Monday, July 28, 2008

Satisfaction

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

SATISFACTION IN LIFE

2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith

Satisfaction in life comes from living righteously and seeking to raise the level of quality in the relationships, services and products you are involved with. Matthew 5:6 says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Do you really believe that? If you did, what would you be doing? You would spend more time feeding your spirit than trying to satisfy your fleshly desires. Have you ever tried to satisfy the flesh? It can't be done. The more you feed it, the more it wants.

What causes you to become dissatisfied? It's usually because the quality of the relationship, service or product has diminished. I often ask people when they became dissatisfied. Inevitably they identify the time when the quality of a relationship, the service rendered, or the product produced diminished.

Satisfaction is a quality issue, not a quantity issue. You will achieve greater satisfaction from doing a few things well than from doing many things in a haphazard or hasty manner. The key to personal satisfaction is not in broadening your involvements, but in deepening them through a commitment to quality.

The same is true in relationships. If you are dissatisfied in your relationships, perhaps you have spread yourself too thin. Solomon wrote: "A man of many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). It may be nice to know a lot of people on the surface, but you need a few good friends who are committed to a quality relationship with each other. We all need the satisfaction which quality relationships bring.

Paul accomplished what he was called to do. He left a lot undone, but he fought the good fight, finished his course, and kept the faith. Jesus also left a lot undone, but He did His Father's will and was able to say, "It is finished." You may not be able to do all you want to do for Christ in your lifetime, but you can live obediently and faithfully day by day.

Prayer:

Lord, I desire the satisfaction that comes from righteousness and quality in my relationships and activities.

Culture

Interesting video:

Friday, July 25, 2008

Prayer

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

THREE LEVELS OF PRAYER

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus

I have observed three approaches to prayer which progress from level to level. The first level is petition. We are encouraged to let our requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6). If it helps us to keep a list of daily prayer reminders, we should do so. However, most people weary of this, and their devotional life disappears over time. Often they don't see immediate results from their prayers, so they conclude that more can be accomplished if they just get busy for the Lord.

We've progressed to the second level when prayer becomes personal. We have discovered a new dimension when we are comfortable in His presence and don't feel obligated to talk. It's much like a marriage relationship. A mature couple can ride together in the car for hours, enjoying each other's company, without having to say a word. I can just be with God and I'm learning to listen.

Realizing that I need not feel obligated to keep the conversation going when I'm with God has changed my prayer life dramatically. This kind of prayer makes my relationship with God a 24-hour-a-day experience. Setting aside special times for prayer is still important. But when we leave our quiet time, the sense of God's presence should remain with us throughout the day.

I call the third dimension of prayer true intercession. True intercessors hear from God. They know how to pray and what to pray for. In my observation, there are very few true intercessory prayer warriors. The ones I know of are usually older than 50 and most are women. They pray privately in their homes and often at night. Every church has at least one or two of them. Share your family needs with them. When these people pray, things happen because they don't just talk to God, they listen to Him.

Prayer:

Father, I want to grow in all dimensions of prayer to the point that I sense Your presence and hear Your voice.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Grace

Quote from Jonathan Edwards from Miscellanies:

"It was during this summer in NYC that he penned his sermon “Glorious Grace,” a wonderful sermon centered based upon Zechariah 4:7. Edwards closes the message with these words of application:

Let those who have been made partakers of this free and glorious grace of God, spend their lives much in praises and hallelujahs to God, for the wonders of his mercy in their redemption. To you, O redeemed of the Lord, doth this doctrine most directly apply itself; you are those who have been made partakers of all this glorious grace of which you have now heard.

Tis you that God entertained thoughts of restoring after your miserable fall into dreadful depravity and corruption, and into danger of the dreadful misery that unavoidably follows upon it; ’tis for you in particular that God gave his Son, yea, his only Son, and sent him into the world; ’tis for you that the Son of God so freely gave himself; ’tis for you that he was born, died, rose again and ascended, and intercedes; ’tis to you that there the free application of the fruit of these things is made: all this is done perfectly and altogether freely, without any of your desert, without any of your righteousness or strength; wherefore, let your life be spent in praises to God.

When you praise him in prayer, let it not be with coldness and indifferency; when you praise him in your closet, let your whole soul be active therein; when you praise him in singing, don’t barely make a noise, without any stirring of affection in the heart, without any internal melody. … Surely, if the angels are so astonished at God’s mercy to you, and do even shout with joy and admiration at the sight of God’s grace to you, you yourself, on whom this grace is bestowed, have much more reason to shout.

Consider that great part of your happiness in heaven, to all eternity, will consist in this: in praising of God, for his free and glorious grace in redeeming you; and if you would spend more time about it on earth, you would find this world would be much more of a heaven to you than it is. Wherefore, do nothing while you are alive, but speak and think and live God’s praises.[2]"


[2] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 10, Sermons and Discourses 1720-1723 (Yale, 1992) p. 399.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Recalibrate

"Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God. It is like hitting the refresh key on your computer. It restores the joy of your salvation. It recalibrates your spirit. It renews your mind. And it enables you to find something good to praise God about even when everything seems to be going wrong.

Is it easy? Absolutely not. Nothing is more difficult than praising God when nothing seems to be going right. But one of the purest forms of worship is praising God even when you don't feel like it, because it proves that your worship isn't circumstantial."

Mark Batterson, In a Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day

Choice

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

THE POWER TO CHOOSE

Joshua 24:15
Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve. . . . As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD

Adam and Eve's sin also affected the area of their will. Do you realize that in the Garden of Eden they could only make one wrong choice? Everything they wanted to do was okay except eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16, 17). They had the possibility of making a myriad of good choices and only one bad choice-- only one !

Eventually, however, they made that one bad choice. As a result, you and I are confronted every day with a myriad of good and bad choices. You can choose to pray or not pray, read your Bible or not read your Bible, go to church or not go to church. You can choose to walk according to the flesh or according to the Spirit. You and I face countless choices like that every day, and we eventually make some bad ones.

Other than the Holy Spirit in your life, the greatest power you possess is the power to choose. Someone has said that pure Christianity lies in the exercise of the will. The animal kingdom operates out of divine instinct. But we are created in the image of God, which means we have a self-operated, independent will. The essence of temptation is to function independently of God. The basis for temptation is legitimate needs.

Sinful behavior is often a wrong attempt at meeting your basic needs. The real issue here is are you going to get your needs met by the world, the flesh and the devil, or are you going to allow God to meet your needs "according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19)? It's an issue of identity and maturity. The more you understand your identity in Christ, the more you will grow in maturity. And the more mature you become, the easier it will be for you to choose to live your life in dependence on your heavenly Father.

Prayer:

Lord, I determine to exercise my great power of choice to live in moment-by-moment dependence on You today.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Glorify God Together

Excerpts from Welcome One Another to the Glory of God by John Piper

[Romans 15:1-7]

...

Now how does he help us get there? This is not a question of church programs or relational mechanics or external technique. Paul’s question is: How do we become the kind of people who are of one mind in denying ourselves, sacrificing legitimate freedoms to please others, and being able with one voice (in spite of all the differences between weak and strong) to glorify God together? The root issue is how we become that kind of people.

