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The Pulpit and the Pure Preaching of the Holy Gospel

The Pulpit and the Pure Preaching of the Holy Gospel

We find various exhortations to faithfully continue in the preaching of the Word throughout the Scriptures. Paul commands Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1–2: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” This is related to the command of Christ Himself in Mark 16:15–16: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Paul describes his and his colleagues work of preaching in 1 Corinthians 1:22–23 “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles…” The Apostle Peter writes to the church in Asia Minor in 1 Peter 1:23–25 “… since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

So we see three basic principles for preaching in the Scriptures: (1) Preach the Word; (2) Preach the gospel; (3) Preach Christ.

The necessity of preaching is a bit easier to establish in North American Christianity than the necessity of the sacraments. Especially among Protestants that have kept the tradition of “the sermon.” Even when it is done poorly in megachurches and the pastor doesn’t really have a “sermon” there is still some sort of “talk”. What I do want to establish within Protestantism again is the authority of the preaching of the holy gospel.

The challenge then is more to establish the necessity of pure preaching. Another challenge is dealing with movements that focus on one command over the other. One group might focus on “preaching the Word.” Another might focus on “preaching the gospel.” Another might focus on “preaching Christ.” Well, why can’t we do all three? That is part of the problem of doing good theology in 2021. Rather than wrestling with the commands of Scripture within the context of the commands of Scripture, we tend to pit the various commands of Christ against one another. As a result, the church struggles to grow in maturity.

Establishing some basics:

There are a lot of discussions about how to preach the Bible to the church. I’ll introduce you to two terms here for now. Lectio continua is when a pastor takes a book of the Bible and goes through it verse by verse or section by section and tries to cover it all. Topical is when a pastor goes through Scripture by taking different texts, or will preach a series on marriage for example, and then finds all the references to marriage in Scripture. Both can be done well or poorly. I do prefer “lectio continua” for the reason that it forces you to deal with tough passages and it allows the text to set the agenda.

In II Timothy 3:10-17, Paul sets out two basic aspects to the function of the Scriptures. (1) The Scriptures led Timothy and should lead others to find salvation in Christ (II Tim. 3:15). (2) The Scriptures teach you how to live in that salvation, they are profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness (II Tim. 3:16).

So here’s how it works. When you preach the Word, the Holy Scriptures, Jesus says that they will point to Him (Jn. 5:39). He is the gospel or at least the gospel is made known in Him (Mark. 1:1). So if you are preaching the Word rightly, then you are preaching of Christ and the gospel (Lk. 24:27). To quote Q&A 19 of the Heidelberg Catechism: the gospel was already revealed in Paradise. These commands are not in opposition. They come together in a holy unity of purpose.

The gospel was already revealed in Paradise

Building on the Basics:

Every text in Scripture has various teachings that arise from the text and can be taught on within the boundaries of the rule of Scripture. The rule of Scripture is simply – Scripture interprets Scripture, the simpler texts interpret the hard texts. After all our understanding that we are governed by Scripture alone does not mean that we are governed by one passage taken out of context at the expense of all of Scripture. The various Reformed traditions explain this principle of the rule of Scripture in various ways.

You will find in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1.6):

“The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture

Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.6

I really appreciated a line that I saw recently in the Anglican 39 articles:

“However, it is not lawful for the church to order anything contrary to God’s written Word. Nor may it expound one passage of Scripture so that it contradicts another passage. So, although the church is a witness and guardian to Holy Scripture, it must not decree anything contrary to Scripture, nor is it to enforce belief in anything additional to Scripture as essential to salvation.”

39 Articles, Article 6

There are various teaching that can be deduced and developed from within the pages of holy Scripture. One passage of Scripture should never be expounded in a way that it is in contradiction with another passage of Scripture. Thus we find various teachings across the Bible. The sovereignty of God. The sinfulness of man. The need for a Savior. Covenant. Kingdom. Church. Sacraments. Authority. Pastors should preach on every one of these teachings that arise from the text and others and still preach Christ. It matters how Christ is preached, that we do not preach a figment of our own imagination, but it must be done nevertheless.

This brings me to reflections on typology. Typology clearly arises from a a proper use of the grammatical-historical method. The grammatical-historical method is simply an analysis of the grammar and the context of the text. It seeks reads the text for what it is: understanding authorial intent. I believe that one cannot use this method and not arrive at various typological readings of Scripture. In the modern day we incline towards a literalistic hermeneutic (which is different from a proper use of the grammatical-historical method) which often limits the one who is opening the Scripture from making the gospel and Jesus Christ clear from all of Scripture.

That being said, I should warn that if typology is done wrong, it can also make the Scriptures confusing. Typology should have rules and controls surrounding it so that the preacher can properly demonstrate to the listener how salvation is found in Christ and how to live the Christian life. One of those rules is this – if your typologizing leads you to contradict a clear teaching of Scripture, or if it leads you to some teaching that is far afield of historic Christian doctrine, you are doing it wrong. Go back and do your homework again.

What is typology? Before I move to typology within the Christian traditions, I will deduce it directly from Scripture. For example, in I Corinthians 10:1-6, the Apostle Paul wades into the deep waters of typology. He does it elsewhere, but particularly here.

