Reformed Baptist Fellowship

What Should I Think of the church?

Many people in our day have an indifferent, negative, or even hostile attitude towards the church, while claiming to be Christians – that is, followers of Christ.
Are such attitudes compatible with being a Christian?  As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must have the same attitude towards the church, and commitment to it, that He has. Therefore, we must ask the question: What does Christ think of His church? Three passages make the answer to that question clear:
1. Christ Loves His Church. Eph 5:25 says “… Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”
2. Christ Is Building His Church. In Matt 16:18, Jesus says “… I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
3. Christ Indwells His Church. In Matt 18:20, Jesus says of His church “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Therefore, if we believe that Christ loves His church, is building His church, and indwells His church, then that will define our attitude toward the church as well: we will love Christ’s church, we will seek to build up Christ’s church, and we will be in the midst of Christ’s church whenever it gathers for its stated meetings.
Christ’s work and mission is centered on His church. Therefore, as disciples of Christ, we must center our lives on that which Christ centered His life on. A Christ centered Christian is a church centered Christian, because that is where Christ centers His love, His work, and His presence.
It says of the Lord Jesus in John 2:17, “…The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” May we too be consumed with zeal for “…the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

Pastor Max Doner

Sovereign Grace Bible Church

Lebanon, Oregon

the Idolatrous Religion of Conscience will Damn you!

The Idolatrous Religion of Conscience — A Lutheran Lesson for Us All

 

“It wasn’t primarily about sex.” With those words, Lutheran theologian Robert Benne explained that the actions recently taken by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to normalize homosexuality were not primarily about sex at all, but about theological identity. “The ELCA has formally left the great tradition for liberal Protestantism,” Benne declared.

Taking its stand with the radical theological revisionism of the Protestant Left, the ELCA “left the Great Tradition of moral teaching to identify with United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church,” Benne lamented.

Writing in Christianity Today, Benne argued that his denomination had abandoned the Gospel for a social gospel. “The liberating movements fueled by militant feminism, multiculturalism, anti-racism, anti-heterosexism, anti-imperialism, and now ecologism have been moved to the center while the classic gospel and its missional imperatives have been pushed to the periphery.”

Benne, director of the Roanoke College Center for Religion and Society, offers a first-hand account of what took place in Minneapolis in August as the ELCA met for its Church Wide Assembly. The actions were sweeping in scope and effect. The ELCA voted to allow churches to call partnered homosexuals as ministers and then adopted a Social Statement on Sexuality (which passed by one vote) which insists that the Bible offers no clear teaching on homosexuality.
As the smoke now begins to clear from the votes in Minneapolis, a larger issue comes clearly into focus — the authority of the “bound conscience.”

As Robert Benne explains, the ELCA’s authority-smashing actions were made possible by the denomination’s adoption of a “bound conscience” principle that, in effect, means that anyone can believe almost anything and demand a place at the table, if they claim that their belief is rooted in a “bound conscience.”

Mark Hanson, the ELCA’s Presiding Bishop, explained that the “bound conscience” principle calls upon all Lutherans to respect the “bound consciences” of those with whom they disagree. Documents released or adopted by the ELCA explained in multiple ways that a conflict of interpretations concerning the Bible should not lead to a break in fellowship. For example:

The very fact that several different positions may be bound to Scripture means that we cannot assert one interpretation of Scripture over another but are called to respect consciences in the community of faith on this matter. The emphasis of “conscience-bound” is not on declaring oneself to be conscience-bound; rather it is that we recognize the conscience-bound nature of the convictions of others in the community of Christ.

In the case of the ELCA, the “several different positions” included the entire spectrum of positions on an issue as controversial and important as same-sex unions. The Social Statement on Sexuality affirmed no less than four “conscience-bound” positions within the church. The positions, all claimed as “conscience-bound,” ranged from the rejection of same-sex marriage to its outright acceptance. This affirms Robert Benne’s judgment that the church now has “no authoritative biblical or theological guidance” on a crucial theological and pastoral issue.

Though the issue of sexuality garnered media attention, the theological issue of “bound-conscience” is more fundamental. In accepting this principle, these Lutherans effectively abandoned any claim of normative instruction from the Bible. On an issue of such crucial pastoral and moral importance, the ELCA offers an entire range of contradictory positions, each of which is now to be “respected” because someone holding it claims to be bound by conscience.

Of course, any serious person declaring a position on any important issue will (and should) claim to be bound by conscience. The alternative to this is to suggest or to admit one’s position to be both baseless and insincere.  All sides in a theological controversy claim to be bound by conscience. This claim settles nothing and, on its own, leads to ecclesiastical disaster. The church simply surrenders to the autonomous individualism so prized by the larger culture and abdicates any authority to speak the truth.

The concept of being bound by conscience goes directly back to Martin Luther, the great Reformer who established what became known as the Lutheran tradition. On more than one famous occasion, Luther publicly took his stand and held his ground, claiming that his conscience was bound by the Word of God. He most famously made this case as he stood on trial before the Diet of Worms on April 18, 1521. Before the impaneled church leaders and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Luther declared:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason …,  I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.”

Of course, Luther was not merely claiming to be bound by conscience. He was specifically claiming that his conscience was bound by the word of God. Luther, unlike the ELCA, believed that the Scriptures offer a very clear presentation of the Gospel and of moral and theological teachings. Luther affirmed the inspiration, authority, sufficiency, and clarity of the word of God and he took his stand on the authority of Scripture alone. The Word of God bound his conscience by its clear teaching.


Indeed, Luther was very suspicious of the human conscience. In the main, he was convinced that sin had so warped the capacity of conscience that it actually functions in most persons to foster a works religion which is the very opposite of the Gospel. The conscience makes the sinner aware of doing wrong, but then suggests works as a way of earning God’s good pleasure. As Randall C. Zachman documents in his important work, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Luther was convinced that the conscience uncorrected by Scripture would lead to “the idolatrous religion of conscience.”
In Luther’s own words: “God wants our conscience to be certain and sure that it is pleasing to Him. This cannot be done if the conscience is led by its own feelings, but only if it relies on the Word of God.”

Thus, the ELCA’s new principle of “bound-conscience” actually embraces and leads to what Martin Luther most feared — a burlesque of conflicting consciences without accountability to the Scriptures.
The point was not lost on many Lutheran observers.  Retired ELCA Bishop Paull Spring of State College, PA, chairman of the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee, a group opposed to the ELCA’s radically liberal direction, noted: “In its emphasis on conscience, the task force forgot that Luther was not talking about his own right to his own opinion. He was declaring his commitment and allegiance to the Word of God.” He added: “It is exactly the opposite of the task force’s idea of conscience as one’s personal beliefs. They are encouraging the strange notion of a bound conscience as nothing more than individualism.”

