Monthly Archives: August 2014

A Daily Prayer for Sunday

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Prayer7It is common for us as pastors to be telling the congregation what they ought to be doing. It is oftentimes less common for an explanation to be given as to HOW to do these things. One such area is the arena of prayer. We all know that we as Christians should be people of prayer, but what causes many to stumble is a lack of knowledge as to how exactly to go about the task.

I was greatly impacted some time back when reading a written prayer made by Tim Challies, found on his blog (www.challies.com), in preparation for a conference he was due to attend. The thought came to me that if I adjusted just one or two words, and maybe added one or two things, the prayer would be a useful tool for all of us Christians as we prepare our hearts each week for a different setting; that of Sunday worship. Here then is that suggested sample prayer, based almost word for word on the one Tim wrote. I trust many will find it useful. – Pastor John Samson

“Our gracious God and Father. I approach Your throne today, knowing that it is only through the name of Jesus that I can stand before You. I thank and praise You for Your goodness in allowing me to do so. I recognize very well that I am unworthy of this honor, this privilege, apart from Your unmerited favor and grace. I come before You to seek Your blessing on the service on Sunday.

Grant that the Word will come to us with power and with great freedom. Be near to our Pastor and his family. Keep the family close as they serve You together. Protect them from dangers both seen and unseen. May our pastor know great wisdom as he plans his day and his week around the priorities You lay before him. May his schedule allow him much time to study Your word and to pray. May he know that he is serving You and all of us very well as he makes these a high priority. May our pastor’s family time also be protected. Grant that he would be free from all unnecessary busy-ness in ministry. Also grant our pastor sufficient rest and sleep.

Grant our pastor humility before Your Word as he finishes his preparations and grant that he may be filled with a holy dread and gravity as he stands before Your people. May he know what it is to be filled afresh with the Holy Spirit. May we truly know what it is to sit under the preaching of the Word. Speak to us, we pray. Speak to our hearts through the words we hear. May we never be the same.

Be with us in our worship. Be near to those who may sing or play instruments. Grant that in all things they may seek to serve You. May songs be selected that will bring glory and honor to Your name. May they lead us in singing songs that celebrate the beauty of the Savior and sing of Your wonders, Your glory, Your triumphs, Your holiness, Your majesty and Your great gospel. Let everything that has breath in that place praise the Lord together. May our worship be a sweet and fragrant offering to You. Accept it Lord, though we know it is poor and imperfect. Accept it through Your grace.

Be with the men and women who will be serving this week – those who are responsible for hospitality, greeting and ushering… Even now Lord, please fill all of these people afresh with Your Spirit. We thank you for the servant’s hearts You have given to them. I ask that You will allow them to be a blessing to many this week, even to those who do not yet know You. May the service run smoothly and may Your hand be evident in all that transpires. May Your love truly flow amongst us. May each of us be sensitive to the needs of others.

Bless our church’s outreach this week, through the words we speak, the love we show and the help we give to others. Bless the proclamation of Your gospel both by word and by life. In Your goodness, bring many to repentance. Direct our conversations, and help each of us to be bold in sharing the good news of Christ with others. Use me and all of our church in outreach this week I pray.

Would you help all who attend to come to the Sunday service as true worshippers–as those who worship You in spirit and in truth. Remind us that the gathering of Your people to worship is something You have ordained for us. It is a holy and sacred time. Help us to take the Lord’s day seriously. Prepare my heart and each of our hearts even now for what You will say to us then. Grant that we may not come before you as frauds, standing in Your presence filled with unconfessed sin. Give us the strength and wisdom to reconcile ourselves to our brothers and sisters before we come before You in worship. Give us discerning hearts that we may see and confess our sin before You. Open our eyes to see and to know You in a new way. Help us to worship You, not only with our lips, but with our hearts, our souls, and all that we are. Accept the gift of worship we will bring to You. May it please You.

