Wittenberg's Cathedral Door

Desiring God has an excellent post on Martin Luther. Today is the 491st anniversary of the posting of the 95 Theses, a key event in God's work for His church to recover the biblical gospel through the Reformation.

As I read the post, I was struck by something written there. Martin Luther wanted a debate, not a public scandal. So he posted his theses in Latin. Someone else got hold of them, translated them into German, and published them more broadly.

I observe two things from the way history played itself out. First, under the providence of God we do not always know whom He uses to accomplish His purposes. And it does not seem to matter if we know. We remember Martin Luther. But he was not looking for anything like what happened. Someone else did the translating and publishing that sparked the Reformation. In heaven, I would like to find that person and thank him. But I will have to wait till them, because until then I will not know who it was.

And second, under the providence of God we do not always know how God is going to accomplish His purposes. Luther was an Augustinian monk. He did what scholastic types did when they wanted to debate by nailing his 95 Theses to a cathedral door in Latin. Maybe I should give him more credit, but I doubt very seriously that he had any inkling of what would eventually happen.

I am the pastor of a small church. I do what pastors do -- preaching, teaching, praying, counseling, studying, discipling. I wonder sometimes about the impact I am having. A few generations after I have died, odds are that no one on this sphere will remember me or my ministry. But it is the business of the triune God to build the church (Isa 56:8; Matt 16:18; Eph 1:22-23). I do not know through whom or how He will do it. Martin Luther and his anonymous translator remind me of that and give me both joy and hope.

Humbled by divine election

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him." I remember reading Ephesians 1:3-4 during the summer of 1993, the summer before my sophomore year of high school. All of the freshmen Bible studies for Campus Crusade at Northwestern University were going to study Ephesians during the Fall Quarter. I had been asked to lead a study, so I was studying through the book ahead of time. I had begun trusting in Christ only two years earlier, and did not know Ephesians very well. These verses stunned and shook me to my core.

Before I knew it, I began seeing divine election throughout the Bible: Isaiah 41:8-10; 43:6-7; John 6:36-40; 15:16; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29-30; 9:6-29; I Peter 1:1-2; Revelation 13:8; 17:8. It was plain enough that God's "knowing" or "foreknowing" meant more than knowing about someone. It meant that His affections were set upon that someone. And a larger pattern of God's sovereignty began to emerge: the calling of Abraham, Israel's election from among the nations, the election of Isaac over Ishmael, of Jacob over Esau. I began to see the sovereignty of God over all the events of my life (Psalm 139:13-16; Proverbs 16:9; 20:24; Matthew 6:25-34; James 4:13-16). And if over all the events of my life, then surely over my salvation as well.

But I missed a few things along the way. Too often I have been too eager to debate what "foreknowledge" means, or whether salvific election is exclusively corporate or embraces individual election as well. There is a place for such debates. The Scriptures do not shy away from election, so neither should we. Too much additional doctrine and ethical implication are built upon election for us not to care about getting it right. But I fear I bruised more than a few brothers and sisters in Christ, and perhaps turned them away from the doctrines of grace, in my eagerness to be right.

What did I miss? The pastoral concern of the apostles and prophets in talking about election. This is a doctrine that is supposed to strengthen quaking knees and crush proud hearts. God would calm our fears and prepare us for trials by reminding us that we are chosen and therefore unshakable. Election is an act of divine love, grounding our sense of security in the Father's affections by a decision made before we can even say "before." Jesus challenges His listeners and exposes the hardness of their hearts by confronting them with the reality of sovereign choice.

Divine election humbles me -- or it should humble me -- because it clearly shows that there is no reason for God to love me outside of Himself. Let that sink in for a moment. Compare it with the relationships we enjoy with other human beings. Almost every relationship we have exists because of some sort of mutual benefit, or mutual attraction, or mutual enjoyment. We love what is lovable. We choose what is attractive or beneficial. If I am loved, it is because there is something about me that someone else likes. And that is an occasion for pride -- I am loved, so there must be something good or lovely about me.

But that is not how God's election works. His election has nothing to do with anything in us. Why does He choose whom He chooses? That is a mystery caught up in the hidden counsel of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before the worlds began. Certainly there is nothing attractive about sinful, rebellious, hostile, traitorous human beings. The consequence of God's election of His people was the sending of the Son to die in order to save them. And yet God chose.

When I am mindful of election, I am laid low by it. And only in that lowliness do any of us find freedom to serve and obey God with joy and without pretention. Perhaps, rather than a quick and ready wit, a humbled heart and changed attitude would do help to persuade others of the greatness of our God.

