Lord’s Supper passages in the second half is a command expressly directed at the church gathering. Conversely, the headcovering passages strike me as a universal principle. A wife should cover her head when she prays, whether in an intentional gathering or at home or anywhere else. The same applies with prophesying. The difference is that women don’t prophesy as part of the church gathering. That doesn’t mean that they never prophesy, just not in the gathering of the church.

See, problem solved!

(The post at Assmebling of the Church is worth your time to check out in it's own right!)

This is why I don't like church signs

April knows me too well and like waving a cape in front of a bull, she puts a link on my Facebook page knowing I would react: Anti-Islam church sign stirs up community outrage

Those behind a sign posted in front of their northwest Gainesville church, proclaiming in red letters "Islam is of the devil," say it's a way to express their religious beliefs and is a message of "a great act of love."

Some living near the Dove World Outreach Center, however, are outraged and disappointed with the sign's message, which has sparked protests and acts of vandalism at the church since it was posted over the weekend.

"It's an act of saying there is only one way, and that is actually what Christianity is about. It is about pointing the people in the right direction, and that right direction is Jesus and only Jesus," said the church's senior pastor, Terry Jones. "We feel the sign is an act of giving the people a chance."

So here are a couple of thoughts…

First, is Islam of the devil? In the sense that any false religion is of the devil, then yes it is. Any religious system that doesn’t lead to Christ is by definition a false religion. God’s Word has declared Christ to be the eternal Son of God and that faith in Him is the only way for a person to be justified. Any religion that denies Christ for who He is revealed to be is listening to the serpent saying again: Did God really say? So yes, Islam is of the devil.

Second, that same statement based on those same standards means that there are a lot of religions that fall into that category. Judaism apart from Christ is also a false religion because it denies the divinity and exclusivity of Christ. I wonder if they would put up a sign in Gainesville, Florida that says “Judaism is of the devil”? Most Protestant confessions from the reformation era identify the pope as the anti-Christ. Will they put up a sign that says “Catholicism is of the devil”? Perhaps it is an easier and more politically palatable target to say “Islam is of the devil” instead of “Judaism is of the devil”?

Third, is that the sort of witnessing you see in the Bible? I think there is a difference between proclaiming Christ and Him crucified and a sign in front of your building proclaiming “Islam is of the devil”. It kind of reminds me of Fred Phelps and his church with their “God hates fags” signs. It seems that people like this enjoy causing a stir and then seeing the visceral reaction they caused, enjoy their feelings of righteous “persecution”.

Maybe it is just me, but perhaps this isn't exactly what we are supposed to do to carry out the Great Commission.

Another book review on Why We Love The Church

Pyromaniacs: I Lose, You Win

Frank Turk posted a review of DeYoung and Kluck's book Why We Love Love the Church at Pyromaniacs. It was a pretty different review from the one I posted.

What I found telling is that the review is awfully unspecific. It is a great book! It shows them lib’rals where they are wrong! You should buy it! Not a lot of critical examination of the points raised one way or the other. Take a look at the review. I do agree with Frank that you should read this book, but if you do you should read it with an open mind. If you read it with a preconceived outcome that Ted and Kevin are right on the money, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Lest I be misunderstood

I think maybe I left the wrong impression in my previous post, Reformed Rhetoric. Let me clarify….

I love studying Reformed theology! I am looking forward to Together for the Gospel 2010 like I can’t even tell you. I am looking forward to the first meeting of the Mid-Michigan Reformation Society in August and having Dr. Beeke come speak to us in November. I love reading articles on monergism.com and I love reading (most) Reformed bloggers! I don’t find myself less convinced of the tenets of Reformed theology, I am actually finding myself more drawn to these great truths and the exaltation of a holy and sovereign God who loves His elect so much that He sent His Son to make propitiation for them on a cross. I certainly am not having a bonfire and burning my Calvin’s commentaries and Sproul books!

What I find less appealing is the subculture of being Reformed that has grown up around those who hold to some flavor of Reformed theology.

I don’t like the “us versus them” mentality, a school of thought that I have been a part of for a long time. I don’t like the smarminess and condescension we sometimes exhibit and that has been raised to the level of an art form by some. I really dislike the pomposity of some people who espouse their flavor of Reformed theology and denigrate others. I am very concerned about the hero worship of Reformed pastors/preachers/authors past and present. I don’t care for the blurring of the lines between actual Reformed theology and “Reformed” church practice as championed by certain bloggers (most notably one with the initials RSC). I am concerned most of all when we elevate being a “Reformed Christian” over being a non-Reformed Christian.

There are plenty of things that concern me about the Reformed subcultures we have developed, whether of the “old skool Dutch” Reformed traditions we see in bastions like Grand Rapids or in the more recent “young, restless, reformed” subculture. None of those concerns is a fault inherent in Reformed theology. All of them are the result of pride, something I am a bona fide expert on. There is nothing inherently incompatible with seeking a Biblical ecclesiology and holding to Reformed theology. Now if I can just convince my Reformed brethren of that….

Episcopal church votes to correct God

Episcopal church to affirm gay clergy

NEW YORK – The Episcopal Church moved Monday toward affirming their acceptance of gays and lesbians for all roles in ministry, despite pressure from fellow Anglicans worldwide for a decisive moratorium on consecrating another openly gay bishop.

Bishops at the Episcopal General Convention in Anaheim, Calif., voted 99-45 with two abstentions for a statement declaring "God has called and may call" to ministry gays in committed lifelong relationships.

Lay and priest delegates to the meeting had comfortably approved a nearly identical statement, and were expected to adopt the latest version before the meeting ends Friday.

Only 45 "bishops" voted against calling people in open rebellion and sin into ministry? What more can you say about this?

Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)

Lipstick on a pig

The Culture Wars' New Front: U.S. History Classes in Texas

The fight over school curriculum in Texas, recently focused on biology, has entered a new arena, with a brewing debate over how much faith belongs in American history classrooms.

The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state's social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology should be to the teaching of history.

Three reviewers, appointed by social conservatives, have recommended revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.

"We're in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it," said Rev. Peter Marshall, a Christian minister and one of the reviewers appointed by the conservative camp.

Yikes. I used to hear this stuff and just nod and smile and perhaps even say "Amen!", but the more I see how injurious this blurring of the Gospel with civil religion is to the Gospel witness, the more I wish people would stop trying to “Christianize” the public schools.

Honestly, I get what these people are trying to do, I really do. But you can’t dress up a secular system with modified textbooks and “school prayer” and expect them to fulfill the mandate of raising up our kids. Whether or not the textbook mentions less about César Chávez or more about the role of the Protestant work ethic is irrelevant because it doesn’t change the essential nature of the public schools nor does it negate the responsibility of parents, not schools, to raise up our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. It is the “culture war” equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. If we just restore school prayer or get the textbooks to speak favorably about Christianity, we will restore America and make America a “Christian nation” again! Making cosmetic changes to a system that has an entrenched secular mindset is not going to change much, if anything. Public schools are inherently contrary to the Gospel and the idea of public schooling is antithetical to Biblical commandments to parents.

Mr. Marshall, who “preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God's judgments on the nation's sexual immorality”, seems to think that this change to the textbooks will strike a blow for Christianity and make Texas a better place. Will these efforts result in a better America? I doubt it. Will it advance the cause of the Gospel? Not at all. I fear that too many people already equate American citizenship and “membership” in a local church with salvation. I fear a lot of people are going to show up at the judgment with a U.S. passport and a “Baptism Certificate” and expect that will suffice. America is not and never has been a “Christian nation” and Americans are not Christian unless proven otherwise.

Church membership? Not so much

Thabiti Anyabwile wrote a short piece on church membership for Christianity Today’s Off The Agenda blog called Church Membership? Yes. I enjoy reading Thabiti, he has a lot of wisdom to share. On this particular issue however I think he is defending something that is both extra-Biblical and unnecessary.

He makes four points that are supposed to support church membership. I wanted to look at all four of them and make a few comments.

First, you cannot practice meaningful membership or community where anonymity reigns. If people don't know each other, then it's impossible to knit the relationship fabric that is so central to biblical Christianity. So you need a practice that clearly reduces anonymity and increases interpersonal knowing.

This is the first and the most inexplicable. When someone becomes a “member” in most churches I have been in, they are presented for membership and a vote is taken. How does that foster a sense of community and overcome anonymity? In churches with a couple hundred “members”, how well do they know one another and if they do know each other, is that because of or in spite of formal church membership. To the contrary I believe that the formal membership system actually encourages anonymity by creating “fellowship” on Sunday morning where there is little or no interaction. Some of our closest friends are folks who lived by us and we attended church together with them. Neither of us were members in this church and neither of us attends there now. We still are good friends because we built a relationship with one another and most of that happened outside of the church walls. We spent time in each others homes, over coffee, in Bible studies in other homes. Our kids played together and we prayed for and with each other. If anything, formal membership gives a false sense of community and perhaps even harms fellowship instead of encouraging it.

