There's been an 800 lb. gorilla roaming the chambers of my heart that I've barely even noticed until recently. He can feed off of most anything. He spends most of the time throwing away all that is good and right and chewing on the imperfections that are left. His name is Judgmental Attitude, and he's quite skilled at putting the gracious little monkey in my heart, Bold Adventure, under lock and key. You see, Bold Adventure is eager to please the Lord in faithful obedience, venturing out into new and deeper territories of relationships in order to communicate the Gospel. Judgmental Attitude is heavy and fairly immobile. The pursuit of new and deeper relationships seem like hard work and because he feeds on all that is wrong, anything that requires exertion comes close to giving him a heart attack.
Thankfully the Spirit of God has sent a helper to Bold Adventure, a helper to liberate him from the chains that Judgmental Attitude seeks to keep him in. This helper is Charitable Judgment.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Church Motives
Commitment and transformation are results of a Christian faith growing out of God's revelation. Those who are Christians are part of the Church. One of the main motives a Christian goes to church is to grow in the knowledge of God (which can only come by God's revelation) by witnessing the work that God is doing in the lives of fellow believers. This desire is essential to a biblically based community. This is what gathers believers together in humility, wonder, and joy. The church is where we celebrate revelation.
So why do you go to church? Is it just a religious routine? Are you trying to impress and win the approval of others? Do you gather for validation of your social opinions, political views, parenting skills? Is the church a place for you to create business contacts or catch up with people with the similiar hobbies? Or do you gather with others who revel in the revelation of Christ's work done unto and through the members of His body? Is the Gospel the common denominator that draws your church together for worship or is there another common factor among your fellow congregants? Is church a self-affirming experience for you or a humbling one?
Are your church habits more like the wise lamb who humbly looks to safety in the flock that stays close to the Shepherd or are you the proud goat that relies on your own cleverness that allows you to explore and wander wherever you please, wandering in and out of flocks and herds, constantly looking to create an opening in the fence other than the gate?
The opposite of revelation speculation. Our relationship with God begins with Him revealing Himself to us, opening our eyes and ears so that we may know Him. Those who have no revelation are seperated from truth, they see and know nothing. They speculate on what they hope a god might be like. in their blindness they cannot see beyond themselves and therefore see themselves and their opinions and speculations as the center of the universe. Only the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified, a Gospel that comes not just with words but with power, the Holy Spirit and deep conviction (1 Thessalonians 1:5) can give sight to the blind and ears so that they may hear the revelation of the Good News.
Thirsty for more? Doctrine
So why do you go to church? Is it just a religious routine? Are you trying to impress and win the approval of others? Do you gather for validation of your social opinions, political views, parenting skills? Is the church a place for you to create business contacts or catch up with people with the similiar hobbies? Or do you gather with others who revel in the revelation of Christ's work done unto and through the members of His body? Is the Gospel the common denominator that draws your church together for worship or is there another common factor among your fellow congregants? Is church a self-affirming experience for you or a humbling one?
Are your church habits more like the wise lamb who humbly looks to safety in the flock that stays close to the Shepherd or are you the proud goat that relies on your own cleverness that allows you to explore and wander wherever you please, wandering in and out of flocks and herds, constantly looking to create an opening in the fence other than the gate?
The opposite of revelation speculation. Our relationship with God begins with Him revealing Himself to us, opening our eyes and ears so that we may know Him. Those who have no revelation are seperated from truth, they see and know nothing. They speculate on what they hope a god might be like. in their blindness they cannot see beyond themselves and therefore see themselves and their opinions and speculations as the center of the universe. Only the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified, a Gospel that comes not just with words but with power, the Holy Spirit and deep conviction (1 Thessalonians 1:5) can give sight to the blind and ears so that they may hear the revelation of the Good News.
