Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 201

Should Churches Trade in Services for Serving?

What do you make of the church sign on the right?

It's become popular in recent years for churches to skip the worship service periodically (once a year? a quarter? once a month?) in order to serve their communities. "No church this morning, we're picking up trash in the park." Is this thoughtful cultural engagement or another example of good intentions gone astray?

Well, you can probably guess I'm more apt to say the latter, but let's not assume the worst about these churches. Let's assume the people love Christ and love to worship him. Let's assume they value preaching and believe the chief end of man is to glorify God. Let's assume the sole motivation behind churchless Sundays is outreach. No one is trying to be trendy. No one is hating on the church. They simply want to help their communities, show they care, and maybe even have an opportunity to talk about Jesus. Assuming these are gospel-believing Christians trying to do gospel work, what's the big deal about taking four (or two or twelve or whatever) Sundays out of the year to hit the streets and do something for others?

Of course, there's nothing wrong (and plenty right) about wanting to serve others and take our faith to the streets. But before you cancel your worship services consider the following:

1. Consider practically if this is a good strategy. I know in our church if we skipped worship one Sunday we'd miss a lot of visitors. What if the one Sunday you're out raking leaves is the one Sunday three non-Christian friends decide to check out your church, or the Sunday that one of your members was bringing in her non-Christian family, or the Sunday that a fringe member was going to venture back to church? Maybe you just miss these folks one week. That happens. But at least consider if the "out serving" strategy could prevent you from serving the people you are actually trying to reach.

2. Consider if there is good (or any) historical precedence for routinely canceling your worship service. Did not the apostolic church meet weekly on the first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:2), even renaming the day "the Lord's Day" because of its unique significance (Rev. 1:10)? Not long after, Justin Martyr explained that "On the day which is called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the countryside gather together in one place" to hear the word read and taught, communion celebrated, and prayers offered with thanksgiving. Granted, in some contexts (I'm thinking the Muslim world) Sunday worship may not be possible. But even there the Christians are still gathering for weekly worship. Given the tremendous weight of church history and apostolic example, we should have pretty good reasons for ditching the worship service in order to do something else.

3. Consider that all of life is worship, but corporate worship is still unique. Paul told the Corinthians to "do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31), but he also recognized there was something unique about the Corinthian community when they "come together as a church" (11:18). Sunday is the Lord's Day, a day for rejoicing in the Lord's resurrection. This calls for "worship worship" as opposed to "all of life worship." There's a distinction between being the church and being "in church" (1 Cor. 14:19). Six days are for work, but on only one day do we gather to worship. Think of what you are missing when you make that day for worshiping by serving others instead of being served by God in worship.

4. Consider what it may communicate when you replace services with serving. It sounds like a good idea: let's do something for the community instead of going to church for ourselves. But ultimately we worship because God summons us to worship. It is for ourselves (see below), but it is also for God. He commands it. So why cancel it instead of something else? But why not do the soup kitchen on Saturday or pump people's gas on Friday night? I suppose it's possible you can have some meaningful conversations explaining why you are a Christian and not in church. But it also seems quite likely that churches replace Sunday services with Sunday serving because that's the time they are already meeting. It's the best time to get most of your people doing something and it doesn't require any more time out of their week. Except for doctors, police officers and the like serving in their professions, are there really service projects the church has to do on Sunday morning?

5. Consider that corporate worship is a means of grace. Theologians have always considered the right preaching of the word and the right administration of the sacraments to be channels of divine blessing. So why rob our people of grace? Isn't the easy removal of a weekly worship service an indication that our view of worship is too puny? We've come to think of Sunday morning as a few songs and a little (or long) talk. We've forgotten that corporate worship, however small or feeble, is a reflection of the glorious worship offered continuously by saints and angels and creatures and elders. We've forgotten that the Lord's Supper and Baptism are more than rituals. They are rivulets of grace. We've forgotten that a sermon is not a lecture but Christ speaking to us. Why would we want to skip all this? Why would we think that shutting this down for a week is the best way to serve a needy world? We can worship God by serving our neighbors, but once a week we are called to serve our neighbors by worshiping God.

What Good is Inerrancy If We Don't Have the Original Manuscripts?

Carl Henry:

The familiar rejoinder that no one can exhibit the errorless autographs need not discomfit evangelicals in their claims about the inerrant originals. The critics similarly can furnish none of the errant originals that they so eagerly postulate. In both instances the purity or impurity of the autographs rests on an inference from data and doctrine that are considered to be decisive. The supposed errant originals are as hard to come by, if not more so, than the inerrant originals.

The assumption that the present texts were originally errant is what enabled the critics to postulate alongside the written sources those phantom redactors (J, E, D, P, etc.) whose unmistakable priority could be reliably identified by modern textual authorities. In short, inerrancy seems to have been transferred to editorial redactors from who we have no independent writings (and who like Melchizedek appear without father and mother and even lack a proper name), or to contemporary experts whose gnosis is exasperatingly ephemeral. Indeed, when the critics postulated Ur-Markus or the Logia and a nonsupernatural historical Jesus as the source on which the synoptists depended, were they not in effect projecting an unerring prototype in their own image? In their documentary reconstructions of the present texts, were they not presuming to give us trustworthy redactions to replace the supposedly unreliable accounts given us in Scripture? Were they not preferring alternatives allegedly uncorrupted by the theological convictions of the Gospel writers?

