Spiritual blindness is our moral, fallen condition (in Adam) and this is no more apparent than in the reaction of the Jews to Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. And yet, without the work of the Holy Spirit, all of us are also blind to the truth, even when the truth is standing right in front of us.
Text: John 2:18-22
I was interviewed yesterday for a BRIDGE radio podcast on the subject of unconditional election (the “U” in the well known acrostic TULIP). Guest teachers in the series so far include Dr. John Frame and Jeff Durbin, and will be followed by Dr. James White, and Dr. Joel Beeke.
Here’s a link to yesterday’s podcast.
On Tuesday, April 17, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson was a special guest for an “Ask Ligonier Team” event, answering biblical and theological questions live online.
Time Stamp for Questions:
What is the difference, if any, between ‘godliness’ and ‘holiness’? (1:06)
Which comes first in the Ordo Salutis (order of salvation)—faith or regeneration? (1:58)
How do I know that I am elect? How do I know my faith is genuine? (3:13)
How should I preach the doctrines of grace? (5:00)
How do you know if God has called you to be a pastor? (7:21)
Why should we pray if God has planned all things? (11:07)
What are the essential qualities of a Christian? (13:16)
How do we obey the moral law without being moralistic? (15:27)
What is the meaning of propitiation? (19:25)
How do we use the apocryphal books as Reformed Protestants? (22:10)
Will Christian who have been forgiven answer for their sins in judgment? (23:38)
Why did Jesus speak in parables? (28:15)
How do you explain the doctrine of election to an unbeliever? (30:47)
Do you have any advice for new ministers in the Bible Belt surrounded by a charismatic influence? (33:20)
In this day when the gospel is considered offensive and intolerant, how can I work without losing my job? (35:58)
What do you hope to see in ministers in the next 20 years? What advice would you give? (38:11)
What level of importance should church history have in my walk as a Christian? (39:09)
What is the greatest challenge in the church today? (40:47)
What book or resource would you recommend to a new believer? (43:09)
What is the best way to describe repentance to an unbeliever? (45:01)
Is suicide the unpardonable sin? (46:37)
What is the relationship between the Holy Spirit’s work and our effort in sanctification? (49:01)
If a new believer becomes paralyzed or brain dead and never shows “good works,” how do we know they are saved? (50:05)
Based on Acts 16:31, “believe…you will be saved…you and your household,” can we ask God to save our household? (52:44)
How would you relate the doctrine of adoption with the sacraments? (54:59)
Are all Christians called to be missionaries and/or do the work the work of missionaries? (58:04)
What are the pros and cons of formal church membership? (59:11)
Acts 17:26 – He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.
There is only one race – the human race. If there were more than one, in the Incarnation (when the Second Person of the Trinity took on human flesh) He would only be able become one of the races of man, and die in their place. Think about that. It would mean that Jesus could not claim to be the Savior of the world, but merely the Savior of one of the races in the world, taking on only their attributes and suffering in their place. However, it is because all mankind goes back to Adam and therefore there is only one race, that Jesus can save whoever calls upon Him. This is also why we as believers take the one gospel message (without any adjustment), to every one, whatever their skin color and wherever they are located in this world. Furthermore, this is why the Bible, rightly understood and applied, IS the answer to all forms of racism.
Note in contrast the title of Charles Darwin’s vastly influential but extremely flawed book, “On the Origin of Species” – except that this was not the full title. The full title is this: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” It is simply historical fact that Evolutionary thinking provided the foundation for the Nazi idea of an Aryan “super” or “master” race and allowed them to eliminate (by the millions) others they thought were inferior or even hostile to progress.
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” – Rev. 5:9,10
Lets dispense with the term “races.” There is only one race.