The idea of a bound conscience is deadly dangerous unless the conscience is bound by the Word of God. Those who would claim a bound conscience but pervert, deny, subvert, or relativize the Word may indeed be bound by conscience. But a conscience bound by anything other than the Word of God is a conscience given over to idolatry.

This is a Lutheran lesson we all desperately need to learn. And Martin Luther himself deserves the last word:

“It is the nature of all hypocrites and false prophets to create a conscience where there is none, and to cause conscience to disappear where it does exist.”

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I am always glad to hear from listeners and readers.  Write me at mail@albertmohler.com.  Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

ELCA says screw God, we seek cultural acceptability!

What Would Luther Say? — A Church Apologizes for Church Discipline

(For non-Lutherans ELCA means - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)

The great moral revolution on the issue of homosexuality collides with the total surrender of a liberal denomination, and the result is the church’s apology for having once stood on biblical grounds. That was the picture just a few days ago, when the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America welcomed three lesbian ministers into the clergy roster through a “Rite of Reception” ceremony held last Saturday at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul, Minnesota.

As the Star Tribune reported: “In a ceremony that started with a public mea culpa and ended with a prolonged standing ovation, three lesbian ministers were officially embraced Saturday by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.”

This comes in the wake of the denomination’s vote this past summer to rescind a policy that prevented clergy in homosexual relationships from being listed on the church’s official clergy roster. Since then, conservatives have moved to organize a new Lutheran denomination.

The most interesting part of the “Rite of Reception” was a confession voiced by the congregation. Look closely at this:

We have fallen short in honoring all people of God and being an instrument for that grace. . . .We have disciplined, censured and expelled when we should have listened, learned and included.
That’s right — the church actually confessed the “sin” of having once stood on biblical ground and the “sin” of exercising church discipline.

Given their new policy on homosexuality, it is the one who affirms the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality that is called to repent, rather than the unrepentant homosexual.
What would Martin Luther say? It would doubtless be colorful and thunderous. But here is something he did say that fits the situation perfectly:

“You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you.”

AMEN, AMEN pastor Luther!

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Jeff Strickler, “Anita Hill, Two Other Lesbians in Committed Relationships Welcomed as ELCA Pastors,” The Star Tribune [Minneapolis, MN], Sunday, September 19, 2010.

Anglicans - the new Agnostics!

When the Lights Go Out: The Death of a Denomination

When a church forfeits its doctrinal convictions and then embraces ambiguity and tolerates heresy, it undermines its own credibility and embraces its own destruction.

 

Adrian Hamilton is concerned that the Church of England “will not survive my children’s lifetime and quite possibly not even my own.” Writing in The Independent [London], Hamilton writes of a Church of England that remains established as the national church, but is no longer established in the hearts of the nation.
Interestingly, Hamilton argues that the very fact that the Church of England is an established state church is among the chief causes of its predicament. For most Britons, he argues, the role of the nation’s state church means very little — “some exotic clothes and ritual prayers on state occasions.”
And yet, what Hamilton notes most of all is this: “What is really worrying for the future of the Church, however, is that its leaders themselves seem to have ceased to believe in it.”

Hamilton is not a conservative. He rather smugly dismisses controversies over sexuality and gender. Those debates are not killing the church, he argues. Instead, it is the unspeakable apathy that marks the British people with regard to their state church. “The majority of people are quite happy to profess themselves Christian and Anglican,” he says. “It’s easier to accept than asserting a different faith. But they are not so happy to go to church services or take an active part in its activities.”
Consider this assessment:

The figures are truly dire. While non-Christian faiths have grown stronger and the evangelical Christian churches flourish, the story in the Church of England has been one of almost continuous decline since the war. 

Despite a series of initiatives such as Back to Church Sunday and some improvement in the numbers of young people participating in church activities, attendance figures amongst Anglicans have dropped by some 10 per cent over the last decade. Only 1.1m people, some 2 per cent of the population, attend church on a weekly basis, and only 1.7m, or 3 per cent, once a month. This in spite of the fact that around half the population still profess themselves Anglicans.

The decline in paid clergy has been even more rapid. On the Church’s own statistics, the beginning of the new millennium has already seen a fall in over 20 per cent to barely 8,000. On present trends clergy would disappear altogether within half a century.

This is a stark portrait of a church in deep trouble. The status of the Church of England as the established national church has granted its leaders a false sense of security and importance. There are more principled reasons to oppose the very idea of an established church, but this practical effect is no small matter.

The formality of state occasions may provide drama and a sense of vitality, but these are masks. How many in the congregation gathered for last week’s royal wedding knew any of the words to the great hymns that were sung? Only three percent of the nation’s population attends Church of England services even once a month. Given current trends, few Anglican parishes will have ministers in just a few decades. Like many other historic churches and denominations, the Church of England is passing through decline, and it faces nothing short of demise unless these trends are somehow reversed.
As valid as the institutional question of establishment may be, the more important factor in this pattern of decline is theological. Churches and denominations decline when they lose or forfeit their passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the Bible as the enduring, authoritative, and totally truthful Word of God. If life and death are no longer understood to hang in the balance, there is little reason for the British people to worry about anything related to Christianity. If a church is not passionate about seeing sinners come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if there is no powerful biblical message from its pulpits, then it is destined for decline and eventual disappearance.
When a church forfeits its doctrinal convictions and then embraces ambiguity and tolerates heresy, it undermines its own credibility and embraces its own destruction.
Hamilton is surely right about one thing. It is true that the Church of England’s disastrous controversies over gender and sexuality are not the causes of the church’s decline. They are instead symptoms of a far deeper theological disease.

Hamilton’s closing words bear close scrutiny: “The Church of England was founded as a political act against the wishes of much of the population and is now dying out of political irrelevance and popular unconcern. History, as we know, moves on, taking no prisoners.”

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I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler
Adrian Hamilton, “Will the Last Person to Leave the Church of England Please Turn Out the Lights,” The Independent, Monday, April 18, 2011.
Image: The Coronation of Queen Victoria at Westminster Abbey, London, June 28, 1838.

All roads lead to Heaven, right? WRONG! by my hero, Al Mohler

All Roads Lead to Heaven? — Kathleen Parker Does Theology

The column by Kathleen Parker is yet another signpost of the current age and the worldview of the secularized classes. In their view, what evangelicals believe about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is just out of bounds and embarrassing.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

What catches the attention of a columnist for The Washington Post? A recent column by Kathleen Parker indicates that theology has become a focus of national attention. Kathleen Parker used her column in The Washington Post to take on Franklin Graham and his belief that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation.