...

There are at least five things Paul does here to help us become the kind of people who can joyfully not please ourselves for the sake of building up others and making God look glorious. I’ll just mention them briefly and then close by focusing on the last one. Any of them could be a whole book. So take them and go deeper.

First, Paul draws our attention to Christ. He mentions his example, but the very example he chooses to mention is more than an example: it is the act by which he saves us from the wrath of God. Verse 3: “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’” In other words, to become the kind of person who joyfully serves others rather than using them, consider Christ. Look at Christ. Especially look at his sin-bearing, substitutionary work on the cross. This is how we change: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Look to Christ.

Second, Paul reminds us how essential the Scriptures are in becoming self-denying servants of love. Verse 3 quoted Psalm 69:9, and so Paul says in verse 4: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction.” The picture of Christ that he just gave us came from the Scriptures. Now the gospels and the portraits of Christ we have available are powerful to change us. If we would only give ourselves to the Scriptures.

Third, Paul pinpoints what it is about the Scriptures that is so helpful in making us into self-denying servants of other people’s upbuilding. It’s their power to produce endurance and encouragement. Verse 4: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures . . .” God has designed the Bible so that when you follow the meaning from story to story and book to book the effect is “endurance and encouragement”—if that’s not happening, you’re not reading it right. This is what it will take if are going to be the kind of self-denying people who give glory to God with one unified voice in spite of all our differences.

Fourth, Paul reminds us that we will never survive in the path of self-denying, sacrificial love if we don’t have hope. Verse 4 again: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”—hope that all will work together for our good and we will inherit eternal life with God. How did Jesus endure through Gethsemane and Golgotha? Hebrews 12:2 says it was the power of hope: “. . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” That is the only way we will endure in love. Paul said it plainly in Colossians 1:4-5, “We heard . . . the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” Christ-exalting hope is the great power to endure in self-denying, sacrificial love that pleases others for their good.

There is one final way that Paul shows us how to become this kind of persons. He shows by example that we must pray for all this to happen, because it is all God’s work in us. Verses 5-6 Paul shifts from teaching and exhorting to praying, “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is still speaking to them. But not mainly to them. Paul has reached the end of his ability to persuade. His longings for this church are beyond the reach of man. God must do it, or it won’t be done.

...

Proverbs

The Christian Working Woman Transcript

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - Proverbs for Business and Management

Look at these verses from Proverbs 6:

Go to the ant, you sluggard: consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provision in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

In the margin of my Bible by this verse I have written "self-motivated." The ant is a self-motivated creature. Without anyone standing over all those ants and telling them what to do, they perform their jobs diligently and are prepared for what lies ahead.

Self-motivation is a key factor in our business world today. Very few people have it. Too many people are just trying to get by with as little as possible. They don't look beyond their noses to see what else could be done, they take no initiative, are not willing to go any extra miles.

A Christian in the workplace should be like the ant: self-motivated, willing to dig in and get the work done without prompting, without constant supervision. Does your manager trust you? Can she or he be assured that you will diligently do your job whether anyone's watching or not? Certainly a Christian should produce that kind of reputation.

You know, our witness in the world can never be effective if our lives aren't different. If we have the "It's not my job" attitude that is prevalent today, if we drag our feet and do only what we're told to do, if we gripe and complain about doing anything above and beyond our job description, how will our coworkers and management know that Christ makes a difference in our lives? They won't, and our verbal witness, if there is one, will fall on deaf ears.

Christians have a power far beyond self to help motivate us. We have God's Holy Spirit dwelling within us to give us the strength we need to be self-motivated. And we should have an outstanding testimony on our jobs that we do our work, we do it whether anyone's watching or not, we do it to the best of our ability, and we're willing to go the extra mile.

Go to the ant and consider its ways. We can learn wisdom and self-motivation from those tiny ants.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Deeper Intimacy

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

John 1:14
The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth

What effect did the Fall produce in Adam's mind? He and Eve lost their true perception of reality. We read in Genesis 3:7, 8, that they tried to hide from God. Doesn't that reveal a faulty understanding of who God is? How can you hide from God? After the Fall, Adam and Eve weren't thinking straight.

In essence, when Adam and Eve sinned, their minds were robbed of the true knowledge of God. In God's original design, knowledge was relational. Knowing someone implied an intimate personal relationship. You can see it in Genesis 4:1: "Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived" (KJV). Yet we don't generally equate a knowledge of someone with personal intimacy.

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve knew God, not sexually of course, but in the intimacy of a close, personal relationship which we associate with marriage. They knew God by being with God. When they sinned and were banished from the garden, Adam and Eve lost their relationship with God and the knowledge of God which was intrinsic to that relationship. And you and I inherited Adam and Eve's darkened mind. Before Christ, we knew something about God, but we didn't know God because we had no relationship with Him.

The necessity of being in relationship to God in order to know God comes into sharp focus in John's announcement: "The Word"-- logos in the Greek--"became flesh" (John 1:14). The word logos represented the highest form of philosophical knowledge. For the Greeks, saying that the logos became flesh was the same as saying that ultimate knowledge became personal and relational. God was announcing to the world through John: The true knowledge of God, which can only be discovered in an intimate relationship with God, is now available to the world through God in the flesh--Jesus Christ. In Christ we are able to know God personally, not just know about Him.

Prayer:

Lord, I thirst for deeper intimacy in my relationship with You. I want to know You more personally today.

Spiritual Practices

Excerpts from New Wineskins Joshua Graves interview with Brian McLaren

...

New Wineskins: What are some of the spiritual disciplines that surprise people?

Brian McLaren:
I think a really big one for a lot of people is the discipline of fixed-hour prayer. This was such a strong discipline in Judaism and in Christianity up until recent centuries. This idea that the church prays certain prayers, common prayers throughout the day (morning during the day, dinner time), there’s a rhythm to our day. We make habitual our connection to God so that eventually we have an ongoing openness and connection to the Holy Spirit. My book introduces the general idea of spiritual practices and tries to help us see Christian faith as a way and suggests why we should pay attention to ancient practices. There are going to seven books in the series. The next one is going to focus on constant prayer. I’m reading it right now and it’s very good. I feel I got to write the introduction to this series.

New Wineskins: What do you mean when you talk about faith as a set of beliefs versus a way of life at the onset of this book?

Brian McLaren:
I was interviewing Dr. Peter Senge, who does not portray himself as a Christian. . . . I was interviewing him by satellite. “Dr Senge, what would you like to say to Christian pastors to a group of Christian pastors?”

“Well, I was in a bookstore the other day and I asked the bookstore manager what the most popular books were. He said the most popular books right now were books on eastern religions. So, I want to know why that is the case in America?”

I (McLaren) turned the question back on him and said, “Dr. Senge, why do you think this is the case?”

