DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

My White Sox are absolutely tanking, so I went looking for some sports related humor to cheer me up.


Baseball Superstar Accused of Performance-Enhancing Genie Use

And since my baseball team is fading fast, I'm starting to get geared up for football season. It's great to see that NFL coaches are finally getting their priorities straight...


Tom Coughlin Retires From Family To Spend More Time With Team

I posted this over at my more denomination-specific blog. I don't think it's gone live yet, so I thought I would put it here as well.

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For over ten years now the RCA, through the historic and misguiged Formula of Agreement, has been in "full communion" with the ELCA, the PC(USA), and the UCC. There have been enough unbiblical goings-on in any of these denominations to sound the alarm, but the recent action by the ELCA is the latest and possibly the most egregious. Meeting last week in Minneapolis, the Lutherans voted to allow non-celibate homosexual clergy and the blessing of same-sex relationships in the church. The RCA, through the Formula of Agreement, is in "full communion" with the ELCA. Should we be?

According to the Agreement, the term "full communion" is understood to specifically mean that the four churches, among other things, "recognize each other as churches in which the gospel is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered according to the Word of God." No doubt, some of you reading this blog think homosexuality is good, or permissible, or something less than sinful. But most of us in the RCA think same-sex behavior, along with plenty of other sins, is prohbited in the Bible. Where does this leave us in relationship to the ELCA (and the other two denominations for that matter)?

What do we do when a denomination perverts the grace of our God into sensuality (Jude 4)--and not just a few renegade churches here and there, but the whole denomination in its official decision making capacity? Is the gospel rightly preached in the ELCA when their "gospel" officially affirms sinful behavior that the Bible says will keep one out of the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor. 6:9-10)? For those of us who hold to the Church's millennia long teaching on sexuality, how can we continue to recognize as a true church a body that does not "engage in the pure preaching of the gospel", does not "subject itself to the yoke of Christ" and allows into the offices of the church those who are not "fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness" (Belgic Confession Article 29)? Homosexuality is, as J.I. Packer has argued, a heretical issue because it denies a central tenent of the gospel--repentance.

The RCA broke ties with the white church in South Afria over apartheid. It's time the RCA profers a similar forumla of disagreement and breaks from full communion with erring, not to mention dying, denomations like the ELCA. The gospel is once again at stake.

Today we continue our series on social justice and the poor (for part 1 go here). I have a lot of haphazard thoughts about the subject I could share (and I did some of that last week), but I figure the best approach for your understanding and my learning is to simply look at some of the key texts that frequently come up when talking about social justice and the poor. Texts like Micah 6:8, Isaiah 58, Luke 4, Matthew 25, and others. We’ll start things off with a less ballyhooed, but equally important passage, Leviticus 19:9-18.

Here’s what the text says:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. 11 "You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. 13 "You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14 You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD. 15 "You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD. 17 "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

The climax to this passage and its overarching theme is found in the last half of verse 18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” As most Christians know, Jesus refers to this as the second great commandment (Matt 22:39; Mark 12:31, 33). Paul and James also saw the command as paradigmatic for the rest of the law (Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8). Love, according to the New Resrament, is what we should show to the poor and to everyone else.

I love Leviticus 19 because love here is so concrete. This passage is not flowery. It doesn’t soar to the heavens. People aren’t writing songs about it and playing it at weddings. It is plain and practical. We’ve all heard that you ought to love your neighbor as yourself. Probably 95% of the people in this country agree that loving our neighbor is a good idea. But what does it look like? How do we do it? Verses 9-18 show us.

This passage applies love to five different areas of life, marked off into five sections (9-10, 11-12, 13-14, 15-16, 17-18) by the concluding phrase “I am the Lord.” You might think of these verses as giving five love languages that every Christian must speak. We must love with our possessions, by our words, in our actions, by our judgments, and with our attitudes.

1. Loving others with our possessions (9-10).
These verses quickly summarize the concept of gleaning, leaving some of your harvest remaining in the fields (or on the vines) so that the poor and the sojourner can gather what is left over. As many people have pointed out, the genius of gleaning is that it not only required generosity on the part of the landowner but also industry on the part of the poor. This wasn’t a handout (though there is a place for that too), but an opportunity to work to eat.

Still, we would be wrong to make the gleaning laws nothing but a moral lesson on personal responsibility. The main lesson to be learned is that God’s people were to be generous. The principle for us is this: we must deliberately plan our financial lives so that we have extra left over to give to those in need. Don’t reap to the edge of your fields. And don’t spend all your money on yourself. Think of those who have less than you and let some of your wealth slip through your fingers. In other words, don’t be stingy. Don’t get every last grape off the vine for yourself. Let others benefit from your harvests.

2. Loving others with our words (11-12)
To love is to tell the truth. We see here two contexts where honesty is paramount and sometimes in short supply: in business and in the courts. The first command here is do not steal. But the context suggests that the stealing is taking place by lying, people dealing falsely with each other, as in a business setting. By contrast God’s people love others by telling the truth in their transactions. No cheating scales, weights, or measurements (35-36).

The second scene is in the courtroom. Especially in a day without surveillance cameras or DNA testing or tape recording, everything depended on witnesses. That’s why bearing false witness was such a serious crime in Bible. Someone’s life could literally be ruined by a simple lie. Love–whether for our neighbors or our enemies–demands that we are careful with our words.

3. Loving others by our actions (13-14)
Verse 13 gives the classic and most common example of oppression in the Bible: not giving the agreed upon wage at the agreed upon time. Oppression was not the same as inequality. Oppression occurred when day laborers were hired to work in the fields for the day, and at the end of the day the landowner stiffed them of their wages. This was a serious offense to your neighbor and before God, not least of all because the day’s payment was often literally you daily bread. People depended on this payment to survive.

It was all to easy to cheat workers out of their wages. You could say you didn’t have anything to give. Or you could argue that the work done was shabbily. Or you could simply refuse to pay today, or ever. If the matter was simply one man’s word against another’s, there was little a worker could do to get justice, especially on that day when what the worker needed was to eat, not a legal process.

This is exactly the oppression James refers to in James 5:1-6. The rich, James says, were living in self-indulgent luxury. These were not the sort of riches that they plowed back into the company in order to hire more workers. These riches were the ill-gotten kind. They had kept back by fraud the wages of the laborers. The injustice James rails against is not due to paying a minimum wage or because their was a disparity between rich and poor. The injustice is that the rich had hired help for the harvest, but refused to pay them (v. 4). In a future post I will talk about the New Testament’s earnest warnings to the rich. Please don’t think I am trying to make an apology for self-indulgence. My point is that while injustice is always wrong, the things we label injustice are not always what the Bible has in mind.

The broader principle in these two verses from Leviticus is that God’s people must not take advantage of the weak. Don’t curse the deaf, even if they can’t hear you. Don’t put a stumbling block before the blind, even if they won’t know who did it. God knows. If someone doesn’t know the language in your country, or doesn’t understand the system, or doesn’t have the connections, they should elicit our compassion and generosity, not our desire to make a buck at all costs.

4. Loving others in our judgments (15-16)
Verse 15 is an important verse for establishing the fact that justice in the Bible, at least as far as the courtroom is concerned (but beyond the courtroom too I think), is a fair process, not an equal outcome. “You shall do not injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” Again, this does not mean we don’t care when people have less than we do. This doesn’t mean we should be indifferent to the disadvantages many people have in life through no fault of their own. But it means that justice has to do with equal treatment under the law.

Imagine two men from your church have a dispute. A poor man from the church was doing some work at a rich man’s house. The poor man says he was told he would get $10,000 for the job. The rich man claims that he said he would give $10,000 only if the work was done by a certain date, otherwise it would be $5,000. Now the elders have to decide the case. What do you do? Should the worker get $5000 or $10,000? What is justice here? Simple. Justice, according to Leviticus 19:15 means rendering the just verdict. You cannot defer to the great because he will give more to the church if you side with him or because he is more influential in the community. And you can’t in this instance show partiality to the poor man because he could really use the money and the rich man has more than his fair share anyway. Justice is always on the side of the truth and one of the two men is not telling the truth. Charity and generosity and good stewardship are certainly called for in life. But here justice means doing what is fair, not making things the way we think they should be.

