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By In Theology, Worship

Paedocommunion: Calvin Misunderstood “Discerning the Body”

by Luke A Welch

CALVIN IS FLAT WRONG BECAUSE HE MISSED THE CONTEXT
Calvin fears that, in paedocommunion, tender children will poison themselves by being intellectually incapable of having a formed mental opinion about the presence of Christ in the elements. Paul is actually just saying that we can’t use the unity meal to despise the church by ignoring the weaker or lesser members while we eat. But Calvin misses all the context (see my post containing a quote of Calvin’s treatment in the Institutes).

 

dives_lazarus_Bonifacio VERONESE

Dives and Lazarus – Bonifacio Veronese

 

If Calvin is right about the meaning of 1 Cor 11, then children have no business at the table, but this is contextually impossible in a section that repeatedly tells us that all the baptized are also unified in the eating of the meal. Calvin has missed tying the phrases in question (“discerning the body,: and “eating in an unworthy manner”) to their immediate context, and to the context of the surrounding chapters. If you have time to wade through a few reasonably simple arguments, I beg you to stick around through the end of this. I believe this post, and the future post on self-examination, to be able to remove the obstacle of 1 Cor 11 from giving all covenant members their due invitations to the meal of the Lord. So we start here: (more…)

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By In Worship

The Twelfth Day of Christmas – A Poem

by Luke Welch

Awake, manly sleeper, arise up and shine
It’s day twelve of Christmas: an opportune time
to tell each old passerby, stranger or neighbor
the lingering news of the birth of the savior.

Get up, out of bed. Rouse the wife; dress the kids!
It’s Sunday, the Lord’s Day, so open those lids.
As good time as any to gather together
to tell the wide world ’bout the birth of the savior.

Take tithings! Take tidings! Take voices and lives!
Take sons, and your daughters and beautiful wives!
Now take to the streets and go tell them the news!
Sing into the air, and rumble the pews!

They all need to know on this twelfth Christmas morn, so tell on the mountain that Jesus is born!

Take up to your tweeting while onlookers look!
Yes, even on Sundays, they’re checking Face-book.
Say that there’s still treasure to find if they search.
Tell them it’s still Christmas, and you’re off to church…

Where you and your wife and your daughters and sons
will sing with the church and your voice will be one,
proclaiming and naming the day for the Lord,
so all who have ears will know Jesus is born!

They all need to know on this twelfth Christmas morn, so tell on the mountain that Jesus is born!

For each time we gather we show the Lord’s death,
Proclaimed in our feasting, and singing and rest,
A jolly old message, his death ends in life
So gather your daughter, your son and your wife.

No matter a girl or a boy, both invited,
An old saint or baby by water united,
The whole group is needed from eldest to least,
For these are the rules from the Lord of the feast!

And neighbors are watching to see who we are,
And why in the bitter cold pile into cars,
With gifts in our pockets to give to our father,
So gather your wives and your sons and your daughters!

And dress royal merry, and rollick in cheer.
For we are together with Christmas still here!
Be servantly smilers, and make them exclaim:
“O, who is their king, and now what is his name?!

“These smiles mean something! What news have they heard?
These gatherings weekly are part of this word!
And see how they love one another this way!
Excited, united, like on Christmas day…

“As if every Sunday they rise from the grave,
they rise with the Sun, and they’re one in their ways,
One body all risen, all living and blessed.
Together they Sing, and they Feast, and they Rest.

“Reminds me of Christmas with Carols and Kids
All up with the sun for the fun that is hid!”
So rush to the manger, and sing, rest and eat!
And take all those babies, their savior to meet.

They greet him with joy and with honor and drool.
He comes as a baby, a poor man, a fool.
But babies stop enemies, voicing his might.
That’s why he made Christmas an infant’s delight.

So open the present in view of your street,
Delight, like a child, your savior to meet.
The joy found in Christmas is not just one date,
but twelve days, all Sundays as we celebrate.

His birth we proclaim on this twelfth Christmas morn; go tell on the mountain that Jesus is born!

 
——

Luke Welch has a master’s degree from Covenant Seminary and preaches regularly in a conservative Anglican church in Maryland. He blogs about Bible structure at SUBTEXT. Follow him on Twitter: @lukeawelch<>online консультациякак писать статьи о компания

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By In Worship

Who needs Advent?

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What’s Advent?  Who needs it?  Isn’t it just time to get ready for Christmas?  We would do that anyway, even if there weren’t an Advent season.

