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On December 13, 2020 By In Discipleship, History, Theology, Worship

The Temple. So What?

The Lord has come to his temple. He is going to destroy it. So what?

Large sections of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are taken up with Jesus teaching his disciples about the destruction of the Temple (Mt 24; Mk 13; Lk 21). Jesus not only speaks about it, he prophetically acts out the destruction of the Temple when he turns over the money changers’ tables, drives everyone out, and shuts down the Temple for a day. The Temple occupies a central place in the life of God’s people and becomes a focal point of Jesus’ ministry in the transition between the new age and the age to come. But why? Why take so much time in discussing and focusing on the Temple? Why should we care about what happens to an ancient building back in the first century? Well, if Jesus thought it important enough to talk about, and the writers of the Gospels under the inspiration of the Spirit believed it was important enough to record among the massive amounts of other information that could have been recorded (cf. Jn 21.25), then it must be important to the continuing life of the church.

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On December 6, 2020 By In Culture, Theology, Worship

Devouring Houses

Whenever we see a powerful person using his power to abuse the weak in any way, something goes off in us. There is a great sense of anger at the injustice of it. The big kid on the playground bullying the weakling, the husband abusing his wife, or the parent beating his child raises our righteous ire. We know innately that this isn’t right. Powerful people ought not to be using their power to pummel the weak.

But why? If we actually lived in a universe in which evolution was a reality, these sorts of actions would make sense. The strong survive. The weak do not. Sometimes the strong must eliminate the weak in order to survive because of the scarcity of resources, to eliminate threats, or to demonstrate to others what will happen if they are challenged.

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On October 28, 2020 By In Worship

Fragments from a Restless Reformer, Part 1517

This is the sort of post that demands lots of footnotes and nuances, but I offer none of it. It’s not because of my inherent idleness, but because I don’t want to which may be linked to my idleness.

My late father had a saying which I never understood until much later in life. He said, “Son, you’re gettin’ a spankin’.”

No.

It wasn’t that one.

It was the one about the dynamics of a well-studied position later in life. Yeah, I really can’t make it into a pithy saying.

The essence of what he said was that trying to change the mind of older saints, especially those who have poured into their conviction bucket for a long time is a difficult task. We should try, he said, but we should reach a point where shaping the hermeneutic is a more important process. As Al Gore once said, “It’s the hermeneutic, stupid!” It’s the process of interpreting facts and how you get there that matters.

So, without further ado, and without apologies, I love the Reformation! I love Luther’s wit, Calvin’s technical debates with Anabaptists, Bucer’s concern for a well-ordered liturgy, and the reformation of song that sprung from a Lutheran dungeon and arrived at a reformation church in Pensacola, Fl.

I didn’t grow up in such an environment, which means it was somewhere between 19-20 that I was exposed to reformational thinking. Not the one shot of espresso kind, I was exposed to the three fingers of scotch kind. Mind you, when I first read Gary North, R.J. Rushdoony, David Chilton and Greg Bahnsen, I hated their agenda. But like the neighborhood kid you despised growing up, you began to look more favorably towards their faults and then you realized that their faults were more in the personality department than in the department of thought. One can always say that if it were not for their weird footnotes, they would be more mainstream. But again, look at what the mainstream produces. Can I get an corporate yuck?

It was later that R.C. Sproul and MacArthur and John Piper and Doug Wilson (one is not like the others) came into my theological salad. These all shaped my thinking in various ways, but it was that snarky and oft-cranky brother, James B. Jordan, with whom I shared probably hundreds of meals together that changed my hermeneutic for good. Now, here’s a story for all you kids that I may not have told. And it goes like this…

There was once a little boy who was enamored by other traditions with pointy hats. Though it wasn’t for very long, it was long enough and my inner commitment to Dutch flowers was being compromised at some level. But as I perused a fancy library one day, I came across a book about creation written by that cranky fella I mentioned above. There was a chapter in there amidst all the hurrahs on creation methodology that was titled something, something, Gnosticism. I still read that chapter once a year to pay homage to my brother who is now elderly and no longer able to display his sharpness to the world.

It was my hermeneutic that changed. I began to walk differently, kicking colored rocks instead of the plain ones. I wasn’t adding an additional year of Greek or Hebrew to my resume, I was adding a way of looking at the world that made me love Jesus more and my Jesus-shaped Bible as well. At that moment, I stopped looking at Rome or Constantinople with so much admiration, and started looking to Geneva’s ecclesiology with great respect. It’s the hermeneutic, stupid! Look at the world around you with consistent eyes and ask, WWZD? What would Zechariah do? And then ask, what would Zephaniah do? And then ask, what would Zaphnath-Paaneah do?

