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The Middle Road Of Discipleship

September 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

The Middle Road Of Discipleship

by Rick Shrader

Our union with Christ means a separation from the domination of the sin nature because of its crucifixion. But it also means a resurrection to newness of living (Rom. 6:4). Throughout this section not only is death taught but also our resurrection. The truth includes not only the fact of separation from the old but also the all-important association with the new, the risen life of Christ. It is mentioned in every verse in Romans 6:4-10. Union with Christ, therefore, not only breaks the power of the old capacity, but it also associates us with Him who gives the power to live according to the new capacity.

Charles Ryrie¹

It often seems simplistic to advocate the middle ground between two points of view but it is also true that we easily and often gravitate to one of two extremes. Sometimes the right (not easy) answer is the simple one especially in matters of Christian deportment. Francois Fenelon, in the 15th century wrote, “Dwelling too much upon self produces in weak minds useless scruples and superstition, and in stronger minds a presumptuous wisdom.”² Our strongest foe in living the Christian life is the indulgence of our own selfishness. It is easier to call selfishness piety and go on than to seek a higher motive for our actions.

In my own life of being in church as well as in the ministry, I have watched the ongoing battle between legalism and license, between those who see the secret to Christian living in the striving to uphold a system and those who strive to be free of any restraint. I think because we realize that the truth must be somewhere in between, seldom do any of us claim either extreme position. But the fact is, we are often in one or both of these positions.

There are times when we strive and work for a pious life out of legalistic selfishness. It is actually easier to be given a list of actions the performing of which constitutes holiness. This was a Colossian problem, “Why are you subject to ordinances, after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the gody; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh” (Col 2:20-23). This was also a Cretian problem. The law keepers were “vain talkers and deceivers” (Tit 1:10), who gave heed “To Jewish fables, and commandments of men” (vs 14). Sadly, “They profess that they know God; but in works (the system itself) they deny him” (vs 16).

I think the historical phenomenon of the Monastic system is a unique illustration of the weakness and failure to achieve holiness through human effort. G.K. Chesterton, a Catholic himself, defends the system by saying, “So far from being a revival of paganism, the Franciscan renascence was a sort of fresh start and first awakening after a forgetfulness of paganism.”³ But the fact is, such a fresh start was only achieved by the first generation who retreated to monastic life out of true pietism. The next generation came because they wanted the same recognition of pietism that their founders gained. And so, even though the system of self-denying rules remained the same, it quickly became only a means to a selfish end, a way to gain recognition for piety, which is not piety at all.

John Armstrong calls this sort of thing, “a new form of legalism. It is a modern moralism without Christ and the cross.”⁴ We can perform even the most biblical of functions selfishly and therefore gain nothing in holiness. We can pray to God while wondering how well we are doing. We can sing “Amazing Grace” to be heard of men. We can give our money to missions in order to get a blessing from God. It is all selfishness.

There are times when we insist on personal liberties out of licentious selfishness. What some call a freedom in grace is nothing more than the flip side to legalistic selfishness. In his great chapter on Christian works, James says we will be judged by the law of liberty, that is, held eternally accountable (Jas 2:12). Peter warns not to use liberty “for a cloke of maliciousness” (1 Pet 2:16), and not to follow those who “while they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption” (2 Pet 2:19). If we have been crucified with Christ, are we not raised to a new holy life which is in antipathy to the world? Why, other than selfishness, would we want to be free to every indulgence?

There is also a unique illustration of this problem in Luther’s theology and that of his followers. Luther had found the riches of God’s grace and its unconditional forgiveness, so unlike the Augustinian order in which he had labored. As Bonhoeffer records, that grace for Luther was costly and would demand the price of his life. “Yet the outcome of the Reformation was the victory, not of Luther’s perception of grace in all its purity and costliness, but of the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price. All that was needed was a subtle and almost imperceptible change of emphasis, and the damage was done.”

Paul asked the “servants of righteousness,” “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?” (Rom 6:21). Somehow, licentious grace has forgotten to be ashamed. We relish to be free to miss church. We dress down not up when there are no expectations. We indulge rather than abstain at almost every turn.

The middle ground between these two pitiful valleys of selfishness is the higher ground. In our lives we might call this middle ground between absolute law and unrestrained freedom, manners— that self-effacing action of doing right when no one makes us, just because it is right. Manners go against every selfish bone in our being. And so do religious manners! We must not practice holiness because the law demands it of us, nor ignore holiness because we are free to do so. Holiness is that self-effacing servanthood whereby we identify with Christ’s cross. There is no selfishness in it. There are no rewards nor applause in this life. John Bunyan said, “Were it not for the cross, where we have one professor we should have twenty; but this cross, that is it which spoileth all.”⁶ Yes, because if we could only pander to selfishness, whether by legalism or license, people would flock to us.

When once the great Puritan, John Owen heard Bunyan speak in Zoar Chapel, King Charles “expressed wonder that a man of his learning could bear to listen to the ‘prate’ of a tinker, [Owen] answered, that he would gladly give all his learning for this tinker’s power.”⁷ “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you” (2 Cor 13:4).

Notes:

1. Charles Ryrie, Balancing The Christian Life (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994) 57-58.

2. Francois Fenelon, “Simplicity and Greatness” Orations, Homer To McKinley, IV (NY: Collier, 1902) 1639.

3. G.K. Chesterton, St Francis of Assisi (New York: Image Books, 1990) 91.

4. John Armstrong, The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996) 23.

5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995) 49.

6. John Bunyan, “The Heavenly Footmen” Orations, 1590.

7. Thomas Armitage, The History Of The Baptists,I (Minneapolis: Klock Publishing, 1976) 479.

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And They Sang A New Song

July 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

And They Sang A New Song

by Rick Shrader

I saw in my dreams that just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden loosed from his shoulders and fell from his back and began to tumble till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome and said with a merry heart, “He has given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.”

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

Jonathan Edwards once said, “I love the doctrines of the gospels: They have been to my soul like green pastures.”¹ Surely the testimony of our Christian faith ought to be the absolute joy of resting in the truths of our redemption! It is that thrill that prompted C.S. Lewis to write, “For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books.”²

There seems to be a flood of devotional thought today, coming from any and every religious affiliation. It is “religiously correct” in that it does not offend anyone nor promote one religious “expression” over another. These devotional bytes are so encompassing that they do not even require a personal testimony of salvation in order to find spiritual application. Our area newspapers carry regular columns on the ecumenical virtues of all religions, especially any that claim to be “Christian.” The goal is obviously to apply religious belief to oneself, not to apply oneself to religious belief. In this way the individual becomes the standard of truth while belief is an item on a buffet that can be taken as one desires.