Advent is the time to prepare for Christmas, but it’s more than that. It’s the time when we concentrate on Jesus’ coming return, when He will judge the world and establish justice and peace forevermore.  It’s a dreadful and a wonderful prospect.

“But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire
And like launderers’ soap.”

(Mal. 3:2)

Dreadful for those outside His kingdom, who have not yet repented and submitted to His Kingship.  Wonderful for those inside, who daily face the long hard road marked by sin, pain, fear, oppression, sickness, trouble, and death.

Advent is for those who are acquainted with grief, because they will find it difficult to believe that these sorrows can come untrue.  Those who grieve know that evil is real, that death is here and holds power over us still, and Jesus’ return can seem like wishful thinking.  It is easy to lose heart.  It is hard to believe He will ever return.  It sounds like a fairy tale.  Advent is for these people, because in Advent we are told in no uncertain terms, over and over again, “Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”  We are told because we need to be told.  Advent is for those who desire His coming so much, they start to disbelieve it will ever happen.  To them, it is said: “Emmanuel shall come to thee.”

But is life not also a road paved with hope, blessings, comfort, and joy?  Yes, those too. Advent is for those who know joy and comfort, too.  It is for them, because Advent reminds us that however full and good life may seem now, it is not as it should be.  When we are happy and comforted, the world still groans.  The earth still needs Jesus’ return.  We still need Him to return.  “Emmanuel shall come to thee,” is a refrain that both reminds and remonstrates, as it tells us however full we may feel, we are not full as we should be, and we must not be as Israel who forgot God in her fullness.  Emmanuel shall come, and that means we must remember Him.  Advent is for those whose fullness may tempt them not to desire His coming, for it teaches us to desire it much.  To them, too, it is said: “Emmanuel shall come to thee.”

I need Advent.  You need Advent.  People next to you in the pew.  Or across your street.  We need to be told , “Emmanuel shall come.”  We need to hear it, we need to say it, we need to sing it, we need to pray it.  We need Advent because we need Jesus to come.  We need to be wakeful and watchful and pray.  We need to make ourselves ready.  We need to live the kind of lives that conform to His coming Kingdom of justice and peace.

We need to say, “Come, Lord Jesus,” and mean it.  That’s what Advent is for.<>продвижение ов в google

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By In Theology, Worship

How To Avoid Death-By-Eucharist

by Marc Hays

glass of wineGrowing up in a Southern Baptist church, I became accustomed to eating from the Lord’s Table once a quarter. The words of institution were read from 1 Corinthians 11, and the organ droned “Have Thine Own Way,” until everyone had been served. While the organ hummed we examined ourselves to see whether or not we should have been partaking at all. Most of us sat with heads bowed and eyes closed. (I know because I often got tired of examining myself and looked around hoping someone was doing something interesting.) Afterwards we left the auditorium in silence, not talking or fellowshipping until we had made our way into the outer hall. It was very respectful, for which I am thankful, and very somber, for which I am not.

In college, I was a member of a Primitive Baptist church, which I considered a much better experience. There was no organ, which I considered an improvement – though its absence was based on bad exegesis. Replacing the organ was robust, congregational singing in four-part, shape-noted harmony. The service of the Lord’s Supper was always followed by a foot-washing and a congregational meal. Both of which were high points in the first two decades of my life.

Compared to the Southern Baptists, the Primitives had some things going in their favor, but the thrust of the Lord’s Supper service was still focused on internal, self-scrutinizing assessment, which resulted in the feeling that this crust of bread and thimble of wine could put you on your death bed. The Primitive Baptists are working very diligently to be a “New Testament church,” employing a positivist, regulative principle of worship a that incorporates what God has said from Acts all the way to Jude. Unfortunately, this leaves out all of that revelation where God described in detail how He wants to be worshiped.

Here’s the rub. Christians should be careful to hear and to heed the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. He actually did say, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” (11:28) Next, Paul really did say, “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. This is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.” (11:29-30) This type of talk could push a rational person toward the Scottish church and the whole “once a year communion” practice. That would radically decrease ones chances of “death-by-Eucharist,” but is that what this is really about? Did Paul really intend to turn a meal with Jesus into a time of inner turmoil and fear?