Be with our pastor as he prepares to preach Your Word on Sunday. Grant that his time of preparation will be fruitful and that You will stir His heart with the great news of the gospel, of the precious truth of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone. May all of us at our Church live in the power of this gospel always. Protect us from the devil’s lies and help us to never be bored by the wonderful doctrines of grace, but grant that they may be the joy and delight of our hearts. Open our eyes Lord to see just how Your glorious gospel affects each and every area of our lives. Grant that our pastor or any guest minister may preach with great power and passion on Sunday morning. May the preaching be God-centered, cross-centered and gospel-centered.

Be with me Lord. Prepare my own heart for Sunday morning when You speak to us as Your people. I confess that already my heart is polluted with sin. As I think about worshiping You, already I wonder how other men may perceive me. Already I sin against you. Extend Your gracious forgiveness to me that I may come before You with a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me. Keep the truth ever before me that to obey is better than sacrifice. Help me to be obedient to You in all things. Fill me with Your Spirit. Grant that I may serve You by serving others.

Grant traveling mercies as men and women, boys and girls come to our Church on Sunday. Keep us safe this week and as we gather together in Your name.

We pray for peace and unity while we gather together. We ask that there will be mercy and understanding. We ask that there will be a great outpouring of your Spirit. We ask that you will bless us for the sake of the glory of Your great name.

I ask these things humbly and in the name that is above all names, the Lord Jesus Christ. Grant that I may be expectant and observant in seeking answers to this prayer so that I may praise You for Your goodness.”

Rome’s View of the Eucharist

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William A. Webster is a business man, living with his wife and children in Battle Ground, Washington. He has already authored The Christian Following Christ as Lord and Salvation, The Bible, and Roman Catholicism, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, from which this article is taken, and the three volume series, Sola Scriptura, co-edited by David T. King. Mr. Webster is a founder of Christian Resources, Inc., a tape and book ministry dedicated to teaching and evangelism. You can visit his website at http://www.christiantruth.com/

Here is an excellent article he wrote concerning the Roman Catholic view of the Eucharist.

Is what we have now what they wrote then?

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Dr. Daniel Wallace is one of the foremost New Testament scholars in the world today. He is a native Californian, a pastor, and a former surfer. He transplanted to Texas and has taught for more than 28 years at Dallas Theological Seminary, where he is the professor of New Testament Studies. Dr. Wallace is also the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of the New Testament Manuscripts. He earned his B.A. at Biola University and went on to earn a ThM degree and PhD from Dallas Theological Seminary. His postdoctoral studies have taken him around the world from Australia to Africa. He has been part of writing, editing, or contributing to more than 24 books. He married his wife, Pati, 40 years ago and they have four sons and two granddaughters.

Speaking at Mars Hill (August 3, 2014) he shares important teaching on the origin of the New Testament and whether or not what we read in our Bible translations today is the same as what was written in the original manuscripts. If you or a friend have ever had doubts or questions about the validity of the New Testament, or the Bible in general, this is the sermon to watch.

Christ the Image of God

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Heb-13Mike Riccardi is the Pastor of Local Outreach Ministries at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles. He also teaches Evangelism at The Master’s Seminary. He God’s presence was mediated through fire (Exod 3:6; Deut 5:4, through blazing light (Exod 33:18–23), through visions (Ezek 1:28) and angels (Jdg 6:21–22; cf. 13:21–22), through the temple worship (Pss 27:4; 63:1–2), and even through God’s own Word (1 Sam 3:21). But with the coming of Jesus and the New Covenant era, the glory of God’s presence is now uniquely and supremely manifested “in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). This makes sense, of course, because Christ is the perfect “image of God” (2 Cor 4:4).

This is precisely the testimony of the opening verses of the Book of Hebrews. Though God had revealed Himself by speaking to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days He has spoken finally and decisively in His Son (Heb 1:1). Christ is therefore the radiance of the Father’s glory (1:3)—the manifestation of the very presence of God, the “effulgence of the divine glory,” as one commentator colorfully puts it.

