Who We Were and Who We Are

Throughout Ephesians Paul loves to compare our former, lost, and hopeless condition with our present state of glory and salvation in Christ. Paul did not want us to forget who we had been outside of Christ.  Reminding us of this should keep us from pride, give us joyful hearts, and lead us to praise God.  There are many contrasts, both implicit and explicit, in Ephesians. Here are three of the most explicit in the epistle.

Ephesians 2:1-4 We were dead in our sins, but now we are alive in Christ.
Two notes about this contrast. First, it puts God's power, love, and mercy at the center of our change.  Dead men don't get up and walk out in their own power.  We played no part in being born again. Second, the transformation is total. You are either dead or alive. There isn't any middle ground.

Ephesians 2:12-13 We were strangers, but now we have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Three notes about this contrast. First, salvation is about being brought near to God. It is about our relationship with him. As John Piper says, "God is the Gospel." The aim of our salvation is not simply the saving of our soul and bodies. It is a saving so that we might be close to God. Second, we have become part of the New Israel. We were outside, aliens to nation of Israel. Now we are inside, citizens with all the rights that come with that title. Third, this contrast has priest and Temple written all over. Who could come near to God in the Old Testament? Well, it wasn't us Gentiles. But now we are priests in the Temple of God.

Ephesians 5:8 We were once darkness, but now we are light in the Lord. 
Two notes about this one. First, we are light. We don't become light when we do this or that. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 5:14.  Just by existing we expose darkness. Just by existing we shine for Christ. Second, like the previous two contrasts, we are light because we are in Christ.  Christ is the fountain of every blessing we have believers. He is head from which all good things flow. Outside of him we are dead, aliens, and darkness. In Him, we are alive, citizens, and light.  Every good thing we are or will do has come about because of our union with Christ.

Second Helping: Ephesians 4:17-24

Here are some additional notes from my sermon on Ephesians 4:17-24. The sermon itself can be found here.

1. I have really enjoyed St. Chrysostom's homilies on Ephesians. His illustrations have been a particular delight. My preaching is not strong on illustrations. He has been a great prod for me to get better at illuminating my points by illustrating them. For example, as he preached on Ephesians 4:19 and the phrase "being past feeling" he said this: "Though thou apply the word to them like fire or steel, yet nothing touches, nothing reaches them; their limb is utterly dead." Most of his illustrations are like this one, short and taken from everyday life. John Calvin's sermon illustrations are a lot like Chrystostom's.

2. There is debate on whether the phrases in Ephesians 4:22-24, "put off and put on" should be translated as something past or something we are to do.  Have we put off the old man and put on the new? (See Colossians 3:9)  Or are we to put off the old man and put on the new? (See Romans 13:14) There are good arguments for both.  I think the context, especially 4:25-5:2, would point towards the latter translation.  In this section, Paul is exhorting us to action. He has already devoted several chapters to discussing who we are. (Chapter 1-3)  Now he is telling us how we are to live.

3. Charles Hodge and John Calvin both think the last part 4:24, (which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness, NKJV) is about the restoration of the image of God in us, which was lost when Adam fell. Here is what John Calvin says, "The regeneration of the godly is indeed...nothing else than the formation anew of the image of God in them."  And later, "The design contemplated by regeneration is to recall us from our wanderings to that end for which we were created."

4. "Truth" in verse 21 is a reference to moral truth, or ethical truth. Paul is saying, "how we are to live is found by looking at Jesus."

A Better Crop

Here are some of my thoughts on Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and politics.

Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are both good candidates, but I do not think either will beat Romney for the nomination. Call me a pessimist.

We should be grateful these two men have gotten as many votes as they have. Paul has opened doors for future fiscal conservatives. Hopefully, they will have they will have the courage to walk through them. Santorum has said things that no recent legitimate GOP candidate has had the courage to say.  They both have their faults, but we certainly have a better crop to choose from than 2008.

I would vote for either man without a second's hesitation. Santorum and Paul are light years ahead of McCain. I will not vote for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

The blatant disregard for Ron Paul in the mainstream conservative media is appalling and revealing. I am thinking particularly of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Conservative media is just as biased as liberal media.