I propose that a meal with Jesus should be a happy time. Happy. Happy. Happy. Why so happy when this is a time to remember that Jesus has died? Well, I maintain that this time should be happy because upon every remembrance of Jesus’ death, we remember that He is not still in His tomb. We remember that Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification (Rom 4:25). Christ is no longer present on the cross. He is no longer present in the grave. He reigns.

Why so happy when this is supposed to be a time of self-examination? We have examined ourselves already; earlier in the same service actually. The whole body present in that room ascended the hill of the Lord, corporately confessed our sin and then heard the assurance proclaimed from God’s under-shepherd that we have been forgiven in Christ. We weighed ourselves in the scales of the law and found want; we confessed this lack of conformity to God’s Word, and He was faithful and just, just like He said He’d be, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9); and we heard that our sins are forgiven in Christ proclaimed loudly and joyously by our pastor.

When self-examination is over, and at some point it is supposed to be over, it is time to feast. If the feast is your time of self-examination, then it may not be a feast with Jesus. He wants your head on his breast while you hoist your glass of wine; not your eyes on your belly button, while you wonder if you’ll make it out of the room alive.

Once, Nehemiah was interrogated by a king for being sad in his presence. Nehemiah knew better than to pull that kind of stunt, but he couldn’t help it. His heart was heavy because the place of his fathers’ graves was in ruins and the gates destroyed by fire. The king understood because Nehemiah had a good reason to be sad. Christian, your King is far more understanding than Artaxerxes could ever have been, but you have no reason to be sad. The gates are no longer in ruins. Jesus’ kingdom has come, is coming, and will come on earth as it is in heaven. What reason have you to be sad? Does your heart condemn you? God is greater than your heart, he knows everything. (1 John 3:20) Do you have sin to be confessed? Confess it. (1 John 1:9) Examine yourself, and then joyfully come. (1Cor 11:29)

Every week, my seven-year-old son, Seth, lifts his plastic, wine-filled thimble in my direction and waits for the toast. We toast and bless one another with a hearty “L’Chaim!” and then we drain it. We drink to life, because Jesus is life, and we are alive in Him. We drink to life because the grave has been conquered. We drink to life because the wages of sin have been paid, but not by us. We drink to life. We drink to Jesus.

Click on the book covers for resources for further study:

MEYERS LORDS SERVICEJORDAN LITURGY TRAP

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  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulative_principle_of_worship  (back)

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By In Culture, Worship

The Disembodied Preacher: Why Streamed in Preaching is Bad

Many churches are moving to a multi-campus system where the main pastor’s sermon is streamed in to various campuses every week. Even those churches which cannot do this often wish they could.  But I believe it is a serious and devastating pastoral error to assume that a man on a screen can shepherd a church.  Streamed in preaching is detrimental to the church of God because it substitutes electronic images for a flesh and blood man thus severing that crucial geographical and physical connection a minister is to have with his people.  We are called shepherds for a reason. I am not criticizing learning via video, though there are drawbacks to this as well. I am particularly criticizing preaching via video. Here are some of the problems with streaming the main pastor’s sermons instead of having an on-the-ground man doing the preaching every week in person.

First, the man who is streamed in has become a preacher, not a pastor. I understand that this can happen at any church. In fact, it probably happens at a lot of churches. The failure of men to shepherd their flocks is epidemic in the American church. We preach. But we do not shepherd. Our hands are not dirty. Our flock sees us once a week.  But the “remotely connected” model makes a virtue out of it.  Pastoring is impossible if you are one place and your congregation is in another. Of course, preaching is part of shepherding, (and in some Protestant circles takes center stage during the course of the Lord’s Service) but it is not the whole.

Second, streaming in a man’s sermon is a celebrity act. We do it, not because it is biblical, nor because it is logical. We do it because the pastor is famous. While being famous is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, why use the main pastor instead of one the elders who shepherd the church Monday through Saturday? The answer is that people want to hear the main pastor. He is the celebrity preacher they come to see.  By streaming him in we buy into a celebrity oriented cultural mindset that is detrimental to the life of the church.

Preaching to Nobody

Third, it makes preaching a disembodied act where the congregation’s response plays no part in the preaching of the word. When a man stands in the pulpit he should scan his people to see how they are responding. Preaching is a dialogue between the pastor and his sheep. The main pastor can do this at his church. But he cannot at the other campus churches. R.L. Dabney talked about understanding the temperature of your congregation when you get into the pulpit. Are they flat? Then you need to gradually bring them up to the right heat. Are they too excited and inattentive? Then you need to keep up the heat, but focus it. Charles Spurgeon said that if he felt the congregation’s interest waning he would throw in an illustration to get their attention back. A streamed in pastor cannot interact with the congregation, which is an essential part of preaching.  This makes me wonder if streaming in a man is preaching in the classic sense of the term.

