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On February 21, 2023 By In Church

What is Shrove Tuesday?

Shrove Tuesday is a day of feasting. It marks the conclusion of the Epiphany Season. On this day, the Church feasts before she enters into a more solemn and penitential season called Lent, which is referred to as a Season of Confession.

Shrove Tuesday is celebrated with a pancake dinner, which is accompanied by eggs and syrup (bacon can be added–and it should!).

This day allows the Church to celebrate once again the abundance of the Gospel in our lives and the world. The glory of the Epiphany season is that Jesus has given us life and life more abundantly (Jn.10:10).

Following the rich feasting tradition of our Hebrew forefathers, the English-speaking Church has broadly practiced Shrove Tuesday for over 800 years.

What’s the Importance of this day?

Individuals or churches are not bound by such traditions since it is not an explicit imperative in the Bible. However, if churches do practice this, it is vital for members to join in this festive occasion. It gives the Church another healthy excuse to fellowship and form greater bonds through a delightful and bountiful meal.

On the day before we enter into the Lenten story, Christians prepare rightly by celebrating God’s gifts to us so that we can rightly meditate, fast, pray, confess, and repent by remembering the sufferings of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2).

What if my Church does not do Shrove Tuesday?

Assuming the congregation is silent on the issue and has not taken any theological position on the matter, then as a family, you are also free to celebrate Shrove Tuesday. You may also want to invite friends over to enjoy a pancake dinner and sing hymns of praise.

To Shrive

Traditionally, Shrove Tuesday is the day before the first day of Lent. Wednesday marks the beginning of the 40 days of Lent (Sundays are excluded from this number). Shrove Tuesday celebrates the Christ who has given us all things, including His own body for our sakes (I Pet. 2:24).

Shrove comes from the word “shrive” meaning “to confess.” As we celebrate, let us not forget that the Christian life is, as Luther stated, a “life of daily repentance.” Confession is not just reserved for Lent, but it is for all seasons. But as we approach the Lenten Season, we receive a particular reminder (through our liturgical readings and singing) that a repentant heart is a clean heart before God (Ps. 51:2).

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On February 16, 2023 By In Church, Culture, Theology, Worship

Transfiguration & Asbury

Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to the top of a mountain to pray (Lk 9.28). Mountain praying would not be something unusual to the disciples. Throughout history, God met with his people on mountaintops. History begins on a mountain in the land of Eden with a sanctuary at its heart. Abraham meets God on a mountaintop when he sacrifices Isaac. After being delivered from Egypt, the children of Israel worship at Mt Sinai, the same mountain where Moses met with God earlier in the burning bush. The temple is built on a mountain, and, according to Hebrews 12, we still ascend a mountain in our weekly worship. The three disciples had ascended mountains to worship throughout their lives, many times singing the Psalms of Ascent (Pss 120—134) as they went to worship festivals. But on this particular day, God pulled back the veil to reveal to them what happens on the top of the mountain every time they pray … even when they don’t see it.

God spectacularly revealed his glory. Though rare, this was not unique. The children of Israel experienced this at Sinai. Just as Jesus was transfigured before the eyes of the disciples, Moses was transfigured on the mountain. The children of Israel couldn’t look upon his face because of the brightness of glory (Ex 34.29-33). Some believe that this epiphany of Jesus was his divine nature bursting through the veil of his humanity. There is truth to that, but that is not the emphasis. Jesus speaks of himself in this context as the Son of Man. This reference gains layers of meaning throughout history, but its fundamental meaning is “Son of Adam,” the one to whom God gave the blessing and command to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion. God’s intention for Adam, in the beginning, was that he grow to share his glory. Adam fell short of the glory of God (Rom 3.23). Jesus is the second Adam, the Son of Man, who will obtain this kingly glory. God reveals Jesus’ destiny in his resurrection and ascension and, with that, the destiny of man united with him.

