- While she has false sons in her pale, she ever will prevail. The Church is the enduring institution that will never be destroyed though attacked and ridiculed.
- We have a crisis in our society. The Church has lost its place as society’s spokesperson. She is no longer a royal polis whose voice is treasured.
- The ultimate weakness of the church in societal terms stems from the diminished role given to Her in the home and in the public places.
- As Calvin writes in his commentary on Galatians 4:26, “This designation, “the mother of us all,” reflects the highest credit and the highest honor on the Church. I am certain that this perspective is not well received even in conservative Reformed circles.
- There is a distinct Catholic-phobia among Protestants who think that treating the Church and her worship with honor entails a kind of idolatry. So Protestants in all their independence choose to submit to no one, but their own authority.
- The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church is treated as if it began its development in the Billy Graham era.
- The WCF, Chapter XXV states clearly that the Church is “….the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.” It is central to the Reformed confession to affirm such verity.
- R.B. Kuiper’s “Glorious Body of Christ” stands as one of the greatest works on the church ever published: https://www.amazon.com/Glorious-Body-Christ-R-Kuiper/dp/0851513689 …
- When unbelievers use the church as a scapegoat for their unbelief they should immediately recognize that Christ became the scapegoat for our sins. There is no excuse for unbelief.
- C.S. Lewis observed: “The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.”
13 Thoughts on Reading the Bible
- We need to see our entrance into the Bible’s words as something of a heavenly excursion. The Bible is a window into the New Jerusalem; the place where faith turns into sight. Indeed it’s the wardrobe into a new world.
- Coming to the Bible is formational. We are being formed into something, or better yet, into Someone. Entering into the Scriptural drama implies that we vow to dwell in that story together with God’s people. It is not a mechanical experience, but an experience of togetherness.
- The Bible is to be experienced like excellent wine. It has to be savored, explored, cherished slowly. The Spirit of God does not waste his breath, so every text is a revelation of that divine truth.
- Reading the Bible cannot be an exercise in proof-texting. Prooftexting atomizes the Bible and fails to see the redemptive flow of Scripture.
- God’s love is manifested in His sharing revelation with humanity. The Bible is the “perfect” which has come (I Cor. 13:10). Thus engaging the Scriptures is entering into a community of love.
- We often treat God’s Word as an encyclopedia. We seek data to fill up our tank of knowledge, but knowledge is an (ad)venture, the pursuit of self-giving love. As Dr. Esther Meek observes, “Knowledge is not information, but transformation.”
- Devotional pietists fail to see the necessity of singing the Bible. When we sing the Bible, it is treasured and memorized. It is the grammar stage of biblical literacy.
- We wish to saturate ourselves in the biblical story through various means available, and singing is an indispensable part of this process. To know the Bible is to sing the Bible.
- I have always been fascinated with the practice of corporate reading of the Scriptures. We should probably have people over our homes merely to read the Bible out loud. Our children and our families need to hear the Bible.
- It is always pitiful to visit evangelical churches where the Scriptures are only read–partially–during the sermon, while mainline churches continue the liturgical pattern of three readings per service, evangelicals who cherish sola scriptura shy away from it.
- The prophets were clear about this. Where there is no prophetic revelation the people perish, which is to say where the revelation is not treasured the people find alternative revelations to satisfy their desires for ultimacy.
- Reading, engaging, speaking the Bible is a way we express our union with Jesus since Jesus is communicated most clearly and objectively in God’s holy writ.
- Scriptural language is the language of faith, hope, and love. In the Scriptures we are renewed in our faith, we find hope in the work of Messiah, and we are engaged in the language of love with the great lover of our souls.
A Brief Review of a “A Quiet Place”
For me, a trip to the movie theatre is rare these days. With a large family, it’s much simpler to microwave the popcorn and Netflix our way through a peaceful Friday night. But I made the exception to see A Quiet Place. I did so because I love Jim Halpert. The Office was a comedic genius. Jim Halpert (played by John Krasinski) earned enough brownie points to give him a chance outside the office set. So, I decided to dive into his breakout moment; that moment when nice Jim Halpert jumps into the land of blind monsters.
The English band The Tremeloes waxed poetically when they sang Silence is golden. In John Krasinski’s world, silence is not only golden but the key to survival. In a world where sign language and few soft spoken words and whispers compose verbal communication, one family submits to the art of quietness. The dinner table is not filled with outrageous laughter, but meditation and contemplation. Board games cease to become moments of loud and intense competition, but inaudible strategizing. In fact, the overwhelming silence communicates a profound paradox throughout. How can one express grief and love without words? A Quiet Place answers those questions with a series of silent but compelling replies.