In the first five vss of this passage Paul waxes eloquent, drawing lines between the Red Sea and baptism, between Moses and Christ, between the manna in the wilderness and the water from the rock and the spiritual food and drink in the New Testament. All those who drank from the Rock, drank of Christ. He is typologizing here as he does in vs. 6. In vs. 6, he continues with this sentence: “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” The word for “example” is “τύπος” which has a semantic range of “a figure, type, an example, a pattern.”

It is used elsewhere in the New Testament, about 18x, in various contexts. But for our intents and purposes there is an important one in Romans 5:14: “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” There, Paul uses the same word “τύπος” or “type”.

The ancient theologians in the early church had four ways of approaching Scripture – literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogical. The ‘literal sense” is what many refer to when the speak about the grammatical historical method, even when the use of this method reveals the use of many types. The literal sense especially focuses on historical events. The ‘allegorical sense’ in my understanding is very closely associated with the discerning of ‘types’ within Scripture. Some will even speak of a ‘typological sense’ as opposed to the ‘allegorical sense.’ The ‘tropological sense’ simply refers to the ‘moral sense’ of a passage. Combined with the ‘literal sense’ this is another focus of the modern use of the grammatical historical method. Finally, the ‘anagogical sense’ deals with future events, prophecies, the hope of the Christian in the resurrection of the dead. All of these can be found within Scripture, some passages may have multiple senses.

This is not abandoned in the Reformation in that you will find a lot of “typologizing” among the Reformers along with them dealing with the literal sense. What the Reformers did, and rightfully so, was to back away from the fanciful and speculative interpretations of the Roman Catholic Church of that time, and to focus more on the clarity of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, as we see in Presbyterian and Anglican confessions, they still continued to deduce from Scripture as well as to interpret Scripture with Scripture.

What is the Gospel?

In recent years, one of the fruits of modern day evangelicalism, is debates over what the gospel is. While certain movements in evangelicalism have given us the blessing of an increased emphasis on expository preaching, at times, the waters have been muddied by a reductionistic understanding of the gospel.

Some people will talk about a tighter definition of the gospel and a broader definition of the gospel. Is the gospel justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ? Is it penal substitutionary atonement? Is it the simple message of repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ? What is it? Definitely, the denial of each of these, is a denial of the gospel.

But what is the gospel?

Well, as indicated above, Mark 1:1 indicates that the gospel is the good news, and that it is “of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” In Mark 15:15, Jesus goes around preaching this message: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

It is pretty clear from Mark 1 that in order to believe the good news, then we must know who Jesus Christ is. According to Jesus in John 5:39, when his people search the Scriptures trying to find eternal life, the whole point of everything is for you and me to find Jesus Christ, because all the Scriptures speak of Him.

Well, the events of the gospels teach us something about who Jesus is. His incarnation teaches us that Jesus is both man and God. His death on the cross teaches us that He died for our sins. His resurrection teaches us that He is victorious over the grave. His ascension into heaven teaches us that He is king. It teaches us a lot more than that as you will find in the various teachings of the Apostles and in the Gospels, but these basic truths are good news. A denial of any of the historical events of His life is a denial of the gospel (as you will find in the Athanasian Creed and implied in the Apostle’s Creed).

Adam was a type of Christ in the sense that he revealed the need for Christ. God’s plan for redemption through Christ, the second Adam, was determined because of the fall of the first Adam in the Garden of Eden. Similarly we see many more pictures point to Christ. Every prophet, priest and king (judge) in the Old Testament pointed to the need for Christ.

I will draw the lines in the Scriptures for those who question this. (1) We learn that Jesus Christ is a prophet. God promised this too Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—” This passage is referred to by the Apostles to speak of Jesus in both Acts 3:22 and 7:37. (2) We learn that Jesus Christ is a King. God promised David in 2 Samuel 7:16: “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’” We see the fulfillment of this promise in Luke 1:32–33 when the angel Gabriel speaks to Mary: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Notice how the throne is given to Jesus in part on the basis of His divinity. (3) We learn that Jesus Christ is a priest. Finally, the Book of Hebrews is chock full of fulfillment, where it speaks of Christ our final High Priest. For example, you will find this in Hebrews 9:11–12: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” The Scriptures are clear: Christ is our final prophet, king and priest.

It is common in the modern day to reduce the message of the gospel to the penal substitutionary atonement or justification by faith. These are definitely key components of the gospel and crucial to the gospel message. To deny such is to deny the gospel. It is a denial of the gospel because it on wants to accept a part of Christ – removing the reality of Christ in His High priestly office from the gospel. But what we focus on can sometimes limit the scope of the gospel. While we don’t want to reject the priestly office of Christ, we also don’t want to reject His prophetic office or kingly office. If want to promote all of Christ then we will promote what the Scriptures promote: that Christ is our final Prophet, Priest, and King.

It is clear from Paul’s words to the young Christians in Corinth that one of the most fundamental expressions of the Christian faith is that Jesus is Lord (I Cor. 12:2, 16:22, Rom. 10:9). The declaration of the Kingship of Christ over the whole world throughout the Book of Acts is what leads to conflict between the kingdoms of men and the kingdom of Christ, even if at times the opponents of the gospel somewhat misunderstand how the gospel takes shape and moves through this world. When the men of Thessalonika panic at the Apostles speaking of another King, they were not wrong. And His rule is very good news. His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:30).