My contention, and I am willing to prove myself wrong as I work through several other texts, is that social justice in the Bible is not an achieved result but equal treatment and a fair process. No bribes. No backroom deals. No slanderous judgments. No breaking your promises. No taking advantage of the weak. That’s what the Bible means by social justice. Ideally, justice is blind. That’s why Lady Justice on our courthouses has her eyes covered. That’s why the U.S. Supreme Court building has inscribed on it the words “Equal Justice Under Law.” Justice means there is one law for everyone, not different rules for different kinds of people.

5. Loving others in our attitude (17-18)
Love is concrete, but it is also affective. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.” It’s not enough to be polite on the outside and full of rage on the inside. If we are angry with our brother we should “reason frankly” with him and try to work things out. The bottom line is love as you would want to be loved. We are responsible not just to treat our neighbors rightly, but to take the necessary steps so that our hearts can feel rightly toward them as well.

So in the end this great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself–this commandment quoted in the New Testament more than any other--boils down to five very elementary, everyday, ordinary commands: share, tell the truth, don’t take advantage of the weak, be fair, talk it out. Simpler than some of us thought. But still easier said than done.

Tim Dearborn's Confession of a Recovering Mission Fanatic:

Mission is not to be the focus of our life and faith...God calls us to a growing commitment to a Person, our Lord Jesus Christ, not a growing commitment to a task, even one as admirable as mission...

Although I still agree mission is primary and peripheral, central and not optional if a congregation wishes to walk in the center of God's will, I can't endorse this phrase anymore ["The church exists for mission like fire exists for burning."].

The church does not exist for mission. It exists for the Lord Jesus Christ. To set mission before the church as its essential reason for existence is to risk focusing devotion on an idol. In our age of human-centered pragmatism, where our focus is easily fixed on the fruitfulness of our own labor and where our worth is measured by our successes and failures, we dare not make something we do the justification of our existence.

Lack of interest in mission is not fundamentally caused by an absence of compassion or commitment, nor by lack of information or exhortation. And lack of interest is not remedied by more shocking statistics, more gruesome stories or more emotionally manipulative commands to obedience. It is best remedied by intensifying people's passion for Christ, so that the passions of his heart become the passions that propel our hearts.

I and countless others like me have erred whenever we've taught people that mission is the purpose for the church's existence. There is only one foundation for a church's existence, and for mission involvement: Jesus Christ. The goal of pastors and mission "fanatics" alike is singular: helping people to grow in their love for Jesus Christ (vi, 3-4).

This is a topic I’ve thought about a lot. It is sort of a personal issue as well as theological, so this post gets a tad lengthy. I thought about posting this over several days, but I think people tune out over a week. Plus I want you to be able to read the whole thing at once, so that you don’t wonder where I’m going with this thread.

So basically, I’m posting several days worth of blogging today. I probably won’t post again for a few days, so if this is more than you want to read in one sitting, come back tomorrow and the next day and finish up. I hope something here will be helpful for you and give you freedom as you love and follow Christ

Busy, Busy, Dreadfully Busy
I have always been a busy person. I don’t say this as any kind of pat on the back. Sometimes busyness is a good thing. Sometimes it’s not. It’s just the way things have been for me. In high school I ran track, cross country, played intramural basketball, did National Honor Society, marching band (French horn thank you very much), tried the Spanish Club, sang in a musical, did church twice on Sunday, Sunday school, youth group, and a Friday morning Bible Study. In college I ran a season of track, played several intramural sports, led our Fellowship of Christian Students group, went to voluntary chapel every time it was offered, sang in the church choir, sang in the college chapel choir, participated in the church college group, helped with Boys Brigade on Wednesday nights, went to church on Sunday, then Sunday school, then evening church, then our chapel gathering that could go until 11:00pm. I have always tried to do a lot of different things. I like doing things. I like being involved.

Needless to say, I was very busy in high school and college, too busy at times. But I found a way to manage my time, get things done, and do pretty well to very well at most things. But once I got to seminary my usual busyness, already a problem, was weighed down further by feelings of guilt, misplaced guilt I think. I was studying hard in my classes, going through the lengthy ordination process for my denomination, interning at my church, preaching once in awhile, singing in up to three different choirs, playing ultimate frisbee every Saturday, participating in an every-week accountability group, doing the usual church twice on Sunday plus Sunday school, plus midweek children’s catechism class, and I was leading the missions committee at seminary. I had lots of fun in seminary. It was a great time of life. But I also felt burdened, not only by all the things I was doing, but by all the things I could be doing. High school and college has plenty of opportunities too, but in seminary all of the opportunities were good, godly, this-is-what-good-Christians-do kind of opportunities. Sure, I did a lot, probably more than most, but I didn’t go to every chapel. I didn’t take advantage of every special speaker. I didn’t do much with the evangelism committee (only going into Salem to do street evangelism once on Halloween–yikes!). I attended a lot of prayer meetings, but those amazing Koreans always attended more. I didn’t have the time, it seemed, to do everything the Bible required of me.

And even if I could have found time to do all that was available, I knew that deep in my heart I just wasn’t as interested in youth ministry (to cite one example) as some others. My passion didn’t run as deep for the 10/40 window as I wanted it to. I just couldn’t muster sufficient enthusiasm for all the good causes and ideas out there. I couldn’t even keep up with all my prayer cards for all these good things.

Doing More for God
I understand there are lazy people out there (and believe me I can be lazy too sometimes). I understand there are lots of Christians in our churches sitting around doing nothing and they need to be challenged not to waste their life (seriously, I love that book and think Piper motivates for radical Christianity in the right way). I understand that many people in the evangelical world are far from generous with their resources and fritter their time away on inane television shows. But even with these important caveats, we really must be much more careful with out urgent and incessant pleas to “do more” for God. It’s the lazy and/or immature preacher who ends every sermon with a call to do more–more evangelism, more discipleship, more prayer, more giving, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. It’s the Seinfeld approach to application: “More anything? More everything!”

I know the “buts.” But people are selfish. People are insulated. People are pursuing the American dream instead of risk-taking discipleship. Amen to all of those concerns. We need to be challenged, but in ways we can actually obey, not pummeled into law-induced submission until we finally feel completely rotten about most everything in life and admit we aren’t doing enough for the poor, the lost, the children, the elderly, the least of these, the...you fill in the blank. Is the goal of Christianity really to leave everyone feeling like terrible a parent, spouse, friend, or neighbor all the time?

I believe there will always be more indwelling sin in my life and I believe that I will never do a good deed perfectly. But I don’t believe God gives us impossible demands in which we should always feel like failures. For example, God wants us to be generous. That’s clear from the Bible. And while it’s true that so long as we have something we could always give more away, isn’t it possible that some people you know actually are generous. Sure, they could do more. We always can do more. But they are still generous. They are obedient to this biblical command.

When the pastor preaches on generosity the goal should not be to make every last person feel like a miserable, miserly wretch. Because unless you live in some Godforsaken locale, there are probably people in your church who practice generosity. A good sermon on generosity might spur them on to further love and good deeds but it should not leave them feeling like complete failures. We may all have reason to repent after every sermon. But we don’t have to repent for every issue brought up in a sermon. Sometimes, by God grace, we do get it right. The problem with “do more” Christianity is that no one is ever allowed to get it right. And the problem, ironically enough, with never allowing anyone to get it right, is that fewer people feel like getting it right really matters.

Thing One and Thing Two (And Thing Three and Thing Four...)
The Bible is a big book and there’s a lot in there. So the Bible says a lot about the poor, about marriage, about children, about evangelism, about missions, about justice; it says a lot about a lot. Almost anyone can make a case that their thing should be the main thing or at least one of the most important things. But what often happens in churches (or church movements) is that the person with the “thing” thinks everyone else should devote their lives to the “thing” too. So churches squabble over limited resources, and people feel an abiding sense of guilt over not caring enough or doing enough about the ten other things that other people in the church care about more than they do.