In a sense, there is nothing new about this movie. Monsters and men always have shared screens together. Each is pursuing their agenda of destruction or salvation. But what is new about this old scene is that this script takes the ordinary and bathes it in inexplicable sacrifice. How far will a father go to save his family and how far will he go to communicate love through silence? These questions are given definitive answers throughout, but the answers are given in the context of excruciating tension. Blind monsters have never been so terrifying; pain has never been so privatized, and family has never been so treasured!
Watch A Quiet Place with a heavy dose of anticipation. Redemption does come. Love does win. But the road to victory is paved with the sounds of evil.
Nine Observations on Church Membership
1) Baptism gives you access to God’s gifts and promises anywhere. To be a member is to be formalized into a particular covenant community somewhere.
2) Membership is kingly citizenship before the Second Coming; one cannot roam alone on earth because earth’s life is to be modeled after heavenly life which is communal (Mat. 6:10).
3) Don’t expect me to listen to your interpretation of the Bible when you don’t listen to the rules of the church for whom Christ died. To take up your cross and follow Jesus is also to follow his Bride.
4) Hebrews 13 says that you are to submit to the leaders over you. When you decide to remain autonomous concerning church membership you are refusing to obey this imperative. You cannot submit to a leader when you despise the church he serves.
5) It is true that finding a church comes with difficulties. One needs to find a place where not only the creed is followed but where praxis lines up with your particular values and vision. However, this is not a reason to “shop” around endlessly.
6) When someone says to me, “I’ve looked for a church & can’t find a place,” they are generally saying, “I don’t want to find a church because it will infringe too much on my liberties,” or “I can’t find a place that holds to every little detail of doctrine I subscribe to.”
7) Membership is testing your obedience to the fifth commandment and your allegiance to a greater society.
8) Membership is a sign of a healthy Christian community. Those who refuse to join a local church are acting in accordance with their own creeds and symbols. Those who join are acting in accordance with the church’s historic creeds and symbols.
9) In sum, unless you are in a deserted part of the country where no Trinitarian churches exist or on brief temporary assignment somewhere, it is your Christian duty to join a local Trinitarian congregation whether it lines up with all your distinctives or not.
Worship Is Hard
I have written before about the hard work of worship. I want to add another angle to this on-going conversation. There is a holy exhaustion that comes after a worship service. I believe this is an actual test of a healthy church experience.
Over the years I have heard people ask me why our church music is so difficult. These same people most often thank me a year later for encouraging them to do the hard work of learning psalms and hymns and songs of the Spirit that are unfamiliar to the general evangelical ethos.
If we think we can enter the presence of God and simply leave all the work to the “professionals” while we sit passively watching the spectacle, we are misunderstanding the relationship between Christ and His Church. Worship is a conversation between Groom and Bride and this conversation is not one-sided. Worship is a recapitulation of marriage. Marriage is hard work. It takes time to learn about and from one another. The analogy is similar in worship. In worship, we are learning about God and from God. Therefore, we need to approach God’s throne as participants rather than mere listeners. We are to come boldly before him, and this boldness calls us to work in our relationship and communion with King Jesus.
The Riot and the Dance: A Short Review
“The movie was so not boring,” uttered my nine-year-old after the one-night showing of The Riot and the Dance. With a delicious buffet of colors, this nature documentary romanced the eyes of those who watched. God’s creation is majestic, but it is also purposeful in every way: the exalted artist of all creation intends every stripe, every groan, every kick, and every crawl.
One of the distinct features of this celebration of creation was its brilliant writing from the pen of N.D Wilson and the narration of Dr. Gordon Wilson who exuded joy as he engaged every creature great and small. As a writer, I tasted every carefully crafted sentence with its perfect alliteration and precise prose. I have seen various creation-themed documentaries and movies from a Christian perspective, but The Riot and the Dance immersed itself uniquely in an apologetic of beauty. Yes, there is room for facts and evidentiary elements, but what is also desperately needed is for the grammar of creation to shine stunningly. And it did. One left not only amazed at the vast array of creatures and beasts in God’s creation, but also amazed at the unique role each animal plays in God’s nature. As N.D. Wilson observes:
“You can’t be ignorant of all these creatures and be good stewards…If we are to have dominion over all creatures, we need to know these creatures.”
Creation is God’s playground, and we need to keep our eyes open to see his creation playing, perhaps even to squint a little harder to see more of it. It’s all worth it. Even the snakes? Yes, even the snakes. In fact, the snakes play a crucial role in this playground since it is from its deceitful embodiment that evil enters the world. Yes, the snake has a vital role to play. And for this reason, the writers remind us that one day “the nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den” (Isa. 11:8).