On the basis of what I have laid out from Scripture, I also want to remind the modern church that Jesus is indeed King, and that is very good news. I appreciate the way that the Heidelberg Catechism frames this question where it speaks of Christ also as king in Q&A 31: “and our eternal king who governs us by his Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the deliverance he has won for us.” It is an amazing message of good news for rebel sinners to hear that the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross and His current reign in heaven means that not only is death defeated, but so also sin no longer has power. We find this in 1 Corinthians 15:56–57: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is good news. It is good news that the Son of God took on human flesh. It is good news that He lived and suffered and died and rose again and ascended into heaven and is currently reigning over all things and will come again to judge the living and the dead. It is good news that as our final priest He makes atonement and justifies us by faith in Him, that as our final prophet He accurately teaches us the whole counsel of God and calls all men to faith in Him, that as our final king, He rules us with His Word and Spirit, and protects us in the deliverance He has won. It is good news that our sins are forgiven. It is good news that because of the atonement, because of justification, that sin longer has dominion, that even though we fight, yet we can begin to see the fruit of good works in our hearts, minds, and lives. The Kingship of Christ is very good news.

The Entire Counsel of God:

In the context of what I have written above, it is important that in reflecting upon the teaching of the Apostles in the New Testament that we reflect on the words of the Apostle Paul to the elders in Ephesus in Acts 20:26–27: “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” Here Paul repeats what he said also in Acts 20:20: “…how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,” What Paul says here should be discerned in the context of the words of the Lord to His prophet in Jeremiah 26:2 “Thus says the LORD: Stand in the court of the LORD’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah that come to worship in the house of the LORD all the words that I command you to speak to them; do not hold back a word.” This is how one seeks to rightly divide the word of truth as we find Paul’s instruction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:14–15 “Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

The Scriptures are full of types, of histories and genealogies and poetry and prophecy. It is full of warnings and rebukes and comfort and consolation and lament and joy and celebration and hope. The Lord wants all of that to be given to His people through the preaching of the Word, through the preaching of the holy gospel. But our Lord also wants that to be done rightly. He doesn’t want pastors to be quarreling over words. He wants His entire counsel to be communicated clearly so that the nations might be taught to observe all things that He has commanded us, not just some of the things that He has commanded us (Matthew 28:20).

Conclusion:

The preaching of the Word of God is central to how the church is formed and how it grows in maturity or sanctification (holiness). It was in the Theses of Berne in 1528, that some of the initial reformers wrote these words in the very first thesis: “The holy Christian Church, whose only Head is Christ, is born of the Word of God, and abides in the same, and listens not to the voice of a stranger.” This statement derives its truth, not because it was written by the Reformers, but because the Scriptures declare its truth. The Church, as we find in the words of the Apostle Peter in I Peter 1, experiences rebirth through the living Word of God.

“The holy Christian Church, whose only Head is Christ, is born of the Word of God, and abides in the same, and listens not to the voice of a stranger.”

Thesis #I of Berne

It is a great and awesome task to bring that Word of God to God’s people. It is attributed to John Knox that he once said: “I have never once feared the devil, but I tremble every time I enter the pulpit.” It is fitting to say then that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the true preaching of the gospel.

It is absolutely necessary then that the true gospel be preached, that the Word of God be preached, that Christ be preached all the way from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. God wants His word to be rightly taught and for it to be taught in its entirety: from the prophetic books to the wisdom literature to the gospels. All of it speaks of Christ. So let’s get to work and call out to God that He would bless our every effort to hallow His Name and increase His kingdom, that all our sermons and teaching would be full of the power of His Holy Spirit. “To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.” (Isaiah 8:20)

Photo by Mitchell Leach on Unsplash

Note. This is part of a series of ongoing posts on ecclesiology. You can find the first two here and here. All these posts are up with other content on Nathan Zekveld’s Substack website.

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By In Culture

The Pastor’s First Duty

Pastors have a fundamental responsibility to shepherd within before they can shepherd without. While the negative world provides us plenty of opportunities to uphold truth, if those propensities and proclamations are not shaped by the garden of the Church first, the opinion pieces will fail to get a hearing. They will only draw the untrained and uncivil pugilist to your corner, who eventually may swallow the young clergy. Therefore, that percentage dynamic should be heavily weighed in favor of the immediate parish concerns (I Pet. 4:17).

While much of theological and pastoral output can benefit the outside community, the minister’s primary goal is to meet the needs of his people. He is a local shepherd, accountable to a local body (Heb. 13:17), connected to a local people.

We are experiencing a monumental decline in pastoral candidates in mainline traditions and a slight decline in more conservative bodies like the Missouri Synod Lutheran.* While there are sociological demands for modern pastors to confront every conceivable moral issue, the minister represents God to his visible assembly, whom he addresses from the pulpit and to whom he administers the elements of bread and wine. His particular dispositions must be used accordingly; his gifts need to be activated rather than re-creating him after the image of some publicly acclaimed character.

While there is tangible evidence of institutional dereliction among seminaries, there is still a more significant fault among those who have demands of pastors that do not place them first at the feet of their congregants before the feet of outside inquiries.

Of course, every pastor has a public face, but his local image shapes that public image. To reverse that dynamic is to create influencers rather than shepherds. The decline of candidates stems from expectations that ministers must embody nearly renaissance gifts, and no man can endure that level of pressure for sustained periods of time.

