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What’s In A Name? Why We Should Retain

Written by Rick Shrader

What’s In A Name? Why We Should Retain the Name Baptist (Part 1)

by Rick Shrader

             This article will appear in two parts.  The first part is written by Rick Shrader, president of Aletheia Baptist Ministries.  The second part will be written by Matt Shrader, Educational Consultant at Aletheia Baptist Ministries.

Part I

The question continues to be asked, “why should we keep using the denominational names?”  My answer is because they are needed as much now as ever and probably more.  The use of the name Baptist has never been without controversy with multiple detractors and supporters.  In this first part I want to give some historical and practical reasons why I am a supporter of keeping denominational names, especially our name, Baptist.

To denominate something is to name something.  I don’t think there is anything in this world without a name, a description that tells us what the thing is and a little something about it.  God started this in the six days of His creation.  Whether sun, moon, stars,  land and sea, heaven and earth, all were given names so that we would know them.  Adam’s first job in God’s creation was to participate in this task and give the animals names that would describe and denominate them.  Scientists, Botanists, Zoologists, and the rest have continued this practice with amazing descriptive preciseness.  As I look around the room in which I am sitting, I can’t find an object without a name, whether chair, lamp, shelf, or picture.  I’m glad for that.  It makes everything useable and knowable.

If I am asked what I believe, I use names also.  These names may be very specific such as pretribulational, or very broad such as Christian, but the more I use, the more you know about me.  In fact, I can’t deny something without a name, e.g., I am not charismatic, I don’t do that practice named speaking in tongues.  Now you know even more about me.  This is good.

Baptists have jokingly but somewhat seriously referred to John in the Bible because God gave him a descriptive name, “Baptist.”  This means he was the baptizer.  I am not making a case that John the Baptist was a Baptist in the denominational sense, I am pointing out that such a name served a good purpose and described what John did.  This is good. 

When some independents were first called “Anabaptists,” it was a good descriptive name because they were re-baptizing their converts.  Later when certain of them decided to give themselves a name, they chose Baptist because it continued to describe a specific and major doctrine which they practiced, even with threat of life or death.  Even those who haven’t liked the traditional labels still must label themselves something, whether “charismatic,” “evangelical,” “conservative,” “liberal,” or “nondenominational.”  Everything has a denominator or name and this is good also.

I also want to admit that Baptists, as all other religious groups, have had their embarrassments.  There have been those who did or believed things that brought despite to the name.  Sometimes people will become too loyal to a group at the expense of truth.  This is especially true of those in cults and liberal denominations.  There have been those in the Shrader family tree that did not help our name, but we keep trying to better the name, since we must be called something. 

Many have pointed out that a postmodern generation doesn’t like the traditional “branding” of past generations.  Millard Erickson wrote,

A further characteristic of the postmodern age is a reduced sense of commitment.  There was a time when people possessed brand loyalty. . . Brand loyalty was also manifested in commitment to a religious denomination, so a Presbyterian would look for a Presbyterian church when moving to a new community, as a Methodist would seek out a Methodist church to attend.  This was a lifelong commitment, and would not be deviated from without a very strong and compelling reason for doing so.1

George Barna said,

America is transitioning from a Christian nation to a syncretistic, spiritually diverse society.  It is shifting from a denominational landscape to a domain of independent churches.  It is a country where past defenses against ecumenism are giving way to the perceived benefits of cooperation, understanding, and consensus.  The days of theological rigidity are history; America is now a theologically pluralistic and encompassing society.2

Barna, not the most conservative of evangelicals, is just stating the facts and so is Erickson.  Much of our decision about the use of denominational names will depend on how far we can walk with the culture which they describe.  

Denominational names have a good history.

Like so many subjects today, our thoughts of history are shaped by the latest thing we hear on the evening news or read on a blog.  From what some say one would think that denominational names were invented by the devil himself.  For example, one statement of faith from a well-known evangelical organization admonishes readers, knowing that all believers are part of the larger body of Christ, to “rise above all sectarian prejudices and denominational bigotry” and just to love one another.3  Actually, denominations were started to guard against that very thing.

A good history of the beginning of denominations is given by Bruce Shelley, Professor of Church History at Denver Seminary, in his book, Church History In Plain Language, (p. 303-308).  Following the Reformation, Germany was headed into the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) because Catholics and the new followers of Luther were trying to make Germany either Catholic or Lutheran.  Historically, a land or country had to be the religion of its ruler or king and so fighting for territorial rights was a religious fight.  The peace of Westphalia (1648) was a landmark decision that allowed Catholics, Lutherans, and even Calvinists, to exist in the same territory without giving up their own interpretation of Christianity.  England would wrestle with the same problem in deciding whether the country was to be Catholic or Anglican or Puritan.  Each believed it ought to be their interpretation exclusively. “The use of the word denomination to describe a religious group came into vogue about 1740 during the early Evangelical Revival led by John Wesley and George Whitefield.  But the theory itself was hammered out a century before by a group of radical Puritan leaders in England and America.”4

The great American “experiment” was the natural setting for the solution.  In the old countries, a land had to be controlled by one religion and that religion had to be enforced by law.  The Puritans who first came to America tried to set up their colonies this way with miserable results and with no more individual freedom than  in England.  It was Roger Williams, whom most regard as the first “Baptist” in America, who solved the dilemma. 

In his book, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul, John Barry describes this problem in the enforcement of the ten commandments.5  The Puritans, especially John Winthrop, John Cotton, and Thomas Hooker in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, set up a government that controlled and punished citizens for their adherence to the ten commandments, even to the extent as to whether they loved the Lord their God enough (much less church attendance, daily prayers, and whether one should pray before or after the meal).  Williams had come firmly to believe that human government could enforce the second half of the Decalogue (man to man) but must not infringe on his relation to the first half (man to God).  Out of this Williams eventually founded Providence, Rhode Island with a separation of church and state where the state could not enforce or punish an individual concerning his relationship to God. 

Also, the territorial problem had to be solved.  Can anyone in a Puritan colony worship God in any other way, or would they have to move out of the territory?  Denomination was the answer.  Shelley explains,

Denominationalism, as originally designed, is the opposite of sectarianism.  A sect claims the authority of Christ for itself alone.  It believes that it is the true body of Christ; all truth belongs to it and to no other religion.  So by definition a sect is exclusive.

The word denomination by contrast was an inclusive term.  It implied that the Christian group called or denominated by a particular name was but one member of a larger group—the church—to which all denominations belong.6

 

The idea of denominations solved the territorial problem and allowed different interpretations of theology and polity to exist in the same area.  Rather than promoting “sectarian prejudices,” they actually solved that problem.

If a good thing has fallen on hard times, it ought to be restored.

The alternatives to denominations are not proving to be any better and will probably end up far worse.  As Barna pointed out in the above quote, theological pluralism is growing within Christian circles.  The lack of specificity in a church or in a group of churches will only end in chaos and bad teaching.  Denominational names and specifics help to guard against this problem and also allow the seeker to know a few things up about a church  up front.  It was a better day in America when the average citizen knew what the names meant, knew what his neighbors were, and got along fine with them.  Strong religious fences make good neighbors too.

In the early 1980s the church I worked for sent a staff member to California to start a church.  He thought it would be a good thing if he selected a generic name for his new church and not be identified with any particular denomination.  After weeks of making visits on people he found that the most common question he was asked was, “What kind of church are you?”  He also found that his most common answer was, “We’re Baptistic.”  In the end he added the name Baptist and avoided the problem.  Those who don’t know what the denominational names mean don’t care and those who do know want to know what you are.  The name over the door saves a lot of time.

The details of what we believe are important.

Denominational names have always kept a good parameter around the beliefs of any denomination.  Baptists have fought and died for the authority of Scripture and the priority of the New Testament in defining the church; the absolute necessity of a regenerate church membership; the exclusive use of immersion of adult converts; the autonomous authority of the local church to govern itself; the separation of the state from church affairs; and the belief in soul liberty in matters of conscience before God.  These are historically identified with the name Baptist.  We should not take lightly the discarding of a name that carries such weight for the sake of some who might not even believe these things.

In addition, what we believe is important to the seeker, even if he overtly disagrees with us.  Doesn’t he deserve a straight answer from us?  Why is it better (it is certainly not more honest) to hide our beliefs from another human being who has shown interest in our church?  This is something cults do because they know their doctrine would be astonishing to the average person, especially to a Christian believer.  I am not talking about pushing theological minutia ahead of the gospel, but rather of simply being up front about what we believe with our fellow man.  Even if he has had a bad experience in another Baptist church, our beliefs are important enough to correct his estimate of us and to honestly portray what our great heritage has believed.

We are trading external divisions for external but false unity.

It is probably no coincidence that our generation is losing a clear conscience and understanding about the coming of Christ and the tribulation to follow.  A generation ago R.V. Clearwaters wrote,

Any casual observer of the Protestant world can easily see that there is a rapid shifting from a state of many external organizational divisions, called denominations, which through the years have had a large measure of internal unity based on their fidelity to the Word of God, to a state of external organizational union in the National Council of Churches with increasing internal divisions.7

It is worth remembering that we live in the latter days and a world conglomeration of religions is coming that will deceive the whole world.  No one will be willing to resist but will believe the lie told to them (2 Thes. 2:3-12).  It would be hard to argue that this lie of the antichrist is based on clear divisions of beliefs rather than on an unclear mixture of truth and error.  Will we be found faithful to the truth of the Word in these last days or be found apologetic and maybe embarrassed about what we believe? 

Are there not already many who have traded fidelity to truth for ease and peacefulness?  Don’t we live in a day when many are seeking to get along in the world and are afraid of rejection especially on religious grounds?   Although I am sure that many who drop their denominational name believe they are doing it in order to reach more people and believe that such a name is a hindrance to evangelism, but I have to believe that such decisions are giving up a mile to gain an inch.  The contribution to pluralistic syncretism, will in the last days, do much more to harm men’s souls than to win them.

And So . . .

G.K. Chesterton (who was a practicing Roman Catholic) said,

Hence the difficulty which besets ‘undenominational religions.’  They profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds, but they appear to many to have collected all that is dull in them.  All the colours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white.  Mixed together on any human paint-box, they make a thing like mud, and a thing very like many new religions.  Such a blend is often something much worse than any one creed taken separately, even the creed of the Thugs.8

No one I know is arguing for denominational names over Scripture.  When such sectarian attitudes occur, they are immediately expelled by those who know better.  Yet everything under God’s sun has a name and that is a good thing.  It is the way God has made us and made His world.  History and honesty argue for the keeping of those names, even when detractors detract and naysayers nay.  It is better for those of us who hold specific doctrines and practices to say so publically, and it is better for an honest seeker of the gospel to know that as well.  Ours is to be faithful to what we believe the Scripture teaches and pray like the apostle Paul, “That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak” (Col. 4:4).

 

Notes:

1. Millard Erickson, The Postmodern World (Wheaton:  Crossway Books, 2002) 31.

2. George Barna, Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators (Dallas:  Word Publishing, 1996) 130.

3. CEF doctrinal statement, #9.  “That the Church is composed of all those who truly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.”

4. Bruce Shelley, Church History In Plain Language (Dallas:  Word Publishing, 1995) 306.

5. John Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul (New York:  Viking Books, 2012) part IV.

6. Shelley, p. 306.

7. R.V. Clearwaters, The Local Church of the New Testament (Chicago:  CBA, 1954) 63.

8. G.K. Chesterton, Heretics/Orthodoxy (Nashville:  Nelson, 2000)  45.

 

 

 

 

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The Dragon, The Beast, and the False Pro...

Written by Rick Shrader

The Dragon, The Beast, and the False Prophet

by Rick Shrader

As we begin a new year, we are faced with violence, immorality, and war on every hand.  Gunmen enter schools, theaters, and even school buses with no other purpose than to kill and hurt.  The leaders of our nation don’t seem to know what to do about it other than make acquiescing gestures toward the criminals hoping that appeasement will convince them to act nice.  Homosexuality is quickly becoming the sin of choice in our nation.  Many who would be appalled at violence see nothing wrong with homosexuality.  If it doesn’t hurt anyone, they figure, what’s the harm?  This sin is being pushed, legislated, and forced upon society, schools, and now even organizations like the Boy Scouts.  It has been glamorized by the entertainment industry for years.  War is being waged against peaceful peoples because they are peaceful and prosperous and their “ill-gotten” gains must be spread around the world.  People riot in the streets because they covet and demand things for which others have labored.

I heard a conservative news commentator say that violent people act as if they had no souls.  That tells  you a lot about why we are in trouble.  To people void of Biblical understanding, human souls are innocent and would do no harm to anyone.  Violence and activities that harm others are the only real sins, and they only show that such individuals have no “souls” and are less than human.  The fact is, of course, that such human acts only show the sinful nature of all humanity and the need for, on the societal level, a rule of law and, on the religious level, the need for personal regeneration. 

It is not that humanity has gotten off the upward track and needs to find solutions to a few problems; it is that humanity is displaying its true nature and the world is poised for an end-time scenario.  Now, we know that we don’t know that the Biblical tribulation is within our life-time.    Every generation of believers has had the privilege and responsibility of looking for the Blessed Hope of the church (Tit. 2:13, 1 John 3:3) because it has been imminent throughout the church age.  Yet the fact that it has not happened means that we are closer to it than ever before.  Only God knows when the last person will be saved and the church will be called out.  The moral condition of our world gives us pause to think of the dreadful time when God’s grace will be withdrawn and His judgment will be poured out.

Before delving into the Biblical descriptions of that end time, let me say that Christians are not monks or hermits who withdraw from their responsibility in the face of dire circumstances as Paul warned the church at Thessalonica (2 Thes. 3:11-12).  If we knew for certain that the Lord would come tomorrow, we would still plant an oak tree today.  The Blessed Hope keeps the believer working because time that is short is also precious.  Paul encouraged the Corinthians to be steadfast in their stewardship for God in the light of the Lord’s coming (1 Cor. 15:58).

