Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 44

Keeping Short Accounts

One of the phrases that you’ve heard around here for many years is the phrase “keeping short accounts.” What that means is that we want to be the kind of Christians who don’t have backlogs of sin, guilt, or resentment. We want to confess our sins and forgive one another as soon as we know something is off.

David says in Ps. 32 that when he didn’t confess his sins right away, his bones ached and he was miserable all day long. And when people are miserable, they have a hard time getting along with other people. It’s hard to have good fellowship when you have unconfessed sin. And this is because God doesn’t want you to be happy when you aren’t happy with Him. But the same Psalm says “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity” (Ps. 32:1-2). The Hebrew word for “blessed” also means “happy.” Happy is the one whose transgression is forgiven, the one the Lord doesn’t count his sins against. 

This table is a standing declaration of all of this. Here, we commune with the Lord, but we also commune with one another. You can’t commune with the Lord if you are out of fellowship with a member of His body. You can’t really commune with a member of His body if you are out of fellowship with the Lord. Either way, if you are a true Christian, if you are out of fellowship with God or one of His people, you won’t have the fullness of Christian joy. This is because Christian joy is fundamentally the certain knowledge that your sins are forgiven. You can’t have Christian joy if your sins aren’t forgiven, and if your sins aren’t forgiven you aren’t in fellowship with God or his people and you’re pretty miserable. But if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

So joy is set before you today. This table declares the forgiveness of sins in the blood of Christ. If you have that forgiveness, then you have that joy, and if you have that joy, you know you are in fellowship with God and His people. We celebrate this meal every week because we want to stay in that joy every day of every week. This meal reminds us to make sure we do. Weekly communion reminds us to keep short accounts, to confess our sins and forgive one another quickly. It reminds us to keep our hearts clean, so that we can stay in fellowship, so that we can stay in the fullness of joy.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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An Appeal to One

Worship in Spirit and Truth is our central protest against all sin and evil. We protest the evil we see in the world around us, and we protest the evil that still resides in our own hearts. We lift it all up to the only One who can heal us and heal our land. We sing like the Israelites marching around Jericho. We hear the word thundered like Mt. Sinai shook at the presence of the Lord. And we feast at His Table, like Israel’s first Passover, displaying the blood of the Lamb who was slain, for our sins and for the sins of the whole world, trusting God to bring His judgments on our land and set us free to live for Him. 

But precisely because our appeal is to God and not to politicians or programs or publicity or popularity or any other human institution or solution, this means that our appeal is relatively secret. Worship is a public event, all are welcome, and in fact, we summon all the nations of men to come, but we do not gather to be seen by men. We do not want the rewards or accolades or deliverance of man. There has already been far too much of that. We want the rewards of our Father in Heaven; we want His deliverance and blessing alone. 

This is one of the reasons why we’ve discouraged taking pictures or videos of our worship services. Taking a picture or video of a baptism or membership is one thing, but ordinarily we don’t want anyone to have to worry that they might be on camera when they are trying to worship the King. But most of all, we don’t want our worship to be any kind of display before men because we don’t want to lose any of our reward, any of our deliverance. 

Jesus said, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Mt. 6:5-6).

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Love is not God

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us first. We confess that God is love, but if we are not careful, we can soon arrive at the horrific heresy that love is God. And there’s a sense in which the closer our love gets to mimicking God’s love, the closer to the precipice we come to mistaking our love for God.

So often what we think of as us loving someone is full of selfishness, ulterior motives, and grasping. We tell ourselves that it is for their good, but if we are honest it is more for our benefit, for managing the status quo, or for even darker motives.

This is how we can get to the point where it is considered love to lie to someone about the biological sex God created them with and allow them to harm their bodies. And it is considered hate to tell them the truth and try to prevent them from harming themselves. But you cannot get to this point in a culture without a million smaller compromises, a million other lies propping it up. Did we love our children when we did not correct them? Or did we correct them in love, or merely because they were bothering us? Did we speak about our husband or our wife with respect and deep honor, or did we roll our eyes and deride them to our friends and justify it, saying we were just telling the truth? 

So what are we to do? We must come here, to this table. We must come to Christ. And this must be our pattern for every single day. We come to Christ in prayer, by confessing our sins, and reading His Word. And we must come because if we are honest, we barely know what love is. And the moment we get a glimpse of it, our sinful hearts want nothing more than to commandeer it and claim it for our own. But if God is love, then love is always a gift. It is never ours. It is always His. There is plenty of it, plenty to go around. There is always more. But you cannot have it unless you know you need it, unless you know all of your attempts are like a small child scrawling a picture of her dad. Your Father is very easy to please, but He is hard to satisfy. Because His love is something deeper and richer than we can even imagine. But His love is here in His Son given for You. His love is here for sinners.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Our She-Bear Problem

A Provocative Introduction
One way to boil all the problems of America down would be to say that it really comes down to the women. But before you light your torches and start hunting through your shed for a pitchfork, this also necessarily means that the problem really comes down to the men. But if you think about that for a moment, you still might want to go back to sorting through the garden shears and rakes because I mean, come on, if it’s a woman problem and that’s the men’s fault, how demeaning is that? 

