The ladies at Grace Church North County recently held a women’s conference on the work of the Holy Spirit.
The three messages were on assurance, holiness, and servanthood.
You will find them encouraging and I have a special relationship with the speaker (we have been married 34 years).
You will find them here.
A friend of mine said you are really doing well at learning a second language when you start to dream in it. Well, I knew I had spent lots of time on this topic when I started to hear the word “polity” as I slumbered. Really.
A brief introduction:
I once thought that the structures of church governance were of minimal importance, as long as godly men were in the roles. I had seen very well defined polity come to ruin through the pride of the men who exercised it. I had seen weak polity thrive because of the character of the men who served.
I now believe that structure is important, that clear definition is necessary for the well being (bene esse) of the church. Polity cannot be left so open that people may read their own meaning into it. I still believe that the character of those who govern is what makes any polity display the glory of God.
Polity sounds like some sort of academic subject. But each of us faces polity questions every day. When you walk into a meeting at work, you ask, “Who is responsible for this meeting?” Welcome to polity.It is important to answer that question. Polity must be defined because it serves people.
The NT does not give us a ton of data to work with, but work with it we must, because questions must be answered. People reach different conclusions. We respect them where they do their homework, even when we differ.
Christ is the Ruler of the Church. He rules by His Word. He gives to elders a right to bring His Word to bear in the life of a church. That is all the authority he gives them. An elder without a Bible is a man with no authority. Elders cannot add to His word. They are not to take away from His Word.
Elders are Word forward, leaders who are behind the Word. They are not leader forward, with the Word of God in hand. Although described as leaders, nowhere are elders commanded to lead the church. We are called to preach the Word, to teach, to remind of the Word, to be examples. To do so is an amazing honor. It demands faithfulness. It rejects cleverness.
I will never get this right. My hope is that the Savior of men shows his skill by wielding flawed and weak instruments for his purposes. It is worth thinking about these things, until you dream about them, as long as you remember Christ is the Savior and Lord of his people, and he used the likes of us to make His Word known.
This is not my work, but the work of the men who are fellow elders at Grace Church. I am grateful for them.
You can find the documents HERE.
Throughout Scripture it is taught not merely that by our sin we have incurred condemnation, but also that by it our hearts are filled with corruption. Sin is not guilt only—it is also depravity. And for our recovery from sin we therefore need not only atonement but also renewal. That is to say, salvation consists not in pardon merely but also in purification. There is a cleansing both of our record and of our very being.
Great as is the stress laid in the Scriptures on the forgiveness of sins as the root of salvation, no less stress is laid throughout the Scriptures on the cleansing of the heart as the fruit of salvation. Nowhere is the sinner permitted to rest satisfied with pardon as the end of salvation; everywhere he is made poignantly to feel that salvation is realized only in a clean heart and a right spirit. (Warfield)
Fred G. Zaspel (2012-03-07). Warfield on the Christian Life (Theologians on the Christian Life) (p. 75). Good News Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Americans in general have little tolerance for a centering way of life that is submissive to the conditions in which growth takes place: quiet, obscure, patient, not subject to human control and management. The American church is uneasy in these conditions. Typically, in the name of “relevance,” it adapts itself to the prevailing American culture and is soon indistinguishable from that culture: talkative, noisy, busy, controlling, image-conscious.
. . . most of our ancestors in both Israel and church have spent most of their time watching the paint dry . . . . — Eugene Peterson
Recent days have involved meetings, multiple meetings, in which I was struck by how hard it is to preach and call people to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in this culture. Our social fabric is threadbare. Church elders are spending time and energy designing ministry to accomplish what was once done in the home or by the expectations of the culture. But there are no expectations and many homes are broken. Parents are fearful and desperate for help. Adolescents breathe the air of autonomy, without knowing it is poisonous.
Peterson says that discipleship can only take place under certain conditions, conditions to which we must submit. He is taking us back to a world view advocated by C S Lewis, a worldview that says the world is hard and firm and unmovable. To become wise and mature, I must submit to it.