Also, believers know better than to set dates and to insist that the current circumstances are the final ones (Matt. 24:36).  Believers surely could have thought that the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party, with all of its ugliness and inhumanity, was THE end time but it was not.  We can be assured that the real antichrist will be worse than Hitler and the real tribulation worse than the holocaust.

At the same time, however, we are to “look” (Tit. 2:13; Phil 3:20).  As with the proposed visit of a special loved one, we can work while we wait, and look earnestly for His arrival.  We can observe the world situation around us, discerning the signs of the times more than the face of the sky (Matt. 16:3).  There is no Biblical truth that will encourage us in this world than the promise of His coming.

Revelation 13 gives us a description of three prominent characters who will come to power in the middle of the great tribulation; the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.  Rev. 16:13 describes them by saying, “and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” This is the satanic trinity that is about to deceive the whole world.

They don’t gain control overnight, but through a process of time they are allowed by God to have their moment in history, bringing about their own end and destruction.  The dragon is Satan and the beast is the antichrist.  When the rapture of the church occurs (at the beginning of the tribulation), the antichrist will rise to power in a short three and one half years.  If the rapture is imminent, the coming of this evil trio is only slightly less so.

The Dragon

Paul told the church at Corinth that believers are not ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11).  Satan is the enemy of the church, the accuser of the brethren.  John delineates his names in  Rev. 12:9-10,  “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”  He does it again in 20:2, “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.”  At the middle of the tribulation Satan is cast to the earth and given a short time to organize his forces.  At the end he is bound and cast into the bottomless pit for the duration of the millennium.

Throughout the church age, Satan has had terrific power and influence.  He is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).  He is the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), as “a roaring lion, [he] walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).  We can only imagine a time when his power will be multiplied and his hatred of God’s people accelerated. 

For the time being, this world is under the control of Satan.  Not that God is out of control, but that He is allowing Adam’s sin to run its course as was promised in Gen. 3:15, the first prophecy of Christ given specifically to Satan himself.  The kosmos is his legacy.  This is the culture that lost people create with their fallen natures, directed and conducted by the one whose “pipes” and “tabrets” were perfected when he was the “anointed cherub” before the throne of God (Ezek. 38:13-14).  He knows what he is doing.  He is so confirmed in evil that even after being confined for a thousand years, with his doom assured, still rises to make a last attempt at the overthrow of God! 

Luther penned these familiar words:

And tho’ this world with devils filled,

Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed

His truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim,

We tremble not for Him—

His rage we can endure,

For lo, his doom is sure

One little word shall fell him.

Surely this is true.  Although Satan has the power of death and hell (Heb. 2:14), the gates of death and hell cannot prevail against the church (Matt. 16:18) because Christ has the keys to both (Rev. 1:18).  But what is about to come when the church is gone?  This world that belongs to Satan and the people who are his spiritual children (Matt. 8:44), will be plunged into terrible sin and blasphemy in the tribulation period.  Rev. 13 repeats the word “blasphemy” both of the dragon (vs. 1) and of the beast (vs. 6).

Our current age is one of outright blasphemy in its language, immoral behavior, love of evil darkness, and its attack on all that is sacred.  It is blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), taken captive by him at his will (2 Tim. 2:26).  With all the intelligence that is in this world, it does not realize its affront toward God.  “Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8).

The Beast

John writes, “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea” (Rev. 13:1).  For sake of brevity let me give what I believe is the Biblical description of this beast.  He is “the man of sin” (2 Thes. 2:3) who will be revealed to the world about half way through the tribulation period.  Though he pretends to be a messianic-type figure (Matt. 24:5, Rev. 6:2), even making a treaty with Israel to end the middle east conflict (Dan. 9:27), he will have a vital role in defeating the northern threat at the middle of the tribulation (Ezek. 38:21), and will become the sole ruler of the world, the little horn (Dan. 7:8, Rev. 18:7-11) who rises to great power. 

The antichrist is a westerner politically, though he may be of any nationality, including Jewish (Dan. 11:37).  He revives the template of the old Roman Empire with geographic and religious boundaries (Dan. 2:33; 7:7).  His ten-nation confederation of western kings (Dan. 7:7-8; Rev. 17:12) carries a religious conglomerate on its back (Rev. 17:1—which I personally believe is the Roman Church, though there is room for disagreement.  It is at least a world-wide ecumenical movement).  These kings use the harlot woman (the religious conglomerate) only to a point, then discard her in a terrorist-type attack (Rev. 17:16).

This antichrist is a smooth-talking orator (Dan. 7:8; 11:36) who can compel followers and blaspheme God at the same time (Rev. 13:6).  He is controlled by Satan (Rev. 13:2) so much that he can convince the world to worship him while at the same time worshiping Satan (Rev. 13:3-4).  He desires worship so much that he will pretend to be God (2 Thes. 2:4) and will accept the accolades gladly. 

This man could be alive as we speak, or he may be a few years off.  I don’t see any current politician who is intelligent and charismatic enough to fulfill this role, though one may be on the horizon.  We must remember, however, that this antichrist will be so completely filled by Satan himself when he comes to power, that we could not recognize the difference that such a filling will make in a person. 

We cannot equate America with the church or the kingdom of God.  We have been so blessed to live in a country founded on Christian principles but no human organization will be exempt from this end-time disaster.  We are already seeing our own government dictate anti-religious views (on homosexuality) and laws (forcing contraceptives) on its people, erasing the reminders of its Christian heritage (ten commandments) in every way possible.  Some issues (as gun control) have no religious connection other than they can be used for a government’s power over its people.

America is part of the western world and will no doubt have some significant part in the antichrist’s power.  Christians who live in the last days of the age of grace will surely suffer the beginnings of the persecution to come, including in America.  At some point we will have to refuse to give to Caesar what belongs only to God.  May God give us wisdom to know the difference!  Praise God that He has not appointed us to the wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thes. 5:9).

The False Prophet

One of the most intriguing characters in the book of Revelation is the false prophet mentioned first in chapter 13.  It seems that every Hitler has his Himmler, the spiritual head who works behind the scenes pulling the strings.  Somewhere in the antichrist’s rise to power this false prophet rises with him.  As John wrote, he had no idea of how a man could manipulate phenomena the way we can understand it today.  How could he make an image of the beast that could speak (fr. lale?, to talk, make verbal sound)?  Today we don’t even stop to wonder how such image-making can be done.  Neither do we wonder how he could make the image have “life” (fr. pneuma, breath, air, motion—not bios nor z??, biological life nor spiritual new life).  We see these kinds of technological tricks everyday.  We also see how such a multi-media presentation can sway crowds of cheering, hand-waving, religious people. 

By these wonders the false prophet will have the charismatic ability to persuade the peoples of the world to worship the beast by doing obeisance to his image.  Not only that, he will persuade them to do it or be killed (Rev. 13:15).  The most famous characteristic of his career is to use the deteriorating economic situation to force people to receive the mark of the beast “in their right hand, or in their foreheads” (13:16) or be killed.  God will have marked the 144,000 faithful Jews  with a “seal” (sphragis, a seal, proof, token) in the first half of the tribulation (7:1-8).  Unable to duplicate God’s own mark, the false prophet devises his own “mark” (eik?n, icon, resemblance) “in” (always epi, “upon” or “on” the surface) to imitate what God had done to those notable and godly Jews. 

Whereas the beast arises out of the sea (usually a description of multitudes of people), the false prophet arises out of the earth (13:11), evidently signifying a connection with nature, the green earth, the environment.  He is a new-age type of leader.  Having cast off the harlot woman and her traditional religion, this dynamic duo forces the new religion on the whole world.  He also performs “miracles” and “great wonders” which Satan and his ministers have always been able to do, as Pharaoh’s magicians could duplicate Aaron’s miracles (Exod. 7:8-13). 

Hitler and Himmler, Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, could only give commands to annihilate part of their own populations.  Imagine someone who has the authority to command that people all over the world be executed if they do not worship in the prescribed way!  We could be a short few years from this being reality!

Not long ago I read Hitler’s Mein Kampf (“my struggle”) specifically to find a quote that I had often heard.  Hitler used the first multi-media presentation to persuade masses of people to do what he wanted.  That description from Hitler himself is this,

The mass meeting is also necessary for the reason that in it the individual, who at the first, while becoming a supporter of a young movement . . .  For the first time gets the picture of a larger community, which in most people has a strengthening, encouraging effect. . . When, as a seeker, he is swept away by three or four thousand others into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm, when the visible success and agreement of thousands confirm to him the rightness of the new doctrine and for the first time arouse doubt in the truth of his previous conviction—then he himself has succumbed to the magic influence of what we designate as ‘mass suggestion.’  The man who enters such a meeting doubting and wavering leaves it inwardly reinforced: he has become a link in the community.  The National Socialist movement must never forget this  (p. 478-479). 

Hitler admitted, “I was a master of this art.”  But the beast and the false prophet, with Satan’s direct influence, will put Hitler to shame. 

And So . . .

I believe that our culture today is preparing people for this mass hysteria.  The massive, multi-media, hand waving, mindless concerts are today’s idolatry.  I have been many places in the world and have not been able to escape the noise, images, attitude, and fierceness of its influence.  Sadly, even the church, both false and true, by claiming that culture is morally neutral, has brought this  idolatry into its method of worship.  Like Ahaz, who duplicated the worship of Damascus in God’s temple in Jerusalem (2 Kings 16), even the church is aiding the coming idolatry of the Dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.  May God give us grace to stand in these last days.

 

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Reading This Year

Written by Rick Shrader

Reading This Year

by Rick Shrader

Francis Bacon once said, “Reading makes a broad man but writing makes an exact man.”1  I am not as broad as I ought to be and am surely not as exact as I need to be.  I find myself more in agreement with the preacher when he wrote, “and further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Ecc. 12:12).  Yet I know that reading is the life blood of learning.  The great apostle, with no hope of escape from prison, still requested of young Timothy that he bring him his books! (See 2 Tim. 4:13); and Daniel, busy in his work as a head of state, wrote, “I Daniel understood by books the number of the years” (Dan. 9:2). 

My father was a university professor and my mother was an English teacher.  One would think some of it would rub of on their third child.  For my mother’s sake, I wear a white carnation on Mother’s Day and I try to continue to read and write.  Reading was comprehension to her, speed reading was not a real concern.  William McGuffey wrote, “Read much but not many books.  The motto in reading should be multum non multa”2 (not many things but much).  I (and my siblings) went to his grade school in Oxford, Ohio, maybe some of that will rub off! 

I’m certainly not a fast reader.  I have a four-speed transmission when it comes to how I can read various books.  Sometimes I can get up to third or fourth gear, but most times I plug along in first or second.  Technical books (such as commentaries and theologies, which I love) just need to be given time.  There is a saying, “it’s not the bee touching the flower, but abiding on it that produces the honey!” 

I have become a more organized reader as I’ve grown older; maybe you have as well.  I regret that I did not have (or no one taught me) a way to catalog information throughout my college and seminary days.  Those old text books and other reading material are filled with pencil scratchings behind the front covers, but if I can’t remember under which cover to look, I’ve lost it.  When my daughter Rebekah was my secretary, she wrote a small computer program to keep and catalog quotations from my reading.  Later, my software engineer son Michael made an even more elaborate program which I now use.  I guess if you can’t figure it all out yourself, raise some children who can.  They’ll only think you’re stodgy, which isn’t bad.  When Lee Strobel was writing his first book, he went to meet Bruce Metzger.  He said, “I found eighty-four-year-old Bruce Metzger on a Saturday afternoon at his usual hangout, the library at Princeton Theological Seminary, where, he says with a smile, ‘I like to dust off the books.’”3  That’s what my generation will be doing in retirement, and that’s not bad either. 

 

Some rules for reading

If I could start all over again I would follow a few rules.  If I didn’t like to read to begin with, I would begin reading with what I liked.  In my opinion a comic book is better than a cartoon because it takes more effort, imagination, and vocabulary.  But if one will continue in that vein, he will soon graduate to better reading.  Even to this day, when I get tired of reading the heavy things, I will go back to a good biography or even a fun story.  Those have a way of pulling me back to my corner chair and asking me to linger there a while.  Dr. Clearwaters used to quote William James saying, “We all have equal retentive powers, we only differ in degrees of interest and methods of learning.”  I have found that the degree of interest will greatly enhance the method of learning.

I would also slow down and read as if I were talking to the author and he with me.  But just as in real conversation, the pace will naturally pick up as you run deeper into the topic.  Spurgeon said, “A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed.  Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading.”4  Daniel said he “understood by books,” not that he saw something in a book. 

I would also try to expand my knowledge of various kinds of literature and authors.  A “university” (unity in diversity) training is what we need.   An “encyclopedic” (pediatrics in the whole cycle) knowledge is what we are after.  Thomas à Kempis wrote,  “Let not the authority of the writer offend thee, whether he be of great or small learning; but let the love of pure truth draw thee to read.”5  I see my younger son, Matthew, gaining this kind of reading ability much better than I ever did.  When our children were young, we would stock the shelves with children-sized novels and classics, and he read them all!  Now his (and all of our children’s) range of reading is much broader than it would have been.  Our younger daughter, Rachel, now has an MA in reading!

 

Those technologies

And also, as I have noted, I would develop a retrieval method much earlier in my career.  This is where the electronics boom has been such a blessing, though it can also be a curse.  My father, a PhD from the University of Missouri, was an electronics wizard.  He fixed anything and everything, built our houses, built and rebuilt our cars, and could tell you how every little gizmo worked and why.  He retired, however, in 1984 just as the computer world was coming into its own and he did not come in with it.  He had the brains, no doubt, and the aptitude, but the interest died out too quickly.  I am certainly no computer guru and only operate on an average level, but I am well beyond my father.  My children are the same distance ahead of me (maybe more) than I was of my father.  I’m sure their children will pass them as well. 