Now that we’re all worked up into a Wednesday dither, let’s have a C.S. Lewis quote shall we?

Speaking of marriage and the biblical and natural necessity of male “headship,” he writes, “The relations of the family to the outer world – what might be called its foreign policy – must depend, in the last resort, upon the man, because he always ought to be, and usually is, much more just to outsiders. A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and husband against the rest of the world. Naturally, almost, in a sense, rightly, their claims override, for her, all other claims. She is the special trustee of their interests. The function of the husband is to see that this natural preference of hers is not given its head. He has the last word in order to protect other people from the intense family patriotism of the wife” (Mere Christianity, 103).

Ah, see there? If anyone is to be tarred and feathered, it’s the Oxford Don, I’m just the messenger, people. If there are any Lewis statues or monuments anywhere, my apologies to the groundskeepers in advance.

The Problem
But this is my point: the natural preferences and intense tribal patriotisms of the women in this land have been given the head. The demise of the family is well documented, leaving millions of children orphaned and fatherless, and the rates of crime and drug addiction and prison time and suicide have predictably skyrocketed, but the other less popular (and probably illegal at this point) thing to note is that this has left women unprotected, unloved, and the world unprotected from the resulting she-bear rage of millions. Not only that, but despite leading the charge for so-called ‘abortion rights’, these she-bears are also robbed of many of their cubs (by their own will), and they are hurt, angry, and ashamed. 

Why must healthy, law-abiding citizens be frog marched through the streets and given dress code inspections at every doorway with threat of fines, misdemeanors, and prison time, while at the very same time, the very same people celebrate the riots and looting and destruction of whole cities? Because we are nation ruled by women, and that is not a blessing but a great curse (Is. 3:12). It is a great curse for no doubt many reasons that we are in the process of finding out, but one of the reasons it is a great curse is because women are generally more tempted to fear. This is naturally the case because all things being equal most women are weaker than most men. If you want a scientific reason, I hear it has to do with testosterone levels, probably other chemicals too. 

This fear really does run like one of those stupid black lives matter voodoo fabrics seen in the recent MLB religious exercises from the black pit of the abortion mills all the way up through the mask mandates. Many women (and men) are driven to abortion by their fears. What if I lose my job? What if my man leaves? What if I can’t pay my bills? What if my child is disabled? What if this pregnancy seriously damages my health? What will my mom say? What will my friends think? And the fears go on… But the same fear has driven the COVID panic: What if millions die? What if our worst fears come true? What if my parents get sick? What if I get it and die? What if I get it and recover but am left with debilitating effects? What if my life is never the same? And what has the response been to these fears — all of them? Kill the baby. The healthy and the innocent must pay for the fears of the strong. Instead of the strong taking precautions to protect the weak, we have demanded that the strong and healthy be made weak and crushed. Thus we have come to be a land dominated and debilitated by fear.

What Does the Bible Say?
Of course the Bible addressed a bunch of this centuries ago: “For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered” (1 Pet. 2:5-7). And I’m going to return to this charge to men, and husbands in particular, to honor women, even in their weakness, in a minute. Hold your horses.

But the Bible also teaches this basic vulnerability of women in a number of places in the Old Testament specifically in the face of military threats: “In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it” (Is. 19:16). “And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames” (Is. 13:8). “Kerioth is taken, and the strong holds are surprised, and the mighty men’s hearts in Moab at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs” (Jer. 48:41). “Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread his wings over Bozrah: and at that day shall the heart of the mighty men of Edom be as the heart of a woman in her pangs” (Jer. 49:22). “Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail: (Jer. 49:24). “The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken” (Jer. 51:30, cf. Jer. 50:37, 43).

It’s sort of like a running theme really.

Now someone might be wondering how the she-bear image and these comparisons work. She-bears robbed of their cubs don’t seem to be cowering and hiding in the bushes. Right. Exactly. The point isn’t that women are weak in every way, or this fear renders them paralyzed (as these texts indicate often happens to men). Have you heard of the “wall of moms” in Portland? “For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people” (2 Sam. 17:8). This goes back to Lewis’s point: that intense natural protectiveness is intended by God to be primarily directed at protecting the interests of a home. But when it is not channeled and directed to that fruitful end, it can become a deadly force of destruction. We are a nation filled with women “chafed in their minds.” (And the way they have been treated, I actually have great sympathy for them.) But as it stands, we are a woman constantly in the anguish and terror of labor, and never coming to birth, never coming to the joy and relief of a living baby laid at her breast. But we are in perpetual labor with a full term dead baby. We are in perpetual travail and we are perpetually bereaved. We are a stillborn nation, dead in our sins, and therefore our anguish is very great indeed.

Two Closing Encouragements
I want to close with two observations and encouragements for those of you who largely agree and see what I’m talking about. If you’re still thrashing around in your shed looking for something metal and pointy, might I suggest that you spend some time organizing your shed before commenting?