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On February 9, 2023 By In Church, Culture

The Demise of Religious Liberalism

My friend, Dr. Daniel Strand, writes,

“…that Protestant mainline churches used to dominate American life. They ruled the Ivies and produced brilliant and influential public intellectuals. Now we can’t name a single mainline churchman. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

I recently addressed this topic and concluded:

“The mainline consisting of PCUSA, ELCA, American Baptists in the USA, United Methodists, etc., have taken trajectories of death throughout. They have sought to bestow power on inclusivism and anointed corrupt priests to lead the way, and to hell, they led.”

This was confirmed just a few hours ago as the Church of England reached a crescendo of filth “approving blessings for gay couples for the first time.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, said in a joint statement:

“For the first time, the Church of England will publicly, unreservedly and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church. The Church continues to have deep differences on these questions which go to the heart of our human identity.”

My exhortation is to fellow conservative pastors: prepare yourselves to absorb thousands of refugees. Conservative ecclesial bodies must invest in catechetical discipleship and build a reservoir of resistance against liberalizing forces without and battle locally and nationally against such forces that seek to crawl their way into the midst of the assembly. People are hungry for ordinary worship, biblical preaching, and a conservative backbone.

But while mainline churches have been precipices of disdain for righteousness, there are additional signs that contemporary conservative bodies are headed toward such ends as well. Forthcoming decisions at ecclesiastical gatherings need to be firm, sustaining the biblical rationale for sexual ethics in all it entails without reservations. There should be no more tolerance for biblical embarrassment among conservative denominations.

The first sign of a failing corpus is the over-explanatory nature by which they undertake to excuse themselves for believing certain principles and affirmations. Therefore, they explain away texts which make them look deranged or unfriendly towards the woke cause. Such signs within these bodies are prequels to well-developed franchises.

The great exodus is already occurring. It’s time to add more chairs to our tables.

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On February 8, 2023 By In Church, Theology

Theology as Application to All of Life

One of my most cherished moments in seminary was being exposed to John Frame’s definition of theology. For Frame, theology was defined as “the application of the Word of God by persons to all areas of life.”a

There were always academic dimensions to theology, but theology was something immensely practical. It brought people to a “state of spiritual health.” This definition is helpful because,

“Theology is thus freed from any false intellectualism or academicism. It is able to use scientific methods and academic knowledge where they are helpful, but it can also speak in nonacademic ways, as Scripture itself does – exhorting, questioning, telling parables, fashioning allegories and poems and proverbs and songs, expressing love, joy, patience . . . the list is without limit.”b

I have since used this definition repeatedly and have learned to appreciate it even more as a pastor. The Spirit does not implant in us an application ex nihilo. Instead, theology is applicable and needs to be made applicable by pastors to parishioners and from parishioners to parishioners.

It is also freeing to consider this definition in light of the theological illiteracy in our day. Certainly, we wish to see the church grow in biblical knowledge, but this definition means that a pastor can instruct even the newest convert on how he ought to live. He can take the measuring of the temple in Revelation 11 and find clear applications for God’s people.

Frame’s definition accentuates the pastoral task in that it calls pastors to ask consistently “How Now Shall We Then Live?” In this sense, as Frame has argued elsewhere, unless theology is practically applied, it has not become true theology.

On the other hand, the one doing theology must first understand it before applying it. We have seen our share of faulty applications in the realm of the home and the church. Therefore, to properly grasp this definition of theology, one needs to be familiar with theology.

David’s battle with Goliath was more than a remarkable example of how we can overcome difficulties in our lives, but also how God can use the weak to defeat the strong and how a nation needs to put its trust in God rather than chariots and how the Church needs smooth stones of faithfulness to destroy the wicked. There are individual and corporate obligations involved in that straightforward narrative.

Theology prepares us to ascend with our Lord; in that reign, we can learn to apply this rulership in all areas of life. In applying our theology, we become ambassadors for our theology. Theology is life, and life is theological.