We do need a better orientation on how we look at the world. This is a Christ-shaped world filled with common grace and joy, and the Bible is a welcoming playground for those who have new eyes to see. So, dear friends, a happy season! May your candy be tattooed with graces and sugared with spices from Katie’s kitchen and may you cuss at the right wrongs and not the wrong rights. As Luther used to say, “You may sin boldly, but let your trust in Christ be bolder still!”

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On October 18, 2020 By In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Temple of the Lord

From a distance, it must have been an awe-inspiring sight. There, sitting atop a mountain was a magnificent work of architectural art. Jutting up above the walls and drawing the eye to itself sat the Temple in Jerusalem. On a mountain peak outside the city looking in, one could see this marvelous structure, buzzing with human activity, and, if the wind was just right, one could smell the aromas of meat grilling on the altar. The beauty of the Temple told the onlookers and worshipers that this was the place where one came to meet the God of Israel and to be a part of his people. This is where one went to meet God and sit and have a communion meal with him, finding life.

During Jesus’ day, the Temple had become an architectural deception. Though everything about it screamed “LIFE,” it had become nothing more than an elaborate tomb, filled with rotting flesh and the stench of death. There was nothing there to satisfy the soul. This happened over the years of neglect and rebellion. Certainly, no one intended for it to turn out this way in the beginning. It probably started slowly and crept like a slow-moving cancer through the years until the time when Jesus came and gave the diagnosis and pronounced it dead (Lk 19.45-48).

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On October 13, 2020 By In Worship

The Absurdity of Leviticus

I was trying to do the impossible this morning listening to Leviticus. I attempted to listen to it through the eyes of an atheist–to see laws about priestly purity, eye defects, dwarfs, damaged private parts, and other bodily oddities that needed to come into conformity to the holiness code. As a supposed atheist I imagined mocking such texts and the grotesque descriptions and the absurd necessity to conform to such laws simply because of our humanity. Why should purity laws apply to menstruating women when it is merely the natural function of a female body? Why make her unclean for something she has no control over? How barbaric to apply standards to the regularity of life!

But the more you read into Leviticus the more impossible it is to remove the Christian eye from its intended goal. If Leviticus borrows heavily from the strange it is because the Bible carries with it a seal of authenticity in every book, and especially Leviticus. There is an inherent “deep weird” to the Bible that Christian must embrace. We don’t embrace it because we delight in the oddity, but because for the world to be coherent, it must have elements of the strange within it. Bodily discharges—though unbearably odd to mention—is so common that only a truly Spirit-inspired book could deal with it so bluntly.

The Christian faith must be embraced as a Levitical faith; one that is not shy of rituals and impurity and rituals for purity. It must also be embraced to reveal the vast contrast between the care God has for the well-being of his people and just how uncaring the gods of this world are about our well-being. Only a true God provides a system of symbols, rituals, death, and resurrection for his people. Indeed, Leviticus provides the route to holiness and our need for a Holy God.

As Paul says in Romans, the unbeliever cannot see the truth because he is blind. Perhaps Leviticus serves as a test for ordinary Christians on whether we embrace the raw language of Scripture as God’s reality or whether we prefer to sanitize the faith to fit our preconceived notions of reality. The Leviticus code is a pointer to the cleansing of the nations. There is no life without blood and there is no atonement without holiness. Leviticus is the pathway to the cross where the Holy One absorbs all our impurities, and simultaneously it is the aroma that draws true Israelites to the house of Yahweh. For the atheist it is sheer absurdity, but for the Christian it is the way of life and holiness and truth.

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On October 6, 2020 By In Culture, Politics, Worship

God’s Perfect Storm: Reflections on Psalm Sing Arrest in Moscow Idaho

You can’t plan Psalm Sing arrests. It was God at work and we were there to watch it unfold.

Gabe Rench Arrested at Psalm Sing September 23. Photo credit: Kip Mock

I am a member of Christ Church and I was there at Moscow City Hall on Wednesday, September 23. As I reflect on the Psalm Sing arrests, it is clear that God was at work putting all the pieces together so it would add up to a perfect media storm.

That Wednesday afternoon, we weren’t planning on getting arrested. I thought the police would be out issuing a lot of citations. That is what I was preparing for. When we arrived at City Hall, I was surprised to see about ten police were out there already. It was intimidating but I thought even then they would just issue citations.  