Parker began her column with the fact that Franklin Graham prayed outside the Pentagon last Thursday, rather than inside, having been dis-invited by the Pentagon as the speaker for its scheduled National Day of Prayer service. Graham, you will remember, was dis-invited because of statements he made about Islam — statements directly referenced by the Army spokesman as “not appropriate.”

Those statements made clear reference to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only message of salvation, to Christ as the only Savior, and to Islam as an evil belief system that pulls millions away from faith in Christ and delivers no hope of salvation. In a later interview, Graham made his point about the uniqueness of the Christian Gospel, adding Hinduism as another example of a false religion.

All this was too much for Kathleen Parker, who asked: “Oh well, it doesn’t matter where one prays, right? All prayers lead to heaven. Or do they?”

She took direct aim at Franklin Graham’s theology, arguing that “Graham’s views didn’t sit very well with secular Americans or even non-evangelical Christians.” Well, probably not — and that serves to indicate what makes evangelical Christianity distinct from secular Americans and secularized Christianity.

But, Parker advised her readers, evangelicals are not likely to hold onto this belief for long. In her words:

Graham isn’t alone in his views. A survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors, conducted by an evangelical polling firm, found that 47 percent agree that Islam is “a very evil and a very wicked religion.” But such opinions may be confined mostly to an older generation. Evangelicals under 30 believe that there are many ways to God, not just through Jesus.

In essence, Kathleen Parker was advising secular America that the distinctive evangelical belief in the necessity of belief in Christ for salvation has a generational expiration date stamped on it. She then cites research by David Campbell of Notre Dame and Robert Putman of Harvard indicating that “nearly two-thirds of evangelicals under 35 believe non-Christians can go to heaven, vs. 39 percent of those over 65.”

So, even as secular Americans are expected to recoil in horror at the idea that there are Christians who still believe that faith in Jesus is the only way of salvation, they are given the hope that the coming generation of younger evangelicals will abandon that conviction and follow the path set by (God-hating) Liberalism. There are signs she may be right, but this would mean the surrender of the Gospel.

But Kathleen Parker is not finished with her argument. She then turns to Fingerprints of God, a recent book by Barbara Bradley Hagerty of National Public Radio. Hagerty cites neuroscience as giving evidence of a “God-spot” in the brain that supposedly indicates that all religious beliefs are the same:

Her research led to some startling conclusions that have caused no small amount of Sturm und Drang among those who believe theirs is the one true way. She found that whether one is a Sikh, a Catholic nun, a Buddhist monk or a Sufi Muslim, the brain reacts to focused prayer and meditation much in the same way. The same parts light up and the same parts go dark during deep meditation.

Well, no Sturm und Drang here, Mrs. Parker. This neuroscience may tell us something about the operation of the brain, but it tells us nothing of theological importance. It might indicate that certain religious practices have similar effects in the brain, but it tells us nothing about which theological beliefs are true. The evidence from neuroscience is of interest in this respect only to those who believe that all religious experience is merely a reflection of biology — and if you believe this, you are not concerned about heaven or hell at all.

Kathleen Parker’s column is indeed revealing. But the most revelatory aspect of her essay is its unmasked hostility toward any belief that there is only one way of salvation. This is the so-called “scandal of particularity” that causes so much secular offense. In recent years, the Roman Catholic Church has officially embraced forms of inclusivism in order to reduce this burden, and Liberalism has embraced just about every relativistic alternative, from outright universalism to various forms of inclusivism, in which people are believed to be saved through Christ, but not through any conscious knowledge of Him. The universalists argue that all religions lead to the same truth. Inclusivists argue that all faiths eventually lead to Christ, even if He is not known. Both are repudiations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The column by Kathleen Parker is yet another signpost of the current age and the worldview of the secularized classes. In their view, what evangelicals believe about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is just out of bounds and embarrassing.

But, she tells her readers, don’t worry — younger evangelicals are going to put that belief far behind them.

Is she right?

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I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

Kathleen Parker, “The Quest to Sort Out Competing and Comparable Religions,” The Washington Post, Sunday, May 9, 2010.

MILITANT ARMINIANS UNITE! BEHIND HERESY?

As Baptists Prepare to Meet, Calvinism Debate Shifts to Heresy Accusation

Hundreds, including seminary presidents, have signed a statement on salvation criticized by both Reformed and Arminian theologians.

Weston Gentry & CHRISTIANITY TODAY

[ posted 6/18/2012 10:17AM ]

A

A statement by {militant Arminians} aka a non-Calvinist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has launched infighting within the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and tensions are expected to escalate Tuesday as church leaders descend on New Orleans.

While the election of the denomination's first African American president in its 167-year history will dominate the meeting's headlines, water-cooler talk is sure to be fixated on a theological dirty word that, for the past two weeks, has spiked the blood pressure of theologians as much as it has Baptist visits to Wikipedia.

The May 30 document, "A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God's Plan of Salvation," aims "to more carefully express what is generally believed by Southern Baptists about salvation." (FYI “traditional SB understanding” is expressed in the 1689 Baptist Confession and as its biblical its also extremely Calvanistic) But both Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler and George W. Truett Theological Seminary professor Roger Olson, in separate blog posts, said that parts of the document sound like semi-Pelagianism, a heretical understanding of Christian salvation.

One sliver of the document's second article particularly drew their ire. It reads, "We deny that Adam's sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person's free will."

Even though the two scholars represent opposite ends of the evangelical spectrum on salvation, both made essentially the same allegation: the wording seems, at best, theologically careless and, at worst, represents a heretical understanding of sin, human nature, and the human will.

"This is what many laypeople believe that they shouldn't, and pastors and theologians should be correcting," Olson said. "My surprise is that the framers of this statement didn't immediately go back and rewrite it because it is so obviously and blatantly semi-Pelagian."

Olson, a classical Arminian and author of the book Against Calvinism, is unaffiliated with the SBC, but has long asserted that most evangelicals—not just Southern Baptists—adhere to a sort of semi-Pelagian "folk religion," whose origins can be traced to the Second Great Awakening and revivalists in the mold of Charles Finney. He believes the new document proves his thesis. (In my experience in American Churches its true most are Free-will Pelagian & Free-will Semi-Pelagian heretics)

"Traditional Christian doctrine has always been that people need a special infusion of God's grace to be able to respond to the gospel—both Calvinists and classical Arminians agree on that," he said. "They haven't addressed that here at all."

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, denies the charge.