So why does the inerrancy of missing autographs matter?

On the basis of all the existing early testimony, it is clear that the generation which possessed the apostolic autographs viewed them as the veritable Word of God. The fact of inerrant autographs is both theoretically and practically important. If the originals were errant, then textual criticism would expect to give us not more truthful readings but only more ancient ones. (God, Revelation and Authority, Volume IV, 208-209)

What Good is Innerancy If We Don't Have the Original Manuscripts?

Carl Henry:

The familiar rejoinder that no one can exhibit the errorless autographs need not discomfit evangelicals in their claims about the inerrant originals. The critics similarly can furnish none of the errant originals that they so eagerly postulate. In both instances the purity or impurity of the autographs rests on an inference from data and doctrine that are considered to be decisive. The supposed errant originals are as hard to come by, if not more so, than the inerrant originals.

The assumption that the present texts were originally errant is what enabled the critics to postulate alongside the written sources those phantom redactors (J, E, D, P, etc.) whose unmistakable priority could be reliably identified by modern textual authorities. In short, inerrancy seems to have been transferred to editorial redactors from who we have no independent writings (and who like Melchizedek appear without father and mother and even lack a proper name), or to contemporary experts whose gnosis is exasperatingly ephemeral. Indeed, when the critics postulated Ur-Markus or the Logia and a nonsupernatural historical Jesus as the source on which the synoptists depended, were they not in effect projecting an unerring prototype in their own image? In their documentary reconstructions of the present texts, were they not presuming to give us trustworthy redactions to replace the supposedly unreliable accounts given us in Scripture? Were they not preferring alternatives allegedly uncorrupted by the theological convictions of the Gospel writers?

So why does the inerrancy of missing autographs matter?

On the basis of all the existing early testimony, it is clear that the generation which possessed the apostolic autographs viewed them as the veritable Word of God. The fact of inerrant autographs is both theoretically and practically important. If the originals were errant, then textual criticism would expect to give us not more truthful readings but only more ancient ones. (God, Revelation and Authority, Volume IV, 208-209)

Reasons for Reason

Christianity is no friend of rationalism, but it is rational. That is to say, although divine truth comes by revelation not by unaided reason, that revealed truth is nevertheless reasonable.

I was speaking recently about the emergent church (yes, some people are still interested) when someone asked me why I was so down on mystery. I tried to explain that if mystery means God's essence is incomprehensible, then I'm all for mystery. But too often mystery is a cover for anti-propositional bias, a suspicion of truth claims, or just plain intellectual laziness. There are things we can't know about God, but then there are some things we can know if we are simply willing to think (cf. Deut. 29:29).

But American culture does not encourage careful thinking. Cogito ergo sum has become emotio ergo credo. A couple weeks ago I was on a plane to California talking with a nice middle-aged woman. I wasn't in my seat more than two seconds before she started talking to me–and talking to me a lot. This lady from SoCal was your classic "spiritual not religious" believer. She believed in God, wanted people to be compassionate, and tried to notice the many beautiful things in our world. She didn't the gospel from a granola bar. I admit I'm not the world's best personal evangelist, but I tried my best to make the good news clear.

And yet my arguments bounced off her like Tigger on Red Bull, chiefly because she seemed completely disinterested in arguments. She talked about how much she loved the Bible, but later she said she also loved the Bhagavad Gita (she tried the Koran but found it too "intense"). When I explained that those two books are pretty different and irreconcilable in many parts, she was unconcerned. She called herself a Christian, but on takeoff claimed the sunset in front of us was God. I tried to explain how the Creator-creature distinction is essential to Christianity and how the entire the story of the Bible depends on it. She seemed mildly interested, but still preferred to think of God as everything. When we talked about the "lost" gospels, my historical reasons for rejecting those books meant little to her. It's quite possible I was inept, or maybe she just didn't know what to say in response. But I think in large part this amiable woman just didn't want to be bothered with facts.

At one point she told me about how she used to attend the Church of Higher Consciousness (or some such thing). Being bothered by God's wrath she asked her pastor how to make sense of Lot's wife turning to a pillar of salt. He told her this was a lesson in not getting stuck in your past. You know, you got to keep looking forward and not look back. She really liked this interpretation and then asked me what I thought. "Well," I said, "that's not really the point. The story is really about God's judgment. Even Jesus used Lot's wife as warning that we must be ready for the coming judgment" (see Luke 17:32). She told me she liked the first interpretation better.

How do you give a reason for the hope that you have when the people asking you aren't interested in reason? It seems to me one of the first tasks of evangelism today is to reintroduce the law of non-contradiction. More and more we can't just drop the bridge diagram on people, we need to go back and tell the larger story of creation, curse, covenant, Christ, commitment, and consummation. And even before that we may have to help people simply think, help people not just find the truth, but believe that it exists, that it is inconsistent with error, and that it does automatically correspond to what we wish it to be.