“I think it’s because Christianity currently presents itself as a system of beliefs and Buddhism presents itself as a way of life.” Now, that one sentence was the one sentence we’d all come to hear. It was a powerful moment. For many of us, we can’t imagine Christianity as anything other than a system of beliefs. We use phrases like a “Christian worldview”—we’ve never questioned what we mean. And what we mean is a kind of intellectual system that has an answer to every question and a solution to every issue. Well, if you believe that is what the Christian faith is, then it shouldn’t surprise you when Christians are viewed as arrogant, narrow-minded and judgmental. We’ve set up the whole system to give us the ability to give quick answers. But this idea of a “way of life” has to do with how we are formed as human beings and how we live our daily lives, and how we see our very being transformed and changed. That, to me, is what Dr. Senge was doing, in a Restorationist sense, was calling us back to Jesus because Jesus, that’s what his followers were first called, followers of “The Way.” This to me is a very important rethinking of the way we need to be engaged in.


...

Friday, July 18, 2008

Action Word

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

DEMONSTRATING WHAT WE BELIEVE

James 2:17
Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself

Faith is an action word. We cannot passively respond to God. You may have heard the story of the circus performer who strung a wire over a river and proceeded to ride across it on a unicycle. When he returned, everyone applauded. Then he asked, "Who believes I can do that with a man on my shoulders?" Everyone responded in affirmation. He said, "All right, who will hop on?" The person who hops on is the person who really believes. Faith is not just giving credence to something or someone. Faith is demonstrated reliance upon something or someone.

Faith has the same operating dynamic as agape love. When we refer to love as a noun, we're talking about character: patience, kindness, etc. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). When we say that God is love, we are describing His character. Paul says the goal of our instruction is love (1 Timothy 1:5); therefore, the goal of Christian education is character transformation.

When love is used as a verb, it is expressed by action: "For God so loved the world that He gave . . ." (John 3:16). If we say we love someone and do nothing on their behalf, it's only sentimentality and not agape love. True love is expressed by meeting the needs of others.

Faith has a similar dynamic. When using faith as a noun, we're talking about what we believe. But if we're talking about faith as a verb, then it is expressed in the way we live. James says it like this: "Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, 'You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.' You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder" (James 2:17-19).

The devil believes in the existence of Jesus and knows that God's Word is true. But he doesn't seek to glorify Jesus or to obey Him. He seeks his own glory, being a rebel at heart (Romans 1:25).

We demonstrate what we believe by how we live our lives. If we believe it, we will do it. If we don't, then what we believe is just wishful thinking.

Prayer:

Lord, help me put feet to my faith every day and not rely on past accomplishments.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Not How to Die, How to Live

Excerpts from Cancer's Unexpected Blessings by Tony Snow at Christianity Today (7/20/2007)

...

Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

...

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.

Overrated?

"I love the church. It's God's vehicle for transformation. But I don't want the church to become so centralized that it can't reproduce, can't adopt multiple forms. And that works better when you're small, when you're on the verge, on the edge. Small is the new big. Big isn't bad, but it's overrated."

-Dave Gibbons is pastor of NewSong Church in Irvine, California. Taken from "On the Verge" in the Summer 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. Quote found at Out of Ur website.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Missional

Excerpt from the middle of The Missional Summary by Joe Thorn at Sub-Text

...

As I see it, a missional church must therefore be at least 3 things:

1. Sent.
The church must live as a sent people, not a only sending people. While we will always be sending others into the farther reaches of the world to take the Gospel of grace, we must also live as a sent people to the communities God has planted our churches in. We should stop allegorizing Acts 1:8 so that (in my case) Elburn, IL is my “Jerusalem,” the Chicago suburbs is my “Judea,” the state is my “Samaria,” and other countries are my “uttermost parts of the earth.” From Jesus’ perspective, Elburn, IL is in the uttermost parts of the earth. He has sent us, his people, to this culture/context to preach, demonstrate and invite people to enter the kingdom of God. To simply think of ourselves as established, and being the senders of others, robs us of the missional imperative to join God in his mission to the people who live and work in our neighborhoods. This means more than being evangelistic, and knowing our theology.

2. Engaged.
We must live, work, play and minister redemptively in our culture. The well-intentioned tendency of Christians in America to withdraw from culture has only weakened our effectiveness in communicating Jesus to the people we want to reach out to. Culture is not bad, but merely the combination of customs, values, rituals, beliefs, art, food and institutions among a specific people. Much of our culture and sub-cultures is good, but needs to find its full meaning in God. And of course much of it is corrupt and needs to be transformed by the power of the Gospel as demonstrated in the community of faith. Either way, the Gospel is seen as something authentic and life changing only in the context of a particular culture. It must be seen, experienced, and understood in comparison or contrast to what they know. This requires involvement in people’s lives and the culture we are a part of whenever possible. We cannot strip the kingdom of God down to a few principles that are merely applied to an individual’s private life. It is much larger than that.

3. Incarnated.
We and the Gospel must be incarnated where we are. What I mean is that churches will, and should, look different in each cultural context. A church in the inner-city will look different from those in the rural counties. In some cases they will address the same issues with the Gospel, but in many others the Gospel will bring about redemption in different ways to different issues. Instead of relying on one-size-fits-all programs and church models, it is necessary to allow the kingdom of God to present itself to the community through the church in ways needed by that culture. This is not an abandonment of truth, doctrinal standards, or biblical ecclesiology. It is the church moving forward with all of that to become what God intends us to be in each new place.

The “missional church” is almost a redundant expression. The people of God are inherently a sent people. It is who we are, and that gives birth to what we do. We just tend to forget this.

...

The question every church ought to be asking itself is, “What work needs to be done in our community to announce the kingdom has come?” Answering that question and responding to it appropriately prove to be the hardest part of this dialogue.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The Goal

Excerpts from Welcome One Another to the Glory of God by John Piper

[Romans 15: 1-7]

Verse divisions and chapter divisions in the New Testament were added centuries after the Bible was written. So be careful that you don’t assume they divide the books in the best places. The chapter break at the beginning of chapter 15 was not put in the best place, most commentators agree. It would go much more naturally after Romans 15:13. The issue of weak and strong Christians—those free to eat and drink without qualms of conscience—continues from chapter 14 right on into chapter 15.

Verses 1-2 make a familiar point: “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” This is not new. We have seen it before. Romans 14:15, “If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.” Romans 14:19, “Let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” Romans 14:21, “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.” So the point throughout has been: be willing to forego your freedom in matters of meat and drink and days if you can avoid destroying a weak brother and instead build his faith.

...

Paul’s goal is never merely good human relations—unless, of course, we define “good human relations” as God-glorifying, Christ-exalting human relationships, which we should do. But the ultimate aim of Christ and his apostle is to display the glory of God—the beauty of God, the greatness of God, the many-sided perfections of God. All of creation, all of redemption, all of church, all of society and culture exist to display God. Nothing and no one is an end itself, but only God. All things are “from him and through him and to him” (Romans 11:36). Church worship services, church Sunday School classes, church nurseries, church committee meetings, church small groups, church evangelism, church missions—all of them exist for this one ultimate thing—to make much of the greatness of God. That is why we say we exist to “spread a passion for the supremacy of God.”

Would you join me and pray with me that God make this the atmosphere at Bethlehem? We will not have succeeded if we are known as a friendly place. And we will not have succeeded if we are known as an unfriendly place. We will be on our way to true success if we are known as a people besotted with the glory of God. If our children speak of the glory of God. If our young people love the glory of God more than the glory of sport or music or fashion. If our career people pursue the glory of God more than the glory of financial success. If our older people rejoice in the hope of the glory of God just over the horizon.