Now this doesn’t mean that we are more literate than our ancestors.  Most people agree that our generation has more material at its fingertips than past generations combined but seems to have less wisdom and literacy than past generations.  I know that I am far less literate than my mother (who died 1-1-01).  She was an English and Literature teacher and taught for 25 years in the public school system and was an avid reader.  She also taught a very popular Bible as Literature class in the high school where I attended—in the 1960s!  She never used a computer, as far as I know, but I still wish that my reading could be as broad as hers.  My sister, Debra, is just like her mother but more computer literate as well; so it can work both ways.  She reads quickly and comprehensively to the shame of the rest of us.  I would still call her “old school” when it comes to the kind of books she likes and her broad understanding of subjects, yet she is well beyond our mother in up-to-date technologies.

Only recently have I begun reading from a Kindle.  On a trip this year to Ukraine my son, Matthew (who has an iPad with Kindle on it), gave me his old Kindle with a few books already on it.  I bought a few more and took only that with me on the trip.  I loved the ease of it and read four books on the two-week trip.  That doesn’t bring me into the new age, however.  I still love to read with a pencil and my personal bookmark (I am terrible at marking up a book so no one else will ever be able to use it).  I have Amazon tagged with my favorite web sites and have done my share of making them rich.  But I still identify with  J. Sidlow Baxter when he said,  “All of us are fond of reconnoitering among the shelves of evangelical bookstores.”6  I’ll add to that, among dusty shelves of used book stores!

 

The next generation

What will our children and grandchildren face in their life-times? There is already the problem of plagiarism in schools and informal writing.  With Google searches, it is almost too easy to find information.  It takes little or no effort in personal research.  In fact, “research” today means searching the internet.  But footnoting and giving credit where credit is due takes time and know-how.  So why not just drop (cut and paste) the whole text right into my own document?  In a world-wide information system, who’s to know?  One can also word-search a subject in difficult-to-read books and lift a quotation out of it as if one has really read it.  Remember in the old footnoting system (which I still use) how you had to be careful not to use an author’s own footnote when he footnoted another author?  Either read the book yourself, or give the current author credit.  That kind of thing is even easier now.

On a personal note, I tire of the over-footnoting which is today’s style (and required of good students).  When you read a paper, or technical book, you are reading two things:  the text itself which is the top half of the page, and the footnotes which take up the bottom half of the page.  It’s almost like reading two books at once, like carrying on two conversations at the same time.  I’m old-school enough to just want it in one conversation or be polite and wait until later.  Footnoting itself (which I agree is necessary) is not found in older research books at all.  I’m not sure that I would go as far as professor Goodrick when he wrote, “Many a polluting interpretation that deserves a death with dignity is kept alive by the heroic efforts of that life-support apparatus called a footnote.”7

I am afraid that history will be so re-written that my grand children will not even know the truth of history.  The internet makes no distinction between false and true.  This is like the Hollywood film version of history—since it is all many people will ever see, it is accepted as fact without any critical thinking.  This is already bleeding over into Biblical history and the reliability of the Bible.  Dan Brown’s DiVinci Code is proof enough!

How many of us will see our grandchildren ten times as proficient as we with the technologies, but woefully deficient in the social skills of life?  I still find it ironic to talk about “social networking” among people who never see or talk to one another.  It is a common remark to hear someone say that they have been in a public place where everyone was busy on their electronic device but never said a word to one another.  Multi-tasking seldom includes conversation, evidently.  Add to this the coming deficiency in spelling, grammar, personality, facial expression, eye contact, not to mention manners.  And we cannot even talk about morality.  C.S. Lewis wrote some time ago, “He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one.  It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it.”8  I think it is the same with an over-use of the internet and social media. 

We all fear the next generation’s attitude toward Christian fellowship and worship.  We try not to quibble over electronic words rather than printed words, or virtual speakers on a screen rather than the actual speaker in front of you.  We can’t even approach the subject anymore of which is better:  real sound or electronically reproduced sound.  We lost that battle over sound tracks, then over organs, and now we may only seldom hear the sound of a real acoustic piano.  But where are we headed when it comes to real books?  An appropriate illustration might be of the song book.  If older song writers did not copyright their songs (which, of course, they did not), they are changed at will to suit the current publisher’s purpose.  If Isaac Watts wrote “for such a worm as I,” then either sing it or leave it alone!  But don’t soft-peddle it into something he didn’t write.  But this is a mute point also since we are now beyond using actual song books anyway (except in my church).  You don’t have to have anything in your hand, Bible or song book, except perhaps your own “smart” phone to do something else when you get bored. 

I’ve used this old quote from J.S. Whale often, “Instead of putting off our shoes from our feet because the place we stand is holy ground, we are taking nice photographs of the burning bush from suitable angles.”9  Many worship services do feel more like a photo session than a worship service.  We worship the worship more than the object of our worship.  Our icons have become electronic.

 

The challenge

So what are the challenges that we face as we go forward (and go forward we must)?  First and foremost is to keep walking by faith and not by sight.  The immortal, invisible God lives in a world we cannot experience with our physical senses.  Therefore we must follow the path He has revealed to us, and that is precisely a written text.  A verbal, plenary view of the inspiration of that revelation causes us to want to read it!  Yes, we can do that electronically.  I have a few different electronic versions of the Bible plus an extensive Bible software program.  I must admit I still love the real Book in my hands and real commentaries, lexicons, etc.  I also do find these deficiencies with my electronic versions: I don’t mark them (though I can, clumsily, with built-in tools), I read them too fast, I read them in busy places, and I don’t reverence them much.  Again, the danger in all of this is losing a proper view of the invisible God.  Maybe He can be downsized, or stored in a file, or cut and pasted, or be given a handy size to fit my busy life-style.  Maybe I’m the one in control here.

Second, will this cycle of one generation dropping pace from the next, continue from now on?  Will children always have the attitude that adults don’t know things and are incapable of handling the simplest tasks?  What will a generation of kids look like in fifty years?  Will there still be a walk by faith and not by sight?  When the last generation does come, will there still be faith on the earth?

Third, what about myself and my generation?  I want to finish the race strongly.  Can I do that if I am not very technologically astute?  Can the older saints, whom we are to honor, be given any real respect in our churches, or are they mere spectators while the children run the show?  I watched my father retreat from a newer world and I’ve always told myself I won’t do that.  Frankly, retreat from communications that corrupt good manners seems prudent.  But I will continue to do the best I can within the framework of God’s Word.

 

And so . . .

The subject of this article is reading.  I believe we must read.  A generation that doesn’t read also doesn’t learn, spell, communicate, or write.  Christians can’t allow that to happen to them or their children.  We are in a strange world but so have been those before us.  Pilgrims and strangers must travel through the land and do the best they can in the time they have.  Our stewardship is with the tools God has given us, not what He has given someone else.  Stewards must be faithful.

Christian (in Bunyan’s classic) was uncomfortable in the city called Vanity which had a Fair that lasted twelve months out of the year so that the partying never stopped.  He was out of place, they told him, in his speech, his looks, and his stodgy ways.  He couldn’t change Vanity’s Fair in the time he had there because he was a pilgrim and had a goal in sight and had to move on.  But he was a light in a dark place for a while.  We are children of the light so let us also walk in the light in the time that we have.

 

Notes:

1. This quote is repeated by many.  See, for example,  Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 100.

2. Harvey Minnich, William Holmes McGuffey and his Readers (Cincinnati: American Book Co., 1936) 183.

3. Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998) 57.

4. Quoted by J. Oswald Sanders in Spiritual Leadership (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971) but attributed to H. Thielecke in a book titled Encounter With Spurgeon.

5. Thomas  à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984) 33.

6. J. Sidlow Baxter, His Deeper Work In Us (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 81.

7. Edward Goodrick, Is My Bible The Inspired Word of God? (Portland:  Multnomah Press, 1988) 107.

8. C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (New York: HBJ, 1955) 199.

9. J.S. Whale, Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: University Press, 1963) 152.

 

 

 

 

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A Nativity Scene

Written by Rick Shrader

A Nativity Scene

by Rick Shrader

It was Christmas time in 1992 when I first visited Russia and Ukraine.  In America battles were raging over nativity scenes on government property.  It was a startling realization to find that in Russia, the former Soviet Union, nativity scenes were going up all over the place and government schools were inviting Christian ministers to speak to the classes about the birth of Jesus.  Churches that were underground for years were now meeting openly and even building church buildings.  As an American who grew up fearing the “We will bury you” rhetoric of Soviet leaders, it seemed like the world was backwards.  In America we couldn’t mention God or religion on government property, but in Russia there was freedom to do that and more.

Sadly, such freedom in Russia and Ukraine is being challenged and no one knows where Russia (especially) will end up with regard to freedom of religion.  Ukraine seems to be fairing better.  I have spent time in Ukraine in 2011 and 2012, teaching in a conservative Baptist seminary and speaking in local churches.  Things hardly seem any different than in our country for doing these ministries.  In fact, the school that was started by BIEM under Peter and Sam Slobodian in the mid-90s in Kiev is going strong and students are starting churches all over the former Soviet Union.  Some of the greatest Christian workers I have met are there faithfully serving the Lord and standing for the faith.

To be truthful, nativity scenes have never been my favorite thing, but we all understand the truth behind the images.  I prefer a church scene with carolers singing Christmas songs.  But I certainly sympathize with the battles for nativity scenes because those are battles for religious liberty.  What I don’t like is the display of nativity scenes, or any other decoration, for personal merit or display.  A Christmas decoration can be a witness for Christ if done in the right way, and many carry specific messages about Christ, but none should be done selfishly.

In our politically correct society, everyone is afraid to mention anything that might offend someone, and aren’t we all tired of people trying to make something spiritual out of everything from Santa Claus to giving gifts!  “After all,” they say, “isn’t the real meaning of Christmas to give?”  Forget speaking of Christ or incarnation, doing the good work of giving is what is important, and if we give in some way we are finding the real meaning of Christmas.  So we are flooded with commercials and programs that never mention what God did in Bethlehem but make a saint out of anyone (of any lifestyle) who works in a soup kitchen.  One wonders why human beings are so willing to make personal redemption a task rather than a gift from God.  But I guess if they can reduce that task to a simple deed at Christmas time, it soothes the conscience!

My thoughts go back to that Christmas in the former Soviet Union.  Does it take seventy years of oppressive atheism and communism to make a people long for the REAL meaning of Christmas?  Does a nation have to give up freedom, allow perversion within, and persecution without, and perhaps even wait for a generation to die off, just to learn what is really true and important?  Russia did.  I hope and pray America will not.  But at this time it seems we have no tolerance for belief in God, or revelation from His Word, or a message that says we need a Savior who is God incarnate.  I’m not remembering only church life.  What happened to a whole nation, conservative and liberal, cults and societies, religious and nonreligious, who allowed for God and His Word, respected church, honored public prayer, and fought for everyone’s right to have it that way?

It is an interesting fact that we do not find a lot of “holiday traditions” in the New Testament.  We do not see the believers keeping a special day for the birth of Christ, much less reconstructing a little artifact of what that scene in Bethlehem looked like—and there may have been some there who would have known!  It seems that Easter (as we and all the pagans call it) was celebrated every Sunday morning and not just once a year.  There is a real silence in the New Testament about such things.  Even Jewish feasts are only mentioned incidentally as the disciples (especially Paul) happened to be going to Jerusalem during that time.  The churches, it seems, were busy going about their business in another way.

Now I have never objected to using religious or secular artifacts that remind us of good things.  We have a Christmas tree at our house.  We bake birthday cakes and blow out candles.  We do not, however, keep Halloween in any form because these kinds of things have gone way beyond any worthwhile function.  I certainly have no objection to being deeply patriotic or celebrating other national memorials such as Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, or the fourth of July.  To the believer, however, these things are symbolisms that may have little or no real substance, including Christmas and Easter paraphernalia. 

My proposition is this.  The incarnation of God in the flesh (Emmanuel, God with us) must be believed and accepted (along with Christ’s death and resurrection) by simple faith in the heart.  That faith, will create the real nativity scene.  I am not saying that such faith takes the place of the original nativity.  That fact cannot be changed.  God became a man (actually at His divine conception nine months before His birth) and that is an undisputed fact of history.  Whether anyone believes it or not cannot change what happened.  A whole country may decide to outlaw its public mention and discard every memory of the fact.  It is fact nonetheless.  But even a scientific interest in Bethlehem’s manger or the arrangement of the stable will not fulfill the purpose for that event.  Only a reception of the truth of it will truly represent the first nativity scene.

I think the apostle John was highly sensitive to this when he wrote his three epistles.  Repeatedly he underscores the need to believe that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh.  “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?  He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 Jn. 2:22).  “”Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist” (4:3).  “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.  This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 Jn. 7).  John had no patience for a hypocrite who went through the motions of Christianity while denying truth of Christianity.  We would really be politically incorrect  today if we called a non-Christian who puts up Christmas decorations an antichrist!

Let me go back again to that Christmas in the former Soviet Union.  That nation had rejected the truth of God’s incarnation for seventy years.  It had robbed its people of the gospel and hope of eternal life for generations.  But the reconstruction of nativity scenes after the fall of the iron curtain was not the meaning of Christmas again in that dark land.  The reception of the truth of the incarnation was the real nativity scene.  That image that I carry with me of my father-in-law preaching again to his own people; the hungry soul that, when he had received a New Testament, said, “Ah, bread!”  that was the real Christmas.  So now, the thriving churches that gather each Lord’s Day to worship the true God, this is the real nativity scene that is reconstructed anywhere and anytime the truth of the incarnation is received.

There was a time in America when not even nativity scenes were necessary to display the real meaning of Christmas.  Believers gathered together, preached the gospel to friends and visitors, baptized their converts in a watery grave, solemnly memorialized the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and lifted their voices to God in praise and worship.  For me, that is all the nativity scene I need.  That is the real representation of the incarnation of Christ.

There was a time in America when nonbelievers allowed such nativity scenes without fear and animas.  They too realized the great benefit that was gained living in a country with that kind of a foundation.  No one was forced to believe it, but all benefited from it.  Alexis de Tocqueville once said that America is great because America is good.  When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.  That is the spiritual cliff we are on.  Americans have lived on the capital of a spiritual and good nation.  But that capital is about gone.  Contrary to atheistic dreamers, the true nativity scenes cannot be expunged here anymore than they can in countries like the Soviet Union.  They will thrive in every corner where the gospel is preached.  And it will be preached because that will always be given unto God and not to Caesar.