I am not sure why the police went up to Gabe Rench. He was near the front of the group but there were others they could have talked to.

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On September 6, 2020 By In Discipleship, Family and Children, Theology, Worship

Jesus Loves The Little Children

As parents, we sometimes wonder if it is all worth it. We are tired from the week of work and all the activities in which we have engaged ourselves and our children. Getting ready for worship on Sunday and actually going is a hassle. We don’t want to feel that way, but if we are honest with ourselves, we do. Not only do we have to get ourselves ready, but we also have to get our children ready. Then, when we get them there, all they want to do is squirm, color, cry, and go to the bathroom; and those are just the teenagers! We’re not “getting anything out of it” and, apparently, our children aren’t “getting anything out of it.” Do they even pay attention? Do they understand what is going on? Have they thought about what a blessing it is to be in the presence of God? Apparently not. They don’t seem to be thinking about this at all.  All of this can be a bit overwhelming and discouraging at times, especially when you are worn out. Why bother?

“Why bother?” is a good question. Jesus’ band of disciples didn’t think it was all that important to have children in the presence of Jesus. Luke doesn’t tell us specifically in chapter 18 why the disciples rebuked the parents and tried to keep the children from coming into Jesus presence, but from the evidence gathered throughout the Gospel, we are on pretty solid ground to understand that they didn’t think that the children were important enough to be that close to the King. They’re not great warriors. They’re not intellectual giants. They’re not even potty-trained! They can’t possibly be useful because they are whining and crying as their parents are bringing them to be touched by the Messiah. Who has time for that? We need to make better use of our time and the King’s time. Jesus wasn’t pleased. He thought it was important that they are touched by him, so his disciples better start thinking that it is important that these children be touched by him.

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On August 16, 2020 By In Worship

Bring. The. Noise. (Psalm 47)

Sports and their fans are an interesting phenomenon. They are mock wars; our forces against your forces. The forces have specific colors, banners, chants, music, shouts, and sometimes just a great amount of noise around them.

In a war, when your side is winning or has won, you are encircled with joyful noise. The noise is used to intimidate the enemy, celebrate victory, and energize the warriors as it spirals ever upward and energy creates more energy.

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On August 6, 2020 By In Church, Worship

Sleep In On Sunday

My family hops into the van (sometimes rather frantically) on Sunday mornings and buckle up for the ride through our small city to church. On the way down our street and around the corner we see knocked over trash cans, random articles of clothing, and maybe a stray pit-bull roaming the back alleys. Our town is in desperate need of renovation. The kids have a hard time comprehending the state of our city, but my wife and I know that the blue, brick house we just passed was busted last night for drugs, the boarded up duplex was once a meth lab, and the neighborhood barber shop near Queen St. closed its doors for good just a week or two ago. But every other Sunday I will holler to the back of the van, “Where are we going?” My son replies, “To heaven.”

Israel’s return to Jerusalem after her captivity is recorded in Psalm 126, a psalm of ascent. These psalms of ascent were often sung as the people of Israel made their walk up to the temple mount to worship the Lord. In the first verse of this psalm (126) the Psalmist says, “We were like those who dream.” Have you ever tried to picture what that looked like? I imagine the puffy, red eyes of my sons as I look in the rearview mirror on that Sunday drive. They still glimmer with the dreams from just a few hours ago. Jacob’s dream at Bethel in Genesis 28 has come to mind many times as my family has stumbled into the van on Sunday mornings. What did Jacob say after he took his nap on the rock at Bethel? “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Surely the Lord is in this city, but do we know it? Does this city know it?

If you’ve read the bible at all, you’d know that dreams are rather important and are often prophetic (Gen. 37; Dan. 2; Acts 2:17). Jacob’s dream is no different in this respect. He arrives at a city named Luz on his way to Haran and stops because the sun had set. He grabs a rock as a pillow and begins to sleep. Jacob dreams of a ladder between heaven and earth, the angels of God ascending and descending on it, and a voice from the Lord above saying that He will grant Jacob descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth – the whole earth will be blessed through him. The Lord had met with Jacob at Bethel; He had made that place a portal to heaven itself. So, it would make sense for Jacob to name it “house of God”. You’d expect to find God in His own house. And it would also make sense that Jacob would be forever changed by that experience. I can imagine him rubbing his sleepy, wearied eyes in the morning eventually revealing a face glowing with excitement. It is quite the dream after all.

