On July 11, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Theology, Wisdom, Worship
1
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs singing with grace in your hearts to God.”
~Colossians 3:16
Everybody loves Psalm 23. Many Christians do not know, and still fewer love and will sing Psalms 109 and 137. When it comes to a few Psalms, Christians become Marcionites. (He was a second-century theologian who pitted the vengeful God of the Old Testament with the loving God of the New Testament revealed in Jesus. Consequently, he cut the Old Testament out of the biblical canon and highly edited the New Testament.) Christians will rightly appeal to Psalm 139 to declare that the unborn are persons and shouldn’t be aborted, but they might ignore the last part of that Psalm that declares that we hate our enemies with a perfect hatred. This hatred reflects God’s own hatred, as declared in Psalms 5 and 11.
“This is not what Jesus taught,” you may hear. But in Colossians (along with a parallel in Ephesians 5:19), Paul says that the Psalms are “the word of Christ” that is to “dwell in [the church] richly.” We are to teach and admonish one another with these Psalms. Paul is not contradicting Jesus. Singing the Psalms is a clear command of Scripture, so it is incumbent upon us to obey the command and seek to better understand as we obey.
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On July 10, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Culture, Postmillenialism, Theology, Worship
4
On more than one occasion, I have heard the CREC and particular churches within the denomination labeled as “a cult.” This puts us right there with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Jim Jones, and David Koresh. Apparently, we are a dangerous heterodox group of over-zealous extremists following some sort of charismatic personality. Our Book of Confessions puts us in the stream of Reformational Christianity, but somehow, we are still labeled as a cult. Maybe it is our acceptance of paedocommunion, but that is far from new to the Christian faith. Maybe it is our optimistic eschatology, but many Christians have been optimistic about the kingdom of God in history. Perhaps it is because we have Doug Wilson, and, well, they just don’t like him. I don’t really think any of those particulars cause people to label us as a cult.
From my own observation (and this is my personal opinion), what seems to chafe the average American Christian about the CREC is the commitment. The commitment level of the average CREC family to attend worship regularly, participate in the church’s life, and live out the faith in a counter-American-cultural way is staggering for the modern American Christian.
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On June 6, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Culture, Discipleship, Men, Politics
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With all the confusion in the world, people are looking for something … anything really … that seems sane and stable. Politically, the left has shown their certifiable insanity by not only having economic policies that destroy but doubling down on them every chance they get. “Gender dysphoria” is accepted as someone’s personal journey and not something to be corrected by confrontation with absolutes such as, “No, son, you are not a girl. You are a boy, and you will act like one.” Our government acknowledges Pride Month, recognizing deviant sexual lifestyles as praiseworthy.
Amid all this chaos, there are political conservatives, masculine and feminine online influencers, and fundamentalist non-Christian religions that seem to acknowledge realities that the woke left rejects: the absolute distinctions between the sexes and masculine and feminine roles. People hungry for sanity will eat from Christless garbage cans because they see that the only alternative is the sewage of the left. Not much of a choice. As good as some conservatism and fundamentalism may be in some respects, if they are Christless, then they don’t deal with the real problem of mankind.
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On May 27, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom
1
We have entered what is, quite frankly, one of my favorite seasons of the Church Year: Ordinary Time. The season is not principally named “ordinary” because nothing “extraordinary” happens during the season. Rather, “Ordinary” comes from numbering the Sundays between the Day of Pentecost and Advent. Ordinal numbers are used to number the Sundays: First, Second, Third, etc. However, there is a delicious linguistic twist for paronomasiacs (punsters). Ordinary Time happens to be, well, quite ordinary. The church uses green as the liturgical color to mark off the season that lasts around six months. This is a time of steady growth after the waters of baptism have fallen on us at Pentecost. There are no real big parties for these several months, only the steady grace of the day-in-day-out regularity and, in many ways, imperceptible growth.
If you think about it, most of history is like this. We read about epic events in Scripture and other histories outside of Scripture, but while all that is going on, most of the world is plugging on day after day living ordinary lives. This is reflected well in the Church Calendar.
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On May 16, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Discipleship, History, Theology
2
When the construction of the Tabernacle was complete, God declared his approval by covering and filling it with his glory (Ex 40:34). Moses couldn’t enter the tent because of the glory cloud (Ex 40:35).
When the construction of Solomon’s Temple was complete, after Solomon prayed his prayer of dedication, fire came from heaven, lit the bronze altar, consumed the offerings, and the glory of Yahweh filled the temple (2Chr 7:1). The priests were unable to enter the house because the glory of Yahweh filled the house (2Chr 7:2).
