Tom Wright to the next generation of ministers

Tom Wright on the use of the Bible in the Church

Here.

good biblical interpretation

From "The Art of Reading Scripture" edited by Ellen Davis and Richard B. Hays [pg 3].

Faithful interpretation of Scripture invites and presupposes participation in the community brought into being by God's redemptive action.

Scripture is like a musical score that must be played or sung in order to be understood.

Pastor?

Driscoll pokes fun at what the office of "pastor" has become in many churches. Here.

some thoughts on women in church from 1 Cor 11 and 14

Paul says that "every wife who PRAYS or PROPHESIES with her head uncovered dishonors her head" [1 Cor 11.5]. Now don't think about the definition of the spiritual gift of prophesy. Don't think about the head-covering issue. Think about the fact that Paul assumes women will PRAY and PROPHESY in church.

This reality in Paul's mind is not posited against 1 Cor 14.33-34, but alongside of it: "Women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak."

So, how is this not a flagrant contradiction? What is Paul's problem? He can't even think straight.

The context of the 1 Cor 14 passage is a discussion on orderly worship and the gift of prophecy. Paul says that when people prophesy, others should "weigh in" [ESV] or "judge" [NASB] or "evaluate" [NLT] the prophecy that was spoken [14.29-33]. It seems that Paul just doesn't want women weighing in or discerning these prophecies.

Just as there is functional subordination in the Godhead [the Son is equal is essence to the Father, but also obeyed Him], there is the same in His image bearers [see Gen 1-2]. The man and the woman bear the image together, but have distinct roles in the image-bearing process.

So, do I think women can participate in church on a Sunday morning? Sure. In what capacity? It appears a limited one. Guess we'll have to dig there later.

church membership?

There has to be some sort of mutual "membership-ish" understanding in the background of 1 Corinthians or else Paul couldn't tell them to "expel the immoral brother" [5.13].

So, what should church membership look like today? Did the Corinthians make each other sign a church covenant? How did they have a mutual and clear understanding of local church unity? It was there somehow.

Here are a few different church membership vows or church covenants that I've been reading over. Some are really incredible. I looked at Joel Osteen's church. Couldn't find one?

• The Village Church, Matt Chandler... here.
• Bethlehem Baptist, Dr John Piper... here.
• Mars Hill Bible Church, Rob Bell... here.
• Mars Hill Church, Mark Driscoll... here.

The straightforward membership summary of Mars Hill Bible Church is really beautiful:

BACKWARD, embracing the roots of our faith.
FORWARD, because the life of faith is a journey.
INWARD, because we want to be whole people.
WITHWARD, because we were made to live in community.
OUTWARD, because Jesus calls us to serve the world.
UPWARD, celebrating God's redemption of all things.

Who Should Run the Church? A Case for the Plurality of Elders.

By Dan Wallace. Here.

salvation of souls as the great western heresy?

Here.

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.

"WALK BY THE SPiRiT" [Gal 5.16]

• The rigidity of Puritan morality.
• The extent of fundamentalism's legalism.
• The historic excess of Rome's ritualism.
• The fluidity of postmodernity's [I don't think this is a cool word anymore?] approach toward doctrine and ecclesiology.
  

I'm not saying that the above list is all bad. However, I do believe that most of any wrongness in these things comes from a specific source: a weak understanding of the Holy Spirit.

St Paul's understanding of the Spirit was that He was vital and active in the church. For Paul, the goal was never to give the Spirit a theological or theoretical head nod. I am even pressed to find an occasion where Paul's purpose is to assert the deity of the Spirit. Yes, he does write about the doctrine of the Spirit with clarity. Yes, he does hint at the deity of the Spirit in such a way that we should not question it. But what is the hub of wheel of Paul's pneumatology?

Paul sees the Holy Spirit as God's empowering presence in the community of faith. The Spirit is experienced corporately and individually as the relational means by which the covenant community lives. He gifts each member of the body for the building up of the body [1 Cor 12.7, 12.11]. 

I tend to think that a better experience and/or understanding of the Spirit's personal work in the church would have rightly nuanced the motives and practices of our friends in the list above.

Yet, we are all guilty of not yielding to His voice. May we learn to listen carefully to our Helper.

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.

i had a coupon

This book is usually $50-55. I was blessed to find it for $36 today. And the justification for its purchase was simple - we just got our tax return. This is my "Uncle Sam present" and Sara gets one too. I'm already encouraged and challenged by it. Read its first paragraph below.

Of the making of dictionaries there would seem to be no end. What, then, could possibly justify adding one more item to an already well-stocked inventory? Neither the editors nor the contributors are under the illusion that new reference work will change the world. Nevertheless, we believe that the time is ripe for a resource that combines an interest in the academic study of the Bible with a passionate commitment to making this scholarship of use to the church. [This book] aims to provide clarification, analysis, and evaluation of the various approaches to biblical interpretation currently in the marketplace, with a view to assessing their theological significance - in particular, their value for reading Scripture in and for the community of the faithful. 

how to do unbiblical youth ministry in the 21st century

If you're remotely aware of pop-culture evangelicalism, this will be funnier. If you are a rabid atheist and know how America works, it'll still be funny. 

Ignatius from travis hawkins on Vimeo.

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.