Almost everything in American culture threatens this radically serious, God-centered passion to see and savor and show the glory—the greatness and beauty and worth of the full range of his perfections, his eternal being and unchanging character, his independence and self-sufficiency and holiness, his infinite power and wisdom and goodness and justice and wrath and mercy and patience and grace and love. Almost everything in American culture threatens to make our devotion and our services and our mind and our heart shallow and casual and chatty and—our most favorite blessing of choice—fun.

I plead with you to pray with me that God stagger us with a proper sense of his greatness, and to that end that he would give us what Paul calls a “spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17). Oh, how we need to know God and to feel something of the wonder of his glory. Pray with Moses in Exodus 33:18, “Show me your glory.”

So we know where Paul is going in this text—the same place he is always going: “That together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 6).

...

Summer School

Excerpt from Summer School of Theology at Vintage Faith

Last night we started our 6 week summer School of Theology classes at Vintage Faith Church. I don't know of the total number of people but the place was quite a buzz and the classes seemed all full. Kristin and I are teaching the "Church and Mission" class which is our church membership class. I love the School of Theology as it shows the eagerness and desire that people have in learning more.

I am convinced in our culture we need to be teaching more theology and having more learning opportunities and opportunities for discussion. We intentionally call this "School of Theology" to keep emphasizing how everyone can strive to become "theologians" (in the non-academic sense) as the word simply means someone who takes the study of God seriously.

The first week of the "Church and Mission" class was primarily what the history of our church is and then was a lesson on "ecclesiology" for the most part. ...

Needs

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

UNMET SPIRITUAL NEEDS

1 John 2:17
The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever

Over the last three decades, people in the West have begun to sense that there is more to life than science has revealed and their senses have experienced--and, of course, they're right. On the surface this new hunger may sound encouraging to those of us with a Christian worldview, but in fact the same people who are disillusioned with the materialistic world are also disillusioned with established religion. Instead of turning to Christ and His church, they are filling their spiritual void with old-fashioned occultism dressed in the modern garb of parapsychology, holistic health, Eastern mysticism and numerous cults marching under the banner of the New Age Movement.

Attempting to meet spiritual needs apart from God is nothing new. Christ encountered a secularized form of Judaism during His earthly ministry which was bound to its traditions instead of to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The religious leaders of the day didn't recognize the Messiah as their spiritual deliverer. They perceived the oppressor to be Rome, not Satan, the god of this world. But Jesus came to undo the works of Satan (1 John 3:8), not Caesar.

Satan's ultimate lie is that you are capable of being the god of your own life, and his ultimate bondage is getting you to live as though his lie is true. Satan is out to usurp God's place in your life. And whenever you live independently of God, focusing on yourself instead of the cross, preferring material and temporal values to spiritual and eternal values, he has succeeded. The world's solution to this conflict of identity is to inflate the ego while denying God the opportunity to take His rightful place as Lord. Satan couldn't be more pleased--that was his plan from the beginning.

Prayer:

Mighty God, I renounce any inclination within me that I am capable of being the god of my life. You alone are Lord and King.

Statements

Excerpts from It's Not Broke, So Fix It by Collin Hansen at Christianity Today

...

By and large, the EFCA has been insulated from the evangelical world's recent debates over open theism, the Atonement, justification, and inerrancy. That's not to say the EFCA has avoided the debates. Faculty at the EFCA seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), have actively engaged each of these controversial topics. But the newer interpretations have not gained traction among the denomination's 1,300 churches. Still, it's clear EFCA leaders had these debates in mind when they adopted a new statement of faith on June 26.

The first article says God has "limitless knowledge and sovereign power." Thus, the EFCA takes a stand against open theism, which claims that God granted humans complete free will, so he can't know the future precisely. This first article was shifted ahead of an article on the Bible, which led off the last statement of faith, adopted in 1950, when the EFCA was formed by merger. The move should not be interpreted as de-emphasizing inerrancy. Indeed, the 2008 revision strengthens the EFCA's commitment to inerrancy by taking a cue from the 1978 Chicago Statement. The Bible, "without error in the original writings," is to be "believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises." The EFCA statement also says the Bible is the "ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged."

...

Like other doctrinal statements of the era, the EFCA's 1950 draft did not elaborate much on any point. For example, it says the "shed blood of Jesus Christ and his resurrection provide the only ground for justification." But with the definition of justification now up for grabs, the new statement says, "The true church comprises all who have been justified by God's grace through faith alone in Christ alone." Regarding the Atonement, the 1950 statement says that Jesus "died on the cross, a sacrifice for our sins according to the Scriptures." Someone who rejects substitutionary Atonement, who sees Jesus primarily as a model of sacrificial service, could sign the earlier statement. Not so with the 2008 version. It reads, "We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed his blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins."

EFCA leaders often cite as their unofficial motto, "In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, charity. In all things, Jesus Christ." If that's the case, they must see substitutionary Atonement and justification by faith alone as gospel essentials.

But the document may be equally notable for what it does not say. There is an article about the Holy Spirit, but it says nothing about certain gifts of the Spirit, such as prophecy or speaking in tongues. It says the Lord Jesus mandated baptism as one of two ordinances, along with the Lord's Supper. But it does not specify the mode or timing of baptism. Very few EFCA pastors baptize infants, but the denomination allows this option, said Greg Strand, the EFCA's director of biblical theology and credentialing. He said the EFCA historically accommodated refugee Methodists and Presbyterians who still wanted to baptize their infants.

...

Concerns about promoting a social gospel were raised about the article on Christian living, Strand said. But the surviving article reminds Christians that "God's justifying grace must not be separated from his sanctifying power and purpose." It goes on to say that God commands Christians to live out their faith with "compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed."

"One of the big issues the evangelical church needs to address today is the both/and of orthodoxy and orthopraxy," Strand said. "That is why we've been intentional about including both in a statement of faith."

...

Monday, July 14, 2008

Restoration

Excerpt from Felt-Needs and Messianic Marketing by Skye Jethani at Out of Ur

Conventional ministry wisdom goes something like this: When launching a new church, first analyze the felt-needs within the target area or population. Then construct ministries to address those felt-needs. Felt-needs based ministries will draw people to your church, and simultaneously positively predispose seekers to the gospel message. In this scenario, caring for peoples’ felt-needs plays a supporting role in the mission.

What if this conventional wisdom is wrong?


The idea outlined above is what I was taught in seminary, it’s what I read frequently in ministry books, and it’s what I see practiced virtually everywhere I go. But I increasingly suspect that the theological foundation for felt-needs based ministry may be sand rather than stone.

The biblical rationale comes primarily from the gospels. Jesus, it is thought, performed miracles in order to confirm the content of his preaching. His “acts of power” (the word “miracle” is rarely used in the Greek-language gospels) function as validation for his verbal proclamation. In other words, you should believe what Jesus says because look at what he can do.

Translating this principle into contemporary ministry, we are told that identifying and satisfying felt-needs will confirm and validate the gospel we preach—and hopefully draw a crowd the way Jesus’ miracles did. But there are a few problems with this understanding.