The first thing to note is that it is to our shame that many of those leading the protests against government shutdowns and governor recalls are women. I’m talking about conservative women, Christian women who see the plays being run, and before you know it, they have martialed all their homeschool lady friends and now a petition is going around. Don’t misunderstand me. I have no problem with a woman getting a petition together or helping to organize a protest. I don’t even believe it is always and in every place wrong or shameful for a woman to run for public office. My point is that many (most?) of our conservative initiatives are led by, even dominated by women. That is a shame. I am very grateful for good women standing up for the truth, but if what I have sketched above is even somewhat true, the question on our minds needs to be: where are the men? I believe the reason many of our conservative and Christian efforts to push back the insidious darkness of liberalism and Marxism, abortion and sexual debauchery have failed is because we are still being led by women. Praise God for faithful women, especially for women who are thoughtful about how they engage in public, refusing to sacrifice their femininity in the process, but shame on the men who have failed to take the lead, who have left their wives and daughters unprotected, who have sent their wives and daughters out on the cultural battlefield to fight instead of them.

And this leads to the last point. There is enormous cultural pressure being exerted on the church right now and if we are not careful, a great deal of that is landing on our wives: pressures not to meet for worship, pressures to meet, to only meet with 25% capacity, to meet with masks, to wear masks everywhere, to not wear masks, and the central pressure being applied is the pressure of fear. Fear the virus, fear your neighbors, fear your family, fear the government, fear church leaders making the wrong decisions, fear being thought of as a criminal, a scoff law, or a heartless barbarian (which is almost as bad as a heartless librarian, but I digress). But remember our riff on Lewis’s point: many of those temptations to fear are actually rooted in natural protective instincts. So Christian men must protect their wives and daughters even as they sort through how to be faithful in all of this. We must protect them from their own fears, from the fears of the world, and we must not act or talk in a way that stokes those fears. Men can stoke those fears by leaving the fears completely ignored or unaddressed. This is why one of the most courageous and faithful things a man may do is correct his wife’s fears graciously. And please underline the world graciously. A man’s duty before God is to protect the world from his wife’s natural protective instincts, and instead of allowing those instincts to grow into monstrous fears, shepherd them to fruitful and productive ends.

But men can also stoke those fears by being insensitive to those fears and protective instincts. The text I quoted early from Peter does not say that it’s ok for women to be fearful; it charges them to adorn themselves in the beauty of the gospel and submit to their own husbands without fear of any terror. But the same text also charges husbands to dwell with their wives with understanding, honoring their wives as weaker vessels. This doesn’t mean giving in to their weakness or allowing their fears to go unchecked. It means leading them and loving them, and listening to them, the way they want God to listen to their prayers. And then giving direction to their wives so that their strengths and wisdom are used for the good of the family, the church, and ultimately, the good of the world.

If the gospel is Christ come for His bride, laying His life down to die for her sins, to make her clean and sanctify her to the uttermost, this is the calling of every husband in particular, and we will not make much progress against sin and darkness in our land until men lead in imitation of that kind of love. And here’s the thing: if God sends His Spirit upon our land, and men rise up in courage, repenting of their sins and turning to Christ alone, the stillborn baby we are currently in labor with, will be restored to life. And our great sorrow will be turned to a great joy that can never be taken away.

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Heaven’s Green Grass

When we gather for worship, the Bible teaches that we are lifted up by the Spirit into the Heavenly Places. This is why we begin worship every week with that ancient reminder: Lift up Your hearts/We lift them up to the Lord. Hebrews says that we have not come to a mountain that can be touched, like the old Mt. Sinai. Rather, we have come to Mt. Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant (Heb. 12:22-24).

In Ephesians it says that God has made us alive with Christ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places. So there is a special sense in which we are lifted up into the heavenly places in worship on the Lord’s Day, and there is also a sense in which we live every moment in the heavenly places, united to Christ by His Spirit. Remember Elisha praying that his servant might see the hosts of heaven filling the hillside behind them: there are more with us than there are with them (2 Kgs. 6:16). Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. 

And all of this is to say: in the midst of all the chaos and turmoil of this world, do not lose sight of heaven. There is a slander of Christians being too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good, but the fact of the matter is that there was never a Christian who did any earthly good who did not have his eyes and heart fixed on Heaven. But do not merely think of heaven as where you go when you die, or a place in another galaxy, far, far away. The Bible teaches that heaven overlaps with our existence; we just can’t often see it. We are surrounded by angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. We are surrounded by heavenly palaces and here, we are gathered to the very throne of the living God and to the Lamb.

Heaven is the reality; this world is the type. And that reality is coming here. This is why we pray Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. This isn’t something that depends upon us. It is coming inexorably, like spring overtaking winter. The nations scurry around insisting that everyone wear scarves and mittens since it is still winter and “it will definitely be getting colder soon!” they cry. But everywhere around us the ice is melting and we see patches of heaven’s green grass poking through the snow. 

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Tom Sawyer, Mask Mandates, and Mobs

Introduction
Well I’ve done it again. Or at least I suppose that’s what some of my detractors imagine. I wrote something outrageous on the interwebs. Except, well, I hardly think it was outrageous. It was quite tame, actually, though I do hope it was a bit droll. 