Abortion, despite its age, is still the defining issue for Christians in politics. Not because other types of killing are okay (such as civilian casualties in war) but because abortion is willful, blatant, and prevalent.  Abortion is the sacrifice America makes to the god of pleasure.

The declining interest in abortion among young conservative voters comes, at least partly, from the distracted age we live in. A generation raised on blogs, sitcoms and thirty second commercials is going to have a hard time fighting a battle that will probably take generations to win. 

If we are going to be consistent about sexual ethics then adultery must be brought into the conversation. If we give the pornography industry or a conservative who has a questionable sexual history a pass, but hammer the sodomites we are being hypocrites.

Our fiscal policy and our sexual ethics are linked. That is why abortion, homosexuality, our wars, and over taxation belong in the same conversation. Ron Paul supporters are correct to point out Rick Santorum's poor financial policy.  Isn't love of money behind both abortion and the wars we fight?

I don't think libertarianism or big government will fix our problems. We are only as good as the men who lead us. Ron Paul's idea of giving power back to the states is Constitutional and a good idea. However, does anyone really think that California or New York would be more godly just because the state legislatures were in charge? At this point the federal government might be holding them back. Our goal should not be a Constitutional country, but a godly country. Therefore, we need godly leaders. Men who live their life and  make laws based upon God's Word.  Therefore the key is to raise godly sons.  Only when we have godly fathers and husbands can we expect to have godly civil servants.  If conservatives Christians want long term change then they should put more time into loving their wives and raising a host of godly sons and daughters than into who will win the nomination.

Take Up and Read: Thursday Edition

Justin Taylor takes a brief look at Martin Luther's home life. I am continually amazed at how poor the reformers were, how much they got done, and how many people they had in their homes.

R.C. Sproul Jr. has been one of my mentors as I have grown in the faith. His love for Christ and his  family have spurred me on during difficult times. His love for the good life has also brought me a lot of joy and helped clarify what it means to follow after Christ. During the Christmas season he lost his wife Denise whom he loved so dearly. Here is a moving tribute to his wife and the influence of God's Word upon her life.

Trevin Wax does a good job of helping pastors to ask the right kind of questions when approached about sexual issues. Several things struck me as I read. First, in previous generations the mom or dad discussed sex with their children. It was a family matter. Now children learn about sex from friends, books, movies, or the opposite sex. Second, we live in a culture that is drowning in pornography. As a pastor, I cannot expect my flock or new converts to have a correct perspective on sex. That means it should probably be brought up more regularly in private with the man or the couple. It cannot be ignored, but it also cannot be discussed in most public forums.

Finally, here is a post by James K.A. Smith on worship music. He addresses it to praise bands, but it will help anyone involved in worship music to think through certain things. I thought his emphasis on the congregation being able to participate was good.

Doug Wilson on Santorum, Paul, and Politics

Doug Wilson has weighed in on the Rick Santorum vs. Ron Paul debate with some good words of balance. I know many of you are Ron Paul supporters, therefore you should listen to what Wilson says. Wilson is not trying to get anyone to stop voting for Paul. But rather he is trying to keep us from making broad sweeping statements and overreaching. Ron Paul will not save America and Rick Santorum is not the antichrist. Rick Santorum will not save America and Ron Paul is not the antichrist. This does not make them equal, but it should make us careful about how we talk about them.

Here are three of Wilson's posts that are worth your time, even if they make you mad. 

First, he explains why Rick Santorum's foreign policy is not equal to abortion. This is an important point to remember.  Abortion is the most heinous sin in American history, maybe the history of the world. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the fire bombing of Dresden pale in comparison to abortion. It is easy for the abortion debate to become stale. It shouldn't.  That does not mean we should only think about abortion when it comes to voting.  But it should be first on the list. Any candidate who does not vocally oppose abortion is ungodly. This does not mean Rick Santorum has a good foreign policy. It just means his foreign policy is not the equivalent of being pro-choice.

Second, he muses on why certain Ron Paul supporters feel like anyone who is not on the Ron Paul bandwagon has "insufficient zeal for the cause."

Finally, Pastor Wilson reminds us to not sacrifice the important things for our political ideas.