  1. Systematic Theology, pgs. 8-9  (back)
  2. The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, p. 81.  (back)

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On February 1, 2023 By In Church

Three Theses on Postmillennial Eschatology

One of the joys of speaking loudly around here is seeing some fine china broken in real-time. That’s a metaphor for views being shattered and replaced by something else.

What is that thing broken and replaced? The thing broken is a variation of pessimistic eschatology, and it is being replaced with some happy postmillennialism. Mind you, I am not so much concerned about the loyalty to the systematic category but about the heart of the matter.

It pleases me to see folks going through that theological transformation and sending me notes about it. It is amazing to plant seeds and see them bear fruit much later. God seems to work like that on many occasions.

I believe we are reaching a stage of massive theological conversions, and I have alluded to some of these factors before, but the postmil conversion is a fruitful blossoming of many seeds planted long ago. I have been harping on the postmil “C” chord for a really long time, and I think it’s beginning to see a resurgence.

This may be the result of ecclesiastical behaviors these past three years. In fact, I will go so far as to say that the churches who have been pushing against government tyranny and sundry silliness have postmil bones. Now, lots of other non-postmil flocks have come alongside our efforts or later decided to peek behind the curtain, but the reality is that the majority of pastors I know who decided to fight the tide named one of their kids or their dogs, B.B. Warfield.

This happens not because dispensationalists are gnostic pirates but because theology and ideas matter. A theology that urges the Christian population to cave in cannot be a theology that says, “Jesus shall reign where’r the sun doth his successive journeys run!” It simply can’t!

Now, yes, there are peoples of all eschatological stripes who act inconsistently with their theologies and opine like disciples of John Murray, but by and large, attitudes of reconciliation with government officials who were eager to steal your liberty didn’t come from postmil reformers. They came from those who believed and affirmed a spiritualized kingdom only, one that was content with “If the ship is sinking, why polish the brass!”Postmillennial eschatology is a direct contact sport eschatology. It’s not flag football; it’s the result of a baby created by rugby and the Constantinian religion. It’s real. It’s fleshly. It’s in your face. And wherever it goes, it carries three central affirmations:

First, it affirms that the Christian faith is rooted in the proto-evangelium (Gen. 3:15). It believes that the first Gospel preached was a Gospel that de-throned disciples of the Serpent and moved forward on the offense against religious and political tyrants (II Cor. 10:5). The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent in tangible ways, which necessitates the confrontation of institutions and systems that do not harmonize with the kingdom of heaven.

Second, it affirms the centrality of the Cultural and Great Commissions (Gen. 1:26-28; Matt. 28:18-20). Postmil is not an eschatology of guesses; it’s an eschatology of certainty. We don’t walk around wondering whether the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven; we affirm the kingdom shall come on earth as it is in heaven in history and time. Christ shall return to receive a glorified bride, not a defeated bride. The great feast is a glorious feast of victorious proclamations (Rev. 7:12). What God commands shall be fulfilled, and there are no nuances to that.

Finally, it affirms a bodily sacrificial life before the watching world (Rom. 12:1-2). The certainty of postmil eschatology is not naive about suffering and pain. In fact, it triumphs through our suffering and pain. It sees the sacrifice of the Church as a sacrifice towards something, a symphonic movement reaching its finale. It moves through sacrificial acts of worship first on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7) and then throughout the rest of time (I Cor. 10:31).

Postmillennialism breaks the fine china of the spiritualized/escapist church and calls her to take up the sword in one hand and the shovel in the other (Neh. 4:18). That means we will protect our right to worship the Triune God, and we will work as unto the Lord, and we will strive with all our hearts to ensure that our children and our children’s children seek the good of the city until that day.

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On January 28, 2023 By In Church

The Case for Weekly Communion

Evangelicals like myself, rooted in the Reformation, came very late to the beauty of weekly communion. I was a sophomore in college before I realized that the vast stream of the Protestant tradition celebrated communion weekly. For most of my life, I assumed the table was reserved for special occasions like Easter or Christmas. In fact, I attended a Brethren congregation that did communion once a year.