Fourth, this model assumes that what happened from Monday-Saturday in a church is irrelevant to Sunday morning preaching. The streamed in pastor cannot know what has happened in all the campus churches. Again, this is probably the case in a lot of churches. The pastor does not know what happened to the Hayes family this week or to Mr. Johnson. But that does not make it right. Shepherding means understanding what has happened in the life of the church during the week. He does not need to know every detail, but he should know generally what has gone on. What if one church had a tragic car wreck and another church had wedding on Saturday? What if an elder just resigned for sexual infidelity? What if the community just experienced a great tragedy or triumph? Are these things irrelevant in the preaching of the Gospel on Sunday morning? I am not saying that the sermon must be dictated by the events of the previous week.  But those events give context to the preached Word.  When preaching is streamed, the Word becomes decontextualized.

Fifth, it keeps good men out of the pulpit. Many churches that stream in their pastors devote a lot of time to training leaders. They do this through books, conferences, video, hands on training, etc. If this is so, why not put these men in the pulpits of these campus churches? Why does the main pastor have to be the one preaching? Is it beneficial in the long run for these campus churches to orbit around one man? I think this goes back to the second point. Streamed in preaching is a celebrity act.

Sixth, it makes watching the main pastor impossible. A congregation is supposed to observe their pastors. Paul appeals to his behavior among the members of the church. They watched him. (See Acts 20:18, I Thessalonians 1:5-6, II Thessalonians 3:7-9). There is also the general admonition that the people are to watch their leaders (See I Timothy 4:12, Hebrews 13:7, I Peter 5:3). A church body should be able to observe on a regular basis the attitude and actions of her leaders. Leaders should not just interact with staff and elders, but with the congregation. Some might object by saying these churches get to watch their other leaders, just not the main pastor.  To which I reply, then the other leaders should be preaching to them, not the main pastor.

Clones 2Seventh, it assumes that every church has the exact same preaching needs. Now in one sense every church does. We are all sinners saved by grace who need to be taught the whole counsel of God so that we might grow in holiness. But churches are not clones. Each congregation has a different personality, which comes from their history, the collection of people Christ has brought to the church, their leadership, and the community they live in.  Is the congregation mainly 20-40 year olds? Is it ethnically diverse? Is it in the city, the country, or suburb? Is it an old church that has been around for many years or a church planted two years ago? Is it mainly new converts or transfer growth? Are most of the members factory workers or business men? Is it in a college town? The way these questions are answered will affect the way a book of the Bible is preached. Two pastors can both be preaching through Ephesians and yet apply the text differently because of their congregation’s needs. Of course, some points will be the same no matter what. But the application can and should vary depending upon the needs and personality of the congregation.  This also applies to what a pastor should preach. One church might be struggling with legalism. Galatians should be put on the menu. One church might be struggling with members leaving the faith. Put Hebrews on the list.  But in a “remotely connected” model the assumption is that all churches are struggling with the same things at the same time.

Here are few questions to consider:

What is the rationale behind multi-campus churches where a single man preaches to numerous congregations in different geographical locations? Why do we think this is necessary and good? Does the Bible give us a paradigm for doing ministry this way? How is this model not a capitulation to our celebrity culture?

Why do we not stream in the worship music? (I think I got this question from Carl Trueman.)

Is it possible to faithfully shepherd a local body over many years without knowing that body? Can a minister preach sermons that apply to the people in front of him if he does not know the people who are in front of him? Can a minister faithfully preach the word on Sunday if the only people he ever meets with Monday through Saturday are church staff and other elders?

What is the long term effect on churches when a pastor is streamed in? How does this practice affect the planting of other churches and the raising up of leadership? How does it affect the congregation’s view of the average preacher? Does this model feed certain sinful hungers in American culture that we would do better to avoid? How does the disconnect between the week to week shepherding and the Sunday morning preaching influence the congregation?