Humble Orthodoxy

I recently finished Collin Hansen's excellent book Young, Restless, Reformed. He quotes the following from Joshua Harris:

Behold the truth revealed in the Word of God. Commit to believe in it. Represent it with humility. This is what we call humble orthodoxy... In view of the fact that we were dead in our sins, the only reason we see anything in ourselves is because [God] chose to pour out his grace in our lives. That's why there's no place for [arrogance]... If your theology doesn't shape you, then you haven't understood it.

Though I read them several days ago, Harris' words have remained on my mind. As one of those young Reformed pastors Hansen was writing about, if my theology does not produce humility within me, then I have not really understood it. J. I. Packer writes this in his introduction to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (which is dense and rich enough that I'm only chipping away at it a few pages at a time):

Calvinism is something much broader than the "five points" [of the TULIP acrostic] indicate. Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world's Maker and King... a theocentric way of thinking about all of life under the direction and control of God's own Word.

And later he writes, "We are saved entirely by divine grace through a faith which is itself God's gift and flows to us from Calvary."

If Harris and Packer are right (and I think they are), then what room is there in my life for any degree of self-centeredness or arrogance? What room is there for boasting, unless it be in the cross of Christ? What room is there for being impatient or argumentative, when no degree of cleverness on my part contributed to my salvation?

So in the next few posts (which I hope will come more frequently now), I would like to spend some time thinking through some theological convictions and how they ought, if genuinely believed, to produce deeper humility, patience, holiness, and love. Maybe we can grow together in the kind of "humble orthodoxy" espoused by so many of the people Hansen writes about, even as it was displayed in the lives of so many of the Puritans they draw inspiration from.

The Refreshment of Fellowship

Last week was the annual conference for the Eastern District of the EFCA. This is my third year in the Eastern District, and it is the third conference my wife and I have attended. We have looked forward to it all year, and it did not disappoint. In fact, I cannot imagine not attending the EDA conference as long as I am ministering in the district.

What is it that makes these conferences so refreshing for us? There was interesting and helpful teaching, including two excellent sermons, a presentation on the research findings in UnChristian by one of the authors, as well as workshops on worship, pastoral ministry, and community engagement. But as good as all of that was, it was not why we looked forward to the conference or why we look back so fondly. Nor was it the musical worship, though we enjoyed that as well. It was not the book table -- I made no purchases at this conference (not because there was nothing to buy, but because I have already spent my book budget for the year).

We found the conference so refreshing because of the fellowship we enjoyed there. Among the other pastors, pastors' wives, church planters, and district staff at the conference we were able to enjoy the many blessings of relaxed, unguarded fellowship. We were able to take off the "pastor hat" and safely confess both our struggles (Gal 6:2) and our sins (Jas 5:16). We shared meals while discussing our lives, our ministries, and what God is teaching us through the Scriptures (Acts 2:42). We prayed and sang together with joy and gladness (Col 3:16). We shared our dreams and vision to see our churches grow through evangelism and discipleship, having an impact beginning in our communities and extending around the world (Phil 2:2). We glorified God together for the greatness of His being, the excellence of His character, and the majesty of His works. We made much of God together. And as a result, my wife and I came home with a bigger picture of what God is doing in our district and around the world. We came away with our hearts strengthened. I think that is what fellowship is supposed to do (Phm 6).

I am already looking forward to next year.

To Know God

Normally I do not simply give a link to another blog when I post. There are some really good blogs that do a much better job of keeping up with helpful content from other places, such as Between Two Worlds and Challies.com, which I check almost everyday. So I usually focus on posting original content.

But this post from The Thirsty Theologian was too good, too helpful, too well-written not to pass on. So please read and enjoy.

Here is an extended quotation to whet your appetite:

I want to know God. I want to know his nature and his thoughts... What could possibly be more wonderful, as wonderful, or even remotely wonderful compared to the knowledge of the eternal, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who is the source of all things, the epitome of holiness, righteousness, and justice? The answer is obvious: nothing compares...

Why is it, then, that reading God’s Word becomes, at times, a chore to be done rather than a pleasure to be savored?

HT: Challies

More on Being a Cubs Fan

I had to share this...






HT: JT

Two Books from Sunday

During our morning worship service at Bethel last Sunday, I mentioned two books, and pledged to post information on them.

Most Christian books for men that I have read fall into one of three categories. The first is what I call non-Christian Christian books, books that are often filled with powerful illustrations and personal reminiscences, and at the same time are void of biblical truth. The second are how-to Christian books, packed with Scripture references but reducing being a Christian man to 40 things you need to do to be a godly man. The third are bash-the-church Christian books, which describe everything that is wrong with our churches, and sometimes offer practical but not always biblical advice on how to change things.