May we all create a real nativity scene in our hearts by true belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior.  And may that scene be displayed throughout our needy land where ever true Christianity is found.

Our father’s God, to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee we sing:

Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light;

protect us by Thy might, Great God our King!

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;

Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. 

We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell;

O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!

 

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Having Respect of Persons

Written by Rick Shrader

Having Respect of Persons

by Rick Shrader

In preaching through the second chapter of the book of James, we usually focus on faith and works in the second half of the chapter.  However, the respect of persons which James deals with in the first nine verses is just as needful, and perhaps much more, in our own day.  Faith and works is important, in fact it has been the water shed of differences between denominations and cults.  But James’ pointed words regarding our own reaction to people who come into our church, or you might say, when the world comes to us, is crucial as well.

It is important to define what “respect of persons” means.  We are generally right when we understand that it means we should have no partiality toward people, especially due to their outward appearance.  Even more specifically in this passage, we should not prefer one person as a prospective member of the church over another because of what appears to be a better social or financial status.  James presents the familiar picture of a rich man and a poor man coming into the church service (“Your assembly”) and the rich man receiving better treatment by the saints of God. 

“Respect of persons” comes from a combination of the word for “face” and the word “to receive.”  To respect one person over another is to receive his face above another, or, as A.T. Robertson put it, “to lift up the face on a person.”1  Douglas Moo says that “this word was invented by New Testament writers”2  because it is a rare word.

The word is used only four other places in the New Testament (Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25) and in each place it refers to God as being without respect of persons either in salvation or in judgment.  James is the only one to apply it to believers, obviously teaching that we are to be like our heavenly Father in this regard. 

Douglas Moo also noted,

“But the Greek word here is plural—’acts of favoritism’ (NRSV)—and this makes clear that the prohibition has wide-ranging application.  The OT repeatedly stresses that God himself is impartial, looking at the heart rather than at the outside of a person, and God’s people are to imitate him in this respect.”3

Therefore we always translate “respects (plural) of persons” which indeed does widen the meaning of the idea.  There are many ways in which we show favoritism.  We pass by a person without speaking; we look at a person with a suspicious look; we speak but quickly move away  to other people.  But we also laud over an obviously well-to-do person; we follow up more quickly on a large family; we might even change what we do in church to keep someone from not liking us.

Hypocrisy is a kind of respect of persons because in being hypocritical we are changing our own face in sight of someone else for our own gain.  Pragmatism is a kind of respect of persons because we favor some people who can help us accomplish something, the end justifying the means thereby.  So being a respecter of persons is a kind of hypocrisy wedded to pragmatism.  We act in a way we shouldn’t in front of someone, with the purpose of using them for our own ends.  No doubt James saw something like this going on in his own congregation of believers.

Our own history

As fundamental Baptists, we have often had our faults in this matter.  Many of us remember the 60s and 70s when we boasted of the ten largest Sunday Schools in America, or when our churches were among the fastest growing churches in America.  In fact, there was an ongoing contest among the churches to see who would be listed in such reports.  Now, I certainly am not criticizing bigness as such.  There is nothing inherently wrong in a big church or in a little church, just as there is nothing inherently wrong in being rich or poor.  Either could be used for God’s glory and either can be used for selfishness.  But I am remembering, as one who was trained in ministry at that time, that what we really wanted was to grow and we needed people as well as people’s money to do it. Even worse, we may have pushed for altar results simply for the record of it rather than for the rejoicing of sinners being saved. 

I remember being a Bible College student (’68-’72) and fearing that if I left school to start or pastor a church, I might not grow fast enough and would be perceived as a failure by my peers or instructors.  Those were the days of church growth seminars where one could learn the latest method of increasing the attendance and altar result cards.  We all copied Jerry Falwell and Jack Hyles. 

Those days are probably still with us to some degree, but I think we have learned that growth for growth’s sake isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  There is a real hollowness in ministry when things are done by hypocrisy wedded to pragmatism.  People just become numbers or offering envelopes.  And I think our people felt it too.  I believe it is good for us to have dropped off the cutting edge of church growth dynamics.  We may not be in the news as much, but we are shepherding more than herding and I think pleasing God more.

 

The contemporary church

As fundamental churches decreased in numbers, evangelical churches took over.  The 80s and the 90s were given to a seeker sensitive style of ministry where polls were used to find out what would make the world like us.  The churches quickly became what was necessary to draw people.  If they didn’t like church buildings, the look of the building was changed.  If they didn’t like dressing up for church, everyone immediately became casual.  Not just “poor” like the man in James chapter two, but perfectly casual.  Casual with the most expensive casualness.  Ironically, a coat and tie became as nadir as the hobo of the 50s.  If you went like that, you were the one to whom no one spoke. 

The worst show of the respect of persons was the target audience.  Somehow a church determined who should be there and who shouldn’t, or at least whom they really wanted and whom they didn’t.  James would call this a violation of the “royal law” (2:9).  To not “love your neighbor as yourself” is to not love whoever is there, whoever comes in the door.  The word is “kingly.”  A king is supposed to love all of his subjects, and a church is supposed to love whoever comes in. 

I might add to this that there was a certain part of this movement that encouraged churches to push aside (or out) the older people because they would not give a proper impression to the younger generation that the church was trying to attract.  With their removal there was also the removal of their baggage: hymnals, choirs, coats and ties, etc. (and sadly their maturity). 

Was not all of this (like the church-growth movement of the 60s and 70s) truly a way of being a respecter of persons?  I think it was.  Ministry was plastic, a façade, something performed for a certain effect.  And that effect was success.   It’s not that 100% of churches then or now were driven by these motives, but too many of them were.

 

Even newer churches

Somehow I can’t believe that the emergent churches and other new brands of believers are any better in their motives.  Respecting persons is too much a part of human nature.  For the postmodern church to simply criticize the older churches as  being “modern” (i.e. molded by the modern, industrial, cookie-cutter age) and then to drop into the abyss of relativism, having no structure or stable values, is certainly no better.  In fact, it is worse.  The world will never adopt Christian principles on its own and to acquiesce to it in form and structure (or the lack thereof) is to respect the persons (the face) of the world in the worst way.  To say that the postmodern age is better than the modern or pre-modern ages is to become what the world wants you to become for your own gain.  It is to “lift up the face” to them in order to win them over. 

If we simply witness the popular writers of this movement (McLaren, Bell) and what doctrines and interpretations they have adopted in order to draw the postmodern generation, we need look no further.  The Bible is a human story, not an inspired record?  Hell is within each lost person, not a real place to which they go when they die?  To teach these things because the current generation will receive none other is to respect their faces too much.

 

Our culture

I agree with those who say that culture is not morally neutral, and in fact is the incarnation of a person’s (society’s) religion.  A thief steals because he believes it is right for him to do so.  Even if those reasons are nefarious, he was forced into it by circumstances beyond his control.  A liar tells a lie because for the moment it is necessary for him/her to do so.  These things are moral convictions that come from a person’s world view.  This is true for all of us.  If we have a Biblical world view we will talk, think, and do those things that we really believe from the Bible.  If those things are not Biblical, then we are hypocritical to say that we have a Christian world view.  Our culture is the way it is because it is the outgrowth of what society really believes.  Culture then is the incarnation of society’s belief system, good or bad.

It is human nature to respect persons.  A lost person may be made in God’s image, but he/she is fallen, a sinner who does not seek after God by nature.  Therefore, hypocrisy may become necessary for such a person to get ahead in this life.  Pragmatism is a way of life that makes even good things to be mere means to an end.  To respect persons in this manner is a way of life for the sinner, his culture, his real religion.

 

Our country

The respect of persons is seen in political campaigns in an unashamed fashion.  Even as we now try to evaluate why the president won and the challenger lost, the answers from the pundits is that we didn’t “appeal” to certain social groups in the country.  I don’t think there is any doubt that the president’s campaign was based on promising (once again) to give certain people whatever they want if they would vote for him.  Sadly, moral issues and personal failures (especially as the Commander in Chief) don’t seem to matter to people if they get the things they want from the government.  In other words, people are very willing to be the victims of this political respect of persons if it is an advantage to them.  For political parties and candidates to pander to people this way, to study the details of what will persuade them, and then to form a campaign and administration based on that is respect of persons at its worst.

 

Our churches

The most prominent New Testament command from our Lord is to love one another.  But this is like the commands to think right, it is plain but it is easier said than done.  We almost instinctively play favorites with people we know.  We must pray that the Lord will give us a genuine love of the brethren and a genuine interest (if not love) for the lost world around us.  Let us practice the royal law of loving whoever comes in the door.  After all, we spend millions going to all parts of the world, so we ought to be good ambassadors when the world comes to us.

Let’s let the Lord build the church.  I think I say that with the understanding of our great responsibility in the gospel outreach.  I don’t mean that in a cold, uncaring way.  I mean, let’s love all the brethren and let’s love them because they are brethren and not because they are some advantage to us.  Likewise, with those we meet who need Christ. 

At the same time, we must not let the world dictate to us the terms of the gospel.  That would be to respect their person more than to respect God’s own Word.  If that costs us converts, so be it, it didn’t really cost anything because those would have been our own converts, not the Holy Spirit’s.  We must give the gospel to everyone but we will not win every one.  That is Biblical too.

Let’s not trick people into coming to church.  Let the cults tell people one thing and then reveal the reality to them later.  Paul told Philemon that the communication of his faith would become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing that was in him in Christ Jesus (Phile. 6).  Let’s be real.  Say everything we are, do what believers do in church, put our name on the door, and don’t be ashamed or let our faces change because someone who doesn’t have the Spirit may not understand.  Rather, let us begin to show them what the real love of God is.

 

And so . . . .

Perhaps we could say with Isaac Watts of old in Psalm 48,

 

Far as thy name is known,

The world declares thy praise;

Thy saints, O Lord, before thy throne,

Their songs of honour raise.

With joy let Judah stand

On Sion’s chosen hill,

Proclaim the wonders of thy hand,

And counsels of thy will.

Let strangers walk around

The city where we dwell,

Compass and view thine holy ground,

And mark the buildings well;

The orders of thy house,

The worship of thy court,

The cheerful songs, the solemn vows,

And make a fair report.

How decent and how wise!

How glorious to behold!

Beyond the pomp that charms the eyes,

And rites adorn’d with gold.

The God we worship now

Will guide us till we die,

Will be our God while here below,

And ours above the sky.4

 

 

 

Notes:
1. A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures  in the New Testament, vol. vi (Nashville:  Broadman Press, 1933) 29.
2. Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2000) 102.
3. Moo, 102.
4. The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts (Morgan, PA:  Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997) 85.

 

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Why Christians Vote

Written by Rick Shrader

Why Christians Vote

by Rick Shrader

Good Christian publications abound at this time with good advice for believers during a national election time.  It is generally (and rightly) believed that Christians in a free society should vote, speak their point of view, and even become involved in the political process where possible.  None of these is wrong for the Christian living in America.  We are not breaking any laws in doing so, nor are we violating any Scripture, nor acting in any way immoral.  A Christian citizen should feel free to do whatever is Scriptural, legal, and moral.  Consternation comes for the believer when forced to make a choice which is truly the lesser of two evils.  Can I vote for a Mormon to be president of the country in which I live because he is the better, though not the perfect, choice?  Could my parents vote for a Catholic?  Could, and did, my ancestors vote for a Mason?  Unless we have some theocratic view of the church in the age of grace, the answer should always be “yes.”

The British, though steeped in good evangelical preaching and belief, had to work hard at separating church and state because they did have a state church even though dissenters would not worship in it.  Tony Sargent, in writing the biography of the great British evangelical, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, said of his sermons during WWII, “They remain a pattern of how preachers should teach the Bible when their country is passing through critical times without resorting to a patriotism which abuses Scripture in the misplaced interests of nationalism.”  That is an even greater challenge for us in America because our Christian heritage rightly separated church and state and yet left us also with a great tradition of Christian participation and influence in our free governing process.

We have enjoyed, at least up until now, the freedom to speak of specifically Christian virtues in our governance.  Anyone who has toured the national monuments in Washington D.C. has to be amazed, and blessed, by the immersion of Biblical texts within the government halls and upon the national structures.  Yet we have no Biblical promise for the church in the age of grace that it will always be this way.  Indeed, more believers than not have lived without religious freedom and yet have carried on the Christian life and commission in better ways than we.  We won’t have any ticket to the front row at the Bema Seat of Christ just because we are Americans.  We may find ourselves far behind the greatest of Christians who come from much more difficult circumstances than ours.

But this is a two-edged sword.  The loss of Christian virtue in America may come largely, even mostly, because Christians have forgotten to live as Christians.  I don’t mean involved in government necessarily, but just living a Christian testimony and practicing real Christianity, letting the church be the church in a wicked and perverse generation.  At the same time, however, we understand the signs of the times.  We ought to remain as good at reading those as we are at reading the signs of the (political) sky.  We know where this world is headed and that is down, not up.  So who knows, whether we are “come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”  Are we willing to bless our sovereign God in that time as well?

Yet on the way down God’s sovereign road, we may be at a time when our leaders are not as “Christian” as at a previous time.  We may be fighting off total anarchy or totalitarianism in a once Christian nation.  We may have no other choice than the lesser of two evils.  God did not tell us to honor only believing kings, but rather to pray for them that we might lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty.

 

What is the church in a nation?

The universal church is made up of believers in the world.  Jesus is building His church until the rapture when He will call her home.  The church exists from Pentecost until the rapture and exists wherever believers are in the world.  Every believer has the same New Testament and the same obligation to follow it.  We are to give unto Caesar the things that belong to him, including honor, taxes, prayers, and obedience.  Of course, there have been those times when believers had to give unto God things that contradicted what Caesar wanted, and they did, sometimes to their detriment. Believers are both citizens of an earthly country and citizens of a heavenly country.  We have our feet in both worlds.

