Kuyperian, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On May 18, 2023 By Kuyperian In Culture 2

One Cheer for King Saul!

Or: A Discursus Actually In Praise of David, But Including Some Small Observations on Saul

Guest Post from Jonathan White

Summary: Taking a cue from David’s consistently reverent tone in talking about King Saul and his ruinous reign, the author attempts to highlight a redeeming moment in Saul’s career.

Of all the many, many sermons that I’ve heard on David’s besting of Goliath in battle, one aspect that I’ve never heard emphasized is the positive role that Saul plays in the narrative. It is not a very great part that he plays, but once it has been correctly described, it does make it difficult to maintain the standard depiction of David’s behavior as exhibiting a sui generis boldness and conviction that has no root other than his own bravery and trust in God. While the Main Point of the passage clearly is a highlighting of those two characteristics in David, we always do damage to the text when we bulldoze the instrumentality God uses to accomplish his ends.

In an effort to highlight some of those instrumentalities, I will undertake a close reading of 1 Samuel 17 before extrapolating to a generalized case for the necessity of prescriptive governance with a specific application for American Christians.

Close Reading of 1 Samuel 17

If we are honest with ourselves, we cannot really blame David’s older brothers for feeling a little bit salty at the runt of the litter running to the front after depositing their provisions with the quartermaster (v.22 and 28). David is exceeding the parameters of his father’s task for him (v.17-18) and is also very likely breaking protocol at the front of a highly precarious military engagement. Could David honestly have said in his heart as he hurried to the front lines what he later wrote in the 12th Psalm of Ascent?

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvelous for me.

(Psalm 131:1)

David is being impertinent by involving himself at the front. He is almost certainly below the recruitment age of 20, as laid out in Numbers 1:45; otherwise, he would already have been at the front. One of the tropes of military experience is that those who have actually known the horrors of war are quick to dampen the enthusiasm of the idealistic youth who dream of guts and glory without realizing that the requisite guts and gore may be their own.^a It is very likely that David’s older brothers were already wizened, scarred veterans of Saul’s wars on the Philistines. This claim is defensible by 1 Samuel 14:52 where we are told, “There was hard fighting against the Philistines all the days of Saul.” Saul’s “forever wars” put Bush and Obama’s in the shade and all six of David’s older brothers probably had at least one campaign notched in their belt for every birthday they’d had since their twentieth.

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For a masterful distillation of this truism, I can recommend nothing higher than JRR Tolkien’s masterful one-act play The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, the moral of which explores many themes but could be partially summarized by the one epic thing Ahab ever said, “Let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off” (1 Kings 20:11). (back)

On January 31, 2023 By Kuyperian In Culture 1

We Need to Rethink the Relationship Between the Church and the State. Start by Remembering that the Church Wins.

By William Wolfe

“The Church wins. The Church lasts. The Church is forever. The Church of Christ is the eschatological reality, the final hope, and the eternal, enduring institution. The Church will far outlast any and all earthly governments and their petty mandates, ultimately triumphing over the state in the end.”
WILLIAM WOLFE

The Church in America Just Got Punched in the Mouth

When boxer Mike Tyson was asked by a reporter about an upcoming fight and whether he was concerned about his opponent’s strategy, he shot back with the now-famous answer: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

He’s right. Everything sounds good in our heads, but when we get rocked with unexpected circumstances, plans can fall apart. Plans for how to live as Christians, and gather as churches, in America, for example.

Which is exactly what happened in the spring of 2020. The Church in America got punched in the mouth.

As COVID-19 hit the country in March and April that year, governors and mayors all across the nation issued indefinite “lockdown orders” (liquor stores, casinos, and abortion clinics exempted, of course). All of a sudden, churches had to figure out what they were going to do: Stay open or close? And for how long: Indefinitely or until they came to a different conclusion? It has been decades since the debate about what it means to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt 22:21) had broken out so fiercely in America, and in live-time.

The time-tested plan that the Church had always followed — continue to gather regularly, in obedience to God’s Word and in free exercise of religion, as protected by the First Amendment — took a haymaker right to the head.