The Son is also described as the exact representation of the Father’s nature (1:3). The word for “nature” there is hupostasis, which the lexicons tell us speaks of the “essential or basic structure/nature of an entity” and thus refers to the Father’s “substantial nature, essence [and] actual being.” And the phrase “exact representation” is a translation of the Greek term charakt?r, which denotes “a stamp or impress, as on a coin or a seal, in which case the seal or die which makes an impression bears the image produced by it, and . . . all the features of the image correspond respectively with those of the instrument producing it” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary, 577).

Just as the shape, impressions, and intricacies of a coin reveal precisely the nature of the original die, so does the Son reveal the very essence of God Himself. Anthony Hoekema’s conclusion is inescapable: “It is hard to imagine a stronger figure to convey the thought that Christ is the perfect reproduction of the Father. Every trait, every characteristic, every quality found in the Father is also found in the Son, who is the Father’s exact representation.”

This teaching is borne consistent witness throughout the NT. Though no one has seen the Father at any time, Christ the only begotten God in the bosom of the Father has explained Him (John 1:18). Literally, the Son has exegeted the Father, making known to finite humanity in His own person what was otherwise imperceptible. The glory that humanity beholds in Christ is the “glory of the only begotten from the Father” (John 1:14). Paul tells us that Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), such that, “though God is invisible, in Christ the invisible becomes visible; one who looks at Christ is actually looking at God” (Hoekema, 21). So full is the Father’s revelation of Himself in the Son that Jesus can say to Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), for in Him “all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col 2:9). Continue reading →

Tithing Today

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Is the principle of tithing still in effect today?

Firstly, please allow me to define our terms. The word ‘tithe’ simply means “a tenth part” or “one tenth.” The tithe is distinguished from an offering. A tithe is the tenth part or 10% of our income. An offering constitutes everything over and above the tithe.

Tithing involves returning to God the first fruits of one’s prosperity – a requirement to give ten percent of our gross annual income or gain. If a shepherd’s flock produced ten new lambs, one of those lambs was required to be offered to God. This was from the top. It was not given after other expenses are met or after other taxes have been paid. The tithe was given to God before all other transactions took place.

As a biblical principle tithing was in place long before the Law, during the Law and is nowhere rescinded in the New Testament. In saying this, I want to be quick to also say that our giving does not end with tithing. The New Testament Christian, in light of the grace found in Christ, and because of the overflow of a grateful heart of generosity, should actually seek to do more than tithe. Tithing is merely the starting point.

I would agree with Dr. Ligon Duncan when he writes:

“Many Christians argue about whether the tithe (10% of our income) is still the standard for our giving to the Church (disputants usually want to show that less than 10% is fine). Paul scuttles the whole debate in one verse. He says: ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich’ (2 Corinthians 8:9). Christ’s self-giving is now the standard for our giving! We begin from the base of the tithe and aim for emulation of His self-sacrifice. Our giving is to be inspired and instructed by Christ’s inexpressible gift. In light of such a challenge, who could possibly satisfy himself with asking ‘how little a percentage is acceptable for me to give?’ Do you try to get by with giving as little as possible to the Lord, or do you give in view of the Lord’s costly sacrifice?” (emphasis mine) Continue reading →

Law and Gospel (in one sentence)

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“… every intelligent creature is under an unchangeable and unalienable obligation, perfectly to obey the whole law of God: that all men proceeding from Adam by ordinary generation, are the children of polluted parents, alienated in heart from God, transgressors of his holy law, inexcusable in this transgression, and therefore exposed to the dreadful consequence of his displeasure; that it was not agreeable to the dictates of his wisdom, holiness and justice, to forgive their sins without an atonement or satisfaction: and therefore he raised up for them a Saviour, Jesus Christ, who, as the second Adam, perfectly fulfilled the whole law, and offered himself up a sacrifice upon the cross in their stead: that this his righteousness is imputed to them, as the sole foundation of their reception into his favor: that the means of their being interested in this salvation, is a deep humiliation of mind, confession of guilty and wretchedness, denial of themselves, and acceptance of pardon and peace through Christ Jesus, which they neither have contributed to the procuring, nor can contribute to the continuance of, by their own merit; but expect the renovation of their natures, to be inclined and enabled to keep the commandments of God as the work of the Spirit, and a part of the purchase of their Redeemer.”