Is all worship valid just because it is worship? John Flavel, a fifteenth century Puritan, wrote, “Carnal men rejoice carnally, and spiritual men should rejoice spiritually.”³ It is no secret that lost people may speak when we speak, or laugh when we laugh, or sing when we sing, or say amen when we say amen. But are they doing the same thing we are doing? Or we might ask: If we form our worship by asking the lost person what he desires, will we be worshiping or merely sharing generic devotional religion? One pastor and author who promotes the “seeker-sensitive” format admitted, “I learned that it is imperative to keep seeker-sensitive services and traditional services separate. They do not mix.”⁴ Is there not a reason the two approaches do not mix? And isn’t that reason more than the usual proffer of cultural relevancy?

There is no greater biblical text describing worship than Revelation chapters four and five. We often sing a chorus from 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” This song expresses a truth that can be sung by all: believing saints (as here), angels (5:12) and creatures (5:13). But chapter five creates a sadness in heaven because, though all recognize God as God, there is not a “man” (5:3) who has “prevailed” (5:5) to open the special message of the seven-sealed book. When Jesus Christ appears as a lamb slain (5:6) who is “worthy” to open the book, a new song is sung. But it is a song that can only be sung by the saints. Their song cannot be sung by the angels nor the creatures. It is a “new song” which says: “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (5:9). The only other place a “new song” is mentioned is 14:3 where the tribulation martyrs are described as “redeemed from the earth.”

The one requirement for participation in worshiping through the slain Lamb is to be redeemed by His blood. I am not advocating that the unsaved should be kept from singing in our worship services. I am saying that they have no reference point for advising us on worship. They should be invited guests who observe the worship of the redeemed and the Holy Spirit should be relied upon to translate the message of redemption to their needy hearts. Albert Mohler wrote, “Although worship may be contemporary and remain authentic, it cannot be ‘seeker-oriented’ and remain true to the biblical concept of genuine worship. True worship focuses on God—our gracious, loving holy Lord—the Trinitarian God who delights in the praises of His people.”⁵ And His people are those who have been “redeemed.”

In a biography of Francis Schaeffer, L.G. Parkhurst, Jr. writes about Schaeffer’s break from the Presbyterian church because of the liberalism that had taken over that denomination. Schaeffer lamented that with all the pomp of the Presbyterian services, so few cared at all about the great doctrines of the faith.⁶ Schaeffer’s turning point came when “he learned what the finished work of Christ meant in his present experience . . . He recognized that his own lack of the reality of the presence of God in his life was related to his ignorance about the meaning of the finished work of Christ.”⁷

The “new song” is a song about redemption, the finished work of Christ applied to the believing heart. J. Sidlow Baxter wrote, “The Christian belongs to what he is to become; not to what he has left behind.”⁸ Our worship must be the new song of a changed life which others can only stand and observe. Why do we think such worship is powerless? The fact that a lost person may be uncomfortable could be the greatest compliment that could be paid.

It is a misnomer to say such worship is “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” C.S. Lewis said, “Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love Man less than God do most for Man.”⁹ The most “progressive” Christian thinker should be the one who, having observed the plight of his generation, heralds the one message that can bring about true change. “And they sang a new song!”

Notes:

1. Ralph Turnbull, Jonathan Edwards The Preacher (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1958) 70.

2. C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 1970) 205.

3. Mayo Hazeltine, Ed, Orations from Homer to McKinley, Vol 4 (New York: Collier and Son, 1902) 1599.

4. Ed Dobson, Starting A Seeker Sensitive Service (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993) 43.

5. Albert Mohler, “Evangelical: What’s In A Name,” The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996) 40.

6. L.G. Parkhurst, Jr. Francis & Edith Schaeffer (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1996) 77.

7. Ibid, 74-75.

8. J. Sidlow Baxter, Christian Holiness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 39.

9. C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) 80.

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Members In Particular

June 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

Members In Particular

by Rick Shrader

The sacrifice of selfish privacy which is daily demanded of us is daily repaid a hundredfold in the true growth of personality which the life of the Body encourages. Those who are members of one another become as diverse as the hand and the ear. That is why the worldlings are so monotonously alike compared with the almost fantastic variety of the saints. Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.

C.S. Lewis¹

If there is anything in today’s church scene that has fallen on hard times it is the validity of local church membership. In our town the local paper ran a full length article, on Easter Sunday morning, extoling the merits of fast-growing churches that have done away with their membership rolls. One was a nondenominational group meeting in temporary facilities and the other (sadly) was the Unity group which has its own building. Unity, of course, though the paper called them a “church” doesn’t believe in a personal God nor in any orthodox Christian doctrine. But methodology is methodology, and though faith can be controlled by methodology, methodology can’t produce faith.

This modern day phenomenon of discarding local church membership is neither biblical nor historical. One doesn’t have to read very far back into church history to find churches holding firm to regenerate church memberships and the right to “ban” those members who had begun walking contrary to the biblical pattern.

Neither is the modern individualism found in the New Testament. James R. White aptly said, “There is no warrant for the ‘Lone Ranger Christian Syndrome’ so popular in Protestant circles these days.”² Although the biblical data could be multiplied beyond what can be placed in this article, here are six prerequisites for local church membership.

We are stewards of our biblical beliefs

Our doctrine is the glue that binds believers together. G.K. Chesterton wrote, “In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call ‘creeds and dogmas.’ It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world.”³ In the early church, the Apostles suggested creating the office of deacon so that they would not have to surrender studying scripture (Acts 6:1-4). Paul pointedly told the Ephesian Elders that he did not shun his duty of declaring all of God’s counsel (Acts 20:27-30).

The Lord Himself rebuked the Asian churches for not clinging more closely to sound doctrine (Rev 2:2, 14-15). We fulfill this biblical stewardship by preaching, teaching and studying the Word of God together in our assemblies. Paul was distinct with young Timothy to take heed to doctrine, “for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee” (1 Tim 4:16).

We are stewards of our human needs

In the early church, we also find unusual effort to meet the physical needs of members, even to the point of some selling everything they had in order to help others in need (Acts 4:31-37). Paul instructed the churches on how to help widows who had been left alone (1 Tim 5:9) and James identifies pure religion as that which helps orphans and widows (Jas 1:27). Contrast that with one article that describes generation Xers as “detached and cynical, growing up in a culture of AIDS, violence and shattered families.”⁴ Now we are shattering the church for them as well!

Vance Havner said, “In this age, all too often, the church is but a mutual congratulation society.”⁵How we need to heed the writer of Hebrews, “and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Heb 10:24-25).

We are stewards of our sinful failures

Perhaps the most startling evidence for local church membership is the biblical command to put those out who have sinned. Out of What? Jesus commanded the whole church to participate in this action (Matt 18:15-17). Paul told the Corinthians to carry out this procedure even in his absence, seeing it is their biblical duty (1 Cor 5:1-5). When God personally took Ananias and Sapphira out of the church by sudden death, the community was afraid and “no man [would] join himself to them” (Acts 5:13). It is too bad that today believers see this as a negative to church membership. It may be the very thing that saves a man or his family!