Second, you cannot practice meaningful membership where gospel commitments and imperatives are not explicitly expected. Membership exists in large measure for the impartation of spiritual grace (1 Pet. 4:10–11), the exchange of love (John 13:34–35), correction (Gal. 6:1–2; Matt. 18:15–17), and so on. Membership means we are better together than we are apart. The membership process should make this clear, calling the members to "sign on the dotted line" of loving others across economic, social, linguistic, cultural, and other barriers.

I am not sure what being a “member” has to do with that. Do I really need to “sign on the dotted line” to ensure that I love my brother? Do we love one another because we truly view one another as brothers and sisters or because we signed onto a formal church membership covenant? I agree that we need to be committed to each other, love each other, correction and edify one another. I just don’t see where formal membership is required or even a benefit to seeing that happen. I can be in fellowship with other men and women without worrying about them having a membership in the same church as I do.

Third, you need a practice that makes it clear that people are submitted to and desiring of pastoral oversight (1 Pet. 5:2). You cannot practice meaningful membership or community where anti-authority, anti-leadership, anti-accountability attitudes predominate. I'm afraid that these attitudes explain much of the resistance to membership; people don't want to be accountable. They imagine that their accountability to Jesus may be maintained without any accountability to His people. But it's among His people—through their love and care and commitment—that Jesus ordinarily establishes accountability with His sheep.

Should we submit to “pastoral oversight” because we are formal members in a local church or because we are admonished to in Scripture? Where we gather on Sundays, there are three elders. If any of them came to me with a word of correction, I would heed them because they are elders and fellow brothers in Christ even though we are not “members” nor is there a membership at this assembly at all. We have no formal membership with this assembly outside of the shared salvation we have received. I would flip that around and ask where the accountability really takes place in churches with formal membership. I am not anti-accountable, or anti-leadership, or anti-authority. I am anti-church traditions without Scriptural command or example!

Finally, we need a membership process that maintains the Bible's temporal sequence of conversion, baptism, membership and communion. The observable pattern of the New Testament is: first, gospel preaching; second, hearing mixed with faith; and third, public profession of faith in baptism, which marks entrance into the covenant community, and consequently the privilege of communion at our Lord's Table.

This fourth point is the most troubling. Conversion, baptism, communion yes. But slipping in membership is more than a stretch. There is absolutely no mention of any sort of formal membership, no membership process, no admission to the Lord’s Supper based on membership whatsoever in the text. Someone who is in open sin and rebellion is removed from fellowship and therefore doesn’t partake in the Supper but in 1 Corinthians 11 we are called to examine ourselves. Even 1 Cor 5, which is often cited as support for membership, makes no mention of formal membership, instead the body is to avoid such a person and (v. 5) not even eat with them. To read formal church membership into that is dishonest. In a small fellowship where the community knows one another, church discipline moves from rhetoric to reality. Holding “church membership” in good standing is nowhere seen as a prerequisite for coming to the Table. People who make a public profession of faith and are baptized are recognized as being in communion with the Body, but then we slip in this formal church membership stipulation that seems to me to hearken back to Roman Catholicism rather than Scripture. Rome used church membership as a club to enforce its power. Being ex-communicated was tantamount to losing one’s salvation (i.e. there is no salvation outside of the Roman church). Church membership was a control mechanism and we unfortunately have kept that tradition alive. It is not used today in the same way that the medieval Roman church used it but it still is as absent from the Scriptures.

Amidst all the hand-wringing over church membership, I have to wonder why we spend so much time defending something that even proponents admit is based at best in loose inferences from the text and if they were being honest would admit is based almost entirely on tradition and pragmatism. When you get past the rhetoric about church discipline, there doesn’t seem to be much substance to the discussion. It strikes me that we have a couple of problems:

A dependence on tradition

Church membership is so old, so engrained in our church traditions that it is presumed to be just the way it is. It is part of the lengthy list of things we do in the church that are just assumed: Senior pastors, paid clergy, Vacation Bible school, ritualistic observances of the Supper. It is so ingrained and assumed that we never even bring it up and if we do we give it a cursory treatment.

A sinful lack of trust in the text

On issues like church membership, it is high time we let the Word speak for itself. The Scriptures are silent on formal church membership. That silence serves as a green light for too many of us to fill in the blanks. It seems as if we read the New Testament accounts of the church and decide that that was fine for them but we live in an enlightened era. They didn’t have to deal with budgets and buildings and salaries and argumentative church members and zoning laws. I would say that at least is true, they didn’t have to deal with all of that and neither do we. We have chosen to make church more complicated and cumbersome, and in doing so have sapped much of the energy from the fellowship. We have created our own problems and then created our own solutions. We are supposed to believe in the sufficiency of the Scriptures and yet we still see fit to speak where the Scriptures are silent and be silent where the Scriptures are clear.

If we have a Biblical view of the church, especially the local church, that is we recognize that the local church is made up of regenerate believers, church membership becomes unnecessary. The local church is a visible manifestation and gathering of the Church universal in a particular location. The local church is not an institution in and of itself. The local gathering is vital as an outlet for the church to meet, edify, love, pray, admonish one another but it has taken on a life of it’s own that is unhealthy and extrabiblical.

Reformed Rhetoric

When you have a movement that people feel strongly about and one that is increasing in popularity, you often run into rhetoric replacing reason. This is approaching a pandemic in Reformed circles. We say things like “means of grace”, “covenant theology”, “expository preaching” with little thought as to why we believe in those doctrines and practices. They become mere slogans that we say in response to a line of questioning.

Because we so freely regurgitate Reformed rhetoric and many of us are not as informed as we should be as to why we believe as we do and what others who don’t agree believe as they do, we end up resorting to caricatures to argue our point. That is not to say that this is true of all Reformed folks nor is it to imply that people who are Reformed are not well-read. We are by and large very well-read but often it is only in a narrow, approved spectrum of books. There are lots of men I know who have bothered to read stuff outside of the approved literature, but there seems to be a lot of men who don’t. It seems especially true of more recent converts to reformed theology who want to absorb as much as they can and devour book after book by Reformed authors. All well and good, there is a virtually unlimited supply of good books by Reformed giants, past and present. My concern is that in keeping our circle of influence so tightly closed, it becomes difficult to have an impact on the church at large.

I think that, much as I hate to admit it, this problem has as its source the enormous resources available to study Reformed theology. From the hundreds of blogs to webpages like Monergism to conferences like Together for the Gospel to radio programs like The White Horse Inn, we who are Reformed in theology do an awful lot of talking to each other. In other words preaching Calvinism to the Calvinist choir. We have developed Reformed tunnel-vision, unable or unwilling to see the rest of the church around us. I am finding that there are people who are not Reformed who have some pretty useful stuff to say and sometimes are right on issues where the Reformed consensus might just be wrong.

We should read great Reformed authors of yesterday and today. Men like Spurgeon and Edwards and Calvin, men like Piper and Mohler and Sproul, have much to teach us and help us refine our thinking. Better to read a book by John MacArthur with some meat than the latest fluffy book du jour from one of the authors who write 100 page pamphlets for Family Christian Stores. But if we desire to see reformation spread in the church, we need to get beyond our own circle and we certainly need to stop trying to carve people out of our “Truly Reformed” circles. If we are going to complain about N.T. Wright, we had better read what he has to say instead of reading about what others have to say about him. If we are going to rail against the “emergent: church”, we better read what they have to say instead of forming an opinion based on snippets. If we are going to make stands and draw lines in the sand, it behooves us to know what is on the other side of the line. I find it distressing that there are many people, including me, who have not gone much past the Reformed rhetoric. As long as a doctrine/book/speaker/conference is labeled “Reformed” we are good to go.

For example, read the comments section of a new post by Tim Challies , All About Endorsements,and see how many people accept books as "good books" based on who endorses them. There is a Roman Catholic practice of putting a stamp of approval on certain works called an imprimatur and we have adopted that very same practice in much of Protestantism.

Take for example Frank Viola. In reading Frank Viola’s Reimagining Church, what struck me is that here is a book written by a man that I probably would disagree with on a great many things. If we were sitting in a Starbucks, drinking coffee and chatting about doctrine and theology, once we strayed from the topic of the church we would probably find ourselves at odds pretty quickly. Even when it comes to the church, we would certainly differ strenuously on issues like women as elders and teachers. (In the spirit of disclosure, I read about half of Reimagining Church before I got frustrated with the repetitiveness of the book. Seriously can you find a different word than “organic”?). Even so, I learned a lot in what I did read and it sparked contemplation and study on my part. How can that be wrong? As I try to learn, what I have found is that it is OK, it really is, to go beyond my circle of “approved authors” to see what other people have written and not just reading them with an agenda to prove them wrong. There was a time in the not so recent past where certain authors were OK and others were very much not OK.