"We are obviously not semi-Pelagians," Patterson said. "We do believe that the entire human race is badly affected by the fall of Adam. However, we don't follow the Reformed view that man is so crippled by the fall that he has no choice."Patterson didn't assist in the framing of the document, but was one of six former SBC presidents and two SBC seminary presidents to affirm it. At last count, more than 650 other Southern Baptists, ranging from laymen to SBC state directors, have signed the more specific articulation of a "Traditional Southern Baptist" soteriology in an effort to rebuff the "New Calvinism"—a movement whose growth, both in and beyond the SBC, garnered it a spot on Time's 2009 list of "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now." (Proving that my beloved SBC is full of Free-will Pelagian & Free-will Semi-Pelagian heretics)

A just-released survey conducted by LifeWay Research found that roughly equal numbers of SBC pastors identify their congregation as Calvinist/Reformed (30%) or Arminian/Wesleyan (30%). More than 60 percent are concerned about Calvinism's influence on the denomination.

A 2006 Lifeway survey found that only 10 percent of SBC pastors identified themselves as "five-point Calvinists." However, a similar 2007 study of young ministers by the SBC's North American Mission Board discovered that almost 35 percent of SBC ministers that graduated from SBC seminaries in 2004 and 2005 self-identified as "five-point Calvinists."

"We needed to assure other young, non-Calvinists that they were not alone," Patterson said in relation to the document's timing and content. Eric Hankins, the primary author of the statement, said he expected backlash when he posted it to the SBC Today website.

"The statement's language displeases our Calvinist and Arminian friends not because it is heterodox, but because their terminology and categories are not employed," he said. "That's all the charge of semi-Pelagianism really means: 'You aren't following our rules. You have to pick.'" "Well," Hankins said, "we beg to differ." Hankins said his formulation, which was an adaptation of a paper he wrote for the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry earlier this year, "Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism: Toward a Baptist Soteriology," was an attempt to make a complex topic more accessible to pastors and laymen. (Oh, I get it; he’s saying don’t pick Christ or Thor, join the 3^rd way of Facist optomism and choose the new and improved “blended” god Chror! Or is it Thrist? Chose this day whom you would serve. Or listen to false teachers like - I don’t know Eric Hankins -  and make up your own god and then you can make up your god’s theology – making you and your imagination your new god!)

The 40-year-old pastor of First Baptist Church Oxford, Mississippi, said he doesn't see an immediate need to revise the statement because it wields no binding authority.

While acknowledging Hankins's right to produce the document, Owen Strachan, a 31-year-old assistant professor of Christian theology and church history at Boyce College, said many young Calvinists in the SBC believe it wasn't necessary because they already have a "big tent" theological agreement with non-Calvinists under the Baptist Faith & Message.

"I'm all for leaders finding ways to enfranchise these brothers and sisters [non-Calvinists in the SBC], but this statement is tough," he said. "It's a confrontational document, which effectively aims to push away many of us who love the SBC." There are no plans for an official salvation dialogue to take place at the conference this week, but Strachan said the meeting's democratic nature makes it ripe for an unpredictable agenda. "I don't necessarily think the floor of the convention would be the best place for the cool-headed, rational debate that this issue deserves," he said. "Even if doesn't come up, this has already created a sense of unease in the SBC." (AMEN!)

From my favorite Pres. Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn Podcast

How the “Worship Wars” Often Miss the Real Issue – by Michael Horton

Written by Michael Horton | Monday, May 28, 2012

The most important divide is over this question: Do we come to church primarily to receive or primarily to do something? In other words, is God not only the object but the primary actor in the service, or are we?

Where going to church was for most Americans the default setting, today it’s a conscious choice. Many churches tried wooing Boomers back with softness and smiles, affirming images of a God who is helpful for our life projects, and myriad activities for the kids. Many of their children and grandchildren are burned out on it all. Some head for the exit, toward Rome, the East, or the “spiritual but not religious” category. Others are calling the church to be less consumer-driven and to make God the focus.

For too long the “worship wars” have coalesced around style. These are not unimportant questions; how we worship says a lot about the object and significance of the event. However, all the sides (simplistically drawn between “traditionalists” and “contemporary-worship” advocates) in the debates share more in common than any do with the rationale of Reformation Christianity.
The most important divide is over this question: Do we come to church primarily to receive or primarily to do something? In other words, is God not only the object but the primary actor in the service, or are we?

I’ve heard some conservatives critique contemporary models for being “human-centered.” God isn’t there to make us happy or give us things; we’re there to bring him pleasure, to praise, worship, and serve him. I don’t actually think that most evangelicals disagree over that premise. It’s hard to make the case that people craving more congregational participation—longer “worship times” (“worship” now being equivalent to singing along with a praise band)—are merely consumers. Indeed, the sermons in many of these churches are pep talks filled with exhortations. They may be friendlier, but the goal is to get people to do something.

Actually, what has now come to be identified as “traditional” worship has more in common with “contemporary” worship than either has with historic practice. There are many examples, but the most important is their shared emphasis on the public service as something in which we (rather than God) are the primary actors. We are the subject of most of the action verbs. We come to church to praise, to worship, to express, to rededicate ourselves, to serve, and so forth. Even when we mention receiving something, it’s often merely so that we can do something: we learn our marching orders for the week. The Bible is our road map for life. Based on it to some extent, the sermon motivates us to follow the map.

Baptism illustrates our commitment to following Jesus and Communion provides an object lesson to help us reflect more deeply on how much we owe Jesus because of what he did for us on the cross.
Then the songs reinforce the idea: we’re here to do something for God and perhaps also for each other. We are the subject of the action. At most, the sermons, the liturgy and sacraments can be an occasion for us to think, reflect, feel, and act; they are very rarely treated as actual means of God’s action here and now.

Of course, we are the subject of action in the public service at appropriate points. We do confess our sins and our faith in Christ; we pray, give financial support to his work, and present our laments, petitions, and praise to the one who has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ.
But that’s just the point. When do we actually receive these spiritual blessings? Is there room in the service for God to give us anything when we’re doing all the talking, blessing, expressing and acting?
Far deeper than instruments and music styles, this divide is the real one. Historically at least, Reformed and Lutheran churches believed that the Triune God is the primary actor in the public service. That’s one reason it was called “divine service”: the Father, in Christ, by the Spirit, serving his people with his good gifts. We find it referred to as “the divine service” routinely in churches of the Reformation over much of their history.

Drawing on the biblical view of the public service as a covenantal event, Reformed churches have understood the Triune God as the primary actor. If the covenant of grace is based on God’s unchangeable promise, with Christ as its mediator, then the public service is where this covenant is established and extended.