A Second Helping of Ephesians 4:1-16

Pastors are collectors. We collect books, notes, anecdotes, quotes, oddities about the Greek/Hebrew text, etc. Most of this collecting is done during sermon preparation. However, when we preach a lot of this collected data gets left at home.  It seems a shame to let it go to waste. So here are some additional notes on Ephesians 4:1-16 that I scavenged while preparing to preach. If you would like to hear the sermon you can go here.

1. Verses 4-6 have a Trinitarian shape. There is one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of us all. This Trinitarian shape is why we can have unity (verses 1-6), but a diversity of gifts (verse 7).

2. Charles Hodge on the unity of the Spirit. "As hatred, pride, and contention among Christians cause the Spirit to withdraw from them, so love and peace secure his presence. And as his presence is the condition and source of all good, and his absence the source of all evil, the importance of the duty enjoined [unity] cannot be over estimated."

3. Verses 11-12 are  some of the most debated verses in the New Testament. Two problems are presented. Is verse 11 talking about 4 offices (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor/teacher) or 5 offices (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor, and teacher)? Second, is verse 12 talking about three things the teaching offices do or one the teaching office does (equip) and two things the saints do (the work of the ministry and the building up of the body)? It is interesting how interpretations shift over time. In the reformation era the 5 office view and teaching offices doing all three were the dominant interpretations of the verses.  Today the ground has shifted to exactly the opposite.

4. A diversity of gifts does not harm the Body of Christ, but on the contrary makes it healthy.

5. The only other verse in the New Testament where word for "tossed to and fro" is used is James 1:16. 

6. "Speaking the truth in love" in verse 15 is talking about speaking doctrinal truth. It is connected with verse 14. It is not talking just about lying, but rather about false teaching.  Paul uses "truth" in a similar way in 4:21.

7. The body is built up/edified when each part does its share. (verse 16)

Theses on Worship: Part IV

Here is more from Jim Jordan's book Theses on Worship

1. The Psalter should be woven into the warp and woof of worship. 
"If we drift from the psalms, the warchants of the Prince of Peace, we shall drift into an easy and lax piety.  The inner warfare will be deemphasized, and the warfare for the world will disappear...The fact of the matter is that the present generation of American Christians will either learn to sing psalms, or it will die...God wrote the psalms, and they are the most appropriate form of and school of praise.  Dare we offer Him anything else?"

2. Worship is sacrificial.
"In the broadest sense, sacrifice is not a negative, but a positive thing. When God sacrifices us, He transforms us into new creatures. He takes us apart and puts us back together again as newer, better, more glorious, more transfigured, more powerful servants. It is only because of sin that this act of God's is painful to us...Worship is to be a transforming, transfiguring event in our lives, a time when God sacrifices us, and fits us for His presence and his Kingdom."

3. Worship is covenant renewal.
"Human beings were created in covenant with God, and we are always covenant-beings...one implication of [this] is that doing worship self-consciously as a covenant renewal is good for us.  We were made to be patterned covenantally, and so the best form of worship is the one that conforms to the covenant pattern."

Here is Jordan's description of a covenant renewal worship service:
1. God calls us.
2. God glorifies us.
3. God instructs us.
4. God feeds us.
5. God commissions us.

Take Up and Read: Thursday Edition

As I noted last week, several evangelical scholars have come out recently denying that a historical Adam ever existed. Evangelicals should be all upset by this jump into heterodoxy, but in general they are not. It seems that we have better things to do than defend the historical Adam. Here are two posts which address the problem. First, Kevin DeYoung gives us ten reasons to believe in the historical Adam.  Second, the Bayly Brothers show how a seminary can corrupt a young man, particularly on the issue of evolution. What is a man to do when one of the most "conservative" seminaries in the country from one of the most "conservative" denominations allows a man to teach who doesn't believe Adam existed?

Here is a short blog post by R.C. Sproul Jr. on myths or half truths evangelicals believe. I thought number 1 was especially good.  When we make all sins equal it is usually to make our sins look not so bad and the other person's sins to look terrible.

Al Mohler shows how President Obama's compromise on contraception was not really a compromise at all.

Rachel Jankovic lists ten ways to love your kids. I found this one, "Don't change your behavior toward you children in public" convicting. It is a fear of man, not love of God that causes us to have one standard for our children at home and another in public.