This way of thinking led to patience, a long obedience in the same direction, or, what we may say, “boredom.” Yes, I said, boredom. Maturation is not exciting nor entertaining nor rapid. It is repetitive and tedious. We must make a thousand choices against the cry of self. We must set aside amusement for faithfulness. We must make promises and keep them. Watching the latest sitcom night after night may be good fun. Helping change diapers or assisting kids with homework, or taking the time to engage a 6 year old in conversation is, well, not fun. But they are part of character formation. It is a long obedience in the same direction.
So, where is the Gospel in all this? Sounds rather moralistic does it not?
The Gospel is where it has always been. It is the message about the Lord of glory who took on flesh, entered the realm that is rightfully his, took out the usurper, laid down his life on the cross, and rose again. He is objective, real, immoveable, unchanging. And he says, ‘Follow me.” We adapt to him. He does not adapt to us. We change, he does not.
He is remaking us, not leaving us alone. He has paid us the gross compliment of loving us and not wanting to leave us to our foolishness and sin. We do not deserve his love, but he has loved us and set his purpose to make us a dwelling place for him. He has rescued us from ruin and has clothed us with glory.
That is so much greater than whatever boredom I focus on. Christ’s designs are breathtaking, and the means he employs are exactly suited to his work.
Therefore, the Gospel is not a message at our disposal for our comfort. It is a message about Him, and he takes us, justifies us, and causes us to die more and more to sin and to live unto righteousness.
Paul says in Romans 6:17 that we were slaves us sin, but became obedient (an unglamorous word) from the heart to the “form of teaching” to which we were delivered. The idea here is that the teaching, the Gospel, is like a mold, with a shape — and it is pressed onto our lives and shapes them into its form. Christ is that mold. He does not change, we do. That means he trims and cuts and presses and alters our lives, to make us into his image. This is what begins at conversion.
Understanding this and submitting to it is the condition in which maturity can develop, slowly. The idea that we must be authentic, true to ourselves, never acting contrary to what we feel is as contrary to this as imaginable. I must be renewed in my mind, change the condition of my sight, submit to his work, be shaped by him according to the purpose for which he poured out his blood, called me to himself, and is at work in me.
Tonight I am going to stay home and be bored watching the paint dry. Christ has given me something far more wonderful than what I would prefer. He has given me himself and he meets with me in quietness.
Early in my Christian life and learning I heard of B. B. Warfield. He was a Princeton Seminary scholar, apologist, and a man who suffered a great deal in his life, caring for his invalid wife for decades. He was a theologian made by study, prayer, and adversity.
Although I have read just a small portion of his works, they have etched themselves upon my soul and changed the way I see. His sermon on “Imitating the Incarnation”, his exposition of “The Leading of the Spirit,” his unanswered defense of the inspiration of the Scriptures, his exposition of the emotional life of Jesus — these and a few others have shaped me. While the style is marked by its time, the thought is clear and invites faith and joy.
Here is a sample quote, from a book about Warfield, on “the love of the Spirit”:
See us steeped in the sin of the world; loving evil for evil’s sake, hating God and all that God stands for, ever seeking to drain deeper and deeper the cup of our sinful indulgence. The Spirit follows us unwaveringly through all. He is not driven away because we are sinners. He comes to us because, being sinners, we need Him. He is not cast off because we reject His loving offices. He abides with us because our rejection of Him would leave us helpless. He does not condition His further help upon our recognizing and returning His love. His continuance with us is conditioned only on His own love for us. And that love for us is so strong, so mighty, and so constant that it can never fail. When He sees us immersed in sin and rushing headlong to destruction, He does not turn from us, He yearns for us with jealous envy.
It is in the hands of such love that we have fallen. And it is because we have fallen into the hands of such love that we have before us a future of eternal hope. When we lose hope in ourselves, when the present becomes dark and the future black before us, when effort after effort has issued only in disheartening failure, and our sin looms big before our despairing eyes; when our hearts hate and despise themselves, and we remember that God is greater than our hearts and cannot abide the least iniquity; the Spirit whom He has sent to bring us to Him still labors with us, not in indifference or hatred, but in pitying love. Yea, His love burns all the stronger because we so deeply need His help: He is yearning after us with jealous envy.
Fred G. Zaspel (2012-03-07). Warfield on the Christian Life (Theologians on the Christian Life) (p. 90). Good News Publishers. Kindle Edition.
I want to defend the Law of God for a minute. I want to argue for the many benefits of the law I find in Scripture and have found in my own experience.