I guess my point is this. If Reformed theology wants to be more than a bunch of stodgy Dutch people in Grand Rapids or the newest, latest fad in theology for younger Christians, we need to engage with the church around us. These are our brothers in Christ that we will spend eternity with and we shouldn’t cordon them off in the corner until they affirm the Three Forms of Unity. We need to see the value in what some other folks have to say, even if we don’t agree with all or any of what they have to say. Rattling off all of the Reformed theologians past and present who agree with us is not going to influence anyone. Being able to engage the rest of the church in conversation certainly is.

The rumblings are growing

I got an email from an acquaintance this weekend raising many of the questions that have been plaguing me about our church practices. It got me thinking, it just seems that there are more and more people who are looking at Scripture and looking at how we “do church” and sensing a disconnect. It raised a couple of questions:

Is that truly the case?

What is causing it?

Does it just seem that way because we have a social network that extends far beyond people who live around us and family or are the same electronic resources making it easier for people to talk to others with similar feelings and embolden those who sense something amiss? Maybe it is both. Whatever the case, I am glad to see that people are getting as serious about seeing church practice be faithful to Scripture as they are about theology being faithful to Scripture.

Missing the point

The "bishop" of the Episcopal Church has warned the Church of England to not encourage more churches to leave the Episcopal church for the newly formed Anglican Church in North America by formally recognizing these churches. She went on to say:

She urged Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to remember the "pain of many Episcopalians in several places of being shut out of their traditional worship spaces, and the broken relationships, the damaged relationships between people who have gone and people who have stayed."

"Recognition of something like ACNA is unfortunately likely only to encourage" further secessions, she said, reminding the Church of England that "schism is not a Christian act."

Here is the problems with those statements, especially the last one. Schism may not be a "Christian act" but these churches haven't left the faith, the Episcopal church has. If anything these churches are rejoining the church, not causing schism. The true break came when the ECUSA started rejecting the explicit command of Scripture and ordaining women which leads inexorably toward ordaining open homosexuals as "bishops". If you are going to start willfully ignoring Scripture, it can only end in one place, complete and utter heresy which is where the ECUSA finds itself.

Piper sez church is more than preaching

What do you think of this?



I like what he is saying that there are limits on what the gathered church is able to do. If you go to Bethlehem Baptist, you are going to get deep Bible exposition. You are not going to get close-knit fellowship.

I am not sure this is his point, but I thought it was interesting. The big assembly perhaps serves the purpose of preparing and equipping the church for ministry. The real work of the church in ministering, discipleship, fellowship happens outside of the church. Do we have to have one or the other? Can there be a place for both?

Am I making too big a leap here?

Sunday: The most selfish day of the week

joshgelatt.com: When traditions become barriers

Great thoughts from my friend Josh after a funeral service. Very raw in emotion but he asks some piercing questions. Here is an excerpt:

We've abandoned Jesus' great mission of taking every effort to "seek and save the lost", satisfied instead with a church service that was designed only for ourselves. In short, we've willingly sacrificed commission for comfort and activity for idleness.

I had been given the opportunity to meet a group of people at their level, but instead I did what I felt was more comfortable. The occasion called for camo, but I insisted on a suit. I was a fool--and a selfish one at that.

Far too many of us are. Sunday morning has become our most selfish day. What we call 'bringing God glory' is little more than an exercise of the familiar and safe.

As you enjoy the fellowship of God's people today, read Josh's thoughts and see how you would respond to these questions. You might find the answers disconcerting.

Book Review: Why We Love The Church

I have been eagerly looking forward to reading and reviewing Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, authors of Why We're Not Emergent (I got WWNE at T4G but haven't read it yet). Many of the books I have been reading recently look at the institutional church with the stink eye, so I was hoping this would provide a nice counterbalance to the sometimes over-the-top criticism of the traditional, institutional church. Much of the critique of the institutional church is essentially the same sort of practice defending rhetoric that comes out of the institutional church so I was expecting a vigorous, Scriptural defense of the church as we know it and do it.

Kevin and Ted have an interesting task and a difficult one. They are defending the status quo and that makes it hard because there are so many things that have gone wrong in the 1700 or so year history of organized religion in Christianity. Poking holes in organized religion is a simple task. Trying to defend the flawed system under assault in books and blogs is a much harder task.

This book assumes that the institutional church is the norm and therefore is correct unless proven otherwise. Granted the institutional church has hundreds of years of history on it's side and lots of famous and well-respected giants of the faith who support it. I would have liked to have seen them develop a theology of the institutional church from the New Testament forward but it seems that the approach is to look at the last few centuries since the Reformation and defend the visible manifestation of the church that has risen against any and all comers. I found that the book, to echo Tim Challies, seemed reactive. In other words, it was more being defensive on behalf of the institutional church than it was positively affirming that the institutional church is Biblical.

Kevin and Ted are clearly gifted writers that care a lot about the church, theology, practice, people and especially Christ. I understand what they are setting out to do. As I said, the "Everything about the institutional church is wrong!" movement misses the mark in so many ways. The organized religion we call "church" is full of great people, great pastors, great acts of charity and kindness, great teaching and great praying.

There are a lot of areas in this book that I found unfortunate. The authors create a number of false dichotomies: Either the Bible or community. Either theology or fellowship. Either the hierarchical, institutional church or "Lone Wolf", churchless Christians. They tend to cherry pick the worst sounding quotes from authors, especially George Barna, and then mock them. They refer a lot to church fathers like Cyprian and the Reformers as well as contemporaries like John Stott, but there is precious little Scripture. That isn't to say that there is no Scripture referenced, because there are lots of parenthetical references. However, by and large when Scripture is referenced it consists of proof-texted notes that reinforce dogmatic statements defending preexisting traditions.

Much of the reasons given for staying in the institutional church have a glaring flaw. Virtually none of the benefits require the institutional church and some are hampered by that very organization. One example is the last chapter by Ted, a moving chapter dedicated to his young son called Dear Tristan. As I read it, I would agree and echo a lot of what Ted said. I also would ask why the institutional church is necessary for his son to experience these wonderful benefits. Another example comes on pages 101-102 where Ted compares the church to a gym where we train for spiritual combat. Ted says: "Church, to us, should be as relevant as the gym is to the boxer, or as basic training is to the solder. We wouldn't go into a fight without training or thinking about our strategy." As I read that, I wondered if anyone else saw the inherent flaw in that argument. Church is not like a gym where we work out and get spiritually fit. It is more analogous to all of us going to the gym and watching one or a few men work out. In a boxing gym or basic training, men don't sit around watching all the time. Sooner or later you need to learn to shoot a rifle yourself or bob and weave and throw a jab. Sure you might learn something from their technique or instructions by watching, but at some point you need to get in the ring. In war the drill sergeant doesn't walk along the line of soldiers, loading their rifles and putting them up to the soldiers shoulders.

Ultimately I think the grand flaw of this book is that Kevin and Ted are answering the wrong question and perhaps unknowingly jumping over a step. I know of few people that are advocating a truly "churchless" Christianity. I do know a lot of people who are asking hard questions about the traditional institutional church and those questions are the ones that I had hoped would be answered here. Defending the institutional church against lone wolf Christians is pretty easy. Somewhere between disgruntled former church goers mumbling into their Starbucks on Sundays and institutionalized churches with paid staff, liturgy and programs are a wide array of Christians who have abandoned organized religion without abandoning orthodoxy. You not only can be orthodox outside of the institutional church, you really might just be more orthodox outside of organized religion. The big question is not whether George Barna and company are wrong but why is institutional Christianity right?

I found this book to be a disappointment because I expected more. People who are comfortable in the institutionalized church will find confirmation here. I would expect that this book will be very favorably received by people in vocational ministry. On the other hand, those who are questioning or leaving the institutional church will find little that is compelling to make them desire to stay. Rejecting the institutional church doesn't mean that you don't "love the church" or that you are "leaving the church" and that distinction seems to be missing in this book. This book started with an interesting premise and could have been a great book but in the end fell far short.

Interesting quote on homeschooling

I am almost finished with Why We Love The Church and have a lot to say about it, but after that is done there are a couple of other books I am going to work on. One of them is a book by Charles Murray, Real Education. Dr. Murray is best known for his book The Bell Curve which caused a huge stink back in the 90's. Dr. Murray tends to cut through the rhetoric and focus on reality, and the education system in this country could certainly use a lot more reality and a lot less rhetoric. I liked this quote regarding home-schooling:

Home-schooling has open-ended growth potential. To home-school when a parent (usually the mother) must work out a curriculum and teach it to her children without help requires exceptional motivation and effort. But when parents can purchase an excellent curriculum off the shelf, including books, lesson plans, and lectures on DVD, home-schooling suddenly becomes easier. When it is possible to teach that curriculum with the help of classes conducted online, home-schooling gets easier still. When a few dozen other children living within driving distance are being home-schooled, one of the major disadvantages of home-schooling-the social isolation of the home-schooled child-can be neutralized. Home-schooling is getting so much easier, and is evolving so quickly, that it suggests another provocative possibility: School choice might be driven not primarily by vouchers or charter schools, but by the evolution of home-schooling into thousands of small private schools operated through a combination of parental effort, one or two professional staff members, and the exploitation of increasingly sophisticated Internet educational resources.