We are stewards of our giving

Paul commanded the church to come together to store their funds in a common pool (1 Cor 16:1-2). He admonished the Corinthians not to fall behind other churches in this grace (2 Cor 8:1-4). Timothy was instructed not to neglect instructing his church to do this also (1 Tim 6:18-19). Our money goes everywhere these days except to church. We always have enough for ourselves, but we are the first to criticize the church for not providing what it should.

We are stewards of our prayers

Jonathan Edwards said, “Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.”⁶ Peter wrote that believers are a “Holy Priesthood” and a “Royal Priesthood” (1 Pet 2:5,9). A priest’s duty is to enter the presence of God to represent his people before Him. We must have been to the altar and gotten blood, and passed by the laver and been washed, but if we have not entered on behalf of our people, we have failed as priests. “Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Heb 13:15).

We are stewards of our evangelism

The Thessalonians spread the Word all over Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thes 1:8) and all that dwelt in Asia heard the Word from the Ephesians (Acts 19:10). Paul wrote to churches and Christ spoke to churches (Rev 2-3) to do this as good stewards of the faith.

Notes:

1. C. S. Lewis, The Weight Of Glory (New York: Collier Books, 1980) 113.

2. James R. White, The Roman Catholic Controversy (Minneapolis: Behtany House Publishers, 1996) 58.

3. G. K. Chesterton, St Thomas Aquinas (New York: Doubleday, 1956) 110.

4. “Generation Xers go for the answer to Y” Rocky Mountain News 3/30/97.

5. Vance Havner, Rest Awhile (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1941) 62.

6. Ralph Turnbull, Jonathan Edwards The Preacher (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1958) 67.

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To What Are We Accountable?

May 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

To What Are We Accountable?

by Rick Shrader

“One out of four Americans (23 percent) state that religious beliefs and teaching are the single, most significant influence on their thinking about whether or not there is such a thing as absolute moral truth. The next most prolific influence is said to be the Bible (15 percent). Other significant sources of influence about moral truth are family (13 percent), experience (10 percent), and emotions and intuition (7 Percent).”

George Barna¹

The only frightening thing about Barna’s findings is that our generation may not care. Over a century ago Charles Finney wrote, “If we are deceived in respect to our being subjects of moral government, we are sure of nothing.”² We might say, if we don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything. We expect such from people who refuse God’s grace and reject His revelation to man. How can one have manners if there is no parent around to lay down the law?

I have been following coverage of conservative Americans calling for the discarding of a fellow conservative politician on the grounds that he is so persistent in his principles he will never be able to make Americans like him enough to be effective. Better to be amiable than accurate; to be relevant than right. These are drastic times that call for drastic measures and slavish homage to unpopular principles will not win the day! This is why Kierkegaard said, “The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.”³ But to anyone with Divine manners, with any sense of a moral universe, that sounds a lot like nonsense. It was for that reason Chesterton said, “Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of all things.”⁴

We believers may readily admit that we cannot always interpret God’s world correctly but we are sure there is a correct interpretation. We may not always read our Bible right but we are sure there is a right way to read it. And we are sure that our job as stewards of God is to give testimony to truth and not to error. We may not change the unbeliever’s mind or heart but we will be good ambassadors of truth (with proper “manners”) nonetheless.

It seems unfitting to me, therefore, that we should continually be asked by some to give up or even set aside truth in our ambassador ministry. I was told the other day that having stealth convictions for the purposes of inter-church sports would cause the lost to want my faith more.

Really? I wouldn’t if I were he! Why would a thinking person want a faith about which I’m embarrassed? Do we advise married couples or even friends to reconcile their differences by hiding things from one another?

Now some will say, “Well, we understand what we mean here. We only mean you can’t ram your beliefs down another person’s throat!” (as if someone is going to bring up the hypostatic union at a volleyball game). But is that all we mean? Are these things simply a matter of wisely teaching the unlearned, or is it more a matter of believing that unity is more desirable than struggle or that by denying or hiding a small truth, larger ones are more acceptable? If I say, “The flowers will bloom in the Spring,” but you say, “that’s irrelevant because the Earth revolves around the Sun,” why does truth about Botany hinder truth about Astrology? (the fact is, it might be a great help).

Once we are willing to hide certain things that we believe or know to be the truth, we may be willing to acquiesce to things that we know not to be the truth. C.S. Lewis, in discussing questionable behavior writes, “What is one to do? For on the one hand, quite certainly, there is a degree of unprotesting participation in such talk which is very bad. We are strengthening the hands of the enemy. We are encouraging him to believe that ‘those Christians,’ once you get them off their guard and round a dinner table, really think and feel exactly as he does. By implication we are denying our Master; behaving as if we ‘knew not the Man.’”⁵

First Corinthians 9:20-22, where Paul declares, “I have become all things to all men” has become the clarion cry of those advocating stealth ministries. I don’t believe such a view of those verses can be justified from the rest of the book. In 10:25-30, Paul instructs a believer to feel free to eat meat offered to idols because of our knowledge of idols. But he says (vs 28), “if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake . . . Conscience I say, not thine own, but of the other.”

An important question is, who is the “any man?” One view is that it is another believer who also happens to be at the feast. But there is no indication that this “any man” is a Christian brother. A better view, and one that is entirely natural to the story, is that a pagan man says to the Christian, “This is good meat that has been offered to my god.” In this case the pagan has connected the eating of this meat with his false religion. Now the believer must not partake because to do so would be to say something is true which is not. Paul’s reasoning is seen in verse 33, “Not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they might be saved.”

In the above reference from C.S. Lewis, he would call the situation where a believer is not willing to walk away, “connivance.” He says, “The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our words, looks and laughter, to consent.”⁶ This is where Peter found himself when he was asked if he knew Jesus, conniving and warming himself by their fire.

To what, then, are we accountable as believers in Christ? Isn’t it to Him and His Word? Do we really think we can figure it all out better than He? As stewards of this ambassador ministry, we are only asked to be faithful, and to herald what our King has already told us. It is not ours to bargain with the King’s words. Thomas Wentworth once wrote, “There can be no greater vanity in the world than to esteem the world, which regardeth no man; and to make slight of God, who greatly respecteth all men.”⁷

Notes:

1. George Barna, The Index Of Leading Spiritual Indicators (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996) 104.

2. Charles Finney, Systematic Theology (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1994) 27.

3. Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God? (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994) 205.

4. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1994) 5.

5. C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1958) 72.

6. Lewis, 71.

7. Mayo Hazeltine, Ed, Orations from Homer to McKinley, Vol. 4 (New York: Collier and Son, 1902) 1471.

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And Can It Be That I Should Gain?

April 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

And Can It Be That I Should Gain?

by Rick Shrader

Take heed of being offended at the cross that thou must go by before thou come to heaven. You must understand that there is no man that goeth to heaven but he must go by the cross. The cross is the standing way-mark by which all they that go to glory must pass.