Conversion, a new birth, is a wondrous thing. It is far more than a coat of fresh paint. It is a change of appetite, interests, tastes.
The first evidence of my new life in Christ was a hunger for the Word of God. Because the Holy Spirit had written his word on my new heart (no longer of stone but of flesh), I simply could not get enough Bible, including the laws of God.
As a new Christian I loved the commandments of Scripture. Yes, I loved them. I did not think of them as a burden, or legalistic, or contrary to the Gospel. They brought me joy. According to Scripture, they also bring light, wisdom, truth, and are sweeter than honey to the taste.
Commands brought me joy because they answered a question. I asked this: What does it look like to please my Father? I did not know. My moral categories were warped. My compass was not set to God’s true north. I needed help.
So, when I read my Bible I would find clarity. Here were perspectives I had not considered or known before.
The Sermon on the Mount was a stunner. Jesus words told me about how my paths could be ones that God loved. For example, I learned that he loved me to treat those made in his image with honor. Not only was I not to murder, but words of contempt were forbidden. He valued relationships with other people so much that I was not to come worship him until I had sought to be reconciled with others.
He told me about sexual purity that pleased him, not only of behavior, but of thoughts. He told me my life was to be directed to the eyes of God alone and not to show off to other Christians.
Each point of clarity brought joy (knowing what was pleasing to God, light on the path), conviction (I saw my sin), and opportunity for repentance and faith (I lived on the promise of confessing my sin and God’s certain cleansing, 1 John 1:9).
When I first married I faced something quite like this. I wanted to please my wife (1 Cor 7 says I should). But I had no idea what that looked like. I had to learn. I began to acquire “laws”, the rules to live by to please my wife. The law was no opposed to relationship. It was to cultivate it. I learned the law of what kind of hand lotion she likes, the law of what best helps her when she cries, the law of her favorite ice cream. At 34 years, it is a long list.
That does not make me a legalist. It makes me a lover of my wife.
I have known my God for 40 years. The law has been applied to hundreds of details in my life. In order to learn more of what is pleasing to God, I still read my Westminster Larger Catechism for it expansive treatment of the Ten Commandments, starting with Question 91.
What is most amazing, I find that the law has been written on my heart. That is the nature of the new covenant (Jer 31). In my experience that means that I often hear a principle of the law in my mind before I speak a word of gossip. Or I hear the whisper of the command when I am tempted to spend money I do not have. As I come into the house after a demanding day, the Word of God comes to mind, I am to love my wife as Christ loved the church. We please God in the details, not vague impressions. Words of the law come to mind by the work of the Spirit and I am helped to see what it looks like to please Him.
This is not legalism. It is regeneration. As a new creation, I delight to please my Redeemer. I want to know what that looks like. The law has served me. It still serves me. The Law, in the details of its application to life, is not my enemy. It is a gift. I cannot please God in generalities. I please him in details. I was not trying to win his favor, but to please the One who had given me his full acceptance.
I grant that it is possible for me to misuse the law. I can add to the law with commands God has not given. I can be tempted to use it as a whip of condemnation. I can also think I am a terrible husband because I do not keep the many laws of love for my wife. But that does not mean the law is a bad thing.
The law actually drives me out of myself, to Christ. When I allow the law to define the length and breadth and height of holiness, I both want to please God more, and see how desperately I needed a Savior. I simply cannot ever measure up. But he did measure up, always doing and saying and seeking the things that were pleasing to the Father. And he bore the curse of the broken law in his body on the cross. I find my peace with God only in the complete work of the Son for me.
I am not a legalist because I have this long list. I am a lover of my God who loved me and gave himself for me. I please him when I trust the Holy Spirit and apply his commands to the details of life.
This doctrine of the sacrificial death of Christ is not only essential to Christianity,
“but in a very real sense it constitutes Christianity. It is this which differentiates Christianity from other religions. Christianity did not come into the world to proclaim a new morality and, sweeping away all the supernatural props by which men were wont to support their trembling, guilt-stricken souls, to throw them back on their own strong right arms to conquer a standing before God for themselves. It came to proclaim the real sacrifice for sin which God had provided in order to supersede all the poor fumbling efforts which men had made and were making to provide a sacrifice for sin for themselves; and, planting men’s feet on this, to bid them go forward.”