I am not sure that home schooling is "getting so much easier" but I understand his point and recognize that it is a lot easier than it used to be. I think that his statement above is very prescient, and Dr. Murray is not really a home-school advocate as such. This book is not about homeschooling at all. In fact he is advocating reform in the school system through four points (the subtitle of the book is: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality) These are his points...

"...children have different abilities, half of the children are below average, too many children go to college, and America's future depends on the gifted."

So you can see he is not the typical homeschool advocate but he does recognize that something is wrong and throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix the education system in the same way that throwing more "stimulus" money out there is going to fix the economy.

Conservatives have been fighting the vouchers battle for a long time, but the war might already have moved past that. I think Dr. Murray is right in that while the teachers unions are fighting vouchers, the education reform movement is moving on to homeschooling.

Hmm, moving past a traditional, entrenched institution and moving on to a small, home and community based group. Where else have I heard that?

Michelle Obama and 1 Cor 11

This is interesting, I wonder if anyone will notice that Mrs. Obama is wearing a headcovering in this photo. Not her normal high fashion sleeveless outfit, very demure.

Happy Birthday!

Today is John Calvin's 500th birthday. I am sure that the web will be full of tributes to him, many very good and a lot not so much. So no need in this case to add my two cents. I just look forward to spending eternity with this man and pointing out to him that he was wrong on infant baptism.

Happy Birthday John!

Gives new meaning to "dumb as a stump"

Sorry for the mocking tone but this is just ridiculous....

Irish Catholics say tree stump looks like Mary

DUBLIN – Thousands of Irish Catholics have flocked this week to a County Limerick church to pray at the stump of a recently cut willow that many observers say, has the silhouette of the Virgin Mary.

The phenomenon at St. Mary's parish church in Rathkeale, population 3,000 or so, harkens back to decades when Catholic devotion and pilgrimages were the dominant feature of rural life in Ireland.

Some are tying the fervor for Rathkeale's "Holy Stump" to Ireland's stunning economic decline over the past year.

"People have been crying out for something good to happen. And this is all good for the soul," said Noel White, who has been overseeing a church project to cut down trees dangerously overhanging the neighboring school playground.

Noel, that is anything but good for the soul.

Somewhat smary but funny nevertheless

This is the blog post from Frank Turk I referenced earlier, R. Scott Clark Fanclub.

No salvation outside of the visible church?

So I am in a fun “discussion” with a couple of fellows in the comment thread on one of Frank Turk’s posts on Facebook. The post was actually originally a very funny reference to R. Scott Clark’s series on “churchless evangelicals” from December (I posted a series of responses to Dr. Clark’s misapplication here) but in the comments on Facebook one guy made the assertion: “outside the visible church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation”.

Needless to say I cried foul at that.

On the day of Pentecost we see thousands of people saved from preaching in the streets. They were apparently saved apart from a local, visible church. Was their salvation contingent upon “joining” a local church? What about the thief on the cross? What about the Ethiopian eunuch? In fact, do we see anyone anywhere in the Scriptures saved in conjunction with a local, visible church?

Predictably we have seen “Anabaptist” thrown out like a dart as if they were wrong about everything and Luther/Calvin were right about every issue. I informed that gentleman that I also listen to the White Horse Inn so I am familiar with the use of “Anabaptist” as a pejorative.

What I don’t get is the blanket assumption that if you question the institutional church or suggest an overemphasis on the visible, organized expression of the church, people assume you don’t “care” about the church. If you reject the traditional, Roman Catholic based view of the local church that doesn’t make you a “lone wolf” Christian. I would say just the opposite, that many people who raise these questions care enough about the church that Christ died to redeem that they take the time to see what His Word says about that church instead of relying on confessions that were written 1600 years after Pentecost as their authority.

Wealth redistribution is not charity

The new "papal encyclical" Caritas in veritate or "Charity in Truth" from Joseph Ratzinger (aka "Pope Benedict") has garnered some attention and a lot of concern for the language it uses.

Granted, I am not all that interested in theological ponderings from Joseph Ratzinger and I am even less interested in his economic theories. Much of the encyclical is filled with flowery pronouncements and reiterations of prior papal declarations, sprinkled liberally with quotes like this:

It is an expression of the prophetic task of the Supreme Pontiffs to give apostolic guidance to the Church of Christ and to discern the new demands of evangelization.

That reinforces the misguided notion that the men who style themselves “popes” somehow speak for all Christians everywhere. Regardless, there are some useful statements within this declaration. Certainly he is right that charity and love play a central role in the Christian life and all too often both are missing from those who claim the name of Christ. We all certainly need to reflect on our lack of charity, our failure to express love to those around us as Christ expressed love to the unlovely, i.e. redeemed sinners.

Where I have grave reservations is where Mr. Ratzinger applies how this should be practically lived out.

There are numerous statements that exhibit an misunderstanding of basic economics, like this one:

On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care.

Intellectual property rights in the private sector provide protection of investment, especially in health care. It is not like a new drug springs forth ready for market after an afternoon of brainstorming. The process is extremely competitive, very expensive and new drugs have limited protections before they become available for generics, so even a breakthrough drug must go through exhaustive regulatory hoops and then the clock starts ticking toward the day when the drug is able to be replicated as a generic. It is precisely because of patent protections that companies are willing to invest enormous sums of money that lead to life saving drugs. People have these drugs that save, extend and improve lives because of the right to intellectual property. Another example:

The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level.

Quite to the contrary. Rerum Novarum was written in 1891 when basic workers rights were absent. Today, we see the collapse of venerable institutions like General Motors and Chrysler and the crippling of Ford because of, in large part, these very same workers associations.

The words “redistribution”, “solidarity” and “exploitation” appear often in the encyclical and are not chosen by accident. When he writes: “What is also needed, though, is a worldwide redistribution of energy resources, so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them.”, one is forced to wonder how this is to happen, who is decide how much is to be redistributed and who is to receive these resources.

The strongest statement comes in this paragraph (emphasis added):

To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations.

Did you catch all of that? A centralized international authority with the power to ensure "security" and enforce "compliance". I am sure all of the end-times types are jumping all over this, but this is not a sign of the coming "rapture", it is a sign of a dangerous call for international authority over U.S. property and resources.

In the end, Christian charity is expected of Christians but nations are not Christian. They may contain many Christian citizens who are bound to demonstrate love and perform acts of charity not as a condition for but as a result of their salvation, but nations are not and should not be expected to behave in “Christian” ways. Even with that in mind, what Mr. Ratzinger proposes is not only economically unsound, it also misinterprets what the Bible teaches about charity. What he is proposing: wealth redistribution, class warfare, socialism/communism, authoritarian centralized international government are not the signs or the enablers of charity and love. Wealth seized by force or the threat of force is not charity. When the early church sold their belongings and gave the proceeds to the apostles, they did so freely and out of love for one another. A central international authority reallocating resources from "rich" countries to "poor" countries is not only doomed to failure, it is also foreign to what the Bible speaks of in regards to Christian charity.

Caring for the poor is noble but centralized governments and wealth distribution do not lead to positive economic equality but instead lead to shared misery. To expect countries and companies to behave in a Christian fashion is foolhardy and unrealistic, and ultimately is counter-productive. If Mr. Ratzinger is truly concerned for the poor, he should be encouraging the free market not calling for centralization. It is the free market, capitalism for lack of a better word, that has led to unprecedented increases in the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people. True, it has not been equitable but that is not a fault of free markets but of totalitarian governments. Without the free markets we would certainly have equity, but it would be equitable poverty and misery. (As a gratuitous cheap shot, if he is so concerned about the poor, maybe the Vatican can sell of some of its treasures and use the proceeds for hunger relief?)

Why do I care? I reject Joseph Ratzinger's claims as the "Vicar of Christ" and I see his office as contrary to Biblical teachings and an invention of men. His opinions to me are irrelevant and hold no authority or sway. So why does this warrant the attention of Christians? Many people outside of the church see Mr. Ratzinger as representing Christians, and I am sure that this encyclical will be put forth by some as a defense of socialism. Many Christians also don't recognize the unBiblical nature of the papacy and the use of Scripture quotes and "God talk" may confuse some people. Finally, anytime someone misrepresents the teaching of Scripture, it warrants a response.

So take my thoughts for what they are, my thoughts, and tell me what your thoughts are. Is Mr. Ratzinger correct? Is this who kerfuffle irrelevant? Is this encyclical a veiled call for one world government and socialism?