John Bunyan, “The Heavenly Footman”¹

What have we learned from the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ at this Easter season? Learning that He died is history. Learning that He died for me is the gospel! Luther’s famous statement was, “Living, or rather dying and being damned make a theologian, not understanding, reading or speculating.”² That is, it takes the actual dying with Jesus through our repentance and faith in order to experience the new life that comes through His resurrection. We may know all about it, as those standing around the cross, without ever experiencing it.

If there is any such thing as a false believer, then there are those who speak of Christ’s death and resurrection but have never known it. John Armstrong wrote, “To preach evangelically is, by definition, to preach the doctrine of the cross in its full theological sense. This means that preaching on marriage, family or finance without the word of the cross at the center is a new form of legalism. It is a modern moralism without Christ and the cross. It is not, fundamentally, evangelical.”³ And neither is it the solution to our problems.

In the cloudy teaching on reconciliation today, we seem to ignore, or at least forget, that in Jesus’ death “if one died for all, then all died” (2 Cor 5:14). In His death “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (vs 19). When Paul tells us that he was crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20), he is telling us that he came to the end of himself completely, dying to Jesus on His cross. Jesus’ death made that faith possible for anyone who will also come to his own end.

This dying to ourselves so that we can be reconciled to God is, of course, repentance. Our repentance is our identification with Christ’s own humiliation on the cross. McGrath says, “Before a man can be justified, he must be utterly humiliated—and it is God who both humiliates and justifies.”⁴ Luther put it this way, “Let us see how this works out, and see how it benefits us. Christ is full of grace, life and salvation. The human soul is full of sin, death and damnation. Now let faith come between them. Sin, death and damnation will be Christ’s, and grace, life and salvation will be the believer’s.”⁵

Now if Jesus only died but did not resurrect from the dead, we might have death with Him but we would have no life with Him. We could become good at self-crucifixion but it would amount only to dead works. In the great reconciliation chapter, Paul continues, “And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor 5:15).

Having died to our own ability to save ourselves, and having understood that Jesus has the power to bring life back from the dead, we cast ourselves upon Him in faith and find resurrection life! “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you” (2 Cor 13:4).

Now we understand why the way up is down, the way of life is death, the way of power is weakness! The true meaning of life and the solution to our troubles is in the dying so that we can live. So we can continue with Paul, “and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

Of course, we must understand the pitfalls. There is an offense to the cross. The sinful self does not want to be crucified because it is its nature to exalt itself. In Galatia, Paul met these people as Judaizers who hung on to at least some prideful work of the flesh in circumcision. But Paul said, if you hang on to any work, so that it is mostly of Christ and partly of you, “then is the offense of the cross ceased” (Gal 5:11). That is, your pride in your work has kept you from being embarrassed by a total repentance and identification with His crucifixion. No!, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (6:14).

There are those who would love to have the resurrection life of Christ but are not willing to be crucified with Christ. The humility of the cross becomes too high of a price to pay. Easter morning is fine with them but don’t remind them of crucifixion afternoon! What a wrong thing it is to place such a person under the baptismal waters who has never been crucified with Christ! You can’t be raised up out of the water until you’ve been buried underneath it.

Perhaps true believers can make the error of emphasizing either the death or the resurrection of Christ to exclusion. There have been extreme errors of flagellations and self-scourgings in an attempt to punish the flesh. But as Christians we may also emphasize the denial of ourselves without the joy of new life in Christ. We like it in the grave too much. We may actually feed on a martyr complex which becomes a prideful thing in itself.

On the other hand we may think we can have the new life without the death of the old one. “All things are lawful unto me” the Corinthian cry became. Yet Paul was well aware that he was “under the law of Christ.” Paul knew he had to “beat his body and keep it under subjection” lest he become disqualified in the race. It is much better for the believer to realize, “I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live.”

Charles Wesley was amazed at the miracle of the new birth when he wrote “And can it be that I should gain.” A forgotten verse of that old hymn goes:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,—

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

Rick Shrader

Notes:

1. John Bunyan, Orations From Homer To Mckinley, IV (New York: P.F. Collier & Sons, 1902) 1586.

2. Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology Of The Cross (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1994) 152.

3. John Armstrong, The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996) 23.

4. McGrath, p. 151.

5. Alister McGrath, What Was God Doing On The Cross? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992) 101.

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Things Indifferent

March 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

Things Indifferent

by Rick Shrader

For the church, wherever she appears in human society, the constantly recurring question must be: What shall we unite with and from what shall we separate? The question of coexistence does not enter here, but the question of union and fellowship does. The wheat grows in the same field with the tares, but shall the two cross-pollinate? The sheep graze near the goats, but shall they seek to interbreed? The unjust and the just enjoy the same rain and sunshine, but shall they forget their deep moral differences and intermarry?

A.W. Tozer¹

A familiar and appropriate quotation used in our day is, “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.” Although we can use it as we see fit, the quote seems to have originated with Richard Baxter in the seventeenth century and was originally written, “In necessary things, unity; in disputed (some have “doubtful”) things, liberty; in all things, charity.”²

Richard Baxter was an English Nonconformist who urged moderation to those who would leave the Church of England. Eventually, however, he could not remain himself and left the Church because of the Uniformity Act of 1662. He refused a bishopric offered to him by Charles II and was later imprisoned by James II.³ Baxter wanted religious liberty for those who disputed the church’s dogmas but did not find it in his lifetime.

Baxter’s “disputed” and today’s “nonessentials” may or may not carry the same connotations. The word “nonessential” however, has a religious history older than Baxter. It goes back a hundred years to the Reformation era to a dispute called the “adiaphora.”⁴ This word literally means “things indifferent” or “nonessential.” In 1548, two years after Luther’s death, Charles V attempted to unite Catholic and Protestant Germany with a law called the Augsburg Interim. Due to its immediate failure, a compromise measure was reached in Leipzig the same year by consulting Melanchthon, now the Reformation leader.

Melanchthon agreed that many differences in doctrine were adiaphora or nonessential and need not be disputed by the Lutheran churches. Among these were confirmation, veneration of saints, the Latin mass, Corpus Christi Day, extreme unction and he also “adopted a modified and vague doctrine of justification by faith.”⁵ Conservative Lutherans who were more followers of Luther, could not abide by what Melanchthon deemed adiaphora. Their spokesman, Matthias Flacius, opposed him “objecting to his compromising with the Catholic Church on nonessentials.”⁶ It is “widely conceded that Flacius saved the Reformation.”⁷ It was not until 1580 and the Book Of Concord, that the Lutheran faith was again a clear voice of the gospel.

Of course, during this time in Germany, “Calvinism and Anabaptism were excluded from toleration.”⁸ In fact, all through this century, especially in Augsburg, Anabaptists Balthamar Hubmaier and Hans Denck contended with both Zwingli and Luther over infant baptism, the latter arguing that though the New Testament doesn’t mention infant baptism, neither does it forbid it. Therefore, it is a nonessential.⁹ But it was not adiaphora enough to keep the state church from drowning those who differed.