– John Samson
B.R.I.D.G.E. Ministries writes:
John Samson joins BRIDGE Radio again to give the testimony of his time and immersion in the word of faith movement for many years before leaving. John was not only a prosperity preacher but also a TBN host who was friends with well-known figures of the movement. We address the word of faith’s false teaching of the “little gods” doctrine, faith healing (1 Peter 1:24), and the right to riches as a Christian (John 10:10; Romans 8:32). John says, “I feel so much regret over being so caught up in this thing for years… and it is a comfort to my soul to perhaps be used to pull even one soul out of this deception…” and “This doctrine of the word of faith cannot stand up to Biblical scrutiny and Biblical context!” You will not want to miss this episode!
Article by David Mathis (original source here)
The final frontier of biological research is still the enigmatic human brain. And at the cutting edge of recent study has been this phenomenon we call “habits.” One important finding has been what researchers and popularizers call “keystone habits” — simple, but catalytic new routines that inspire other fresh patterns of behavior.
Take, for example, the habit of drinking more water daily. A little intentionality here might lead to making better food choices, and may even help inspire exercise. For some, quitting smoking is a keystone habit that starts a domino effect of good lifestyle changes. For others, simply forming the habit of putting on running shoes in the morning leads to walking for exercise, then light jogging, and eventually to becoming a full-fledged regular runner.
Find the right keystone, and you could unleash a string of good habits in your life.
Keystone for Christians?
While I cannot commend one keystone habit that will make the difference for every believer, I do want to speak up on behalf of one weekly habit that is utterly essential to any healthy, life-giving, joy-producing Christian walk: corporate worship. And it is all too often neglected, or taken very lightly, in our day of disembodiment and in our proclivity for being noncommittal. In fact, I do not think it is too strong to call corporate worship the single most important habit of the Christian life.
We may think it’s a new temptation today to play fast and loose with corporate worship, but the book of Hebrews gives another impression. Actually, speaking of habits, Hebrews 10:24–25 is the only use of the word “habit” in our English translations of the New Testament.
Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24–25)
By clearly delineating a bad habit that we must not develop — “neglecting to meet together” — Hebrews is also making clear what good habit we should cultivate, and feed: meeting together. Today’s temptation to underestimate the importance of the weekly assembly is as old as the church itself. And yet, the great irony is that the habit of meeting together with Christ’s people to worship him is utterly crucial for the Christian life.
But why? What is it about corporate worship that would lead us to think so highly of this as a habit to make — and to suspect for some that this may indeed be the keystone habit they desperately need for life-change?
Why Corporate Worship Is Critical
The reason corporate worship may be the single most important Christian habit, and our greatest weapon in the fight for joy, is because like no other single habit, corporate worship combines all three essential principles of God’s ongoing supply of grace for the Christian life: hearing his voice (in his word), having his ear (in prayer), and belonging to his body (in the fellowship of the church).
In corporate worship, we hear from God, in the pastor’s call to worship, in the reading of Scripture, in the faithful preaching of the gospel, in the words of institution at the Table, in the commission to be lights in the world. In corporate worship, we respond to God in prayer, in confession, in singing, in thanksgiving, in recitation, in petitions, in taking the elements in faith. And in corporate worship, we do it all together.
“God didn’t make us to live as solitary individuals. Neglecting corporate worship sows seeds of unbelief in our soul.”
God didn’t make us to live and worship as solitary individuals. Personal Bible meditation and prayer are glorious gifts and essential, not to be neglected or taken for granted. And they are appointed by God as rhythms for personal communion with him that thrive only in the context of regular communal communion with him.
Make It a Habit
Settle it now. Make it a habit. Corporate worship is too important to revisit each weekend and wrestle, Will I go this weekend, or sit this one out? If you leave it open-ended, as so many do, excuse after excuse will keep you from the storehouses of grace God loves to open in corporate worship. Over time your soul will become dry and shallow because of it. Neglecting to meet together will soon sow and nourish seeds of unbelief in your soul.
Decide now, and begin putting it as a pattern into your life, not to revisit the decision each weekend, and not to bow out on community group (or whatever other regular corporate gatherings are vital in the structure of your local church) because of lame, myopic excuses. Of course, unusual circumstances will arise, when you’re out of town, or at the hospital with a new baby, or something else manifestly restricting. But the sad truth is we are far too prone to give ourselves a pass on meeting together, when we really should have made it a habit ahead of time, entertaining only the rarest of exceptions.