Fred G. Zaspel (2012-03-07). Warfield on the Christian Life (Theologians on the Christian Life) (p. 60). Good News Publishers. Kindle Edition.
It is tempting to think that the divisions, disagreements, and ethical quandaries which mark the modern church would be easily resolved if we just had the apostles around. But that is wrong. It didn’t make any difference then either.
Forty years into the Christian life I have compiled a list of matters of doctrine and practice where Christians disagree. I have observed and known many problems for which there is no one clear text. The list is longer by the year.
I have wondered about how easy it would be if we had one of the 12 with us! Then we could turn and ask them for the answer, “Paul, can you tell us which is true?” or “John, which is the right path?” They would speak the word of God to us and we would know.
But that view is problematic.
First, I’d like to suggest that this creates two stages of history. There is the golden age, when Jesus was here or shortly after, when Scripture was being given, when there were immediate communications from God. Then there is “ever since.” After the golden age, we are stuck with a book, open to varied interpretation. There was a better time to live than this.
In that golden age, when God was speaking directly, there was an immediate answer for every issue, every doctrinal question. There was a clearing of the air at once. Problems were solved quickly. Ethics questions were answered immediately.
Today, we are left to muddle along with the problem of diverse interpretations and the challenges of trying to piece together answers from multiple portions of the Word of God.
Second, to think there are two stages, and we live in the lesser era now, is a statement about the character and wisdom of God. It says the completeness that is in Christ is not as accessible for our good as it once was. Really? (This is not against the ongoing work of the Spirit. I am a continuationist because I do not believe in a Golden Age!)
Third, that sort of thinking also fuels desires that make us vulnerable. It churns a longing for a restoration of that better day, a renewal of the apostolic age. We wish for a true, New Testament church! We want restoration.
By the way, there are folks who will cater to our yearnings. They will offer a promise of a revived golden age. They insist that if we could restore all the gifts and offices of the early church, there would be a mighty revival.
So, what do we say to these yearnings that we hope for? They all sound fine and good until we look at the facts. The details of the NT tell a truer story.
A simple read of my bible shows us an apostolic era where God revealed himself in His Incarnate Son. John says they saw him, touched him, heard God Incarnate. He made the lame to walk and the blind to see. Wow!
He died and rose and ascended. He appointed 12 apostles to bring eye-witness of the facts and meaning of his life. They also did signs and wonders to attest to their witness, that it was from God. They spoke the very word of God.
Sounds exciting. Yes, indeed. The golden age? Hardly.
The effect of that immediate and dazzling work of God was what? For those who saw Jesus it was dull minded disciples, self-serving friends, pride and ambition, betrayal, plus enemies who remained unpersuaded and conspired to kill him.
And what about the early church with the presence of apostles? Well aside from the joyful first days of the newborn (Acts 2:42-47) we find that, in short order, the early Christians were engaged in doctrinal deviation and heresy, moral compromise, and division.
The early Christians, as a whole, seen through the backdrop of all the apostolic letters, are not impressive. No, it is Christ who is impressive. The record is of a great Redeemer advancing the Gospel and building the church even with weak people, and with people who carry remaining sin in themselves.
Here is the sum: The problems I want Jesus to fix by revealing himself again are the same problems that showed up when people were around him. The very things I would want to be fixed by Paul’s or Peter’s returning to us are the things they faced in their ministry and did not fix. They addressed them, but they did not fix them. Just read Corinthians.
There was no golden age. There is only a great Savior building his church with all the messiness of a construction site. At the end of the NT era, we find 7 letters to 7 churches. In Revelation 2-3 we have a description of those churches. That description is pretty much a good description of churches today. Not much has changed. Christ is at work, sin is present. Christ is building, error is infiltrating.
I want to be careful here. This is not a counsel of despair. It is a counsel against false hopes. I do not believe the era of the apostles was any more godly, any more doctrinally stable, or had any greater clarity on various ethical matters than we do.
The NT is clear. Christ is on the throne. He is doing his work. But their problems are the same as ours. There is not a two stage history of the church. The early centuries were not the Ferrari age and we are now, sadly, in the Chevrolet age. I would say it is all a time of Christ by the Spirit and Word calling people to faith and building his church.