Here the risen Lord of the covenant assembles his people to bless, convict, absolve, instruct, guide, and send them out into the world as “a kingdom of priests to our God” (Rev 5:9). The key moments in this covenantal event are God’s speech, baptism, and Communion—in each case, God being the actor. The very media themselves indicate that we are recipients of the action.
In every covenant, there are two parties. In the covenant of works, God delivers the commands, with attending threats for disobedience and promises for obedience. The spotlight is on the people who swear the covenant, “All this we will do!”

In the covenant of grace, however, the spotlight is on the Triune God. He is the oath-maker, assuming the ultimate responsibility for realizing its goal. There are also commands; however, they are not conditions for inheriting the family estate, but the “reasonable response” of God’s people “in view of his mercies” (Rom 12:1). In the covenant of grace, God has allowed himself to be put on trial—even to be convicted by his own just law, fulfilling its conditions, bearing its sentence for our transgressions, and being raised as the beginning of the new creation.

In the public service, this is not just a story we talk about; it is actually happening here and now. The kingdom of grace is landing in the middle of us, turning a barren desert into a lush garden. As the keys of the kingdom are exercised, God’s will is being done on earth as it is in heaven; prison doors are being unlocked, releasing captives. God himself is walking through the animal pieces cut to seal his oath (see Gen 15).

It is the new covenant, which is not like the Sinai covenant that Israel swore and transgressed (Hos 6:7; Jer 31:32-35). It is the new covenant in Christ’s blood, which he shed at Calvary and now gives to us as the source of forgiveness. Our Lord’s words and actions in the Upper Room are re-enacted in the regular preaching and celebration of the Supper.

In this public service, we are always passive in relation to God—receiving everything as a gift. God addresses us, here and now, with his commands and promises. He doesn’t just tell us about forgiveness, but forgives us through the ministry of fellow sinners who themselves need forgiveness. He does not take away our speaking parts in the script, but gives us a new script with himself as the central actor—and by his Spirit loosens our tongues to speak his praises.

We do have a role in this covenantal event. It is not only the role of hearing and receiving, but also of praising and pledging. However, the latter are our reasonable response to God’s saving work, not conditions for it. In other words, the benefit of this Lord’s Day assembly is based on God’s work for us, not on our work for God. When we say, “This was a really great day at church,” we don’t mean that the choir or praise band was especially good, or even that the preacher was especially motivational. Rather, we mean—or should mean, “Our God did it again today—the holy Father aquitted us by his grace, clothed in his Son, giving us every spiritual blessing in Christ by the Spirit, through his Word and sacraments.”

It is significant that faith is attributed in Scripture to the Spirit through proclamation of the Word (specifically, the gospel); that baptism is effectual not because it is our pledge, but because it is God’s—we don’t baptize ourselves, but are baptized by Christ through his minister; that Communion is effectual not because of our imagination and intensity of commitment, but because through it believers actually receive Christ with all his gifts. These are means of grace.

However, where the sermon is primarily a “to-do” list and baptism and the Supper are primarily our means of commitment and re-commitment, respectively; where the “worship time” (i.e., music) encourages us to focus on our love, our praise, our promises, our sacrifices, the covenant being ratified takes place closer to Mount Sinai than to Mount Zion. It is more like a kingdom that we are building than one that we are receiving (see Hebrews 12:25-29). For this covenant and the public service it ratifies, Christ becomes more of a facilitator than a mediator.

Consider the argument of Dan Kimball in Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004). Kimball urges, “…we need to recognize that going to a worship service is not about us, the worshipers. It is not about God’s service to us. It is purely our offering of service and worship to God—offering our lives, offering our prayers, offering our praise, offering our confessions, offering our finances, offering our service to others in the church body” (3).
What Kimball is reacting against especially is a consumer-driven model, where we come to church to “get something out of it.” However, where his answer seems to be to make the service more about what we give than what we receive, I’m convinced that more scriptural way to talk about it is to say that we come to have God tell us what we really need (regardless of our “felt needs”) and to give us what we need most.

The problem that properly concerns him—namely, consumerism—is not solved by making it all about what we do! How does saying it’s all about what we do counter the problem he identifies correctly of making us rather than God the center? (Elsewhere, Kimball has criticized the Reformation for identifying the “marks of the church” with preaching and sacraments, precisely because it defines the church as a place where God is doing certain things rather than a people who do certain things.)

How can one say that the worship service “is not about us” and then categorically deny that it’s “about God’s service to us” and instead say that “It is purely our offering” to God?
This even affects the horizontal aspect of the service. There’s a big difference between saying God meets with us and saying that we meet with God. Who called the meeting? Whose agenda? Is God being included in our fellowship or is our fellowship constituted by God’s including us in his great plan for the ages in Christ? According to Kimball, leaders should ask, “Is this environment and what we do allowing us to become more intense worshippers of God?” (115).

Similarly, Sally Morganthaler suggests that this approach means that “worship experience emerge from the people themselves,” rather than “the generic wrapper” (I think she means liturgy.) [1]
Again, the cure seems worse than the disease. How can the solution to human-centeredness be found in my determining with other sinners means of more intense worship and more “worship experience” emerging from the very people, like me, who need to be saved from ourselves and our experience? Does God even have a role to play in any of this? Is God nothing more than a passive spectator and recipients of our works? At least in traditional liturgies, there is usually a covenantal conversation: God’s speech-acts provoke a response. But if God is merely a passive recipient of our action, what can our own role be other than self-expression, drawing on our fund of personal experience rather than on the objective Word?

If I enter church regularly with the default setting of narcissism, consumerism, and so forth, then I don’t need better techniques, rules, or motivation for becoming a more intense worshiper of God; I need to be killed and made alive in Christ! “Emerging generations are hungering to experience God in worship,” Kimball says (116). That’s great! But isn’t that precisely why we need God to be the main actor?

If church services are merely places where we get our marching orders for the week, have a little fellowship, and offer our praises, money, and prayers, then why do we all need to actually show up every week to do this? What can be done here that cannot be done in all sorts of informal ways throughout the week? In fact, Kimball adds, “We adore the Lord all week, not just at ‘worship gatherings.’ Our minds, our hearts, our bodies, our marriages, our families, our jobs—everything should be offered to him in worship. This includes what we think about, what we do, what we say, what we eat, and what we spend time doing—they are all acts of worship.”

“It is offering our love, our adoration, and our praise to him through all of our lives,” so it’s “extremely sad that we have trained people to think that worship primarily happens when they come to church and sing” (4-5). Our speaking parts (means of commitment), not God’s (means of grace), are the reason for going to church, in this view.

