Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 157

Todd Billings Looks at Belhar

I'm grateful for Todd Billings' new book Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Baker Academic 2011). Billings is associate professor of Reformed theology at Western Theological Seminary and a highly regarded Calvin scholar. He is also well respected as a theologian on union with Christ.

This is a thought-provoking book, especially Billing's gentle critiques of "incarnational ministry" (more on that in another blog post) and elements of the Belhar Confession.

The Belhar Confession comes out of South Africa and the struggles against apartheid in the 1980′s. The RCA recently adopted the Belhar Confession as a fourth confessional standard. The Christian Reformed Church will likely do the same.

In its broad strokes, Belhar is a fine statement on unity, justice, and reconciliation. But there are some problems with the document. Billings, while certainly appreciating much of Belhar, zeroes in on the most controversial sentence in the confession which affirms that "God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged." Billings points out that this line should not be seen as the constitutive definition of God's people. For article 2 makes clear that "true faith in Jesus Christ is the only condition for membership of this church." Nevertheless, Billings highlights a few problems with the language of Belhar regarding the poor.

"First, it is simply not clear what it means to speak in terms of divine ownerships when speaking about justice–namely, that God is 'in a special way the God of' a certain group of people" (104). Is it because of the special needs of the poor and the wronged that God is in a special way their God? If so, Billings argues, what about the special needs of the tax collectors and those misled by idols of wealth? By talking about God's ownership of a certain class of people, it's easy for discussion to slip into identity politics.

"A second problem is that, while biblical language about the poor and the wronged has a dialectical flexibility at times moving toward a metaphorical sense, article 4 tends to speak in a way that suggests a more fixed, modern, sociological sense" (105). The language of ownership naturally implies that God is for the poor and against the powerful. But this makes the biblical categories too rigid, too much like our contemporary sociological language. Moreover, as Miroslav Volf argues (and Billings points out), perpetrators are usually victims too, and victims are usually perpetrators. Dividing the world into "oppressor" and "oppressed" is too simplistic and is ill-suited for bring people together in reconciliation.

"A third problem with article 4 is that many of the biblical references supporting the statements in this article occur in a distinctly covenantal context in which the prophets and psalmists are crying out for Yahweh to be faithful to his covenant promises to Israel" (106). There is no consideration of the Bible's covenantal context or for the covenantal notion of union with Christ. Apart from these considerations, language about God's ownership reads like God's preference for one socioeconomic group over another.

"Finally, on a congregational level, the language of God being the God of the poor easily results in a new set of colonial-type attitudes" (106). In other words, while middle class Christians may have admirable concern for the poor, they almost always think of them as the "other." Billings tells the story of a person staying at a homeless shelter who, when he heard a prayer for the homeless in the church service, decided "with biting irony" that "I should pray for the housed."

These are criticisms worth considering, whether you like the Belhar, dislike it, or have never heard of it.

The entire book is worth reading too.

Heaven is Your Snow Day

Pure Michigan. That's what we are enjoying here in the middle of the mitten state. We got our first winter storm of the season Tuesday night. We had a lot of this from later afternoon into the early morning.

It was cold. The wind was piercing. The roads were dangerous. But you knew that on the other side of the fury and flurry there would be beauty and joy. The kids went to bed with dreams of a snow day dancing in their heads. My second son woke up at 4:30 in the morning to ask me if his older brother had the day off of school I said, "No word yet." He went back to back, disappointed, but hoping.

My wife and I were hoping too. When I was a child I figured only kids liked snow days. But now I know parents and teachers are just as thrilled. No need to get up early. No lunch to pack. Nowhere to take the kids. The little ones will be ecstatic. They'll be  throwing snow balls and making forts. The older ones will welcome the day off. Everyone wishes for a snow day. Everyone cheers its arrival–especially the unexpected blanket of mirth in November.

We got the word around 6:00–no school. A day for rest. A day for play. A day together. A day where everything dying gets covered in white and everything beautiful sparkles.