Believers are pilgrims and strangers on the earth.  We don’t expect things to go our way very often and when they do we rejoice and thank God for His goodness.  Such has been the history of America for most of the time.  There is no perfect nation because nations are made up of sinners.  Some nations are much better than others, especially when they will apply Biblical principles to life and government.  But believers will always have to put up with some degree of unbiblical and anti-biblical attitudes.  Our nation is not our church.  It is a mixed multitude where the percentage of true believers will always be woefully low and we should expect sinners to act and think like sinners.

The local church is where the New Testament places most of its emphasis, showing that the local church is God’s divine agency for the accomplishing of His will in the world.  Though the government is also His agency, again, it is a mixed agency to govern sinners.  The local church is made up of true believers and has an inspired constitution and possesses a divine Teacher who applies those truths to our lives.   Local churches will exist wherever believers exist because the New Testament commands us to gather ourselves together and commit ourselves to one another.  The local church has a divine commission and though existing in the world, must keep its focus on eternal things.  Our real citizenship is in heaven from whence we look for a Savior and a perfect kingdom.  The local church must be the church, not government though that is a divine creation, not earthly families though those are divine creations.  Rather, believers become the salt and light in all other organizations.  Yes, the salt has to get out of the shaker and into the world, but it better be in the shaker first, or it will be mere sand and gravel in the world.

What is the best scenario for believers?

That question has to be asked from both God’s perspective and ours.  His ways are not always our ways.  It is easy for us to say that God brought persecution to the early church so that they were forced to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  But my father-in-law (Peter Slobodian), a Ukrainian born in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, though thankful for all that God did for those believers, never thought it was better for his people to live under such an atheistic regime.  Who really wants persecution?  His heart rejoiced when the iron curtain fell and the gospel could be freely preached in his homeland.  Is the gospel more effective now than it was then?  Only eternity will tell.

The fact of the matter is that believers will always do God’s will no matter what circumstances they find themselves in.  This may cost them persecution in some places or it may allow them to be political leaders in others.  History has shown that Christians have been the best citizens in every situation.  We don’t steal, kill, slander, or break laws unless those laws force us to disobey God.  The American experiment has been so good for Christians and their churches because its law actually forbids the government to interfere in the church’s business or to establish a rival religion.  The civil authority can’t use the church to direct its affairs, and the church can’t use the civil authority to enforce its beliefs.  Our history has shown what a blessing this is to the churches, the country, and the world. 

God has commissioned the local church to evangelize and this we must do regardless of what country we are in or what the repercussions of that action may be.  We praise those in our history who have suffered for the sake of the gospel though we still would rather not have to have it that way.  Because we know it is better to have a true separation of church and state, we also know that means there must be freedom for all citizens to proselytize as well.  The cults, the false religions, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, all must have the same rights as Christians to promote their faith and try to win converts to it.  That is fine with us because we believe that the Word of God powered by the Holy Spirit of God will always be the most effective in the arena of ideas.

Can we live with unbelieving leaders?

Of course we can.  The New Testament was written in such a situation and Biblical texts instruct us in how we should handle ourselves while living under unbelievers.  There is no instruction to cause insurrection or even to protest or to be involved in the political process.  There are occasional references to believers who held public office just as there are examples of believers who were soldiers.  Those options are left open for believers.  But the New Testament instructs us to be law abiding citizens, pay our taxes, give honor to whom honor is due, and go about living our faith with whatever results and repercussions may come our way. 

The fact is that we have had few believing presidents in America.  Russell D. Moore, dean of the school of theology at Southern Seminary recently said,

So many evangelicals want to go back and claim Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and John Adams as orthodox, evangelical Christians.  The problem with that [is that] Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were great men who did fantastic things for our country, but once you start claiming them as orthodox evangelical Christians, you’re not elevating those men, you’re downgrading the Gospel into something that fits whatever they happen to hold.  And you wind up with [modern-day] politicians who learn the language of evangelical faith in order to use it, in order to manipulate people into supporting them.2

Now there may be a legitimate question as to the true faith of a man like Lincoln, but Moore’s point is well taken.  If every leader who ever claimed to be a Christian really was a Christian, I’m not sure I’d want to be one.  There are times when it is fashionable for a politician to be a Christian and times when it’s not.  That, of course, is a poor reason to make that claim.  Barack Obama claims to be a Christian; Bill Clinton belonged to a Southern Baptist church as did Jimmy Carter.  None, however, have shown much evidence of true Christian faith other than their own verbal testimony. 

Can we vote for an unbeliever?

Of course we can.  A vote for a president is not a vote for a pastor.  A vote in a civil election is not a vote in a local church.  In the one you are participating as a citizen of an earthly country, in the other you are voting as a citizen of heaven.  As a citizen of a country I do a lot of things, choosing the best out of a number of poor options.  My kids may have to go to a poor school because it is still better than the alternative.  I may have to live with a home-owners association that is ungodly and poorly run but I am forced to because I live in the neighborhood.  I probably will vote for the president of it though he/she is not a great choice.  I may have to choose a local politician or a national politician in the same way.

Noel Smith, founder of the Baptist Bible Tribune, speaking at the Fundamental Baptist Congress in 1971, said,

Christians should not take the position that we should have none but a Christian government.  I wouldn’t want to live under a government by preachers.  In the first place, half of them would hang the other half before sundown—for the glory of God.  And I suspect I would be on the hanging end.  The best Christian on earth may know nothing about the philosophy of civil government.  In government Christians have failed about as often as non-Christians.

Benjamin Franklin wasn’t a Christian.  Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a Christian.  William Howard Taft was a Unitarian.  Mr. Taft wasn’t one of our great Presidents.  William Jennings Bryan said that he went into office by a majority and went out with universal consent.  But Mr. Taft was an able Secretary of War, a wise administrator, and he was one of the great Chief Justices. 

William Howard Taft was an American.  He believed in and loved his country.  He was a man of principle.  He believed that the alternative to constitutionalism was exactly what we have today—anarchy.

I will vote for such men of character and patriotism, whether they are Christians or not.3

When the present presidential campaign started, I wished for a Dr. Frankenstein candidate, i.e., the brains of a Newt Gingrich, the looks of a Mitt Romney, the wit of a Herman Cain, the values of a Rick Santorum, and so forth.  But the real world isn’t the TV world.  I have to choose between a man who is a Mormon and a man who is a black liberation anti-colonialist.  I am going to choose the Mormon.  Now I despise what the Mormon church teaches about my Lord Jesus Christ—that he is the blood brother of Satan and is only progressing toward being like God the Father.  And I hate the social gospel of liberation theology and the socialism of anti-colonialism.  But one man, is bent on taking this country into the dark ages of European socialism and the other is not.  One man looks at Christianity as part of the problem of social inequality and the other does not.  One man will make it more difficult for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be taken around the world and the other will not.  One man’s belief affects this country greatly, the other man’s does not.  And, one of these two men will be the next president of the United States in which I and my family live.  As a citizen of this earthly country, I can make a good choice for the lesser of the two poor choices. 

And So . . . .

I am not espousing any imperatives for Christians when it comes to civil accountability.  I do believe I have an obligation as a citizen of an earthly country to do what I can for the glory of God and the proclamation of the gospel.  In this election cycle that means voting for one of two non-Christians.  But one choice is better for the glory of God and for the gospel than the other.  That choice seems obvious to me.  Recently, Kevin Bauder wrote,

If God held kings accountable in biblical times, then He certainly must hold presidents, prime ministers, parliaments, congresses, and courts accountable today.  More than that, he must hold individual citizens responsible to execute their political responsibilities rightly, for in the long run, officials can govern only as the people allow.  Even the unsaved are accountable, but Christians, who ought to understand God’s design for nations, have a special responsibility.  Even if they are a minority, they must use their influence within the public square to move their government as far as possible toward just policies—and that means policies that are just as God understands justice.4

 

“I exhort therefore, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men:  For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Tim. 2:1-3).

 

Notes:
1. Tony Sargent, The Sacred Anointing: The Preaching of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 164.
2. Thanks to the Baptist Bible Tribune for reprinting a panel discussion of seminary speakers hosted by Southern Seminary. Original source was Baptist Press, 2012.
3. Noel Smith, “The Christian and Citizenship,” The Biblical Faith of Baptists, Fundamental Baptist Congress of America, 1971, p. 106-107.
4. Kevin Bauder, Baptist Distinctives (Schaumburg: Regular Baptist Books, 2012) 145.
 
 

 

 

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The Christian and Carnality

Written by Rick Shrader

The Christian and Carnality

by Rick Shrader

 John Flavel, a fifteenth century Puritan wrote, “Carnal men rejoice carnally and spiritual men rejoice spiritually.”1 The human nature seems to have the ability to sanctify itself, whether right or wrong.  The Corinthians were especially good at it, even “glorying” in their toleration of sin (1 Cor. 5:6).  Paul was hindered in writing to them, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1).  To Paul the word “spiritual” means to be a believer. Pneumatikos, “spiritual,” used twice in the concluding verses of chapter two, means to have the Spirit.  He is the spiritual man as opposed to the natural man.  The spiritual man has the mind of Christ.

“Carnal” in 3:1 is a unique form of the word.  The normal word is sarkikos, from sarx, the flesh, as in 3:3.  This refers to the old nature that everyone has and which can rear its ugly head at any time.  But in 3:1 we have sarkinos, a rare form of the word which, in the only other place it occurs, refers to the “fleshly tables of the heart” (2 Cor. 3:3).  In the context in which Paul is using it, D.A. Carson says, “sarkinos means ‘made of flesh, or ‘composed of flesh,’ (and thus refers to those who are acting as if they did not have the Spirit, but are merely human, ‘fleshly’).”2 John MacArthur says, “sarkinos is literally ‘fleshly ones.’  In this context it refers to man’s fallen humanness, his Adamic self—his bodily desires that manifest rebelliousness toward God, his glorying in himself, and his proneness to sin . . . . When a Christian sins, he is being practically unspiritual, living on the same practical level as an unbeliever.  Consequently Paul is compelled to speak to the Corinthian believers as if they were unbelievers.”3 Or, as Carson concludes, They were acting like pagans!

Not that they were actually unbelievers for they were “babes in Christ” (vs. 1) and walked merely “as men” (vs. 3).  But the defining marks of the flesh were upon them, “envying, and strife, and divisions” (vs. 3).  As Vance Havner wrote, “Poor Demas is usually fired at aplenty by the evangelists, and he deserves it; but do not use up all your ammunition, my brother, on cards and dancing; save a generous portion for ‘strife, envying, and divisions,’ the Bible-certified marks of carnality.”4

When a believer lets his “flesh” control him, he is walking as one who only has the flesh and not also the Spirit.  But believers have both and often do walk in the flesh rather than in the Spirit, that is, they are sarkikos, carnal.  This should not be a pattern of the Christian life.  The Christian has the Spirit and should walk in Him because the fruit of the Spirit is much more powerful than the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).  We are all susceptible to carnality because we can’t rid ourselves of the flesh until resurrection day.  However, Scripture has harsh words for such believers, to the point of questioning such faith, if it continues to walk after the flesh with little or no remorse (Rom. 8:9; 1 John 4:3, Jude 19).

Interestingly, believers have a great advantage in the world.  We have lived both ways:  in the flesh (unsaved) and in the Spirit (saved).  We have known life without the Spirit and can compare it to life in the Spirit.  Unbelievers have known only life in the flesh.  So when the world tells us that we just don’t understand, it is actually they who don’t understand.  How can they?  They have only lived half of life whereas we have experienced both sides.  No true believer despises the spiritual life.  Unbelievers “do despite unto the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29) but those who possess the Spirit cringe at carnality and desire a richer, fuller walk in the Spirit.

 

Non-Christians can pretend

Though the natural man does not have the Spirit of God, he is enough of an image bearer of God to be religious.  The false teachers in Corinth could speak about another Jesus with another spirit and create another gospel (2 Cor. 11:4).  A lost person may truly long for a heavenly life or may even be afraid of hell if there really is one.  A belief in God is not unusual for the lost though we know that there is no true understanding of God except through faith in Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:21).

But, of course, this natural man cannot understand the things of God.  They are foolishness to him precisely because they are spiritually discerned, or learned only by the entrance of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14).  Therefore his interest in spiritual things is only for a season,  even while the Spirit may be drawing him to a true faith in Christ (Heb. 6:4).  He may find a way to be comfortable around true believers, especially carnal ones, and may never or seldom be asked to display any thought or action that would require the mind of Christ.

It is not unusual if this natural man stays in the church.  Either he is never convicted by anything he sees or hears and becomes calloused to the gospel, or, if he is, he will soon leave in a more hardened condition than when he came in.  His time in the church is critical.  No doubt many in this situation have mustered up a testimony of salvation and may even have been baptized and joined the church.  If the church seldom presses the lost for a decision, he may never be exposed by his conscience and the Word of God.

Sadder still is the fact that such hypocrites in the church help carnal believers to remain carnal.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump (1 Cor. 5:6).  Congregations may be full of hypocrites drawn in by worldly means who drag believers down to their level.  The carnal believer has a knack for finding the hypocritical believer and settling down to a level of spirituality that is comfortable for both of them.

 

Christians can live carnally

This is a sad state of affairs but true.  The church has forever tried to come up with a theology that would eliminate this category but it just doesn’t wash.  Christians sin.  And sometimes they wallow in that sin for a while.  The fornicator in 1 Cor. 5 had been in that state long enough and yet Paul admitted that he would be “saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5).  The one who loses all to wood, hay, and stubble at the Bema Seat of Christ will  still be saved “so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:15).  But what a miserable life!  It is better (for the conscience only, that is) to not have the Spirit and live without conviction than to have Him and be under conviction.  There is no more miserable person in the world than this.

The Bible gives two outcomes for the carnal Christian.  He may be severely chastised by God.  “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy [lit. “judge”]; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:16-17). This judgment could even be a premature death.  “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30).  These measures, however, can only be known for sure by God.

A second outcome could be, and ought to be, repentance.  The New Testament gives multiple examples of spiritual Christians recovering carnal Christians and bringing them back to fellowship with God.  It may be in personal confrontation (Matt. 18:15-17); or prayer (Jas. 5:15); or preaching of the Word (2 Cor. 7:9-11).  Paul was happy when the Corinthians repented.  The sorrow of the world, of hypocrites, only works death, but godly sorrow works true repentance.  “In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Cor. 7:11).