Many-a-theologian have pointed out that the ladder in Jacob’s dream is a picture of our Lord Jesus, the bridge between man and God (earth and heaven). This is true, of course. But it is also true that Jacob is a picture of Jesus. It is no coincidence that Jacob lays his head on a rock, that he rests, and that his dream shows a portal between heaven and earth. Jesus’s tomb, in which He rested His wearied head in death, was hewn out of rock and covered with a stone (Matt. 27:60). The rocky mountain in Jerusalem was the site of the Lord’s House built by Solomon (1 Chron. 28). Jesus said that no stone would be left unturned in this temple’s destruction and that He’d raise it up in three days (John 2). Jesus is the Temple built on a rock; He is the rock itself (the chief cornerstone). He is the source of our rest from labor and weariness (Matt. 11:28). In Him we awake from our slumber of death. In Him we ascend into the heavenly places and sit at the right hand of God the Father (Eph. 2:6). He is the portal between heaven and earth. And if Christ is the true Jacob, surely His body is as well.

The fourth commandment requires the Church to rest on the Sabbath and to keep it holy. Have you ever thought of that command in this light? Our Lord commands that you rest in the worship of the Church. He not only commands you to rest, but He wants you to dream. Every week our Lord calls us into His house to sleep, to rest from our troubles. He puts us to sleep with the confession of sin – putting to death the old man and creating you anew. He speaks to you from the heavenly places in His Word and declares the promise that this whole earth will be covered with the blessing of His salvation. Just as he promised Jacob, He gives you bread to eat (Gen. 28:20); He serves you heavenly food. And He awakens you to a new life in which you know God even more. The worship of God’s people is a heavenly dream.

As we leave the heavenly domain of the liturgy, we often rub our eyes, give a good stretch (maybe a yawn), and forget what we just dreamed. We are a forgetful bunch. We get our families packed back in our vans and head down main street. Back to earth we go. We pass the knocked over trash cans, the empty shopping carts, and the same drug addicts on their stoops. Do we remember the voice of our Lord? Do we remember His words? Can we still see the dream? Heaven meeting earth, descendants spreading throughout the world, all families being blessed, an earth calling for redemption – for rest. Your neighbors need to see those puffy, red eyes of one who just saw heaven. They need hope. They need rest from their weary lives of sin and death. The sun may have set in our city, but there are still those who dream. There are still those who meet with God. God is most certainly in our city, but there are still those who don’t know it yet.

This heavenly dream that you enter each week is not just meant for you. It is meant for your street, your block, your city. This dream should be proclaimed in the town square, in board meetings, at homeschool co-ops, and city council meetings. Our lives should be marked with the rest of God. So, when you load up to head home from church on Sunday, crack your back, fix your hair, and live like you believe that heavenly vision. Because one day this whole earth, your city included, will be God’s house of rest and dreams.

My son yells from the back of the van, “Where are we going now, dad?” The correct answer is, “Back to earth, son. But we’re taking heaven with us.”

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On July 7, 2020 By In Culture, Worship

Why We will Not Stop Singing

It would have been almost impossible to imagine a few months ago that we would be where we are today. Viruses and viral police stories have become the catalysts to bring to the surface deeper spiritual issues within the culture.   Equally difficult is to anticipate all the ways these crises will affect our life and culture in the days to come. One of the interesting effects of COVID-19 up to this point is the way in which we gather to worship as God’s people. Not only has it forced us to worship differently as the body of Christ, but it has stirred many questions regarding the way in which we are to worship. Living in a nation that was built upon the principle of religious freedom, the church in America has not had to wrestle much with the tension between faithfulness to God in worship and obedience to the State as citizens. That tension is quickly and inevitably tightening.

A recent example of this growing antithesis can be found, unsurprisingly, in California. It started several weeks ago with the suggestion from various sources that Christians should consider not singing within the corporate worship gatherings. The suggestion itself was not altogether surprising given the ignorance and obstinacy of the culture. But the fact that some churches and individual Christians actually considered such a suggestion should have been astounding. Now the soft, steady beat of suggestion and persuasion has risen to sound more like the drums of war. 

Speaking of war, I am the first to caution my brothers and sisters in Christ against the temptation to fight every battle, to make every bump a hill to die on. If Christ indeed rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to sit down at the right hand of the Father, if He is truly and presently ruling over all creation as King of kings and Lord of lords, then I think Christians should respond to the worldings around us from a position of strength. We have the high ground of truth. We are not called to live in a defensive position, reacting to the thorns and thistles that poke and prod us as we go. 