If you aren't from around here, you might not understand the title of this post. But trust me, heaven has to be like the best snow day ever. In midst of darkness, in the midst of cold and gloom, in the midst of danger and foreboding skies, you hope and hope. You wonder if tomorrow might be the day. You wonder if it might all be worth it. You wonder if you'll wake up to hear happy news. You wonder if tomorrow is your snow day. And when it comes, you will play and sing and spend your hours among angels.

To all who are crestfallen, brokenhearted, afraid, or alone, take heart: winter may last for the night, but a snow day comes in the morning.

Remembering Memory

I remember several years ago as a very young pastor making an aside during my sermon to talk about old hymns. Anyone who knows me knows that I love hymns and never want to disparage the good ones. But in this particular aside I was warning the older folks in the congregation against loving all the memories associated with their beloved hymns more than the actual words of the hymn itself. I was trying to make the point that it's possible you love What a Friend We Have in Jesus because you sang it around the piano growing up, or because it takes you back fifty years to when you were first married, without really fixing your heart on Jesus during the song.

A kind and delightfully feisty old lady came through the line after the service and smiled at me in a slightly disgruntled sort of way: "You know what you said about those hymns? Someday you'll understand." I imagine she thought I was being too simplistic about the important role memory plays for our faith. She was right.

I still think I had a good point I was trying to make. Our love for the traditions of the church can eclipse our love for the Christ of the church. But I was too quick to parcel out "loving Jesus" in the old hymns from "familiar memories and good feelings" produced by the hymn. The human heart can't be so neatly divided. Nor can the power of memory be expunged.

And it shouldn't. To the contrary, we could love each other better if we took seriously the significance of memory and were more aware of the trauma that comes when those memories seem to be under attack and the joy that comes when other memories are kindled or fulfilled.

Hope Deferred, And Fulfilled

Let me illustrate with another memory. I remember watching the election coverage in 2008 as it became clear Barack Obama was going to win handily. Whether you voted for him or not, how could you not be moved to see students at some of our historically black colleges rejoicing with tears. Even if you disagreed with Obama's positions, you had to respect (and honor and appreciate) the flood of emotions so many felt–especially the African American community–as the first black man was elected President. This was not just a "first" to commemorate. It brought to the surface a multitude of personal and corporate memories–about racism, about prejudice, about how many thought they would never see this day.

We are not just individuals experiencing life atomistically. We have memories. Especially as we get older, we have a sense within us (whether it is always accurate or not) of how things used to be. We carry with us a constellation of feelings, thoughts, remembrances, and nostalgia about the people, places, events, and values that have shaped us. So as much as younger evangelicals cringe at the language of "taking back America" (and I don't care for the language either), we should sympathize with those who mourn the passing of an America that isn't coming back. Older (mostly conservative) Americans aren't silly fuddy-duddies pining for the good old days. They are trying to make sense of a world that seems so different, and often so much worse, than they remember. What happened to clean sitcoms? What happened to being proud of your country? What happened to kids riding their bikes carefree on the streets at night? What happened to the world of my memory?

Singing Our Old Songs

The worship wars could have been mitigated greatly if younger generations wanting newer songs had taken the time to remember memory. Church leaders may say, "It's about reaching young people." Or, "We need music that resonates with the culture." These may even be good reasons to change some things. But we have to realize that those who grew up with hymns don't just lose the songs they prefer, they lose continuity with their past. They lose a whole lifetime worth of experiences–happy times, sad times, birth, marriage, death–a thousand bits of life that get embedded in the songs we've always sung.

None of this means we can't sing new songs. Praise God that we can have new songs to be filled with new memories for a new generation. But we have to do more than honor the past. We have to sympathize with those who lose their connections to the past, in church of all places. More than that, we have to remember the past and make an effort to preserve what is best from it. We forget at our own peril. For the Church's memories should be our memories. And our memories are not just our own, but belong to those who come after us. We must not hide them from our children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders he has done (Ps. 78:4).