There are certainly many passages that affirm with Kimball that our worship is to be an expression of our daily lives—whether eating or drinking, working at the office, living with neighbors and family members, all to the glory of God.
However, that’s exactly why we need to be on the receiving end Lord’s Day. Before we can be active in good works, we must be recipients of grace. On the Lord’s Day, we have a foretaste of that everlasting rest that is already ours objectively in Christ. We are served by God, and then God serves our neighbors through us in the world throughout the week. We come to church because the Creator and Redeemer has called us to assemble. He has something to tell us that will rock our world. It’s bad news and good news.

Through all of these words, he is performing miraculous wonders for, in and among us. Christ is present in our midst, in the power of his Spirit. Preaching and sacraments aren’t just more occasions for us to act, but means of the Father’s action, in his Son, by his Spirit. Even our own singing has as its chief purpose not mere self-expression, but making the word of Christ dwell in us richly, with thanksgiving in our hearts (Col 3:16; Eph 5:19).

In short, the problem in many of our churches today is not only that we aren’t God-centered enough. It’s that even in our attempt to be God-centered, the focus is on what we bring the table rather than actually being on God and that remarkable work that he is doing in delivering Christ to us with all of his benefits. Only when we recover the biblical emphasis on God’s ministry to us—where he has appointed, when he has appointed, and through the means that he has appointed, will the priority of God’s grace in his covenant mercies be central. And only when this is central is our desperate need for regular participation in this feast evident as well.

We come to church regularly not primarily to do something again, but to receive something again—and, yes, also to respond in gratitude. True enough: it isn’t about us, but it is for us. And a funny thing happens when we surrender to this divine charity: we actually become active again in faith and its fruit of love and service to others.

Michael S. Horton is Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary in California. This article first appeared  on the Seminary Blog and is used with permission.  

1. Sally Morganthaler, “Emerging Worship,” in Exploring the Worship Spectrum: Six Views, ed. Paul E. Engle and Paul A. Basden (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 229.

What is the Gospel? by Reformed Baptist Fellowship

What is the Gospel?

The word “gospel” simply means “good news.”  The gospel is the historic, revealed message concerning Jesus Christ. It is that record of events which focus upon Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for sinners. It is important to understand this as some Christians with good intentions maintain that believers should “live the gospel.”  Technically, one cannot live the good news of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for sinners – it is a message, it is a declaration, it is good news. One can live in light of it or one can let his conduct be worthy of it or one can pursue holiness; but to live out the events of Christ’s redemptive work on behalf of sinners, is simply not our calling. In 1 Cor 15, the Apostle Paul addresses the doctrine of the resurrection. In verses 1-4, he sets forth the gospel of Jesus Christ as the foundation for the argument that follows. We note several things concerning the gospel in this section of Scripture.

In the first place, the gospel is rooted in history. Before the foundation of the world, God decreed to save a people by His Son Jesus Christ. The gospel is the execution of that decree in history. Paul says that Christ died, was buried, and rose again. These are historic, dateable and non-repeatable events. In fulfillment of the Old Testament word of promise, Christ came in the fullness of the times, was born of a woman, and born under the law. He lived in obedience to the law of God, died to satisfy divine justice in the place of sinners, and rose again.

Secondly, the gospel is revealed by God. The Scripture speaks of two types of revelation, general and special. Ps 19 and Rom 1 set forth the truth that God reveals Himself to His image bearers through the created order. The heavens declare the glory of God (Ps 19:1) and what God has manifested of Himself to man leaves man without excuse for his sin and disobedience (Rom 1:19-20). However, general revelation does not communicate the necessity for blood atonement. It does not reveal the work of Christ on the cross for sinners. Special revelation is God’s having made Himself and His ways known through the Scriptures. Paul highlights this in 1 Cor 15:1-4 by indicating that Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection happened “according to the Scriptures” (vv.3,4). The work of Christ was not an after-thought or a reaction in the mind of God; the Old Testament conspicuously promised a coming Redeemer who would crush the head of Satan through His redemptive work which Christ carried out in His first coming.

Thirdly, the gospel is the record of Christ’s work for sinners. The Triune God is actively involved in salvation (Eph 1:3-14) and the gospel message is the outworking of the Father’s decree to save the elect. As well, it is the gospel that the Holy Spirit brings to bear upon the elect:  when sinners are born again by His power, they believe the gospel of Christ.  Because of this, the church and her preachers must set forth Christ in His person and in His work to all mankind. Paul determined to know nothing among the Corinthians “except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2); the modern church does well to imitate the Apostle.

Fourthly, the gospel is received by faith alone.  Christianity is not moralism; it is not a message of “try-harder” and you will be accepted by God.  The gospel addresses the root of the matter:  man before God is completely undone because of his sin.  There is no ability in the sinner to gain acceptance with God. The gospel is the revelation of the One who kept the law; who always did what pleased His Father; who died as a sacrifice and a substitute for His people.  The means by which His people are justified is through faith alone.  Paul highlights the role of faith in 1 Cor 15 — “which also you received [by faith] in which you stand” (v.1), “by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain” (v.2) and “so we preach and so you believe” (v.11).  Verse 2 also indicates the absolute necessity of the gospel for salvation, for if one does not believe and hold fast that word, one is not saved.[1]

The final observation is a very practical one:  the gospel is powerful to save the worst sinners.  In verse 9, Paul writes, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”  Paul declares in Rom 1:16 that the gospel “is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”  He highlights his own sinfulness in Gal 1:13 and makes a wonderful declaration in 1 Tim 1:15, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”  In light of these observations, we should praise God Almighty for His wonderful gospel!
Jim Butler, Pastor

sermon from Augustine of Hippo

BIRTHDAY OF CHRIST--INSOLUBLE PROBLEM OR INCREDIBLE DAY?

How shall I address you, my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ? What's the appropriate collective for a gathering of Christians? A Quorum or Quarum? A Choir or Quire? How about a Caritas, a Sanctitas, a Felicitas Ecclesiae? A Charity, a Sanctity, a Felicity Assembly? They have a nice ring, don't they?

It's December, my dear Charity in Christ. As I reminded you the last time we met, Christmas is fast approaching. And now that Christ has aroused our seasonal expectations, He'll soon fulfill them all!

But before I begin, may I offer my usual disclaimer. What I say here may appear to be mine, what with my mouthing the words and all, but as you know, nothing I say this morning is really mine. It's all God's, I assure you.

The Apostle Paul said much the same thing in his Second to the Corinthians (4:6-7). The Word of God is stashed in shapely earthen vessels--that's us--but there's no mistaking a jar of clay for the Word of God. And only when the pot is opened--need I say it?--does the Word pour out.

But I've digressed...