Thirsty for more? Doctrine
Plow Forward
“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” - Jesus Christ, Luke 9:62
It helps to think a little about plowing to better understand this passage. If my heart is fixed on what is not straight forward then my eyes are always looking back. If I was to plow while looking back I'd never plow in a straight direction forward. Many religious people claim to "plow" while their hearts are fixed on a god (and christ) of their own making. They plow in vain because their hearts have not been turned towards the true Christ and are therefore blind to the kingdom of God which is the straight and narrow path directly ahead. If Christ is in us then we plow with eyes and heart forward. Perfectly? No. But ultimately? Yes. (parallel passage Psalm 127:1 "Except the Lord build the house, the builders labor in vain.") Philippians 1:5-6 " because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
also this verse from Luke 9 is a response from Christ from those who claim they want to follow Christ but have other priorities to take care of first. Basically these people are saying they'll follow Christ as long as they can still have other god's before Him (a violation of the First Commandment) or that they'll seek the kingdom of God as long as they don't have to "seek it first" (Matt.6:33). Like many people today they're willing to "hang out" with Jesus, go through some motions and offer up some lip service, but they're not ready to make Him Lord of their lives... they're not ready for an eternity of worship.
To borrow from a quote of Driscoll's book, DOCTRINE, Tim Keller explains worship as such: "To glorify something or someone is to praise, enjoy, and delight in them. When something is useful you are attracted to it for what it can bring you ...or do for you. But if it is beautiful, then you enjoy it simply for what it is. Just being in its presence is its own reward. To glorify someone is also to serve or defer to him or her. Instead of sacrificing their interests to make yourself happy, you sacrifice your interests to make them happy. Why? Your ultimate joy is to see them in joy."
"The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever."
Are you ready to plow forward?
It helps to think a little about plowing to better understand this passage. If my heart is fixed on what is not straight forward then my eyes are always looking back. If I was to plow while looking back I'd never plow in a straight direction forward. Many religious people claim to "plow" while their hearts are fixed on a god (and christ) of their own making. They plow in vain because their hearts have not been turned towards the true Christ and are therefore blind to the kingdom of God which is the straight and narrow path directly ahead. If Christ is in us then we plow with eyes and heart forward. Perfectly? No. But ultimately? Yes. (parallel passage Psalm 127:1 "Except the Lord build the house, the builders labor in vain.") Philippians 1:5-6 " because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
also this verse from Luke 9 is a response from Christ from those who claim they want to follow Christ but have other priorities to take care of first. Basically these people are saying they'll follow Christ as long as they can still have other god's before Him (a violation of the First Commandment) or that they'll seek the kingdom of God as long as they don't have to "seek it first" (Matt.6:33). Like many people today they're willing to "hang out" with Jesus, go through some motions and offer up some lip service, but they're not ready to make Him Lord of their lives... they're not ready for an eternity of worship.
To borrow from a quote of Driscoll's book, DOCTRINE, Tim Keller explains worship as such: "To glorify something or someone is to praise, enjoy, and delight in them. When something is useful you are attracted to it for what it can bring you ...or do for you. But if it is beautiful, then you enjoy it simply for what it is. Just being in its presence is its own reward. To glorify someone is also to serve or defer to him or her. Instead of sacrificing their interests to make yourself happy, you sacrifice your interests to make them happy. Why? Your ultimate joy is to see them in joy."
"The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever."
Are you ready to plow forward?
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Core of Christianity, and the Crust
A most profound article written by Kevin DeYoung...
"If we are to be fruitful and godly Christians we need to have a theological core without being theologically crusty.
In desiring a theological core I don’t mean that all Christians must be bookish and given to intellectual contemplation. I mean that every Christian must be shaped from the inside out by a set of convictions about who God is and what he has accomplished in Jesus Christ. As Christians we should be animated (given life) and motivated (compelled to action) by a core of doctrinal truths–truths like God is loving, sovereign, and holy; God created the world and created it good; as a result of Adam’s sin humans are bent toward evil; Jesus Christ was God’s Son, begotten not created; Jesus suffered and died on the cross for sins and rose again on the third day; the Holy Spirit is God and fills us with power, enables us to believe, equips us with gifts, and bears fruit in our lives; the Bible is God’s word; Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and justification is by faith alone.