So when someone, well-meaning or otherwise, suggests to us that maybe refraining from singing in our worship services would be wise and considerate, the proper response should be nothing more than a dismissive chuckle. It should be the same kind of response you would give to the suggestion that air-borne illnesses would disappear if we all just started holding our breath. 

For the Christian, one who is not only created in the image of the Triune God but is being conformed into the image of the Son and is indwelt by the life-giving Spirit, singing is as natural as breathing. We should no more be able to stop singing than fish can stop swimming. If you see a fish that is no longer swimming, it is not going to be a fish very much longer. Its fish-life is either ebbing away or gone altogether. Christians sing together because it is in our very nature to do so. To cease from singing is to cease from being. I don’t care how ridiculous that might sound to the “wise fools” who pretend to sit in judgment over such things. 

However, there are fights worth fighting. There are hills upon which we can and must be willing to die. And when silly suggestions grow into perverse requirements, the people of God must remain steadfast in our faith, knowing that compromise and capitulation to our thornbush leaders would result in the life being choked out of us. a If you want to know what that looks like, there’s a great little parable about it in Judges 9. Therefore, as we anticipate the fight before us, here are a few things to consider.

First, we must fight out of love for Christ and in a way that loves our enemies. This is a tricky one for us in the current cultural climate. There are many voices in these conflicts that are antagonistic to the truth. Some are deceptive in nature, speaking in ways that tickle the ears of the culture for their own gain. Others are deceived in their motives. They think they are actually loving people by what they stand up for or affirm, but their words are empty of life.

At the same time, we who love the truth can also fall into a deceptive trap. We can become more enamored with winning the fight than pleasing God in the struggle. If the false prophets are shouting, we will shout even louder. We can become motivated out of frustration at losing rather than maintaining faithfulness to God. And we can easily end up fighting worldliness with self-righteousness rather than simply being bold witnesses to His justice and mercy.

Jesus commanded his disciples to live in such a way that others would see their good works and become worshippers of God themselves. b Our ultimate desire as Christians is not to sing and praise God loud enough to drown out the cries of our enemies. Our desire is to worship in such a way that God would overcome our enemies by His grace and they would join the loud refrain. 

Second, we need to remember that conflicts are gifts from Christ for the good of His church. It can be easy for us to get all worked up in a righteous frenzy when we feel the squeeze. It is helpful to be reminded that in every conflict there is opportunity for growth. In every crisis there is opportunity for clarity. These are God-given moments in the washing and beautifying of Christ’s bride. Let us not waste these trials, but use them to increase the depth, passion, quality, frequency, unity, and diversity of our singing together. There is much fruit to be gained here across all denominations and traditions.   

Third, we must sing out of a clear understanding and deep appreciation of our history and our future. Not only is singing a part of our nature as God’s image-bearers, c but singing has been a primary means by which we praise and magnify who God is and what He has done from the beginning.

We find Adam poetically expressing his delight in God’s gift of Eve after being resurrected by Him from the death-like sleep. d We find Moses and the sons of Israel singing a song following the exodus of God’s people out of Egypt. e  This song would be sung generation after generation to remind them of God’s faithfulness and power. It was a corporate preservative of their identity as a people chosen by Yahweh and called out of bondage to worship Him.  

Creation itself is commanded to sing to its Creator in response to God’s redemptive actions toward His people. “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.” f The Psalms command us again and again to sing to the Lord, g and as we do so in the assembly, it reorients our thoughts and affections rightly as the covenant community of the Risen Christ. h  

And at the final consummation of the age when Christ comes again to bring to completion the new heavens and new earth, we find the saints singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. i 

These are difficult and unusual times to be sure. The church is not without its challenges and concerns ahead. But it has always been this way and will continue until that final day when all presence of sin is eradicated from our midst and the bride of Christ stands in all her perfected beauty radiantly reflecting the glory of her Groom. Until then, we must remain “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” j Singing is an indispensable part of that work. We sing in victory, we sing in tragedy, we sing in the light, we sing in the dark, we sing as a means of warfare, we sing in expectation of peace. We will sing the great story of redemptive history from generation to generation, and we will continue to sing into eternity when time no longer matters.

  1. Matthew 13:22  (back)
  2. Matthew 5:15-16  (back)
  3. Zephaniah 3:17  (back)
  4. Genesis 2:23  (back)
  5. Exodus 15  (back)
  6. Isaiah 49:13  (back)
  7. Psalm 30,47,51,67,68  (back)
  8. Colossians 4:16  (back)
  9. Revelation 15:3-4  (back)
  10. 1 Corinthians 15:58  (back)

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