Can a minister be incarnational, in the best sense of the word, if he isn’t even in the same town as the church?<>klimentovoразработка дизайна стоимость

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By In Theology, Worship

Hughes Oliphant Old on Anabaptism

Yesterday I posted some quotes from Hughes Oliphant Old’s book, The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century Old’s book is one of the best I have read on the history of baptism during the sixteenth century among Reformed churches. One of the great feats of the book is to show how the Anabaptist threat shaped the way the Reformers thought about baptism. Old shows how initially there were certain ideas among the Reformers that were wrong. However, they did not realize their errors until they ran into the Anabaptists. Being confronted by the encrusted rituals of Rome on one side and the flaming revolution of Anabaptism on the other side forced the Reformers to dig deeper into the Scriptures. Old’s chapter on Anabaptism is an excellent resource. He explains the differences among the Anabaptists themselves and then draws some basic conclusions about their theology. What I think is most important is that Old shows how Anabaptism was not  one limb on the Reformation tree, but was  a different tree altogether. And while I know you cannot draw a straight line from Anabaptists to modern-day Baptistic thinking there are enough similarities that should give Baptists, compromised Presbyterians, and general evangelicals pause before they claim reformed soteriology, but reject reformed sacramentology.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Old on the Anabaptists.

“At issue in this question of believers’ baptism was an attempt to found a new church for the spiritually elite.”

“What happened in the social revolution was for Muntzer an exact parallel to the crisis of the conversion experience. It is the same dramatic reversal whether on the objective plane of history or in the subjective experience of the soul. Premillenarianism [as understood by Muntzer] and Anabaptism are logical twins.”

Proto-Anabaptists in Zurich “wanted to move out and form a new church made up of those who were fully committed Christians.”

“One notices that it [baptism] is not a sign of what God will do in the life of the baptized, as Zwingli had understood it, but rather it is a sign of what the baptized has done already and will do in the future. It would appear that for Grebel baptism is not so much an act of God as an act of the one baptized.”

Baptism 2

“For the circle of Conrad Grebel, as for Muntzer, believer’s baptism was the one key to the reform of the Church. If only those who gave evidence of a firm and mature faith were baptized, then the church would be free from impurities. Believer’s baptism would be the effective sword used to separate the true Christian from Christendom”

“The Anabaptists found it difficult to believe that Christendom was really Christian. As the Anabaptists saw it, there was only a very small number of real Christians in the world.”

For the Anabaptist, “the first responsibility of truly apostolic preaching was to bring people into the crisis experience.”

“For the Anabaptist, salvation was gained neither by the medieval sacramental system nor by faith, but rather by the conversion experience…baptism of children before they had this crisis experience would tend to prevent the development of the crisis experience.”

“The Anabaptists were, to be sure, not so much rationalists as they were voluntarists.”

The study of Hubmaier’s On the Christian Baptism of Believers “shows most clearly that the opposition to infant baptism arose primarily from an understanding of salvation radically different from that of classical Protestantism.”

“Several things should be apparent from even this brief study of these Anabaptist leaders. Anabaptism was not simply the ‘The Radical Reformation.’ Certainly it was not a radical reformation in the sense that it took the principles of the Protestant Reformation to their logical conclusions. It is far more a reaction against the Protestant Reformation. It is a very different approach to reformation than anything the classical Protestant Reformers had in mind. It was a taking  of a different road than the Reformers, not simply going further along the same road.”

As I read Old’s account of Anabaptism one thought kept creeping into my mind: We are all Anabaptists. Even in Presbyterian circles, the themes of crisis conversion experiences for all including children, wanting a pure church full of pure Christians, rejection of anything like Christendom, and a voluntary approach to the Christian faith are dominant.  The question Old’s book forces us to ask is “How Reformed are we really?”  The answer would probably come as a surprise to a lot of  us who believe that we walk in the footsteps of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Knox.<>оптимизация овкак дать рекламу на гугле

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By In Theology, Worship

Hughes Oliphant Old on Baptism

Hughes Oliphant Old

The title of scholar in the church is not easily come by.  It requires years and years of gathering information,  digesting that information, and then dispensing it so God’s people can benefit from it . That is why Hughes Oliphant Old is such a treasure to the church, but especially the reformed church. He is a scholar of the highest caliber and has done his work in an area that for years was ignored by the church, liturgical worship. I do not know of any author who has written so many helpful works on reformed worship. He has written some very practical works, such as Leading in Prayer  where he gives example after example of prayers he wrote for various parts of worship. He has written a popular, but learned book on reformed worship that traces the different facets of worship to their biblical origins and through their historical development. He has written a seven volume set on the history of the reading and preaching of God’s Word in worship. Finally, he has written numerous academic works  on various aspects of worship, such as, The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century.  

