Why have we minimized preaching?

July 29, 2014 in Church History, Ecclesiology, Liturgy, Quotations, Word of God, Worship

“I would not hesitate to put in the first position: the loss of belief in the authority of the Scriptures, and a diminution in the belief in the Truth. I put this first because I am sure it is the main factor. If you have not got authority, you cannot speak well, you cannot preach. Great preaching always depends upon great themes. Great themes always produce great speaking in any realm, and this is particularly true, of course, in the realm of the Church. While men believed in the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of God and spoke on the basis of that authority you had great preaching. But once that went, and men began to speculate, and to theorise, and to put up hypotheses and so on, the eloquence and greatness of the spoken word inevitably declined and began to wane. You cannot really deal with speculations and conjectures in the same way as preaching had formerly dealt with the great themes of the Scriptures. But as belief in the great doctrines of the Bible began to go out, and sermons were replaced by ethical addresses and homilies, and moral uplift and socio-political talk, it is not surprising that preaching declined.”

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 13.

External Members of the Covenant

July 28, 2014 in Baptism, Covenantal Living, Discipline, Ecclesiology, Federal Vision, Quotations, Regeneration

“So as with the other covenants, it is possible for someone to join the new covenant community externally without the new heart that defines that covenant. He may be baptized and profess Christian doctrine. But if he lives a life of sin, he shows that he does not have the new heart that is the mark of the new covenant. He has wrongly entered the covenant community and ought to be disciplined by the body. He has become a Christian externally, but without inward change.”

John Frame, Systematic Theology, p. 81.

I would add that we should read “wrongly entered the covenant community” as “entered the covenant community deficiently” not that he shouldn’t have entered the covenant community at all. Baptism welcomes us as legitimate members of the covenant community – but, in the case of an unconverted covenant member, his membership is belied by his lack of a new heart. But it wasn’t wrong to baptize him and admit him to the covenant community – for it is not our place to read the heart but to evaluate words and actions to the best of our ability.

Against the Church

July 24, 2014 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Church History, Ecclesiology, Quotations, Rome, Tradition, Word of God

“No one willingly says that the church is wrong, and yet it is necessary to say that it is wrong if it teaches anything besides or against God’s Word.”

Martin Luther, Galatians, p. 59.

The Church is our Mother and to be treated with respect and honor. But the Church is to honor the Word of our Father. When the Church fails to do so, then the disciple must follow the Father for the sake of the Mother. This is how Luther conceived his calling. Unfortunately many modern self-proclaimed “reformers” do not have a proper respect for their Mother and make themselves the sole arbiters of truth rather than the Word. Luther writes earlier in his commentary:

“Since the church is such a soft and tender thing, and so soon overthrown, we must be quick to watch against these people with their mad ideas. When they have given two sermons or have read a few pages of the Holy Scriptures, they reckon they are in control of all learners and teachers and are answerable to no human authority. You can find many such people today, bold and impudent persons who because they have not been tried by temptations have never learned to fear God, nor had any taste or feeling of grace. Because they are empty of the Holy Spirit, they teach what they like best and such things as are plausible and pleasant to the common people. Then the uneducated multitude, longing to hear news, soon joins them.” p. 47

Worship and Posture

June 22, 2014 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Bible - OT - Psalms, Ecclesiology, Liturgy, Lord's Day, Meditations, Worship
Psalm 95:6–7 (NKJV)
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. 7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.
One of the most frequent questions visitors have about our service of worship, one of the questions that you may also have, is this: What’s with all the different postures? We sit, we stand, we kneel, we bow heads, we lift hands – why all the variety?
The answer to these questions is threefold: first, God did not create us as mere spirits but as creatures with body and soul. As those who have bodies, God expects us to use them for His honor. Paul writes, “…you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Our bodies belong to God and so what we do with them is important. Our actions should should reflect our reverence for Him and our knowledge that one day Christ will return in glory and raise these very bodiesfrom the grave. Our bodies matter.
So this leads us to the second answer to our question: why all the variety? The answer is that in worship there are a variety of things we do. We praise and thank the Lord; we confess our sins; we hear the assurance of forgiveness; we listen to the reading of God’s Word; we confess the creeds; we present our tithes and offerings; we pray; we learn from the Scriptures; we feast with God at His Table. This wonderful variety demands a variety of responses – both verbally and bodily. There is no “one size fits all” bodily posture.
And this is why, third, the Scriptures invite us to worship God with a variety of postures – standing, kneeling, sitting, lifting hands, etc. So notice our text today from Psalm 95 – Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. This is but one example of the types of bodily invitations given in the context of worship.
But let us beware that we not merely go through the motions. For the ultimate reason that our posture changes is that we worship in God’s very presence. He is here with us and we dare not treat Him lightly. He calls us to worship; we respond by standing to praise Him. He thunders at our sin; we respond by kneeling to confess it. He assures us of pardon; we stand to listen and enter boldly into His presence through the blood of Christ. He instructs us from His Word; we stand to give our attention to its reading. This is the drama of the Divine Service – but it’s a drama that is meaningful only when accompanied by hearts that love and cherish Him.
So what of you? Why do you stand? Why do you kneel? Why do you sit? Do you do it just because that’s what you’re being told to do? Do you kneel so you won’t appear out of place? Do you sit so you can take a nap? Or do you do all these things because you recognize with awe and wonder that the God we worship this Day has invited you into His very presence to worship?

So today as we have entered into God’s presence He has thundered at our sin – let us confess that we have often just gone through the motions of worship; and let us kneel as we confess together.

