The Potter and His right over the clay

I am convinced that most of the problems in the church that stem from interpretative issues can be boiled down to one fact. Mankind more often than not, including believers, fails to recognize and submit to the relationship between God and man. This relationship is summed up best in Paul's letter to the church in Rome:

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, "Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'" "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'" And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay." (Rom 9:20-28)

That really lays it out for us. and I love that passage because it puts me in my place so to speak.

There are few passages in Scripture that are clearer or harder hitting. Paul lays out the relationship between God and man, between Creator and creature, clearly and unambiguously. The context clearly is dealing with salvation. Paul answers the question of how can God find fault in a sinner when God created us. You made me this way so how can you condemn me! The answer is clear. God is the Creator and Sovereign and it is His prerogative to make man however He sees fit and to deal with man as befits His majesty and holiness. The reality that God sent His Son to die in order to redeem a remnant of mankind is not limiting His holiness and justice, it is a magnificent and totally undeserved expression of His mercy and love. God chooses to save some and passes over others, leaving them in their sins, and does so in perfect accord with His nature because He has the ultimate say in how to deal with those He created. This truth extends beyond salvation and into how those whom God has mercifully redeemed are to conduct their lives.

Here is what I am talking about. What God has decreed is non-negotiable. It doesn’t really matter what I think about a topic. It doesn’t matter where the cultural winds are blowing. It doesn’t matter what my spouse thinks or what the elders in the local gathering of the church think or what the seminary professors think. What matters is what God has said and in places where we find what God has said to be inconvenient the burden of submission falls on us, not on Him.

One of the foundations, perhaps THE foundation, of Christian discipleship is submission to this concept. God is sovereign creatively (He created and ordained the universe). God is sovereign over salvation. God is sovereign over the nature He created (nothing happens outside of His control, even things we perceive as bad). God is sovereign in act and in declaration. His Word has the imprimatur of His revealed will and as such is deserving of the utmost respect and unswerving obedience. In a nutshell, God’s Word is authoritative whether or not anyone believes it. What God says is true because God is truth so by nature whatsoever He decrees is by definition true.

Paul uses an interesting metaphor for this relationship, perhaps one that is hard to understand today in a world of prefabricated, cheap and disposal plastic vessels but a metaphor that made total sense to a first century audience. A lump of clay is useless for anything. It has no value, no intrinsic worth. The only way that a lump of clay gains any value is if a potter forms that clay into something someone can use. That may mean being formed into a beautiful piece of pottery that would be displayed in a museum or it might mean being formed into a utilitarian plate that people can eat off of. On the flip side the clay can be made into something like an ashtray or a chamber pot. The clay doesn’t get a vote, it is entirely at the pleasure of the potter. He can make one lump of clay into a vessel for honorable use or to use a modern analogy he can make that lump of clay into a clay pigeon, destined and designed to be shattered.

We see the difficulty of submitting to God when Scripture runs up against our personal convictions. We feel morally obligated to defend innocents by means of violence as we see fit. We cling to our notion of private property. We meet sparingly with the church and subcontract ministry out to a few paid professionals while maintaining that we are not forsaking the assembly of God’s people. We explain away explicit commands by chalking them up to a unique cultural setting that no longer applies in our modern, enlightened era. We dictate the terms under which God is permitted to extend salvation without violating our precious "free will". All because we don’t have a proper view of who God is. We may pay lip service to how awesome God is and sing songs about it but we treat Him as if He was more peer than sovereign. We seem to be earthen vessels that demand the potter recognize our rights and our opinions as if they are somehow valid.

Perhaps we misunderstand the idea of God as Father and ourselves as adopted children. Perhaps we see the parent-child relationship more like modern Western culture and less like the relationship that the original Biblical audience would have understood. We see our parents as something we strive to outgrow. We turn 18 and become “independent” of our parents, striking out on our own to make a name for ourselves. I don’t think of myself as the son of Robert, I am a man in my own right. While I am not an expert on ancient culture by any means, I do understand that the relationship between fathers and sons (and husbands and wives) in ancient times was vastly different from how it is today. Family was far more important and honoring your father and mother didn’t mean a card on their birthday. The leveling of the parent-child relationship in Western civilization makes fathers into peers as we grow into adulthood and that is perhaps why when we speak of God as Father we see Him as far less than He is or conversely we see ourselves as far more than we are. We diminish God and elevate ourselves and that has been the problem with mankind since way back to a certain dispute over fruit from one particular tree.

God is God and we are not. That seems so simple and yet so hard to live with. It may be hard but it is so vital because the more we submit to God as the Creator, as the sovereign Potter and likewise recognize ourselves as merely clay in His hands, the closer we will walk with Him.

