Monthly Archives: January 2017

Repent for the Reformation?

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MohlerA Response by Dr. Al Mohler (original source The Guardian reported yesterday that leaders of the Church of England have called upon their church and all fellow Christians to repent of the sins of the Reformation. The headline in The Guardian yesterday:

“C of E archbishops call on Christians to repent for Reformation split.”

Yesterday on the website of the Church of England, the two highest-ranking archbishops of that church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York Dr. John Sentamu said,

“This year, churches around the world will be marking the great significance of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation in Europe, dated from Martin Luther’s 95 Theses protesting against the practice of indulgences, on 31 October 1517 at Wittenberg.”

“The Church of England,” they wrote, “will be participating in various ways, including sharing in events with Protestant church partners from Continental Europe.”

But the two archbishops then continued,

“The Reformation was a process of both renewal and division amongst Christians in Europe. In this Reformation Anniversary year, many Christians will want to give thanks for the great blessings they have received to which the Reformation directly contributed. Amongst much else these would include clear proclamation of the gospel of grace, the availability of the Bible to all in their own language and the recognition of the calling of lay people to serve God in the world and in the church.”

But then the two archbishops took this turn, and I quote,
“Many will also remember the lasting damage done five centuries ago to the unity of the Church, in defiance of the clear command of Jesus Christ to unity in love. Those turbulent years saw Christian people pitted against each other, such that many suffered persecution and even death at the hands of others claiming to know the same Lord. A legacy of mistrust and competition would then accompany the astonishing global spread of Christianity in the centuries that followed.”

The archbishops said,

“All this leaves us much to ponder.”

They conclude,

“Remembering the Reformation should bring us back to what the Reformers wanted to put at the center of every person’s life, which is a simple trust in Jesus Christ. This year is a time to renew our faith in Christ and in Him alone. With this confidence we shall then be ready to ask hard questions about those things in our lives and the life of our churches that get in the way of sharing and celebrating faith in Him.”

In the part of the statement that has received justly the most attention, the Archbishop said,

“Remembering the Reformation should also lead us to repent of our part in perpetuating divisions. Such repentance needs to be linked to action aimed at reaching out to other churches and strengthening relationships with them. This anniversary year will provide many opportunities to do just that, beginning with this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

“We therefore call on all Christians to seek to be renewed and united in the truth of the gospel of Christ through our participation in the Reformation Anniversary, to repent of divisions, and, held together in Him, to be a blessing to the world in obedience to Jesus Christ.”

Now that’s the kind of statement that we might expect from the theological left in terms of the Reformation and its anniversary. But this is coming from the two senior leaders of the Church of England. The headline in The Guardian really gets to the point, are we truly to repent of the Reformation? Much of the background to the statement made by the two archbishops becomes clearer when we look at the words themselves. For one thing, when we look at their statement we notice that they are claiming that the Reformation caused a division in the church.

At this point we have to ask a very hard question. It’s the hard question that was asked by the reformers themselves. We need to note that the reformers, including not only Martin Luther, but John Calvin and others, did not believe that they had any right to bring division in Christ’s church. That is not at all what they understood themselves to be doing. They had come to the point and that was not clear in 1517, but it became clear shortly thereafter, that the Roman Catholic Church was indeed not even a true church. It was not the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Martin Luther made very clear, the simple rationale for this had nothing to do, first of all, with the papacy and the hierarchy of the church, or even with Marian devotion or any number of other issues, but the fact that the Catholic Church as he knew it not only did not preach the gospel, but by its system of sacraments and by its teachings repudiated the gospel. Continue reading →

Advice for a Church Bookstore

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Article: 20 Pieces of Advice for Establishing a Church Bookstall
by Justin Sok (original source D.C., we’ve served as deacons of our church’s bookstall for several years. As a result, we’ve learned a lot about what to do—and not do—when it comes to maintaining a bookstall. We hope these reflections are helpful to every church that wants to instill sound doctrine in their members through books that are both affordable and faithful.