I don’t know if Richard Baxter had the adiaphorists in mind when, a hundred years after, he pleaded for the unity of the Church of England. Both he and Melanchthon failed in uniting divergent churches by appealing to nonessentials. This kind of effort is again being tried today in the form of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document urged by Chuck Colson and Richard Neuhaus, as well as Bill McCartney’s Promise Keepers. But what is “indifferent” to one will not be to another and it is only a matter of time until another Flacius or Hubmaier has to draw the line.

There are just some things that cannot be relegated to the status of “nonessential.” Flacius could see that even if the great Melanchthon couldn’t. But I said in the beginning that I thought Baxter’s quotation, even the way it is used today with the words essential and nonessential, is appropriate. Somewhere Christians do give and take on things regarding their faith.

There are many cases where brethren differ over things that are not essential to their fellowship or cooperation. The Articles of Faith of my church are designed to be both broad enough to include many Baptist families and yet narrow enough to say something definite and to distinguish us from other kinds of churches. There are some things that are too different to be included in the same church.

The Corinthian church was a church that could not make the right distinctions between these things. They had taken Paul’s teaching on liberty and turned it into license. “All things are lawful,” they would say, and Paul answered, “But all things are not expedient” and “I will not be brought under the power of any” (1 Cor 6:12). It was true, that “Meats were for the belly, and the belly for meats” (vs 13). Eating various kinds of meat was nonessential. But the Corinthians went further and equated the use of the body for fornication with the use of the body for meat. No! Paul said, God will destroy the belly and meat, but He will raise up the body in resurrection (vs 13-14). Interestingly, Lenski, (a Lutheran) says, “In this instance, the principle that ‘all things are allowed’ cannot be applied. God himself regulates the sex relation. He limits it to two distinct spheres, the one that is stamped with His approval, the other with His severe disapproval; both are thus entirely removed from the territory of the adiaphora.”¹⁰

We all have the tendency, like the Corinthians or Melanchthon, to relegate essentials to nonessentials with a slogan. We also have the ability to relegate myths to essentials like Zwingli’s infant baptism. Tozer said, “Power lies in the union of things similar and the division of things dissimilar.”¹¹ God help us to see them both.

NOTES:

1. A.W. Tozer, The Best Of Tozer (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978) 72.

2. Frank S. Mead, 12,000 Religious Quotations (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989) 43.

3. Mayo Hazeltine, ED, Orations From Homer To McKinley, Vol 4 (New York: Collier and Son, 1902) 1548.

4. History and definition of the adiaphora can be found in Bible dictionaries as well as church history books. Eerdman’s Handbook of Christianity has a helpful article.

5. A. Renwick, Baker’s Dictionary Of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978) 24.

6. “Flacius Illyricus, Matthias,” Columbia Encyclopedia (New York: Columbia U. Press, 1964) 725.

7. A. Renwick, Ibid.

8. Charles Jacobs, The Story Of The Church (Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press, 1947) 231.

9. Thomas Armitage, The History Of The Baptists, Vol 1 (Watertown: Maranatha Press, 1976) Chapter V.

10. R.C.H. Lenski, First Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1963) 259.

11. Tozer, 73.

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Is The Gospel Social?

February 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

Is The Gospel Social?

by Rick Shrader

Christianity will indeed accomplish many useful things in this world, but if it is accepted in order to accomplish those useful things it is not Christianity. Christianity will combat Bolshevism; but if it is accepted in order to combat Bolshevism, it is not Christianity. . . Christianity will produce a healthy community; but if it is accepted in order to produce a healthy community, it is not Christianity. . . Our Lord said: “seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” But if you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in order that all those things may be added unto you, you will miss both those other things and the Kingdom of God as well.

J. Gresham Machen (1923)¹

William James, the Liberal and father of American pragmatism once said that “truth is the cash value of an idea.”² Of him, Os Guinness wrote, “He held that religious beliefs were only true because of their consequences for human behavior, not because of their philosophical claims.”³ This sort of religious pragmatism seemed to be evident to believers a century ago, faced with the onslaught of the social gospel in America.

Calvin, that comic strip theologian, was walking with his imaginary friend, Hobbs, and stated, “Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads.” Hobbs answers, “I wonder which you are.” To which Calvin replies, “I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.”

We American Christians seem to have a knack for making Christianity the immediate solution for whatever problems society may have. For a century now this has been tried as the solution for poverty, war, hatred, illness or economic depression. We have not yet learned the lesson that Christianity is and must be first a belief, and that we believe it because it is true regardless of the consequences. Thousands of souls in the Soviet Union would never have found Christ as Savior if their faith had been conditioned on social advantage. As Machen points out, to preach Christ because of the social advantage, is not to preach Him at all.

Living in a day when the world expects the church to be a social agent for change brings great pressure on the church of Christ to downplay the biblical condition of repentance for communion with Christ. The gospel is seen as an avenue to gain the things of this world rather than to lose them. Did not Jesus say, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26,27).

But Charles Colson says, “Investing time and money in building a rightly ordered society is the most powerful antidote to chaos and crime.”⁴ Rick Warren says, “I also believe that pastors are the most strategic change agents to deal with the problems society faces.”⁵ Warren mentions that his church advertises to the community classes on potty training and miscarriage as well as weightier social concerns.

I agree with Ernest Pickering who wrote, “There is no evidence in the New Testament of any church-sponsored programs organized for the purpose of alleviating human suffering in the unsaved world.”⁶ The writer of Hebrews had this message to the “unchurched” Jews who were inspecting the claims of Christianity, “But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used” (Heb 10: 32,33). This is because faith is for those who “diligently seek him” (11:6) and “not of them who draw back” (10:39) when they find Christianity is costing them something rather than gaining them something in this world.

I am not minimizing the service function of the local church to its members. We take that seriously at our church and are very detailed about it. Nor am I discouraging being a good citizen. But the gospel asks a sinner to come completely to the end of himself with regards to this world so that he may give himself completely to Christ. If the sinner can find a pragmatic way to get around that, he will take it! Let’s not offer him a way to find his salvation by his good works, but let’s allow him to find salvation unto good works.

Notes:

1. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity And Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1977) 152.

2. Charles Colson, The Body (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1992) 174.

3. Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1994) 55.

4. Charles Colson, “Cleanliness Is Next To Crimelessness,” Christianity Today, January 6, 1997, 80.

5. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 20.

6. Ernest Pickering, The Tragedy Of Compromise (Greenville: BJU Press, 1994) 18.

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Facing Legalism and License With Truth

January 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

Facing Legalism and License With Truth

by Rick Shrader

Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is.