Theses On Worship: Part III

More from Jim Jordan on worship.

1. Love makes things beautiful
In this section Jim Jordan argues that love for God will cause us to beautify the various parts of worship. This includes our dress, the Communion table, the pulpit and the entire sanctuary. One area that needs a lot more work by conservative, protestants is how to make the places we worship sanctuaries where the beauty of God and his world is seen.  Too often our sanctuaries feel like a shopping mall or a theater.  If there are decorations they are usually not linked with anything in the Bible. One positive sign has been the emergence of cloth banners in churches. They perform the same service as stained glass windows did in early periods. They make the sanctuary beautiful and tell of who God and/or what he has done.

2. Worship should be dramatic
"Worship is drama...The liturgy is theater performed by all of us before God.  Thus, entering, kneeling, standing, clapping, eating, etc. are all aspects of drama.  We don't need to have little skits during the sermon in order to have drama in worship! After all, what on earth is more dramatic than being called into God's presence, kneeling to confess our corporate sinfulness in Adam and our actual daily sins, being sealed again into His community by absolution, standing to praise Him with vigor, hearing the 'orders of the Day of the Lord' from the Commander in Chief, giving Him our gifts, sitting down to dine with Him and being sent out, commissioned by Him to service?  It shows great poverty of thought to imagine that we need to have skits in the sermon, when we have these dramatic treasures to employ."

3. Worship comes in the context of death.
"The Bible says that the gospel comes to those who all their lives are subject to the fearfulness of death (Hebrews 2:15)  Death is the primordial punishment and the last enemy. Death suffuses human life, rendering it cheap and miserable.  This is a fact that no amount of positive-thinking Pelagianism can make go away...It is the pastoral ministry of the Church and only the Church that can deal with the fact of death...The fact that the gospel comes in the pastoral context of ministry in the face of death is absolutely destructive to two of the most virulent forms of modern gnosticism.  It is destructive to ideology, the promotion of Christianity as a set of ideas to be implemented through a crusade.  It is also destructive to the 'prosperity and happiness' message so often promoted by the media-gnostics over our airwaves...The gospel is good news for real people hurting in real life situations. That is why modern gospel songs are so inadequate. They present a 'happy gospel' without the context of pain, enemies and death.

Worship or Evangelism?

Here are some additional thoughts by Jim Jordan on whether worship should be evangelistic or not.  I agree with his general argument. Our worship service is for believers.

"If worship is turned into evangelism, then it is no longer prayer.  Jesus said His house was to be a house of prayer."

Here he comments on I Corinthians 14:24-25.  "To the marginal extent that worship is evangelistic, it is precisely when it is completely uncompromised.  We don't worship to be seen by men, but if men are going to watch us anyway, we should not compromise for them.  The more uncompromisedly Biblical we are, the better the 'witness' is."

"When we turn worship into an open evangelistic meeting, or try to accommodate worship to evangelistic purposes, we lose the purpose of worship.  Worship and evangelism are two different things. The one is directed toward God, the other toward unconverted sinners.  The Church will be much healthier when these two things are kept separate.  We need to do both; but we don't need to confuse them."

Theses on Worship: Part II

Here are three more of Jim Jordan's Theses for the Reformation of Worship.

1. Worship is a command performance.
"Worship is service rendered to God.  It is a public, ritual affirmation of the primacy of God.  We are the dancers and He is the audience. The world of unbeliever is not the audience, and their opinions of what we are doing should not carry the slightest weight...Since worship is a command performance, it is done at His command. We have been summoned by the King of kings.  To stay away from worship without good reason is to spit in the face of God...Since worship is a command performance, it is to be done under God's rules."

2. Worship is family time.
"Worship is when God's family draw near to Him...since (ideally) unbelievers should not be in the meeting at all, there should never, ever be a 'word to the lost'...Exhortations in worship should be addressed only to believers...The Church should host other occasions for evangelism and open fellowship, but worship is not one of those times...What unbelievers think about our music, our dance, our culture, etc. should play absolutely no part whatsoever in our worship culture.  Their opinions count for nothing."