Finally, there is one more issue. The sort of thinking I am considering makes the Apostles into something other than they were. They were not five start generals. They were not oracles. An oracle is someone to whom you can go to get a new word from God. It is almost as though an oracle can speak the word of God at will.
That was not the apostles. They were messengers. They could not make up the Word of God. They knew when they were speaking the Word of God and they knew when they were just speaking as men. It was not in their power to make God speak.
What the Apostles brought to bear in the churches was the revealed Word of God. That was their appointed role. And that is what they have left to us — the same Word they brought to the first Christians. I said, they left to us the same Word. If they were here, they would add nothing to it. It is complete.
Someone asked me recently to explain this. They wanted to know how it could not be better to have Paul or John right here, and to be able to ask them our questions. That is viewing them as oracles.
I illustrated it this way: If Paul was here and we asked him our question, he would turn to the New Testament to see what the Word of God says. That is the complete revelation of God for this time. He would not add to it. He was not an oracle. He was a messenger. All that God appointed for us to know of his revelation he has given. Even Paul could not add to it at will.
And it is a sufficient word, a powerful word. We do not need more or God would have given it to us. What he has given is true and authoritative, and powerful by the Spirit. I have the sure word of God, a light shining in a dark place, to which I do well to pay attention.
Christ is as fully accessible today as he has always been. The Spirit of God is as active as he always has been. The Word of God is complete and sufficient. I get to carry an apostle around with me.
A good friend forwarded me these links to some exceptional lectures on the church by John Woodhouse, of Moore Theological College down under. You can learn about him here.
These are worth the listen because they are pastoral, wise, and very helpful. I did not say I agreed with everything. This would be a case of listening to something that was rich and mature. It filled in some gaps.
You can find them here.
Christian autobiographies are often predictable. This one is not. It is clear, insightful, faith-building, and necessary. This one disrupted my worldview, gave me a new viewpoint, and bolstered my reasons for confidence in the Gospel in this time.
What am I referring to?
The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield.
I have read a variety of conversion stories over the years. They are wonderful illustrations of Christ’s ability to save sinners. But they are usually individualistic, narrowly focused, and follow a rubric. That is what makes them predictable. By predictable I do not mean insignificant or nor worthy of thanksgiving.
This story is not predictable. It is about a highly educated woman, steeped in the assumptions of post-modernism, a lesbian and feminist, a tenured professor at a major university – who met the living Lord. She is a person most of us would shun, or at best, be terrified to have at our table. But Christ met her.
Her conversion was about more than individual sin. It was a remaking of her mind, a change in the lens through which she viewed everything in life. Her conversion required an immediate change in her lectures, her research, her public advocacy, her lifestyle. It was a traffic wreck; it was a painful, earth-shaking alternation of all of her. She was, it seems, like C S Lewis, “the most reluctant convert” in the American academy.
Her story is of both the entry to a faith and the progressive work of Christ in her life. He invaded her world, sparing nothing, over years, with the help of a local church made up of very ordinary Christians, who simply believed the Gospel and lived it out with her.
Here are a few reasons why I can recommend the book.
First, she is representative of the worldview of the majority of our fellow citizens, not only in the USA but in the West. She may have been more outspoken than others, but my guess is that her former “stands” on various issues would resonate with most people in our culture.
Most Christians view the sins of our culture atomistically. Sorry for the big word. It means they see this sin or that sin, immorality or homosexuality or abortion. They do not see them as parts of a whole. Her story helps us see the bigger picture. When I see that larger picture, it keeps me from reacting, with fear or anger. It helps me understand the internal dynamics of sin, the worldview that is common to the various sins of our day. Romans 1:19-32 argues from worldview sins to detailed sins. That is what she helps me see. And that helps me communicate Christ more clearly and patiently.
Second, the way of Christ into her life is the model for our part in witness in this time. She knew all about the angry hate mail, the vitriol of moralistic Christians who think that threats and tirades are means of grace to those morally far off. But she did not know what to do with a man and his wife who preached peace to those who are far off, who respected her as a fallen image bearer of Christ, who enjoyed literature and food, and could engage in conversation about such things, while at the same time they explained Christ to her. She noted (and this is one example of helpful critique) that this couple did not engage in conversation stopping moral pronouncements such as she had known from other Christians. Nor did they back off; they continued the conversation with questions and discussions. They kept Christ as the issue to be addressed and steered away from creating other points of offense.