These truths need to be more than a set of beliefs we assume. They should be the lens through which we look at ourselves and the world. There are many Christians and churches that don’t deny any cardinal doctrine of Christian faith, but they still don’t have a theological core. They have, instead, a musty statement of faith they barely understand and hardly believe and wouldn’t dare preach. They are animated and motivated by politics, church growth, relational concerns and the like, but the gospel is merely assumed. “Yes, yes–of course we believe in the Virgin Birth, and the atonement, and the resurrection, and heaven and hell,” they say. But its all periphery, not core. It’s all assumed, not all-consuming. Theologically hollow congregations and pastors may like to think they will bequeath a gospel legacy to the next generation, but the truth is we only pass on what is our passion. New converts and new kids won’t think and live and love like mature Christians, let alone be able to articulate the Christian story, if our beliefs rest in a pamphlet and not in our hearts.
I make no apologies for having a theological church. The church ought to be about the business of the gospel, and the gospel is a message of historical fact plus God-given interpretation. That’s theology. I hope we never feel like we have the “theology thing” down at URC just because we have solid book studies and long, meaty sermons. The “theology thing” is a lifelong project of being transformed by the renewing of our minds. We want to be thinking Christians who know what we believe, why we believe it, and live and die in the comfort of these beliefs.
Having a theological core means, among other thing, that our unity is theological. Of course we want to be united in love and purpose too. But whatever actions and affections we share in unison ought to radiate from a theological core. There is so much talk around the broader church about being missional Christians that it’s easy to think the church should be missional-centric. And in one sense, mission is certainly at the center of what we do. But mission itself is not what ties us together or fires us up. It’s only when the mission is defined and it’s genesis is proclaimed that we can rally around mission.
What I mean is that we should be, first of all, Christocentric; that is, centered on the cross of Christ. Christ is our identity, our passion, and our hope. And because of this identity, passion, and hope we pray, and evangelize, and do missions. But missions is not the center. Christ is–which shapes, defines, and launches us into mission. It’s like John Piper’s famous line: “Mission is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is.” Being missional is not a sufficient basis for unity. One, because I’m never quite sure what missional means. Two, because the blazing hot center of Christian identity, passion, and hope is not that we are all doing things in Jesus name. Of course, we should be doing things in Jesus’ name. But the blazing hot center is what God has already done for us in Christ. This must always be explained and rejoiced in, not merely assumed.
Which brings me back to the main point. We desperately need Christians and pastors and missionaries and churches and denominations and movements and institutions which are theological to the core, where doctrines are not simply items to be checked off the dogmatic grocery list or statements to be dusted off out of the ecclesiastical attic. We must all be theological because being a Christians means we embrace a message about who Jesus is and the victory he won for us. And that’s theology.
So, core, yes. Crust? No.
Please, don’t skip the last part of this post, especially if you really liked the first part. Because you may just be a crusty Christian if you’re not careful.
What makes a Christian crusty? A number of things. For starters, it’s an attitude. It’s a demeanor where being Calvinist or paedobaptist or inerrantist (three things I am gladly) are put on like armor or wielded like weapons, when they are meant to be the warm glow of a Christian whose core radiates with love for Christ and the gospel. I believe in theological distinctives–I believe in them and I believe it is good to have them–but if the distinctives are not manifestly the flower of gospel root, the buds aren’t worth the blooming.
A second mark of crusty Christians is approachability, as in, not having any. There is a sizing up-ness that makes some theological types unnecessarily prickly. They are bright and opinionated and quickly analytical. As a result, knowingly or unknowingly, they emit a vibe which communicates something between “You Max Lucado reading moron!” and “I wish R.C. Sproul were here to teach you a thing or two!” Crusty Christians are hard to be around. They are intimidating instead of engaging and growling instead of gracious. They are too willing to share their opinions on everything and unable to put any doctrine in any category not marked “absolutely essential.”