What I wrote was this: “America, this really is the moment to pull out your inner Tom Sawyer. Think of all these mask mandates as the worst substitute teachers you’ve ever had (although most of the teachers have been pretty awful for a while). Lose your masks, drop your masks, wear them on your arms, your legs, your neck, twirl them on your arms, shoot them across the store. Make fun, poke fun, have fun, don’t read the signs, forget to read the signs, and then forget again. But whatever you do, don’t take it seriously and don’t just comply. Remember what Jesus did with all the Pharisees’ silly rules: he ran right over them like an eight year old boy on a bike full of beans.”

Now the first thing to address is the puzzled looks on some of your faces regarding the bike full of beans. How exactly is a bike full of beans, and didn’t I mean the eight year old boy was full of beans? You might assume that we have a classic example of a dangling modifier. And maybe it was. Or maybe it wasn’t. I mean, have you examined closely the bike of an eight year old recently? Sometimes those things are vibrating even before the boy has mounted them, especially when there are pieces of cardboard affixed to the spokes. 

But be that as it may, the second thing that occurred to me as some of the responses came rolling in was that I’m not sure America remembers Tom Sawyer as well as I had hoped. I mean some of the replies seemed to assume that Tom Sawyer was a real monster of a kid, but anyone who’s read the books knows he was good natured and friendly, if a bit free spirited, forgetful, and certainly not, how shall we say it, institution friendly. But in case you’re a bit behind or fuzzy on the details, you could do a lot worse with the last weeks of your summer than to grab a copy of the Adventures of Tom S by Mr. Twain. If you really want to know what I think of the whole biz, you might grab this worldview edition from the fine folks down at Canon Press. They wrangled a worldview guide for the book out of me, including an essay exploring some of the themes in the aforementioned quote regarding masks and boys on bikes and beans. 

Now to the Substance of Thing
I fully understand that some folks may have walked right into the middle of this completely innocently and find themselves baffled for lack of context. I understand. This is the internet, and these things happen. At the same time, I and my friends have actually been going on about all of this for some time. What I wrote here should be taken in the same spirit and as fully consistent with what I have written previously here, here, and here. In other words, file this under being “cheerfully difficult” regarding the mask mandates, and mild, good natured forms of Reformational civil disobedience. But to be completely clear, I have no qualms with people who work in medical facilities or professions or have medical conditions or doctors’ recommendations or are otherwise immune compromised or elderly or have freely chosen to wear face masks for reasons completely of their own. I consider this a Romans 14 matter: let every man be convinced in his own mind. Our Senior Minister Douglas Wilson has emphasized this in particular to our congregation, underlining the fact that people are free to attend our worship services with or without face masks, no questions asked, no judging, period. Full stop. 

I do continue to question the effectiveness of face masks in general, especially random pieces of fabric, given the fact that much of the medical establishment recommended against the widespread use of them by the public until May before dramatically reversing course. There have also been a growing number of reputable studies questioning even the effectiveness of medical masks and respirators for prevention of the spread of viruses, some even suggesting that there could be increased risk for spreading airborne viruses with face coverings. [Note: many articles do not distinguish between the effectiveness of masks for viruses and bacteria — important difference!] But I do not insist that I am correct, only that dissenting medical opinions (what was apparently mainstream opinion five minutes ago) be given reasonable consideration. And given the number of dissenting opinions, I urge freedom of conscience to both sides of the debate, over against government mandates or other coercive measures. In other words, my Tom Sawyer advice is actually in favor of and fully consistent with those who want the freedom to wear masks. It is not any kind of protest against any kind of free choice. It is only a protest against people putting a gun to my head. Underline that two times.

What About Being Tom Sawyer in Private Businesses?
I have also written previously that while I would encourage otherwise healthy folks not to don the mask and to do what they can to cheerfully resist the orders, I do believe that private businesses have the right to establish their own rules for service and so that most certainly may include face coverings. I’ve previously written that my own practice has been and continues to be doing everything I can to love my neighbors in these businesses towards resistance to these mandates, but if push came to shove (not literally!) and my antics were not appreciated and they would not serve me without a mask, and I needed their goods or services, I would happily comply. It’s their store, and I would respect that. And I urge all Christians to recognize that principle and not be jerks. Don’t tear down their signs, or do anything that could reasonably be taken for you joining the mob. Why? I’m glad you asked…

The thing that I have been pressing throughout this Hunger Games 2020 is the necessity of Christians not to miss the bigger play that is occurring. It is a sin to be a jerk to a private business owner. It is also a sin to disobey your parents, your elders, or civil magistrate without biblical justification. But it is also a sin to be an idiot citizen. It is a sin to be a fool. And you need to see that this current wave of mask mandates has nothing whatever to do with securing the rights of private business owners. It is actually the exact opposite. While I appreciate the logic being raised by many – if we want bakers and florists and photographers to have the right to refuse their services for homo weddings, then we should be super compliant right now about masks, since that’s what we believe. Yes, and I really do appreciate that sentiment, except for the fact that it presumes that you’re reasoning with reasonable people who are using logic and basic reasoning skills. But the first law of dealing with mobs is that you can’t reason with them. It’s the same point that one fellow made about teaching pigs to whistle. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig. 

