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On August 6, 2018 By In Worship

Discipling the Nations, Starting at Home

After his resurrection, Jesus gave the church the commission to disciple the nations (Mt 28.18-20). In fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, all the nations would be blessed through Abraham’s seed: Christ, head and body. When John sees a vision of the glorious church, the New Jerusalem, he sees kings bringing their glory into the city. The glory of kings is the realms of their dominions. Entire cultures will be brought in and made part of the city of God.

This glorious vision is overwhelming. The task seems daunting. We hear this grand narrative of “the world” and “nations” consciously arranging their cultures under the lordship of Christ, look at the task before us, and say, “How in the world do we get there from here?” We have trouble maintaining personal disciplines, ordering our own family life, and arranging local church life so that the church acts the way she is supposed to act. How are we expected to be changing the broader culture around us? The task, while glorious in its vision, seems hopeless. (more…)

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On July 30, 2018 By In Worship

The Church: God’s Glory

The first sanctuary for worship wasn’t much. It was beautiful, but it was simple: a garden filled with pristine, freshly created trees. The man and the woman were themselves also in their simplest state: naked and unashamed. The sanctuary and man were glorious but not as glorious as God intended them to be. In all of his dominion taking, man was to take the materials of the world around him and make the garden a more glorious place, which would eventually include man himself being glorified with clothing. The sanctuary and man within it was to move from this pristine state of glory into the greater glory of a developed world.

We can know that this was God’s intention by looking at the rest of the story of Scripture. As the story progresses, God moves his people from making stone altars (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) to building the Tabernacle (Moses) and eventually the Temple (Solomon). Man himself doesn’t return to a state of nakedness, but is clothed with garments of glory and beauty (Exod 28.2). All of these structures include the original garden sanctuary in some form, but they are all more developed. The place where God is meeting with man is becoming more glorious. (more…)

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On July 9, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

The Church: The Holy Of Holies City

At the end of Revelation, John sees a vision of the church, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. She is a “holy city.” This holiness takes an architectural shape in this vision. John tells us that the city is a perfect cube; its width, height, and length are all the same. This cube-shaped image of holiness is not unusual. The Temple had a room that was cube-shaped: the Holiest Place or the Holy of Holies. Those measurements were distinct for this room. The Holy Place (the first room one entered in the Temple) was twice as long as it was wide. But the Holy of Holies was a perfect cube: 20 x 20 x 20 cubits (1Kg 6.20; Ezek 41.4). John’s vision is that the New Jerusalem, the church, is a “Holy of Holies city.” There are no more veils to hide us from God or God from us. No boundaries exist between the church and the throne of God. We, the city of God, live in the presence of God continually.

Understanding the architectural reference of the church being the Holy of Holies shapes the way we are to think about holiness. What is the Holy of Holies, and, consequently, what does that tell us about our own holiness? (more…)

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On June 4, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

Filled With All The Fullness Of God

One thing theologians like (especially Reformed theologians) is precision. Our theological statements must have fine points on them so that we are not accused of drifting into heterodoxy or heresy. There are several bloggers out there who will call you to task if you don’t say things just right or if you don’t say everything there is to say about everything every time you say anything.

Then there is Paul. When he prays for the church in Ephesus, he uses imprecise language when he states his desire for them. He wants them to be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3.19). What does that mean? (more…)

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On May 19, 2018 By In Scribblings, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

The Impracticality of Application

Guest post by Remy Wilkins
Remy is a teacher at Geneva Academy.
His first novel Strays is available from Canon Press

I have never heard anyone say that the Bible is impractical, but I have heard people, after an in depth exegesis of a passage, ask for the practical application. Offer a class on childrearing, marriage, finance and the church members flock to it; offer a course on Leviticus, the visions of Elijah, the importance of the periphrastic participle in the writings of St. John, and you get the weird guy and the retired couple. The church tacitly views great swaths of Scripture as tertial; what good does knowing the furniture of the temple have when the children are screaming, dinner needs fixing, and the job runneth overtime? Getting out in the tall grass of the Bible is fine if you’ve got the time, but who has the time? We need our Biblical tips and techniques in easy and digestible portions. At the heart of this complaint is the idea that the Word of God isn’t clear and that it requires esoteric skills and the free time of an eremitic monk in order to understand.

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On May 11, 2018 By In Culture, Men, Theology, Worship

A Call for Masculine Grace

I was visiting an out of town church recently and the minister was preaching on Paul’s description of how we are called to freedom by God’s grace. While the sermon proclaimed the centrality of grace in the Christian life and how it makes us free, it was missing a key component. I would describe this component as masculine grace.

I will come back to what I mean by this term but first it is important to say that we are saved by grace; it is the gift of God. We don’t bring anything to the table. The only thing required for salvation is that you are a sinner. In this sense, the bar for entering salvation is as low as it can get.