1. If his miracles play the supporting role of validating his message, one would expect to see Jesus performing miracles in conjunction with teaching. But this is rarely the case. There are some exceptions, but for the most part the gospel accounts of Jesus’ miracles do not include teaching. Most of the gospel writers separate sections of dialogue and teaching from stories of miracles.

2. If the miracles were to validate his message, why does Jesus frequently command people not to report the miracles he has performed? Some argue Jesus was trying to postpone the discovery of his identity until the appointed time. That may be true, but the secrecy undermines the notion that his acts of power are to confirm his proclamations.

Theologian N.T. Wright, among others, has suggested a different way of understanding Jesus’ miracles. Rather than supporting his preaching, Jesus’ acts of power should be seen as accomplishing the same thing as his preaching—namely, restoring exiled sinners to God. Wright:

Most if not all of the works of healing, which form the bulk of Jesus' mighty works, could be seen as the restoration of membership in Israel of those who, through sickness or whatever, had been excluded as ritually unclean. The healings thus function in exact parallel with the welcome of sinners (Jesus and the Victory of God, p. 191).

If theologians like Wright are correct, and Jesus didn’t address felt-needs to win a hearing or confirm his message, then how and why we address felt-needs in our present ministries needs to be reconsidered. For example, if Jesus’ healed blind Bartimaeus and the bleeding woman not to win their approval or validate his teaching, but rather to restore them to full communion with God and his people (something their handicaps prevented), then our good works need to be more than smart PR or marketing. They too must have some intrinsic gospel validity—a worthiness beyond validating our verbal proclamation.

...

Pain

Excerpt from Why God Doesn't Fully Explain Pain by John Piper

One of the reasons God rarely gives micro reasons for his painful providences, but regularly gives magnificent macro reasons, is that there are too many micro reasons for us to manage, namely, millions and millions and millions and millions and millions.

God says things like:

  • These bad things happened to you because I intend to work it together for your good (Romans 8).
  • These happened to that you would rely more on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1).
  • This happened so that the gold and silver of your faith would be refined (1 Peter 1).
  • This thorn is so that the power of Christ would be magnified in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12).

But we can always object that there are other easier ways for God to accomplish those things. We want to know more specifics: Why now? Why this much? Why this often? Why this way? Why these people?

The problem is, we would have to be God to grasp all that God is doing in our problems. In fact, pushing too hard for more detailed explanations from God is a kind of demand that we be God.

Think of this, you are a blacksmith making horseshoes. ... [follow link to read the rest of the analogy]

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Meditations

Excerpts from Morning Meditations on 4 Parts of the Bible by John Piper

I hope you are reading your Bible steadily through the summer. I hope you don’t miss a day. “On his law he meditates day and night” (Psalms 1:2). I pray that there are times when it tastes so good, you slow down and steep your heart in it. Today was an especially rich day for me.

I was reading in four parts of the Bible—not for any preparation, but just to feed my soul. In every text another text came to mind that made each clearer. And that blew some fog away so I could see and enjoy God more fully.

...

3. Do everything in the name of Jesus.

  • “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Colossians 3:17)
  • “The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!’” (Luke 10:17)

Do everything with a sense of dependence on the power and authority of the Lord Jesus. Do everything with a view to Jesus being honored in it. Do everything with a view to others being helped by Jesus in it.

Can Jesus be any more pervasive than this in our lives—that we do everything in his name?

4. Who forgives whom first?

  • “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” (Luke 11:4)
  • “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Colossians 3:13)

When Jesus teaches us to pray that God forgive us “for we ourselves forgive,” he is not saying that the first move in forgiveness was our move. Rather it goes like this: God forgave us when we believed in Christ (Acts 10:43). Then, from this broken, joyful, grateful, hopeful, experience of being forgiven, we offer forgiveness to others. This signifies that we have been savingly forgiven. That is, our forgiving others shows that we have faith; we are united to Christ; we are indwelt by the Spirit.

But we still sin (1 John 1:8, 10). So we still turn to God for fresh applications of the work of Christ on our behalf—fresh applications of forgiveness. We cannot do this with any confidence, if we are harboring an unforgiving spirit (Matthew 18:23–35). That’s why Jesus says we ask for forgiveness because we are forgiving. This is like saying: “Father, continue to extend to me the mercies purchased by Christ because by these mercies I forsake vengeance and extend to others what you have extended to me.”

O, how sweet is the word of God! I looked out my window into the bright morning and said: I love you, God. I love you, Lord Jesus. I love your word. O what a privilege to know you and to have your word. Please keep me faithful to it. In Jesus’ name. Amen


Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Hope

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

THE SOURCE OF ALL HOPE

Psalm 43:5
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance, and my God

Sometimes the depression resulting from a seemingly impossible situation is related to a wrong concept of God. David wrote: "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? . . . How long will my enemy triumph over me?" (Psalm 13:1, 2 NIV). Had God really forgotten David? Was He actually hiding from David? Of course not. David had a wrong concept of God, feeling that He had abandoned him to the enemy. David believed a lie about God, and consequently he lost his focus. His situation seemed hopeless, and hopelessness is the basis for all depression.

But the remarkable thing about David is that he didn't stay in the dumps. He evaluated his situation and realized, "Hey, I'm a child of God. I'm going to focus on what I know about Him, not on my negative feelings." From the pit of his depression, he wrote: "I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation" (Psalm 13:5 NIV). Then he decided to make a positive expression of his will: "I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me" (verse 6). He willfully moved away from his wrong concept and its accompanying depression and returned to the source of his hope.

If Satan can destroy your belief in God, you will lose your source of hope. But with God, all things are possible. He is the source of all hope. You need to learn to respond to hopeless-appearing situations as David did: "Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance, and my God" (Psalm 43:5).

If Satan can't destroy your concept of God, then he will seek to destroy your concept of who you are as a child of God. He can't do anything about your position in Christ, but if he can get you to believe it's not true, you will live as if it's not, even though it is. The two most important beliefs you possess are who God is and who you are as His child.

Prayer:

Above all, Father, help me focus continually on who You are and who I am in Christ, and to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Faith, Freedom and Gratitude

A little past Independence Day, but I thought I'd share excerpts from two posts:

Fifty-Six Signers by Mark Batterson

I love history. And I love America! Thought I'd share a little of both as we celebrate Independence Day.

We live in a a day and age where we almost have to defend our patriotism. I'm certainly not suggesting that America is above reproach. Far from it. But a few years ago I did extensive research for a sermon series on our spiritual heritage. And I walked away with a renewed sense of destiny. There is so much revisionist history out there that we tend to forget that a lot of our Founding Fathers were motivated by their faith in Christ.

Just thought I'd share some backstory about some of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence. Most Americans know next to nothing about these fifty-six heroes who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the cause of freedom.

John Witherspoon was an ordained minister and authored several books of sermons, as well as editing America's first family Bible published in 1791.

Charles Thomson served as Secretary of Congress and was a Biblical scholar. He helped edit the first American translation of the Greek Septuagint into English.