It really is hard to keep your eye on all of the balls, but the same people who are insisting on mask mandates and that churches be closed or heavily restricted under threat of misdemeanors, fines, and in some places even prison time because the coronavirus might kill millions are the exact same people applauding the riots in Portland and Seattle and mass protests in other cities all over the country. Thousands can gather “peacefully” we are assured over and over again in deeply religious tones and magically there is no concern for coronavirus. Meanwhile and completely mysteriously (no one knows how), statues are toppled, explosives and fires erupt, stores are looted, houses burned down, and bystanders are violently assaulted.

Connect These Dots
Keep your eye on both of these things: the same people insisting that law abiding citizens walk around in straight lines with their shirts tucked in are insisting that thugs and vigilantes and vandals be given a free pass. This is exactly what has gone down in Seattle, where the City Council passed an ordinance forbidding the police from using non-violent means of dispersing crowds that have become violent (e.g. pepper spray). As a result, the Chief of Police wrote a letter to local business owners and residents warning them that she would be unable to guarantee the protection of their property or the safety of their persons. 

Connect these dots. The same people who want to insist that businesses police their own establishments, chasing their customers around, demanding that they cover their faces are the same people demanding that the mobs be given free rein to express themselves in burning and looting businesses, destruction of private property, and assaulting random citizens. And the police may not stop them. So ask yourself, at this point, how do I love my neighbor? Many of your neighbors had their businesses shut down for weeks, many are hanging on for dear life financially, and now comes the mask mandates and no doubt many are going along for fear that if they are not in compliance they will be fined or closed down, potentially shuttering businesses for good. And so, Christians should be mindful of that pressure and potential. At the same time, the rioters in Portland and Seattle would like nothing more than to see copycat riots spring up in cities across our land. And those rioters are counting on compliant city councils who will defend their “right” to set businesses on fire.

So follow me closely here: the mask mandates – while no doubt championed by some true believers – are driven by the same mobs. I said this before, but it bears saying again, apart from the scenarios outlined above, the masks are the uniform of the mob. The reason I refuse to go quietly into that good night is because I’m not a revolutionary. I refuse to join the mob. The mask mandates are the precursor to the mob mandates. Therefore, my Tom Sawyer advice about having fun and being generally uncooperative is for the sake of my neighbors, for the sake of these businesses and livelihoods. I’ve been watching this game film for a minute, and I’ve seen this play go down a few times. Same song, fifteenth verse. First comes the masks, then comes the thugs. Sorry, but I love my neighbor too much to go along with verse sixteen. 

Two Last Thoughts
First, as I mentioned in the Facebook post, I think this is what Jesus would do were He here. He ran roughshod over the supercilious rules of the Pharisees, intentionally ignoring them, transgressing them, and mocking them. And recall that the Pharisees had Roman swords to back up their officious superstitions when they wanted. While civil magistrates were not always directly involved, they were always looming in the shadows. The Pharisees could threaten fines and misdemeanors too. I mean, that’s how they got Jesus the death penalty. And all He did was pluck heads of grain on the Sabbath, forgot to wash his hands before dinner, healed on the Sabbath, called the Pharisees names, made fun of their funny uniforms, and told stories making fun of their hypocrisies all day long. I guess He also turned over the tables in the temple, and raised Lazarus from the dead. But most of our modern Christian leaders would say that Jesus did not have a very good testimony, and did not love his neighbors very well. I mean, was it really necessary to provoke them so much? Did Jesus do enough listening?

In other words, and this is the last point, Jesus was a Tom Sawyer to the cranky, stuffy bureaucracy of the world. C.S. Lewis famously pictured the devil as an officious bureaucrat, a bitchy bean counter. The devil is the Accuser and the Father of Lies: he’s an exacting, huffy accountant who always brings charges and complaints. But Jesus played hooky from his parents when He was twelve, and no doubt all our modern seminary professors would have a word or two of correction for Him. But He had to be about His Father’s business. And so must we. 

I know that many people just want everything to go back to normal. Many hope that if we just go along and flatten this new curve or spike or whatever it is, then we can go back to the way things were. And people like me, counseling difficulty, seem like the troublemakers. But remember, we didn’t start this. We were worshiping God on the Lord’s Day. We were loving our families, running our businesses, paying extra tuition for our kids to go to classical Christian schools, reading Tom Sawyer in the evenings at the dinner table. The trouble comes from sin, rebellion, bloodguilt, shame, fear, and rage.

We must not be hoping or praying that everything goes back to normal. Too many babies have died. Too many lives and families destroyed. We must be praying that God will do whatever it takes to bring us to our knees. But no amount of political or social maneuvering will do that. You can’t get this poison out by turning over a new leaf. Civility will not save America. The only thing that will heal this land is the most uncivil thing that ever happened in the history of the world. The only good man who ever lived, the only righteous man who ever lived was stripped naked and beaten and mocked and spat on for this land. A crown of thorns was smashed into his skull for the skulls of infants crushed by orders of their own mothers. His hands and feet were pierced, and He hung for hours bleeding out, suffocating for our secret sins, broken vows, and treacherous lies. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. What the law could not do, God did by condemning sin in the flesh of Christ so that there might be no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

We have gotten lost in a deep dark cave through our own willful insolence and rebellion, but Jesus, the far Greater Tom Sawyer, came for us. He went down into that darkness for us, and only He knows the way out. 