Pastors and Politics

June 20, 2014 in Bible - OT - 2 Kings, Church History, Coeur d'Alene Issues, Ecclesiology, Homosexuality, Politics, Sexuality, Ten Commandments

Well it seems the editor of the Coeur d’Alene Press is upset that a number of local pastors have expressed “political” opinions and may very well have influenced the last election. There was an article in the press expressing Representative Ed Morse’s exasperation at his and others’ defeat in the recent election. In the article he is quoted as claiming that he is going to bring these actions to the attention of the IRS. More disturbing than Representative Morse’s exasperation was the editorial piece of the same day. Yikes!

I debated writing a letter in response but couldn’t get myself sufficiently motivated. Fortunately, a number of folks have written some excellent responses. Scott Grunsted offered a compelling critique of the editorial and corrected many of the misrepresentations of the Founding Fathers found therein. Unfortunately, the Editor missed Grunsted’s point and entitled his article, “Church, State are inseparable.” This is not the point Grunsted was making and very few Christians would defend it.

We must distinguish between the issue of church/state and relgion/state. Church and State are separate in Scripture – kings were not priests and priests were not kings. Consider that King Uzziah was struck with leprosy when he tried to assume priestly duties for himself. While Church and State are separate, religion and state are not. Every state, ancient and modern, is built upon some religious foundation. The reason is that states impose morality – they penalize certain behaviors and reward others. So how does a state decide which actions to penalize and which to reward? Religion. Historically the religious foundation animating our public policy has been Christian. We are now in the process of apostatizing and abandoning this foundation – and the ease with which this is being accomplished is due, in part, to the failure of our Founding Fathers to articulate in our founding documents the necessity of this Christian foundation. While they did make the point in their private correspondence and public letters and speeches, they did not make this explicit in our Constitutional documents and this was a tragic error. It seems unlikely that our great republic will be able to persist as a result. Hopefully, the next time such an experiment as America takes place, their founders will repudiate the heretical notion of the secular state and recognize that every state is built upon some religious foundation. And the religious foundation that provides for personal liberty, liberty of conscience, and constitutional limits on political power is the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Another excellent letter responding to the editorial was written today by Kim Cooper. She demonstrates the absurdity of the editorial’s attempt to compartmentalize portions of people’s lives. She gives a great example of worldview thinking! Excellent work.

Let us just note in passing the inconsistency of the editorial as well. The press has campaigned rather clearly for numerous moral principles lately. They’ve opposed bullying, advocated the homosexual agenda, and portrayed the transgendered agenda sympathetically – and on each of these issues prominently featured within the articles is the Human Rights Education Institute and Mr. Tony Stewart. Is bullying wrong? Let’s ask Mr. Stewart and find out. Should homosexuality have public sanction? Let’s ask Mr. Stewart, he’ll tell us. But has anyone cried foul? After all, I think that the HREI is a 501c3 entity. How dare they dabble in politics? Sheesh! Haven’t they read those regulations? But of course it’s ok for them to express opinions, teach at the local government schools, nurture our children in the evils of discrimination because – well, because they agree with us! But those pastors – shut them up! Wisdom is justified by her children.

Shepherds in the Church

June 5, 2014 in Bible - OT - Ezekiel, Ecclesiology, Quotations

“There will always be leaders – the issue is whether they are the leaders called and gifted by God to shepherd his flock or those who push themselves forward so that they can push others around.” Timothy Z. Witmer, The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church, p. 23.

Vision

May 14, 2014 in Ecclesiology, Quotations

“A vision consists of an attractive, vivid, and clear picture of the future that the movement and its leaders are seeking to bring about… The key to the success of the vision is its simplicity and availability, often in the form of content that transmits, expounds, and applies the vision… In a movement, a shared vision is what guides the day-to-day choices; in an institution, it is typically the rules and established patterns.” Tim Keller, Center Church, p. 339.

Not all Israel is Israel

March 10, 2014 in Church History, Ecclesiology, Eschatology, Regeneration

Following up the reading of Doug Wilson’s Against the Church, the following excerpt from the Second Helvetic Confession emphasizes the mixed nature of the visible church and the need for personal faith.

NOT ALL WHO ARE IN THE CHURCH ARE OF THE CHURCH. Again, not all that are reckoned in the number of the Church are saints, and living and true members of the Church. For there are many hypocrites, who outwardly hear the Word of God, and publicly receive the sacraments, and seem to pray to God through Christ alone, to confess Christ to be their only righteousness, and to worship God, and to exercise the duties of charity, and for a time to endure with patience in misfortune. And yet they are inwardly destitute of true illumination of the Spirit, of faith and sincerity of heart, and of perseverance to the end. But eventually the character of these men, for the most part, will be disclosed. For the apostle John says: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would indeed have continued with us” (I John 2:19). And although while they simulate piety they are not of the Church, yet they are considered to be in the Church, just as traitors in a state are numbered among its citizens before they are discovered; and as the tares or darnel and chaff are found among the wheat, and as swellings and tumors are found in a sound body, And therefore the Church of God is rightly compared to a net which catches fish of all kinds, and to a field, in which both wheat and tares are found (Matt. 13:24 ff., 47 ff.).

The Ship in the Ocean or the Ocean in the Ship?

February 28, 2014 in Book Reviews, Church History, Ecclesiology, Regeneration, Sanctification

“God effects and expects a moral distinction between His people and the world. And when the world starts to flood into the church (in the form of unconverted professors of faith), this line starts to blur. The church is in the world the way a ship is in the ocean, and that is the way it should be. But bad things start happening when the ocean gets into the ship.”

Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, p. 96