Charles Carroll, the last of the fifty-six signers to pass away at the age of 95 in 1832, wrote out his declaration of faith at the age of eighty-nine.

On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for my salvation, and on His merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to His precepts.

...

I could share story after story, but the bottom line is this: many, if not most, of our Founding Fathers were motivated by their Faith in Christ. They wrote sermons and creeds and hymns. They founded Bible Societies and Sunday Schools. They served God's purposes in their own generation.

By the way, five signers were captured and tortured during the Revolutionary War. Twelve signers had their homes ransacked and burned. Two signers lost sons to the war they declared. Two signers had sons become prisoners of war. And nine signers fought in the war and died from wounds or hardships of war.

Hope that adds a dimension of gratitude to your 4th of July celebration!

-------------------------------------------------

The 4th of July and Two Kingdoms by GLP

Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’”
– The Gospel of John 18:36

With the July 4th holiday approaching next week you can be assured of one thing – churches around the United States will have services devoted to the theme of America and liberty. Activities like reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, singing God Bless America and salutes to the armed forces will be dotted in orders of worship throughout the country. If I could get a dollar for every sermon that deals with “freedom” in our nation's pulpits a weekend from now I’d become a very wealthy man.

And I think for some churches it can be a very scary thing!

Let me preface this by saying I am grateful to God to be an American. While I don’t think our country is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else. I consider myself patriotic as well. In high school I wrote a piece on the great gift of being an American for a scholarship competition sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. It went all the way to state as a finalist. My wife and I have been to a Presidential Inauguration. My uncle fought in Vietnam. My great uncle in WWII. My father served in the Army. I even have a brother who worked in the White House in the role as Special Assistant to the President of the United States. So rest assured, I love the good ole US of A.

I just get really leery of churches that devote entire worship services to the greatness of America. It’s not that one can’t consider America great, it’s just not as great as God. In fact, it is so “not as great as God” that it (or anything else) doesn’t need to be worshipped. Remember, for most churches the Sunday service is a worship service, and that worship is reserved for no one else than Almighty God. However, I believe many churches walk a very thin line by conducting services that leave people with the impression that America is worthy to be given that which only God deserves…worship! It's won't be uncommon in many churches next weekend to have a service where people will pledge their fidelity to our nation, sing songs of praise to her and raise her colors high in a space that is supposed to be set apart as “God’s House”. Does anyone see, if not a possible contradiction, at least a sizeable tension here?

Only the Lord is to be worshipped. Nothing, not even our wonderful nation, gets that kind of billing. In fact, there are numerous texts that show how impotent America (and any other nation for that matter) is in front of the Most High God.

...

Monday, July 07, 2008

Discipleship

Excerpts from Discipleship: From Application of Scripture to Performance of Scripture.
by Fred Peatross, New Wineskins
May - June, 2008


“Over the last decade there has been a total dumbing down in the church. I don’t think you can argue with me about that. People are reading less; fewer churches are meeting for Wednesday night Bible class, Sunday morning bible class attendance is down, and fewer Christians read and study their Bible. If you ask me the church is ill prepared to navigate the future.”

This comment was made in the heat of a recent discussion. And this was just one of the comments among many. It didn’t catch me off guard or concern me. But why should it? (I chose not to verbalize this.) I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed on other occasions. Actually many times before.

...

In Jesus’ day trades were learned through apprenticeships, observation, and practice with little verbalized instruction. The apprentice hunter hunted with the experienced hunter. The novice Roman seamstress worked on a toga with a skilled Roman seamstress. What the apprentice learned was not so much abstracted rules or decontextualized generalities (the stuff of how-to-manuals) as a vast range of particulars and a varied repertoire for responding to particulars.

...

In a time much more analogous to the first century (more so than any other period in recent history) the apprentice model rises from another era to charm today’s leader with an effectual training process. If ever there was a moment in time for leaders to become the purveyors of wisdom for the next generation the time is now. Teaching God’s people to love, to turn the other cheek, to walk the extra mile, and grow in one’s prayer life demands far more than an educational model.

You cannot diagram the formula or sprinkle salt on a cucumber to get a pickle—you have to marinate cucumbers in vinegar or salt water. To look like, and then leak the life of Jesus one must “marinate” in a mentoring relationship, absorbing the things of life—unaware—until one day you realize you are a different person with a new serenity and love, a different kind of mercy and grace, a different kind of humility and openness.

Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that, “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience.”



Wholeness

Daily in Christ by Neil Anderson

WHOLENESS AND MEANING IN LIFE

Galatians 3:26
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus

Several years ago a 17-year-old girl drove a great distance to talk with me. I have never met a girl who had so much going for her. She was cover-girl pretty with a wonderful figure. She was immaculately dressed. She had completed 12 years of school in 11 years, graduating with a very high grade point average. As a talented musician, she had received a music scholarship to a Christian university. And she drove a brand-new sports car her parents gave her for graduation. I was amazed that one person could have so much.

She talked with me for half an hour and I realized that what I saw on the outside wasn't matching what I was beginning to see on the inside. "Mary," I said finally, "have you ever cried yourself to sleep at night because you felt inadequate and wished you were somebody else?"

She began to cry. "How did you know?"

"Truthfully, Mary," I answered, "I've learned that people who appear to have it all together are often far from being together inside."

Often what we show on the outside is a false front designed to disguise who we really are and cover up the secret hurts we feel about our identity. Somehow we believe that if we appear attractive or perform well or enjoy a certain amount of status, then we will have it all together inside as well. But that's not necessarily true. External appearance, accomplishment and recognition don't necessarily reflect--or produce--internal peace and maturity. All the stuff and status you can acquire don't add up to personal wholeness. Millions of people climb those ladders to success, only to discover when they reach the top that they are leaning against the wrong wall!

Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what you have or don't have, what you've done or haven't done. You are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who you are--a child of God. The only identity equation that works in God's kingdom is you plus Christ equals wholeness and meaning.

Prayer:

Father God, I wouldn't trade the wholeness and meaning You have brought to my life for anything the world can produce.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Orthodox

Excerpt from An Emerging Understanding of Orthodox

I am thoroughly orthodox. No, not Eastern with a capital “O”, but orthodox meaning that I believe all the right things. Well . . . at least I think I am. But, really, it depends on how one defines “orthodox.” What does it mean to be orthodox?

It would seem that this question is taking center stage in the current theological landscape. I have heard rumors that some prominent leaders in the emerging church are going to be writing on this issue, challenging the traditional thought concerning what it means to be “orthodox”—even more than they have already done. Some in the Emergent church, such as Tony Jones and Brian McLaren, are saying that there may not be such a thing as “orthodox.” Others, like Andrew Jones, seem to suggest that orthodoxy simply should be thought of as “right worship” rather than right teaching. Some of our more fundamentalistic brothers and sisters believe that orthodox means you agree with everything in their particular tradition or denomination. Some Christians even say that “orthodoxy” is a representation of a dynamic confession that has developed throughout church history. Well . . . ahem . . . that would be me.

With this in mind, I have written a short series on this subject. I am going to try to argue that there is such a thing as orthodoxy and it means first and foremost “right teaching” or “right belief.” I am also going to propose that orthodoxy is a progressive representation of truth as it has been revealed and understood throughout history.


