Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 81

Peter Pan & Palm Sunday

Mt. 21:1-16

Introduction

“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” cried the people as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that first triumphal entry (Mt. 21:9). “Hosanna to the son of David!” cheered the children as Jesus drove out those who were buying and selling in the temple and healed the blind and lame (Mt. 21:12-15). And the chief priests and scribes were indignant (Mt. 21:15-16). It’s a wonderful tradition to wave palm branches on Palm Sunday, but we must never forget the meaning of Palm Sunday.

Open the Gates of Righteousness

The crowds are quoting from Psalm 118. This psalm is a hymn of praise following a harrowing battle (Ps. 118:8-18). The king is riding home in triumph to offer sacrifices of praise in the temple and calls out for the gates of the city to be opened (Ps. 118:1-7, 19-29). But the psalm is constructed with praise and worship as bookends, holding both the battle and the worship together. In other words, the battle and the gates stand for that which could keep you from worship. In the psalm, the king is calling out to Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear the Lord to sing with him, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps. 118:1-4, 29) And you can tell that they are willing to do this because they greet him with the cry, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord!” (Ps. 118:26). But the enemies who surrounded him on every side and the builders who rejected the cornerstone stand for those who would keep the king (and people) away from the house of the Lord (Ps. 118:10-12, 22). So it is no accident that Jesus enters Jerusalem with this psalm being shouted by the crowds, goes into the temple and drives out the moneychangers, and begins healing (Mt. 21:12-14). Just like in the psalm, there are new enemies preventing true worship. Jesus is the new king making room for true worship, opening the gates of righteousness, so that all may go in.

Enemies in the Temple

Of course the striking thing is that the chief priests and scribes and moneychangers didn’t think they were preventing worship. They thought they were promoting worship. They were indignant and objected to what the children were shouting because they thought that Jesus was distracting from faithful worship. Who’s to say? The answer is found in understanding righteousness. It’s knowing the difference between what God requires, what God permits, and what God prohibits. The law did not prohibit selling sacrificial animals. In fact, it was explicitly permitted that tithes (of animals/produce) might be turned into money and repurchased in Jerusalem (Dt. 14:24-25). Nevertheless, the particular way this had been practiced became a barrier to worship. It appears this buying and selling was taking place in the court of the gentiles, preventing the nations from having access to God (Is. 56:1-8), and it appears that there was not a little financial motive either (Mt. 21:13). Likewise, the blind and lame had been excluded from serving as priests (Lev. 21:18), but Matthew’s language suggests that Jesus’ ministry is changing that. The indignation of the priests and scribes indicates that the far deeper problem was that they thought they were in charge.

Palm Branches & Life & Death

Biblically speaking, palm branches mean obedience to God even to death. We see this in the Feast of Booths, where the people commemorate coming out of Egypt and living in palm branch tents in the wilderness (Lev. 23:40-43). We see this vividly in Revelation: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number… standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!’… ‘These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb…’” (Rev. 7:9-14). Like the ancient Israelites, this new Israel has gone through the wilderness of persecution, and those who have stood firm even to death now stand before the Lamb singing His praises forever. But the most vivid image of this is Jesus who was welcomed with palm branches and obeyed God even unto death in order to open the way for all to draw near to worship.

In other words, loyalty and obedience to God must be clear in our hearts and minds. And in the first instance this means understanding that our obedience is a response to Christ’s saying obedience for us. We do not obey in order to get access to God; we obey because Christ won our access through the Cross. But having established that, what must we do to follow our King? And you can draw a pretty clear line by asking: What would you die for? Or turn it around: What would God kill for? Death was the penalty for Adam’s sin in the garden (Gen. 2). Nadab and Abihu were struck dead for offering strange fire (Lev. 10). Uzzah touched the ark and God killed him (2 Sam. 6:7). Ananias and Sapphira were struck down for lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-11). Paul says that many in Corinth were sick or dead for eating and drinking the Lord’s Supper in disobedience (1 Cor. 11:29-30). Hebrews says, “see that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven… let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:25-29). So, what must we do? What must we die for? How must we follow Jesus?