When theology is more crust than core, it’s not so much that we care about good theology too much, we just don’t care about some other hugely important things in the same proportion. So we end up largely skeptical of a prayerful, fruitful, warm-hearted, godly, Arminian leaning pastor. Now, I might think such a pastor is prayerful, fruitful, warm-hearted and godly despite too much emphasis on libertarian free will, but I sure hope to be mighty thankful for all his prayerfulness, fruitfulness, and warm-hearted godliness. Some Christians allow evangelism to trump all other considerations, others size up fellow Christians by their attention to social justice concerns, but a lot of us do our judging with theology. If the theology fits, the lack of mission, prayer, and compassion doesn’t matter much. But if a few theological pieces are misplaced in the puzzle, see you later and don’t let Hymenaeus and Philetus door hit you on the way out.
Striking the balance is not easy. But let’s try hard to be discerning and grounded without always looking for the next theological misstep in our friends, our family, or the songs we sing. And let’s be able to tell the difference between wandering sheep and false teachers. We must delineate between a slightly ill-informed wording of a phrase and a purposeful rejection of truth. We must pursue a passion for fidelity to Scripture and a winsomeness that sweetens the already honey-like drippings of the word of God. Let us be more like a chocolate covered raisin, likeable on the outside and surprisingly good for you on the inside, and less like a tootsie roll pop with its brittle, crunchy exterior that must be broken through before anyone can get to the good stuff. Our theological heart, if it is worth anything, will pulse throughout our spiritual bodies, making us into someone more prayerful, more godly, and more passionate about the Bible, the lost, and the world around us. We will be theologically solid to the core, without the unnecessary crust."
"If we are to be fruitful and godly Christians we need to have a theological core without being theologically crusty.
In desiring a theological core I don’t mean that all Christians must be bookish and given to intellectual contemplation. I mean that every Christian must be shaped from the inside out by a set of convictions about who God is and what he has accomplished in Jesus Christ. As Christians we should be animated (given life) and motivated (compelled to action) by a core of doctrinal truths–truths like God is loving, sovereign, and holy; God created the world and created it good; as a result of Adam’s sin humans are bent toward evil; Jesus Christ was God’s Son, begotten not created; Jesus suffered and died on the cross for sins and rose again on the third day; the Holy Spirit is God and fills us with power, enables us to believe, equips us with gifts, and bears fruit in our lives; the Bible is God’s word; Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and justification is by faith alone.
These truths need to be more than a set of beliefs we assume. They should be the lens through which we look at ourselves and the world. There are many Christians and churches that don’t deny any cardinal doctrine of Christian faith, but they still don’t have a theological core. They have, instead, a musty statement of faith they barely understand and hardly believe and wouldn’t dare preach. They are animated and motivated by politics, church growth, relational concerns and the like, but the gospel is merely assumed. “Yes, yes–of course we believe in the Virgin Birth, and the atonement, and the resurrection, and heaven and hell,” they say. But its all periphery, not core. It’s all assumed, not all-consuming. Theologically hollow congregations and pastors may like to think they will bequeath a gospel legacy to the next generation, but the truth is we only pass on what is our passion. New converts and new kids won’t think and live and love like mature Christians, let alone be able to articulate the Christian story, if our beliefs rest in a pamphlet and not in our hearts.
I make no apologies for having a theological church. The church ought to be about the business of the gospel, and the gospel is a message of historical fact plus God-given interpretation. That’s theology. I hope we never feel like we have the “theology thing” down at URC just because we have solid book studies and long, meaty sermons. The “theology thing” is a lifelong project of being transformed by the renewing of our minds. We want to be thinking Christians who know what we believe, why we believe it, and live and die in the comfort of these beliefs.
Having a theological core means, among other thing, that our unity is theological. Of course we want to be united in love and purpose too. But whatever actions and affections we share in unison ought to radiate from a theological core. There is so much talk around the broader church about being missional Christians that it’s easy to think the church should be missional-centric. And in one sense, mission is certainly at the center of what we do. But mission itself is not what ties us together or fires us up. It’s only when the mission is defined and it’s genesis is proclaimed that we can rally around mission.