Too much pastoral theology in our day, put the Table and Pulpit secondary, and the political halls and podcasts as primary. But ministers are heavenly professionals tending to the first garden of God before moving into the land and world.

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By In Culture

What Happens on Sunday

Photo courtesy Frank Cone at pexels.com

Every week Christians gather around the world to worship the true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Their songs and prayers ascend to heaven as incense, and God’s word and grace fall to the earth like thunder, lightning, and rain. God speaks, and his people answer. God blesses, and the saints are renewed. God judges, and the Church is vindicated. God appears in his glory, and the Body of Christ shines with reflected radiance.

What happens on Sundays in Christian churches cannot be understood merely by what we see with our eyes. In fact, many believers do not realize the supernatural event that they participate in every Lord’s Day. We walk in the midst of angels. We sing praise with saints who surround heaven’s throne. We are strengthened as the Spirit moves upon us and in us, arousing love, increasing faith, and deepening hope.

The Church does battle every Sunday against the world, the flesh, and the demons. The spiritual hosts of wickedness are arrayed against us, but they are vanquished through faith exercised in worship and obedience. We pray against the darkness, and those prayers become beams of light, penetrating dark spaces and frightening the fallen sons of God. We sing psalms, and the walls of the enemy’s stronghold crack and fall. The war is not over. In some ways it has just begun. But the victory is assured having been won by our Savior who destroyed sin and Death’s power from the inside.

The Church is Christ’s Bride, but it is also his Body. She is both the one whom he rescues and the hands and feet by which he makes war. The Church is a Dragon-Slayer, not passive, not effeminate, but embodying the risen and ascended Christ who lives, reigns, rules, and judges in and through his people. The Church sings war psalms because she is at war. She sings royal psalms because she serves the world’s true King.

The Church is an army, and worship is war. But the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or earthly. They are psalms and prayers, confession of sin and confession of faith, the word preached and believed and obeyed, the sacraments applied, the covenant lived in our homes and communities every day. When the Church forgets who she is, where she is, and what she is doing in worship, she becomes worldly, effeminate, passive, and ineffectual. But the spiritual reality persists. On the Lord’s Day God descends to meet with his people, and his Church ascends Mt. Zion. Prepare your heart with joy to meet the living God.

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By In Culture

Deeper Magic, Greater Joy

Photo courtesy Skylar Kang, pexels. com

C. S. Lewis wrote about the “deeper magic” in The Chronicles of Narnia. The idea first appears in the first book of the series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There, immediately after Aslan’s resurrection, the Great Lion explains that the Witch’s apparent triumph was destined to fail because, although she knew and could use some magic, “there is a magic deeper still which she did not know” since “her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time.” Lewis is contrasting the demonic powers of this age with the eternal power that belongs to God alone. Evil may seem to gain the upper hand, and it certainly appeared so to the disciples immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross, but there is a “deeper magic” which stretches back beyond time, before the foundation of the world, when God chose a people to save by the sacrifice of his Son.

I suppose I am at risk of alienating some of you since I have been informed by more than one Reformed brother that discussions of “magic,” in general, and Lewis’s horrid allegory, in particular, are incompatible with a biblical, orthodox, and Reformed understanding of the faith. I do not wish to offend or quarrel with any of my brethren, I would only point out that their antipathy is not the result of a pre-modern, biblical worldview but actually is the influence of “very up-to-date and advanced people” who wear “a special kind of underclothes.” Modernists, like Eustace Clarence Scrubb, can be saved, but their salvation will involve not only the forgiveness of their priggishness but also the restoration of their imagination. But I digress.

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By In Culture

On the First Day of Every Week: The Case for Weekly Communion

Photo courtesy pexels.com | Pavel Danilyuk

Other authors have addressed the question of weekly communion here at Kuyperian Commentary before, including Pastor Uri Brito earlier this year. I do not presume to improve upon their work but would like to add a few thoughts in arguing for the Church’s weekly celebration of the Eucharist.

An increasing number of Reformed churches are embracing weekly communion at the Lord’s Table. This is a good thing, in my judgment, and a more consistent expression of our Reformed heritage and the desire to be always reforming in light of Scripture. But this is very different from what many Christians are accustomed to. Many evangelical Baptist and Reformed congregations have never eaten the Supper weekly. It is only celebrated infrequently in many Presbyterian churches and not without prior warnings and extensive preparation by the members of the congregation. On what basis is the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper to be advocated?

There is no question that the early Church partook of the Supper every first day of the week. The historical evidence is beyond dispute. The Didache, written between A.D. 50-150, provides explicit evidence of the Church’s weekly communion.

But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.

Didache XIV, ANF 7.381
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By In Music, Worship

The Masculinity Of Corporate Singing: A Call To Christian Men To Sing

It was once common knowledge that the burliest and manliest chaps among us were the ones most interested in song. For instance, when soldiers marched into battle or were training for it, they would often march to the rhythm of a rousing tune. When rowers on old ships would drop their ores into the frigid waters, they kept time with sea shanties and other melodies. When those same men gathered together for a pint at the local pub, they sang folk songs and bar tunes. When tradesmen were on the job, they were whistling while they worked. When music was being composed, it was predominantly done by men for men. Essentially, wherever you found the strongest and hardest working men, the most aggressive soldiers, and the saltiest sea dogs, you could guarantee that they were singers. Moreover, they loved it. 