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Examine Yourselves

In the text from 1 Corinthians 11 that I read every Lord’s Day here at this table, Paul warns the Corinthians about how they celebrate the Lord’s Supper. He says that when they came together, there were divisions among them, people were eating and drinking on their own, and leaving some out. And for that reason, many were weak and sickly, and some had even died. Because people were not discerning the Lord’s body, they were eating and drinking unworthily and eating and drinking damnation on themselves. Therefore, Paul says people should examine themselves as they come to this table. 

And what are they to examine? Paul tells us: are they at odds with anyone at this table? Are there divisions among you? Are you hoping to eat and drink and finish the service and get out before running into so-and-so? That would be a form of eating unworthily. Are you at odds with your parents, your kids, your spouse, your in-laws? Are you at the first service hoping to avoid someone at the second service, or vice versa, or here hoping to avoid someone at CCD or Trinity or some other church in town? If so, Paul would say, you’re coming together is not for the better, but for the worst. People who come to this table of communion while out of fellowship with other believers are not celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and this meal is not a blessing for you but a curse. 

So what should you do? Well, if you remember that your brother has something against you and you can sneak across an aisle or two in the middle of the hymn, do it. Better to go make things right and miss a couple of verses and then sit back down and really celebrate the Lord’s Supper. And if you need to talk to someone in one of the other services, determine right now before God that you will go make things right at the first possible moment. Begin preparing heart to confess or forgive or both right now. And ask God to bless that at this table. 

And finally, if you are at peace with everyone as far as it depends upon you, celebrate this meal like that is true. Don’t close your eyes and ignore everyone around you. Open your eyes, look down your row at your people, look behind you, look around: see the bread in their hands, see the wine they are holding together with you, and discern the Lord’s body here in our midst. Christ died for us; Christ lives for us; Christ is here with us.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Church Membership

We are in the middle of a growth spurt as a church, and so there are many things that we need to remember and be reviewing both for all the new folks but also for all the old folks who might have forgotten. 

For example, what is church membership? Some people have thought that church membership is something modern bureaucrats cooked up, but we practice church membership because the Bible teaches us to. 

“Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their lives… Obey them that rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give an account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.” (Hebrews 13:7, 17)

So Christians are required to be in submission to particular men who teach them the Bible and follow their examples. This means you ought to know the names of your pastors and elders, and you should know at least some them well enough to be able to say, I hope my kids turn out like theirs. Likewise, it says that these same elders watch out for your souls, and they must give an account to God for their care of you. This means that they need to know your name and have a general sense of how things are going in your life. This is why as our church has grown, our parish elders have recently reorganized how they are trying to keep up with folks. And if you are a member and you haven’t heard from an elder within the next few months, you should probably check in with the church office. 

To become a member you merely need to profess faith in Christ and be baptized and be interviewed by a couple of elders. They report back to the full session of elders who formally receive you, and we schedule a Sunday morning for you to come forward and take the membership vows. 

What’s the point of all this? The apostle says that the goal is actually joy and growth. It’s a huge blessing to know you are part of a body, that we’re all pulling in the same direction, fighting and killing our sin, and running together toward Christ. 

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Sanctification is Not Gender Neutral

Holiness is related to the idea of wholeness, completion. God is holy, holy, holy – not only in His purity and light, but also in His perfection, His completion. He is holy because there is no shadow of turning in Him. He is not missing anything. He is all that He is. He is the great “I am.” 

This means that holiness is not merely putting off sin and putting on righteousness – though it is certainly that — but that very process of becoming holy is also becoming what you are. Pure holiness is being who you really are, who God made you to be in Him. 

And that in turn makes holiness more concrete, more practical. Holiness is not opposed to nature. Salvation is God’s gracious healing and glorification of nature. This includes your nature, your body, your sex, your personality, your gifts and abilities. Being holy as a man means growing in your masculinity, taking initiative, responsibility, learning to sacrifice in love. Being holy as a woman means growing in your femininity, cultivating fruitfulness, beauty, and wisdom. Holiness is not gender neutral or some kind of Zen state of mind. Holiness is Spirit-empowered obedience in your particular circumstances.

Sin is that which steals and destroys God’s good creation. It mars nature. It defaces the image of God in men and women. Therefore, temptation to sin is always an invitation away from what God made you to be. Temptation to sin is always an offer to become someone else, something else than what God created you for. Sin is becoming what you are not. Holiness is becoming more of who you really are in Christ. 

But who you really are is found in the One who already is who He really is. God is complete, perfect, whole. And He is infinitely whole. This is why He is the only one who fills all things, the only One who can complete and perfect everyone. No creature has that capacity. But as we look to Him through Jesus Christ, we are being changed from glory into glory. We are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1 Jn. 3:2).   

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Seven Biblical Principles for Reformational Civil Disobedience

Introduction
Part of our problem when dealing with situations like the one we are facing now is our relative biblical illiteracy, which is why our first response to the widespread silliness in our land needs to be a return to voracious Bible reading. 