In the process of these two outcomes, the church may proceed with disciplinary action.  If the man repents, the church must accept it as Christ accepts him.  To demand a pound of flesh or even vengeance at that stage would be to become “judges of the law” (James 4:11) and take upon themselves the place of condemnation where God has given grace and forgiveness.  “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many” (2 Cor. 2:6).  If a sinning brother or sister refuses repentance, they are to be put out of the assembly so that the carnality cannot affect others.  In fact, Jesus says, he becomes “as” a lost man to us, because at that point we can no longer discern the difference between a hypocrite and a carnal Christian.

The spiritual man avoids carnality

“He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:15-16).  D.A. Carson writes,

This is another way of saying that we have received the Spirit of God (vv.11-12) and have therefore understood something of God’s wisdom, the wisdom of the cross.  That sets us apart from the world.  And therefore implicitly the world will not understand us either.  So Paul is using this quotation form Isaiah 40 to support his claim in the preceding verse: “The spiritual man . . . Is not subject to any man’s judgment.”  He does not mean that Christians have nothing to learn from non-Christians, or that Christians are always above correction and rebuke (even from those who are not believers).  He means rather, that the mind of Christ is alien to the unbeliever, and insofar as we have the mind of Christ we will be alien to the unbeliever as well.5

The believer has every tool necessary to avoid carnality.  He has the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the fellowship of other believers in the local church, and the intercession of Christ as he prays for forgiveness on a daily basis.  The believer is painfully aware of his old nature.  He fights it every day, or as Paul instructed, he “mortifies” it (Col.3:5; Rom. 8:13).  He has learned to have patience with others who are struggling with the flesh because he knows his own struggles are of the same stuff even if they are a lesser degree.  Another man’s idolatry is the same kind of thing as his own covetousness (Eph. 5:5).  Another man’s murder is the same kind of thing as his own hatred (1 John 3:15).  Another man’s adultery is the same kind of thing as his own lust (Matt. 5:28).

And yet, the spiritual man can only tolerate the presence of carnality for so long.  If it cannot be sufficiently dealt with, he will have to remove himself from its presence, even if that means removing himself from carnal brothers in Christ (2 Thes. 3:14-15).  There are multiple reasons for this.  The power of the Spirit is hindered where there is ongoing carnality; a parent’s children are at risk if carnality is an influence on them; there may be temptations that are uncomely for a Christian to be around; worship is greatly hindered by unrepentant carnality; prayer is hindered where there is carnality.

The local church and carnality

Carnality can easily grow where believers become more attached to an organization than to the principles of the organization.  Believers can be more attached to the buildings or the programs or even the history of the church than to the very doctrines that the church teaches.  The mega-church movement has certainly not been exempt from carnality.  In fact, it has fed itself on carnal methodologies in order to become large.  It may only be a show with a stage and applause rather than the soul-searching work of the Holy Spirit.

Small churches may have an advantage of not offering worldly programs (but maybe not).  But small churches can fall into cliques and coteries that exclude new people or refuse to extend brotherly kindness to someone who is not just like them.

Often a group in a church of any size can demand more loyalty than even Christ.  This was the Corinthian problem of factionalism.  Sometimes a personality or officer of the church or even a pastor can be followed rather than biblical principle.

Yet in all of these, the local church is God’s perfect organization to deal with carnality and for the believer to be able to grow.  The local church, designed according to the New Testament, is the perfect size, the perfect mix of people, the perfect type of leadership, with the perfect Head and Word, to grow believers into the likeness of Christ.

When carnality demands a choice

Believers have always had to make choices about staying or leaving.  This may be in the context of a whole church tradition such as the dissenters in England leaving the state church, or the local churches of a denomination that has gone liberal, or just a family leaving a church that has become worldly and carnal.  Sometimes it is the tough choice of a single person separating from friends who pull that person down rather than build him up.  Carnality becomes a powerful deterrent for a spiritual believer.

There have been those who have offered choices in critical times.  In 1869 Charles Hodge wrote in The Princeton Review6 that a minister may only have three choices when he disagrees with the church’s ruling:  Actively concur in, passively submit to, or peaceably withdraw from.  Similarly, Kevin Bauder says there are “three wretched choices” that can be made when believers find themselves in a compromising situation: walk away, stay and submit, or stay and create trouble.7

I would offer two choices.

First choice:  accept carnality

Some believers will accept or tolerate carnality by being in open rebellion against God.  They don’t seem to care what others think or what the Scripture says.  This leaves question about their true spiritual condition.  Some begin to redefine Christianity so that it condones carnality.  MacArthur says, “It seems that most of the fads and misconceptions of the world find their way into the church.  Worldly Christians continually try to find ways to justify their worldliness, if possible on the basis of Scripture.”8

Some may become carnal or use carnal tactics to accomplish a certain task.  For them, the end justifies the means.  Others may continually tolerate carnality rather than take any action because that is easier, or resistance is said to be unloving, or they just don’t see any danger to them or their family.  They argue that we must live in the real world and that spirituality is not practically possible.

Second choice:  resist carnality

Of course, the first course of action is to deal with the carnality.  This may be corporately as in a local church, or it may be directly with an offensive person.  If this works, you have gained the good ground.  Sometimes situations and circumstances allow it and sometimes they do not.  A second course of action is to be belligerent or a co-belligerent with others.  But this is not a real option for a spiritual believer.  That generally becomes carnality itself.

The only remaining solution when all attempts at reconciliation have failed is to separate from carnality.  This remains a biblical command as well as the others.  In the end, the spiritual believer must not let carnality affect him in his walk with the Lord.

The Christian life on this earth isn’t life in heaven.  We live and deal with the old nature and yet must do all we can to honor the Lord in body and spirit which are God’s.

 

Notes:
1. John Flavel, “A Coronation Sermon,” Orations From Homer To McKinley, vol. IV (New York:  Collier & Son, 1902) 1599.
2. D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry .  “Leadership lessons from 1 Corinthians” (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004) 73.
3. John MacArthur, First Corinthians (Chicago:  Moody Books, 1984) 70-71.
4. Vance Havner, Rest Awhile (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1941) 48.
5. Carson, 61.
6. This work can be found online by searching for these three terms with the name Charles Hodge.  It has been quoted recently by Carl Truman in an article titled, “No Country For Old Men” on his blog “Reformation 21.”
7. Kevin Bauder, Baptist Distinctives (Schaumburg:  RBP, 2012) 179.
8. MacArthur, 253.
 

 

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A Castle of Cards?

Written by Matt Shrader

A Castle of Cards?

by Matt Shrader

Are you ever discouraged because of your circumstances and have turned really pessimistic? I am not talking about having a “glass half-empty” but more of a  “glass bone dry” kind of attitude.  What do we do at that point? How do we wade through those difficult times? How do we get out of such pessimism? Why is it that we ever got to that point?

It is not always easy to see the good in the bad, the positive in the negative. As a Christian, I know that I should have poise because providence tells me that all things are working as expected under the perfect direction of God. Millard Erickson defines providence like this: “By providence we mean the continuing action of God by which he preserves in existence the creation he has brought into being, and guides it to his intended purposes for it.”1

This gives me encouragement that God is working in my life. This gives me confidence and comfort in prayer, knowing that God wants and enables me to align my purposes with His. And, this can take away fear in times of difficulty because I know God is aware, interested, and involved. A doctrine such as providence is truly inexhaustible. As many situations as we can possibly produce, we can likewise apply the doctrine of providence to each and any.

We can look at the past and see several instances where God has been faithful. The Psalm-writers do this. Asaph in Psalm 78 relates to the next generation the stories of providence that were told to him. These are stories of God’s providential protection and covenant faithfulness to Israel from captivity in Egypt to King David.

We could also look through more recent history at difficult times and realize that ours is not the only trial that has ever happened. Although the difficulties of the Second World War were great, C. S. Lewis argues that the war generation ought not to end in pessimism, but in reflection upon God and His work: “The classic expositions of the doctrine that the world’s miseries are compatible with its creation and guidance by a wholly good Being come from Boethius waiting in prison to be beaten to death and from St. Augustine meditating on the sack of Rome. The present state of the world is normal; it was the last century that was the abnormality.”2 No matter the situation, we still assert that God’s providence is always at work.

Perhaps you could think of personal examples where the Lord put you through a trying time. Can you relate to Psalm 40 when David trusted in the providence of God? “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord.”

Providence has been at work and we ought to praise God for what He has done. When we look back and recognize that God does not disappear in difficulties, we become overwhelmed with the faithfulness of God in every trial and we trust God to be faithful in the present and future.  Reflecting on the provision of God for Abraham when he was going to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22, William Cowper wrote:

 

 

Blest proofs of pow’r and grace divine,

that meet us in his word!

May every deep felt care of mine

be trusted with the Lord.

Wait for his seasonable aid,

and though it tarry wait:

The promise may be long delayed,

but cannot come too late.3

 

 

When we look ahead and try to gaze through the lens of providence and see the ultimate goal to which we set our eyes, we gain excitement considering what Christ is accomplishing. Providence is leading us toward what Christ wants us to be. We have that blessed hope of salvation. And when we travail those tough times God has ordained for us, we need to remember that God does this for us because we are His beloved children and that we have a hope which rests in God alone. The book of Revelation is filled with the cry of the martyrs for vindication and rest. They wait in anticipation for the rest that is realized in the new heavens and new earth. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

But, what do we need to learn from our trials as we are going through them? Why do we need them? What do they tell us about ourselves now? The author of Hebrews tells us that God chastens us just like a father does, “but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness” (Heb. 12:10). There are benefits to our trials.  In what is left of this short essay I would like to take a look at a specific way that God works in times of difficulty. I want to know something more than just how a Christian may get out of a pessimistic disposition. What may we learn from our difficulty about ourselves? I would submit that we need our trials.  We need those times when we are emptied of all of ourselves. They help us to see beyond what we have become to what we need to be. It could be that the glass was the problem and it needs to be bone dry so that it can be broken and made anew so that it may become something better than it was?

 

 

A New Perspective:

We have looked briefly back and forward to see how providence can reaffirm our understanding that God has worked and will work. We have been reminded of His faithfulness in times past and His direction in the present and His ultimate plan for the future. These reflections give us cause to look up and consider the greatness of God.

Consider Job’s reaction to his nearly unparalleled trials. In the book of Job we are presented with the story of a man’s immense trials under the providence of God (chs. 1-2), his and his friends’ debating of the trials (chs. 3-37),  God’s answer to Job (chs. 38-41), and then Job’s confession and vindication (ch. 42).

In the Lord’s speeches, Job had asked for the Lord to answer him (13:22; 31:35) and God spoke to Job “from the whirlwind” (38:1). Job initially responds in 40:3-5 with silence. This silence is good (Eccl. 3:7). However, the Lord still has more to say to Job and more for Job to learn. “It is good that Job says nothing here, But that’s not enough. There are still some things that Job needs to say.”4

The Lord then lays out the two creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan, in chapters 40-41 to show again the distinction between God and man. Finally, in 42:1-6 we see the confession of Job. In chapter 42 and verse 2, Job praises God for his superiority and his sovereignty. In verse 3, Job declares his incapacity to know God, God’s incomprehensibility, and then his own ignorance. Finally, in verses 4-6 Job repents because his understanding has been clarified and then Job shows his contrition.

There are at least two lessons that Job needed to learn through his trials. The first is a proper perspective of God. Job began by praising God for his greatness. Job declared that he had been speaking of “what I did not understand” and “things too wonderful for me.” Job confesses that after he had been confronted by the greatness of God (“now my eyes see you”) that he had a better understanding and needed to repent. Job needed to understand that distinction between God and man. Understanding better the infinity and omnipotence of God led Job to understand who it is that claims to be the sustainer of the world. It is interesting that there is so much discussion and debate in the book leading up to the Lord’s speeches and then so little of a response to the Lord after His speeches. In Job’s confession, only verse 2 declares anything about God: “I know that You can do everything, and that no purposes of Yours can be withheld from You.” In the end, this simple understanding of God changed everything for Job.

The second lesson we learn from Job is the other side of the coin from the first: he had to change his perspective of himself. When we try to understand all of how God provides, we realize that we are like Job and are speaking of things too wonderful for us which we do not understand. Our finiteness limits us. We see dimly, but God is eternal. “You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (42:3). Job teaches us to gain the proper perspective. When we do, we end in the same place as he did: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5-6).

When we look up and see God, we fall down before His greatness and at the same time we find peace under His wings. After seeing God, Job affirms God’s providence. The new perspective that we need is to see God for who He is. When we consider ourselves in such ineffable light we recognize our limitedness.

 

 

Considering Our Castles: 

Realigning our perspective should cause us to take a deeper look inside. When we do, we see that at our core there is merely a façade. We actually need trials sometimes to show us this. Trials have great benefit, not just because they give us some evidence that God is concerned about us and considers us to be His children, but we need trials because we need to see the inadequacy of our own selves. We need to recognize the problem areas in our lives. At the heart of Job’s problem was the fact that he had the wrong conception of many things. His understanding of God and of himself were weak. His faith in God and in himself were unbalanced. He had to see his own self-righteousness destroyed. Job needed to destroy the false conceptions of his understanding, faith, self-righteousness, and whatever else was lacking.

One of C. S. Lewis’s shorter works, A Grief Observed,  relayed his own struggle with the loss of his wife and how he faced the immense trial that came his way.  Lewis shares that as he reflected on his wife, he desired to not lose a true conception of her and to also remember their love for one another. He believes that his love for her is as mighty and as impregnable  as a castle. Thus, he must take care to keep the memory of her strong, no matter how the trial he is going through is testing that love. But, the more he reminisced, the more he found problems with his conceptions. So then, Lewis probed into what it means that trials come our way “to try us.” Lewis made a crucial distinction.