Whenever I read a book that influences the way I think and live I like to introduce people to it, like introducing them to a new friend. So without further delay I would like to introduce you to the last book I mentioned above. Very few books have clarified my thinking on an issue like this one. In The Shaping of the Baptismal Rite Hughes Old traces the reformers thinking on baptism by looking at how they changed the baptismal rites and liturgies from the Middle Ages, as well as how those rites and liturgies changed throughout the years of the Reformation itself, especially as the Reformers interacted with the Anabaptists.  The book is a wonderful combination of history, theology, liturgy, and Bible. There are so many great quotes in the book. One of Old’s strengths is clearing the mud away from an issue and helping the reader see exactly what is at stake and why a certain practice developed the way it did. Today I would like to pull out a few quotes,which show how the Reformers viewed baptism. Tomorrow I will post some quotes from the Anabaptist perspective to show the contrast.

“The early Reformed theologians were all in agreement that even before the children of believers made a confession of faith, even before they were old enough to make a decision, the Holy Spirit was at work within them applying the benefits of redemption in Christ. As Oecolampadius puts it, ‘Christ washed us from our sins by his blood and in this grace our children also participate.'”

Old spends a lot of time on Oecolampadius who seems to have influenced the Reformers quite a bit. I had heard his name, but was not familiar with his theology or contribution to the Reformation until I read this book.

“At the very heart of the Protestant Reformation was the revival of Augustinian theology with its strong emphasis on the primacy of grace. The Reformers believed that God took the initiative for humankind’s salvation. In the light of such a strong doctrine of grace the baptism of infants was quite understandable. In fact, the baptism of infants demonstrated very powerfully that our salvation rests not on any knowledge or work or experience or decision of our own, but entirely on the grace of God.”

“Baptism is a divine action because of the divine institution of the sacrament, the divine promises behind the sacrament, and the divine empowering of the ministry.

“Another matter which should be equally clear from this study is that the position of the Reformers in regard to infant baptism was an integral part of their whole theology.”

“Covenant theology is in fact the sacramental theology of the Reformed Churches.”

The two quotes above make me wonder whether reformed soteriology can be maintained where there is a loss of reformed sacramentology? Can a reformed view of God’s grace and sovereignty in salvation be kept if there is a low or wrong view of the sacraments?

“The confession of the daily sins of the already baptized Christian, the forgiveness of these sins, growth in grace, the spiritual gifts of understanding and enlightenment, the daily increase in faith, hope, and love, and the sanctifying of the Christian life are understood as the fruit of baptism. While baptism stands at the beginning of the Christian life, its fruit is born throughout the whole of the Christian life. The earliest Reformed theologians saw in baptism a sign not of a one-time-only repentance and cleansing of sin, but rather as a sign of a continual cleansing of sin.

“The Reformers came to the conclusion that the central sacramental action [in baptism] was washing, not a dramatization of the death and resurrection of Jesus in and out of a grave of water. “

In the quote above, Old is explaining why some Reformers used immersion, but it never became the dominant mode of baptism.

“Reformed Churches should not in their liturgical practice give ground to a separation of the baptism with water and the baptism of the Spirit.

“The final, and perhaps the paramount, goal of this reshaping of the rite of baptism was the concern that this sacrament should be clearly a sacrament of grace.”

“The Reformers continued to baptize the children of Christians because the practice was consistent with the revelation of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.”

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By In Scribblings, Worship

Peter Jones: C.S. Lewis on Confessing Our Sins

In the quote below C.S. Lewis is commenting on this phrase from the General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer, “But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders.” At my church, we say this confession, but replace “offenders” with “sinners.” The quote is one of the best I have ever read on how to confess our sins and the results of confession. Almost every line, especially of the last paragraph, is worth your careful time.

C.S. Lewis 1

“It is essential [when confessing our sins] to use the plain, simple, old-fashioned words that you would use about anyone else.  I mean words like theft, or fornication, or hatred, instead of  ‘I did not mean to be dishonest’ or ‘I was only a boy then’ or ‘I lost my temper. I think that this steady facing of what one does know and bringing it before God, without excuses, and seriously asking for Forgiveness and Grace, and resolving as far as in one lies to do better, is the only way in which we can ever begin to know the fatal thing which is always there, and preventing us from becoming perfectly just to our wife or husband, or being a better employer or employee.  If this process is gone through, I do not doubt that most of us will come to understand and to share these old words like ‘contrite,’miserable’ and intolerable.’