Why We Must Be Unapologetically Theological

If I'm not mistaken, our church has a reputation for being quite theological.  I know this is why many people have come to our church.  And I imagine it's why some people have left, or never checked us out in the first place.  But no church should apologize for talking about and loving theology.  Now–and this is an important caveat–if we are arrogant with our theology, or if our doctrinal passion is just about intellectual gamesmanship, or we are all out of proportioned in our affections for less important doctrines, then may the Lord rebuke us. We should not be surprised theology gets a bad name in such circumstances.

But when it comes to thinking on, rejoicing in, and building a church upon sound biblical truth, we should all long for a richly theological church.

I could cite many reasons for preaching theologically and many reasons for wanting to pastor a congregation that loves theology. Let me mention six:

1. God has revealed himself to us in his word and given us his Spirit that we might understand the truth.  Obviously, you don't need to master every theme in Scripture in order to be a Christian.  God is gracious to save lots of us with lots of gaps in our understanding.  But if we have a Bible, not to mention an embarrassment of riches when it comes to resources in English, why wouldn't we want to understand as much of God's self-revelation as possible?  Theology is getting more of God. Don't you want your church to know God better?

2. The New Testament places a high value on discerning truth from error.  There is a deposit of truth that must be guarded.  False teaching must be placed out of bounds.  Good teaching must be promoted and defended.  This is not the concern of some soulless Ph.D. candidate wasting away in front of microfiche. This is the passion of the Apostles and the Lord Jesus himself who commended the church at Ephesus for being intolerant of false teachers and hating the deeds of the Nicolaitans.

3. The ethical commands of the New Testament are predicated on theological propositions.  So many of Paul's letters have a twofold structure.  The beginning chapters lay out doctrine and the latter chapters exhort us to obedience.  Doctrine and life are always connected in the Bible.  It's in view of God's mercies, in view of all the massive theological realities of Romans 1-11, that we are called to lay down our lives as living sacrifices in Romans 12. Know doctrine, know life. No doctrine, no life.

4. Theological categories enable us to more fully and more deeply rejoice in God's glory.  Simple truths are wonderful.  It is good for us to sing simple songs like "God is good. All the time!"  If you sing that in sincere faith, the Lord is very pleased.  But he is also pleased when we can sing and pray about how exactly he has been good to us in the plan of salvation and in the scope of salvation history. He is pleased when we can glory in the completed work of Christ, and rest in his all-encompassing providence, and marvel at his infinity and aseity, when we can delight in his holiness and mediate on his three-ness and one-ness and stand in awe at his omniscience and omnipotence.  These theological categories are not meant to give us bigger heads, but bigger hearts that worship deeper and higher because of what we've seen in God.

5. Theology helps us more fully and more deeply rejoice in the blessings that are ours in Christ.  Again, it is a sweet thing to know that Jesus saves you from your sins.  There's no better news than that in the whole world.  But how much fuller and deeper will your delight be when you understand that salvation means election to the praise of God's grace, expiation to cover your sins, propitiation to turn away divine wrath, redemption to purchase you for God, justification before the judgment seat of God, adoption into God's family, on-going sanctification by the Spirit, and promised glorification at the end of the age? If God has given us so many varied and multi-layered blessings in Christ, wouldn't it help you and honor him to understand what they are?

6. Even (or is it especially?) non-Christians need good theology. They may not thrill to hear a dry lecture on the ordo salutis. But who wants dry lectures on anything? If you can talk winsomely, passionately, and simply about the blessings of effectual calling, regeneration, and adoption, and how all these blessings are found in Christ, and how the Christian life is nothing more or less than being who we are in Christ, and how this means God really does want us to be true to ourselves, but ourselves as we were born again not as we were born in sin–if you give non-Christians all of this, and give it to them plainly, you'll be giving them a whole lot of theology. And, if the Spirit of God is at work, they just might come back looking for more.

There is no reason for any church to be anything other than robustly theological. Churches will still come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. But "atheological," or worse yet "anti-theological," should not be one of them.