3.  Worship should be beautiful.
"We are called together to glorify and honor God.  Glory in the Bible is always associated with beauty...Glorifying God means offering our best to Him, not the easiest and not the most familiar...We should first use the resources of Christian tradition in God's worship, not the latest fads of popular heathen culture.  The Spirit has guided the Church for 2000 years. The tradition is not absolute, but it is our heritage all the same...The tradition of the Church is the believer's first culture and his national culture is secondary."

Take Up and Read: Thursday Edition

Here is a link to all the Desiring God Pastors Conference messages. They are all worth your time. I found Pastor Piper's on J.C. Ryle to be excellent.

If you are looking for a crash course on the conservative view of the Constitution, check out these lectures from the president of Hillsdale College, Dr. Larry Arnn.

The Elephant Room 2 has changed some things in reformed world.  Thabiti Anaybwile discusses what has changed and what has not changed. His words are wise. I especially enjoyed these three points: Theological depth is critical, We need a practical understanding of repentance and Our cooperation can have a liberalizing tendency. It is a shame we leave events like these behind so quickly. In our world, lessons are disposable. No doubt, by this time next year the Elephant Room 2 will be forgotten, along with the lessons God intended for us to learn from it.

Here Toby Sumpter explains how corporate salvation and individual salvation fit together. This paragraph was fantastic:

One conclusion to draw from the inextricable connection between our individual salvation and our corporate sharing of salvation is a pastoral one: to call sinners to repentance is necessarily to summons them to care about the people sitting next to them. To call a man, woman, or child to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is to call them to begin to love their neighbors, brothers, sisters, parents, and children. This is witnessed in the household conversions in the New Testament, and meshes with the big picture.

How often do we view repentance only as a turn away from sin towards God?  But if what Jesus says in Matthew 22:37-40 means anything then repentance also involves turning in love towards our neighbors.

Finally, Eric Metaxas gave a speech at the national prayer breakfast. With President Obama in the audience he winsomely decried false Christianity, declared Christ to be the one way and compared abortion to the Nazi Holocaust. I did not agree with every jot and tittle, but in our age it is a rare man who will speak with such boldness on a very public platform.  Here is an article at nationalreview.com describing the event. Here is the video of Metaxas giving the speech. He begins speaking around the 34 minute mark. Here and here are links to Metaxas' two biographies, one on Bonhoeffer and one on Wilberforce.

Take Up and Read: Wednesday Edition

Coal is close to the heart of many West Virginians. Since  I make my home in West Virginia this photo gallery of coal operations around the world was interesting.
 
Here is Pastor Voddie Baucham on his invitation to Elephant Room 2, why he declined, the subsequent fallout and how race can push out orthodoxy.We need men like Pastor Baucham because he can confront black pastors who are heretics without race clouding the discussion.

In 2005 Peter Enns wrote a book that toed the line about Biblical inerrancy. Many felt the book opened the door to the Bible being fallible, though this may not have been Enns' intention. This eventually led to him leaving Westminster Seminary. Now he has written a book claiming that evolution and Christianity can coexist. (All you "there is no slippery slope" people need to take note.) Peter Leithart, who is a friend of Enns, takes him to task here and here.  (Call it Peter vs. Peter brought to you by Peter.) The view that the early chapters in Genesis are not historical has gained considerable traction in "evangelical" circles lately. Tremper Longman is another man who has denied that Adam was a historical figure. This battle is not going away any time soon. I am grateful for Peter Leithart and the CRE (my denomination) which hold strongly to six-day creation. 

Kevin DeYoung on why we should still have an evening service. Our church currently has only one per month. But DeYoung's points are worth thinking about. One question he doesn't address is "why has the church dropped the evening service?"  The answer to this will tell us something how thinking in the church has shifted in last couple of decades. Has it dropped because our society has changed so much that getting to church twice on Sunday is now almost impossible?It is a logistical shift with people living further away from the place they worship?  Or has it dropped because we have substituted discussion groups for preaching?  Or has it dropped because we have become a lazier society that doesn't really want to show up at church twice in one day? It would be interesting to know why people stopped coming to the evening service and why churches stopped having them.

Here and here are some wonderful quotes from Doug Wilson's lectures at the Desiring God Pastor's Conference. He is my favorite teacher/pastor on the home and pastoral ministry.