Make it a habit. Corporate worship is too important to revisit each weekend and wrestle, “Will I go this Sunday?”
And just to be sure, the reason to make corporate worship a habit is not to check the box on perfect attendance, and not because corporate worship alone is enough to fully power the Christian life, and not because mere attendance in worship will save your soul. This is not a call for legalistic going-through-the-motions. The hope is not just to show up and be a shell.
Rather, this is a summons to harness the power of habit to rescue our souls from empty excuses that keep us from spiritual riches and increasing joy. Negligence and chronic minimizing of the importance of corporate worship reveal something unhealthy and scary in our souls. Let’s resist it with fresh resolve.
For our deep and enduring joy, there is simply no replacement for corporate worship.
Article by Brian Croft (original source here)
Modern technology provides many benefits. Information can be exchanged at an unprecedented rate. The level of productivity can be astounding. Face-to-face conversations can be had with people halfway around the world. But there are also dark sides to this technology. We as Christians are very aware of the many common snares of this modern technology, not least of which is the ease of access to pornography. For Christians who are trying to walk in purity and holiness, the challenge begins with the confrontation of lurid images and tempting captions on seemingly innocuous websites such as Facebook and news outlets.
There is, however, a more subtle snare lurking in this world of immediate access to information that affects Christians in a unique way: the temptation of allowing online sermons to displace one’s commitment to hearing God’s Word preached in person alongside fellow covenant members at the place and time where their local church gathers. Don’t misunderstand: listening to sermons online is generally a good thing. But when it takes the place of gathering with God’s people to hear God’s Word in person from the appointed shepherd of your soul, much of what God intended for our growth as followers of Jesus gets lost.
Here are five important reasons why it is essential that every Christian gather with other Christians in the same local church weekly to hear the preaching of God’s Word from the undershepherds of that congregation.
First, a Christian’s faith is fueled by hearing God’s Word. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome and plainly said, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). This has implications for not just the unbeliever, but for the believer also. We will be most inclined to listen and engage with preaching by being present where it is preached alongside others who have also come for the express purpose of hearing and submitting to God’s Word proclaimed. This is clearly one of the reasons the author of Hebrews commands that Christians not neglect regularly gathering together (Heb. 10:25).
Second, hearing God’s Word from your own shepherd is unique to every other encounter with God’s proclaimed Word. It is one thing to hear your favorite preacher expound God’s Word to his church or to a random conference crowd. It is an entirely different experience to sit in person and hear God’s Word expounded and applied directly to you from your pastor, the man who knows your struggles, difficulties, and doubts, and who will give an account for your soul (Heb. 13:17).
Third, never underestimate the power of personal connection. I like talking to my wife on the phone, but a phone conversation can never match the powerful impact of sitting across from her, face-to-face, and talking with her as I look into her eyes. Likewise, there is a powerful connection made between a shepherd and his flock when he preaches God’s Word to those he has been thinking about and praying for as he prepared. The Holy Spirit uniquely uses eye contact, facial expressions, and body language in both the preacher and his hearers to create a powerful connection between them during a sermon. A pastor feeds off the visible reaction of his hearers. A congregation is moved by the pastor’s burden over their souls conveyed in the sermon.
Fourth, spiritual fruit comes from hearing with others. When the church gathers, the Holy Spirit works in unique and powerful ways that are missing in private gatherings (1 Cor. 14). When a congregation collectively sits under the preached Word, a level of accountability is established and nourished among the hearers to urge each other to go and apply that sermon. A greater obligation to “do something” with the Word preached and to rely on one another for help and strength to obey it exists in this kind of community life that is not present when we listen in isolation or hop churches depending upon who is preaching that week.