Monday Morning Humor

Note: This is not a sermon in a church service, but guest speaker Dennis Swanberg doing a concert. This would be a runaway illustration for a sermon, but a really funny story just for fun.

Stuffed Full with Thanksgiving

John Piper explains how gratitude crowds out nastiness and the smallness of your heart:

Gratitude is such a great and wonderful think in Scripture that I feel constrained to end this chapter with a tribute. There are ways that gratitude helps brings about obedience to Christ. One way is that the spirit of gratitude is simply incompatible with some sinful attitudes. I think this is why Paul wrote, "There must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks" (Ephesians 5:4). Gratitude is a humble, happy response to the good will of someone who has done or tried to do you a favor. This humility and happiness cannot coexist in the heart with coarse, ugly, mean attitudes. Therefore the cultivation of a thankful heart leaves little room for such sins. (Future Grace, 48)

The Glasses of Grace

"It's not fair!"

That's one of the first things we learn to say as children. Kids say it when they don't get dessert. They say it when their portions at the dinner table seem too small, or, with vegetables, when the portion seems too big. Kids instinctively tell you "It's not fair" when they have to come inside from playing, when they have to give back a toy, when they can't return home past midnight as teenagers. "It's not fair" is one of the first things we say on this planet. And we probably feel it even before we learn to say it.

It's also one of the things we continue to feel most strongly and (for some of us) say most loudly as adults. We feel like our jobs are not fair; the pay is not fair; the level of taxation for us (or for others) is not fair. If we get scammed into a timeshare or loan money to a friend and never get it back; if we get hung up by customer service or the steak comes back medium rare instead of well done—most of us go through life feeling and thinking that a whole bunch of things are unfair.

And sometimes they aren't. There is real injustice in the world. I'm not discounting that for a second. I'm not suggesting we can't do anything ti improve our lot in life. We should want our laws and judicial system and standards to be fair. I'm not suggesting we just "take it" every time we face injustice. There are genuine incidences of unfairness in our lives.

But it's still now way to look at the whole world. Some of us–whether we have experienced real unfairness or not–look at all of life through this lens of fairness. We are always assessing what we really deserve. We are always aware of other people's successes or failures. We are always cognizant of whether we get recognized or ignored. We see the whole world and experience all of life through this lens of fairness—always sizing up, always calculating, always feeling like we are owed something by our friends, by our family, and by God.

But there's another way to look at the world, another way to experience life, and that's through the lens of grace. With these glasses on you'll reckon that most days are a whole lot better than you deserve. And on the really hard days, you'll fight to believe that God is working even this for good. With the glasses of grace, you'll smile when other people succeed. Instead of experiencing life as a series of disappointments and occasions where you were not given the treatment you deserve, you'll experience life as a gift. You'll see grace all around you. You'll celebrate the grace you see in someone else or given to someone else. It's a profoundly different way of viewing the world.

When you look at life with nothing but fairness goggles, you will constantly feel like you've been put in last place when you deserved to be first. But when life is seen through the glasses of grace, you'll learn the joy of feeling like you've been put first even when you know you are last.

A Day for Giving Thanks

The Mission of the Church in Living Color

[image error]Greg and I have been trying to engage some of the conversation about our book. Believe it or not, we also do many other things besides blog and read blogs. So unfortunately we will not be able to respond to everything everyone wants us to respond to. I don't have any missions-related posts planned after this one.

But perhaps it would be helpful to think practically about how these things play out on the ground level. I'll start by giving some examples from my church. At the end I also want to raise some questions for those who want a more expansive definition of the church's mission.

What We Do

First off, I should be clear that the things we write about in the book are live discussions at URC too. I don't claim that everyone in my congregation agrees with everything I've written in the book. Most haven't even read the book yet (though I've preached on some of these themes).

Having said that, here are some (only some) of things we do and how I think through them.