Now, one of the things I find the most peculiar, especially in the modern church, is how effective Satan has been in convincing men to remain quiet in public worship. For too many men believe that singing is a feminine action that grades against their masculinity. Even fewer have found the joy and utter manliness of participating at a rip-roaring level. 

While this does not apply to all men, many no longer feel like loud thunderous song-singing is a masculine endeavor. In fact, who can blame them? When the Church, for the last decade or 12, has adopted overly emotive self-focused songs sung by attractive hip-swaying women on stage, with eyes closed, lights turned down, and maybe a few lit candles to accompany the emergent pop vibe, is it any wonder that testosterone rich men are not clamoring to participate in this? Instead of a Biblically qualified elder leading the saints in public worship of their triune God from the book of Psalms or a Biblically faithful hymnal, far too many churches have adopted the shallow style of the entertainment complex, catering to consumer-driven concertgoers who are looking to be entertained with an experience instead of worshiping the Living God. 

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By In Church, Discipleship, Family and Children

Family Worship and Chaotic Schedules

Photo Credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/factory-demolition-destruction-4757647/

Family Worship Inquiry

A question I love getting from Husbands and Fathers is general advice about family worship. As Fathers, the leaders in covenant homes, we are commissioned by God’s word to teach our covenant children the ways of the Lord every day, and all throughout the day (Deut. 6). We are also instructed in the Proverbs to train up a child in the way they should for when they grow old, they will not depart from it (Prov. 22:6). All of this is reiterated by the Apostle Paul in Ephesian 6 when he commands Fathers to “not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” The weight Fathers feel concerning the task of discipling their families is good and right. Husbands and Fathers have been given a high calling to water their wives with the water of the word of God and to also raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 5 & 6).

I recently received a question about this joyous duty. The central point of this man’s question was about how to achieve family worship consistently when you have a hectic or random schedule. The following is my reply to this concerned Husband and Father with some minor adjustments and additions.

Answer Part 1

The first part of my answer: I think one of the most important things to remember about family worship is that it does not need to look like a Lord’s Day worship service. Remember, that this is family worship with a lowercase ‘w’. It could also very well be called Family Bible study or family discipleship. This does not mean it is unimportant. It is important, like really important. But it is still not equal to Lord’s Day capital ‘W’ Worship. I want to make this distinction so that you know that you need not don a clerical collar, call your family to worship, preach a sermon, assign a son to help distribute the Eucharist, and take an offering before anyone is allowed to brush their teeth and head to bed.

The main thing for you to remember is that you are discipling your family during your time of family worship. This should of course mean reading through books of the Bible with your family and singing Psalms, Hymns, and spiritual songs together. But also, add into the mix books of/on church history, learn Psalms chanting or a new Hymn together, read through The Chronicles of Narnia, or simply pick from many other helpful Christian books to read through and discuss. There are many ways to crack this egg.

Another important thing to practice (which, in turn, is not good for a Lord’s Day Worship setting) is to allow and encourage rabbit trails about our faith and how it applies to every area of life. If your wife or covenant kiddo has a question, spend time answering it. Whatever you do, do not brush it off or move on too quickly. You do not want anyone in your family to feel uncomfortable asking their spiritual leaders questions about their faith. When this happens, that family member is displaying much-valued humility and trust in their spiritual leader. Don’t crush that. That is something to be cultivated, water, and protected.

You specifically mentioned consistency. This is huge. My simple encouragement is to pick a time that works and stick with it. You may need to try a couple of different times before figuring out what works best. That’s OK. If you miss a day, do not grieve as the Gentiles who have no hope. God’s mercies are new every day and His steadfast love endures forever. Get back up and continue mission.

Answer Part 2

Question: What about random schedules?

Answer: Yeah, schedules, especially random ones, are sometimes difficult dragons to slay. The first thing I would figure out is if the randomness is a symptom of something deeper. Some diagnostic questions might be helpful. Do you lack basic time management? Do you lack self-discipline?  Beyond that, it might be helpful to choose a form of family worship that works for each context. Decide to do something shorter/easier on the days with less time and extend it for days/contexts that are less busy. If you did that and were able to get something in every day, you and your family would benefit tremendously. Additionally, take advantage of the many audio versions of content that are available to the Church today.

Finally, whatever you do, do it, and don’t ever give up. Giving up teaches a much worse lesson to your family than trying to faithful lead your family and for one reason or another it doesn’t go perfectly. Turns out, on this side of glory, it will never go “perfectly”. Look to Christ in everything you do, and bring your family along with you.

I hope that helps.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:58 (ESV)

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By In Church

Ten Theses for an Ecclesiastical Conservativism

At a very practical level, the Evangelical Church has been injected with counterfeit spiritualities. We are a people looking for a city whose builder may only be in office for four years. Our temptation to veer to the side of the temporal is striking in our day, especially as the modern evangelical church founded largely by the disciples of the Billy Graham crusades willingly imbibes a distant ecclesiology from our Reformed forefathers.

For whatever reason, many have simply given up on the Church as a means of salvation or as a motherly figure (Gal. 4;26). The result has been a radical shift into politics and pundits as deliverers of human woes while forgetting the Table and Sacred Time.

But we should not be overly critical of only the evangelical enterprise in this country. We should be quick also to overturn the tables of those who opine sophisticated about the Church and her principles regulated by the New Testament alone and who view the endeavors of earthly politics to conflict with a spiritual kingdom.