Conclusion & Applications

One way to think about Palm Sunday is like Jesus as Peter Pan leading the children and the crowds like the Lost Boys against Captain Hook and his pirates. The chief priests and scribes are indignant because they’ve grown up and become old like that old dragon, their father the devil. But Jesus came as a Child King to kill that old dragon and save the world (Rev. 12). Jesus came so that the whole world might become young again, so that we might become children of His Father and never grow old (Jn. 1:12-13). This is eternal life: unending life, un-aging life, life that never gets old.

And so all of our obedience is based on this fact: we have become the children of God. And therefore, if someone comes along getting indignant, claiming that we must do something which Jesus has not required, we throw it down. These palm branches are wonderful, but if someone starts getting cranky about the palm branches, we ditch the palm branches. We use purple during the season of Lent. It’s a great color that fits the themes, but if someone starts getting cranky about purple, we can toss it out. This is why I wear a robe. We are the children of God, and children love to dress up. I’m dressing up like the angels and saints in heaven; it’s the truest make-believe in all the world. But I don’t have to wear a robe. I’m wearing a robe for fun because we are the children of God.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem to open the way back into the presence of God. So the question to ask yourself this morning is: what are the barriers between you and God? Jesus rode into Jerusalem to make room for you. And He did not fail. Do you want His peace, His joy, His presence, His help? He went to Jerusalem for you, to open the gates of righteousness for you. He is not far off. He is here with us now. Do you believe? This is the work that God requires: believe in the One that He sent for you (Jn. 6:29). But if you would come to Him, you must let Him heal you. The blind and lame are welcome. He has made room for you, but He will change you. And when He does, you will join His palm branch parade.

Nice Christianity & Complementarian End Zone Dances

J. Gresham Machen famously asserted that the liberalism creeping into the Christian churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was not merely another form of Christianity, but another religion altogether. It was not even Christianity. He insisted that believing Protestant Christians had more in common with believing Roman Catholics than liberal “Christians” — even though Machen was a staunch Protestant. Machen identified the root of liberalism as “naturalism,” by which he meant a rejection of the creative power of God occasioned by the rise of modern science. Every assumption of the past, and every institution, especially the Church, had to be interrogated by this new found power. Thus, faced with this scrutiny, “the liberal theologian seeks to rescue certain of the general principles of religion, of which these particularities [traditional doctrines] are thought to be mere temporary symbols, and these general principles he regards as constituting ‘the essence of Christianity'” (Christianity & Liberalism, 6).

While I certainly have some sympathies with the varied warnings from our fathers in the faith regarding “Machen’s Warrior Children” — a certain belligerent spirit that has often infected conservative churches causing them to divide over trifles for fear of the liberal boogyman — nevertheless, and on the whole, my sympathies and loyalty is still entirely on Machen’s side of the field, and the longer I pastor, I’m convinced that it is this same tendency of liberalism — to break toward the general essence and away from Biblical particularities — found in many different Christian traditions and denominations that is the great Satanic threat to most Christians.

When I say “Satanic” I mean that in a rather straightforward, technical sense: the methods of this tendency imitate Satan. They quote Bible verses in order to get God’s people to disobey God. As it is written… Satan says to Jesus in that famous temptation scene: “He will command his angels concerning you” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone” (Mt. 4:6, cf. Ps. 91:11-2). It was for the love of the poor that Judas objected to the extremes of Jesus’ ministry, and Satan entered into him (Jn. 12:4-6, 13:27-30). The demons believe and tremble, but they do not willingly obey Jesus (Js. 2:19). Bradley Longfield argues persuasively that in the case of the 1920s the presbyterians “opted for institutional above doctrinal unity” (The Presbyterian Controversy, 232). In other words, the passages about unity in Christ came to trump other passages on the virgin birth, inspiration of Scripture, the resurrection, miracles, etc. It’s a rejection of the particularity of Scripture in favor of general principles. Keep that point in mind.

So, the greatest threat to the Church and her sheep is not people who dress and talk like orcs. There are certainly dangers there, but the really dangerous men are the ones who pastor churches, lead Bible studies, quote Bible verses, and so on:

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. (2 Cor. 11:13-15)

Now before proceeding to give some examples of what this looks like in our own day and age, I want to be clear that these examples are not me unilaterally damning anyone to Hell. I’m not saying who is going to Heaven or Hell, or who is regenerate or not. That’s for other men in positions of authority to judge (Mt. 16:19, 18:18). The closest analogy to what I’m doing in what follows is that famous scene where Jesus tells the disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to die and rise again and Peter begins to rebuke Him. Jesus turns around and tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of man” (Mk. 8:33). What I’m saying in what follows is that there is a Satanic and demonic spirit in this, against which the Church (collectively and as individuals) must imitate her Master and resist and tell to get behind us. In that moment, Peter was a mouthpiece of Satan, and thank God, he repented. But Satan routinely transforms himself into an angel of light. He quotes Scripture and takes upon himself forms of godliness. And we must be on guard, for he prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8).