However, as I broadened my theological interests, I understood the Supper’s function in the liturgy and in the theology of the church, and it became unbearable to contemplate its absence during a worship service.

Historically, our Reformed forefathers—including Luther and Calvin—desired communion to be weekly. In fact, in the early centuries of the Church and the majority of Protestant Churches in the 16th century practiced weekly communion. It was only in the 19th century, and in particular, during the Prohibitionist movement, that weekly communion became mostly obsolete.

Therefore, the infrequent practice of communion is relatively new in the church. This does not mean it’s wrong, but it should raise questions and challenge our assumptions about what the Bible says concerning the frequency of such practices.

The Didache, one of the earliest records of the church after the Bible, says the following:

“On the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.”

The Church believed that we become a purer people by celebrating the sacraments weekly. This is not because there is something magical in the bread and wine but because God uses these means to communicate his presence and strength to us (WCF XXIX.1).

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On January 26, 2023 By In Church, Family and Children, Politics, Wisdom

Authority’s Secrets

“The heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable.”

~Proverbs 25.3

Recently government classified documents are showing up frequently and in some odd places. Classified documents are those secrets to which only certain high-level government officials are privy. The intention of classifying documents is to protect people from the knowledge that they don’t need to have. The government may be protecting those who are working undercover or information that they have on other countries that concern our national security. Sometimes classified documents are a coverup for people who would be punished for crimes if the right people discovered what went on. Nevertheless, the government keeps secrets, and they don’t want those secrets to get out by someone wandering through a former vice president’s garage, his son’s laptop, or even wandering through a former president’s house.

Whatever you believe about the classification of documents and the secrets that they hold, the principle of authorities keeping secrets is a sound one. That is, the Bible teaches that there are some things that authorities will know that others don’t. This is not a gnostic-type special revelation given only to the upper-echelon Illuminati. This is a perspective that subordinates may not have along with information that may hurt them or other people.

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On January 23, 2023 By In Church

Typological Glories of Infant Baptism

The question of baptism and its recipients is truly a matter of grace and not of works. It was my Calvinism that led me to the font. I knew–though it took me a while to act on it–that grace was more than a mere soteriological category. Grace was everything and in every act of God for us. The question of an infant’s ability never crossed my mind as a barrier to accepting covenant baptism. The question of God’s grace was the key that unlocked the baptismal font.

Baptism is a heavenly Pentecost. The Spirit is poured, not we who pour ourselves. Everything is of grace; Gratia sunt omnia. God identifies us as His own from the beginning as He did with the creation, and then He christens us with His spirit. Baptism is the divine hovering. Baptism is gracious because, through it, God re-enacts the creation of the world. In baptism, we are a new creation.

God has copyrighted the world. He labels, gifts, and graces. Man does not have that capacity; man does not create in and of himself; therefore, man cannot change his own identity. We are imitators, but yet only capable of imitating because God graces us with His artistic gifts. We imitate God as we are graced into his imitative presence in the waters of baptism.

In the beginning, the world is first identified by the Triune God (Gen. 1), and then it is called to praise that God (Ps. 19). We are first identity-less (dark and void), and then God fills us with His Spirit (light and life). Baptism is all of grace. We were void and empty. God looked at us (Ezk. 16) and washed us, and clothed us with fine clothing (Ps. 45). We are Trinitarianly clothed.

Baptism is one fulfillment of the third commandment. Wherever the child goes, there he carries the Name of his God. And because God is his God, he should not take his name in vain. He takes his identity in his baptismal garments, which cover his whole body of actions, thoughts, and words.

Infant baptism is of grace because it is the re-enacting of creation. Creation begins in darkness– as in a womb– and is washed. It is like our God destroying nations with fire and creating new ones with a few drops of water. 