To say that governing officials were overreaching when they told churches not to gather would be an understatement. At the most basic level, it was a gross violation of the First Amendment, which guarantees us as U.S. citizens that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Some churches that ultimately defied the lockdowns were later vindicated in court, like Grace Community Church, which won its legal battle with the state of California and Los Angeles County “after the governments agreed to pay $400,000 each as part of a settlement for violating the Church’s religious liberty during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

While most churches are back to normal, many of us still find our heads spinning as we consider how so many churches just completely rolled over for the government. Elsewhere, I have written about how statism is one of the great threats to the Church in America. What happened during COVID shows us exactly why and how that is the case.

If we want to have better operating plans for churches going forward — plans that survive a few shots from the commies — it means we must first rightly understand the power and the purpose of the Church. In other words, we must get our bearings and begin walking at least in the general direction of understanding what God has said about the nature of the relationship between the Church and the state.

In order to do that, you should meet Abraham Kuyper.

Kuyper’s Concern: The Sovereignty of God and the Certain Triumph of the Church

One man who thought and wrote about this important question of the relationship between the Church and the state, was Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper served as the prime minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905 and was also an influential theologian and journalist. He had an expansive vision of the sovereignty of God over all of life and unapologetically sought to influence the fallen world with Christian virtues and values. He famously exclaimed that “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” (1).

Christ as King over all, both seen and unseen, both spiritual and physical, both the Church and the state. This was a dominant theme in all of Kuyper’s theology and political reasoning. So, the purpose of this piece is to briefly reflect on this wonderful yet easily forgotten truth: The Church wins. This was something that Kuyper understood deep down in his bones: The Church ultimately triumphs over the state — forever.

A series of Kuyper’s collected works, On the Church, contains a beautiful and resounding description of how it is the Church — and not the state — that lasts into eternity. It is the Church, and not the state, that is the true Kingdom of God. The Church doesn’t exist within the state as much as the Church is slowly but surely conquering and replacing the state.

I think this is important for Christians to consider, wrestle with, and ultimately believe. Why? Because so much of the conversation about what the Church should do during COVID made it sound as if the Church was some sort of servant of the government. The dialogue seemed to imply that the Church only exists because the government allows it to exist. That is not just false but nothing could be further from the truth.

If you only read one thing from this article, read this quote. Read it closely. And read it twice. Kuyper explains:

“The church does not function in a human society that is by nature governed by the state, but she carries within herself the germ of the all-encompassing worldwide kingdom, which will one day replace every state and assume its function.

It is therefore decidedly incorrect to honor the state as the palace in which the church is assigned no more than a side wing.

Rather, the state is little more than scaffolding erected on the building site where the church is busy laying the foundation for the palace in which Christ will one day establish his royal throne.
When the battle is over, the state will disappear forever. The dawn of the eternal existence of the nations will rise out of the church, not the state” (2).

Have you ever thought about it like that? Far from the Church needing to come, hat in hand, begging for the state to let it worship God, the Church can and should stand tall by the authority granted to it from Christ. The Church can be confident that it will be the final institution left standing, as all earthly governments dissolve at the return of Christ, and blow away into the wind like chaff. In other words, in the end, the Church wins. So, we should act like it now.

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On January 12, 2023 By Kuyperian In Politics 2

Political Pluralism is a Sham!

When I come back from these speaking engagements, I generally return with a sense of cheer, and this time is no different. My trip to Monroe, LA, was festive as always, and if you read my latest substack, published somewhere between 4:30-5:30 this morning, you already know. For everyone else, please take a look at the link in the comment section.

My talk was on ecclesial conservatism, the kind of thing you can expect me to say occasionally, frequently, well, practically always. But one of my points focused on this supposed cry for political pluralism within local churches. The argument states that congregations should be receptive to political diversity because churches ought to provide spiritual grounding but offer freedom on political decisions. Churches are okay with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents roaming their corridors and pews. if Machen had warrior children, so does Keller. And they look ripe for victim ideology. Sometimes they will even praise “drag-queen-story-hour” as a defense of freedom.

On the other hand, the right hand, that is, I offered an ecclesial vision that conserves creational norms on sexuality, morality, and labor. If we exercise our liturgical muscles in the rhythm of church life under the authority of the Bible, then we will produce conservative, political congregations. I am not saying we should always vote Republican, but I am saying we should always vote, not Democrat. I hope the negation had its effect on that last line.

