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On April 9, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

Unqualified Praise

When Jesus addresses the angel (pastor) of the church in Philadelphia (Rev 2.7-13), he has nothing negative to say about his ministry or the church. In a culturally influential city where position and power as measured by the world were important, the pastor had not capitulated to play the cultural games it would take to gain influence and avoid the haranguing of the “synagogue of Satan,” the unbelieving Jews. He had “little power” (Rev 2.8). But he had great faithfulness. Jesus has no charge to bring against him. There is praise without caveat.

We can understand better how Jesus deals with many of the other churches. “You have been steadfast in doctrine, but I have this against you: You have left your first love.” “You haven’t denied my name, but you have tolerated the teachings of Balaam or Jezebel.” We sympathize with this because we know ourselves and our churches. There is always something wrong. There is always a sin or sins that need to be addressed. We are sinners, and we know it. To have Jesus point to sin in our lives may be painful, but it is understandable. (more…)

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On March 24, 2018 By In Family and Children, Politics, Theology, Worship

To be a Child is to Imitate

Guest post by Lucas Dorminy

Be Imitators, Be Children

To imitate, according to the bible, is simply to follow. Jesus tells His disciples to follow Him, and in doing so His disciples did as He did. The disciples, imitating Christ, performed works of mercy (healing, feeding, etc.), and it is always the case that imitation necessarily includes works or acts. As Aristotle put it when speaking of “Poetic imitation”, the objects of our imitation are “men in action“. You must have an object that does something in order to imitate, that is to behave in a similar way. This seems to be tediously simple, does it not? Of course, imitation is acting as or following the object of our imitation, but is imitation in the Bible just a mindless mimicking of actions? When it comes to following Jesus, it is not.

In fact, as Christians, we must receive the ability to imitate Christ before we can act upon that imitation. The disciples, for example, received authority and blessing from Jesus before they could perform miracles that He had performed (Matt. 10:1, John 20:21-23). We must be chosen and given authority for the task. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (20th century Christian, social philosopher) argued that “Imitation of Christ” is the possession of “Christ’s acquired faculty”, that is to say, the possession of the Spirit. It was the Spirit who empowered the disciples to imitate Christ wherever they went, and it is the same with us today. Imitation, according to the Bible, is the Spirit-empowered following of Jesus Christ.

What sparked my interest in the idea of imitation was an email I received that contained an essay on the status of children within the Church. One of the arguments, or warnings, provided in support of a later age for the administration of baptism was that children often want to please their parents by imitating the faith of their parents without actually possessing it themselves. According to this essay, the innate action of child-like imitation was to be viewed skeptically rather than embraced as a natural response of faith in Christ. Now, this assumes a lot about faith (cognitive maturity being necessary to receive faith being one of the assumptions), but it seems to me that a child’s natural imitation of his or her parents actually assumes faith in the child. That’s what a disciple does, he or she follows.

“Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” – 1 Cor. 11:1

Following parents in the Faith is really an act of faith itself. Would anyone accuse an adult of insincerity if they imitated Paul as Paul imitated Christ? Of course not, because it is commanded in Scripture. It is also commanded of children, and our God speaks to us as a Father to His children. In the book of Ephesians, Paul counts children among the “saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus” (1:1). In chapter five, he goes on to state, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children”, and he then speaks directly to children in the church in order to exhort them to “obey [their] parents in the Lord” (6:1). If children in the church are saints and faithful in Jesus Christ, it makes sense that Paul would exhort adults to imitate God as little children imitate their parents. Obey God as your children obey you.

Even more, King David sings in Psalm 22:9-10:

“But You are He who took Me out of the womb;

You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts.

I was cast upon You from birth.

From My mother’s womb

You have been My God.”

David was made to have faith in God while on his mother’s breasts (through an act with the parent), and from the womb Yahweh was David’s God. All of Israel sang this song together and believed it of themselves. Even a covenant child’s act of nursing is counted as an act of faith in God! David trusted God for nourishment through his mother, and the same acts of faith are seen in our children when they trust us in imitating us. Imitation is an act of faith.

Our little ones, baptized into the body of Christ and possessing all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, act in accordance with the faith they received when they lift up their little arms to mimic their parents on Sundays, clasp their one-year-old hands in prayer, scream when the congregation says “Amen”, or even giggle at the sight of a bottle from their mother. We are relational beings; we respond to and imitate those around us. This isn’t a design flaw, but a feature. As said elsewhere by the social philosopher quoted above, “’I’ is the last pronoun a child learns to use.” We were born trusting, relating to, and communing with each other. We were made to imitate.

In short, if we are to view our children’s imitation as just mindless aping rather than natural acts of a present faith, then an adult imitating God like a child would not be an act of faith, and we should look at every disciple (no matter how small they may be) with skepticism. But our covenant children are children of the Faith, children of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When we stifle their acts or don’t believe their imitation is sincere, we misunderstand the definition of imitation. We tell them that they are not God’s children. We tell them that they cannot be one of us until they are old enough to be taken seriously. This isn’t how God treats our imitation of Him. No, He sings over us with joy (Zeph. 3:17) and is pleased at the mimicking sounds of our little voices. Be imitators of God. In other words, be children of God.

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On March 19, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

The Maturation of Sin

Sin doesn’t lie dormant. Ever. Whether in an individual or a society, sin is always fighting to grow like an aggressive, matastasizing cancer. Given the right environment it will grow to overtake the thinking and actions of people, completely consuming their individual and collective lives until there is nothing left. Paul describes this process in Romans 1.