What I mean is that we should be, first of all, Christocentric; that is, centered on the cross of Christ. Christ is our identity, our passion, and our hope. And because of this identity, passion, and hope we pray, and evangelize, and do missions. But missions is not the center. Christ is–which shapes, defines, and launches us into mission. It’s like John Piper’s famous line: “Mission is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is.” Being missional is not a sufficient basis for unity. One, because I’m never quite sure what missional means. Two, because the blazing hot center of Christian identity, passion, and hope is not that we are all doing things in Jesus name. Of course, we should be doing things in Jesus’ name. But the blazing hot center is what God has already done for us in Christ. This must always be explained and rejoiced in, not merely assumed.
Which brings me back to the main point. We desperately need Christians and pastors and missionaries and churches and denominations and movements and institutions which are theological to the core, where doctrines are not simply items to be checked off the dogmatic grocery list or statements to be dusted off out of the ecclesiastical attic. We must all be theological because being a Christians means we embrace a message about who Jesus is and the victory he won for us. And that’s theology.
So, core, yes. Crust? No.
Please, don’t skip the last part of this post, especially if you really liked the first part. Because you may just be a crusty Christian if you’re not careful.
What makes a Christian crusty? A number of things. For starters, it’s an attitude. It’s a demeanor where being Calvinist or paedobaptist or inerrantist (three things I am gladly) are put on like armor or wielded like weapons, when they are meant to be the warm glow of a Christian whose core radiates with love for Christ and the gospel. I believe in theological distinctives–I believe in them and I believe it is good to have them–but if the distinctives are not manifestly the flower of gospel root, the buds aren’t worth the blooming.
A second mark of crusty Christians is approachability, as in, not having any. There is a sizing up-ness that makes some theological types unnecessarily prickly. They are bright and opinionated and quickly analytical. As a result, knowingly or unknowingly, they emit a vibe which communicates something between “You Max Lucado reading moron!” and “I wish R.C. Sproul were here to teach you a thing or two!” Crusty Christians are hard to be around. They are intimidating instead of engaging and growling instead of gracious. They are too willing to share their opinions on everything and unable to put any doctrine in any category not marked “absolutely essential.”
When theology is more crust than core, it’s not so much that we care about good theology too much, we just don’t care about some other hugely important things in the same proportion. So we end up largely skeptical of a prayerful, fruitful, warm-hearted, godly, Arminian leaning pastor. Now, I might think such a pastor is prayerful, fruitful, warm-hearted and godly despite too much emphasis on libertarian free will, but I sure hope to be mighty thankful for all his prayerfulness, fruitfulness, and warm-hearted godliness. Some Christians allow evangelism to trump all other considerations, others size up fellow Christians by their attention to social justice concerns, but a lot of us do our judging with theology. If the theology fits, the lack of mission, prayer, and compassion doesn’t matter much. But if a few theological pieces are misplaced in the puzzle, see you later and don’t let Hymenaeus and Philetus door hit you on the way out.
Striking the balance is not easy. But let’s try hard to be discerning and grounded without always looking for the next theological misstep in our friends, our family, or the songs we sing. And let’s be able to tell the difference between wandering sheep and false teachers. We must delineate between a slightly ill-informed wording of a phrase and a purposeful rejection of truth. We must pursue a passion for fidelity to Scripture and a winsomeness that sweetens the already honey-like drippings of the word of God. Let us be more like a chocolate covered raisin, likeable on the outside and surprisingly good for you on the inside, and less like a tootsie roll pop with its brittle, crunchy exterior that must be broken through before anyone can get to the good stuff. Our theological heart, if it is worth anything, will pulse throughout our spiritual bodies, making us into someone more prayerful, more godly, and more passionate about the Bible, the lost, and the world around us. We will be theologically solid to the core, without the unnecessary crust."
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