Maybe it’s because I’m Type A or left brained or a beaver or an ESTJ or a good pastor or a people-pleasing sinner, but I often feel like I could, perhaps should, be doing more. I could do more evangelism. I could pray more. I could invite people over for dinner more. Because of this tendency I actually prefer the “do not” commands of Scripture. “Do not commit adultery”–that’s tough if you take the whole lust thing into account. Obeying this command requires prayer, accountability, repentance, and grace. But it doesn’t require me to start a non-profit or spend another evening away from my family. I just (just!) need to put to death the deeds of the flesh, die to myself and live to Christ.

Not committing adultery is, of course, easier said than done, but the command doesn’t overwhelm me. Changing the world, doing something about the global AIDS crisis, tackling homelessness–those things overwhelm me. What can I do? Where do I start? How will I find the time? I have four small kids, a full-time job, I give much more than 10% away to Christian causes, I try to share Jesus with my neighbors, I pray with my kids before bed, I’m trying to be a better husband. So is it possible, just possible, that God is not asking me to do anything about sex trafficking right now?

Before you think I’m a total nut-job and scream “physician heal thyself”, let me hasten to add: I do understand the gospel. I know that all this talk of what I should be doing or could be doing is not healthy. I know that. And I’m really doing fine. I’m not on the verge of burnout or breakdown or anything like that. Most days I don’t feel guilty about all the stuff I’m not doing. But that’s only because I’ve learned to ignore a lot of things well-meaning Christians say or write. I’m only 32 and already I’m worn out by urgent calls to transform the culture or rid the world of hunger or usher in an age or world peace. I’m not a cynic, at least I hope not. I just realize there is only so much I can do. I also realize that right now that my main work is to lead my family, shepherd my church, and preach faithful sermons. If I do these things, by God’s grace, and grow in one more degree of glory this week (again, by God’s grace), should I still feel guilty for all that I’m not doing in the world?

Two Blessings Along the Way
Two resources were very helpful to me as I wrestled with all of this in seminary. The first was the senior sermon preached to my class by Gordon Hugenberger of Park Street Church. The sermon was based on John the Baptist’s words “I freely confess I am not the Christ.” Hugenberger’s point to a group of soon-to-be pastors was simple. “Look, you are just the best man, not the groom. You are not the Messiah. Don’t act like it. Don’t let people force you to be something you are not. Don’t let them expect too much from you. Confess to yourself and to your people: I am not the Christ.” I still have a copy of the sermon (thanks Joey) and listen to it from time to time. Many pastors would do well to remember this humble and freeing confession. And many churchgoers would be thankful to have their pastors let up on all the “go do the mission of Jesus” sermons. He was the Christ after all and we are not.

The second resource that helped me was a little book called Beyond Duty: A Passion for Christ, A Heart for Mission by Tim Dearborn, who, at the time of the book’s publication, worked for World Vision (and still may, I don’t know). Dearborn talks about all the urgent appeals in the church to “modify our lifestyles to enable a more just distribution of the world’s resources, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, build homes for the poor, tear down all barriers that unjustly divide humankind, enable the reduction of the world’s arsenals in pursuit of peace...” He argues that for too long the church has motivated people to mission by news of natural catastrophes, complex humanitarian disasters, unreached people groups, and oppressed and exploited minorities. We’ve been given statistics and we’ve been told all about the sad condition of the world. The take home from all this has been to give more, care more, serve more, love more, sacrifice more. The good news of Christ’s death and resurrection had been turned into bad news about all the problems in the world and how much more we have to do to make things right.

Again, I know what you are going to say: but we do need to love, serve, and sacrifice. Absolutely, we do. But here’s what else we need to realize:

1) We all have different callings. Every Christian must give an answer for the reason for the hope that we have, but not everyone will do beach evangelism. Every Christian should be generous, but not everyone will live in the inner city. Every Christian should oppose abortion, but not everyone who march in protests or volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers.

2) The church, not the individual Christian, is God’s body in the world. We all have different gifts and the body has many different members. Even if I never directly engage the issue of AIDS in Africa, the church (through individuals or corporately) can still be showing the compassion of Christ to these orphans.

3) Even Jesus left good work undone some days. Even Jesus got tired. Even Jesus couldn’t do it all (in a manner of speaking).

4) God is the one who does the work, builds his kingdom, renews his world. As Dearborn says, “It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a church in the world.”

5) Greater is he that is in me that he that is in the world. The most important work to be done in the world has already been accomplished.

On top of all this, we need to make sure our exhortations to do more rise to the level of God’s glory and sink deep into the gospel. If the exhortations don’t culminate in the glory of God then the youth people and the evangelism people and the poverty people are not really after the same thing. They are just competing interest groups in your church or in your mind. And if the exhortations don’t go deep into the gospel (and they often don’t), then we are just beating up others and ourselves with utopian dreams and masochistic oughts.

The gospel of Christ crucified for sinners is of first importance after all. So don’t forget: God loves you. God forgives you. God redeems you. God keeps you. God was here before you and will be here long after you. The truth, the world, the church, the lost, the poor, the children are not dependent upon you.

Light and Easy, No?
I’m not for a minute advocating a cheap grace or an easy-believeism. But the yoke still is easy, right? And the burden still is light, is it not? The danger–and it’s a danger I’ve fallen foul of in my own preaching–is that in all our efforts to be prophetic, radical, and missional, we end up getting the story of Pilgrim’s Progress exactly backwards. “Come to the cross, Pilgrim, see the sacrifice for your sins. Isn’t that wonderful? Now bend over and let me load this burden on your back. There’s a lot of work we have to do, me and you.” A cross, yes. Jesus said we would have to carry one of those. But a cross that kills our sins, smashes our idols, and teaches us the folly of self-reliance. Not a burden to do the impossible. Not a burden to always do more for Jesus. Not a burden of bad news that never lets up and obedience that is always out reach.

No doubt some Christians need to be shaken out of their lethargy. I try to do that every Sunday morning and evening. But there are also a whole bunch of Christians who need to be set free from their performance-minded, law-keeping, world-changing, participate-with-God-in-recreating-the-cosmos shackles. I promise you, some of the best people in your churches are getting tired. They don’t need another rah-rah pep talk. They don’t need to hear more statistics and more stories Sunday after Sunday about how bad everything is in the world. They need to hear about Christ’s death and resurrection. They need to hear how we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. They need to hear the old, old story once more. Because the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.

I met Dariusz Brycko while we were students at Gordon-Conwell. I've always been impressed by his personal warmth, theological integrity, and passion for the gospel to flourish in his native Poland. Dariusz, who recently completed a Ph.D. at Calvin under Richer Muller, is spearheading a new ministry called the Tolle Lege Institute. Here's how the website describes the purpose of the Institute and it's strategy.

1. Our Purpose The goal of Tolle Lege Institute is to support the educational efforts of Protestant churches in Poland with special commitment to Reformed and historically Evangelical confessions. 2. How do you plan to accomplish your purpose? We seek to accomplish our purpose by: Translating and publishing print materials into Polish Distributing English books and educational materials Providing theological resources via the Web Organizing academic conferences and seminars Training Protestant scholars and ministers Promoting Polish Protestant intellectuals in their homeland and abroad Establishing a theological bookstore and research center Seeking opportunities to establish a Protestant educational institution in Poland This looks like an exciting mininstry. Their first translation project is Meet the Puritans by Beeke and Pederson. After that they hope to tackle some primary Puritan works and translate Machen's Christianity and Liberalism. I encourage you to check out the Tolle Lege Institute and consider how you or your church might want to partner with them in providing Reformed resources for Poland.

If you want to have some fun and take away from your productivity at work, visit www.xtranormal.com. The site allows you to make movies just by typing and dragging.

Here are a couple examples I found on youtube. The first is called Calvinist Witnessing (it's a caricature for sure, but let's be able to laugh at ourselves, and hope that none of us are actually like this). The second is called Arminian Witnessing (also a caricature no doubt, but pretty funny).

I've often thought that one of the surest signs of Christian maturity is that we can root for each other. Love delights in the truth, which means we ought to thrill to discover that others parent better, exercise better, do school better, do church better. But I know the green-eyed monster as much as anyone. I can feel jealousy in my bones when someone excels at something I am supposed to be good at--preaching, writing, pastoring, reading, blogging, etc. I want to be genuinely excited to see gifts in others, even gifts that outshine my own. I want to cheer the truth wherever I see it being promoted, even if it means others get noticed instead of me. I don't want to be like Cain, but sometimes I am.