Megan Basham summarizes a standard daily occurrence in D.C. to make my point:

“So many prominent Christian figures continue to pretend that the two political parties are roughly morally equal, & the way of Jesus is to strike a balance between them. We should stand against the GOP when it stands against Scripture, but this shows why 3rd wayism doesn’t wash.”

And what political event stirs so much precision in Megan’s thoughts? The House passed a bill requiring doctors to provide medical care after an abortion procedure. If a baby survives the massacre of abortion, some humans voted for medical care for those survivors, and others voted against it. Every Republican voted “yes,” while 99% of Democrats voted “no.”

This level of cognitive dissonance is expected, and any attempt to revive Kennedy’s party from its 1960 grave is futile. We can spend our days desiring and working for a better GOP, and they deserve the shared mockery when they abandon the good life. But we spank them like disobedient children, who are still children in the end. Then, we cover them with protection and encouragement.

Churches can disciple Democrat adherents, and they should be welcomed at our tables as those who need Jesus as much as we do, but what they cannot be is treated as ordinary in regular, Bible-believing churches. Healthy congregations conserve the truth and are regularly appalled at barbarism.

On January 2, 2023 By Kuyperian In Culture Like

Movie Review: Stephen King’s “The Mist” (2007)

By Austin Brown

Rarely has a film confounded my movie sensibilities so powerfully as Frank Darabont’s “The Mist.” Somehow and in some way it is simultaneously terrible yet entertaining, ridiculous yet strangely compelling, pedestrian yet brilliant.

No, scratch that last contrast.

It isn’t a brilliant movie. It flirts with brilliancy—plays footsie with it—like a pair of middle-schoolers who cannot truly reach the heights of love but mimic its form, perhaps even feeling like they’re swimming in love’s deeper currents.

And yet! I couldn’t stop watching it.

And yet! The ending is so shockingly poignant—so shockingly unexpected (at least for me)—that the last five minutes of the film very nearly absolved all the overwrought and bewilderingly unrealistic moments.

The film was released in 2007. So I’m quite late to the party. Were it not for the personal recommendation from Pastor Brito, the movie likely would have remained forever lost in the endless tunnels of Netflix. But there I was the other night, remote control in hand, the red ribbon of Netflix booting up on my TV, ready to be lost in a horror pick.

In many ways, it was the best of situations. I was sick with a lingering cold and knew next to nothing about the movie. All I had was the vague recollection of flappy, bat creatures terrorizing people in a grocery store from the trailer I had seen years earlier.

My faded memory proved accurate enough. In the aftermath of a nasty storm, a father and son go to a grocery store to restock various food items. Once there, a strange mist envelops the building leaving those trapped inside to decide their next play. Naturally, a little fog never hurt anyone, but various horrors are lurking about in the mist, just waiting to eviscerate the next hapless victim attempting to escape.

There are hints as to why all this is happening, but all that is tangential. The movie is fundamentally concerned with the interaction of (mostly) strangers from diverse backgrounds and worldviews trying to navigate a harrowing situation. In the same way that Signs wasn’t ultimately concerned about the visitation of aliens, this isn’t ultimately about flappy, bat creatures—deadly as they and their fellow minions prove to be.

This is precisely where the movie shines and very nearly flops. On the one hand, the acting and interactions are so questionable and poorly executed at times one should feel a strong urge to move on to better and brighter flicks. But then again, if you view it more as a theater play—one designed to be over-the-top—almost in a Job-esk dialogue kind of way (though not nearly so poetic)—I trust it can be forgiven, even appreciated.

Stated simply, it is intentionally grandiose and blunt.

The characters are not nuanced. The creatures are not nuanced. The setting is not nuanced. Everything is chiseled from the black and white ore of stark contrasts.

And yet, to stress the point again, somehow it works surprisingly well.

Some would no doubt want to pontificate upon the social and political undercurrents running through the film, but I’m not so inclined. They exist, but I think it would be a mistake to take it too seriously. The frame of the script cannot sustain the weight of such symbolism. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the effort of pontification should be reserved for more richly praiseworthy films.

This isn’t snobbery. It’s honesty and practicality. One dare not cheapen the enterprise of unearthing layered meaning and symbolism by hoisting “The Mist” up next to Lewis, Melville, or McCarthy. Popcorn is fine, but it isn’t especially nutritious.

In the end, the ending is what provides a beacon of bold light in an otherwise moderately entertaining fog. I truly love Darabont’s choice of conclusion. And from what I have gathered, even Stephen King said that had he thought of it, he would have done it.