The greatest gift you can give your kids

We finally broke down and bought ESVs for all the kids. When we read together, we were using a few ESVs, a few NKJVs and a few KJVs which made it kind of choppy. So we spent a couple bucks and bought each of the kids (except Victoria) their own ESV bibles. It was nice to all be reading from one translation last night, even though in Romans 8: 21 some of our ESVs say "decay" and some say "corruption", so they are a little bit different. The kids are very excited to have their own Bibles that they got to pick out instead of using one off the shelf.

I am also mindful of how blessed we are in America. We have probably a dozen and a half Bibles in the room I am sitting in. How many of our brothers and sisters around the world don't even have one Bible in their own language to read. How often are we neglecting to read the Word when there are people risking their lives to smuggle the Word to people thirsting for it? How many men died fiery deaths at the hands of Rome to bring us this treasure in English? God forgive me for neglecting and taking for granted this most precious gift.

A famine in the land

(I am reprinting this post from December of 2007 because it still resonates with me. It was a time in my life when I was pretty angry, more than usual, almost exclusively angry with myself. I was in kind of an ugly place in my life, so keep that in mind. My thinking on the church has changed quite a bit since then, but much of this still captures the heart of the issue. I don’t care where or how you worship, if you are not focused on the Word of God you are wasting your time.)

"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, "when I will send a famine on the land-- not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD." Amos 8:11 ESV

I love this verse and hate it. I love it because it is so true, I hate it because it is so true. It is not the Word that is at fault though, but the church. It is the church that has been established and ordained as the dispenser of the Word, and it is the church that has sought to replace the Word of God with anything else, anything but the Word.

Dr. Steve Lawson is one of my favorite preachers. I heard him in person in the Spring of 2007 at the Toledo Reformed Theological Conference, and his sermons on John 10 and the Good Shepherd were absolutely dynamite. Though Steven Lawson sounds, and kinda looks, like the elder President Bush, he is a powerful preacher and a prophetic voice in our day. I came across a sermon he gave on Amos 8:1-11, and it struck a chord. You don't hear a ton of preaching like this today, and we are poorer as a people for it.

His message is pretty simple, as is true of all good sermons. All is not well. The modern church gives off an image of successful evangelicalism, but it is at it's heart rotten to the core. Churches not only don't transform lives, they hardly even raise eyebrows. The simple proclamation of the Word, Thus sayeth the Lord, has been replaced by slick marketing campaigns. I am all for slick marketing campaigns in the business world. In fact I often benefit quite handsomely from them. But these aren't balance sheets and stock prices we are talking about. These are the eternal souls of sinners standing condemned before a just and holy God.

Our mooring point is not in the infallible Word of God, but in our programs, in our outward success, in our influence over the political process. Our churches measure their faithfulness not in the making of disciples, but in the number of bodies in the pews, the size of the budget, the number of paid staff or the magnificence of their audio-visual system. We ought to grade churches based on their fidelity to the Word of God, and yet that is in many cases the last concern. Far more important is the music style, or the personality of the preacher, or the size of the youth program or what translation of the Bible is used (not whether or not it is a faithful translation, but whether or not it is the right faithful translation.)

The people cry out to be fed, and spend more time and money on "Christian" books and music than ever before, but those same people are being slowly starved to death, starved in the hearing of the Word of the Lord. We starve to death in a land of plenty. Worse yet, it is the church, established and ordered by God, that is withholding the feeding. People come, and what they hear is anything but the Word in so many churches. There is little wonder that so many people are so ambiguous about church, because there is no power when the Word is absent. A church that neglects the Word becomes nothing but a social club or a self-help therapy session. Once people get over their hang up du jour, they move along.

Another of my favorite passages is found in Ezekiel 3, and Dr. Lawson rightly brings it up...

And he said to me, "Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, "Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it." Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. And he said to me, "Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. Ezekiel 3: 1-4 ESV

What value is the Word of God if it is relegated to dusty tomes sitting unused and unopened in the racks on the back of pews? There is nothing magical about the cover and the paper, about the ink on the pages. The power of the Word of God comes from reading it and devouring it. Why should God send forth the Word when people reject it? This sermon from Dr. Lawson and these ancient words from the prophet Amos are required hearing and reading for the church today. May we weep, as I have and I do, for how we have failed in carrying out the mandate of God to declare His Word.

Piper, the Pope and the Prophet

Very interesting post on Mormon Coffee comparing the authoritative differences between Protestant Christianity, Catholicism and mormonism.