The process begins with worshiping the creature over the eternally blessed Creator. Man rebels against the word of God, refusing to have God define who he is, what he is to believe about God, and how he is to relate to the world around him. Instead, he believes a lie. In man’s stubborn resistance to God’s word, God gives them over to “dishonor their bodies among themselves.” Generally, the dishonoring of the body is not treating the body with the dignity and respect that God bestowed upon it in his creation of us in his image. Whenever our bodies are used for that for which God did not create them, we are dishonoring our bodies. Paul is, most likely, speaking here about sexual immorality. He relates honoring the body and sexual purity speaking to the Thessalonians (1Thess 4.3-4). At this point, the sin is a distortion of the male + female relationship. (more…)

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On March 12, 2018 By In Worship

From Fire To Fire: Thyatira

From our earliest days of life, we desire exaltation. We want more; more responsibility, more freedom, more position, more possessions. More. A toddler doesn’t want mom to feed him. He can do it himself. A little girl wants to use the sharp knives and stove that mom uses. A little boy wants to use the use the saw that dad uses. A teenager wants a car in order to go and come as he pleases. A man wants to be promoted and be able to provide better for his family. We want more.

Though this desire can be, and often is, twisted by sin, the fundamental desire in and of itself is God-given. God created us in his image to mature in his likeness. That is, we are created to grow up and be more like God. That means greater responsibility, higher position, more possessions, and more. (more…)

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On March 5, 2018 By In Worship

Intolerable Tolerance

If we are to live together as the people of God, longsuffering in love is a necessity (Eph 4.2). Longsuffering is the evidence that the Spirit is at work among us (Gal 5.22-23). The old English word longsuffering better reflects what Paul is saying than our English word patience. Patience is a little more docile. Longsuffering reflects the struggle we have at times to tolerate one another; to put up with the abrasive personalities, quirkiness, the aggravations of just being with other people, and even enduring their struggles with sin in their lives of repentance. We are called to “suffer long” with people in love. God calls us to a loving toleration in the church.

But there is a time when toleration becomes intolerable, when longsuffering can be suffered no longer. There is a time when longsuffering becomes a sin. When Jesus addresses the angel (the pastor) of the church in Pergamum, he deals with this sin. (more…)

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On February 26, 2018 By In Counseling/Piety, Worship

Death To Life

One of the longings of the Christian heart is to hear our Lord tell us, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” We desire to feel the pleasure of the Lord’s approval of our work. On the heels of this approval, we anticipate reward: entering into the joy of our Lord. There is nothing wrong with that. God promises reward for faithfulness, so we should expect it and desire it.

But what happens when the Lord says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into more of the suffering and death of your Lord?” This is Jesus’s message to the angel of the church in Smyrna. The angel and church had stayed faithful through tribulation in which they experienced abject poverty (Rev 2.9). They had endured the blasphemy of the Satanic synagogue of the Jews. More than likely, this had been going on for several years. Day-in and day-out they were being squeezed by trouble, and it was costing them livelihoods and societal ostracization. Yet they were staying strong. (more…)

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On February 19, 2018 By In Worship

First Love

What makes a church a church? Is it the faithful proclamation of the Word, the correct administration of the sacraments, and the proper exercise of church discipline? Yes, but there is something even more fundamental to the existence of a church than these. There is a way to be technically correct in all three of these areas of church life and still fall short of being a viable church in the eyes of the Lord of the church.

The most fundamental aspect of the church’s being the church is love. It is obedience to the great commandment to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is obedience to the new commandment that we love one another as Christ has loved us. Only with this foundation will any church continue to exist as a church of Jesus Christ. You can’t have love without the truth, but you can have truth without love.

The church in Ephesus as addressed in Revelation 2 learned this lesson from the mouth of our Lord himself. (more…)

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On February 12, 2018 By In Family and Children, Wisdom, Worship

Some Thoughts on Lent & Fasting

Every year around this time the internet is flooded with essays and interviews concerning Lent: Should we observe it? If we observe it, how should we observe it? And so on. Good folks disagree about these issues. But it is a good discussion to be having. I thought I’d chime in on the issue. Hopefully, I can help keep people thinking through the issue.

First, let me clear some ground here. I agree with many of my brothers who despise some of the Lenten practices. There are people who have superstitious views of the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, for instance. Here in Louisville, KY, we even had one church who set up shop in a local business so that you can get your ashes to go. This was a one-stop shop for groceries and a dose of humility and repentance. People who do this sort of thing are, in most cases, viewing the imposition of ashes as some type of talisman that is going to keep God off their backs for a little while longer. I have witnessed people through the years from many branches of the Christian church act as if the religious ritual itself (whether it is the imposition of ashes, fasting, attending worship, going to revival services, or whatever) was an end in itself. After you do the deed, then you are free to live any way you want outside of the time of that special rite. According to what God said through the prophet Isaiah in his opening salvo, he has never taken kindly to superstitious views of religious rituals (cf. Isa 1.10-20. Mind you, the rituals that God is condemning in Isaiah are the ones that he himself set up. These were not manmade rituals. These were God’s own rituals that were being abused by superstitious views.) Superstitious views of the imposition of ashes or even fasting have no place in the Christian Faith. (more…)

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On February 5, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

Church Inspection

The world in which they lived–the world that had existed in this form for almost seven hundred years but was itself the zenith of the world as it had existed from the beginning of time–this world was about to end. The entire created order was being shaken. The epicenter of this quaking cosmos was Jerusalem and its temple. (more…)

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On February 3, 2018 By In Theology, Worship

Hallowed Storytelling From Table and Bowl, Part II

Guest post by Michael Spalione, a Ph.D. student at Trinity College, Bristol.
In my previous post, I highlighted the sacraments as the point of convergence between evangelicalism and ecumenism arguing that baptism and communion are presented in the New Testament as signs of the gospel that simultaneously enact and remember union with Christ and the unity of Christ’s body. I concluded that post by appealing to evangelical’s passion for the gospel as the reason for participating in ecumenism. (more…)

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