 

 

“But of course one must take ‘sent to try us’ the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”5

 

 

Lewis understood that the love he was trying to protect was a love of her memory and not a love of her. Similarly, our conceptions of God can be distorted when we are more concerned with the conceptions than the reality behind the conceptions. Lewis did not want to be satisfied with his mental or emotional conceptions of such important realities. “Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor.”6

Lewis recognized that grief and trials are a part of reality. Our trials are sent to knock down the card-castles that we have built. We call them love, faithfulness, purity, understanding, prayer life, etc. God shows us that they are actually quite weak and in need of fortification. We consider them, like Lewis to be high and majestic castles of granite, impregnable and sure. In truth, they are merely a castle of cards which a wisp of wind leaves disheveled.

But, this is the greatness of the Gospel. The Gospel tells us that despite our deficiencies, God loves us! Despite what God knows about our inner conceptions, he loves us! When we become a child of God and follow after him, we still struggle with the sin in our own lives. God helps and chastens his own so that they may be presented holy and undefiled.

It may be hard to recognize, but sin can come in the form of an incorrect conception of what our faith or love is or what they ought to be. We need these incorrect conceptions to be destroyed. We need the card-castles to be knocked over so that they can be rebuilt. Trials do this for us. In times of intense trial, we are often laid bare in search of relief. We want merely to find rest from the stress and hardship. When trials become more and more difficult we find more and more that we need help from someplace or someone. We cannot simply rely on ourselves.

Where do we look? We look to friends and family and hopefully we fall to our knees before God, asking for help. Difficult times show the inadequacies of our own selves. They reveal what the difference is between our conceptions and the reality. They reveal the difference between what we think our faith is and what it is in reality.

Do we take the time in trials to consider that? No doubt, in the midst of trials we are not given to being introspective. But we ought to be. Trials will expose what is really there. It is perhaps the best opportunity to see what is truly in our hearts because our hearts have been probed by the depth of the trial. We ought to ask God amidst those times to open our eyes to see what wicked ways are in us. Trials will reveal what my prayer life really was. They will show how much faith I actually had. They will show how I truly did love God. These are the inner problems that trials can reveal that I need to change.

To repeat from the beginning of this essay, Millard Erickson defines providence like this: “By providence we mean the continuing action of God by which he preserves in existence the creation he has brought into being, and guides it to his intended purposes for it.”7 There is a lot to unpack when Erickson says that God “guides it to his intended purposes for it.” Trials are a part of God’s providential plan.

God uses trials to show that he cares for us. That is not so hard to see. God uses trials to help us and that is not so hard to see. But God also uses trials to break us down as we see. It can feel like God wants to use trials to destroy us totally. In fact, God wants to use trials to destroy what is defective in us so as to rebuild and improve us. Do we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear such a rebuke from God?

Trials are sent to test us and they are for our benefit, if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. As a blacksmith uses fire and heat to forge his utensils, so God uses trials to forge his utensils. How do we respond to the fires of trial? Do we even recognize what they can do for us and how they can expose the weaknesses in us? More importantly, does there dwell within our hearts a castle of cards?

 

1.Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 413.

2.C. S. Lewis, “Evil and God,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. by Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 22. 

3.William Cowper, JEHOVAH-JIREH, The LORD will provide. Gen. 22:14,” Olney Hymns. 

4.Layton Talbert, Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 2007), 210. 

5.C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: HarperOne, 2002), 678. 

6.Ibid, 684. Lewis refers to his wife Helen, as “H.” Lewis originally wrote the book pseudonymously and so concealed her name. 

7.Erickson, Christian Theology, 413. 

 

 

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New Testament Heralds

Written by Rick Shrader

New Testament Heralds

by Rick Shrader

Perhaps the most seldom used title in the Bible for the minister is “Preacher.”  Though the English word “Preacher” appears four times, one time (Rom. 10:14) is actually a verb, and another (2 Pet. 2:5) refers to Noah, an Old Testament character.  So the title “Preacher,” referring to the New Testament minister is only used by the Apostle Paul to describe himself.  Once in 1 Timothy 2:7 and again in 2 Timothy 1:11, Paul says that ordained him to be a preacher.

The job of a herald was a duty-oriented job.  He was employed by a king to announce what the king gave him.  He could not alter the announcement to fit his own whims.  It was the message of the king and it must be delivered exactly as it was given.  The herald was not a Groucho Marx who used to say, “Those are my principles! And if you don’t like them . . . Well, I have others.”  No, these were the king’s principles.

The disciples were often asked to perform tasks like a herald.  All four gospels include the story of the triumphal entry when Jesus commanded two of the disciples to go into Jerusalem and untie someone else’s donkey and bring it to Jesus.  If the owner asked why they were taking his donkey, they were to reply with the exact words of Jesus:  “The Master has need of them.”  Mark records that the two disciples “said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go” (Mk. 11:6).  The king’s words would be the authority for the herald’s words.  A similar story is that of Ananias in Acts 9 when he was commanded to go to Saul and put his hand on him and call him “brother Saul.”  He did exactly as Jesus commanded (after initially objecting) and everything went exactly as the Lord said it would.

The word  kerux appears only three times as a proper noun (“preacher”), but it appears a number of times as the action ( kerusso, “preaching”) and sometimes as the message (kerugma, “the thing preached”).  Kittel’s Theological dictionary devotes 35 pages to its definition.  There are some clear observations:  1) Every king had one.  It was the common means of getting his message to the people.  2) They were untouchable.  If someone attacked the messenger, he would suffer punishment as if he had attacked the king himself.  3) They were sworn to exactness.  Gerhard Friedrich, writing the article in Kittel’s, says, “It is demanded then, that they deliver their message as it is given to them.  The essential point about the report which they give is that it does not originate with them.  Behind it stands a higher power.  The herald does not express his won views.  He is the spokesman for his master.”1

According to Kittel’s, the Greeks recognized three heralds:  1) Hermes was the interpreter of the gods.  In Lystra (Acts 14), Paul was called Hermes (Mercurius) “because he was the chief speaker” (Ac. 14:12).  2) Birds were considered messengers of the gods, especially the rooster who announced the new day and various watches of the night.  3) The philosophers were considered heralds and called “messengers” with the word angelos or “angel.”  This is why the New Testament pastors can be called “angels” and it was understood as heralds.  Paul wrote to the Galatians, “you received me as an angel of God” (Gal. 4:14).

In the book of 2 Timothy, Paul uses all three forms of the word herald.  In 1:11 he writes of the kerux, the preacher.  In 4:21 he writes of the kerusso, the preaching.  In 4:17 he writes of the kerugma, the message preached.  This is the only book of the Bible where all three appear.

The Preacher (The Messenger)

The apostle Paul tells Timothy that he was “appointed” to this high office by the Lord.  This is the word Jesus used when he said to Paul, “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles” (Acts 13:47).  Again, Paul says that he was “allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel” (2 Thes. 2:4).

First, God’s herald doesn’t have to be a great man, but he does have to be a man of God.  “But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness” (1 Tim. 6:11).  Great men never wanted to be great, they just wanted to be men of God and God used them in great ways.  Our ministerial schools cannot teach young men to be great without first teaching them to be men of God.  Vance Havner wrote, “What our forefathers were without knowing it, we want to  know without being it.”2 Savonarola said, “In the primitive church the chalices were of wood and the prelates were of gold; today the prelates are of wood and the chalices are of gold.”3

A tourist group, visiting birth places of famous people, passed through a European village.  One of the tourists asked a local man, “Were there any famous people born in this village?”  “No,” the man replied, “Just babies.”  John Bunyan was born into a tinker’s home, one of the lowest status occupations of the time.  But Bunyan became one of the most powerful preachers in England.  “John Owen heard him preach, probably at Zoar Chapel, and when King Charles expressed wonder that a man of his [Owen’s] learning could bear to listen to the ‘prate’ of a tinker, he answered, that he would gladly give all his learning for this tinker’s power.”4 Bunyan’s autobiography is titled “Grace Abounding To The Chief of Sinners,” not to the Chief Executive Officer.

Second, God’s herald must have the mind of Christ, not the mind of the world.  Paul was insistent of this qualification for a minister of Christ.  “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).  “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).  It was Demas, who forsook him, who had the mind of the world (2 Tim. 4:10). Jannes and Jambres were “men of corrupt minds” (2 Tim. 3:8).  Friedrich says, “Heralds adopt the mind of those who commission them, and act with the plenipotentiary [full power] authority of their masters.  It is with this authority that the kerux conducts diplomatic business.”5

John describes the preacher with the worldly mind contrasted with the preacher with the mind of Christ.  “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.  We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.  Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:5-6).  Too many of God’s ministers are busy winning themselves to the world rather than winning the world to Christ.

A.C. Dixon, who served in both Spurgeon’s Tabernacle and Moody Memorial Church, wrote:

Every preacher is, or ought to be, a prophet of God who preaches as God bids him without regard to results. When he becomes conscious of the fact that he is a leader in his church or denomination, he has reached a crisis in his ministry. Shall he be a prophet of God or a leader of men? If he decides only to be a prophet insofar as he can without losing his leadership, he becomes a diplomat and ceases to be a prophet at all. If he decides to maintain his leadership at all costs he may easily fall to the level of a politician who pulls the wires to gain or hold a position. He who would prophesy or speak forth the message of God is careful of none of these things but only that he shall speak the message that God gives him, even though he be in a lonesome minority.6

The Preaching (The Messages)

“Preach the Word!” (2 Tim. 4:2).  Here Paul exhorts Timothy to action.  Now he is to pay attention to the way in which the message goes forth.  “Herald the Word.”  This is the way in which the prophets of old delivered their message.  “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isa. 58:1).  This is one methodology that we cannot afford to change.

First, the urgency of the situation demands it.  It is a command to preachers of the gospel.  “Be instant,” Paul says.  The kerux must always be ready with the kerusso.  Think what you will of Charles Finney’s evangelism, but in his biography he is quoted as describing his preaching style.

You breast yourself to the work like a giant. You open the attack with Jupiter’s thunderbolt. You take the doctrine for a damning fact—declare you know it—raise your voice—lift high your hand—bend forward your trunk—fasten your staring eyes upon the auditors—declare that they know it to be God’s truth; that they stand upon the brink of hell’s gaping pit of fire and brimstone . . . unless they repent forthwith.7

Paul reminded the Corinthians, “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ” (2 Cor. 2:17).

Second, the message of the King guides it.  It must be “the Word” which the herald proclaims.  When we decide to change it to fit the situation, we have betrayed our King.  D.L. Moody said, “When a minister or a messenger of Christ begins to change the message because he thinks it is not exactly what it ought to be, and thinks he is wiser than God, God just dismisses that man.”8

By now we all recognize that this is a postmodern society.  We are finding it more and more difficult to speak the message of our King in a straightforward manner.  Our audience has a hard time accepting anything without a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”  They can say one thing and do another.  They can say one thing and believe another.  They can even say one thing and intend another, and they believe all of us are using language and media the same way!  Benjamin Woolley, a postmodern writer, said, “Artificial reality is the authentic postmodern condition, and virtual reality its definitive technological expression . . . . The artificial is the authentic.”9 As ministers of Christ, and as heralds of the gospel, we must not let our preaching fall to such a low estate.  Paul said, But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay . . . . For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:18, 20).

The Preached (The Message Itself)

“That by me the preaching [kerugma) might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear” (2 Tim. 4:17).  Here Paul admonishes Timothy to guard the message that is preached.  This form of the word is our English word “kerygma.”  Webster’s dictionary to this day still defines this word as “The apostolic preaching that Jesus is the Christ.”  In the great resurrection chapter of First Corinthians 15, Paul uses this form and the verb form:  “Now if Christ be preached (kerusso)  that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching (kerugma) vain, and your faith is also vain (1 Cor. 15:12-14).  You can have all the action and commotion in the world, but if you’ve lost the content, it is in vain.

Today we play with symbolism over substance to our detriment.  We are worshiping worship as a substitute for a real Holy Spirit experience.  We have faith in faith rather than the faith once for all delivered to the saints.  We have a kerux who is busy with the kerusso, but we are quickly losing the most important thing—the kerugma!  Three things are certain from this final chapter of Paul’s life.

First, when you stand by the truth, the Lord will stand by you.  “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me; that by me the preaching [kerugma] might be fully known” (2 Tim. 4:17).  Though all his friends had forsaken him, Paul was not forsaken.  When Paul stood at Gallio’s bema seat in Corinth, the Lord appeared and said to him, “Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee” (Acts 18:9-10).  When he stood before Herod’s bema seat in Caesarea, the Lord appeared and said to him, “Be of good cheer Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also in Rome” (Acts 23:11).  Now before Caesar’s bema seat the Lord is there to deliver him from the mouth of the lion.  But Paul was most concerned with appearing before Christ’s bema seat, “Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him” (2 Cor. 5:9).

Second, when you stand by the truth, the lost will know they should stand with you.  By the faithful proclamation of the truth, the kerugma “might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear” (2 Tim. 4:17).  There was no “stealth” in Paul’s presentation.  He did not coax them in with one method and then sometime down the road reveal to them what he was really all about.  Paul prayed for Philemon “that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus” (Phile. 6).  As the old song goes:  “Tell me the story softly, with earnest tones and grave; remember I’m the sinner whom Jesus came to save.  Tell me the story always, if you would really be, in any time of trouble, a comforter to me.”  That is the need of the world.

Third, when you stand by the truth, the Lord will deliver you.  “And I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lion” (vs. 18).  The Lord may deliver His saints in the way He chooses.  It may be by life or by death.  Either way, He will not let us be devoured by the Lion.  Once when Vance Havner was old he was speaking to ministerial students.  He described his busy schedule even in the autumn of his life.  A student responded to him, “Why, if we kept that schedule all of the time it would kill us!”  Havner replied, “Who said you can’t die?”  Is not heaven the greatest deliverance from the Lion?  “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death” (Phil. 1:20).

And so . . . .

In his book, Twice Told Tales, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes of the Spring of 1689 and the tensions that had developed in the new country over control from England.  It was a time when “the Puritans were all dead, and the Methodists had not been born.”  Sir Edmond Andros, the king’s hand-picked governor marched his troops through the streets of Boston, slowly approaching the colonists who shrunk from the fearsome militia.  The pastors stood protected by the people and looked piously from behind the cover.