That's why I found these paragraphs from John Piper, commenting on 1 John 3:12 in Finally Alive, so convicting and helpful.

*****
So what would it be like for any of us to be like Cain? It would mean that anytime some weakness or bad habit in our lives is exposed by contrast to someone else’s goodness, instead of dealing with the weakness or the bad habit, we keep away from those whose lives make us feel defective. We don’t kill them. We avoid them. Or worse, we find ways to criticize them so as to neutralize the part of their lives that was making us feel convicted. W feel like the best way to nullify someone’s good point is to draw attention to his bad point. And so we protect ourselves from whatever good he might be for us.

But John’s point is: Love doesn’t act like that. Love is glad when our brothers and sisters are making progress in good habits or good attitudes or good behavior. Love rejoices in this growth. And if it happens to be faster than our own growth, then love is humble and rejoices with those who rejoice.

So the lesson for us is: Everywhere you see some growth, some virtue, some spiritual discipline, some good habit, or good attitude, rejoice in it. Give thanks for it. Compliment it. Don’t resent it. Don’t be like Cain. Respond the opposite from Cain. Be inspired by other people’s goodness.

Love is humble. Love delights in other people’s good. Love doesn’t protect its own flaws. Love takes steps to change them. What a beautiful fellowship where everyone is rejoicing in each other’s strengths, not resenting them! This is what the love of God looks like when the new birth gives it life in the people of God (158-159).

A few days ago I talked about the Heidelberg Catechism’s assessment of the Mass. Not surprisingly, Heidelberg’s words (and mine!) generated a lot of heat...and hopefully some light. But there’s a lot more Heidelberg has to say about the Lord’s Supper. For example, Question 75 asks, “How does the Lord’s Supper remind you and assure you that you share in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross and in all his gifts?” Here’s the answer:

In this way: Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat this broken break and to drink this cup. With this command he gave this promise: First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me, so surely his body was offered and broken for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross. Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the one who serves, and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, given me as sure signs of Christ’s body and blood, so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood.

I am not a prolific crier. I can only think of three or four times I’ve gotten visibly choked up in front of my congregation. But one of those times came while reading this Lord’s Day in preparation for communion. After the service, I had others tell me they had teared up too. The truth here is that precious. It should stir our affections. I love good music in church and rejoice to see God’s people emotionally engaged in worship. But if our emotion is to be truth driven and not just melody driven, we ought to have profound experiences with responsive readings, creeds, and confessions too. Every time we read the Nicene Creed I want to raise my hands in the air (and sometime do). And whenever I read through this Lord’s Day before communion it makes me want to cry with joy.

What good news God proclaims to us at the Table! I fear that in most churches the Lord’s Supper is either celebrated so infrequently as to be forgotten or celebrated with such thoughtless monotony that churchgoers endure it rather than enjoy it. But the Lord’s Supper is meant to nourish and strengthen our weak faith. Have you ever come to church feeling dirty and rotten? Have you ever sat through an entire sermon thinking about how you blew it with your wife that morning or how prayerless you’ve been for the past month? Have you ever got to the end of a church service only to think, “I’m so distracted. I was worried about how I look. I can’t even sit through church right”? Have you ever wondered if God can really love you? If so, you need this gospel table.

The Lord knows our faith is weak. That’s why he’s given us sacraments to see, taste, and touch. As surely as you can see the bread and cup, so surely does God love you through Christ. As surely as chew the food and drain the drink, so surely has Christ died for you. Here at the Table the faith becomes sight. The simple bread and cup give assurance that Christ came for you, Christ died for you, Christ is coming again for you.

Of course, this eating and drinking must be undertaken in faith. The elements themselves do not save us. But when we eat and drink them in faith we can be assured that we receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life. More than that, we get a picture of our union with Christ. As we eat his flesh and drink he blood, we literally have communion with him, not by dragging Christ down from heaven, but by experiencing his presence through his Spirit.

So shame on parishioners for coming to the Lord’s Supper with nothing but drudgery and low expectations. And shame on pastors for not instructing their people in the gospel joy available to us in communion. If you shed a tear at the Table, let it not be out of boredom but out of gratitude and sheer delight.

Over at White Horse Inn, Jason Stellman and Daryl Hart respond to my post about the strengths and weaknesses of two kingdom theology v. neo-Kuyperianism. Stellman, a PCA pastor in the Seattle area, and Hart, a scholar and elder in the OPC, give a good defense/explanation of two kingdom theology. I appreciate their clarifications and commend their responses to you. I don't think I disagree with any of their comments.

If I had one area of pushback it would be to talk a little bit more about whether the church is ever justified in directly engaging a political issue and/or calling for a specific area of "positive change" in the community. I benefited from Hart's book Secular Faith (more than I thought I might) and quoted from it in Why We're Not Emergent. I agree that except in rare cases, the church as church should refrain from making pronouncements on political issues, but I think there are some cases (i.e. slavery in the South, Hitler in Germany, apartheid in South Africa, abortion in the West) where silence from the pulpit is cowardice. It's very possible Stellman and Hart agree with me on this; I'm not sure.

To give one example, I have said clearly from the pulpit that abortion is sinful (as the arises from the text) and have prayed in pastoral prayers for its legality to be overturned. But I have never said from the pulpit who people should vote for or who I vote for. Nor do I exhort everyone to "do something about abortion." We don't all have the same vocation, as Hart points out. But I would certainly encourage people to consider what God might be calling them to do about this injustice: pray, adopt, volunteer, advocate for change, etc.

Further, if a church started an adoption ministry I would say that this is probably a good thing. A chuch doesn't have to start such a ministry to prove they care about abortion. There are a hundred other ways to care about this issue by means of other programs or no programs at all. But if some people from our church wanted to start an adoption program we would not be opposed in principle to making this an official minisntry of the church (though, we don't automatically turn everyone's good idea into a ministry either; there are a number of factors to consider). Some two-kingdom people I talk to (and really I am more 2K than not) seem opposed to any program in the church besides the weekly worship service and pastoral care. This strikes me as a good instinct taken too far.

Do read the two pieces from WHI. They are very helpful

Jason Stellman here.
Daryl Hart here.

I’m starting a blog series today and I don’t know how long it will go or how often I will do it. But I do know what it will be about. I want to take a look at what the Bible says about social justice and the poor. I imagine that this series will last a couple months, with probably a post a week on the subject. My reasons for exploring this topic are:

1. I want to learn. I’d like to take some time looking at the major texts that talk about the poor and social justice and see what they say. I’m sure I need to be convicted and corrected (and you may too). A blog provides a good medium for serial exploration.

2. I think there are some exegetical mistakes, overstatements, and sloppy thinking being promoted in an effort to arouse our passions for social justice and the poor. Perhaps a careful, slow look at a number of different passages can help put our concern for the poor on more solid footing.

3. When we see poor exegesis in a lot of Christian thinking about the poor and social justice some of us can tend to write the whole thing off as misguided do-goodism or liberal social gospel. This is a mistake. The Bible does say a lot of justice and the poor, but if we are to be convicted and motivated by truth, we must pay more careful attention to what the Bible actually does and does not say.

I have no real outline for these posts and I’m not sure of all my conclusions, so I’m just going to move through different themes and texts as they grab my attention. Today I want to start by looking at the concept of moral proximity.

Moral Proximity = Moral Obligation

The principle is pretty straightforward, but it is often overlooked: the closer the moral proximity of the poor the greater the moral obligation to help. Moral proximity does not refer to geography, though that can be part of the equation. Moral proximity refers to how connected we are to someone by virtue of familiarity, kinship, space or time. Therefore, in terms of moral proximity I am closer to my brothers and sisters at University Baptist just down the road from us in East Lansing than I am to First Baptist in Tuscaloosa (I’m assuming there’s a First Baptist there). But physical distance is not the only consideration. In terms of moral proximity, I am closer to my brother-in-law who lives in Australia than to a stranger I haven’t met who lives on the other side of Lansing.