Which brings us to Tim Keller. Of course we’ve all just been briefed on the doings at Princeton, and Keller is the darling of the conservative church at the moment. If you didn’t catch the story, Keller was given an award by a department at Princeton, but when the openminded and tolerant constituency of the venerable institution got wind, they laid down on the floor in the produce section of academia and kicked their legs and shrieked until the the pencil-necked leaders caved and revoked the award while still allowing Keller to come give a lecture. Now, hear me carefully: I’m very grateful that Keller didn’t cave on his views regarding homosexuality or men as pastors. And to whatever extent this event gets the modern conservative Christian church a little more woke regarding our current position on the cultural battlefield, I am grateful. I also want to make sure that everyone hears me when I say that Keller has said and written some very helpful things for the church. He has a gift for interacting with unbelievers and understanding the questions that even many Christians have. Folks in my church can attest to the fact that I have from time to time recommended talks and books by Keller.

And yet…

I also believe that Keller’s ministry as a whole represents a great deal of what is wrong with the modern church. In fact, despite the numbers of congregants, churches, missionaries, and so on, I am not yet convinced that the fruit of his ministry will be very good at all. We are commanded by Jesus to evaluate the fruit of ministers, and it may be that Keller is aware of some of this bad fruit and is making course corrections. And if so, wonderful. But let me point to a few particulars.

First, it’s well known that Redeemer Presbyterian Church has women serve on their diaconate. You can read Keller’s explanation of that practice here. Now, there are at least two issues here. One is a polity issue; one is a biblical issue. As Keller notes, the Presbyterian Church in America prohibits female deacons, but the northeast presbytery of the PCA upheld the practice of Redeemer to have women who serve on their diaconate called “deaconesses.” So, technically, no women serve as deacons, but clearly they all serve together on the “diaconate.” From their website, it appears that neither deacons nor deaconesses are “ordained” at Redeemer but rather “appointed” or “commissioned,” which would seem to underline the essential equality of the deacons and deaconesses serving together on the diaconate. Now, quite apart from whether there are sound biblical or traditional arguments for a “deaconess” (which there are, but not in the way Redeemer is practicing it), the fact remains that Redeemer is out of accord with the governmental standards of the PCA (see Chapter 9).

Now add to that, coming in the wake of the recent Princeton dustup, this OpEd by an egalitarian woman who served under Tim Keller at Redeemer for a time “to envision and develop an entire ministry to equip and mobilize men and women at Redeemer…” Last Monday, PCA pastor Scott Sauls and Scotty Smith (teacher in residence at a PCA church) were tweeting and retweeting this article, while doing little complementarian end zone dances. It was cute and horrifying all at the same time. My point here isn’t that I could never envision a situation in which a godly minister might hire a woman to assist in the development of some ministry. But my point is twofold: First, hiring an egalitarian woman who disagrees about what the Bible teaches on the roles of men and women to oversee a ministry that equips and mobilizes men and women for anything is a recipe for confusion and disaster. That’s like hiring someone who is a really good conversationalist but doesn’t believe in different blood types to assist a surgeon in the operating room. Second, despite her (admirable) defense of Keller (despite their differences), she is a fruit of his ministry. One result of Keller’s ministry is women like this woman who feel comfortable in his church and can move comfortably over to the PCUSA (or Roman Catholicism), and who feel comfortable letting all of their liberal friends know that Keller isn’t any sort of threat to them at all. This woman is claiming that when it comes down to it, liberals need not fear, Keller opts for niceness over his biblical convictions. And Scott Sauls and Scotty Smith are cheering. And putting this together with the diaconate confusion at Redeemer tells you more about Keller than what he says about complementarianism elsewhere.