When the construction of the post-exilic or restoration Temple was complete, there is no record of a historical event like the glory of God filling the Tabernacle or Solomon’s Temple. God promised that he would “fill this house with glory” so that “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former” (Hag 2:7, 9). God’s glory fills the post-exilic Temple of Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek 43:1-12), but no record exists of a priest or king praying and fire and cloud filling the Temple … until Pentecost.
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On May 2, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship
1
While playing prominent roles in history, the nature and function of angels remain mysterious to a great degree. We meet them in the first pages of Scripture. The serpent is an angelic creature (something we learn more about as Scripture unfolds). Cherubim, angels, guard the way to the Tree of Life after the man and woman are expelled. Angels visit Abraham. The angel of Yahweh leads the children of Israel through the Sea and in the wilderness. Cherubim adorn the Tabernacle and Temple. Angels bring messages from God to Daniel (see Dan 10), Zechariah, and Mary (Lk 1). Four-faced angels make up the throne chariot of God, as seen in Ezekiel 1. Angels play a prominent role in the Book of Revelation. Angels are everywhere in history, but we seem to know very little about them.
By carefully examining Scripture, we can begin to unravel the mysteries surrounding angels and gain insights into their significant role in God’s economy.
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On April 25, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Discipleship, Theology
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Back in 2016, LSU’s athletic director hired a native son, Ed Orgeron, to be the head football coach. Known for his gravelly voice coupled with a Cajun accent, he stepped up to his first press conference, pledging that he would quickly build a championship team. The means to the team’s success would be captured in the mantra “One team. One heartbeat.” Team members must be committed to one another with no prima donnas. They must move as one man out on the field, sharing the same commitments, love, loyalty, and goals. They must have one heart. If they did this with the talent they had, they would grow into a team that would win a championship. In 2019, they did win the championship with arguably the best college football team ever. (I’m a tad bit biased, and I don’t want to talk about what happened after that.)
The apostle Paul’s concern for the church at Colossae (and Laodicea) is that they grow to maturity as individuals and as a church. The path to maturity and, in some sense, its goal is “One church. One heartbeat.” Paul fights (Col 2:1) through all that he suffers as well as through teaching the churches through his letters (cf. Col 4:16) so that “their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, so as to come to all the riches of the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery: Christ” (Col 2:2). Within that statement, Paul gives a perichoretic trinity of characteristics that move the church and its individual members to maturity. We are encouraged as we are knit together in love, and being encouraged through our oneness in love moves us to the full assurance of our faith in the gospel.
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On February 29, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship
1
What is the church? Is it really all that important? If you ask evangelical Christians in America, you will get a variety of responses. In one survey, when evangelicals were asked whether or not every Christian has an obligation to join a local church, thirty-six percent of the respondents said, “Yes,” and fifty-six percent said, “No.” In another survey, a similar fifty-six percent agreed that worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid substitute for regularly attending the worship of the church. Many professing Christians see the church as a good but non-essential part of the Christian life. The church is an aid to my personal relationship with Jesus, but my participation in the church has little to no bearing on my relationship with God and eternal destiny.
Paul disagrees.
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On February 7, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Culture, Wisdom
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As Americans, we proudly flaunt our right to free speech. It is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and anytime we are challenged on just about anything we say, we will appeal to this God-given right. Although freedom of speech primarily focuses on the right to political speech, keeping the powers that be in check, and ensuring a healthy Republic, the First Amendment has been used to protect the vilest expressions in our country. Our birthright is to be able to say what we want, when we want, and to whomever we want. Furthermore, there should be no repercussions.
However, with freedom comes responsibility. You are free to drive a car. You are not free to drive a car into a crowd to maim or kill anyone. You are free to own a firearm (currently). You are not free to use it indiscriminately on others. You are free to speak. You are not free to scream “fire!” in a crowded venue when there is no fire because it can cause people to injure themselves or others. Your freedom of speech comes with responsibilities and, therefore, consequences.
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On January 25, 2024
By Bill Smith
In Church, Theology
1
How do you know if a church is a true church? As the Reformers were being excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century and having to form their own churches, they developed three distinguishing marks of a true church. The Belgic Confession (a Dutch Reformed confession written in the mid-1500s) summarizes these three marks:
The marks, by which the true Church is known, are these: if the pure doctrine of the gospel is preached therein; if she maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ; if church discipline is exercised in punishing of sin: in short, if all things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only Head of the Church. Hereby the true Church may certainly be known, from which no man has a right to separate himself. (Article 29)
The right preaching of the Word, the proper administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline are the triad that marks out true churches.
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