Yet, for all that, I would not recommend the movie unless, of course, you have already seen most of the greats. If you have partaken of Forrest Gump, Whiplash, Band of Brothers, and Children of Men, for example, then please indulge in this fun horror romp on a foggy Friday night once the kids have gone to bed.

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Austin Brown is a mailman with a hunger for theology and writing. He had the good providence of marrying his high school sweetheart, Rebekah, is the father of three, and is an ordained ruling elder in the PCA. He’s also a nerdy gamer, a movie lover, and the author of various theological works and novels, including Walking with the Mailman. It’s true; there is scant fondness for canines in his heart.

On December 20, 2022 By Kuyperian In Theology, Worship 2

The Biblical Case for Emotions

Guest Post by Charles Jacobi

“We Protestants get nervous when talking about water and works,” penned Pastor Bill Smith in a piece for Kuyperian Commentary months back. We, Protestants of the Reformed tradition, have a robust history of rich systematization of the scriptures. But in our systematizing, we can lose the granular resolution and diversity of the holy text, resulting in our quease when someone quotes a verse seemingly contrary to our system. This isn’t to say our doctrinal formulations are incorrect—essential doctrine has been abstracted in the history of systematic theology—or that systematics is inappropriate. However, our posture must point to a need for semper reformanda.

We’ve done this with water and works like Pastor Smith points out. Also, with the rise of the modern New Apostolic Reformation types and Postmodernists, we’ve done the same with emotions. Surely much of the Reformed response to the growing hyper-charismatic movement(s) and subjectivists of the early 2010s was right and good as one need deny that experientialism and emotionalism are the standards of truth in themselves—or knowing biblical truths—but we’ve overcompensated. We’re hesitant to talk about emotion like the scriptures do for fear of coming off as experiential.

Take the emotion of joy, for example. Joy is one of the most mentioned emotions in all of scripture. The Psalmist is fond of using the term to express himself and describes a deep emotion-God relationship. He calls on Yahweh to “Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the bones which you have crushed rejoice” (Ps. 51:8) and “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.” (51:12) According to these words, the psalmist seems to think God can generate the feeling of joy within his heart; that the nature of the joy-God relationship can be causal. He claims God can do this to inanimate objects even, “They who inhabit the ends of the earth are in fear on account of Your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy” (65:8). Paul, too, pleads with God to “fill” the Christians in Rome with joy (Rm. 15:13) and reminds the Galatians that joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Moses says Yahweh will “cause His people to shout for joy;” (Deut 32:43). There are other references in scripture that describe this emotion-God relationship as causal, but rarely do Reformed protestants speak about their emotion in such a way.

Cessationists, like myself, have created a boogeyman about subjective states. When a friend says something about their emotions contrary to the cessationist air, like, “I felt the joy of The Lord at worship today” or, “I was anxious, but The Spirit made me feel joy at that moment. Praise God!” our charismatic antenna perks up. We caution our brother his emotions are leading him and that he should steer clear from emotionalism and experientialism, yet this is all the while he’s nearly quoting David, “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comfort delights my soul” (Ps. 94:19). Moreover, we do this while enjoying our own feelings of joy, awe, and reverence in our immediate experience while critiquing another’s. We likely perceive the same subjective phenomena. Yet, we speak and interpret those phenomena in different ways. Feelings of joy are described as both reactionary and Spirit-caused in scripture. So coupled with a rational temperament, what’s the issue with speaking about our joy as Spirit caused if one faithfully deduces that during worship? If we’re consistent, we ought not to let our emotions determine how we deduce the nature of emotion from scripture.

“Veering off into making the subjective-objective” is a likely response to my inquiry. But scripture describes a God that does generate emotion within us; when we’re downtrodden, fearful, or burdened. This is described objectively in scripture, speaking to something subjectively real: like the assurance of salvation, binding of the conscience, or holy guilt of sin. We’re open to voicing those subjective states as Spirit-caused, but we’re fast to skip over joy and other emotional states like comfort (Ps 71:21), peace (Rm. 15:13), satisfaction (Jer. 31:14), spiritual stirring (Haggai 1:14) and other good things (Ps. 107). If Yahweh gave (and gives) unbelievers a spirit of stupor (Rm 11:8) or drunkenness (Jer 14:14) as he pleased, and we’re fine with using causal language accordingly for those parties, it’s tenable to use language about our own subjective state when it’s warranted as well. It’s not experiential or mystical to speak like scripture does.