The church that welcomed her welcomed her as she was, and as God was working in her. It was messy work. It always is.
The people loved her, the stranger (the meaning of hospitality, philoxenia, in Greek). They did not give her shallow answers or moral slogans. They prayed for and helped her yield to the transforming work of Christ. And that work was slow and deep, as it is in all of us. They even welcomed her friends, whom she sometimes brought with her. She did have her share of later shunning, but not in the beginning.
Third, her life shows the cost of following Christ to people in our day. She is not glib about discipleship. She felt repeatedly that owning Christ before others was truly a betrayal in the eyes of her friends of many years. They had stood together against Christianity in its good and bad forms, and now she had broken that bond. She does not pity herself. She embraces this calling with courage.
Finally, she brings a larger perspective to the issues of her own life. Her treatment of sexuality, moralism, community, the value of life, and the church are from a different vista than the party-line of evangelicalism. She reaches the same conclusions, but her reasons are substantive, integrated with larger issues, and compelling. She sees Christian morality in a larger framework of God as Creator and Lord of life.
One example: she gets to the sins behind the sins of sexual immorality. A favorite passage (and one of such relevance to our day) is this:
“. . . too often good Christians see sexual sin as merely sexual excess. To a good Christian, sex is God’s recreation for you as long as you play in God’s playground (marriage). No way, José. Not on God’s terms. What good Christians don’t realize is that sexual sin is not recreational sin gone overboard. Sexual sin is predatory. It won’t be “healed” by redeeming the context or the genders. Sexual sin must simply be killed. What is left of your sexuality after this annihilation is up to God. But healing, to the sexual sinner, is death: nothing more and nothing less.” (Butterfield, Rosaria (2012-09-06). The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Kindle Locations 1625-1630). Crown & Covenant Publications. Kindle Edition.)
How often have I, as a pastor, counseled a couple living in immorality outside of marriage to simply get married, and all will be well? Her comments blow that up. Repentance must take place at a level of motivation, not just behavior.
Here is another example: She and her husband now have adopted children of diverse ages and races. That path has been heart wrenching at times. God has answered prayer, but those answers came with a price. She comments on the nature of answered prayer and the mercies of God in a way that cuts through sloganeering and rings true. Noting that God sometimes moves mountains, she says:
“When mountains move, the earth shakes. When you stand as close as we have to real life miracles, you will get roughed up. Mountains are big and we are small. A moving mountain can crush us. Splinters fall from the cross. They travel a long distance and they pierce the skin— maybe even the heart. And wrapped in this risk and danger is God’s embrace and promise to work all things (even evil ones) to the good of those who love him. When we read in the book of Romans, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose” (8: 28), we are not to be Pollyanna about this. Many of the “things” we will face come with the razor edges of a fallen and broken world. You can’t play poker with God’s mercy— if you want the sweet mercy than you must also swallow the bitter mercy. And what is the difference between sweet and bitter? Only this: your critical perspective, your worldview.” (ibid. Kindle Locations 2408-2415).
Having observed some dear friends walk through an adoption process, I believe their experience is described in these words. Often the call of God is clear, and God is at work, but when he works the earth shakes and our lives are disturbed. His mercies can seem bitter.
Ok, I hope I have whet your appetite. I am sure she can be critiqued. I am sure there are flaws in her thinking. She lands on some issues like Psalm-singing that seem tangential to me. But even there she shows the change of her inward life to be one of submission to the Word of her Savior and King.
But for me, a man who deeply longs to see my own life reflect the One who did not come to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved, this book is provocative and heartening.
To follow him into this world is to cease living an insular life. It is to engage with individuals, not averages or stereotypes. It is to put off moral outrage and show mercy. It is to bear the anguish of compassion and welcome of the lost into my life so they might, through me, know the welcome of the Christ to his life. And to do this with confidence that when the Christ is present, I need not fear. He is not intimidated by anyone’s sin. He is the Lamb who has conquered all that opposes God and ruins our own souls. He can and will welcome them, wash them, justify them, and remake them into his own image.
Thank you Rosaria for a story that renews my confidence in Him.