Finally, I point you to City Church of San Francisco, which was planted by men inspired by Keller. I grant you that it’s a rather extreme form of what I’m talking about, but over the course of a few years the church left the PCA in order to ordain women as elders before finally becoming an LGBTQ open and affirming church. Now, to be clear, people get inspired by things all the time when they ought not to be. People have probably done dumb and stupid things thinking they were inspired by me! I have no doubt that had the men at City Church asked Keller what he thought of them embracing homosexuality, he would have told them he disagreed (and maybe he did!). But given the other ambiguities sketched above, and despite Keller’s stated disagreements, his ministry is inspiring this kind of church. If the elders of Redeemer feel free to bend PCA polity and make room for egalitarians in leadership, why not homosexuals? Where are the clear and obvious brakes?

My point in all of this is not that Keller is a liberal or that everyone who benefits from him is becoming one. No, but my point is that there’s something in the water. Keller is guilty of Nice Christianity. But that warm, friendly, sympathetic atmosphere is growing more than just Christians. Of course Jesus says that there will be tares that the enemy plants during the night right alongside the wheat, and we must not rip out the tares in a fashion that rips out the wheat along with it. However, that doesn’t mean you just let the enemy have a field day (pun intended). Jesus also told us to practice church discipline, and left us a rather vigorous example of resisting sin and wicked men. Likewise, Paul routinely told his people which men to watch out for, which men deserted him, which men had shipwrecked their faith, and so on.

Keller’s ministry is a helpful case study in how liberalism can creep in through Nice Christianity. It may seem far too subtle to some, but Nice Christianity always opts for unity above truth. It certainly holds to many of the historic truths of the gospel, but when a particular truth is under assault (say the God-ordained differences between men and women), Nice Christianity affirms only the most obvious truths and then wherever possible opts for niceness over truth. And wherever this occurs, we have in small doses, an implicit hermeneutical decision to interpret Scriptural particularity as unnecessary to the “essence of Christianity” at that point. And good men do this. But when we do this, we are failing to guard the flock. Scott Sauls and Scotty Smith are doing the same thing. These are good men (from all I can tell) who are celebrating the thinnest modicum of resistance to the secular culture but not actually guarding the flock of God at the very point where the giants are taunting us. This is like celebrating one of the Israelites who didn’t run into his tent when Goliath came out to taunt. Yes, well I suppose compared to all the rest of the Israelites, we can call that courage, but that isn’t exactly a solution to the problem. And short of that solution, we cannot be surprised if people keep defecting to the Philistines.

An Armory for Modern Christians #12

The Inescapability of Slavery

Introduction

We are coming up on one of America’s feast days: Tax Day. Some of you don’t celebrate it at all, as Uncle Sam requires you to give your “fair share,” but for many Americans they begin planning vacations, acquiring new cars or boats, and the like as they see the tax return they have coming. The trouble is most of that money isn’t being returned at all. Which means that Tax Day represents an enormous claim to sovereignty. Of course the claim is that this is all for the common good, for the care of the poor, and in the name of freedom. But as Christians, we need to ask: Is this true?

God’s Heart for the Poor

We should begin by laying out the clear case for God’s heart for the orphans, widows, immigrants, refugees, disabled, and elderly. “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with a sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him…” (Ex. 22:21-25ff, cf. Prov. 22:22-23) “‘Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,’ says the Lord; ‘I will place him in the safety for which he longs.’” (Ps. 12:5) When Paul met with the apostles in Jerusalem about his ministry to the Gentiles, they gave him the right hand of fellowship, only asking Paul to “remember the poor” the very thing Paul says he was eager to do (Gal. 2:9-10). And of course James famously insists that “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world (Js. 1:27).

God’s Plan for the Poor

All of this is true, but it is not enough to say this and then do whatever comes into someone’s mind. Remember, Judas was in charge of the moneybag, which the disciples kept for the poor, and he had some ideas about how that ministry should be carried out (Jn. 12:4-6, 13:27-30). In other words, it is not enough to feel sorry for the disenfranchised, disabled, and unprotected in society. Feeling bad may be the very first step to being used by Satan to further their plight, all in the name of helping them. So, in addition to being committed to upholding justice for orphans and widows, we must be committed to doing that the way God says to do it. And perhaps the single greatest biblical principle in this is the fact that God says that it is not the government’s job to visit orphans and widows in their affliction or make sure that we do. There are no civil penalties in the Bible for failing to give money to the poor, for failing to give clothing to the naked, or for refusing to offer hospitality to foreigners. Those positive commands are given to the people of God, but they are enforced by God Himself. “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords… He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” (Dt. 10:17-18, cf. 2 Chron. 36:21). It is the government’s job to carry out God’s wrath on evildoers (Rom. 13:4), and that includes those who prey upon the needy. But the Bible insists that the best care for those in distress starts with the individual and works outward: individual, family, church, and then broader society. While it may not always be a sin for the government to intervene, the current deified State is a false god that needs to be toppled.