Winston Churchill

The German Anabaptist Hans Denck said, “Therefore, as God wills, and so much as in me is, I will not have my brother as an opponent and my Father as a judge.”¹ In all of my ministry I have avoided neither exclusion inside my church nor separation outside my church. But I have often disagreed with good men as to how either should take place. I have never liked the terms “first degree” and “second degree” in referring to separation, “legalism” and “license” in referring to godliness, or even “personal” and “ecclesiastical” as terms dividing spiritual realms of responsibility. Jonathan Edwards had a simpler way of putting it, “If it be made out clearly and evidently from reason and the Word of God, to be our duty so to do, this would be enough with all Christians. Will a follower of Christ stand objecting and disputing against a thing, that is irrefragably proved and demonstrated to be his duty?”²

For purposes of this article, I will use the terms “legalism” and “license” in today’s vernacular of two extremes beyond a desired biblical norm. Legalism describes, I think, a giving up on a consistent, biblical philosophy of life and a resultant falling back on rules for rules’ sake. License describes a giving up on a consistent philosophy as well but with a resultant refusal to determine right and wrong at all. It seems to me that biblical admonitions to holiness, love and evangelism would lead us in a different, and more balanced, path.

Proverbs 23:23 says, “Buy the truth and sell it not.” In that short statement by Solomon is a balance that can be lived consistently. Pascal said, “It is false piety to preserve peace at the expense of truth. It is also false zeal to preserve truth at the expense of charity.”³ But I think we can preserve truth without sacrificing charity, although at times it may cost us peace. Truth is part of God’s creation. It is the way He made the world and the glue that holds it all together. It is the ninth commandment, the belt of the Christian armour. Solomon says we are to seek it at all cost to ourselves and we must never deny it for any reward. I believe this biblical admonition can be lived out consistently in five prominent areas of the Christian life.

Personal Life

In 2 John 4, the Apostle writes, “I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth.” We are each, first and foremost, individuals before God. If there is any place on this planet where we can live out truth, it is in ourselves and within our own lives. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest” (Rom. 2:1). He was pointing out that we all judge situations in many ways every day. We decide the right and wrong of a matter, and then go one way or the other. As believers we “desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby” (1 Pet 2:2). To violate what we judge the Word to say, is to lie to ourselves before God. Spurgeon said, “Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin.”⁴

As an individual, I can make two errors concerning the handling of truth. The error of legalism would be to create a wrong where there is none. The error of license would be to ignore a wrong where there is one. I may decide that it is wrong to eat meat and even teach against it. But I have created an unbiblical standard and violated truth. Or I may laugh at an inappropriate joke, or smile at another’s sin or break the law of the land that God told me to keep. Then I have refused to abide by the rule of truth by an unbiblical and unchristian license. In legalism or license I have loved the world system more than God by not following truth.

When error from the truth is evident in my life, I must appeal to the plain text of scripture witnessed by the Holy Spirit and follow that corrective back into the truthful way. Otherwise I “lie and do not the truth” (1 John 1:6).

Married Life

When God said, “They two shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24),” He meant that two together should seek to follow Him and His Word. The blending of two individuals makes the task of following truth by conscience more difficult. Differences of opinion as to what is right will inevitably arise. That is why a couple needs a mutual agreement that what God says is truth, and therefore right, and when they discover what that is by study and prayer, they will follow it.

Ravi Zacharias, in discussing how love can exist consistently with morality, writes, “If love is creation’s first law, it is consistent within that framework to delineate love’s boundaries–this is the moral law.”⁵ Trouble comes when one partner is untrue to that moral law, or truth! A husband can err on the legalistic side by creating household laws that are inconsistent with moral laws. The food isn’t just right; the shirts aren’t ironed satisfactorily; the trash is too full. He can err on the side of license by thinking it is his right to swear in the home; his right to provoke the kids to anger; his need to be unfaithful.

Neither is it right for either partner to leave conflict unresolved and pretend the discrepancy doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist. Though we wrongfully do this in other areas of life without immediate consequences, it quickly becomes disaster in a marriage. God’s remedy for error in the home is for the husband to be the spiritual head of the family as he follows Christ.

Church Life

Paul instructed the Corinthian church, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 5:4) to proceed to resolve conflicts over truth. The local church is the only divine agency found in the New Testament through which we fulfill our stewardship before God. MacArthur writes, “We need to be concerned about accountability. That’s one reason Communion is important. It reminds us to make sure our lives are right so that we can restore each other in love and stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Accountability involves the ‘one anothers’ in Scripture. We are to exhort one another, pray for one another, love one another, teach one another, edify one another and admonish one another. Those things make up the life of the church.”⁶

Now the church is larger than the individual and the family and, therefore, susceptible to greater conflicts over truth. But it is also the perfect vehicle for teaching and practicing the Word of God in a human situation. Both the individual as well as families of individuals can fellowship, bound together by a love for the truth of God. No one can be made to say amen to that of which he is not convinced, and no one is without recourse if truth has not been found. He has the Book, his pastor, a deacon and numerous friends to which he can go for instruction.

Legalism can arise within a church by one group creating standards of conduct not supported by Scripture and forcing those on all the others. License often occurs when a group of believers begins violating the truth of Scripture in some particular way and yet no biblical recourse is allowed to take place. Even on this level these two errors result from an apathetic attitude toward finding and maintaining the truth.

It is at this level of our Christian life that God tells us that exclusion may be the way in which we have to deal with error. Paul told the Galatians to “cast out the bondwoman and her son” (4:30), and then asks them “Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (5:7-9). This, of course, is only after seeking the truth among individuals and also having followed proper avenues of biblical authority. It is not God’s will for moral or doctrinal error to remain in the body like leaven in a loaf of bread. It must be removed. A properly functioning church is one in which godly believers have the faith to exclude error rather than one from which godly believers must themselves separate.

Life In God’s Family

Not all believers are in the same local church. As believers, we are aware that God’s children are present in varied fellowships although some Christians are not in any local assembly (a situation not assumed in the New Testament). The love for truth is far more difficult in relation to those with whom you do not have local church accountability. Many disagreements will never be resolved because accountability cannot be taken by Christians beyond their own local assemblies. Correcting error within the larger family of God must be pursued by prayer, preaching, personal contact and other forms of communication.

This area of pursuing truth has become difficult due to present attitudes that see correction as bigoted or mean-spirited. Recently, Ernest Pickering has written, “Everyone wants to be a ‘nice guy’; no one wants to be a ‘bad guy.’ ‘Bad guys’ are disruptive to cozy fellowships, are theological and ecclesiastical ‘whistle blowers’–and few want to hear the whistle. As a result of well-meaning efforts on the part of many to be ‘nice,’ the cutting edge of Christianity is being dulled. It is certainly correct to say that ‘evangelical courtesy has seriously watered down its witness,’ and, realizing that, ‘we must guard against civility breeding timidity.”⁷ Consequently, approaching a brother about error is becoming an endangered action.