But before we say anything else, let’s be clear. The goal of a church bookstall isn’t actually to sell books. It’s a discipleship tool. Your goal is not to include every Christian book you can, or even every good Christian book you can. The goal is to highlight the particular books you really want your congregation to read.

For that reason, our church treats book selection as a pastoral responsibility. Every book on the book stall has been added by a pastor. You can buy any book in the world on the internet. But a bookstall is where a church gets to hear from its pastors about what’s worth reading.

1) Budgeting To Start A Bookstall

You’ll need some money on-hand to start. How much? It depends on how big you want your inventory to be. If we estimate that each book could be purchased by the church for $10, you could buy 400 books for $4,000. If you have 5 copies of each title, that means you could carry 80 different titles. You can scale that estimate up or down depending on the size and needs of your congregation.

You’ll also need to set aside some money for shelving and a system to accept payments. You could find a cheap cash box for under $25 if you wanted to accept only cash and checks. If you want to use an electronic point-of-sale system like Square Register, the estimates would jump to around $700, including $100 for a cash drawer, $400 for a tablet to run the app, $50 for a credit card reader, and $30 for a barcode scanner. Some of those items can be found here. Since each church’s shelving may vary widely, we don’t have an estimate for how much shelving would cost.

2) Accessibility

It’s important to determine in advance how accessible the books will be to the congregation. At our church, we leave all books out at all times. The advantage to this is that the books are on hand when pastors or church members want to give them away for discipleship or evangelism. The disadvantage is that some books get taken off the bookstall outside sales hours are and subsequently unaccounted for. (People take books and then forget to leave cash or pay during normal hours.)

The cost of such an open policy will vary based on the size of the church, size of the bookstall, and use made of the bookstall by church staff and members. At our church, the deacon of the bookstall is responsible for regularly reminding staff and the congregation to properly account for books taken during off hours. These regular reminders have decreased the cost of an open policy.

3) Pricing – General Policy

Our goal is to sell books at the lowest possible price that permits the bookstall to be self-sustaining. We don’t sell our books exactly at cost, but the prices are low enough that total revenue is approximately equal to the total cost of the books. Our costs include the books, the price tags (perhaps $20 per year for the several thousand price tags we use), and a credit card swipe fee. The church budgeted for the newly installed electronic point-of-sale system; it wasn’t paid for from bookstall revenue. We also build sales tax into the price.

4) Shelving

Since neither of us were here when the bookcases were installed, we don’t know if they were purchased or constructed. Nonetheless, we have several of them built in at the back of our auditorium. This means the books are easily accessible. That said, our corner layout does cause some traffic problems after the morning service. Continue reading →

Ten Things You Should Know About Sanctification

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and how does it work? Today we look at ten things about this crucial biblical truth.

(1) Sanctification is transformation through consecration. The Greek word often translated “sanctification” (as well as “to sanctify”) carries both the sense of consecration (dedication, set-apartness), which is more positional (and less experiential) in force (see 1 Cor. 1:30; 6:11), and the sense of transformation (renewal, change), which is more experiential (and less positional) in force (see Rom. 6:19, 22; 1 Thess. 4:3). By God’s grace, the believer is set apart unto God as his own possession, and inwardly energized by the Holy Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh and to grow into Christ-likeness.

(2) Sanctification or growth in holiness is primarily an inner transformation of the intellectual, spiritual, and moral essence of a person such that one’s beliefs, values, desires, and choices are increasingly renovated and renewed and brought into alignment with those of Jesus Christ himself.

Jesus is himself the perfect man and model for our lives, the one in whom the image of God is most completely embodied, and our holiness is authentic only to the degree that we are progressively reshaped to resemble him in all ways. Thus, the aim for our lives must be his righteousness in us: his love for the unlovely, his humility in place of pride, his self-denial as over against self-seeking; wisdom and boldness and self-control, together with faithfulness to the Father and strength under pressure. Continue reading →