DEAR CHURCH...

Pascal:

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Spurgeon:

The worst evils which have ever come upon the world have been brought upon her by an unholy Church.

ECCLESiOLOGY 101

I love cramming Ecclesiology into 3.5 days with my students. We are just hitting the high points. The only thing I want them to see is this: 

If you say that you love Jesus and you don't love the Church, then you don't love Jesus.

That is not for shock value. It means exactly what it says. I could argue this from logic. Meaning, if Jesus gave Himself for the church and that includes me/you, then we must love our brothers and sisters.

Or I could use that text to say that part of walking in the way of Jesus is loving what God loves and hating what God hates. God detests sin, injustice, the work of the enemy. God loves Himself, His world, and His people.

Furthermore, I could send you to John's writings. John often talks about the necessary and righteous love of God to His people, His people to Himself, and His people to themselves. You know, "The world will know that you're My disciples if you have love for one another."   

But none of those options is necessary.

"Peter, do you love Me?" This was Jesus' question. And the answer that makes it a reality is for Peter [and you and me] to love/tend/feed the flock of God.

But why did I say that my one-liner was the "only thing" I wanted them to see? Because that is pure ecclesiology. All of the fine points of ecclesiology [sacraments, church discipline, offices, etc] are merely ironing out that one bigger reality.

I guess I should still define "Church" shouldn't I? I'll save that for another time. But even varying definitions will not matter so much because the Church is about Jesus. That's my whole point!

If you say that you love Jesus and you don't love the Church, then you don't love Jesus.

Tim Keller on the Church and Politics

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THE TRAiL OF BLOOD

Baptists are not Protestants.

This is the premise of the short little booklet, "The Trail of Blood" [J. M. Carroll]. It was first published in 1931 and has still strangely remained.

He argues, with ample historical and biblical ammunition, that the majority of the groups that were persecuted and often condemned through church history were baptistic in nature [the Montanists, Paulicans, and many others].

Cardinal Hosius was the president of the Catholic Counter-Reformation at the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s. He said:

Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers.

Sir Isaac Newton [1643-1727] said, "The baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome."

The Lutheran church historian Johann Laurenz von Mosheim [1693-1755] says,

Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost all the countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of modern Dutch Baptists.

There are two extremes that should be avoided after reading these quotes. First, they're too forthright not to take seriously in some way or another. Second, they're claiming something too radical to to be accepted without reservation.

I would never say this 56-page polemic is unalloyed gospel truth. But for tons of fun, humor, and ecclesial disorientation, please make it a purchase :)

GUiTAR HERO MiNiSTRY

Go Here. It's by my friend Steven who pastors one of the fastest growing churches [also here] in the country. It was eighth in 2007. His blog is always fun to read.

THEOLOGY - SUFFERING = THEORY

This is from Calvin's "Epistle to the Reader" that prefaced his last edition of The Institutes. It is a fresh reminder that if upright doctrine is not tried, it is not complete. Forget not this fitting adage, my friends — true THEOLOGY and true DOXOLOGY always walk hand in hand.

As a clear proof of the diligence with which have I laboured to perform this service to the Church of God, I may be permitted to mention, that last winter, when I thought I was dying of quartan ague, the more the disorder increased, the less I spared myself, in order that I might leave this book behind me.

For, by the blessing of God, my most ardent desire has been to advance his kingdom and promote the public good — although I feel perfectly conscious, and take God and his angels to witness, that ever since I began to discharge the office of teacher in the Church, my only object has been to do good to the Church, by maintaining the pure doctrine of godliness, yet I believe there never was a man more assailed, stung, and torn by calumny [as well by the declared enemies of the truth of God, as by many worthless persons who have crept into his Church—as well by monks who have brought forth their frocks from their cloisters to spread infection wherever they come].

But the devil, with all his crew, is mistaken if he imagines that, by assailing me with vile falsehoods, he can either cool my zeal, or diminish my exertions. I trust that God, in his infinite goodness, will enable me to persevere with unruffled patience in the course of his holy vocation.

Farewell, kind reader. If you derive any benefit from my labours, aid me with your prayers to our heavenly Father.

Geneva, 1st August 1559.

"I profess to be one of those who, by profiting, write, and by writing profit." —Augustine

driscoll on gospel, church, and culture

I love these little paradigms Driscoll has. They're helpful when attempting to synthesize American Christianity. He explains them all in further detail in his books, but you should get the picture.

Gospel + Church - Culture = Fundamentalism

Culture + Gospel - Church = Parachurch

Church + Culture - Gospel = Liberalism

Of course, the conclusion to these is that Gospel + Church + Culture = the Kingdom [or biblical Christianity or whatever you'd like to call it]. Read his "Confessions" book. It's insightful and hilarious.

church discipline, etc

Maybe we don't take Church [that's an intentional capital "C"] as seriously as the Bible does. Maybe when Jesus said "I will build my church" He meant that that included adding and taking away. It was the design of God to kill Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5. He used that so that "great fear filled the whole church" [Ac 5.11]. This is, of course, one of many examples.

Still, we even think that church membership is some random and modern phenomenon that we do to look like other social groups. The church at Corinth had to have some sort of corporate understanding of someone being a covenant and community member or else they would have had nothing to excommunicate people from. Paul says of wayward church members that he "handed them over to Satan" [1 Cor 5].

This is a fragile, yet needed discussion. There are some pastors and elders that need to grow a backbone. 1 Corinthians 5, Matthew 18, and the pastoral epistles are replete with examples of how the church and its members must be taken seriously. Preachers who pad their membership roles or see how many they can stuff in the bleachers so that they can get on TV or write a book - these guys are earning bonus points for the "False Teacher of the Year" award.

All of this rabid tangent means nothing unless it can positively be fleshed out and not merely negatively called out. So, here's a beautiful chart I recently found from one of Wayne House's books.

He will build His church. He will purge and sanctify His people.