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On November 12, 2022 By Kuyperian In Culture, Worship 1

A Quick Primer on What It Means to Be Ecclesiocentric

By Rich Lusk

Ecclesiocentrism is incredibly simple to understand and absolutely ubiquitous in Scripture.

The church is the central and most important thing in the world and in history.

That’s it — that’s the fundamental claim.

Ecclesiocentrism can be found on almost every page of the Bible. Some examples:
– nations are blessed/cursed according to how they treat the church (Gen. 12)
– God rules all things for the sake of his church (Eph. 1)
– Grace restores nature, but where is that grace found? In the means given to the church (e.g., in Psalm 128 the blessed man’s blessing comes from Zion, which is the church according to Hebrews 12)
– As the church goes, so the world goes (e.g., in Matthew 5 the church is salt and light)
– Ecclesiastical reformation drives cultural transformation (the lesson of Haggai 1)
– Judgment and reformation begin with the household of God (1 Peter 4)
– The discipleship of the nations and of every sphere of life begins in the church (Matt. 28)
– The church is the leading institution in society and church history is the core of world history (this is evident from the prophets, Acts, etc.)
– The Lord’s service on the Lord’s Day with the Lord’s people in the Lord’s sanctuary is the most important thing we do (the fall took place with a forbidden meal in the sanctuary; restoration is manifested through a meal in the sanctuary)
– God created the world for the sake of the church (as Luther said) so that his Son might have a bride (as Edwards said)
– The storyline of the Bible is basically the storyline of the church (e.g., when the prophets and Acts deal with history, they present the church as central to world events)

These paragraphs from Doug Wilson’s post this week is a good example of ecclesiocentric thinking:

“If we want unbelievers to repent of their sin, the first thing believers should do is show them how. Judgment should begin with the household of God (1 Pet. 4:17). How can we expect them to let go of their sins when we refuse to let go of ours? And more to the pinch point, evangelicals need to learn how to repent of things that we have serenely assumed to be our virtues.

We must repent of our etiolated gospel-centeredness. We need to repent of calling ourselves Jesus-followers instead of Christians. We need to repent of Instagraming our devotional times. We have to repent of our “Jesus is our girl friend” worship songs. We must repent of all our Jesus junk stores. We have to repent of our R2K schizophrenia. We need to repent of the anemic condition of our deracinated seminaries. We need to repent of still caring what Christianity Today prints. We must repent of caring more about our own reputations and turf concerns than we do about the condition of the kingdom at large—we sin like Hezekiah did . . . “peace and safety in my time.” We must repent of all our inverse John the Baptist moves—”they might decrease so that I might increase.” We must repent of caring more about not being publicly associated with worldview thinkers who make us feel extreme than we care about actually understanding the truth as the Word reveals it.”

His basic point: the world won’t change til the church changes. The church leads the way.

Ecclesiocentrists strongly resist dualisms that would marginalize or privatize the church. We believe the church has a public, even political character, as God’s holy nation. So, for example, in many “two kingdom” approaches (e.g., those of WS-CAL and Stephen Wolfe), it is claimed that the church should only deal with “heavenly” or “spiritual things.” The church helps people reach their heavenly telos, but has little to do with man’s earthly telos. So Wolfe says that Christians do not learn about earthly citizenship in the church. Presumably, the magistrate does not learn how to be a Christian magistrate from the church. The church should not teach on manhood/womanhood because those are earthly, not heavenly, concerns.

The problem with that is that the Bible teaches about all of those things and the church is entrusted with teaching the Bible. That does not mean the church’s teaching is exhaustive in these areas or that church is the only place that people learn about these things. But the church does have responsibility to disciple the other spheres.

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On September 15, 2022 By Kuyperian In Politics Like

Prayer at NATCON 2022 in Miami, Fl

When I was invited to offer an invocation at #NatCon2022, I knew that I would be preceded by an opening prayer by a Jewish Rabbi and a prayer on day two by a Roman Catholic priest, and I was to conclude.