Last year, do you remember Christmas morning? You came to celebrate the solemn feast. I was sermonizing about the thorny problems in the genealogies of Christ when a strange thing happened. I looked up, and you'd all dozed off. Well, of course, I stopped instantly, promising I'd return to the sermon at some point in the future. And then another strange thing happened. You all woke up. Happily, we continued the liturgy together.

That day I prayed God I wouldn't forget my promise. Apparently, He's answered my humble petition. I've just remembered it, even if you didn't, and I'm ready to make good on my promise.

As for today, there's no particular feast to commemorate, and I can only hope that you're ready to hear me finish the sermon. I'll make every effort to speak clearly--I promise you that. And you're going to make every effort to stay awake--you should promise me that. Last thing I want to do is speak to deaf hearts and dull souls.

A further word.

An ordinary day it may be on the church calendar, but it's also right smack in the middle of the December gladiatorial schedule. It's no wonder, then, that the church is only half full. The rest of you must be in the amphitheater, looking more for entertainment than salvation. I could say--They've given themselves to games of the Flesh, as it were, but have yet to pay attention due to games of the Truth!--but I won't. Ah well, for their salvation as much for ours, let's pray to God without distractions of any kind.

Now I know some of you dear folk won't join me in this prayer. I know for a fact that there are among you those who hate the gamers as much as the games themselves. Why? Because they're breaking down the good habits they've labored a lifetime to build up.

We human beings are funny that way. One moment we're up; the next moment we're down. Tears of joy when we're right; tears of sorrow when we're wrong. All that's very well, and such may be the cycle of life, but a certain steadiness of hand is required. After all, the Lord'd have us remember that the person who begins well doesn't always end up well. The Evangelist Matthew noted what He actually said. "The person who sticks it out to the end--sometimes to the bitter end--that's the person who'll be saved" (10:22).

BLOODY GAMES AND BLOODY MARTYRS

At best, the games are frivolous; at worst, frightening. Nonetheless, Christ has always wanted to shepherd back to His fold two groups of wandering sheep. The spectators who took great pleasure in them, and the gladiators themselves who made the games so riotous. Could the Lord Jesus Christ--Son of God, yes, but not unwilling to become the Son of Man--do anything more admirable, more magnificent than this, gathering those up in the amphitheater seats as well as those down on the arena floor?

And why not? Christ if anyone should know how it was doing battle with the lion and the tiger. He was once the spectacle Himself. How did that happen? Well, we have it on His own authority. That's to say, He predicted it. He pronounced it as if it were already fact. He had the eloquence of a Prophet, the elegance of the Psalmist. "They've pierced my hands and my feet. They've numbered all my bones. They've looked me up and looked me down as though I were a slab of meat" (VUL 21:17-18; NRSV 22:16-17).

He was ogled the way an amphitheater crowd with blood in their eyes ogled a champion in that wretched arena. He was spotted by those who thought Him fair game, but didn't have the common decency to root for His survival. As a matter of fact, they savaged Him with their voices and, as it were, turned their thumbs down. Yes, He made a spectacle of Himself by allowing us to make a spectacle of Him--I can still see them counting His bones.

And this was how He wanted the Martyrs who came after Him to be seen at the blood games. That was also how the Apostle Paul saw it and reported in his First to the Corinthians. "We've been made tiger bait to the world, and banquet fare for the Angels" (4:9).

When I used to go to these games myself, I noticed that people reacted in two quite different ways.

First, there was the sensualist response--people screaming and shouting as the Christian Martyrs fell to the jaws of the jungle cats, when their heads were cleft from their shoulders, when their carcasses were tossed into the furnace!

But that bloodthirsty response in other people, under some circumstances, could and did indeed change into a spiritual one. They came to watch the games, not through bloodshot eyes but, apparently, through angelic eyes. Oh they saw the bones broken, and they watched the blood flow, and they heard the heart-rending screams of the Martyrs. But then they came to see the unseen; that's to say, the faith of the Christians as they died the death on the arena sand. There was no sight at the games quite like this! A body being mauled while its soul remained unscratched. I know. I've been there.

Now when I say these things aloud in the church, you begin to see them with your own eyes; then, you hear them with your own ears. I know, many of you've never been to the amphitheater at all--you still loathe everything that takes place there--but my words have just now brought you right there, haven't they? I can tell by your tears.

And so may God be with you as you tell your friends who decided to go to the games today that they'd have been better off in church. Tell them about the games you attended with me this morning, if only in your imagination. May they come to regard them as vile, despicable, repulsive! And may they too come to consider themselves just as vile, despicable, repulsive for having derived so much pleasure from them.

Let us pray again. May they come back to church to worship God with us!

Odd thing, though, about some of those bloodthirsty gamers of the past. They came to love Christ because He couldn't be vanquished in the arena. There's no reason to blush about that. But it's a reason to pray with you, to worship Christ with you. Why? Because Christ only gave the appearance of being overcome at the games. What He was really doing down there was overcoming the world.

As we look back at it now, my dear Charity in Christ, He did indeed conquer the world. He made all the principates stand up and salute. He brought all the potentates low. Not with a proud banner but with a poor cross. Not by whanging away with metal against leather but by hanging like a lump from the wood. Suffering corporally, yes, but toiling away spiritually. Planted in the ground, the cross was raised high. His corpus wilting, He caused the world to draw itself up to its fullest height. Is there anything more precious, I ask you, than the diadem dangling from a crown? Well, yes. For the glowing, jewel-encrusted pendant, substitute the grimy cross of Christ. Love this God-Man, and you'll never be embarrassed in public again...

I just can't seem to get off this subject...

Bad it is when the spectators return from the amphitheater in a sad state; that's to say, when their favorites have lost! Worse it'd be if their favorites had won! Worst, they'd be thrice beaten; addicted to the amphitheater, enmeshed in Vain Joy, impaled on the trident of Cheap Greed's!

However many of you, my dear Charity in Christ, had a moment's hesitation this morning before choosing the church over the amphitheater, one thing is sure. You overcame, not just another human being, but the Devil himself, the darkest, big game hunter in the whole world. But the ones who went to the amphitheater were overcome by that very same Devil; he could've been vanquished, though; others've done it. Christ Himself did it!

Overcoming the Devil, however, is possible only because Christ overcame him first. The Evangelist John recorded His words to His disciples at the Last Passover. "Yes, you can rejoice. I've conquered the world" (16:33). Yes, Christ is the Commander-in-Chief, the Imperator Maximus. Yes, He who had the temerity to submit Himself to temptation. Yes, the Devil tried his damnedest, not that he had much of a chance of succeeding against this Enemy. But why did Christ let this happen? He allowed it just to teach His military how to maneuver when under siege.

But I've digressed again. . . .