Second, when people hear the phrase “civil disobedience” it is often assumed that we must be moments away from civil war and the tensions are running uber high, but if we are biblically literate, we should know that civil disobedience runs more on a dimmer switch than a simplistic on/off switch. What I want to walk through here is what we might call informal civil disobedience, what I’ve been calling being cheerfully difficult. There’s a long discussion in Christian history regarding formal civil disobedience, regarding lesser magistrates, interposition, and just war theory. Here, I only want to focus on low level, grassroots, individuals, families, and churches prayerfully pressing for Reformation and resisting injustice. 

And finally, as we will see, the Bible does not oppose honoring, submitting to, and obeying civil authorities to certain forms of civil disobedience. Rather, Christians are committed to honoring and obeying civil authorities in the Lord, which includes both God’s blessing on our submission to decisions we disagree with and His blessing on our resistance and disregard for decisions that may require that. 

1. It’s not true that Christians must obey every civil ordinance that does not directly require us to sin. Since the appeal is almost always to Romans 13 for a simplistic understanding of Christian obedience to civil magistrates, we should note that the same Paul who penned and lived by those words that He wrote, practiced various forms of civil disobedience throughout his ministry. The typical line of this simplistic approach is that we must obey civil authorities until or unless they require us to disobey God’s clear word. But that is frankly not true. And Paul’s own life demonstrates this. The first example comes shortly after his conversion in Damascus, when a warrant was put out for his arrest and the brothers let Paul down by a city wall in a basket (Acts 9:25). It would not have been a sin for Paul to turn himself in. Going to jail is not a sin. Luke says the Jews wanted to kill him, but Paul shouldn’t have feared death, right? Dying is not a sin either. Toward the end of Paul’s ministry, he did not avoid arrest but went to Jerusalem assuming he would be arrested, and he was, and eventually he was executed. It was acceptable for Paul to be uncooperative in one instance and far more cooperative in another.  

2. It can be a faithful testimony to use every legal dodge to not cooperate with governmental overreach. The same Paul who penned Romans 13 availed himself of every political counter measure at his disposal, particularly through his Roman citizenship. When the authorities unjustly beat him and threw him into jail in Philippi, they asked him to leave quietly – which many of our modern, woke evangelical leaders would have counseled Paul to submit to. Just obey, Paul. It isn’t a sin to leave town quietly, Paul. It’s just a personal inconvenience and maybe a shot at your pride. But Paul insisted on the magistrates coming and escorting them from the jail personally (Acts 16:36-40). And according to Luke, Paul and Silas did not rush out of town at that point either. They took some time to encourage and comfort Lydia and the other saints before departing. No doubt this caused some measure of consternation for the magistrates in Philippi, and the disciples do not seem to care that much. They were cheerfully difficult with the magistrates over orders that were not direct commands to disobey God, and every indication is that this was good for the gospel in Philippi. 

3. It is not a sin to be enslaved or imprisoned, but neither is it a sin to escape or flee if it is for unjust reasons. Let’s begin with Peter’s famous prison break. And let us acknowledge that this was not exactly legal. It would definitely qualify as civil disobedience. Not only that, but it got the guards killed for their negligence (Acts 12:19). Now was that very loving of Peter? Some of the more fastidious among my readers may be quick to protest that it was not technically Peter who broke himself out of prison: it was an angel. And it might be thought that this creates something of an exceptional situation: if an angel appears, then we have God’s clear blessing to disobey but not otherwise. But the angel really is immaterial. Literally and figuratively. The angel only made it clear that Peter needed to leave. For example, Paul really would have been free to runaway after the earthquake in the jail at Philippi, but he was also free to stay for the sake of the gospel, which he did.

In any case, like in the American criminal system, prison is a form of slavery (sometimes just, sometimes unjust). And while Paul certainly did admonish slaves to obey their masters, even the harsh ones (e.g. Eph. 6, Col. 3), he also counseled slaves to get their freedom if they could, which could have included disobeying them at points, like for example if they commanded their slaves not to run away (1 Cor. 7:21). Finally, the Old Testament law protected runaway slaves and prohibited Israelites from returning them to their masters (Dt. 23:15-16), unless there was some strategic, gospel reason for doing so (e.g. Philemon). How much more so does this apply to civil magistrates who are attempting to enslave their citizens? In America, we are most definitely not slaves of the state (or weren’t supposed to be), but that isn’t slowing some of our leaders down. May we not flee? May we not hide? May we not resist? Peter disappears from the pages of the New Testament a wanted man, and while he was eventually caught and executed, Peter felt no compulsion to hasten that day. 

4. It is not necessarily a sin for Christians to disobey unjust mandates and hide it from their magistrates. Gideon threshed wheat in a wine press in order to hide it from the Midianite IRS agents (Jdgs. 6:11). Again, the Gospel Coalition would likely counsel Gideon against this. What kind of testimony will you have with the Midianites, Gideon? Afterall, the New Testament commands us to pay taxes unto whom taxes are due (Rom 13:7). But the Bible does not command God’s people to pay taxes to anyone who asks for them; we must pay them to whom they are due. If you live in Tennessee and receive a tax bill from the Governor of Idaho, I counsel you to burn it or frame it but don’t pay it. Likewise, if the mailman shows up at your door and commands you to eat fruit loops for breakfast by the authority of the United States Postal Service under threat of fines, I would counsel you to ignore the man. He doesn’t have that authority, even if everyone in the house (for some reason) has been submitting to him for the last few years. More on this below. Suffice it to say, Christians are obligated to pay taxes to those they are due, and free to pay unjust taxes as a testimony. But Christian businesses also are free to post the face mask mandate on their front door and cheerfully not comply or enforce the order inside, and they should also count the cost and not put themselves or their children or grandchildren in a bind. But there really is a bind in both directions. 