I was concerned about the amorphous nature of these events, especially in light of the presence of political and media figures–especially hostile ones–in the audience. But the host gave me a green light to pray as a Protestant, and I did. I was extremely honored to do so. My gratitude to Dr. Yoram Hazony and Dr. Clifford Humphrey for the invitation. P.S. The line of my prayer quoted in the media had a larger context, which, as you can see below, was fairly Christian in orientation.

Prayer for #NatCon2022:

Almighty God, Father, Son and Spirit, we give you thanks for your goodness and faithfulness; for the cup of creation, which overflows with praise and adoration to the Triune God in every square inch of this world. We come before you wholly dependent on your care. We give thanks to your holy name for sins forgiven, redemption displayed, love shown, and justification that comes through the resurrection of Messiah Jesus. We bring ourselves–hearts, minds, souls, and strength–to the great God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We pray boldly that our nation would be uncompromising in her convictions concerning life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. May she preserve life that comes only from the poetic words of a Creator who uttered, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” May she preserve liberty that comes only from the Gospel-filled language that the truth will set you free; may she find happiness not in the unrestrained sexual revolution but in the marriage between a man and a woman, the bringing up of a godly offspring, the fellowship of the saints, and the love of country.

We pray that you would save and defend your Church universal, which you purchased with the blood of our Lord. Do not allow the Church to be seduced by false messages of prosperity, power, perversion, and self-preservation, but let us be rooted in your love, law, and life. We pray for the proclamation of your Word in this land that it might pierce our hearts and renew our longing to be disciples of the Son of Man who gave his life for us on a tree.

May we not grow weary in well doing, but rather let your Church proclaim the full Gospel that calls kings and nations to acknowledge and serve the king of nations. And therefore, to abandon hope that America might become Christian is to abandon the promise that the nations will be Christianized.

In your infinite wisdom, O God of glory, you have bound us together as allies and co-belligerents seeking the good of the city, the county, and the country. And so, as we pursue the renewal of this nation, remind us that our goal is not ultimately to find refuge in good policies but to find the favor of the good and holy God who made us for his good pleasure.

Bless the labors of Yoram Hazony and NatCon this year and the years to come and prosper this work so that our beloved nation might taste the kind benefits of a society rooted in biblical truth and law.

And so, Father, Son, and Spirit, we pray as Chesterton did, that you may not take thy thunder from us, but indeed take away our pride; the pride that keeps us longing for a new ethic, and ultimately, a new god. Keep us humbled before your truth that it may shine deeply in this dark land; keep us steadfast in thy word that we may always build on the sure promises that are yes and amen, the assurance of a God who does all things well, and on Zion, holy city of our God.

We thank you for your promises in the Psalter that the nations would be your footstool. And so we implore that you would exercise your dominion, O Lord, over this nation. May every valley be exalted and may your throne be established on all the earth.

Enrich us this day with learning that we may grow in wisdom and in knowledge and so find that all wisdom and knowledge is ultimately found in the greater Solomon, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, Amen!

On September 3, 2022 By Kuyperian In Culture, Family and Children 1

Dispelling Hospitality Excuses

Guest Post by Randy Booth

“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. ¹⁰Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; ¹¹not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹²rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; ¹³distributing to the needs of the saints, GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY.”
―Romans 12:9-13

It’s a common trait of humanity (even redeemed humanity) to sit in judgment of God’s word. It all started in the Garden of Eden, where our first parents wanted to decide what was and was not good for them. God has some pretty good suggestions, some of which we’re willing to follow, but in other matters, we’ll need to think about it a bit more. We do need to be pragmatic. God’s word might work out for a lot of people, but sometimes, my extenuating circumstances lead me to conclude that it’s not going to work for me. There are exceptions to the rules which can exempt me.

Now hospitality isn’t the only area where we’re tempted to think like this, but it is one of the common topics where excuses for not following the clear and simple command of Scripture are frequent. Like Adam and Eve, we think we know better than God what is good for us. Below are several commonplace excuses why we can’t be “GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY.” I hope to challenge them all.

1. I’m Not Good at It.

We’re seldom good at the things we never do. Practice makes perfect. One of the reasons God wants us to be given to hospitality is so that we will get good at it. Less-than-perfect hospitality is still hospitality, and it is still obedience to God. Read a book (e.g., Face to Face, Steve Wilkins). Get some advice. Watch others who are good at it. Ask some questions. You can learn to do this. You can get better at it. But you can’t get better at it if you don’t do it. You know what to do (i.e., be “GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY”), now set out to learn how to do it. If needed, get some help doing it. If you do these things, the only reason left for not doing it is, “I don’t want to do it.” That would be a sin.