Tender Warrior by Stu Weber does not fit into one of these three categories. Weber is a pastor in Oregon who himself defies our expectations. On the one hand he is a former high school athlete and Green Beret, and still bow hunts. On the other hand he is a family man who married his high school sweetheart and raised three sons. His book combines biblical truth with helpful personal stories, and each chapter is concluded with study and discussion questions. Our monthly men's group will be reading this book together.

Christians know we need to be humble. In one sense, humility defines what it means to be a Christian -- confessing that you are a sinner and coming to Jesus Christ through faith require humility. But in another sense, humility continues to be elusive even after coming to Christ and having His life at work within you to transform you. In the sermon yesterday on Mark 10:32-45, we learned that humility cannot be reduced to a set of principles or maxims. Humility begins with regarding yourself as ransomed, as no longer belonging to yourself but to the one who bought you, and regarding Him as of greater value than anything or anyone else.

Reducing humility to maxims and principles is precisely what C. J. Mahaney does not do in his excellent little book Humility: True Greatness. He describes the importance of humility in God-centered, cross-focused terms and describes the exercises he employs to cultivate humility, all while freely confessing he has not arrived. I recommended this book during the sermon yesterday, and recommend it now to any readers of this blog.

Reflections on the Financial Bailout

I am probably coming to this party too late to have much fun, and joining the conversation too late to add anything meaningful. And I am a layman when it comes to economics. But it continues to be big news whether in the newspapers, on the Internet, or during presidential debates. And I think I needed a little bit of time to look around and simply watch before adding my two-cents worth.

First a few links... This article from World Magazine is probably still the best quick-and-easy overview of what went wrong. This article from The American Scene is also helpful because it weighs out the pros and cons of a bailout plan, but it is a little more technical. For a more entertaining account that is simplified but still helpful, see this article from National Review Online and this follow-up. For the most intelligent (but fairly technical) commentary on crises and bailouts that I have found, take a look at the Becker-Posner blog, where two world class economists give their analysis and do not always agree with each other.

And now a few observations... Perhaps was has struck me most forcibly about the discussion surrounding the crisis and bailout is the woefully underinformed and reactionary state of most public opinion. Whether in conversations at the store or in a church, whether in letters to the editor or comments following a Web-based article, many responses betray a lack of understanding of how the U.S. economy works. After the first bailout package was rejected in the House of Representatives, reader comments at both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post (intentionally chosen for their differing political inclinations) were almost uniformly negative regarding the bailout and gleeful regarding its rejection, for the most part arguing that Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street had attempted to pin the cost of their mismanagement on Main Street, and throwing around the number $700BN as if the IRS were going to show up on our individual doorsteps requesting a check for our portion of the bailout within the week, with no hope or recouping the money. Now I might be able to understand opposition to a bailout, but at least have better reasons for it than that, and try to comprehend the consquences for both Wall Street and Main Street of letting major financial institutions fail.

The second observation I would offer is that neither the mainstream media nor the government has helped on the whole in understanding what has happened and why a bailout might be necessary. For example, on Monday my family went out for lunch to a restaurant that had TVs tuned in to CNN. As the Dow "plunged" below 10,000, it seemed that CNN was doing everything possible to make a bigger story out of it than was necessary, including soliciting feedback from viewers on Twitter and Facebook. One viewer's comment especially piqued my interest because he was in a panic over what he should do with his daughter's college savings fund. (The short answer to that concern, unless his daughter is leaving for college in the next year, is to do nothing out of the ordinary. This is a market correction. It is the way the system works. Gains are never guaranteed, especially in the short term. Ride it out.) My wife, whose undergraduate degree is in economics, was growing frustrated with the coverage until CNN had an economist on to discuss the situation, who promptly criticized CNN for the way they were promoting fear and misinformation.

To be fair, this is not meant to target CNN's coverage. Fox and MSNBC have been just as irresponsible. And the administration did an incredibly poor job of selling the bailout to the average voter and taxpayer. It seems to me that good information has been as difficult to come by for the public as liquidity of funds has been for banks.

And now for my two cents. It seems to me that some sort of bailout was necessary and important not only for Wall Street but for Main Street. We can gripe about tax dollars stuffing the pockets of irresponsible executives, but when business owners need loans and cannot get them, or responsible borrowers who are first time homeowners cannot get a mortgage, then the griping will simply shift in content. And many opposed to government assistance now will want government assistance then. The key issue is liquidity, something which the alternate plan proposed by the House Republicans did not sufficiently address.