The post, What if Thomas Monson, Pope Benedict XVI, and John Piper began teaching that the practice of homosexuality was morally praiseworthy? , is interesting and really shows the flaws in placing a human authority over the Bible. In the post, Aaron uses the example of homosexuality. If John Piper suddenly started teaching that homosexuality was OK, Christians including Aaron and I who love Piper's ministry, would call him out for teaching something that was not in accord with God's Word. But if Thomas Monson started teaching that, what would mormons be able to do about it? There isn't a recall vote for prophet that I am aware of. They would either have to grit their teeth and go along with it or recognize Monson as the false teacher he is. The third option would be to devolve into what much of Catholicism has, where people claim to be adherents and yet feel free to ignore what the Pope says. Placing yourself under the authority of man backs you into a corner, because when they stray you must either repudiate your whole faith system or just grin and bear it.

There is a warning here for those who place Christian leaders, even the most popular and orthodox of Reformed leaders, on a pedestal. Piper, Mohler, MacArthur, Sproul, Dever, Carson. None of them are above the Word and all of them would affirm that. You can be sure that if one of them strayed, they would be called to account by their peers and those who love their ministry but some people would follow them anyway because they are not seeking Christ, they are seeking a man to follow. They have built their house on shifting sand instead of on the Solid Rock.

Stray from the authority of the Word, place a human between you and Christ and all manner of mischief follows! The comment string alone should be worth the price of admission!

Put a tie on!

The latest White Horse Inn, Radical Informality, really got at an issue I take personally, the general lack of formality in appropriate situations in society and in the church in particular. A lot of people I know won't care for these comments, and maybe I am way off base, but that has never stopped me.

What I hear all the time is that God doesn't care what we wear to church. There is a backlash against authoritarian formalism. What ends up happening is that we get so casual about our attire that it bleeds over into our worship, which becomes cavalier and marked by a sense of indifference. Reading from a Bible? Yawn! Tell me an interesting story or read me a joke someone emailed you or pass along a funny quip. Do anything you want, JUST DON'T BORE ME! I am dressed in my jammies, so if the sermon is boring I might drift off.

What is especially irritating is when pastors or anyone who is preaching or teaching in the church can't be bothered to put on something decent to wear.

I am a pretty formal guy in formal settings. I am banker, so I wear a suit and tie everyday. I wear a suit and tie every Sunday morning and typically at least a tie on Sunday evenings. I would never dream of teaching Sunday School or even worse preaching in anything other than a suit and tie. Granted, when I am home I am a sweatpants and t-shirt kind of guy. There isn’t much middle ground with me between suit & tie and sweats & t-shirt, but when the occasion calls for a tie, I wear a tie. Does it make me more holy? Certainly not, but for me it is a reflection on the gravity of the affair. When I preach I insist people stand for the reading of God's Word. We stand to sign hymns and praise choruses, but slouch in our seats when the Bible is read. We have lost all sense of the presence of God in church, probably because given the state of most churches, He isn't present so why bother acting like He is?

One point brought up was that people still dress up for funerals, but even that changes as we try to make funerals into "celebrations of life". The idea of funerals as a celebration has come up because if you are a non-Christian you can’t face death so you try to dress it up as a celebration. If we wear a Hawaiian shirt at a funeral, maybe it won't seem so mournful.

Ken Jones said that this new in formalism in the church is nothing less than a new sort of strange fire offered to the Lord. What a powerful indictment that is. We dress down for church not because it doesn't matter how we dress, but because we rebelliously want to worship God on our own terms. Church isn't that important, the Bible isn't that important, the Gospel isn't that important, hey even God isn't that important. Why not wear shorts?

This of course can go too far the other way. Episcopalians dress up in fancy robes (which may be why certain types of men are drawn to the flashy colors and pretty robes), they have (or had) liturgical, high church, very formal services. But for all their formality, they have lost the Gospel. Formalism without the Gospel, without the Word is worthless.

Dress nice, but bring your Bible too!

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119:11 ESV)

What is missing in the church, in our homes, in our hearts today? Cultural relevance? Self-esteem? Material blessings. Nope. It is the Word of God. It's absence is making a mess of homes, families, the church and the world.

Our goal as a couple over the next year is to read together the entire Bible, reading aloud from our new ESV daily Bibles (got a great deal on them from Westminster Seminary's book store). I got about 85% through a one year Bible in '06 before petering out, so I am hopeful that the discipline of reading together will aid in making it all the way through, and then starting again next year. There are plenty of things we need to work on and pray about in our family and marriage, but none is more important than placing His Word in a position of honor and prominence in our home. If we are successful with that, then everything else is doable.