Does that sound very gloomy? Does Christianity encourage morbid introspection? The alternative is much more morbid. Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others.  It is healthier to think of one’s own. It is the reverse of morbid. It is not even, in the long run, very gloomy.  A serious attempt to repent and to really know one’s own sin is in the long run a lightening and relieving process. Of course, there is bound to be a first dismay and often terror and later great pain, yet that is much less in the long run than the anguish of a mass of unrepented and unexamined sins, lurking in the background of our minds. It is the difference between the pain of a tooth about which you should go to the dentist, and the simple straight-forward pain which you know is getting less and less every moment when you have had the tooth out.”<>статистика поисковых запросов google adwords

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By In Culture, Politics, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

The KC Team: What’s in a Name? Abraham Kuyper

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“On this day in 1907,” writes George Grant,  “the entire nation of the Netherlands celebrated the seventieth birthday of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). A national proclamation recognized that “the history of the Netherlands, in Church, in State, in Society, in Press, in School, and in the Sciences the last forty years, cannot be written without the mention of his name on almost every page, for during this period the biography of Dr. Kuyper is to a considerable extent the history of the Netherlands.”

To celebrate the birthday of this titanic figure in history, we, Kuyperian Commentators, would like to tell you briefly what we have learned from this giant of history who called us to see the Lordship of Jesus over all things.

Kuyper turned my world upside down! Not only did he engage every sphere of life with a joyful passion, but he provided the intellectual tools to develop a compelling narrative of the Christian Gospel. —Uri Brito, Founder of Kuyperian Commentary.

Kuyper was a man who refused to abandon God’s covenantal blessings in any area of life. We are the heirs of this Kuyperian vision of incarnational theology. That by Christ’s death salvation has come to all men, giving us dominion over death, and all creation has been made new. This is the Gospel. May we live as Kuyper describes here: ” instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life.” — Steve Macias, Kuyperian Commentary Contributor

“The spheres of the world may each have an earthly head, but those heads are all subject to the one sovereign, the Lord Jesus Christ.” — Luke Andrew Welch, Contributor

Kuyper made me more conscious of my tendency to abstract spiritual matters, instead of applying them. A common problem, I know, but Kuyper was the kick in the pants that this guy needed. — Joffre Swait, Contributor

Abraham Kuyper’s life drives me to dream bigger than I feel I ought, and then take one step toward that goal, even if it’s a small one. And then another. And then another. He was a living, breathing, long-suffering, succeeding example of Calvinism at work: an unswerving faith in God’s good plan and an unrelenting struggle to take every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. —Marc Hays, Contributor

Some of my favorite Kuyper quotes and paraphrases:

“Never forget that all state relief for the poor is a blot on the honor of your savior. The fact that the government needs a safety net to catch those who would slip between the cracks of our economic system is evidence that I have failed t…o do God’s work. The government cannot take the place of Christian charity. A loving embrace isn’t given with food stamps. The care of a community isn’t provided with government housing. The face of our Creator can’t be seen on a welfare voucher. What the poor need is not another government program; what they need is for Christians like me to honor our savior.” ~ Abraham Kuyper, The Problem of Poverty

“If you see a thing, you are called to it.” a

“A Christian culture is established through the education of a Christian populace. You cannot teach mathematics apart from God because math implies order, and God is the creator of order.”

“In the midst of corruptions, your duty as an equipped disciple of Christ is to always seek to uphold that which is honorable, that which is lovely and that which is of good report among mankind.”

“Kuyper’s desire for the Netherlands was that the nation would revive and persevere in its Calvinistic heritage with its doctrine of limited government that respects the autonomy of all spheres of authority and thereby guarantees the freedom of its citizens. ” ~ James McGoldrick b
Aaron W Eley, editor and contributor

What has the work of the Holy Spirit through Abraham Kuyper meant in your life?

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By In Worship

Good things badly

Guest Post by Benjamin Miller

I don’t usually write about personal pet peeves, but recently one of mine got triggered, and I’m inspired to write about it, so . . . there.

I’m from the neck of the ecclesiastical woods known as “conservative” and “Reformed.” We’re known for small churches that keep to the old paths. I love the old paths; I can’t say I’m crazy about the smallness – I certainly don’t regard it as a virtue – but it depends on why we’re small. Which brings me to my pet peeve.