5. Being uncooperative may be the way to render the most honor. David ran from Saul and was thoroughly uncooperative and yet arguably honored him more than all of Israel. Who had more regard for Saul’s life and honor than David? Honor is not blind obedience. Honor is rendered in obedience to the Lord. When Abigail heard that her husband had acted foolishly – and let us again note that Nabal had not required Abigail to sin – Abigail wisely went behind her husband’s back to reconcile with David (1 Sam. 25). While some might argue that David being a difficult refugee was only justified because his life was in danger, Abigail had no idea that her husband had put their lives in danger and her actions honored her husband. Likewise, sometimes honor covers the shame of authorities, like the sons of Noah walking backward to cover their father’s nakedness, perhaps most often by merely overlooking things, but that overlooking can also include disregarding foolish commands or orders. A bunch of our leaders are playing the fool right now, and therefore done in the right spirit, our cheerful disregard of their foolish orders can be full of honor.

6. It is possible to defile yourself with paganism even in the absence of an explicit command that requires you to disobey God’s word. Daniel was cheerfully difficult in Babylon. Now everyone rushes ahead to the statue showdown or the prohibition against prayer. And of course those are the high points of Daniel’s godly resistance. But what many people miss is how Daniel and his three friends arrived at those points. Daniel and his friends were promoted and blessed by God and put into greater positions of prominence and influence because they were cheerfully difficult about the food in Babylon. Our modern missional pastors would tell Daniel to chill out, relax, and submit. It was just food. The kingdom of God is not in eating or drinking, Daniel! The gospel is not at stake! The text mentions nothing about the meat being “unclean food,” and there was nothing unclean at all about wine. Jews were permitted to eat many kinds of clean meat and Israelites long cultivated vineyards and made and enjoyed wine. The point of this resistance seems to have everything to do with Daniel establishing a distinction between himself and Babylon. He would serve the Babylonian king faithfully, but he would not become the king’s man. Let it be clear: the king was not commanding Daniel to disobey God, but Daniel recognized that there was a way that he and his friends could “defile” themselves all while not technically disobeying God. 

7. Justice and evil are defined by God not by magistrates. Jesus taught that we are to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. This is the context for the apostolic instructions regarding the honor and obedience we owe civil magistrates. They are servants of God, and they must therefore uphold His law. When it says that their job is to punish evildoers, this does not mean they get to make up standards of justice willy-nilly. If they define “evildoer” as a “non-essential” nail salon open for business, a church service with people singing, or someone walking around town without a mask on, they have become the evildoers. They cannot make something evil simply by their declaration. Now, Christians most certainly may obey unjust laws as a testimony to unbelieving magistrates if those laws do not require us to disobey God. This is also what Jesus says. Only strangers pay customs and tribute, but the children are free. “Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee” (Mt. 17:26-27). In other words, depending on the situation, it may be best to pay tributes and taxes cheerfully, and depending on the situation, it may be best to cheerfully forget to.   

Conclusion
I titled this post Seven Principles for Reformational Civil Disobedience, and that adjective Reformational really is important. The crucial distinction we need to have fixed in our hearts and minds is that Reformation depends on the Spirit of God and is driven by gospel faith and not certain techniques or mechanisms for change. I said in a previous post that resisting the face mask mandate is like preaching at some guy’s clavicle bone sticking up through the dirt in a graveyard. And I mean that both to emphasize my agreement with the fact that the face mask mandates are not the “end of the world” and “the last hill to die on” and to emphasize why it would be worth standing there and cheerfully resisting. What if the Spirit would be pleased to move there? Where my Jonathans at? Let’s find out.  

All gospel ministry is preaching in a graveyard, just like Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. We preach, but the Spirit must quicken. The Spirit must give life. But this isn’t just a lesson for preachers. This is a lesson for all Christians in whatever their callings. Sure, we function just like all other human beings in terms of natural laws of physics and mathematics and logic and science (or at least how other human beings used to operate). We build houses and program computers and make meals like everyone else. But because we are Christians we labor with an additional layer in mind. In whatever we do, we want to see God’s blessing on it, and we mean both material and spiritual blessings when we say this. We not only want to fix the car correctly and competently and with excellence, we want God’s blessing on those labors. We not only want to make good food and be healthy and enjoy those good gifts, we want God’s blessing on our eating and drinking and fellowship. We want God’s kingdom to come and will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

If your primary thought in all of this COVID crazy is some variation on “come and make me,” you’re not smelling what I’m cooking. What I’m talking about is gospel resistance. I want millions of believers being cheerfully difficult with all the groundless mandates because Jesus is King, because their sins are forgiven, because they have been given a joy that cannot be taken away from them, because they are not afraid of death, because they love their neighbors, and they want to see them come out of the shadows of guilt and shame and fear, and come into the marvelous light of Jesus Christ. And they want that for this whole country, for the whole world.

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