Caritas in veritate

I am reading through the "papal encyclical", Caritas in veritate "Charity in truth", from Joseph Ratzinger having to do with economics. Just a ton of stuff in here, not much stuff I care for. Lots of language that amounts to calls for international controls over the economic system, lots of language of wealth redistribution. I am going to put together some thoughts once I actually read it but I know that lots of Catholics already don't like what they are seeing. I think, based on a facebook comment, that Russell Moore might speak about this tomorrow while guest hosting on the Albert Mohler show...

Drives me nuts

When I have ideas for about a dozen different blog posts but I run out of steam on them before I am finished.

Arrgh!

Presenting the Gospel free of charge

What Would Happen If All Elders Followed Paul's Instructions? A Case For Working Hands

Great thoughts from Lionel Woods on self-supporting elders. Great stuff, sober and humble. No condemnation, just honest questions. Take a look!

Speaking of Study Bibles

Ligonier is giving away the Reformation Study Bible with a donation of any size, today only. I have one, it is a pretty handy study tool. The notes are not really extensive but the topical articles are excellent by and large. It come in the English Standard Version, so if you don't have an ESV and would like one you can get a nice hardbound study Bible for cheap!

My Bible can beat up your Bible

I recall an incident when I was in my teens. I was at the local mall, waiting for someone to show up. I was even more insufferable back then, kind of exuding a poor attitude. Well, while I was sitting around waiting, a couple of other teen guys were giving me the stink eye. There were a couple of them, so I wasn’t going to start anything but they kept looking over, saying things to each other, typical teen guy stuff. All of a sudden, a guy named Ed that I knew walked in. Ed was a goliath, just a huge dude. Huge like NFL size. I sprang up to talk to him and when I turned the two guys were gone. Ed and I weren’t really buddies but he had served his purpose, so we exchanged “What’s up?”s and went our separate ways.

That is kind of how the Bible has often been to me. Like Ed, it was the big gun that I pulled out to back me up in a scrape. That kind of came to light for me yesterday in a conversation on facebook. What is our motivation for studying the Scriptures? What should our motivation be?

If you thumb through my Bible, you will see lots of passages underlined. Most of them have some sort of major theological applicability, 2 Cor 5:21 for example, or they are supportive of Reformed theology. I don’t have many passages underlined that deal with self-sacrifice, or service, or love, or joy. Not that I don’t read those passages but they just aren’t as handy in an argument. When I feel someone is wrong, I pull out the Bible and whack them with it! I am starting to think that study Bible are so hefty because they make more dangerous weapons that way. A thinline ESV is only going to sting a little, but an ESV Study Bible? That’s gonna leave a mark!

I need to stop doing this, reading the Bible with a self-serving agenda. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with theology. Quite the contrary, I think massive swaths of the church could do with more theology, not less. There are way too many people who have come to Christ and rarely picked up a Bible since, much less given serious consideration of theology. You betcha that studying who God is, who saved us, why He saved us and how He saved us are important. Seeing how the grand scope of salvation is weaved through the Scriptures, how the Old and the New Testaments are different and complimentary of one another is vital. I am also not saying that Reformed theology is unimportant. I am saying that studying theology for the sake of studying theology is not healthy and let’s be honest, that is exactly what a lot of us do.

Read the Bible

Old skool style!

(HT: James Lee)

Man pulls gun on pro-lifer at planned parenthood

A woman going into a Planned Parenthood clinic was handed a brochure by a pro-life woman outside of the clinic. The guy with the woman going into the clinic proceeds to pull a gun on the pro-life woman and point it at her for several seconds before driving away. Luckily the pro-lifer got the license plate and the man was arrested.

Media reaction? Virtually none. See here.

Now imagine if it were flipped and a pro-life guy pulled a gun on a woman going into an abortion clinic. The media would be all over it for days.

Media bias? What media bias!?

Help Wanted

Wanted: Pastor of a huge church in Manhattan. Must be able to manage 150 staff and $13 million budget. Doctoral degree a must. Compensation package in excess of $500,000. Preachy people calling sinners to repent need not apply.

I read just a fascinating editorial from last Friday about Brad Braxton, the embattled and recently resigned pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan. The reason his tenure and resignation got so much press was his compensation package, a meager provision indeed with a compensation package of around $600,000 including a quarter-million dollar a year salary. Talk about elders who teach being worthy of “double honor”!

Riverside Church in Manhattan is an infamously liberal church, home to men like Harry Emerson Fosdick, so I don’t have a dog in this fight. Any church that would invite a leftist nutjob like Noam Chomsky to speak to them is probably not on my short list of places to worship if I ever found myself in Manhattan.

However I found some of the observations that were made quite interesting. I especially thought that these three paragraphs were fascinating for some of the insights they unintentionally give us about the church and clergy:

Tragedy or not, the Riverside story is indicative of two countervailing trends involving today's clergy. For one thing, ministers are commanding greater salaries because they are better educated and take on more responsibilities than ever before. Mr. Braxton, for example, administered a congregation with 2,000 members, 150 staff members and a $13 million annual budget.

At the same time, ministers no longer command the respect that they once did. "In the 19th and even in the 20th century, clergy had real moral authority, not only in the congregation but in the community as well, but that isn't the case any more," said the Rev. Randall Balmer, a professor, Episcopal priest and author of several books on church history. "Today they are regarded as hired help."

Mr. Braxton was picked to lead Riverside after a yearlong search, and he came with all the necessary credentials. He was a former Rhodes scholar. He had a Ph.D. and experience both in the pulpit (in Baltimore) and as a teacher at divinity schools (Wake Forest and Vanderbilt).

Gee, why would people treat clergy like hired help when the prevailing attitude is that a candidate has the proper credentials because of a Ph.D? I don’t recall “former Rhodes scholar” appearing in Paul’s letters to Timothy. Purely from a business world standpoint, a man with Mr. Braxton’s resume running a church of 2000 members in Manhattan probably should get a salary of $250,000 plus perks. However, the church is not a business.

I am not saying that Brad Braxton does not meet the requisite Biblical credentials for being an elder. In fact he was in trouble because people thought he was “too evangelical” with calls for people to repent of their sins which apparently didn’t sit well with some members of the church (a quick perusal of their “ministries” will explain why that is). How dare a man call on sinners to repent and turn to Christ in a church! The outrage of it! My concern is what this sordid affair says about the way we select leaders in the church.

How does this apply to Christians in churches that are not in Manhattan, not famous and not offering half-million dollar compensation packages? Well, I think a lot of what happened here happens on a smaller scale in local churches from Arkansas to Idaho:

- A committee is formed to advertise for, screen and interview men to be pastors.

- Requirements for most full-time ministry gigs require a Masters degree.

- The man selected is almost invariably someone from outside of the congregation and more often than not from outside of the community.

- The new pastor is paid to “serve” and in return is expected (along with his wife and family) to shoulder the bulk of the burden of local ministry.

- If something causes strife in the church, the local church has no issue with driving a man out or simply firing him. After all, he is getting paid so why not treat him like an employee?

The same thing that happened to Mr. Braxton happens all over the country and none of it has any Biblical support. In Titus 1:5 and Acts 14:23 it certainly seems that in the early days of the church, elders were appointed from within a local congregation. I don’t think Paul meant for Titus to help organize a pastor search committee and I doubt that the church in Ephesus hired away the pastor of the church in Philippi with a better parsonage and higher pay. The way we do things is foreign to the Bible: Pastors send in resumes in response to advertised pastoral openings. There is an interview process, perhaps even a surreptitious visit by the search committee to listen to a sermon or two. An offer is extended and perhaps accepted and then a man leaves one family for another. A relative stranger is now expected to integrate himself and his family into a new body and you can be sure that there will be some people unhappy with the decision.

This doesn’t happen in every case but it does seem to happen a lot. I think it is a lot easier to be nasty to someone who came in from outside of the congregation and gets paid. I am not referencing my own experience here, but I was also bi-vocational and not at all dependent on the pay I received to support my family. I am referring to other situations I have seen, the frustrations and heartbreak from pastors and the stats which show how burned out they are and how many of them leave “the ministry” every year or get forced out.

As the church-going population declines and more and more people are concentrated in “mega-churches”, something is going to have to give. The system we have created of clergy-laity with a passive laity and a professional clergy has been broken from the start and is rapidly becoming unsustainable. The church needs to get back to the way things were done in the beginning. Is there a place for men like Titus in our world today? Absolutely, but not to become the “pastor” in a local assembly but to help them raise elders up from within their ranks. There is a place for gifted men to equip the saints but they should be equipping the saints to do the work of ministry (Eph 4: 15-16), not to do all the good work for them. Elders should lead through service, but we spell it “serve us” in the church. They “serve us” and we honor them with a paycheck until we get mad at them or they find a better gig. I would love to see men like Alan Knox and Dave Black travelling the world and helping local churches to raise up men as elders within their ranks, but much as I like Alan I wouldn’t expect him to stay forever (I don’t think he could handle the winter up here).

