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On May 27, 2024 By In Church, Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom

Just Ordinary

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 In Church, Discipleship, History, Theology

Pentecostal Temple

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 In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

Angels

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 In Church, Discipleship, Theology

One Church. One Heartbeat.

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 In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Cosmic Church

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 In Church, Culture, Wisdom

Freedom of Speech?

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 In Church, Theology

The Three Marks of a True Church

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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On January 18, 2024 By In Church, Theology, Wisdom

A Good Church Is Hard To Find?

“Faithful churches are hard to find” is a sentiment that is quite common among conservative Christians. It is easy to understand why we hear this so often. There are loads of unfaithful churches that receive a great deal of press. Ordaining women, homosexuals, and transsexuals to the pastoral ministry is becoming more commonplace. Churches blessing same-sex unions and affirming “gay Christians” are understood as love. The woke mobs rather than the Scriptures control the doctrine and practice of many churches. Shepherds let the wolves in to devour the sheep through false teaching and by not disciplining sins defined by Scripture. However, they are all too willing to condemn and cancel people for the sins defined by the zeitgeist. News of these sorts of churches floods our feeds, confirming our fears that a good church is hard to find.

The types of churches described above are most certainly synagogues of Satan and must be avoided. But there are times when our definition of “faithful” becomes too narrow. A faithful church is what you perceive to be a perfect church, a church in which all the families have their lives together, where the pastor walks about three feet above the ground, where nothing bad has ever happened, and where everyone is a studied theologian and biblical scholar with all doctrinal matters completely settled. The faithful church is the church that exalts your non-essential pet doctrine as the threshold for membership and harps on that doctrine in such a way every week that makes the whole congregation smug in not being like the rest of those churches out there. The faithful church is the one that employs the methods you believe are the right way to do things.

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On January 11, 2024 By In Church, Theology, Wisdom

Colossians: The Measures of Maturity

Everyone has a worldview, a belief system about the nature of the world, where it is going, and their place in it. A worldview is not what we see in the world but how we see the world; it is the way we interpret everything around us. A worldview is the pair of glasses through which one looks.

Some think carefully through their worldviews. Others fall into and float along with the streams of cultural thought. Nevertheless, whether carefully considered or not, we all have fundamental ways in which we see ourselves in relationship to everything and everyone around us.

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On December 28, 2023 By In Church, Culture, Discipleship, Theology

House Building

God is an architect and builder. Creation is his house. One part of the house was finished from the beginning. God created his heavenly palace complete. It was a turn-key job. The earth, however, he gave to his son, Adam, as a project (Ps 115:16). God provided his son all the raw materials and the blueprint to complete his mission. Once the earthly house was finished, the breach between heaven and earth created on the second day of the creation week would be reconciled.

The original separation of heaven and earth was not caused by sin. The division was a design feature of the original creation, and the maturity of the earth was man’s mission before sin entered the world. When Adam sinned, the separation was deepened. From that time forward, the project to build a house in which God would be pleased to dwell, uniting his heavenly home to an earthly home, was crippled by sin.

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