But the temptation is to think that we will stay at this low entry point: every Christian will always be the same weakling sinner he was when he started and he will never move beyond this starting point. Now it is true that we never leave the foot of the cross until we are done with this life but it is important to understand that salvation has an impact on us here and now. Another way to say this is that if a person does not really change after the point of salvation then it would be legitimate to ask if the person has really experienced salvation. Which is to say, the gospel changes people. It really does. So how does grace change people?

The only way we can answer that question is by looking to the standard of God’s character and law. This is what I mean by masculine grace. Being the good Father that He is, God doesn’t leave us where He found us, dead in our sins, but He raises us up and matures us. A key way that He works this out in our lives is by showing us more and more what He is like. As challenging as it sounds, He is the standard of righteousness and holiness that we are shooting for in our own lives. This is God’s plan. He won’t settle for anything less and neither should we.

The danger then in speaking of grace is that we can make it sound like the bar is so low that we will always stay the messy creatures that we are. But we need to be careful with this kind of teaching on grace because it can actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We start out as wretched sinners and that is where we will always be. But that’s just not true. God’s work is efficacious and He really has brought us out of the darkness of sin. We really are the righteousness of God. (more…)

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On April 30, 2018 By In Worship

Living Sacrifices

Sacrifice has not ended. Certain types of sacrifices have ceased, but the way of sacrifice as the worship of the one, true, and living God has not ended. We are exhorted by command and example throughout the New Testament to offer ourselves and what we do to God as sacrifices to God. The fruit of our lips is a sacrifice of praise (Heb 13.15). Our good works and sharing with one another are sacrifices with which God is pleased (Heb 13.16). The gift the Philippian church sent to Paul was an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God (Phil 4.18). Our love for one another is to imitate Christ’s love for us, which was an offering and a sacrifice to God, a sweet-smelling aroma (Eph 5.2). The sacrifice of our lives gives off an odor to the world of life and death (2Cor 2.15-16). We are made a holy priesthood in order to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1Pet 2.5). Christian worship is sacrificial.

If we have a hang-up with understanding our worship in Christ as sacrifice, it is most likely because we think of sacrifice only in terms of atoning for sins. Since Christ has died, there is no other sacrifice for sin to be made. Therefore, sacrifice has ended. (more…)

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On April 28, 2018 By In Culture, Family and Children, Worship

God Is (Not Reckless) Love

Guest post by Rev Sam Murrell of Oak Harbor, Washington

Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, closeupSam is the pastor of Grace by the Sea Anglican Church. He holds a Bachelors in Music from Covenant College and an MDiv from Covenant Seminary.  He is currently a Biblical Worldview Teacher at Little Rock Christian Academy. He and his wife Susan have eleven children and twenty-one grandchildren.

Cory Asbury’s hot new Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) anthem Reckless Love, co-written with Caleb Culver and Ran Jackson, has taken the evangelical church by storm since its release in October of 2017. It may well join the ranks of the most popular CCM songs of all time along such titles as MercyMe‘s I can Only Image (1999), Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail), which appeared from the Australian worship group Hillsong United in 2013, and more recently Chris Tomlin‘s cloying Good Good Father(2013). Both young and old professors of Christ are raising their hands in ecstasy as they sing of the “reckless love” their God has for them. But should the response to this song be one of jubilant enthusiasm? Is this song worthy appropriate of corporate worship?

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On April 16, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

Food for the Body of Christ

Eating is amazing. From the smells, textures, and tastes that contribute to its enjoyment (or lack thereof) to how the food becomes a part of the eater, the whole activity of eating is a wonder. The food we consume doesn’t remain what it was. Not only does it change form in our mouths, as it moves through our bodies it becomes our body. Food is transformed into us. Proteins and amino acids become a part of our muscles. Carbohydrates are transformed into glucose energizing the body. Fats absorb and transport essential vitamins throughout the body. What we eat becomes us.

Until it doesn’t. There are times when what we eat doesn’t agree with our bodies. The mouth eats and swallows, the stomach receives, but the food never becomes the body. When this happens the body rejects it and we vomit. The food is in the body but it is not the body (Leithart, Peter, Revelation 1–11, 202). (more…)

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On April 9, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

Unqualified Praise

When Jesus addresses the angel (pastor) of the church in Philadelphia (Rev 2.7-13), he has nothing negative to say about his ministry or the church. In a culturally influential city where position and power as measured by the world were important, the pastor had not capitulated to play the cultural games it would take to gain influence and avoid the haranguing of the “synagogue of Satan,” the unbelieving Jews. He had “little power” (Rev 2.8). But he had great faithfulness. Jesus has no charge to bring against him. There is praise without caveat.

We can understand better how Jesus deals with many of the other churches. “You have been steadfast in doctrine, but I have this against you: You have left your first love.” “You haven’t denied my name, but you have tolerated the teachings of Balaam or Jezebel.” We sympathize with this because we know ourselves and our churches. There is always something wrong. There is always a sin or sins that need to be addressed. We are sinners, and we know it. To have Jesus point to sin in our lives may be painful, but it is understandable. (more…)

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