2. My House is Too Small.

Your house can’t be that small. It might be crowded, but I’m pretty sure that many saints from the past, who were GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY, had houses smaller than yours. If you’re an American, your house is probably bigger than the houses of most Christians in the world. Moreover, you don’t even have to have a house to be hospitable; have a picnic!

3. My House is Too Dirty.

If your house is dirty, there are two options: 1) clean your house; 2) swallow your pride and have people over to your dirty house. The command to be GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY is not a conditional command. God doesn’t say, “Be GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY if your house is clean.” Cleaning your house is an option; showing hospitality is not an option.

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On August 20, 2022 By Kuyperian In Podcast 1

Kc Podcast: Ep.103, The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:45 — 21.5MB)

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The Lord’s Day carries remarkable continuity with the Sabbath. Consider it this way: the Sabbath was a creation ordinance to indicate the rest God had when he completed his labors. When God made man and woman, he said it was very good. So he brought to life new flesh, bearing his image.

When the Lord’s Day, or the first day of the week, comes to life in the New Covenant, it also carries the promise of rest. There, God raised Jesus from the dead promising rest for all humanity. The new humanity will find rest in the true Sabbath.

The Sabbath indicated God’s rest when he made the first man. The Lord’s Day indicates God’s rest in raising the true Man. “The Sabbath is made for man not man for the Sabbath” is God’s way of saying, “We are united to the true man when we gather to worship him.”

That bit of theologizing may seem fine and dandy in the manual, but what about the nature of the Lord’s Day? How do we assume that the Sabbath has been transformed into the Lord’s Day? What about Jewish festivals? What role does the condemnation of “delight” in Isaiah 58 play in modern discussions of the Lord’s Day?

Our guest is Stuart Bryan:

Stuart Bryan and his wife, Paige, have seven children, four homegrown and three adopted internationally, as well as seven grandchildren. Stuart earned his B.A. in Religion from Whitworth College and his M.A. in Theological and Historical Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. Stuart has been the pastor of Trinity Church in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, since 2007. Before moving to Coeur d’Alene, he taught at The Oaks, a Classical Christian school in Spokane, Washington. He has written several articles for the Veritas Press Omnibus curriculum and is the author of The Taste of Sabbath: How to Delight in God’s Rest. He’s also been known to enjoy a fine glass of port or a pint of porter and to cheer on the Zags.

Purchase The Taste of Sabbath

On August 19, 2022 By Kuyperian In Culture Like

Contemporary Worship and the Performer’s Burden

Guest Post by Charles Jacobi

The contemporary worship so widespread today is often accompanied by lights, screens, and other strobes that all form the stage into the epicenter of attention. By design, the congregation is led to follow a select few from a distance—the performers—in lieu of the intimate, participatory nature of regulated worship. A chasm splits the observing congregation and performers in this contemporary scene.

Among Christians who enjoy its regulated counterpart, there is consensus contemporary worship is detrimental to the congregation facing the stage for the aforementioned reasons. Such is rightly agreed on. But, we should consider how contemporary worship affects the performers as well. The members on stage may suffer the most, albeit gone unnoticed by many. Their burden might be concealed on the surface though the observant eye will notice the performers never fail to be emotive. They have few bleak moments, less during dramatic songs demanding sentimental mannerisms. The pressure to manufacture expressions with the repeated choruses and mood-setting strobes must be great under the crowd’s gaze. Everything points to the stage.

This is not to say some performers could be sincere in their expression throughout the entire service, as some are surely capable, but to suppose every gleaming mannerism on stage is backed by genuine emotion is untenable. Here is where the contemporary culprit lies.

The performers do not bear the brunt of the error, and, indeed, church members should stray from ingenuine expression during worship, but the contemporary environment’s design pressures the performers into doing so. Individuals in the crowd may not reserve explicit expectations for the performers. But the performers will feel implicit expectations, then pressured to generate an outward passion to satisfy the crowd lest they appear unspiritual. The architecture of the worship is to blame. It can be exhausting, at times heart-wrenching, to watch the members on stage satisfy their demands.

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