“The whole world groans,” says the Apostle Paul. And in fact, The Riot and the Dance gives us audio and video proof of that reality. The world groans as it seeks to rid itself of evil; it groans because it can’t wait to see the lion of Judah roar away evil. But until then, amidst the danger and cries, Eden is present everywhere.
The Riot and the Dance was so not boring. How could it? It’s God’s world and everything in it dances.
Episode 26: Billy Graham & The End of an Era
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The Rev. Billy Graham died on February 21, 2018, just shy of his 100th birthday. In this episode of the Kuyperian Commentary, Pastor Uri Brito and Dustin Messer discuss the important role that Billy Graham plays in the sociology of American Christianity.
“He [Graham] was just this larger-than-life personality,” remarked Dustin Messer, “who was able to rally such disparate fractions of Christendom in a way very few were able to do before him—and certainly no one is able to do today.”
Pastor Uri Brito reflects on Graham’s commitment to simplicity, personal integrity, and prayer. “Billy Graham maintained and preserved, what we would call, a very simple message and definition of the Gospel in full reliance on the Holy Spirit.”
The world of Evangelicalism in the West was shaped by men like Billy Graham and the two explore what the future of American Christianity might look like in the next generation of Evangelicalism.
The two also discuss the legacy of Billy Graham as the scorn of both theological liberals and Christian fundamentalists.
Episode 23: RC Sproul
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In this episode of the Kuyperian Commentary Podcast, Pastor Uri Brito and Dustin Messer discuss the life and legacy of the late Dr. RC Sproul. On December 14, 2017, at 78-years-old Dr. Sproul passed away and went to be at home with the Lord.
Dr. R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education ministry located near Orlando, Fla. In addition, he was copastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president and chancellor of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. a
- https://www.ligonier.org/about/rc-sproul/ (back)
Reflecting on the Life of R.C. Sproul
I recall meeting Dr. R.C. Sproul for the first time. He was sitting with his wife Vesta and a few other scholars at lunch. A friend took me there and introduced me to him. “How are you, young man?” he asked. I didn’t respond to his question. Instead, I uttered with all the courage I could muster: “Thank you for your ministry.” Indeed I was thankful and still am.
Dr. R.C. Sproul died on the 14th of December, 2017. He died the year we celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. I have read the many tributes to Dr. Sproul in these last several days. Some of them written by people I know well and who worked closely with Dr. Sproul. Death provides a time of reflection. Sproul’s death at the age of 78 brought back many memories of my days in Orlando. His influence continues in my library. I have dozens of his books and an unending selection of Tabletalk magazines and almost a gigabyte of his audio lectures. His legacy will live on for generations to come.
Introduction to R.C. Sproul
I lived in Pennsylvania in the late 90’s. I had arrived to study a year in America. The evenings were cold in December. The only distraction I had at night was an old radio that worked half the time. One particular night, I turned on the radio to the sound of Handel’s Messiah. The lecturer was clear and poetic in his delivery. I listened intently for 20 minutes or so to a lecture on Augustine. “You’ve been listening to Renewing Your Mind with Dr. R.C. Sproul,” the voice concluded after each episode. I retired to my room early every evening to hear his talks.
Though my curiosity increased with each year, my commitments to my synergistic theology prevailed. I could not embrace a theology that took away my liberty to have a voice in my spiritual condition. The following winter I returned to Pennsylvania for Christmas. It was there that I read Michael Horton’s “Putting Amazing Back into Grace.” His brilliant analysis of John’s gospel pierced me and persuaded me to put down my lingering hesitations of Reformed Theology. (more…)
Episode 22: Singing Through Advent
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In this Episode of the Kuyperian Commentary Podcast, Pastor Uri Brito and Mr. Sean Johnson discuss our worship music for the Advent season.
The two discuss the important theme, tone, and composition distinctions between Advent and Christmas hymns. Pastor Uri Brito mentions the Cantus Christi Hymnal and The Lutheran Hymnal which both include a section of Advent hymns.
The two also discuss their favorite examples of Advent songs.
- “O Come O Come Emmanuel” (8th Century, translated by John Mason Neale)
The words for “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” comes from the seven verse poem that dates all the way back to the 8th century. - “Savior of the Nations, Come”
The original version of Savior of the Nations, Come was St. Ambrose’s Veni, Redemptor Gentium composed in the late fourth century.
- “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”
A Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem “Christmas Bells” by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. - Comfort, comfort Ye my people
This song is based on Isaiah 40 to express the hope that Judah’s exile in Babylon was almost over.