You can see where this is going. The closer the moral proximity the greater the moral obligation. That is, if a church in Alabama gets struck by lightning and burns down (don’t worry Tuscaloosa, I’m not a prophet), our church could help them out, but the obligation is much less than if a church half a mile from ours goes up in smoke. Likewise, if a man in Lansing loses his job I could send him a check, but if my brother-in-law on the other side of the world is out of work I have more of an obligation to help. This doesn’t mean I can be totally uncaring to everyone but my friends, close relatives, and people next door, but it means that what I ought to do in one situation is what I simply could do in another.

I believe the principle of moral proximity can be found in the Bible. In the Old Testament for example, as many scholars have pointed out, the greatest responsibility was to one’s own family, then to the tribe, then to fellow Israelites, and finally to other nations. From jubilee laws to kinsmen redeemers, the ideal was for the family to help out first. They had the greatest obligation to help. After all, as Paul says, if you don’t provide for your family (and you can) you are worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8). If family isn’t a possibility, the circle expanded. Those closest to the person or situation should respond before outside persons or organization do. Their moral obligation to do so is stronger.

A Tale of Two Texts

Consider two texts from the New Testament.

1 John 3:16-18 “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

This is a powerful challenge. I’ve preached from this text before and referenced it in sermons many times. We need to take this warning seriously. If we close our hear to our brother in need, God’s love does not abide in us and we are not born again. We must help our brother in need. That is the Christian thing to do.

But then in 2 Corinthians where he encourages the church there to excel in the grace of giving, Paul makes clear:

I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is genuine...So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promises, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction...Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (8:8; 9:5, 7; emphasis mine).

Clearly, Paul wants the Corinthians to be generous. He wants them to support the famine-stricken church in Jerusalem like the Macedonians have. But he lays no “ought” on them. 1 John 3 sure sounds like an ought, but not 2 Corinthians 8-9. The difference is moral proximity. I think the best way to understand 1 John 3 is as a reference to fellow Christians in their midst who are destitute and need relief, not just to any brother anywhere. So if a family in your church loses everything in a flood, and insurance won’t replace most of it, you have an obligation to do something. If you let them starve or live out on the street you do not have the love of God in you. But if the same thing happens to a whole bunch of families in a church three states over, it would be generous of you to help, but the obligation is not the same. This is the difference between 1 John 3 and 2 Corinthians 8-9.

The reason the rich man was so despicable in Luke 16 is the same reason the priest and the Levite in Luke 10 are such an embarrassment: they had a need right in front of them, with the power to help, and they did nothing.

Helpful Even With Planes and Internet

Obviously, this principle of moral proximity gets tricky very quickly. With modern communication and travel we have millions of needs right in front of us. So are we under an obligation to help in every instance? No. The principle gets harder to navigate in our age, but it still is helpful. The intensity of our moral obligations depends on how well we know the people, how connected they are to us, and whether those closer to the situation can and should assist first.

There are no easy answers even with the principle of moral proximity, but without it God’s call to compassion seems like a cruel joke. We can’t possibly respond to everyone who asks for money. We can’t give to every organization helping the poor. As result, many of us give up on every doing anything because the demands are so many. We just put “helping the poor” in the disobedience column and start thinking about football.

We must distinguish between a call to generosity to go above and beyond duty and help those in need, and the call to obligation whereby we must do something or we are sinning. This is where many of the well-meaning “pro-social justice” voices can actually do harm by trying to do get us to do so much good. If we are obligated to help the poor and needy everywhere, then we will feel little obligation to help the poor and needy anywhere. Thus, 1 John 3 is robbed of its power. Supporting AIDS relief in Africa is a wonderful thing to do, but a failure to do so probably does not make a church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa a gospel-less, selfish church. But if that same church did nothing to help their people and their community when the river flooded in 2008, then they do not understand the love of Christ.

In a future post I will talk about the different obligation we have to help those in the household of faith versus the obligation to help all people. But for today I just want us to grasp the simple point that we do not have the same obligation to help everyone everywhere. This principle of moral proximity should not make us more cavalier to the poor, but more caring toward those who count on us most.

I’m about ready to send off my manuscript on the Heidelberg Catechism (tentatively titled The Good News We Almost Forgot). But I’m still wrestling with one chapter. As you may know, the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) is comprised of 129 questions and answers spread out over 52 Lord’s Days. The most controversial section, by far, is Lord’s Day 30, Q/A 80, which reads:

Q. How does the Lord’s Supper differ from the Roman Catholic Mass?

A. The Lord’s Supper declares to us that our sins have been completely forgiven through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ which he himself finished on the cross once for all. It also declares to us that the Holy Spirit grafts us into Christ, who with his very body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father where he wants us to worship him. But the Mass teaches that the living and the dead do not have their sins forgiven through the suffering of Christ unless Christ is still offered for them daily by the priests. It also teaches that Christ is bodily present in the form of bread and wine where Christ is therefore to be worshiped. Thus the Mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and a condemnable idolatry.

I’ve worked on this chapter more than any other because I am trying to understand the Roman Catholic position on the Mass and determine if Heidelberg’s strong language is warranted, especially in light of the recent determination by the Christian Reformed Church “that the last three paragraphs [of Question 80] be placed in brackets to indicate that they do not accurately reflect the official teaching and practice of today’s Roman Catholic Church and are no longer confessionally binding on members of the CRC.” (For more information about this change see the 2008 Acts and Agenda for Synod [http://www.crcna.org/pages/synodical.cfm]). I know the CRC did not make this decision lightly. They talked with Roman Catholic theologians and tried to be as fair as possible in understanding what Heidelberg says and what Catholic teaching says. Nevertheless, I think the substance of Heidelberg’s criticism is still justified.

Honestly, I don’t relish the thought of reviving Protestant-Catholic polemics. I have friends who are Catholics and have benefited from a number of Catholic writers. But this issue of what takes place in the Lord’s Supper is hugely important and the differences between our two positions cannot be brushed aside too quickly. I don’t expect any of my Roman Catholic readers to agree with Question 80 or my interpretation of it, but I do hope at least that I am fair. To that end, I will read carefully the comment section for this post.

Here’s the draft of my chapter on Lord’s Day 30.

*****

The Heidelberg Catechism is famous for being an irenic document. There is no nailing of Lutherans to the wall, or drowning of Anabaptists, and very little anathematizing Catholics in the spirit of what goes around comes around. But there is this concluding line from Answer 80 where Ursinus and his buddies take the gloves off: “Thus the Mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and a condemnable idolatry.” True, as almost every English translation points out, Q/A 80 was not present in the first edition (January 1563) of the Catechism. But the present form was included by the third edition (published later in 1563) and has always been the standard received text. In fact, the first edition was lost until 1864. Ever since then end of 1563, Q/A 80 has been considered a part of the Catechism as much any other question and answer.

So what are we to make of this harsh language in Answer 80? Well, before assessing the rightness or wrongness of Lord’s Day 30, we need some historical background. The Catholic worship service is a called a Mass, which comes from the Latin word for “dismissal” (Ite, missa est is the concluding line in the Latin Mass). Unlike Protestant services where the sermon is the focal point, for Catholics the main event is the Eucharist (what many of us call Lord’s Supper or Communion). The priest may give a ten minute homily on a passage of Scripture (I’ve heard from Catholic friends that 15 minutes is considered long), but the Eucharistic celebration is what makes Mass a Mass.

At the heart of the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist is a belief in the real body and blood of Christ in the bread and the wine. Catholics believe that the elements are transubstantiated, so that when consecrated by the priest, the bread and wine actually become the flesh and blood of Christ. For Catholics, the Lord’s Supper is not just a memorial service remembering Christ’s death, or even a spiritual presence where we feast on Christ in a mystical, spiritual way. The Eucharist, in the Catholic tradition, is also a sacrifice.

And this is what the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism found so offensive in the Catholic Mass. In fact, the reason the Catechism added Q/A 80 in the third edition was, most likely, in order to respond to the Council of Trent. On September 17, 1562, the twenty-second session of the Council of Trent, the official arm of the Catholic counter-reformation, met and issued a statement “on the sacrifice of the Mass.” The first edition of the Heidelberg Catechism was not able to touch on Trent’s statement, which is why a revision several months later was necessary.