We have a system of, I think it was Lionel Woods that coined this term, “co-dependency” in the church. We depend on the pastors to do the work of ministry and feed us like baby birds in a nest and they depend on us to drop money in the plate and pay them a salary. It is an unhealthy symbiotic relationship. A co-dependent relationship is not the same as a mutually dependent relationship where we depend on one another. Eventually baby birds grow up and leave the nest to feed themselves, but in the church generation after generation goes by and the flock keeps peeping to be fed. It is time to let the momma birds have a break and get out of the nest.

Interesting quote

I came across this quote from an entry on Dave Black's blog on Monday, June 29th. It is a quote from the autobiography of George Muller, a Christian from the 1800's who cared for some 10,000 orphans in his lifetime and was one of the founders of the Open Brethren movement of the Plymouth Brethren.

The renting of pews is also a snare to the servant of God. Fear of offending those who pay his salary has kept many ministers from preaching the uncompromising Word of God.

For these reasons, I told the brethren that at the end of October, 1830, I would give up my regular salary. After I had given my reasons for doing so, I read Philippians 4. If the saints wanted to give something toward my support by voluntary gifts, I had no objection to receiving it either in money or provisions....

My wife and I had the grace to take the Lord's commandment literally, "Sell that ye have, and give alms." We never regretted taking that step. God blessed us abundantly as He taught us to trust in Him alone. When we were down to our last few shillings, we told Him about our needs and depended on Him to provide. He never failed us.

This is not some crackpot but a man who by word and deed showed a deep and abiding love of Christ. What a powerful testimony of faith to freely preach what we have freely received!

I put the autobiography of George Muller in my cart at Amazon, I am almost at enough reward points to get another gift card.

Who says denominations are unbiblical and irrelevant?

The Southern Baptist Convention recently passed The Great Commission Task Force resolution. The goal is to appoint a committee to look at how to more effectively carry out the Great Commission. But that was not the only resolution put forth. Check out these other resolutions presented at the 2009 Southern Baptist Convention (none of these passed):

-- William Blosch, a messenger from First Baptist Church in Thomasville, Ga. requested that pictures of all individuals running for an SBC office be made available to messengers during the annual meeting.

-- that SBC entities avoid "the use of secular music in their promotional materials," submitted by Jeff Moats, pastor, Logan Elm Baptist Church in Circleville, Ohio.

-- that messengers "send a strong message of disapproval" to President Barack Obama "for his presidential proclamation ... that proclaims June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month," submitted by John Rushing, pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Columbia, Tenn. (that will get him shaking in his boots, a strong message of disapproval!)

-- that a "special committee be formed" to address claims by "some Bible teachers that the world will come to an end on May 21, 2011," submitted by Ben Brazal, pastor, King of Kings Christian Fellowship in Middletown, N.Y.

-- that the Holman Christian Standard Bible "and any translation that questions the validity of any Scripture" be banned from convention literature and from the annual SBC meeting, submitted by Eric K. Williams, pastor, Long Prairie Missionary Baptist Church, Belle Rive, Ill. (ironic since the HCSB was funded by LifeWay)

-- that LifeWay develop and use "American-made" resources in Vacation Bible School materials each year, submitted by Patrick Fuller, senior pastor of Southside Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C.

-- that the SBC president "appoint or work through the appropriate entity" to highlight the 400th anniversary in 2011 of the King James Version of the Bible, submitted by Rick Reeder, a messenger from Southside Baptist Church in Princeton, Ky.

-- that Southern Baptists call "on the Pepsi-Cola Company to remain neutral in the cultural war by refraining from promoting the gay/lesbian lifestyle and agenda" through its advertising and that a boycott be undertaken if the company fails to "halt its current direction," submitted by Joe P. Samples, pastor, Salem Baptist Church, Sneads Ferry, N.C.

-- that the SBC designate a "Sanctity of Life" year in the near future," submitted by Joseph N. Giles Jr., a messenger from James Square Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Va.

and my favorite motion...

-- that the SBC adopt the "United States Christian Flag ... as our banner flag of encouragement," submitted by Harold Michael Phillips, senior pastor, Pleasant View Baptist Church in Port Deposit, Md.

Plus several motions directed at Mark Driscoll.

(from Baptist Press)

With serious business like this being brought forth, I can certainly see the need for denominations. What would the Gospel ministry do without a "banner flag of encouragement"?

(For more info on the U.S. Christian Flag, "America's Great Wave Offering to our Lord" check out their webpage here)

Vatican paper declares John Calvin a Christian

Vatican newspaper praises French Protestant John Calvin

VATICAN CITY (AFP) – The Vatican newspaper Friday praised influential French Protestant John Calvin, a critic of the Roman Catholic Church, hailing him an "extraordinary" figure.

The Osservatore Romano, on the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth, said it recognised the theologian as a Christian who had a major impact on European life.

"Considering the strength of arguments against him, we think it necessary to point out that Calvin is a Christian," the daily paper said of the man who played a major role in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

Well I am sure that is a relief to Calvin! Happy 500th birthday John, you have arrived now!

The real independence day

As Americans we celebrate freedom and set aside this day for special honor. It is self-evident that there is no country on earth, now or in the past, where freedom was more a reality and more cherished than the United States. What rational person would seek to live somewhere else? But July 4, 1776 was but a pale shadow of the day almost 2000 years ago when real freedom was won.

Real freedom for the Christian was not won by sweeping declarations or on the field of battle or the halls of government. Freedom for Christians was won in a moment of seeming defeat as Jesus Christ cried out "it is finished" on the cross. The emblem of our freedom is not men marching to war or fireworks or flags waving in the breeze. The emblems of our freedom are two pieces of blood stained wood and an empty tomb. The freedom He won for His people was not over a king in England but over sin, an enemy that flowery rhetoric and mighty men can never defeat. Our declaration of Independence from sin is not on a parchment in Washington D.C. but is on the pages of every Bible in the world. These are the words of our declaration of Independence:

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (Joh 19:30)

Let's celebrate today as Americans our Independence Day and enjoy time with friends and family, but for those of us who call Jesus Christ our Lord let us remember that an even greater freedom was won on our behalf. For us, we are not merely free in this life but for life eternal, made free indeed by Jesus Christ.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom 8:1-4)

Happy Independence Day!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Book Review: The Jesus Paradigm

(Disclosure: I received a free advance copy with the understanding that I would blog a review of it and with no other stipulations attached)

I finally finished David Black's new book, The Jesus Paradigm. It took me way longer than I expected through no fault of the book. Many of the thoughts Dr. Black expressed required some mulling over and honestly more than a few got me riled up, in good ways and in not so good ways!

I appreciate that Dr. Black, in spite of his advanced education and grasp of the Biblical languages, did not fall into the trap that many academics do of "writing to impress". His writing style is very lucid and concise and is at the same time intellectually challenging while remaining accessible. In other words, a person with a theological background and advanced training in Biblical languages is not going to be bored reading this book nor is someone with minimal formal education going to be intimidated in trying to wade through it.

Another thing I appreciated was that Dr. Black is bold and humble in his assertions. He certainly challenged me while I was reading The Jesus Paradigm and yet it never came across as him scolding me for my failings. The church could certainly use a dose of humility, and I put myself first in line for that. The idea of Christian discipleship is a "downward path" as described by Dr. Black. As we carve away the world and the organized religiosity that pervades the church, we find service and self-denial lead to satisfaction and joy. I thought of the words of John the Baptist when I was reading The Jesus Paradigm: He must increase, but I must decrease. (Joh 3:30) I found that as I examined myself in light of the truths Dr. Black was describing that I was wanting in many, many places. Dr. Black exhibits a Christ-centeredness that is refreshing. Lots of people talk about being Christ-centered but often that is a mask for denominational pride, theological particularism or self-exaltation.

I also liked the focus on the Anabaptists. Often forgotten and even more often misrepresented, the Anabaptists can still teach us a lot about the Christian life and about the church. Even in areas where I don't agree with them entirely, we still have much to learn. I enjoyed Dr. Black's comment that being peaceful doesn't equate to being a pacifist but that we should all seek to be peacemakers. There wasn't much mention of the aberrant theology that is often associated as a blanket accusation against Anabaptism. There were lots of perfectly orthodox Anabaptists. There were also a number of men in that camp who taught damnable heresies. However The Jesus Paradigm is not nor does it seek to be a comprehensive history of Anabaptism but he does show us quite persuasively that the Anabaptists are still quite valuable to the church today. I agree with him that we should seek a rediscovery of the writings and beliefs of those misunderstood and oft forgotten saints.

I guess I would say that Dr. Black "gets it". The "it" in question is a proper view of the Christian life, of discipleship. This book and the thoughts he shares are clearly the product of great study and prayer from a man who has the academic chops to be respected. Instead of pumping out popular books that reinforce the status quo, books like this challenge people and make us uncomfortable. In a church that is all too often far too comfortable, that is something we desperately need. We need to be shaken up.