The rightful governor, Simon Bradstreet, stood far away near the court house steps and gave instructions to the people not to provoke the situation.  Just then, “the figure of an ancient man, with eye, the face, the attitude of command appeared on the street, dressed in the old Puritan garb.  ‘Stand,’ the old warrior-saint commanded.  The solemn, yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in battle or be raised to God in prayer, was irresistible.  The advancing line stood still. . . Who was this Gray Champion?” Hawthorne asked.  “I have heard that whenever the descendents of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears again.”10 May the preachers of the gospel be ever so vigilant.

Notes:

1. Gerhard Friedrich, “Kerux,” Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. III (Grand Rapids:  Eerdman’s, 1978) 687-688.

2. Vance Havner, personal collection of quotes.

3. Savonarola, “On the degeneration of the church” Orations: Homer to Mckinley, vol. III (New York: Collier and Son, 1902) 1281.

4. Thomas Armitage, Baptist History, vol. I (Watertown: Maranatha Baptist Press, 1976) 479.

5. Friedrich, 688.

6. Quoted by Vance Havner, In Times Like These (Old Tappan:  Fleming Revell, 1969) 103.

7. Charles Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids:  Eerdman’s, 1966) 135.

8. D.L. Moody, Spiritual Power (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1997) 14.

9. Quoted by Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in CyberSpace (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 1997) 27.

10. Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Gray Champion,” Twice Told Tales (New York: Modern, 2001) 3-10. 

 

 

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The Kingdom of God in the Gospels

Written by Rick Shrader

The Kingdom of God in the Gospels

by Rick Shrader

Few subjects have been of greater interest to me in my ministry as a pastor and teacher than that of the Kingdom of God.  Coming out of high school and going to Bible College I knew nothing of its doctrinal significance.  I must confess that I knew little more than that coming out of Bible College.  The gospels especially were confusing to me and my “Life of Christ” class consisted only of lists of miracles, parables, and people.  Seminary did not have a class on the Life of Christ as such, but it had something that opened my eyes and broadened my understanding of the Bible, and that was a class on the kingdom.1 In addition, understanding the kingdom in a traditional premillennial, dispensational setting even further broadened my perspective.

Still, putting Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together in a consistent way that made sense without destroying each book’s individual purpose was challenging.  Even more so was the definition of the kingdom in the gospel record.  But God forced the issue.  I began teaching in a West coast Bible College in 1978 and the first class I was given to teach was The Life of Christ.  The two required texts were A.T. Robertson’s Harmony of the Gospels (a valuable tool in any day) and Philip Vollmer’s The Modern Student’s Life of Christ which was anything but modern, being published in 1912.  Robertson lists 184 events in the life of Christ, so we took out a piece of paper and put #1 at the top and started there.  In a year’s time we went through 184 events, studying the time, place, and context. I did that for the next ten years and learned far more than any of my students.  In 1981 J. Dwight Pentecost published his Words and Works of Jesus Christ which became the text for my class.  Interestingly he goes through the events of Christ’s life paralleling Robertson’s harmony but with his own titles.  To me it is still the best book on the subject.  (It was my privilege again to teach a module version of the class in Kiev, Ukraine to pastors and teachers this past April).

It is because I love the subject of the kingdom of God that today’s lax use of the term catches my attention.  An insufficient understanding of the kingdom, especially in the gospels, can lead to all kinds of theological and practical errors. McClain begins his book with eight interpretations of the kingdom.2 None is more liberal than the Social-Kingdom idea.  He says,

In the long history of special interpretations of the Kingdom of God, there has been none more one-sided or guilty of greater excesses than this Social-Kingdom conception.  With fanatical zeal some of its champions have been ready to scrap almost anything in the realm of Christian faith and morals if only the process of ‘social reconstruction’ could be somehow advanced.3

McClain cites liberal thinkers such as Walter Rauschenbush, Shailer Matthews, and E. Stanley Jones as examples of liberals who were able to advance their causes (especially of a social gospel) when the definition of the kingdom was bent to suit their purposes.  It continues today.  If we used the word “church” as loosely as we use the word “kingdom,” heretical fires would begin to burn.  That is why I was interested when, browsing the marked-down section of a book store, I saw a title by W.B. Riley (a champion of fundamentalism from the generation prior to ours), The Only Hope of Church or World. Upon opening the book I had turned to chapter II which is titled “The Church and the Kingdom A Distinction.”  The chapter begins this way,

There are certain words that distinguish the liberal theologian as perfectly as ever the ranchman’s brand indicated his ownership.  Among them no word is more suggestive of loose thinking and liberal theology than the word ‘kingdom.’  They not only employ it as a synonym for the church, but as an all-inclusive term that covers every spiritual, moral, ecclesiastical, social, and now even party and political interest.4

This is not a fault just of liberals.  All of us are guilty at times of using biblical terms to suit our own purposes.  However, it seems the broad use of “kingdom” is as loose as ever.  In preaching through the Beatitudes (part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7), I constantly read of the struggle on how to understand Jesus’ use of the term.  If it can be taken to mean something in the present age (whether in addition to, or in place of, the coming age) one can find almost any social, political, or moral issue one wants.  James Boice, for example (perhaps bouncing between his predecessor’s premillennialism and his church’s amillennialism) takes the “kingdom” of the Beatitudes as somehow present and says of the second beatitude (“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted”), “To each of us, therefore, the second beatitude is a call to involvement in the social arena.”5 Why?  Because if the kingdom is now, so must be the results of the kingdom.  It is more difficult, of course, for him to apply the pure in heart seeing God now, or the meek inheriting the earth now.

It is much more consistent and satisfying to read John Walvoord when he writes, “As in every text of Scripture, the truth presented must be first of all seen in its context.  In the gospels, Jesus was presenting Himself as the prophesied King, and the Kingdom He was offering is the prophesied kingdom.”6 Stanley Toussaint also correctly writes, “The basis of each blessing in every case is a reference to some phase of the Jewish kingdom prophesied in the Old Testament.”7 Yet many who are premillennial struggle with the concept of the kingdom NOT being present today.  Maybe they just can’t understand how God can really be in control of all things if the kingdom isn’t existing now.  Or maybe they can’t stand the thought that the Church isn’t the final phase of God’s program.  After all, aren’t we the culmination of all of God’s plans?  And, of course, it is much more pleasing to people and easier to preach a social/political gospel than a spiritual gospel because, basically, it takes no faith to believe, no hope in what is not seen.

We need the kingdom of God today to be right where it has always been—coming in the future at the return of Jesus Christ.  Any lessening of the kingdom into some allegorized version is a disappointment in the great prophecies of that golden age.  We ought to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).  We need to hear, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).  We should believe that when Jesus the Messiah is accepted there will be “on earth peace, good will toward men” (Lk. 2:14).  Every believer ought to look forward to the time when “an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:11).

The following are some of the concepts of the kingdom found in the gospels with which I struggled for years.  I am not saying there are not other ways in which good men take these statements, but I think these help find the consistency for which we look.  I do not have space to give and answer all of the opposing views.  Admittedly my view is a premillennial and dispensational view.  But I think these are great helps and not hindrances, and have been the main stay of prophetic preaching before and throughout my lifetime.

The kingdom predicted in the gospels was a continuation of the Old Testament theocratic kingdom.

This is the only way the Jews would have understood the concept of the kingdom.  In the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12:1-3) God made a 3-fold promise of land, seed, and blessing.  The promise of land will be fulfilled by the Palestinian covenant (Deut. 30:1-10); the promise of a seed will be fulfilled by the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7:12-16); and the promise of a blessing will be fulfilled in the New covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).  None of these have been fulfilled completely to this day and it will take the second coming of Christ to complete these three promises.  Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, realized that the birth of John and Jesus would be “to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham” (Lk. 1:72-73).

The kingdom offer to the Jews was a bona fide offer.

The Jews were to pray for the kingdom to come (Mt. 6:10) and to see that their righteousness (inward) exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (outward) or “ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:20).  When the Jews attributed the power of Christ to Satan, He responded by saying, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you” (Mt. 12:28).  George N.H. Peters concluded, “It follows, then, that the Jews had the privilege accorded to them of accepting the Kingdom, and if the condition annexed to it had been complied with, then the Kingdom of David would have been most gloriously re-established under the Messiah.”8 The fact that the offer was rejected in no wise annuls the offer any more than the Jews rejecting the land at Kadesh-Barnea annulled the offer of the land, or that rejecting Christ as Savior annuls the offer of salvation.

The kingdom predicted in the gospels is always to be taken as the future millennial kingdom.9

This is the only conclusion that can be drawn if the kingdom in the gospels is the same as the Old Testament theocratic kingdom.  McClain says, “The gospel records always connect the Kingdom proclaimed by our Lord with the kingdom of the Old Testament.”10 Pentecost says, “The kingdom announced and offered by the Lord Jesus was the same theocratic kingdom foretold through the Old Testament prophets.”11 The only kingdom the prophets foretold was the future millennial kingdom which will be on this earth at the return of Jesus Christ.  Jesus never had to give further explanation as to what He meant when He used the term “kingdom.”  The disciples’ question at His post-resurrection appearance shows this clearly, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel” (Ac 1:6).  There is no rebuke, correction, or redefinition of the term.  If the future kingdom is not here intended, either Jesus did a poor job of teaching for three years or the disciples were incredibly poor students.

A further comment is in order here.  We have been so influenced by non-millennial views in our Christian literature, hymns, and common talk, that we hardly pay attention to how we denigrate the kingdom of God.  From Catholic to Protestant to Reformed, all speak freely as if the kingdom Jesus spoke of were existing now.  If the reader of the gospels would simply place a future definition on the word “kingdom” each time he reads, he would be amazed at what clarity it would bring to the meaning of the text.

The millennial kingdom of God was near at hand in the life of Christ.

Expressions of this abound in the gospels:  “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt. 4:17); “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you” (LK. 10:9); The kingdom of God is come upon you” (LK. 11:20); “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:21); “The kingdom of God is nigh at hand” (Lk. 21:31).  This must refer to something that isn’t existing now but may exist if the conditions are met.  Pentecost says, “By the term ‘at hand’ the announcement is being made that the kingdom is to be expected imminently.  It is not a guarantee that the kingdom will be instituted immediately, but rather that all impending events have been removed so that it is now imminent.”12 Toussaint says, “It was the Jewish eschatological kingdom which had drawn near.  The verb here is eggizw which means to draw near and not to be here.”13 He then uses the example of when Jesus “drew nigh unto Jerusalem” (Mt. 21:1) showing that He was near but not there yet.

The kingdom of God is “within you.”

“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:20-21).  Perhaps no verse has been so used (and abused) to argue for a spiritual, invisible kingdom existing now in our hearts than this verse.  It is a classic case of one difficult verse being used to explain the many clear verses, rather than the many clear verses explaining the one that is difficult.

“Observation” is from the word paratere? which means that the kingdom is not coming with predictability.  “Within” is from the word entos, an adverb which can be translated a number of ways including within, among, in the midst.  It should also be noted that Jesus was talking to unbelieving Pharisees and not to believers.

George N.H. Peters took this to mean that the kingdom would have to come from within the nation of Israel if it were to come at all.14 Both Pentecost and McClain, however, have taken this to mean that the King Himself was among them.

Pentecost says, “The Lord is not asserting that His kingdom was to be a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men.  Such is contrary to the entire tenor of the Word of God.  He is asserting that the kingdom to which they were looking was already ‘at hand’ in the person of the king.”15 McClain says,

“Surely in no sense could the Kingdom of God have been ‘within’ the hearts of the Pharisees to whom our Lord was speaking, and who had charged blasphemously that His miracles were being accomplished through the power of the devil (Matt. 12:24).  But in the person of its divinely appointed King, visibly present in incarnate form on earth where He must eventually reign, the Kingdom was in that sense already ‘in the midst of’ men regardless of their attitude, whether for or against Him.”16

And So . . .

I know I have been preaching to the choir.  These are familiar lessons to most of us and contrary lessons to many.  Yet a clear understanding of the kingdom of God is as crucial today as it has ever been.  Toward the end of W.B. Riley’s book he wrote,

The time has come when thinking churchmen recognize the fact that the Second Coming of Christ is creating and completing a definite fellowship.  The men who entertain ‘the Blessed Hope’ are bound together in a peculiar brotherhood; a brotherhood of increasing sweetness and deepening strength.  No single denomination, of the many that go to make up modern Protestantism, is as definite in its fellowship and as distinct in its doctrinal teaching as is the brotherhood of pre-millennialism.17

This is one of the reasons why the Blessed Hope is so blessed.  “For theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Notes:
1. My M.Div was done at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis.  In those days Dr. Rolland McCune taught the course on the kingdom using Alva J. McClain’s book, The Greatness of the Kingdom. Dr. McCune also taught Dispensationalism.
2. Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom (Winona Lake: BMH Books, 1974).  First published by Moody Press in 1968.
3. McClain, 11.
4. W.B. Riley, The Only Hope of Church or World (London:  Pickering & Inglis, nd.) 33.
5. James Montgomery Boice, The Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1972) 31.
6. John Walvoord, Matthew—Thy Kingdom Come (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1974) 45.
7. Stanley D. Toussaint, Behold The King ( Portland:  Multnomah Press, 1981) 96.
8. George N.H. Peters, The Theocratic Kingdom, vol. I (Grand Rapids:  Kregel, 1978) 377-378.
9.   Mention should be made in this article that I recognize the existence of a universal usage of the word kingdom in a few OT passages (e.g. Psa. 103:19).   McClain devoted a whole section to it (Chapt. IV) and referenced other premillennialists who do the same. Yet, no one was more insistent on a future definition of the kingdom in the gospels than McClain.
10. McClain, 281.
11. J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1969) 447.
12. Pentecost, Things To Come, 449-450.
13. Toussaint, 63.
14. Peters, 390.
15. Pentecost, 452.
16. McClain, 272.
17. Riley, 118.

 

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