Legalism and license are far more common in the larger family of God than in the smaller areas of life. Both errors abound. Legalism often arises when peer pressure from strong personalities forces others to adopt stringent taboos and strange excesses which cannot be supported from Scripture. License is rampant in our day due to professing Christians using their liberty in God’s grace as an occasion to the flesh while bristling at the thought of Christ’s cross. Neither of these people want to hear that God’s Word stands in judgment on their error from the truth.

How do you deal with another Christian on this level? It is my opinion that nothing can be “forced” on another believer who is not in your local church. But certainly we have deep obligations to another brother in biblical error. Philippians 1 cannot be used to support doing nothing. Those who opposed Paul while in prison were not said to be in doctrinal error but were selfishly motivated. Galatians 1 gives us a startling look at Paul’s attitude toward doctrinal error and it was anything but laissez faire.

Paul often exhorts some believers to respond to other believers regarding error. “Mark them” (Rom. 16:17, Phil. 3:17), “avoid them” (Rom. 16:17), “put away from among yourselves” (1 Cor. 5:13), and “note that man, and have no company with him” (2 Thes. 3:14). These admonitions regard more than just five “fundamentals” which some use as an excuse to plead “hands off” to their other beliefs and actions. These verses are directed at “divisions,” “those who mind earthly things,” “a man that is called a brother who is a fornicator,” and “every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the traditions (Paul’s inspired writings) which he received of us.” Jude wanted to avoid these uncommon areas of “the faith” but was inspired of God to earnestly contend for it all (Jude 1-3).

How can this be done practically in the work place, at school, around town or even in various meetings of believers across the country? One way in which we can be true to the truth at all times is never to allow ourselves to put our blessing or approval on biblical error. Years ago, I knew a young man whose father was living in sin and would not repent. How, he asked, could he be around his father at dinner or at social events and still not condone what he was doing? The only way was (though he had to be physically around him) to never, by words, gestures or even silence, say in effect, “it’s all right, Dad, I understand.” We, as believers, must never say to an erring brother, “it’s all right, I don’t care what you believe, it doesn’t matter.” This is too often done over coffee cups, holding hands in Christian rallies, joining movements that have known error and such things where our sentimentality overrules our devotion to the faith. “For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 11).

Life In God’s World

We share God’s world with all kinds of creatures and there is a certain worldly etiquette toward them all. People, who are made in God’s image, are in need of truth in the most basic way. They need to be reconciled to God and we, who know Christ, are the ambassadors to lead them out of their error (2 Cor. 5:19-21). Legalism, at this worldly level, resorts back to its basic form: working to obtain salvation. License has no limits when the sinful nature is combined with the love of money and of self.

At this level we not only “buy the truth and sell it not,” but we must propagate the truth as well. In so doing, it is fatal to the effort of evangelism for a believer to condone the works of a lost man as if he were making points with God. Today’s society already sees churches as pragmatic service centers for doing good in the community (What else, they ask, could they be for?) Neither can we forget that a lost man has a most basic selfish desire that in itself is keeping him from repentance. It expresses itself in every area of his life. We cannot, at the same time feed this desire for a human world view and simultaneously ask him to understand agape love. What agreement, asks the apostle, can these things possibly have? (2 Cor. 6:14-17).

The Christian response to error on this level is separation. Not leaving the world, but neither congratulating it (1 Cor. 5:9-10). But we will never separate from something we continue to love, and we will never quit loving something until we are convinced of its error.

Alexander Pope wrote some time ago,

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”⁸

Balthasar Hubmaier, the great Anabaptist, often ended his writings with the words, “Truth Is Immortal.”⁹ Perhaps he coined the phrase from the last living apostle who left us with the inspired words that ought to be our motivation and vision, “For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever” (2 John 2).

Notes:

1 Hans Denck quoted by Estep, The Anabaptist Story (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996) p. 116.

2 Quoted by Ralph Turnbull, Jonathan Edwards The Preacher (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1958) p. 56.

3 Blaise Pascal, Pensees #949 (New York: Penguin Books, 1966) p. 325.

4 Quoted by Ernest Pickering, Biblical Separation (Schaumburg: Regular Baptist Press, 1979) p. 84.

5 Ravi Zacharias, A Shattered Visage (Brentwood, Tenn.: Wolgemuth & Hyatt Pub., 1990) p. 134.

6 John MacArthur, The Master’s Plan For The Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991) p. 49.

7 Ernest Pickering, The Tragedy Of Compromise (Greenville: Bob Jones U. Press, 1994) p. 25.

8 Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle II, line 1.

9 Balthasar Hubmaier, “Eighteen Dissertations”, In Lumkin’s Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1980) p. 21.

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Telling The Old, Old Story

December 29, 1996Written by Rick Shrader

Telling The Old, Old Story

by Rick Shrader

Christian literature, to be accepted and approved by the evangelical leaders of our times, must follow very closely . . . a kind of ‘party line’ from which it is scarcely safe to depart. A half-century of this in America has made us smug and content. We imitate each other with slavish devotion and our most strenuous efforts are put forth to try to say the same thing that everyone around us is saying.

A.W. Tozer¹

As I began this season, in my normal pattern, to speak of “the Christmas story,” I found myself strangely uncomfortable with such a designation for the Incarnation. That word, “story,” has become a most popular word for today’s communication models. However, a quick scanning of the dictionaries confirmed my suspicion. In a 1967 dictionary, the first synonym listed under “story” is “history,” but in a 1993 dictionary, the first synonym is “tale.” In other words, if I use the word “story” to describe the birth of our Lord, Mary and Joseph, the angels and the shepherds, it may come across very naturally to my audience as a “tale; an anecdote; an account of imaginary past events.”² You see the dilemma. I can better relate to my audience by telling a “story,” but risk meaning. Or, I can explain “history,” a boring subject to today’s image-conscious generation.

We feel a right to object since the four gospels are given to us in narrative form. But are they “story” in today’s sense of the word. They may be (technically) “narrative” but they are emphatically “history” as any past fact is history and yet must also be narrative (if it actually “happened”).

Why are we confused about this? I think because of a Christian exploitation of a modern error. That modern (or postmodern) error is that history doesn’t matter as much as how the “story” of history affects you. It is not the fact but the feeling about the fact. Why do we think commercials appeal totally to fantasy in order to persuade us to buy? Because we care about the facts? As Troy Aikman ironically says, “get real!” Now, we communicators, knowing full well how our audience is affected by story-telling, often capitalize on the method without thought of the results.

We all know the popularity of Christian fiction by the volumes in the book store. We have all listened to contemporary music that drones on and on telling of someone’s recent dream about going to heaven and back. A recent issue of Leadership magazine reports, “Pollster George Barna agreed on the importance of stories. ‘Busters are non-linear, comfortable with contradictions, and inclined to view all religions as equally valid. The nice thing about telling stories is that no one can say your story isn’t true.’”³ And, of course, no one can say your story is true!