If I were to defend my position here, I would end up cutting and pasting the arguments of others. Go to the links listed above -- they present the case as well as I could.

So there is one cent. Now for the second. It also seems to me that there is widespread sidestepping of personal responsibility in this mess. We can discuss whether lenders were irresponsible with subprime mortgages. We can discuss whether Freddie and Fannie were irresponsible in buying these mortgages. We can discuss the difficulty of properly fixing the value of securities and the wisdom of then using them as capital to enable more borrowing. We can ask economic questions about moral hazard and government intervention. There is plenty wrong with the way things played out over the past few years. Everyone seems to agree on that.

What about those who did the borrowing? I know I run the risk of giving offense here. I understand the desire to own a home and the advantages of home ownership. But if the only mortgage you could get was an ARM or payment option or Ninja loan, should you take on that kind of debt? The assumption made by many to justify this kind of borrowing was that housing values would continue to go up. But I have to wonder if it is wise to take on the massive amounts of debt associated with a mortgage when you lack the ability to pay it off.

I cannot help but throw in a third cent as well. Where is God in all of this? Isaiah 45:7 teaches us that the Lord brings both good and calamity. All the treasures of the earth belong to Him, and nothing happens that is contrary to His knowledge and plan. Both the initial panic and the current sense of brooding despondency that I pick up here in the New York area, from Christian and non-Christian alike, suggests to me that we believe what God attests about Himself in Scripture to be true more often in the breach than in the observance. Or another way of looking at it is to observe that we are often more ready to declare God's sovereignty when "it" affects someone else rather than us (whatever "it" may be), but that when "it" meddles with our plans and crushes our dreams God's sovereignty falls from our consciousness.

This article from the Desiring God blog was a helpful reminder to me of the need to pray for our country's leaders, both political and economic. But even more useful to me in keeping my head, as I have too have investments that have been affected, is to remember the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6, especially vs. 30-33: "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

The Futility of Being a Cubs Fan

Maybe next Tuesday, I'll be smiling because the unthinkable happened. Maybe the folks at ESPN and SI are wrong and it isn't over.

I know at some level that it won't happen. Teams just don't recover from being down 0-2 in a best of five series. But I can't let go of that hope, that "maybe this time" attitude. Why? Because I'm a Chicago Cubs fan, and that's the way we are.

I started rooting for the Cubs when I was a little kid. On Saturdays during the summer, my dad would take me and my brother fishing. We'd come back in the afternoon, clean the fish, fry some up, and sit down in front of the TV. Apart from the national game of the week on the networks, there were only two teams to watch: the Braves (thanks to TBS) and the Cubs (thanks to WGN). And so was born an affection that became fandom when I moved to Chicago to go to college.

All season I have hedged my hopes, telling myself the Cubs were going to blow it and not even make the playoffs, that Carlos Zambrano's arm would fall off or that Aramis Ramirez would go into a ghastly 0-for-a-100 hitting slump. But they not only made the playoffs, they won their division and posted the best record in the NL. They were clearly the best team in the National League. So I began to hope...

I thank God that through Christ, I don't need to hedge my hopes, and I need not fear that my hopes will be crushed. I know that might sound tagged on or cliched -- I'm a pastor, and this blog is about Christian stuff, so I have to make it sound Christian... But at least for today as I write this, it's neither tagged on nor cliched. I went to bed last night disappointed, and I woke up feeling down and dragging through my morning. Proverbs 13:12 says that "Hope deferred makes the heart sick," and that is what I was experiencing. Over a baseball team. So I set about meditating on passages such as Romans 5:1-5, Ephesians 1:15-23, Titus 2:11-14, Hebrews 6:17-20, and I Peter 1:3-5.

There is a hope kept in heaven for me, a hope that will not be disappointed but will most certainly be fulfilled. My Lord is more precious and of greater worth than anything else, and certainly moreso than any sporting event or organization. And that is a great encouragement at all times.

And just because they're down 0-2 doesn't mean it's over for the Cubs.

Where I (tenatively) land on engaging culture

So after five posts (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5) thinking out loud on questions of Christ and culture, I should probably share where I land. I cannot promise anything revolutionary or even especially insightful. And in all likelihood my thinking will shift and evolve with more time. But these six principles sum up what I think (or at least what I think I think) at this point.