RUINATION, THEN SALVATION, THROUGH A WOMAN

Back to the point.

To become the son of a Human being, Our Lord Jesus Christ had to be born of a woman. But a question immediately arises. What if He wasn't born of the Virgin Mary? Would He have come out any the less?

Another question surely follows. What if He hadn't been born of a woman at all? Already God the Father had made a man without a woman; I'm speaking of the First Human Being, Adam.

Why a woman? Why not a woman? The one possibility is as good as the other.

Let's take a look at both of them.

If Christ didn't want to take up residence in a woman's womb, what would His reason be? Would He be contaminated by it? Or would His presence make that womb a cleaner, more comfortable place? I think the answer is obvious. Far from fearing that a temporary shelter was inappropriate for such as Himself, He'd want, I think, to show us a mystery of some significance.

Now as a matter of fact, dear Brothers and Sisters, I'm the first to admit it. If the Lord wanted to, He could've become a Human Being without renting a room in a womb, and all the Majesty of the Godhead wouldn't have paid Him the least mind. After all, He'd already made a Human Being from a woman without the assistance of a man. So why couldn't He make a Human Being without the cooperation of either a woman or a man?

I say all this because I don't want either sex, male or female, to despair of its own life-giving powers. And yet in the saying, I know that all the Mothers of the World will fret. Mindful of the First Sin, that the First Man was deceived by the First Woman, they'll think that they haven't a ghost of a chance of ever coming back into the good graces of Christ again. But I'd like to remind them of one thing. Christ was born of a mother and would be consoled by her femininity all the days of His life. That--even though He came into this world clad in full masculinity. There's a message here, and Christ addresses it to both sexes.

"Know, my dear Sexes, that to be a Creature of God isn't a bad thing. Badness came when Perverted Pleasure turned the Creature's face away from the Creator. It happened in the Beginning when I made the First Human Beings, a male one and a female one; that's to say, when I made a man and I made a woman.

"Now I'm not in the habit of condemning a creature I've just made. Just look at me. I was born a man. Indeed I was born of a woman. No, I don't condemn the creatures; it's their sins I condemn. Why? Because I didn't make the sins; they did.

"Each sex should look to its own dignity, and each to its own iniquity, and in the end each will find its own hope. And as the Women of the World they'll surely find some surprises.

"When the First Woman urged the First Man to sip the Sweet Poison, is it so surprising that the damage was repaired through Another Woman?

"Is it so astonishing that this Other Woman made up for the sin of the First Man by giving birth to Christ?

"Is it so stunning that the Women of Jerusalem got wind of the resurrection of Christ before the Apostles did?

"Is it so unbelievable that the Woman in Paradise introduced her husband to the allure of spiritual death, but that it was the Women of Jerusalem who announced salvation to the fearful men who were huddled together in the Upper Room?

"Is it, finally, so dumbfounding that the Apostles announced the Resurrection of Christ to the rest of the World, but by the time they did, it was already old news, at least to the Women of Jerusalem and all those who'd already heard their good news?"

In conclusion, no one, neither male nor female, should feel the least bit upset by the fact that Christ was born of a woman. After all, how could the Liberator of us all be slimed by His contact with that lovely gender when, as a matter of fact, that gentle sex was already sublimed, as it were, by her contact with the Creator?

from chris martin 17...

Favorite lines from Greg Gilbert’s, “What is the Gospel?”

Hey there.  I haven’t posted in a while, but I thought I would post a few of my favorite lines from a book I just finished reading entitled, What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert.  It was a fantastic book and a short read.  I highly suggest it.  I know you can get the book for dirt cheap, or you can borrow my copy!  Here are a few of the parts I highlighted:

“With his very first words, Paul insists that humanity is not autonomous.  We did not create ourselves, and we are neither self-reliant nor autonomous” (28).

“To have someone say you to you, ‘I’m coming to save you!” is really not good news at all unless you believe you actually need to be saved” (30).

“God.  Man.  Christ.  Response” (32).

In regards to how we often see God, “For the most part, he’s kind, affable, slightly dazed and needy but very loving grandfather who has wishes but no demands, can be safely ignored if you don’t have time for him, and is very, very, very, understanding of the fact that human beings make mistakes–much more understanding, in fact, than the rest of us are” (38-39).  (Pretty epic quote if you ask me…)

“The loving and compassionate God does not leave the guilty unpunished” (43).

“You see, nobody wants a God that declines to deal with evil.  They just want a God who declines to deal with their evil” (44).

“If we reduce sin to a mere breaking of relationship, rather than understanding it as the traitorous rebellion of a beloved subject against his good and righteous king, we will never understand why the death of God’s Son was required to address it” (52).

Regarding sin, “But because we will continue to struggle with sin until we are glorified, we have to remember that genuine repentance is more fundamentally a matter of the heart’s attitude toward sin than it is a mere change of behavior” (81).

“If you are a Christian, realize that you hold in your hands the only true message of salvation the world will ever hear” (120).

——

I have so many more parts highlighted, but any more quotes and I may be breaking the law.  :P  Basically, you need to buy this book.  It’s really awesome and a great tool to teach yourself even more about the Good News of Jesus Christ, as well as, telling it to others.  I hope you’ll buy the book, or request to borrow it from me.

Have a great day!

-Chris

re-post from May 2012!

Satire!

If you hate the God of Scripture - then your in luck! 

Sign up now for the 2013 God-haters Conference.

Day 1 Special guest speakers include- 

Rob Bell and his message Jesus Christ is a liar! subtitle: there is no Hell, and if there were a nice god wouldn't let anyone go there. 

Brian McLaren and his message Heaven - everyone gets in! subtitle: except Calvinistic, white-American heterosexual modernist.

  

Tony Jones and his message Substitutionary Atonement! subtitle: Are you kidding me? No one believes that garbage anymore.

Sign up now and the first 666 pre-registers will get a FREE "Mark of the Beast" tattoo! 

(hey, tattoos are still hip and trendy, right?)

Day 2 special guest speakers include -

Joel Osteen and his message Smile! subtitle: And the whole world smiles with you.

American Pope Rick Warren and his message Support my Global Peace Plan! subtitle: or else I'll get my buddy Obama to abort your ass - Full term!

T D Jakes and his message I'm totally a Trinitarian! subtitle: as long as your post-modern definition of trinity is Oneness Pentecostal Modalism.

Praise music for this year's conference will be performed by Fish!

And (because its in his contract) Brian McLaren's new book of post-modern slam poetry will be recited by William Shatner with the background beats laid down by the Roots! 

The focus for all messages at this year's God-haters Conference will be Stop Reading your Bibles, put them down, buy our books instead!