– John Witherspoon, Essay on Justification, 1756, Works, 1:50-51

Tithes and Offerings in the Worship Service?

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It was likely the most surreal thing I’ve ever witnessed at a worship service. Not surprisingly it happened Sunday morning at the Orlando Convention Center. My esteemed father was scheduled to preach at this service in conjunction with the annual Christian Booksellers Association convention. Back in those days CBA was a huge deal, with more than 5,000 souls in attendance representing book and music publishers, authors and artists and Christian bookstore owners. I don’t remember what big name sang the offertory, but it was a big name. Just before my father got up to speak, however, a gentleman in a nice suit went up the microphone to let us all know, “This worship service is being brought to you by the W@#R Music Group.” (I honestly don’t remember which music company it was and if I did I’d likely leave it out to protect the guilty.) A corporate sponsor for a worship service? What?

What are Tithes & Offerings?
My concern, however, is less with what happened 20 years ago and more with the perspective I fear may be behind it. Too often we look at the presentation of our tithes and offerings as some sort of commercial time out — that portion of the service where we tend to the necessary business of financing the work of the church. It’s sort of like a smoking break — necessary for some, a bit of an intrusion, and not a little unseemly.

I have these suspicions in part because of how I hear some churches explain their reasoning for removing the giving of tithes and offerings from their liturgy. We’re told they don’t want the unbelievers in the meeting to feel uncomfortable or pressured, and they don’t want them believing we care too much about money. But, they reason, the necessary chore of meeting the financial needs of the church can be met by a collection box near the narthex, or even direct deposit from members’ checking accounts.

Tithes & Worship
I honestly have no strong quarrel with differing views of how tithes and offerings are collected. Nor am I particularly concerned with the practical side, wanting to make sure the church has the money it needs. Instead I fear what we lose when we remove this aspect of worship from our liturgies.

That is, the giving of tithes and offerings isn’t a business transaction, but an act of worship. We are responding, in God’s presence, to God. We are handing these tokens back to Him as a way of acknowledging not that the bills must be paid, but that all that we are and all that we have are His. In the same way that we set aside the Lord’s Day not to say to God, “We love you so much we’re willing to give you a whole day” but instead to say, “We give you this day to remember that all our days are Yours” so we do not say, “One tenth of our income is Yours, but instead, “I have been bought with a price. All that I have received is from Your hand, and You have made me but Your steward. I, and all I have, belong to You alone.”

Might this make unbelievers uncomfortable? Perhaps. So ought the preaching of the gospel. Might it make them feel pressured to give? Perhaps. So ought the preaching of the gospel make them feel pressured to repent. Might it make them not want to come back? Perhaps. So might the preaching of the gospel make them not want to come back. We are there, remember, not for W@#R Music Group, not for the lost, not for ourselves, but for Him. Our liturgies ought to reflect such.

This post was first published on rcsprouljr.com.

Related: Ask RC: Why do some churches take an offering, and others do not? Continue reading →

Insights on the Gospel of Thomas

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From www.tyndalehouse.com

We talked to Dr Simon Gathercole, Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Cambridge, about his latest book The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary (Brill 2014) and his earlier work The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas (Cambridge University Press 2012).

‘What has made the Gospel of Thomas of interest to you as a scholar?’

I certainly never imagined at the beginning of my academic career that I would write two quite big books about the Gospel of Thomas! The main reason I got into the study of the ‘other’ Gospels is that I am always interested in the views people have about Jesus. After all, the question ‘Who is Jesus?’ is and always has been at the heart of the Christian faith and of vital concern to Christians.

In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, there was in scholarly circles a concerted effort to narrow down the sources on which we could base a reliable historical picture of Jesus. This led to scepticism in some circles about the Gospel of John, for example. For a scholar such as Adolf von Harnack, the ‘Q’ source behind Matthew and Luke gave the true picture of Jesus and the essence of Christianity. For Rudolf Bultmann, the Gospels were ‘cult legends’ in which traces of the historical Jesus could occasionally be found. But all through this process there was no doubt for such sceptical scholars that the raw material for our understanding was to be found at least somewhere in the New Testament.