1. The distinction between two biblical uses of "gospel" needs to be retained. In his three posts at the IX Marks blog, Greg Gilbert has convinced me of at least this much (#1, #2, #3). There is a sense in which "gospel" refers to what Christ has done and what a person must believe to be saved (which I will call G1 for short), and a sense in which "gospel" refers to the big picture of what God is doing to reconcile and renew the entire creation (which I will call G2). Both uses have biblical precedent, so neither should be rejected.
2. The relationship between the two usages of "gospel" needs to be developed. What I specifically have in mind here is that G1 is the doorway into G2. This is true in at least two senses. First, there is no participation in the kingdom of God or in "kingdom work" for human beings (which is G2) unless there is repentance of sins and faith in Jesus Christ (which is G1). In other words, our personal experience and participation in G2 is only consequent on our participation in G1. Second, what is true for the individual is true for the cosmos as well. There is no renewal of all things without the redemption of individual sinners. The created order needs renewal because of the fall of Adam -- God placed all things under a curse as a result of Adam's sin (Genesis 3:17-19, Romans 8:19-23). And the created order will only be renewed because of the redemption of those who are no longer in Adam but in Christ -- in Christ the curse is lifted. See this sermon on Genesis 3 for a more thorough exposition of both the curse and its reversal.
3. Making disciples, from conversion to maturity, must be the focus of the church. However attractive a Kuyperian vision of cultural engagement might be, I cannot get around passages such as Matthew 28:18-20 and Ephesians 4:7-16. The task of the church is to make disciples. So my short answer to the question of "should a church run a health clinic or affordable housing or a film festival" is not unequivocally no, but it is pretty close. The moment a church as a church begins to engage in work that shifts its focus from evangelism, preaching and teaching, and equipping believers for the work of ministry, that church finds itself in danger of losing sight of its biblical mandate. To put it a different way, if a church emphasizes G2 work at the expense of G1 work, there will soon be no one to experience either the personal salvation of G1 or the corporate salvation of G2. Though some might say that it is not an either-or, the reality is that churches have only so much time and so many resources. Disciple-making must be king.
4. Responsible contextualization is a necessary part of disciple-making. The reality is that "Christ" and "culture" are never separate. Every attempt to explain the gospel takes place in a particular setting, with a particular language, in the midst of particular cultural assumptions, against the backdrop of a particular people's biblical literacy. That reality is why I favor the Two Ways to Live gospel presentation over most other gospel presentations: for where and when I live, it seems to me to do the best job of explaining the gospel while taking into account a general interest in "spirituality" and a general biblical illiteracy both within and without the church. But responsible contextualization runs deeper. It does not so modify the gospel message for the sake of being relevant that the gospel is lost. Rather it seeks to answer questions such as these: What kinds of sin are woven into the life of this community? What are the symbols of status or the expectations of what it means to be religious? Why do people live here, where do they work, how do they get there, and what do the answers tell the church about how we need to preach, where we go and how we form relationships with non-Christians, and what blind spots to sin the church may have?
   
5. Discipleship includes viewing work redemptively. In my mind, this is where the relationship between G1 work and G2 work gets lived out. In this editorial in the Gospel Coalition's journal Themelios, the helpful distinction is made between what the church does as the church and what Christians do as individuals. As the church, the focus must be on disciple-making. But being a disciple means obeying everything Jesus commanded, living all of life under the authority of Jesus and His Word, and learning to see the world through a God-centered worldview. Surely "all of life" includes our work. Most of us spend more time at work than anywhere else. We were made to work. We will continue to work for all eternity. So part of discipleship must mean seeing your work as a vocation from God. A job is not merely a platform for telling others about the gospel. Work is itself intrinsic to what it means to be human and a Christian. Viewing work redemptively means understanding any work, whether in the sciences, manual labor, the liberal arts, government, the fine arts, etc., as flowing out of God's intention for human beings in Genesis 1:28, as affected by the curse, and as being renewed and given new meaning through the gospel. It means looking at the workplace or at the community, asking how things would look different if the gospel were present, and then acting in such a way to bring that vision to pass.
   
6. Christians must live in transformed community before we can talk about transforming the culture. The only way the Christian life is lived out is in relationships with one another. Community is a key means God uses to transform His people. I would offer personal transformation does not happen when Christians are not fulfilling the "one another" commands of Scripture and are not living life together in which the Word of Christ dwells richly, characterized by praying, singing, and bearing one another's burdens. If God's people are not transformed by the gospel, they can hardly transform the culture around them. If God's people are not living life together that is transformed by the gospel, they can hardly commend the gospel (whether G1 or G2), and they hardly have something to which they can invite unbelievers to join through faith in Christ.