However, no book is perfect and the big issue I had with The Jesus Paradigm had to do with the running political commentary. Right out of the gate I was a little put off by some of the political commentary. I understand, and would agree, that the church in America has far too often been too intertwined in politics. More often than not, the church has been linked to the Republican party, conservative politics, the "Religious Right" which is not healthy for the church or for the Republican party. But for a book that is not about politics, I found the frequent political commentary to be distracting. In condemning political entanglement, Dr. Black became so specific (even naming names like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity) that in his clamor for us to be apolitical I am afraid he did just the opposite. I think the book would have been healthier and more effective if he had skipped the strident political dogma, in large part because I am sure that many people who would benefit from this book will set it aside after a few chapters precisely because of the political undercurrents. I am not even saying he is wrong, although there are some places I would disagree strongly with him. What I am saying is that his argument in some places crosses over into anger (and as a connoisseur of angry rhetoric, I know of what I speak!) and frankly in some places exhibits naivete (for example, on page 122 he speaks approvingly of the view that peace in Iraq is dependent on reconciliation with Tehran, a view which seems somewhat silly given the recent events that demonstrate for us again that Tehran is not a place where good faith negotiations can take place). Again, it is not that he is entirely wrong but the tone and tenor are kind of jarring compared to the humble tone of the rest of the book.

All in all, this is an excellent book. Well written, accessible, challenging, reasonable for the most part. There is no higher compliment that I can give a book than to say it was challenging to me, made me want to read the Scriptures more diligently and that I marked pages and quotes liberally. This book did all three. It is a book that should and will challenge people to look at the assumptions we have about our walk as Christians, our view of the church and our status as redeemed sheep. Most importantly, this is a book that, as Alan Knox puts it, is strictly about discipleship and being a disciple of Christ involves a lot more than Sunday school, membership in a local church and dropping some money in the offering plate. It is a whole-life commitment. I hope that many Christians pick up this book, read it and examine themselves. I think the church will be far healthier if we focus on a life that is mission minded and Gospel centered, a life of discipleship that goes beyond theological camps and doctrinal triumphalism, that sets aside public displays of religious piety for quiet service.

John Piper on Calvin for today

A brief video but it gets to the heart of why Calvin remains so important today, his absolute focus on the majesty of God.

We know how this ends

I've been involved in a discussion on a blog post Paul’s Admonition To Women and it has been instructive to see how easy it can be for people to explain away inconvenient text. I would encourage you to stop over and take a gander, maybe make a comment or two. What I have found is that amidst all of the flowery rhetoric, the scriptures are noticeable by their absence.

It always starts with that old, old question: Did God really mean to say that?

And we know from thousands of years of experience where that old, old question leads...

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Gen 3:1-6)

The Calvinism-Complementarianism Link

DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: Why Do the New Calvinists Insist on Complementarianism?

Excellent thoughts from Kevin DeYoung on why Calvinists tend to be complementarians.

Does failure in some areas give us license to disobey?

I have noticed a distressing tendency among some brothers and sisters to treat many commandments of the New Testament as an onerous burden to be cast aside.

What is really distressing is the argument I run into periodically where the individual responds to a clear mandate of Scripture with an example of another mandate we are not faithfully keeping. For example, I have run into some brothers in a discussion of women leaders in the church who have responded to Paul’s admonition against women teaching and holding leadership positions by pointing out that we don’t greet each other with a “holy kiss” or that many women wear jewelry to church. The argument apparently is that since we fail in so many ways, it is unnecessary to strive to obey at all or at least we are free to pick and choose at our discretion which commands are important.

If we fail to keep all of the commandments we see in the Scriptures, should that be an incentive for us to prayerfully ask God to strengthen us to greater obedience or should that be seen as a blank check to ignore the Word? Should our failures not spur us on to seek greater faithfulness?

Do I love the Lord God with all my heart, mind and strength? Unfortunately no. Should I then decide that the commands to evangelize, to pray, to be conformed to the Word, to contend earnestly for the faith are all irrelevant? God forbid that I think that! The truth of the matter is that what was written to the church didn’t not have an expiration date. The truths of the Epistles are as valid for us today as the Gospels are.

Paul was specific and repetitive about many aspects of the church. He wrote those words for a reason, and the reason was not that he was a misogynistic ogre who wanted to keep women in their place. Paul wrote what he wrote under the sovereign inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the words he wrote are not to repress us but to liberate us, not as burdens but as joys. We blithely ignore the explicit commands of Scripture to our peril.

Is the church a family or a corporation?

The Church As A Family:How Church Leadership Is Effected By How You View The Church

This is simply a marvelous post by Lionel Woods. He really hits on the major leadership issues that cripple the church. In all honestly, I have read few blog posts that are more right on than this one, even though it calls out some of our most cherished church traditions. Give it a read, you will be glad you did!

God hates homeschooling?

For a couple of headscratching posts on homeschooling by people who dislike homeschooling, check these two out:

The first one is a poor attempt at satire by a public school English teacher titled: The Case Against Homeschooling. I found out from this pompous diatribe by a public school teacher that homeschool kids are geeks and homeschool families are rich, selfish, intolerant and quite possibly racist . As an added bonus, the author says not once but twice that homeschoolers are arrogant . They back up the assertion that homeschoolers are arrogant to think they can teach their own kids by putting forth a laundry list of their own qualifications to teach. Sorry, but having a couple of degrees in English and education is not filling me with awe and it is always dangerous to tout your own superior abilities and then put forth a poorly written and argued diatribe.

What was most inexplicable was reason number seven:

7. God hates homeschooling. The study, done by the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. To the homeschooling Believers out there, didn’t God say “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”? Didn’t he command, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me”? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally I’m agnostic, but I’m just saying…)

I always appreciate an agnostic telling me stuff like this. “I don’t believe in God and I don’t respect the Bible but by the way your God, if He did exist which He doesn’t, would hate homeschooling!” Ah, thanks for clarifying that for me! What is troubling is not this person’s reasoning, I expect that from an unbeliever. What I find troubling is that similar arguments are made against homeschooling by Christians who should know better.

The other blog post is Home School Epidemic and the author Amy Platon is more reasonable but still misses the big picture. Most of us don’t homeschool our kids because we are afraid of the big, bad world out there (even though the environment in public schools should give every parent pause). We home school our kids because God has commanded it of us and it is too important to be subcontracted out to “professionals”. She completely misses that. In fact there is no mention of that aspect of home education in her post at all, which seems odd. Every, I mean every, survey of home schooled families shows the number one reason they homeschool is religious in nature. Ms. Platon is flat out missing the big picture here.

If you click on either link, take a deep breath first. My intent is not to inflame passions and send attack dogs after these individuals. I didn’t post a comment on either one because just a sampling of the mostly great comments already out there and the partial retraction on the first post shows that others have gone before me and showed how intellectually vacuous these arguments are. Just be on notice that opposition to homeschooling is growing more strident and more vocal. Those of us who homeschool need to be on guard against intrusions into our right and obligation to homeschool our kids.

Keeping up with the Yoder’s

I read a fascinating article about the economic downturn hitting the Amish population, A Bank Run Teaches the 'Plain People' About the Risks of Modernity . You would think that they would be pretty insulated from economic conditions, but like Lot drawn to the bright lights of Sodom, the lure of big paychecks has drawn some of the Amish away from their roots and core values. When the economy started to collapse, they made a run on the local Amish “bank”. The article looks at the way prosperity has impacted their lifestyle.

Like Amish in other parts of the U.S., the Indiana community strayed from their traditional reliance on farming in recent decades as their numbers grew and land prices rose. Many opened family businesses, often in furniture and other wood crafts.

By 2007, more than half of Amish men in these parts were working full time in manufacturing, and earning, on average, $30 an hour, says Steven Nolt, a professor at Goshen College in Goshen, Ind., who studies the community.

The great increase in discretionary income spawned a "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality," says Mervin Lehman, 39, an Amish father of four who says he was making more than $50-an-hour and working up to 60 hours a week as an RV plant supervisor before he was laid off in November.

Some Amish bishops in Indiana weakened restrictions on the use of telephones. Fax machines became commonplace in Amish-owned businesses. Web sites marketing Amish furniture began to crop up. Although the sites were run by non-Amish third parties, they nevertheless intensified a feeling of competition, says Casper Hochstetler, a 70-year-old Amish bishop who lives in Shipshewana.

"People wanted bigger weddings, newer carriages," Mr. Lehman says. "They were buying things they didn't need." Mr. Lehman spent several hundred dollars on a model-train and truck hobby, and about $4,000 on annual family vacations, he says. This year, there will be no vacation.

It became common practice for families to leave their carriages home and take taxis on shopping trips and to dinners out.

Some Amish families had bought second homes on the west coast of Florida and expensive Dutch Harness Horses, with their distinctive, prancing gait. Others lined their carriages in dark velvet and illuminated them with battery-powered LED lighting.