In the past few decades, by contrast, there has been a rise in interest in how the apocryphal or non-canonical gospels might contribute to our picture of Jesus. This is very much the position we are in at the moment: scholars are asking not only, ‘How does the New Testament inform us about the historical Jesus?’, but also ‘What parts of the other gospels feed into our understanding of Jesus?’, or ‘What aspects of how Jesus was remembered can be seen in other gospels?’ The Gospel of Thomas (not to be confused with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) is for some scholars the principal apocryphal source.

The ‘Composition’: a summary

There are two parts to the argument in my first book, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas. The first is about the original language in which the Gospel of Thomas was written. This is controversial because some (e.g. April DeConick) have argued that the core of Thomas is very early, going back to an Aramaic source put together around AD 30-50. On the other hand, some more conservative scholars such as Nicholas Perrin have argued that Thomas must be very late because it was composed in Syriac around AD 200.

I argue against both of these positions in the first half of the book. Thomas was much more likely to have been composed in Greek, which means that the original language does not have any relevance for locating the origins of Thomas because Greek was used so widely across a huge span of time.

The second half of the book, though, highlights some of the factors which do feed into our understanding of Thomas’s origins. In particular, Thomas is very clearly influenced by Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, and by Paul’s letter to the Romans. The argument that Thomas is earlier than the New Testament Gospels is unsustainable. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that the forms of the sayings and parables of Jesus are preserved more authentically in Thomas than in the New Testament Gospels.

‘What is the significance of the Gospel of Thomas?’

The significance of the Gospel of Thomas is that it offers us another window into second-century Christianity, which is useful to the historian because we do not have a great number of sources for Christianity in this period.

Thomas was written (not by the apostle Thomas!) some time roughly in the middle of the second century. One of the interesting things about it is that, ironically, it gives us some of the earliest evidence for the use of the New Testament Gospels, and in particular it mentions Matthew as an authoritative spokesman for the kind of Christianity with which Thomas disagrees (Gos. Thom. 13). This almost certainly means that Matthew was known as an accepted Gospel during the time at which Thomas was written in the mid-second century.

Thomas also supplies us with evidence of other disagreements in the period, over important topics such as how one can attain salvation, whether one should pray, the nature of the physical world, the attitude one should take to the Old Testament, and – again – who Jesus is and what he accomplished. On many of these topics, Thomas takes a position radically different from fathers such as Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin and Irenaeus.

‘Any new insights in the new book?’

Some of the points were quite small matters, such as solving (so I like to think!) some problems of interpretation about what some of the enigmatic sayings in the Gospel of Thomas mean. Sometimes it was like doing a cryptic crossword! On the larger scale, I found that my initial impression was confirmed that Thomas cannot possibly give us an accurate picture of who Jesus really was in his earthly ministry.

The first book, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas, contributed to the question of Thomas’s date by identifying some of the work’s literary influences (as I mentioned above, Matthew, Luke and Romans). The second book, the Commentary, shows how Thomas fits well in the middle of the second century, and identifies some of the oddities of the work. For example, in two places Thomas simply mentions a figure ‘Mary’ without specifying which one (Gos. Thom. 21 and 114): compare this with the New Testament Gospels where it is clear that, given the popularity of the name, you have to distinguish between different Marys.

Thomas also muddles up the number of biblical books (twenty-four, on one common way of counting at the time) with the number of biblical authors (Gos. Thom. 52). In the ‘Render unto Caesar’ dialogue, Thomas imagines a bystander producing not a denarius but a gold coin, either a misunderstanding or a deliberately dramatic exaggeration (Gos. Thom. 100).

So the Gospel of Thomas is both chronologically and culturally distant from the Jesus of history. We can’t derive any historical information about Jesus from it, although it does shed some fascinating light into the debates about Jesus and the nature of Christianity which were going on during the time of the Antonine emperors (AD 138-192), which is roughly the period in which Thomas was written.