One woman in our church heads up a crisis pregnancy center. Another woman has developed an inner-city arts ministry. Both ministries are on our church budget. I am thankful for both organizations. People from our church volunteer and help out at both places. At the same time, these ministries are not under the authority of our elders. They have separate boards. They get funding from many sources. Christians and non-Christians can be thankful for what they do. Their work is not first of all to win converts or make disciples. They try to help save babies and teach art to kids. That's great. They do good in the community. Our folks who serve try to build relationships and talk about Jesus.
By contrast, we run a Christianity Explored program out of our church. The ministry is under the authority of the board of elders. CE is a significant investment in time, people, and resources. By God's grace, we have seen over a hundred non-Christians go through the program in the past year.
We also host ESL classes at our church. We do this to help the internationals in our community. Dozens, if not hundreds, of them come through our doors every year. We don't make people go to church before they get English classes. But the ministry is definitely designed as an evangelistic outreach. We invite those who take the classes to check out our Sunday services or try CE. Our leaders talk about the Bible as they teach English. We are very up front about who we are. We want to help them and love them. We also want them to hear the gospel.
We have a good relationship with the Lansing Rescue Mission. The folks there have a heart for evangelism and discipleship. For the past several years we've had at least one man from the Mission join our church each year. We try to fold these guys into small groups and give them mentors. We may help with physical needs if appropriate. We also support the Mission in our church budget.
About 17% of our budget goes to missions. Many of these people work explicitly in ministry/discipleship/evangelism. Some are tentmakers. They desire to make Jesus known even if it takes years or decades. We support missionaries who partner with local churches in meeting agricultural or developmental needs. We are thankful for this important work and also take seriously that our missionaries should be theologically sound and desire to tell others about Christ. We don't try to tell our missionaries how, where, or when they should do that. But we want to know they believe in the lostness of sinners, the need for a Savior, and are eager to find opportunities to make disciples.
We have a group of folks at our church who are especially passionate about mercy ministry. They've participated in a program that "adopts" a single mom and helps her get on her feet again. At the outset of the program we talked about desired outcomes. If this program is a success the woman will find a job, purchase a home, learn to balance a budget, etc. But beyond all that we hope she will more mature in following Jesus Christ and will be involved in a local church (not necessarily ours).
Our individual members support many other ministries and causes–some focus on disciple-making, some address poverty issues in the name of Christ, some do good things in the community and may not be discernibly Christian at all. People also live out their faith (sharing it too) and love their neighbors out of their homes and in their careers.
We also have a terrific diaconate which responds to physical needs in our congregation and responds with compassion and wisdom to requests that come from outside our congregation.
For several years we've sent out a work trip to the Gulf during the spring. Our folks rebuild homes, teach in schools, and work with local churches. We learn from these trips and grow ourselves. Our people always come back most encouraged by the conversations they had with others in the community and in the churches. We send out students on similar trips–some of which are more explicitly evangelistic.
Our mission priority on a local level is definitely the campus of Michigan State University, in particular undergraduate students. Our church was founded to be an outreach to MSU. Campus ministry is at the core of our identity and calling, and evangelism and discipleship (within the context of a local church) form the heartbeat of our outreach to students. While we are thankful for many strong parachurch organizations on campus (and welcome those students and leaders into our church with open arms), our ministry is specifically designed to be a church-based campus ministry. As such we provide staffing, resources, accountability, integration, and oversight for our campus work.

What I Hope We Don't Do

Those are some of the things we do. Here are some of the things I hope we avoid:

Focusing a lot of our energies, resources, and people on good effort that will be well-supported by governments and non-Christians.
Partnering with teams or agencies that do not allow evangelism.
Running social services for the community out of our church.
Confusing relief with community development.
Undertaking charitable projects or missions endeavors that make us feel good but don't actually help those we serve and may actually take away their dignity or foster dependence.
Supporting missionaries who do not believe the gospel, understand the gospel, or who will not winsomely and courageously share the gospel with others.
Giving to groups and people that do not hold to the fundamentals of historic evangelical theology.