Amish people with tricked out buggies! This paragraph really struck me…

Even the tradition of helping each other out began to unravel, Bishop Hochstetler says. Instead of asking neighbors for help, well-to-do Amish began hiring outsiders so they wouldn't have to reciprocate. "Factory work doesn't eliminate fellowship, but it does not encourage togetherness," the bishop says.

As they grew more affluent, their community suffered. They stopped helping one another, everyone became more concerned with their own well being. Rather than working together, they hired professionals. Hmmm….

On a bright note, many of the Amish seem to have pulled back from the brink:

In Indiana, a back-to-basics movement appears to be taking root. More patches of produce have sprouted behind Amish homes this summer. Restaurants are entertaining fewer Amish customers. Mr. Lehman says neighbors "are more considerate of each other now."

Some men have started their own businesses close to home. Mr. Lehman makes mattresses in his workshop. Harlan Miller, a 34-year-old father of five who was laid off in February, started making fruit butter, which he sells at a local market. Freeman Miller (no relation), 54, who was laid off after 30 years in manufacturing, builds wooden caskets for pets.

"We were all going way too fast," Freeman Miller says. "This has made everybody stop and realize we're just pilgrims here, the Almighty is in charge."

Is there a lesson here for the non-Amish among us? I think that there is. Affluence may do more to kill fellowship and do more harm to the church in the America than heresy. Heresy can be easy to spot by a discerning mind. Affluence is a creeping killer. We prefer to buy our way into orthopraxy. We hire professional, educated men as pastors. We pay “evangelists” to come and preach at revivals. We pay for preprinted Sunday school materials instead of doing the hard work ourselves. We put money in the plate and believe we are carrying out the Great Commission. Very few of us, me included, wants to do the hard work of real ministry. Ministering to people is frustrating and hard and time-consuming. Better to buy our way into good graces.

This is not to decry capitalism as an economic system. In a fallen world where the vast majority of people are unregenerate, capitalism is the best way of incentivizing and rewarding work. That also doesn’t mean that the church should adopt capitalism wholesale with one another. We cannot view one another as competitors for scant resources but as fellow believers redeemed for a purpose. We also cannot equate worldly success with Gospel faithfulness. When we follow the marketing programs of the world and seek the marks of success of the world, we lose the sense of community that we are called to. A life of ascetism may not be the answer but wholesale embrace of the trappings of worldly success certainly is not.

(In a) Home Alone

Many of the books I have been reading recently have as their theme the idea of Biblical church practice, i.e. making church look like church looked in the New Testament contrasted with the traditional church structures we see in the vast majority of “churches" in America and through most of Western European history. I am all for that idea! I also have to wonder if that can be taken to the extreme where the only way the church should meet is in a house because that is where the New Testament church met. It runs into the “form versus function” issue. It is just as easy to read too much into the recorded church practices in the New Testament as it is to chuck them entirely in favor of “doing church” the institutional way.

There are some who will argue that the “house church” is obsolete because the earliest church just didn’t have the means or the numbers to build actual “churches”. Once they did, they started building “churches” with reckless abandon and hiring staff by the bucket loads! I have even heard it said by someone I respect a great deal that house churches are fine, so long as the goal is for them to “grow up” and become “real” churches (i.e. with staff and a building).

Then there are some who are pretty dogmatic that houses are the only way to go. The early church met in houses and by golly that is where we should meet too! It strikes me that some of that is focused a bit too much on the where the church met instead of why meeting in a house is healthy.

It is absolutely true that the church met in homes in the earliest days. It is also equally true that the church in the early days was in its infancy, experiencing massive growth at the same time it was experiencing incredible persecution. If First Methodist Church of Snodgrass, Iowa wants to build a new building, all they need are some building permits. In the first century, if you went and built a building in a large city worshipping some Jewish guy who claimed to be God and was raised from the dead, you better build it from asbestos. The church absolutely met in homes because they were frankly unable to meet anywhere else. Our modern gleaming edifices were unthinkable to the early church, if for no other reason than they didn’t have the corresponding parking lot full of new SUVs and mini-vans bringing upper middle class members to foot the bill for a multi-million dollar “church”.

So they argument is not about where the early church met. They obviously for the most part met in homes. So here is the real question, is the Biblical description of the church meeting in homes a prescription to meet in homes? In other words, certainly Christians can meet in a house, but must they meet in a house?

This is a tough one. It is easy to look at the institutional church and cry foul. All the money that is spent on bigger and better buildings, audio-visual equipment, lawn care, staff salaries and benefits, “educational” materials, denominational bureaucrats, etc. make them an easy target. Wagging a finger disapprovingly at them is picking the low hanging fruit. A lot of those charges stick and make perfect sense. The extravagant way that Christians pour money into buildings and salaries is sinful. But you can take that argument to an extreme. Making a case that homes are the only proper place to meet is a lot tougher case to make.

So that raises another question and another post on a topic I have been wrestling with for a while: how do we differentiate between what is prescriptive and what is descriptive? I am going to pose that question for a number of different topics/passages, give my thoughts and see what other people think.

The death of the local church

Are local churches heading for two extremes?

Perhaps this is too great a leap, but it seems that churches are going in two directions. Megachurches are clearly growing at a rapid pace, often with multiple campuses, with leaders that range from heretics like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes to orthodox Reformed guys like Sproul and Piper. As it becomes easier to handle huge crowds thanks to technology, more and more people are congregating into the biggest congregations. This is not just the big name churches but includes the program driven large churches that dot the landscape with several hundred or several thousand worshippers each week. They are big and growing bigger and there are more of them. I read a stat today that there are 1300 megachurches with 2000 or more (often many more) weekly attendees. That is almost 3 million people right now in these megachurches and by every indication they are growing in size.

On the other hand there are the house churches/simple churches that are much smaller and tend to replicate themselves instead of growing. The percentage of people in house churches is pretty hard to pin down but I think by any rational measure it is rapidly increasing as a percentage of the believing population. Estimates are that house churching people make up 8-9% of the Christian population and some estimates have that becoming a far larger percentage in the near future. House church folks are aggressively planting new house churches, with ministries devoted to equipping believers to start their own house church and encouraging them to replicate themselves.

Left out in the cold are the small to mid-size churches, churches with say 50-100 worshippers on average and one full-time “senior pastor”. Those are the churches that seem to be dying out or at least struggling. If you go to an average Baptist church in a decent sized town with say 75 people in attendance on a Sunday, I will bet you dollars to donuts that it will be heavily weighted toward older folks. Heavily weighted. We have been in churches that size where there will only be a handful of younger couples, not many children and lots of older people especially older widows. These churches tend to have a lot of unused or underutilized space in the form of offices and classrooms. They also tend to be denominationally affiliated, unlike megachurches and house churches and many denominations are imploding. Even the big daddy of denominations, the Southern Baptist Convention, is stagnant in growth, has rolls stuffed full of unregenerate “members” and is beset by all manner of squabbles small and large.

Demographically that small to mid-sized church is just not sustainable. The numbers are against them. The giving comes from the older people I would bet, and they are dying off or facing depleted resources. Younger families are fleeing many of these churches to find churches that have more programs for their kids and those tend to be the bigger churches with multiple paid staffers and a huge budget for programs. As kids become adults, they are certainly not drawn to the church full of retirees, assuming they are drawn to church at all. There are fewer and fewer people highly connected to church life and with the availability of the glitz and glam of megachurches, people seem to be either flocking to the bright lights or people are fed up with the highly institutionalized, program driven megachurches and are moving to house churches, or at least much smaller, simple churches.

The small to mid-sized church is a staple of Americana. Many Christians grew up in these exact kind of churches before the advent of the megachurch but they seem to be dying out. It hasn’t happened yet but as the older people who are financially sustaining these churches start to die and giving starts to dry up, it is going to become harder and harder to maintain the buildings and pay for a pastor. I am not a demographer but it seems that unless something changes dramatically, the aging population of these churches and dearth of families with kids inevitably will lead to the collapse of these churches and I think that collapse is coming sooner rather than later. I think you will see more and more pastors becoming bi-vocational of necessity, which I think ultimately is a good thing.

What does the future look like? If I gaze into my crystal ball, it appears that there are going to be ever larger megachurches dotting the landscape. More and more people will flock to them and their programs (and anonymity). An increasing percentage of people will flee the institutional church for the house/simple/organic church model. The average church with its single pastor will have a hard time keeping the doors open and one by one they will close down, unable to pay/find pastors willing to serve there, unable to service their debt or maintain their buildings. The statistics are grim for these “average” churches. As my children grow older, I can easily see a country with two main types of churches: megachurches and house churches. I don’t see the small to mid-sized church dying off completely, but their influence and numbers seems destined to shrink.

What do you think? Am I way off base? If I am not, is this a good thing or a bad thing for the church?