Last, public sermons lead to corporate discipleship. Some form of one-on-one discipleship in a local church is essential for our personal growth as Christians. But while personal discipleship is a wonderful complement to the proclamation of God’s Word to the communal gathering of saints, it can never replace it, for it is one of the necessary marks of the church (Calvin, Institutes, 4.1.9). When the whole church hears God’s Word proclaimed, that Word then becomes the basis for further conversation and growth in the one-on-one discipleship conversations that follow. The sermon gets everyone on the same page; personal discipleship expands on the details of that page.
There is much about modern technology that can be redeemed for God’s purposes and glory, but what technology cannot do is replace God’s design for us to grow spiritually and to receive care for our souls. God has powerful and unique purposes for every Christian in the local church. So many of those purposes are fueled when a group of God’s redeemed people covenant together to gather in person with one another weekly to hear from God through His preached Word.
Article by Dr. W. Robert Godfrey (original source here)
One of the challenges of being Reformed in America is to figure out the relationship between what is evangelical and what is Reformed. Protestantism in America is dominated by the mainline Protestants, the evangelicals, and the charismatics. After these dominant groups, other major players would include the confessional Lutherans. But where do the Reformed fit in, particularly in relation to the evangelicals, with whom historically we have been most closely linked?
Some observers argue that the confessional Reformed are a subgroup in the broader evangelical movement. Certainly over the centuries in America, the Reformed have often allied themselves with the evangelicals, have shared much in common with the evangelicals, and have often tried to refrain from criticizing the evangelical movement. But are we Reformed really evangelical?
One area in which the differences between evangelical and Reformed can be examined is the matter of worship. At first glance, we may see more similarities than differences. The orders of worship in Reformed and evangelical churches can be almost identical. Certainly, both kinds of churches sing songs, read Scripture, pray, preach, and administer baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But do these similarities reflect only formal agreement, or do they represent a common understanding of the meaning and function of these liturgical acts in worship?
If we look closely, I believe that we will see the substantive differences between evangelicals and Reformed on worship. That difference is clear on two central issues: first, the understanding of the presence of God in the service; and second, the understanding of the ministerial office in worship.
The Presence of God in Worship
The presence of God in worship may seem a strange issue to raise. Do we not both believe that God is present with his people in worship? Indeed we do! But how is God present, and how is he active in our worship?
It seems to me that for evangelicalism, God is present in worship basically to listen. He is not far away; rather, he is intimately and lovingly present to observe and hear the worship of his people. He listens to their praise and their prayers. He sees their obedient observance of the sacraments. He hears their testimonies and sharing. He attends to the teaching of his Word, listening to be sure that the teaching is faithful and accurate.
The effect of this sense of evangelical worship is that the stress is on the horizontal dimension of worship. The sense of warm, personal fellowship, and participation among believers at worship is crucial. Anything that increases a sense of involvement, especially on the level of emotions, is likely to be approved. The service must be inspiring and reviving, and then God will observe and be pleased.
The Reformed faith has a fundamentally different understanding of the presence of God. God is indeed present to hear. He listens to the praise and prayers of his people. But he is also present to speak. God is not only present as an observer; he is an active participant. He speaks in the Word and in the sacraments. As Reformed Christians, we do not believe that he speaks directly and immediately to us in the church. God uses means to speak. But he speaks truly and really to us through the means that he has appointed for his church. In the ministry of the Word—as it is properly preached and ministered in salutation and benediction—it is truly God who speaks. As the Second Helvetic Confession rightly says, “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.”
God is also actively present and speaking in the sacraments, according to the Reformed understanding. The sacraments are much more about him than about us. He speaks through them the reality of the presence of Jesus to bless his people as he confirms his gospel truth and promises through them.
The effect of this understanding of Reformed worship is that the stress is on the vertical dimension of worship. The horizontal dimension is not absent, but the focus is not on warm feelings and sharing. Rather, it is on the community as a unit meeting their God. Our primary fellowship with one another is in the unified activities of speaking to God in song and prayer and of listening together as God speaks to us. The vertical orientation of our worship service insures that God is the focus of our worship. The first importance of any act of worship is not its value for the inspiration of the people, but its faithfulness to God’s revelation of his will for worship. We must meet with God only in ways that please him. The awe and joy that is ours in coming into the presence of the living God to hear him speak is what shapes and energizes our worship service.