Summing Up

Our church is blessed to have an experienced missions committee working hard on these issues. We also have the privilege of supporting a number of truly outstanding missionaries. I'd like our church to do more with church planting and evangelism among unreached peoples, but this is not to detract from the many fine missionaries we already support.

On a local level, I hope our church members will always be a faithful presence in their neighborhoods and industries.

I'm glad we will sometimes come together to respond to a particular need in the community or on the other side of the world.

I pray we will focus our energies and resources on making disciples in our church, through our church into the community, and from our church to ends of the earth.

A Closer Look at the Gates of Hell

I hope I don't ruin one of your favorite verses.

Ok, I kind of hope I do. But only so it can be one of your favorite verses in a better way.

In Matthew 16 Jesus takes his disciples to the district of Caesarea Philippi to ask them a question, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They stumble around a bit giving the latest Facebook updates from the crowd. Then Peter pipes up. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." What a guy, Cephas. Jesus commends his outspoken disciple, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (v. 18). Since the Reformation there has been a lot of discussion about "this rock" and what it means for the authority of the Pope (not much it turns out). There has been little controversy, however, about the phrase "the gates of hell."

I've heard several sermons on "the gates of hell" and have seen the phrase referenced in Christian books numerous times. The second half of Matthew 16:18 has to be one of the top ten favorite Bible promises. I can hear the voices right now: "Think about the picture here. Jesus says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Now tell me, how do gates prevail? When have you ever seen gates on the march? They don't attack. They fortify. They are there to hold their ground. That's all. Hell is not on the offensive, brothers and sisters. The church is. The church is marching into all the hells in this world, ready to reclaim every square inch for Christ. And when we storm the gates of hell, Christ promises we cannot fail. We will prevail! It's time to put the devil on the run. It's time to save souls and destroy strongholds. It's time to reclaim this world for Christ. Listen up church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against us!"

Or something like that.

Of course, who can fault the zeal to save souls, make a difference in the world, or fight the good fight? The only problem is that the whole thing is built on faulty exegesis. One of the cardinal rules of biblical interpretation is to let the Bible interpret the Bible. So when we come to a phrase like "the gates of hell" we need to stop ourselves from imagining what we think this means, and do the hard work of finding out what it actually does mean.

The phrase pulai hadou (gates of hell) is a Jewish expression meaning "realm of the dead." The same two words appear in the Septuagint version of Job 38:17–"Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness [puloroi de hadou]?"). They appear again in Isaiah 38:10–"I said in the middle of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol [pulais hadou] for the rest of my years". In both passages, pulai hadou is a euphemism for death. Notice the parallelism in both passages. The first half of each verse clarifies that the second half of the verse is not about hell but about death. The gates of hell represent the passageway from this life to the grave.

Consequently, Jesus' promise to Peter is not about storming Satan's lair and conquering demonic powers. In fact, the repeated injunction in Ephesians 6 is "to stand." Christ defeated the devil (John 16:11). Our responsibility is to hold fast and resist. Carman's fantastic music videos notwithstanding, we are not demonslayers. The promise in Matthew 16 is not about venturing out on some Dungeons and Dragons spiritual crusade, but about Christ's guarantee that the church will not be vanquished by death.

If you think about it, this makes much more sense of the imagery. Defensive gates can be used in an offensive way because Jesus is simply talking about death. Death stalks each one of us, but those who confess Jesus as the Christ know that death is not the end. We have the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:57). Jesus isn't asking us to conquer anything, except perhaps our fear of the grave.

So preach and believe in Matthew 16:18 with all your might. But don't misunderstand the promise. Jesus assures us of something even better than triumphalism here and now. He promises eternal life. With intense opposition and persecution, the early church was under attack from the gates of hell. But just as Jesus conquered the grave, so the gates of hell-death itself-will not prevail against those who belong to Christ. Or as Jesus himself puts it, "Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live (John 11:25).

That makes Matthew 16:18 a pretty cool promise after all.

A version of this article originally appeared in the November issue of Tabletalk.