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On January 19, 2023 By In Church, Theology

The Cut and Paste Bible

Christians are people of the book. We are a people of the corporate book called the Bible. The Bible was composed by Spirit-led men in all they wrote (II Pet. 1:20-21). But when we read the Bible, we tend to make it an encyclopedia of our favorite life verses. “You like your verses, but I have mine,” we say as if we were playing poker. You can have your own favorite theology, but that’s because you are overlooking my favorite texts. It is easier to function this way than to search for patterns and types and covenantal structures.

This is one of the greatest tragedies of our day. We have created a cut/paste hermeneutic. We have seen the Scriptures as a collection or an appendix of isolated texts. We have accepted the plague of individualism under the guise of special hallmark cards. As a result, we forget that when we read in John 3:16 that God so loved the world, that statement is only an inspired reality in the context of John’s judgment-filled theology of Jesus’ coming. God loves the world, but he does this by condemning and judging people to eternal destruction. In our day, we have decided that if John 3:16 is good enough for Tim Tebow, it’s good enough for me. We can preserve it in its own separate corpus to be pulled out for any ordinary evangelistic enterprise. The result is a Bible that is chopped, red-lettered, and mutilated by our preferences.

But the Bible is a corporate and contextual text. It is vastly different than the individualized approach many take to it. My own assertion is that the individualization of the Bible—the read-one-verse-a-day Bible programs– has created a culture that views the corporate gathering as secondary in importance. Therefore, to quote James B. Jordan, “individualism means that the Bible history is reduced to moralistic stories.” But Samson, Jacob, and Ruth only make sense in union with the rest of the Bible.

When we gather for the Lord’s Day worship, we are worshiping with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven and all the Christians on earth; true enough. But when we worship, we also worship in the context of the entire biblical story. We are participants in the corporate nature of the text. We are people of the book and, therefore, oppose the plague of individualism.

We come to worship not as atomized creatures but as restored humanity put together in a corporate body of worshipers. When we worship, we join the story of the Scriptures in all its fulness and unity.

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On January 14, 2023 By In Church

7 Reasons to Work Hard at Worship

Liturgy comes from two words: “Work” and “people.” Therefore, liturgy can be accurately defined as the “work of the people.”

Our Lord was so righteously angry by the easy business transactions (easy worship) of the Temple that he turned upside down the world when he overturned the tables of the money-changers (John 2:13-16). Such audacity should be imitated by God’s people but cautiously exercised in light of our sinfulness. So here is my attempt to cautiously turn a few tables upside down with the hope that some will decide to keep it that way rather than try to put it back up or mend the broken pieces.

Worship has become perfunctory in our day. The seeker-sensitive movement of the 90’s has morphed into a thousand strategic models for church growth, offering easy worship choices that would be best spread in a meal for pagan gods than the God who made the heavens and earth. Easy worship produces light Christians. Light Christians produce weak men, and weak men produce feeble societies. A worship that does not demand the body and soul is not worthy of its name.

I offer several reasons why worship is and should be hard. And by “hard,” I do not mean “mathematical,” demanding intellectual prowess and a high IQ, but simply that it is fitting for God’s people to bring their bodies as actionable beings into the throneroom of grace. In fact, the best worship is one which can be absorbed within a couple of weeks of practice. But one must be willing to invest in this effort to benefit from its glory.

So, why, then, must worship be hard?

First, worship must be hard work because God demands those who worship him to do so in “spirit and truth (John 4:24).” I take “Spirit” to mean in, “Spirit-led” form. Worship requires a Spirit-shaped liturgy. It must be guided by the inspired words of the Spirit and the indwelling presence of the Spirit. Jesus demands that we take up the cross and follow him, which is hard work lived out by the power of the Spirit.

Worshiping in truth also demands much from the worshiper. John the Baptist had borne witness to the truth (John 5:33), and that witness cost him his life. Thus, worshiping in truth is a challenging task. Our gathered assembly must be prepared to fight hard to/in worship. If worship demands little or nothing from us, it fails the John 4:24 test.

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