The Council of Trent pronounced, in no uncertain terms, that the Mass was a re-presenting, not just symbolically but actually, of Christ’s atoning death: “And forasmuch as in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross; the holy Synod teaches that this sacrifice is truly propitiatory, and that by means thereof this is effected, that we obtain mercy and find grace…For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different” (Canons of Trent, 22.2).

To be fair, Catholic theology does not consider the Eucharist a re-sacrifice of Christ, as Heidelberg puts it. “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice…” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1367). Thus, Catholics theologians do not agree (obviously!) with the Heidelberg that the Mass is “nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ.” The sacrifice of Christ and the Eucharist are one sacrifice performed in different ways, they would argue. So the wording of the Catechism does not, in its entirety, reflect the way Catholic theology would explain the Mass. The CRC is right about that. Official Catholic teaching does not argue that Christ’s death must be repeated over and over. Rather, it teaches that in the Eucharist the death of Christ is pulled into the present for us to enjoy sacramentally.

But having said all this, I still believe Heidelberg 80 is not far from the mark. The Catholic understanding of the Eurcharist does, in my estimation, undermine the once-for-all nature of the cross (though Catholics would deny that it does). Christ’s sacrifice was once for all, never to be repeated (John 19:30; 9:25-26; 10:10-18). There is no need for Christ to be offered again (Heb. 7:27). Our eternal redemption has been secured (Heb. 9:12). Where there is forgiveness for our lawless deeds, there is no longer any offering for sin (Heb. 10:18). The implication of the Catholic position (which Catholics want to avoid, but which I find unavoidable)--namely, that an atoning sacrifice takes place again during every Mass--undermines the efficacy of Christ’s death, the sufficiency of his atonement, and the finality of his redemptive work. When Trent and the Catholic Catechism argue that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “truly propitiatory” (i.e., turns away God’s wrath) it’s hard to see how the Mass does not repeat what Christ said was “finished.” And this is to say nothing of how ordinary Catholics experience the Mass, without the sophisticated nuance of their official tradition.

More to the point, though the language may offend my twenty-first century ears, I still think the Catholic adoration of the bread and wine is idolatrous. I might use a different word than “condemnable” because I don’t believe getting their theology of the Lord’s Supper wrong will automatically keep Catholics out of heaven. But I think the Catholic practice of the Eucharist is sinful. I know I am walking a fine line here. Some will think I’m being too soft and others will say I’m too harsh. What I want to avoid is giving the impression that Catholics cannot be Christians. But I also want to state strongly that the Catholic Mass is, in parts, offensive to God.

The reason I go so far as to still use the word “idolatrous” is, ironically enough, because of something I read a few years ago in a book written by two Catholics. Scott Hahn is a popular Catholic apologist who teaches at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. In the book, Rome Sweet Rome: Our Journey to Catholicism, Scott and his wife Kimberly tell their story of converting from conservative Presbyterianism to Roman Catholicism. Scott actually went to Gordon-Conwell (before I was there) and counts as one of his mentors John Gerstner. At one point in the book, Kimberly tells how, on her way to becoming Catholic, she starting looking at the Eucharist differently:

One evening, we had an opportunity to be at a Mass where there was a Eucharistic procession at the end. I had never seen this before. As I watched row after row of grown men and women kneel and bow when the monstrance passed by, I thought, These people believe that this is the Lord, and not just bread and wine. If this is Jesus, that is the only appropriate response. If one should kneel before a king today, how much more before the King of Kings? the Lord of Lords? Is it safe to kneel or not? But, I continued to ruminate, what if it’s not? If that is not Jesus in the monstrance, then what they are doing is gross idolatry. So, is it safe to kneel (142)?

Kimberly Hahn eventually felt it was safe to kneel. I don’t agree with her decision. But she has presented the options with refreshing clarity. If transubstantiation is true, then the Mass is pleasing to God and we ought to give adoration to the consecrated host. But if “this is my body” is to be taken no more concretely than “I am the gate”, and if the doctrine of transubstantiation only works by importing Aristotelian categories, then Kimberly Hahn’s fear about the Mass is justified. It is not safe to kneel. It is, as she initially worried, gross idolatry.

Finally, a good idea for our nation's mounting debt.


U.S. To Trade Gold Reserves For Cash Through Cash4Gold.com

FYI: The fake news site The Onion can be very funny, but it is sometimes crass. I certainly don't recommend everything on their site. I try to make sure the stuff I show is clean funny.

It was on a weekend in August just over a year ago that all of us (from America anyway) were screaming at the television watching this.

Thanks for the good feedback on two kingdom theology v. neo-Kuyperianism. As I expected those committed to either position felt like I didn't do the best job representing the best of their position. Which I figured to be the case since I was dealing in generalities and possible tendencies.

But it seems to me there is a lot both sides might be able to agree on:

1. At the end of the age, not just will our bodies be resurrected, but the whole creation will be renewed. God will bring a new garden/city to us for our enjoyment.

2. Even presently, God's kingdom is breaking in and growing in mysterious and surprising ways.

3. In this age, we will always be strangers and aliens in this world.

4. Because of the effects of original sin in non-believers and the presence of indwelling sin in the believer, all utopian schemes for world reform are doomed to fail. We should not expect that all wars will cease, all poverty will be eradicated, or all suffering will be stopped in this life.

5. It is good for Christians to be involved in their communities working for justice and the "good of the city." Christians are to be "culture-makers" in whatever sphere of society they find themselves.

6. Belief in cosmic renewal must not supplant the central importance of personal redemption.

7. Good deeds can adorn the gospel and are fruit of the gospel. But good deeds by themselves are not the gospel. People need to hear the good news that Christ came to save sinners.

8. At minimum, every Christian must be ready to give an account for the hope that we have.

9. Unless we are born again we will not see the kingdom of heaven. It is those who repent and believe who will be saved. Therefore, evangelism and gospel preaching must be forefront in our hearts and minds if truly care about people and believe what Jesus says about the eternal suffering of the wicked and unbelieving.

10. Common grace is a fair inference from Scripture. The need for and power of saving, redeeming, converting, sanctifying special grace is of central concern in the New Testament.

11. Every square inch of the universe belongs to Christ, whose Lordship will often be contested and denied despite our best efforts.

12. The church is an indispensable part of God's plan for the world. In fact, most of the verses that talk about caring for the poor or helping the needy pertain explicitly to Christians helping Christians.

So what do we (probably) not agree on?

1. What does God call the church as church to do and what is simply the responsibility of faithful Christians?

2. Is a church with a lot of programs that engage the world and aim at the community a church after God's own heart or a distracted church not focusing on its true calling?

3. Does the fact that God's ultimate plan is to renew the whole cosmos mean we are commanded to transform our communities and change the world?

4. Should we expect or desire that the laws of our nation be governed by Christian laws, or even explicit biblical commands? Or is a government justified in allowing some sins to go unpunished?

5. Should Christians try to redeem culture or is this a theologically misguided enterprise?

Thanks for helping me think through this important issue. I reread part of Carson's Christ and Culture Revisted yesterday. I commend it to anyone interested in this whole area of discussion. Carson concludes with a sympathetic, yet critical assessment of Kuyper that I found very helpful. One of the salient points of the book is that Christians must pay attention to whole storyline of Scripture: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Re-Creation. If we ignore creation we will not bother to care about the world nor will we see anything good in it. If we ignore the fall we will be too optimistic about the world's chances for self-improvement and too prone to baptize every seemingly good idea as "kingdom work." If we ignore redemption we will lose sight of the centrality of sin, Christ, the cross, and the needed for repentence and faith. If we neglect re-creation we will think of salvation as nothing but fire insurance. Carson makes the case much more lucidly than I do, but you get the picture. Keep the whole narrative in mind: that's good advice and can spare us a lot of mistakes.

I was speaking at an OPC family camp for a few days this week. Really great folks and very theologically literate. The after-session discussion du jour focused on two kingdom theology v. neo-Kuyperianism (sounds like your family camp too, I know).