These evangelicals, however well they dress their theological discourse, offer little to combat the profound changes in the ethical standards of our country. I am a Reformed, Evangelical Christian with the bona fides to prove it and the letters of recommendation from a fine seminary. I do not affirm the hierarchical structures of Rome or Constantinople, nor do I fall into the two alternatives listed above.

What we have before us is a time to go back to basics, especially if ecclesiastical anarchism becomes the norm in our age. Therefore, it seems good and wise to provide some basic theses on the prospect of a new American evangelicalism that does not despise the church, and which sees her role as fundamental in the re-shaping of the current political experience.

Therefore, I offer ten theses on this relationship:

Thesis I: Ecclesiastical Conservatism begins thinking about politics first as a churchman and then as a citizen of the body politic. His loyalty is first as a worshiper and then to his responsibilities to think about the politics of the day. The first must flow into the other and not the reverse. Our temptation to view government as the answer is a sign that we are eager to give up the role of the Church in society.

Conservatism observes the expansion of the state and the overreach of the government in areas where the Church should be independent. We, therefore, oppose such actions and accept that our fundamental duty is to obey God rather than man.

Thesis II: Ecclesiastical Conservatism affirms that the Church is central to the purposes of God in the kingdom and that from her flows the wisdom of God to the world (Eph. 3:10). Wisdom comes from above through the lips of ministers and the gifts of bread and wine. The lessons or rituals from D.C. should never take precedence over the Church.

Thesis III: Ecclesiastical Conservatism does not embrace the civic calendar as her first order of business. It does not embrace the flag over the cross nor the pledge of allegiance over our pledge to the Christian Creeds. We do not substitute the worship of heaven for the worship of political victors. For this reason, candidates for local and national offices must have as one of their central priorities the freedom of the Church to be who God called her to be on earth (Mat. 28:18-20).

Thesis IV: Ecclesiastical Conservatism prays for her leaders every Sunday (I Tim. 2:1-3). If a Church’s political orientation does not acknowledge the Pauline necessity to pray for the good of the country through whatever leader sits in the White House, she is violating the primary focus of Ecclesiastical Conservatism, which is to be faithful to the commands of the Bible whether the Left or the Right is in power.

Thesis V: Ecclesiastical Conservatism cannot abide by the murder of the unborn, even if it becomes “the law of the land” or if it has the word “precedent” behind its laws. Further, there is no justification to vote for leaders who violate this fundamental assertion outright and whose trajectory contradicts this basic thesis. This thesis should be the starting point of any ethical understanding of politics. We rejoice with the overturn of Roe and Casey and diligently pursue to see that all 50 states abolish abortion laws within their constitutions.

Thesis VI: Ecclesiastical Conservatism understands the difficult decisions of parishioners in dealing with flawed candidates. Yet, we are not called to abdicate our role as citizens placed in a particular place in history (Acts 17:26). We believe Christians are called to make difficult decisions based on the body of information available and carefully contemplating the wisdom of their elders in the Church and people of good reputation in the community.

Thesis VII: Ecclesiastical Conservatism does not escape politics but embraces it as an expression of his faith in the world. We do not embrace a Gnostic view of history, nor do we embrace the ideology that says our disposition towards cultural and political things is divorced from our faith expressed amidst the congregation. Our faith as churchmen and churchwomen is carried out in the voting booth.

Thesis VIII: Ecclesiastical Conservatism does not put its trust in horses and chariots, but neither does it abdicate its trust that God rules over horses and chariots. God uses the power structure of Government to bring about his purpose of justice on earth (Rom. 13), and he acts by his divine providence according to the history of that body politic, whether they obey God or forsake his commandments.

Thesis IX: Ecclesiastical Conservatism is not a call to revolution through arms but revolution through the armor of God (Gal. 5). We put on the faith through song and sober living (I Thes. 5), which means that our primary tasks are more local among the body of people we call Church.

Thesis X: Ecclesiastical Conservatism views the first day of the week as the central day for the formation of his political thinking and doing. If his concerns display a greater interest in the things of the world over the things of the Church, he has committed idolatry and embraced a lie. He is, above all, a servant and worshiper of the Most High God to whom all praise and glory belong now and forever. Amen.

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By In Podcast

Episode 99, Methods for Preaching and Teaching

In this episode, we cover some basic principles of preaching and teaching. Should there be a distinction between Bible Teaching and Catechetical instruction? If so, are there ways to communicate differently in certain scenarios?

This is an instructive episode for those who teach and preach in the Church.

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By In Culture, Pro-Life

God’s Mercy and the Spirit of the Age

Guest Post by Samuel Parkison

As I write this, it is mid-morning in the Middle East. I am looking over a balcony at the ocean, with the Arabian Gulf just a two-minute walk across the street, getting used to the sights and smells and tastes (and heat) of my family’s new home. Some of you know that for the better part of the past year, we have been working to move here for a career transition of sorts. I have come here to be a professor of theology at the first ever evangelical seminary in the Arabian Peninsula. There will be other occasions for me to share more about this particular venture; I’m simply pointing out that this is my new home. I am, geographically speaking, about the furthest away from the United States as I can be. And yet, never have I felt more of a bond with my “kinsmen according to the flesh” (cf., Rom 9:1-2), my fellow Americans, than last night while walking around a giant mall in the UAE when I received a notification on my phone that the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Gratitude for God’s Mercy

The news stopped me dead in my tracks. My knees got weak, I felt woozy and had to sit down to concentrate just to keep the tears from coming out. So much gratitude. I never thought I would see this day. Of course, I have prayed for it. Hoped for it. Spoken and written about the need for it. But even when the now infamous draft-leak of Justice Alito’s opinion filled me with great hope, I confess it was difficult to keep my cynicism at bay. I have learned to brace myself for disappointment. But last night was real. So, while I am settling into my new home in the Middle East, I continue to rejoice with my countrymen.