...

Part 2: Six Views of Orthodoxy

Christians have different presuppositions that they bring to their theology. This does not make it right or wrong, but we must understand that the unexamined presupposition is not worth having. Our view of history is no different. It is a presupposition that we bring when asking the question What does it means to be “orthodox”?

There are really six primary views that I find represented in the church today. I am going to try to explain these views using both established and original terminology. I have tried to stay away from certain terms such as “neo-orthodox” and “emerging orthodox” so as not to skew perspectives and stack the deck for or against anyone.

1. aOrthodoxy. Belief that there is no such thing as orthodoxy as a set of “right beliefs” or, at the very least, Christianity should not be defined by our beliefs except in a very minimalistic way. This view of orthodoxy takes a very pessimistic view of the Church’s need and ability to define truth, believing that orthopraxy (”right practice”) is the only thing that should be in focus. This pessimistic approach is influenced by the belief that defining the “boundaries” of Christianity according to beliefs has brought nothing but shame and divisiveness to Christianity. This is illustrated most in the bloodshed of the inquisition, Crusades, and wars among Christians. To be labeled “orthodox” or “unorthodox” to the aOrthodox is an arrogant power play that is oppressive to the cause of Christ. Orthodoxy, therefore, is a contextualized subjective “moving target” that cannot be defined.

Primary Adherents:

Emergent Church (to be distinguished as a subset of the Emerging Church)

Strengths:

  • Sees the importance of orthopraxy.
  • Understands the difficulty of defining Christian orthodoxy.

Weaknesses:

  • Christianity loses any distinction.
  • Follows a self-defeating premise by establishing a new minimalistic orthodoxy of its own.
  • Unjustifiably follows a “guilt by association” premise. Just because others killed in the name of orthodoxy does not mean that those who seek to define orthodoxy will do the same. In fact, most have not.

2. Scriptural Orthodoxy. This is the belief that Scripture alone sets the bounds of orthodoxy without any aid from the historic body of Christ. This should not be mistaken for sola Scriptura—the belief that the Scripture is our final and only infallible authority in matters of faith and practice—but as a radical rejection of any other sources of authority such as the church, tradition, natural revelation, etc. It is often referred to as solo Scriptura or nuda Scriptura. Here, there would not be any authority derived from the body of Christ, historic or contemporary, as an interpretive community that either fallibly or infallibly has the ability to define orthodoxy. Adherents would often be found saying, “No creed but the Bible.”

Primary Adherents:

Fundamentalist Protestants

Strengths:

  • Understands that the Bible is the only infallible source.
  • Causes people to go back to the source (ad fontes).

Weaknesses:

  • Discounts the historic Church as a Spirit illuminated interpreter of the Scriptures that must be respected as a voice (albeit fallible) of God.
  • Creates their own orthodoxy based upon their subjective interpretation. This way there will be many orthodoxies.
  • Often results in cults who deny essential elements of Christian theology that have been held throughout church history.
  • Fails to see that we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.

3. Paleo-Orthodoxy. This is the belief that the Christian faith can be found in the early church—namely in the consensual beliefs of the early church. This is a form of “consensual orthodoxy” (consensus fidelium). This search for consensus follows the dictum of Saint Vincent of Lrins: quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus, “that which was believed everywhere, always.” Normally, according to Thomas Oden, who coined the term “paleo-orthodoxy,” this consensual faith can be found in the first five centuries of the Christian church (Oden, Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements), before the “speculative scholasticism” of western Catholicism. The idea of theological progression is normally thought by strict adherents of Paleo-Orthodoxy as a post-enlightenment influenced methodology that should not be followed.

Primary Adherents:

Eastern Orthodoxy, some Evangelicals, and many Emerging Christians (not Emergent as I have defined it in my writings)

Strengths:

  • Looks to the historic body of Christ for orthodoxy.
  • Understands that God’s providential concern for the Church would have established the most important truths early.

Weaknesses:

  • Can elevate the authority of the early church above that of Scripture.
  • Hard to find justifiable reasons to believe that theology cannot develop or mature beyond the first five centuries.

4. Dynamic Orthodoxy. This view of orthodoxy would be highly influenced by a dialectical approach to theological development, believing that orthodoxy is not in any sense static, but dynamically changing as new discoveries are being made. Early views of orthodoxy might be completely overshadowed by new discoveries. This approach has characterized the more liberal theologians, especially in the early twentieth century. Theology, according to dynamic orthodoxy, can change radically in an antithetical way once new discoveries are made through the advancements of human knowledge.

Primary Adherents:

Liberal Christianity

Strengths:

Open to change and advancement.

Weaknesses:

  • Too open to change and advancement.
  • Christianity loses any roots.
  • Often values the credibility of human progress above the credibility of Scripture.

5. Developmental Orthodoxy. This view of orthodoxy is unique to Roman Catholicism, therefore, it must be understood according to the Catholic view of authority. Developmental Orthodoxy sees the fullness of Christian orthodoxy contained in the one deposit of faith given by Christ to the apostles. These Apostles handed this deposit over in two forms of tradition, written and spoken. The written tradition is found in the Scriptures, the spoken is primarily contained in the early church. This tradition is interpreted by the infallible magisterial authorities in the Roman Catholic church. Orthodoxy itself is defined progressively by this authority as situations develop throughout time. According to this theory, it is not as if orthodoxy develops ex nihilo, but only as the situations make necessary. Once orthodoxy has been defined, then Christians are responsible to believe it, even if it was previously obscure or non-existent (e.g. acceptance of the Apocrypha, assumption of Mary, rejection of birth control).

Primary Adherents:

Roman Catholics

Strengths:

  • Can be more definitive about a definition of orthodoxy.
  • Ability to contextualize orthodoxy.
  • Sees value in church history.

Weaknesses:

  • No regulation for abuse in the Magisterium.
  • No justification for an authoritative system of infallibility beyond pragmatism.
  • Elements of newly established orthodoxy that cannot be found in church history is hard to justify.
  • Does not take a consensual approach to orthodoxy which, in the end, positions most members of the Christian faith, living and dead, as unorthodox according to their current definition.

6. Progressive Orthodoxy. This is the belief that the ultimate authority for the Christian faith is found only in the Scriptures (sola Scriptura) and that orthodoxy is a progressive development of the Church’s understanding of the Scriptures. Like paleo-orthodoxy, progressive orthodoxy seeks the consensus of the Church throughout time for the core essential theological issues, finding most of these in the early church expressed in the ecumenical councils. But it also believes that our understanding of these issues can and may mature both through articulation and added perspective. This “maturing” does not amount to any essential change, but only progressive development as theological issues are brought to the table of church history through controversy and exegetical discovery. In other words, once orthodoxy has been established, its antithetical opposite cannot be entertained. Orthodoxy can only be advanced.

Adherents:

Most Evangelicals, Protestant Reformers, some emergers.

Here is the chart that illustrates this view:

Weaknesses:

  • Often hard to define what is the difference is between maturity and change.
  • Who defines when a doctrine has “matured”?