I hear all the time from leaders of small churches that are struggling in various ways: “Well, we don’t need to concern ourselves with results or numbers; we just need to be faithful doing what God has told us to do, and leave the outcomes to Him.”

This sounds really good. It has a nice pure ring to it. Do your duty. Be faithful at it. Let God be God. I’m down with all of that.

But one thing I almost never hear in conjunction with this is the possibility – just the possibility, mind you – that we’re doing all the right stuff, but doing it really badly. We’re preaching the Word every Sunday. That’s a good thing, but what if our preaching is just plain boring? We’re maintaining tried-and-true traditions in worship, but what if our liturgy is desultory or plodding? What if the whole atmosphere of our worship is stale, yea, even funereal? We’re not out there “peddling” the gospel with gimmicks and glamor, but what if our outreach (and our inreach, for that matter) is dull, unimaginative, uninspired, and pretty darn pessimistic (not that we expect bad things to happen; we just don’t expect much of anything to happen)? We’re Christ-centered, but what if we talk about Christ in a way that leaves Him apparently disconnected not only from the everyday life of the guy who walks in off the street, but even from the lives of most of the people nodding (take it as you will) in the pew?

I’ve sat through “faithful” Reformed sermons that were simply horrible; you didn’t have to be a communications major to figure it out. I’ve listened to sermons full of true sayings about God and the gospel that were so badly constructed, so hard to follow, so freighted with in-house jargon, so gloomy, so emotionally manipulative, so interminable, and/ or so out of touch with the real world, that all I wanted was to go stretch my legs – and I’m a pastor, for crying out loud. I’m supposed to like sermons.

Don’t even get me started on the stuff that happens before and after the sermon. I’ve been trotted at breakneck pace through liturgies without a moment to get my emotional bearings. I’ve puzzled my way through liturgies without any discernible theme or logical order. I’ve sat through good liturgies led by people who, to all appearances, couldn’t wait for it to be over. I’ve heard prayers that droned on for twenty minutes, followed by sharp admonitions about failure to stay focused. I’ve been subjected to song selections and congregational singing that would soothe the dead. It’s all “faithful.” It’s all doing our duty. It’s all – in principle – good stuff. And I think we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

Then there’s the whole outward face of the church. We small conservative Reformed folk aren’t known for caring about reaching the lost – if God wants them to come, they’ll come; and if He’s really working in their hearts, they’ll love bad sermons and boring worship as much as we do. (I exaggerate mildly for effect.) Amazingly, this is sometimes true. People do come to worship, and they do sometimes stay. I wonder, though: Why are we so bad at taking the gospel out to where everyday life happens? Why doesn’t our message seem to “connect” outside the walls of the church? Why don’t we work harder at meeting people where they actually live, talking about questions they’re actually asking, using media to which they can actually relate? Why do we think preaching the Word and administering the sacraments inside the four walls of the church is where all the action is, and fail to develop anything approximating excellence in taking the Word out into the world? What’s with all these drab, outdated websites (if we have them at all); church leaders who are social media illiterate; and “outreach” events that consist of handing out church postcards door to door? Are we trying to be ineffective? Worse, are we self-satisfied because, after all, we’re doing our duty behind closed doors every Sunday? Really?

There’s no excuse for doing good things badly. There’s no excuse for poor preaching, deadness in worship, or outreach literature that looks like it was printed twenty years ago. “At Iconium,” writes Luke, the apostles “spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed” (Acts 14:1). This isn’t a denial of God’s sovereignty; it’s a simple statement of human responsibility. Preach like Jesus really is the Logos and communication matters. Worship in a way that’s well thought-out, engaging, lively, and participatory. Act like you expect the gospel to do something, in worship and outside the walls of the church. Cultivate good ideas, stuff that will grab people’s attention. Tell great stories that lead naturally to the Great Story. Be creative: think about how to relate the gospel to the real lives of real people out in the real world who have never heard the term “effectual calling.” Speak in such a way, inside and outside the church, that people believe. Who knows? Maybe God will start to fill our small churches, and not only we but also thousands of others will have great cause to glorify His name.

Ben Miller is the organizing pastor of Trinity Church in Huntington, New York. he blogs at Relocating To Elfland.<>seo услугипродвижение ов в yandex

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