In broad strokes, the two kingdom folks believe in a kingdom of this world and a kingdom of Christ. We have a dual citizenship as Christians. Further, the realm of nature should not be expected to function and look like the realm of grace. Living in the tension of two kingdoms we should stop trying to transform the culture of this world into the kingdom of our Lord and instead focus on the church being the church, led by it duly ordained officers and ministering through the ordinary means of grace.

On the other hand, neo-Kupyerianism (intellectual descendants of the Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper) argue that every square inch of this world belongs to Christ. Therefore, his Lordship should be felt and manifested in politics, in the arts, in education, in short, everywhere. Because the work of Christ was not just to save sinners but also to renew the whole cosmos, we should be at work to change the world and transform the culture.

I don’t like the “third rail” folks who are always positioning themselves as the sane alternative between two extremes, but I have to admit that there are elements of both approaches–two kingdom theology and neo-Kuyperianism–that seem biblical and elements that seem dangerous.

On the plus side for the two-kingdom approach:
• Emphasis on the church and the ordinary means (e.g., preaching, sacraments)
• Realistic appraisal of our fallen world and the dangers of utopian idealism
• Acknowledges that while Christians can do and should do many worthwhile things in the world, the church as church has a more limited mandate
• Avoids endless, and often silly, pronouncements on all sorts of cultural and political matters
• Takes seriously the already and not-yet of the kingdom
• Understands that every nice thing that happens in the world is not “kingdom work”
• A bulwark against theonomy and reconstructionism

But I also see some dangers in a radical two-kingdom approach:
• An exaggerated distinction between laity and church officers (e.g., evangelism is the responsibility of elders and pastors not of the regular church members)
• An unwillingness to boldly call Christians to work for positive change in their communities and believe that some change is possible
• The doctrine of the “spirituality of the church” allowed the southern church to "punt" (or worse) on the issue of slavery during the 19th century

The neo-Kuyperians have some positives too:
• A desire to make their faith public
• Zeal to confront injustice and help the hurting
• Appreciation for the goodness of the created world
• Takes seriously that Christianity is about more than sinners getting their ticket punched for heaven

But, alas, there are also number of shortcomings with the neo-Kuyperian view:
• Blurs the distinction between common grace and special grace
• Blurs the distinction between general and special revelation
• Can minimize personal redemption at the expense of cosmic renewal
• Explicit biblical support for commanding all Christians to change the world or transform the culture is very thin
• Devolves quickly into an indistinct moralism

So where does this leave us? I’m not quite sure. The two kingdom theology has better biblical support in my opinion. It seems to me we are more like the Israelites in exile in Babylon than we are the Israelites in the promised land. The earnest calls for world transformation assume that because Christ will renew the whole cosmos therefore our main job as Christians is to do the same. But this is basing a whole lot of theology on a pretty tenuous implication. Two kingdom theology feels more realistic to me and fits better with the "un-preoccupied-with-transforming-society" vibe I get from the New Testament.

And yet, I am loathe to be an apologist for the status quo, or to throw cold water on young people who want to see abortion eradicated or dream of kids in Africa having clean water. I don’t think it’s wrong for a church to have an adoption ministry or an addiction recovery program. I think changing structures, institutions, and ideas not only helps people but can pave the way for gospel reception.

Perhaps there is a–I can't believe I’m going to say it–a middle ground. I say, let’s not lose the heart of the gospel, divine self-satisfaction through self-substitution. And let’s not apologize for challenging Christians to show this same kind of dying love to others. Let’s not be embarrassed by the doctrine of hell and the necessity of repentance and regeneration. And let’s not be afraid to do good to all people, especially to the household of faith. Let’s work against the injustices and suffering in our day, and let’s be realistic that the poor, as Jesus said, will always be among us. Bottom line: let’s work for change where God calls us and gifts us, but let’s not forget that the Great Commission is go into the world and make disciples, not go into the world and build the kingdom.

*****
NOTE: I won't be able to engage in a lot of discussion on this issue, but I do welcome your thoughts. I know I have painted with very broad strokes, so all you two-kingdom folks and neo-Kuyperians feel free to make a better case for your position than I have laid out here.

HT: Ted Kluck

I am not a fan of the word diversity. It’s not that I am against experiencing different cultures, tastes, and personalities. It’s that I don’t know what people mean when they say “diversity.” Depending on whom you talk to, diversity includes everything from relativism to racial harmony to unrestrained personal expression. Diversity is a buzz word that embraces many good ideas, but has become synonymous with a lot of silly ideas too.

So I am not enamored with the (overused) word “diversity.” Nevertheless, I want to defend diversity in one important area: the songs that we sing in church. I believe it very good for our churches to sing songs from different eras, traditions, and styles.

Before I highlight four types of songs in particular, let me make four general comments. First, the songs that we sing in corporate worship must be biblically and theologically sound. No song gets a free pass just because its “diverse.” No matter how brilliant or moving or catchy the music, if the words stink, we shouldn’t sing it.

This leads to a second related comment. While we want to sing deep, theologically rich songs in our worship–songs about election, the Trinity, the atonement, God’s sovereignty–we don’t need to sing all of our theology in every song. To be sure, we don’t want lyrics to be misleading or present half-truths, but we can sing simple truths. If all we sing are the most basic biblical truths, we are not doing justice to the whole counsel of God, but even a meal with roast and mashed potatoes needs a side salad and some jello. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with singing “Jesus Loves Me” or “We Love You Lord” or “God is Good All the Time.” These may not plumb the theological depths, but they do speak biblical truths and do so with childlike trust. Songs with 101-level truths should not be the staple of our musical diet, but they should be on our plate.

Third, the quest for musical diversity should not remove the particularity of a church’s worship. That is, it’s ok for Oakdale Community Church to be Oakdale Community, for First Baptist to be First Baptist, for worshipers in a remote Indian village to worship like, well, Indians. One of the problems with diversity as it’s sometimes construed is that it actually works against genuine diversity. Instead of people groups or churches enjoying their distinctiveness, they dabble (superficially usually) in every other culture. The result is that, in the name of diversity, every church or people ends up looking like the same multicultural experiment.

But let me hasten to add a final general comment. While it is wholly appropriate for a church to have a musical “center,” this does not mean we should only sing from that “center.” As I heard a speaker say recently, it’s fine (and inevitable) for a church to have a culture and tradition, but we must recognize that we have a culture lest we become enslaved to it. What I am arguing for is something in between the cutting edge and the status quo. On the one hand, churches need to sing familiar songs if the congregational singing is to be hearty and engaged. On the other hand, churches need to be pushed to learn new songs outside their “center.” As D.A. Carson puts it, “The importance of intelligibility (in music, let us say) must therefore be juxtaposed with the responsibility to expand the limited horizons of one narrow tradition.”

With that in mind, and in pursuit of a right kind of diversity, let me mention four different “traditions” of songs that we should be (and are, I think) singing.

Psalms
The Psalms have been the church’s songbook for two thousand years. They are also inspired by God and intended to be sung. It is sad, therefore, that so few churches in North America regularly sing Psalms. Some Christians groups sing only Psalms. That goes too far in my opinion, but inclusive Psalmnody is a grand idea. Singing the Psalms keeps us real as they give expression to the full range of human emotion–lament, joy, anguish, doubt, hope, longing, confusion, jubilation, contrition, and fear. The words of Carl Trueman, in his delightful essay “What Can Miserable Christians Sing?” are worth pondering: “By excluding the cries of loneliness, dispossession, and desolation from its worship, the church has effectively silenced and excluded the voices of those who are themselves lonely, dispossessed, and desolate, both inside and outside the church.” The Psalms are what miserable Christians can sing.

Hymns
“Hymns” is a broad category in which are dozens of different styles and traditions. I use the term loosely to refer to the songs we find in hymnals–songs from Wesley, Watts, and Winkworth (look her up; she may be in your hymnal a lot); songs from the early church, the Reformation, and the Great Awakening; songs from monks, Puritans, and evangelists. Hymns are not perfect (e.g., “my faith has found a resting place not in device nor creed”), but they have at least three advantages over newer songs.

One, hymns, because hymnals have notes on a page and because their melodies are more geared for keys on a piano as opposed to a note in a guitar chord, are often more singable by large groups.