No matter how you cut it, yesterday was a win for justice, which means it was a win for America, a people who have been incurring a mind-boggling amount of blood-guilt since 1973. We have been polluting the land with our wickedness and have been begging for the wrath of God Almighty. Think I’m exaggerating? Listen to how Psalm 106 describes child-sacrifice:

[Israel] served [pagan nations’] idols,

            which became a snare to them.

They sacrificed their sons

            and their daughters to the demons;

they poured out innocent blood,

            the blood of their sons and daughters,

whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,

            and the land was polluted with blood.

Thus they became unclean by their acts,

            and played the whore in their deeds. (Psalm 106:36-39)

The blood of innocent children idolatrously sacrificed in demon-worship (which, I would remind you, does not require the conscious awareness of its worshipers for it to qualify as demon-worship, per 1 Cor. 10:20), pollutes the land. My beloved nation has been doing this very thing on a nation-wide scale since 1973, with the body count of some 67 million deaths. The blood of our innocent has been crying out from the earth, calling for the just wrath of God which makes yesterday so great a mercy I can hardly bear it. What do we deserve? We deserve for God’s holiness to be vindicated by a swift and decisive judgment. We deserve to be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. We deserve to be decimated like Egypt was when God delivered Israel from captivity. We deserve for our walls to crumble like Jericho. And yet, what did we receive yesterday? Mercy. An invitation to repent.

Reactions from the Opposition

Now, as a reminder, we should keep in mind how modest of a ruling came down yesterday. This is important because I have seen a lot of curious reactions. There are two general reactions I want to call attention to here.

Reaction One: “You Aren’t Really Pro-Life Because You Don’t Care for the Vulnerable”

This reaction is represented in the memes and tweets that effectively deride pro-lifers like myself for not really caring about the babies, because if we did we would put our money where our mouths are, stop being so fiscally conservative, and get on board with big government policies that support women in need with medical care, adoption, foster care, etc. My favorite taunt along these lines is, “If you really care about the babies, would you support mandatory child-support for the fathers in every situation? Huh?” To which I reply with a hearty, “Yes! Absolutely! I am pro-expecting fathers to take responsibility for their offspring!”

To the challenge for pro-lifers to support the care of those in our society who are in desperate need of help, I simply agree. The question is, what is the best method for taking care of those in need in our society? My skepticism that big-government policies are the solution for taking care of the needy and vulnerable in our society does not come from my penny-pinching conservativism, it comes from the conviction that the government is intrinsically incompetent to do that work. I say “intrinsically” to emphasize that this is not a deficiency on the government’s part. That’s not what the government is supposed to do, and so it should not be surprising that it’s bad at it.

But even if you disagree with that position, we should point out that it is not as if pro-lifers have been neglecting care for the needy and vulnerable in our society. We have been accepting the challenge to care “holistically” with our dollars and time for decades. On every meaningful metric, it is the religious and pro-life demographics that are the most generous with their time and resources to non-profit organizations that do the work of caring for the orphan and widow without compulsion from their neighbors or government. This is the demographic overwhelmingly represented in foster care and adoption. This is the demographic that starts and funds and operates crisis pregnancy centers whose agenda are not simply to “end abortion,” but rather to care for families in general and needy and vulnerable mothers in particular. However, even if that were not the case, this reaction is a poor argument in favor of abortion. In my recent book, Thinking Christianly: Bringing Sundry Thoughts Captive to Christ, I interact briefly with this line of thinking. Here’s an excerpt from that section:

Let it be known that there is no necessary social prerequisite for getting to speak out against abortion. We should decisively put to death that foolish notion that says before objecting to murdering babies under the banner of “pro-life,” one must satisfactorily establish “pro-life” status by being on the forefront of orphan care, adoption, refugee ministries, homeless ministries, etc. These things are clearly consistent with being “pro-life,” but the increasingly common dichotomy of “pro-life” vs. “pro-birth” should be laughed out of the room. How, pray tell, is it possible to be “pro-life” without first being “pro-birth?”

This is a smokescreen, and to put the matter plainly, Christians who play along are suckers. The goal-post will always change for what constitutes as caring for enough issues to get to care about abortion. Hating “baby-hacking” requires no credentials, especially if those credentials are handed out by those who have no objection to “baby-hacking.” Frankly, I’m quite sure I do not want the approval of such individuals anyway. They can keep it.[1]

Reaction Two: “The Government Has No Right to Control the Bodies of Women

This reaction seems to assume that what happened on June 24 is the making of a law to illegalize all abortion. But the Supreme Court did not outlaw abortion. All they did was deny that it was a “constitutional right,” which means that if a state chooses to enact legislation that prohibits abortion, that state is not being unconstitutional in doing so. States are not infringing on constitutionally recognized rights by enacting pro-life legislation.