The Ministerial Office in Worship
The difference between the Reformed faith and evangelicalism on the presence of God in worship is closely tied to their differences on the ministerial office in worship. For evangelicalism, the ministers seem to be seen as talented and educated members of the congregation, called by God to leadership in planning and teaching. The ministers use their talents to facilitate the worship of the congregation and instruct the people. The ministers are not seen as speaking distinctively for God or having a special authority from God. Rather, their authority resides only in the reliability of their teaching, which would be true for any member of the congregation.
The effect of this evangelical view of office is to create a very democratic character to worship, in which the participation of many members of the congregation in leading the service is a good thing. The more who can share, the better. The many gifts that God has given to members of the congregation should be used for mutual edification. Again, the horizontal dimension of worship has prevailed.
The Reformed view of ministerial office is quite different. The minister is called by God through the congregation to lead worship by the authority of his office. He is examined and set apart to represent the congregation before God and to represent God before the congregation. In the great dialogue of worship, he speaks the Word of God to the people and he speaks the words of the people to God, except in those instances when the congregation as a whole raises its voice in unison to God. We who are Reformed do not embrace this arrangement because we are antidemocratic or because we believe that the minister is the only gifted member of the congregation. We follow this pattern because we believe that it is biblical and the divinely appointed pattern of worship.
The effect of this view of office is to reinforce the sense of meeting with God in a reverent and official way. It also insures that those who lead public worship have been called and authorized for that work by God. The Reformed are rightly suspicious of untrained and unauthorized members of the congregation giving longer or shorter messages to the congregation. In worship we gather to hear God, not the opinions of members. The vertical dimension of worship remains central.
Conclusion
The contrast that I have drawn between evangelical and Reformed worship no doubt ought to be nuanced in many ways. I have certainly tried to make my points by painting with a very broad brush. Yet the basic analysis, I believe, is correct.
One great difficulty that we Reformed folk have in thinking about worship is that our worship in many places has unwittingly been accommodated to evangelical ways. If we are to appreciate our Reformed heritage in worship and, equally importantly, if we are to communicate its importance, character, and power to others, we must understand the distinctive character of our worship.
Our purpose in making this contrast so pointed is not to demean evangelicals. They are indeed our brethren and our friends. But we do have real differences with them. If Reformed worship is not to become as extinct as the dinosaurs, we as Reformed people must come to a clear understanding of it and an eager commitment to it. In order to do that, we must see not just formal similarities, but more importantly the profound theological differences that distinguish evangelical worship from Reformed worship.
Article by Michael S. Horton (original source here)
“Liturgy.” It sounds like “allergy,” and that’s perfect, because many Christians today have an allergy for liturgy. Actually, the idea’s very basic: certain things should always be done in a worship service, other things shouldn’t. And you need some set of criteria–a rationale, for what’s in and what’s not.
Every church has a liturgy. In the Bible churches and Baptist fellowships of my youth, the liturgy was pretty much the same Sunday to Sunday, and even fairly standard from church to church. You knew what to expect and had a pretty good idea of when to sit, stand, and reach for your hymnal or wallet.
During my teen years, though, I spent some time in charismatic circles. Here, we used to ridicule the Baptists as “traditionalists” who stifled the Spirit by the church bulletin. Imagine what we thought of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Lutherans! Goodness, they were really “dead traditionalists.” And “dead” didn’t refer to the doctrine, because it didn’t matter whether a church was liberal or conservative. It could have been the most orthodox church in town, but if its style was not youthful and lively, it was “dead,” plain and simple. Doctrine didn’t decide death or life, the liturgy decided it. Isn’t that ironic, that in our charismatic circles we were willing to divide churches over liturgy just as surely as we thought others had done! We were just as caught up in liturgy, by demanding a particular youth-oriented, guitar-strumming, hand-waving, informal style, that we ended up defining life and death in churches by our particular liturgical definitions.