Two, hymns, because they have been around for decades and usually centuries, have undergone more weeding out. The chaff has been sifted and the wheat has remained. If Christians have sung a song for 1500 years, chances are there’s something good about it. Most hymns are simply better musically, lyrically, and theologically than most newer songs.

Third, hymns link us with the past and the communion of the saints from all generations. Hymns guard us against our cultural blindspots and historical idiosyncracies.

Contemporary Songs
Like “hymns,” “contemporary songs” is a term so broad as to be almost meaningless. By contemporary music I mean chronologically, songs written since I’ve been alive; stylistically, songs you might hear on the radio; and musically, songs that probably use guitar, drums, keyboard or some combination thereof. Many conservative Christians, including some I really respect, can be very hard on contemporary music–calling it happy clappy music, or 7-11 songs (7 words sung 11 times), or me-centered theology. Undoubtedly, you can find new songs to fit all those put-downs. But there are good reasons for singing new contemporary songs (which are sometimes just old hymns put to newer music–like some of the Passion songs and the entire RUF movement). Not only do newer songs sometimes give voice to a younger generation’s way of expression, they can be powerfully true and theologically rich. One thinks of songs like Matt Redman’s “Blessed be Your Name,” or Towend and Getty's “In Christ Alone,” or Graham Kendrick’s “Knowing You” or the stuff from Sovereign Grace. In fact, some of the contemporary songs are actually quite hymnic.

No generation of Christians has the right to stop including new songs. Imagine if the church stopped singing new songs after the Reformation just because the songs were new. No “And Can it Be,” no “Amazing Grace,” no “Holy, Holy, Holy.” What a pity! Thankfully, the last meaty, good song for corporate worship has not yet been written. And thanfully, the worship music today is more mature, more God-centered, and more singable than it was a decade or two agoa.

Non-Anglo Songs
This category is completely artificial I admit. There is no “non-Anglo” tradition of music. There are Spanish songs and Zulu chants and African-American spirituals, but these are traditions all their own, deserving of a name that is much more than just a description of what they are not–non-Anglo. But even using this clumsy category I think you can understand my point. We should be singing songs that aren’t from the majority culture at our churches (writing from my perspcetive as a white man from a majority white church).

Singing non-Anglo songs (with translation if necessary) is good for us not only because it broadens our horizons, but because we are not all white Anglo-Saxons! We may not ever sing “just like the black church downtown,” or “just like my church back in Nigeria.” That’s not the point. I am not embarrassed that I like Isaac Watts, but neither should I be embarrassed to clap along with a spiritual or stumble my way through a Spanish chorus. Singing these songs has many benefits. It guards us against resting smugly in our own tradition or preferences; it reminds us that God is a God of all peoples; and it gives voice to other traditions in our midst.

I am not arguing for a mechanical implementation of Psalms, hymns, contemporary songs, and non-Anglo songs. We should not make one week Psalms and another week non-Anglo songs, and we don’t have to get all four categories in every service. But singing from these four traditions, as we often do, is good for our church, not least of all because no one can claim absolutely “they use my kind of music here.” Then, Christ–sung in our songs, called up in our prayers, and heralded in the preaching–will be the glue that holds us together, and not music. That’s the kind of unity in diversity worth celebrating.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church, but Martin Downes' collection of interviews proved to be a wise and insightful read. I really enjoyed this book. The interviews, with men like Carl Trueman, Tom Schreiner, Mark Dever, Michael Horton, Greg Beale, Joel Beeke, and Ligon Duncan, were so fascinating that I read the 247 books in two sittings. Admittedly, I am a sucker for interviews, especially interviews with pastors and theologians I respect. But non-pastors and non-academics can benefit from this book too.

You won't agree with every line, just like those being interviewed don't always agree with each other, but there is a remarkable similarity in the general approach to truth and error given by these men: preach the Bible, don't neglect your own heart, don't spend all your time on controversy, test your theology against historic creeds and confessions, beware of pride.

Here are a few specific highlights:

Martin Downes on the blessing and danger of the reformed resurgence:
In many ways this is a sign of both growth and decay. It signals remarkable growth in the influence of reformed theology. Many are turning to it having found that much generic evangelicalism has drifted at one edge into superficiality and at the other into theological convictions antithetical to the fundamentally reformed orientation of classical evangelicalism. Today – not least among younger men and women – the importance of doctrine, seriousness of spirituality, and a recover of biblical exposition, have all become major desiderata in the movements with which they want to be identified.

Over the centuries when God has purposed a fresh work he has often brought together brotherhoods or networks of Christian leaders to point the way forwards. This is in some measure happening in our own day. To use the language of 2 Samuel 5:24, there is ‘the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam tree ...’ and a sense that ‘the Lord has gone out before you’.
It is, therefore, an exciting time to be reformed.

But exciting times can also be testing times. New energy and zeal are often accompanied by short roots that do not go down deeply into the soil. The discovery of new doctrine can easily lead to imbalance. It can propel an individual into an unhealthy desire always to hold something new. But the highway to novelty is also the road to deviation (10-11).

Martin Downes on the difference between error and heresy: One writer defines it as ‘any teaching that directly contradicts the clear and direct witness of the Scriptures on a point of salvific importance.’ Heresy is the kind of doctrinal error that is so serious that it redefines the gospel. But not all errors are heresies. A heretic is not someone who fails to explain adequately the doctrine of the Trinity, or that Jesus is both fully God an fully man, the nature of the atonement, or justification by faith alone. No, a heretic denies these truths and is fundamentally unsubmissive to apostolic doctrine and authority as it is given in Scripture (21).

Sean Michael Lucas on putting cultural transformation in its proper place:
It must be said that a desire for mercy and justice, for cultural transformation, and genuine community are proper in their place, but if they are not rooted in a prior individual vital communion with God through Christ by the Spirit in the Word, then they will finally lead to moralism and theological decline (125).

Conrad Mbewe on the best way for ministers to oppose error:
Again, I go back to consecutive expository preaching. Let us simply teach the Word of God regularly, in its own context, and we shall find that we will not be preoccupied with error. We will be overwhelmed with the grandeur and beauty of the truth, as set forth in the Scriptures, that we will be lost in wonder, love and praise to God for this truth instead of starting at anything that moves, for fear that it may be erroneous. We will also have a passion for the truth without necessarily being trigger-happy and sniffing out error under every bush and shrub. So, I repeat my appeal for consecutive expository preaching (154).

Geoffrey Thomas on the right balance of feeding sheep and fighting wolves:
For every single word addressed to the wolf give ten words to the sheep (159).

Geoffrey Thomas on NPP:
For the last few years people have come to me and said, ‘What exactly is the New Perspective on the Apostle Paul?’ How difficult it has been to answer them. I can answer now better than three years ago, but that debate is for the mandarins, and increasingly the paedo-baptist mandarins, not the people I preach to who need to understand and glory in the free justification of the New Testament (161).

Michael Ovey on how smart people succumb to serious errors:
I think there are three things that spring to mind. First, pride: in particular perhaps a pride of intellect that insists God should have said this rather than that, and therefore squeezes the Scripture into one’s own system. Secondly, boredom: I think there is a spiritual malaise that has a sense of ennui at the presentation of simple gospel truths (Christ died for my sin, Christ rose again, He is the ascended Lord) and wants, so to speak, to explore the periphery of Christian theology. I think there is a cultural spirit in our time that loves the new and loves the esoteric. Thirdly, we can embrace error because we want to justify what we are doing: simple immorality over the years has led many of us astray (180).

Martin Downes quoting James Buchanan on how to refute error for the long haul:
It has long been my firm conviction, that the only effective refutation of error is the establishment of truth. Truth is one, error is multiform; and truth, once firmly established, overthrows all the errors that either have been, or may yet be, opposed to it. He who exposes and expels an error, does well; but it will only return in another form, unless the truth has been so lodged in the heart as to shut it out for ever (238).

This is a wise book and a quick read. Pastors and scholars especially would do well to pick up a copy.

Reading again through the Monday Morning interview with Jeff McAlvey, a godly lobbyist from our church, got me thinking about some of my favorite political speeches.