Strengths:

  • It is anchored in the Bible while having a great respect for tradition.
  • Leaves the door open for the Holy Spirit to mature the church’s understanding.
  • Seeks first to define orthodoxy in a consensual way.
  • Leaves room to distinguish between essential elements of orthodoxy and non-essential.

Of the options given above, in my opinion the two that are the most credible are Paleo-Orthodoxy and Progressive Orthodoxy. Both are rooted in the ultimate authority of Scripture and both have a high view of God’s providential care throughout Church history. I appreciate the consensual approach which I think must be present to some degree if one is to have a proper defense of the history of the Church.

In the end, however, I do lean in the direction of the Progressive Orthodox view. I believe that all the essential doctrines of Christianity were established in the early Church, but that their maturation came throughout church history. Some, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, matured earlier than others. Because of this, we find that these enjoy a greater Christian consensus. I put a higher priority on these. Yet I also believe that we need to take seriously others which matured later, even if they do not enjoy the same consensus (i.e. sola fide—which I believe existed in seed form in the early church, but did not develop more fully until the controversy of the sixteenth century.)

The distinction between the orthodoxy established in the early church and the later developing tradition based orthodoxy must be made and reflected upon.

quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus

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Controversy

Excerpts from The Controversial Organ at Vintage Faith

I love tracing origins of how things developed and why we do or think the things we do today. I have taught a class on worship at 2 different seminaries and when I was preparing for those, I did a study on the origin of various instruments used in worship. It turned out that the organ was quite a controversial instrument in it's time.
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Eventually, they weren't as scared of the organ and began using it like we use it today. It's so ironic that in more recent culture, the organ was so associated with what church music sounds like - that there are arguments when the organ is removed by people who are used to it. So there was an argument to get it into the church, and arguments to get it out of the church.

When you study history, you realize that forms and expressions of worship have always been changing. Culture has influenced worship practices and styles - and so much of what we do in our church gatherings today stems from a specific point in culture and what was happening at that time.

I just read a transcript from a sermon by Nicky Gumbel and in the sermon he had a letter written from someone in the church, who was complaining about the song selection and music.

The letter said:

"I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it. Last Sunday's new hymn - if you can call it that - sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon. If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this - in God's house! - don't be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship. The hymns we grew up with are all we need."

This letter was written in 1863 and the song they were concerned about was the hymn "Just As I Am".

Another letter said:

"What is wrong with the inspiring hymns with which we grew up? When I go to church, it is to worship God, not to be distracted with learning a new hymn. Last Sunday's was particularly unnerving. The tune was un-singable and the new harmonies were quite distorting."

This letter was written in 1890 and about the hymn "What A Friend We Have In Jesus". It is fascinating how our own personal choices and preferences dictates what we feel is appropriate worship or not. The Scriptures themselves do not give us instruction about what style or instruments to use. I definitely have personal bias and preferences when it comes to various worship expressions and song styles. But I hope when I get older and there are new styles and approaches to worship that develop, that I will remember these letters and desire more for future generations to worship in ways that culturally they express their praise and worship to God (like the organ did in its time, or these songs criticized here). It is all so interesting. (I am realizing that I use the word "interesting" a lot lately).


Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Conversation

Interview (from Out of Ur) with Dan Kimball on defining "missional":


To download this episode of Audio Ur, click here.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

Created using Wordle based on Ephesians 1: 3-14

Church Member

Excerpts from interview with Thabiti Anyabwile on his new book "What is a Healthy Church Member"

What inspired you to write this book?
By God’s grace, love for the local church. The Lord has knit us together in His body, making each member essential (1 Cor. 12:12-27). I long to see the Lord’s people live with full love and empathy for one another, making our life together as a redeemed people central to all our living. So much of the book market for individual Christians, however, leaves out the corporate aspect of the Christian life. There’s a great deal written to stimulate personal piety. But it’s often abstracted from the spiritual reality of the church. And it’s in the church that God intends for his people to be discipled (Eph. 4), to complete His love (1 John 4), to learn to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25), and so on. So, I wanted to offer something that helped individual church members see the connectedness between their personal spiritual health and the health of their local church.

What is the main thesis of this book? Or, what is one main thing that you hope that people will take away from reading this book?
I would rejoice if the Lord would allow the readers of this book to walk away thinking, "I have a lot to contribute to the strength and vitality of my local church", and, "that has a lot to do with my own communion with the Lord". It’s my sense that most “average Christians” feel they can do little to make their churches places of sweeter communion, or they tend to think that improving the church means adopting a new method of some sort. I pray that What Is A Healthy Church Member? actually says, “No, you have a lot to contribute. Every member is essential. And here are some biblical recommendations for impacting your brothers and sisters in Christ right away.”

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Do you think church membership is undervalued in our current church culture? If so, why?
Certainly. There are probably a number of factors. We share five reasons why people undervalue church membership in our new members class:

First, some Christians are not well informed. They’ve simply never thought much about the issue or been taught that church membership matters and is biblical.

Second, some Christians are indifferent. They think of church as an optional extra, sort of like the sunroof or the heated seats in a new car. It’s nice if you desire it, but not necessary to operating the car, or in this case the Christian life.

Third, some Christians are committed individualists. Their conception of the Christian life stops with “my personal relationship with Jesus,” and fails to see that the broader family really is essential. Often, these persons can be somewhat anti-authority as well. If they see in the church or the church’s leadership something that feels or looks like real oversight, they may recoil at the thought of having people “intruding” into their lives. In that sense, they may think of themselves more highly than they do others and not appreciate church membership.

Fourth, some Christians may simply be indecisive. If they have a consumer’s mindset when it comes to finding a church, they may shop around forever until they find a “custom fit” for their spiritual lives. And, of course, no such custom fit really exists so they keep shopping and never commit to any one body.

Finally, some Christians struggle with an inversion of their affections. What I mean is they’re not opposed to church membership per se, they may even know its importance, but they are emotionally attached to some previous church even though they are physically hundreds of miles away in a new city or even country. They remember fondly the church of their youth, or a pastor that was really influential in their lives, and they sometimes think that joining a church where they now live is somehow to have less affection for that previous church. What we want to encourage people to recognize in this situation is that (a) they should work to join their hearts with their bodies and commit to a church where they live, and (b) joining a new church does not diminish their love for other saints.

Why is church membership important anyway?
“Member” is a Christian word, a biblical idea. Many people think that pastors who stress membership are borrowing from the Rotary Club or some secular outfit. Actually, the idea arise straight from the body metaphor in places like 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. And when you read those passages you see two remarkable things: (1) God designs the body to the point of arranging each member in it just as He pleases (1 Cor. 1:18), and (2) His intent is that through the church He would receive glory (Eph. 3:10) and His people would grow into the full maturity of Christ (Eph. 4:11-13). If we are Christians but not attached to the body as recognized and functioning members of it, then (a) we, in effect, say that God does not know what He is doing in putting us in the body and we know better than God does, and (b) we think there is a path to glorifying God and reaching spiritual maturity that does not involve what God in His word says is essential and desirous. Church membership is simply a practical way of reflecting God’s glory as we live together in love, unity, peace and joy and of helping one another mature into Christlikeness. Those are critically important goals that can only be met through Christ’s body.

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