Once we realize that we all have a liturgy–a philosophy of worship and a general set of criteria by which we judge it, we can begin to ask ourselves and each other, what then is a biblical liturgy? If God is the one who must be pleased with our worship, then he should decide–not the youth, nor the older folks, nor the unchurched or the churched. It’s our job to find out how God wants to be worshipped. After all, he is the audience; it is he who must be pleased with our worship, for ultimately he is the Seeker to whom we must be sensitive (Jn. 4).
I remember, when I began attending Presbyterian and Reformed churches, how it was both foreign and familiar. My new theology told me that God was the center of attention, so seeing him held up in the service, from the call to worship to Word and Sacrament, to the Benediction, clicked for me. You see, before, I was attending Arminian churches whose human-centered theology shaped a human-centered liturgy. Endless autobiographies called “testimonies,” tacky religious floor-shows, an interminable altar call begging folks to let God have his way, and a centrally-located choir with colorful robes framed a sermon of schmooze calculated to please me and make me want to go through this thing again next week. Now, of course, not all of the churches nor all of the services I can recall were as goofy as I’m describing here, but you get the picture.
So, it’s not whether liturgy, but which liturgy. It’s not enough to say, “It should be old”; nor is it acceptable to judge it by how it appeals to the youth. What are the biblical criteria for judging our worship? That’s the only question.
So here I offer seven guidelines that you might find somewhat helpful in analyzing your worship. It may be something that you could take to your worship committee or pastor.
1. It must conform to Scripture by preaching Law and Gospel, along with sermon and sacraments. The sermon isn’t the only “preaching” of the morning. The entire service is worship and says a great deal about the church’s view of God, Christ, salvation, etc. Is there a regular confession of sin and announcement of pardon? This is not only an ancient requirement of the Christian churches; it is part of the apostolic worship, as you find it in Acts chapter 2, for instance, and in Paul’s letters.
2. It must link the individual to the larger church body and not only to the church here and now, but to Christ’s body throughout the world and throughout all ages. Is our worship uniquely American or determined by the “contemporary”? This isn’t just a question of style, but of doctrine. We worship with the “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12) and the Psalms are full of the recounting of God’s works with his people throughout history. We aren’t individualists who are seeking a “worship experience” that’s relevant to us, but baptized Christians who are in covenant with the “communion of saints” and “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church” (Apostle’s Creed).
3. It must be God-centered, not us-centered. God is the audience and we are the choir. Are the “professionals” up front the focus of attention? Are they entertaining us or are they leading us in corporately entertaining God? Where is the focus?
4. It must worship the correct God correctly. The first three of the 10 Commandments concern our correct worship of the only true God. God is more concerned with true worship than with anything else. Even our salvation is a means to that end of bringing praise and glory to God’s name. It isn’t enough to worship the true God according to our own fancy; he must be worshipped in his own way, as Aaron’s sons learned the hard way. When they wanted to offer an unauthorized fire in the temple, it was out of the best of motives, but God turned them to ash before Aaron himself. “Before man, I will show myself as holy,” God declared. We must not trifle with God in the matter of worship.
5. It must emphasize and undergird Word and Sacrament as the central foci of worship. Is “fellowship” more important than the sermon and Holy Communion in our church?
6. It must be useable. In other words, we have to instruct people in anything that is unfamiliar. One reason people will say, “It’s just rote repetition” of ancient liturgies is due to the laziness, apathy, or lack of awareness on the part of the minister in terms of explaining it all. We can’t assume that each new generation understands what’s going on.
7. It must communicate to contemporary men and women. The Reformation recovered congregational singing and participation. No longer left to the “professionals” (the choir, etc.), the entire congregation read the Scriptures in unison, prayed in unison, and sang in unison. But that meant that they had to have it in their own language, so the Reformation neither shirked its obligation to the past, nor to the present and the future.
Here is an excellent resource of articles relating to the current “final salvation by works” false teaching abounding in the professing and even Reformed sectors of the today (found at this link).