In the 40’s, C.S. Lewis lamented, “In lecturing to popular audiences I have repeatedly found it almost impossible to make them understand that I recommended Christianity because I thought its affirmations to be objectively true. They are simply not interested in the question of truth or falsehood.”⁴ In the early 70’s, Francis Schaeffer warned about erasing the line between fact and fiction. “History as history has always presented problems, but as the concept of the possibility of true truth has been lost, the erosion of the line between history and the fantasy the writer wishes to use as history for his own purposes is more and more successful as a tool of manipulation.”⁵

More recently, William Lane Craig has explored the problem of presenting historical knowledge. “The narrative approach tends to ignore the intent of the original author and evaluates texts only on aesthetic or non-cognitive grounds, while the objectivist hermeneutical approach seeks to discern the author’s intent and so to penetrate more deeply into the past. Narrative non-realists are thus unconcerned with historical truth of narratives or with what actually happened. Indeed, it is not clear whether there really is such a thing as the past on a thoroughgoing post-modernist view.”⁶

The question remains: how far do we adopt our generation’s methodology knowing that, though we are speaking their language, the further we walk this path with them the more they are unconvinced of what is real? If we stop and insist, “we must now come back to reality and believe or not believe facts,” we risk losing the buster generation.

But it is a risk that must be taken! As a matter of fact, it is what the New Testament calls preaching the gospel. Roger Lundin warns, “The language of postmodernism is anything but a morally neutral tool that people of any persuasion might pick up and use to some appointed end. Instead, that vocabulary commits its user to a very specific vision of the self, truth, and the ethical life–a vision fundamentally at odds with the most basic affirmations of the Christian creeds.”⁷

I love stories for stories’ sake. But the reason I have eternal life is because of a fact of history. God became man at a time and place. He died and resurrected in like manner. If I can call that a “story” it is fine with me. If I have to choose between a happy audience and the facts of the gospel, I’ll stay with the facts. In rhetoric, we really don’t gain by giving up. As Chesterton said, “In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don’t know it.”

Notes:

1. A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit Of God (Harrisburg: Christian Publications, nd) 92.

2. “Story,” The Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Oxford University Press, 1993.

3. “This Is Not Your Boomer’s Generation,” Leadership, Fall 1996, p. 17.

4. C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) 65.

5. Francis Schaeffer, The Church At The End Of The Twentieth Century (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 70.

6. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 167.

7. Craig quoting Lundin, 39.

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The Election In The Mirror

November 29, 1996Written by Rick Shrader

The Election In The Mirror

by Rick Shrader

Christianity could be transformed into a cultural religion. Instead of attending to otherworldly concepts such as individual salvation and everlasting life, the church would focus upon this world. Moral pronouncements, social involvement, and political activism would become the work of the church. Such ‘cultural Protestantism,’ to use H. Richard Niebuhr’s term, came to dominate 19th-century Protestantism and continued as a major strain of 20th-century theology. . .

Gene Edward Veith, Jr.¹

The American electoral process has become one of the most disappointing seasons to endure. The feelings inside can range from mere skepticism to outright fear for what a lack of character and the ability to lie about it can produce. It does not help to see those who know better, and themselves do better, back away from confrontation because support would be lost. Right and wrong is now decided by the majority and worse, by a sampling or poll of the majority. Nothing in history can be brought up, commented on or corrected because history (or what a politician said last month) is only a record, or text, of what happened and that is always skewed by the opposition.

Reading samplings of the Lincoln/Douglas debates is enlightening. It doesn’t take long to realize that there has been a dumbing-down of the electoral process in the last one hundred or so years. Today’s audiences could not follow the reasoning or muster the patience to stand for eight hours and listen. The biggest difference is that then it was a character issue. People were deciding upon a man’s honor and moral capability to meet whatever crisis may come. Lincoln proved to be a good choice.

Today’s campaigns are a choice between Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Which one will give me the most gifts. If I have a list of ten ”issues” which will benefit me or take something away from me, I will vote for the one who gives me most things on my list. And I don’t care if it is Attila the Hun who can deliver. Character not only doesn’t matter, it may be that a lack of character can find a way to give me more than I could figure myself.

Vision and progressiveness is defined only in terms of what a candidate has done. A little success here, an increase there, and this must be the right way for the whole country. For those who dare to entertain a truly new idea, the press has trashed immediately as mean-spirited, divisive and hopelessly out of date with where we are already going.

Now the purpose of this paper (as well as my pulpit) has never been to bolster the political process. But I think that what I have just said about American politics is also a characterization of something else. That is American Christianity. Not just liberal or left-wing Christianity but fundamental and evangelical Christianity. It has been said that people will vote for the politician who is most like them. Christians will follow leaders and methodology that is most like them as well.

We have seen a time when the theology and methodology that itself produces immorality and avariciousness, has become the most popular belief system and is building the fastest growing churches. We have seen a time when musician after musician is caught (I would like to say ”admitted” but I can’t) in prolonged immorality only to become even more popular, much less have his/her music questioned or set aside. Is this not because Christians are, in reality, actually excusing themselves, as when a voter ignores the improprieties of a candidate?

Don’t think of building a church or a ministry on character (as Paul, ”I speak as a fool”). American Christianity has a wish-list and wants to know how much of it you will supply. Your theology and devotion matter little if you can produce the goods. Selfish desires have become the only theology we care about. ”How much will God give me back if I promise Him this much?” ”How long do I have to be faithful before God will put my family back together?” ”How many believers do we have to make before God will save our country?” And how many pastors are really asking, ”How spiritual must I become before God increases my results?”

Progress is defined by what others are doing and with what has made others become prominent and admired. ”This will double your attendance.” ”This will excite your people.” ”This will reach those who have no interest in spiritual things.” Then (can you believe it?) we incorporate it and call this bandwagon being ”progressive!” G.K. Chesterton said, ”Progress ought to be based on principle, while our modern progress is mostly based on precedent. We go, not by what may be affirmed in theory, but by what has been already admitted in practice.”² We are pragmatic to the core. Our only principle is success.

I thought a progressive thinker might be a pastor who studies his generation in light of God’s truths, decides what will be best for them and gives them that regardless of their tastes. But that is an old mentality not in tune with today’s consumer mentality. Today, I must study my generation to see in what direction they are headed and move quickly to run in front of them, proclaiming myself to be a bold leader! To justify my ”progressive” vision, I can point to others who have done the same. In this way, I can promise people enjoyment, enthusiasm and, by all means, a lack of boredom.

Today’s national election is truly an election seen in a mirror. It is the American ethic. It is also American Christianity. We hate it but we can’t stop being it. We preach against it but practice it every Sunday. Chesterton also said, ”As is common in most discussions, the unmentionable thing is the pivot of the whole discussion.”³ The very answer to society’s ills is that of which the Church has refused to speak.

Notes:

1. Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Modern Fascism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1993) pp. 54.

2. G.K. Chesteron, What’s Wrong With The World (San Francisco: Ignatious Press, 1994) p. 167.

3. Chesterton, p. 191.

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