Want to think more about thinking? Check out the Desiring God National Conference this weekend. I'm sure John Piper's new book Think: the Life of the Mind and the Love of God will be worth reading as well.

Reasons for Reason

Christianity is no friend of rationalism, but it is rational. That is to say, although divine truth comes by revelation not by unaided reason, that revealed truth is nevertheless reasonable.

I was speaking recently about the emergent church (yes, some people are still interested) when someone asked me why I was so down on mystery. I tried to explain that if mystery means God's essence is incomprehensible, then I'm all for mystery. But too often mystery is a cover for anti-propositional bias, a suspicion of truth claims, or just plain intellectual laziness. There are things we can't know about God, but then there are some things we can know if we are simply willing to think (cf. Deut. 29:29).

But American culture does not encourage careful thinking. Cogito ergo sum has become emotio ergo credo. A couple weeks ago I was on a plane to California talking with a nice middle-aged woman. I wasn't in my seat more than two seconds before she started talking to me–and talking to me a lot. This lady from SoCal was your classic "spiritual not religious" believer. She believed in God, wanted people to be compassionate, and tried to notice the many beautiful things in our world. She didn't the gospel from a granola bar. I admit I'm not the world's best personal evangelist, but I tried my best to make the good news clear.

And yet my arguments bounced off her like Tigger on Red Bull, chiefly because she seemed completely disinterested in arguments. She talked about how much she loved the Bible, but later she said she also loved the Bhagavad Gita (she tried the Koran but found it too "intense"). When I explained that those two books are pretty different and irreconcilable in many parts, she was unconcerned. She called herself a Christian, but on takeoff claimed the sunset in front of us was God. I tried to explain how the Creator-creature distinction is essential to Christianity and how the entire the story of the Bible depends on it. She seemed mildly interested, but still preferred to think of God as everything. When we talked about the "lost" gospels, my historical reasons for rejecting those books meant little to her. It's quite possible I was inept, or maybe she just didn't know what to say in response. But I think in large part this amiable woman just didn't want to be bothered with facts.

At one point she told me about how she used to attend the Church of Higher Consciousness (or some such thing). Being bothered by God's wrath she asked her pastor how to make sense of Lot's wife turning to a pillar of salt. He told her this was a lesson in not getting stuck in your past. You know, you got to keep looking forward and not look back. She really liked this interpretation and then asked me what I thought. "Well," I said, "that's not really the point. The story is really about God's judgment. Even Jesus used Lot's wife as warning that we must be ready for the coming judgment" (see Luke 17:32). She told me she liked the first interpretation better.

How do you give a reason for the hope that you have when the people asking you aren't interested in reason? It seems to me one of the first tasks of evangelism today is to reintroduce the law of non-contradiction. More and more we can't just drop the bridge diagram on people, we need to go back and tell the larger story of creation, curse, covenant, Christ, commitment, and consummation. And even before that we may have to help people simply think, help people not just find the truth, but believe that it exists, that it is inconsistent with error, and that it does automatically correspond to what we wish it to be.

Want to think more about thinking? Check out the Desiring God National Conference this weekend. I'm sure John Piper's new book Think: the Life of the Mind and the Love of God will be worth reading as well.

Monday Morning Humor

An Argument Discredited

After three straight posts on inerrancy, why not close out the week with a fourth? Of all the bad arguments against inerrancy, the most frequent is also one of the worst: namely, that the idea of error-less autographs was an invention of Old Princeton.

The once (and briefly) credible idea that Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield invented inerrancy has been shown to be resoundingly false. Scholars like John Woodbridge and Richard Muller have demonstrated convincingly that the doctrine of complete...

Who's Afraid of Inerrancy?

Perhaps you've seen the conversation among Tim Keller, Alister McGrath, Brian McLaren, and Dempsey Rosales-Acosta on biblical authority from the Q conference a few months ago. I'm not sure it's worth 38 minutes of your time, but I found Tim Keller's remarks around the 5-minute mark to be especially helpful.

The first topic discussed by the panel was inerrancy–what does it mean?, is it a helpful term?, where did it come from?, etc.

McGrath's response was disappointing. He explained that he...

Does the Bible Teach Science?

In the category "nothing new under the sun" here's a paragraph from John Woodbridge's 1985 article "Does the Bible Teach Science" explaining that the issue is not whether the Bible speaks authoritatively on the natural world but how to faithfully interpret the statements that do.

Contrary to the interpretations found in the works of Vawter, Rogers and McKim, and Roland Mushat Frye, the choice that Christians faced until the middle of the seventeenth century was generally this: Should each...

Did John Calvin Believe in Inerrancy?

Many in the young, restless, reformed movement do not realize that there is an alternate stream of Reformed theology, one that stands more in the tradition of Barth, Berkouwer, and Torrance than Warfield, Berkhof, and Frame. I happen to think that second stream is truer to the source, but not all agree.

Of course, the most important source is the Bible, but when it comes to Reformed theology John Calvin naturally carries a lot of weight (to mix my metaphors). One of the debates between the...