Now, I actually do think abortion should be nationally prohibited, and not only for moral and theological reasons. There is a strong legal argument for the abolition of all abortion on the grounds of, at least, the 14th amendment (this has bearing on the “my body, my choice” argument. Abortion is not merely about a pregnant woman’s body, but also the body of her infant). But the point is that yesterday’s ruling did not force any state to stop performing abortions.

So, think about the mindset that lies behind, for example, protestors in California marching the streets with signs demanding the right to abortion. What exactly are they mad about? What are they protesting? They are mad about the fact that not every state must make abortion legal. That the citizens of a state like Oklahoma maintains the right to elect the representatives they want to reflect their values, which includes a high value for the unborn, is intolerable for these protestors. They do not want Oklahomans to have the ability to establish representatives who will establish and elect those laws. Protestors in California have lost literally nothing by way of “ability.” Their state has enshrined abortion with legislation in anticipation of the reversal of Roe v. Wade. But they are so passionate about mothers having the “right” to kill their pre-born babies that they are protesting other states having the ability to prohibit pre-born-baby-killing. Their own state protecting their ability to kill their babies isn’t enough: they demand that every state everywhere be obligated to do the same. Such a response, frankly, is madness.

Behind the Veil: What’s Really Going On

As a Christian theologian, I have to also point out that this is not only irrational, it is demonic. I’m not calling people on the other side of this issue demons, mind you. No, they are not demons or sub-humans, they are image-bearers of God himself, having more dignity and worth, and value than they themselves could possibly imagine. I am saying, rather, that the spirit that possesses a group to take to the streets in angry opposition to the verdict, “baby-killing is not a constitutional right,” is not a spirit of love and goodness and justice, but rather a spirit that arises from the domain of darkness (cf., Col 1:13). I am quite certain that most of the individuals vehemently opposed to yesterday’s ruling “do not know what spirit they are of,” but that does not make their clamor for abortion any less demonic. The crowd that boils over with rage over the prospect of mothers losing the ability to kill their children is possessed by a dark mindset indeed. What we see (and will continue to see in the coming days) with violent threats and attacks on churches and crisis pregnancy centers is the removing of the veil. The veneer of love and gentleness and justice is being peeled back and the darkness of the culture of death is showing its true colors. It is losing all motivation to be seen as loving and is perfectly content with showing its rage.

Still, I can’t help but suspect that many of the most passionate men and women clamoring for more death are driven by shame and guilt. They shout for abortion as an effort to shout down their own consciences. They have the blood of abortion on their own hands, they know it deep down, and they wish to silence that part of them that accuses. So they stop their ears and cry out that the evil they participated in is “good,” and the good that would have protected their children from execution is “evil.” Rather than applying the balm of grace to their sinful self-inflicted wound, they ignore the wound and try to convince themselves that there is no sin to repent of. They may be throwing rocks at the windows of crisis pregnancy centers, but they are aiming at that part of their souls that knows what evil they have committed. To those, I would simply say, “Give up trying to silence your conscience. It won’t work. You know what you have done. So go ahead and let your conscience speak. Let it call the sin, sin. Then, and only then, will you be in a position to hear a better word, spoken by the blood of Christ. He does not silence the accusation by pretending like it’s not there, he silences the accusation by answering it with his own blood. He does not invite you to ignore your sin. He invites you to let him deal with it in a decisive way. You are not beyond redemption and forgiveness and healing. But it is only those who know themselves to be sick who will seek out a Doctor. So, seek him out; he is not far.”

Concluding Prayers

What now? Well for starters, we should unflinchingly celebrate this surprising mercy that God has shown us. We should praise God that at least some states in this country will slow down on racking up the unfathomable debt of blood-guilt they have been incurring since 1973. We should praise God for the lives that this will save. We should thank God for the gift of sacrificial saints who have worked tirelessly for decades to see this ground made (while many of us cynically doubted that their efforts would succeed). We should thank them for their faithful endurance, and say, “You were right; God bless you and your longsuffering work!” We should thank God for the common grace of a justice system that does some good (even if it is imperfect).

And we should pray for revival. We should pray that our culture of death would disintegrate and that righteousness be established. We should pray that the hearts of those possessed by the spirit of rage and bloodthirstiness would be turned. We should pray that such individuals would have ears to hear their cries for death afresh, and that they would be shocked by the revelation of what their own voice sounds like; shocked into repentance. We should pray that they receive the cleansing blood of Christ for the forgiveness of their sins (both the sin of abortion and the sin of celebrating abortion). We should pray that God would hallow his name, and make his Kingdom come and his will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

He could do it, you know.

Don’t forget that Nineveh was converted with a five-word sermon. I can’t think of a better invitation to pray for big things like this than the (previously) unthinkable reversal of Roe v. Wade.


[1] Samuel G. Parkison, Thinking Christianly: Bringing Sundry Thoughts Captive to Christ (H&E Publishing, 2022), 105.

*The image for this post is a depiction of Pharaoh demanding the death of Hebrew babies in Exodus 1. It seemed fitting.

Samuel Parkison received his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from @MBTS). He is the Associate Professor of Theology (Gulf Theological Seminary in the UAE). You can find him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/samuel_parkison

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