What Does Biblical Care for the Poor Like?

Community: The Bible teaches that man’s fundamental poverty is a poverty of community. When man sinned, fellowship was broken between man and God, man and fellow man, as well as man and creation (Gen. 3:12-19). The gospel is the proclamation of reconciliation through the blood of Jesus across the board but in that order (Ps. 51:4, Lk. 14:26, 2 Cor. 5:11, 18-20, Eph. 2:14-19, also see When Helping Hurts). The state cannot properly care for orphans and widows because it cannot provide meaningful community. And taking money from strangers often reinforces isolation rather than alleviating it. For example, welfare (e.g. food stamps) often discourages single mothers from marrying the father of their children.

Personal Responsibility: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph. 4:28) “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). In other words, there must be a sharp distinction in our minds between the “righteous poor” and the “wicked poor.” Helping the wicked poor is helping the wicked. There will always be medical emergencies where we must imitate the Good Samaritan, but that is no model for ongoing mercy ministry. Unemployment/disability often discourages able-bodied people from finding honest work, and thereby perpetuates dislocation, isolation, and brokenness.

Family: “Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God… But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:1-8). The Church is to financially support true widows, but the gospel causes people to seek to support those closest to them (family).

Church: Tithing is central to God’s plan for mercy: “You shall tithe… and the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled…” (Dt. 14:22-29, Mal. 3:8-12, 1 Cor. 16:1-3, 2 Cor. 9). The deacons are specifically tasked to administer these funds for the needy (Acts 6:1-7). This is also why we have a Deacons Fund and an Education Fund.

Conclusion: Slavery & Freedom

The Bible teaches that slavery is inescapable, and this is why in the Old Testament slavery was regulated but not entirely outlawed (Lev. 25, Dt. 15). Ultimately, everyone is either a slave of Christ or a slave of sin (Rom. 6:16, Phil. 1:1). This is why when people ask if we are for or against slavery, the biblical answer has to be which slavery? Which kind of dependence? When a financial hardship strikes who do you immediately look to? Your family? God’s people? Or do you immediately start filling out medicaid/unemployment forms? Who is your master? Who is your savior?

The kidnapping and buying and selling of human beings is always abhorrent to God (Dt. 24:7, 1 Tim. 1:10, Rev. 18:11-13), but we need realize that America became enslaved to a much harsher master at the very moment it announced the end of “slavery.” Nearly 60 million babies have been murdered on Master Sam’s plantation since 1973, and he sends you a check every April to keep you docile. But Jesus died for us and forever earned the right to be our Master (Phil. 2:9). He suffered for us to become our Lord and Savior. “The Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us” (Is. 33:22). Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mt. 11:29-30).

Wisdom, Gold, and the Tide

Wisdom is always about making difficult decisions that can seem/sound/look insane from the outside but which prove to be helpful in the long run.

This is why wisdom is difficult: it aims at a longer outcome. The short term is much easier, and it’s easier to follow people aiming for the short term. They are trying to make their kids happy; so they buy them ice cream. Or they are trying to make their kids healthy; so they make them eat kale. But wisdom looks down the corridor of time five, ten, fifteen years and aims for wise, cheerful, and Christ-loving grandchildren, which means you won’t get your report card on how you did with the kids today until one of their kids comes over for an afternoon in about two decades.

This is why wisdom requires faith. You can’t see that far really. You can squint, but it doesn’t really help. But God’s Word is right here in front of us. It’s clear, and it doesn’t change from day to day. It’s simple, but it certainly is not simplistic. It says quite a bit about how to live today aiming for the future. You can tell if someone believes God by whether they read the Bible regularly, extensively and then apply it to their lives. This need not have any kind of showy-ness to it, but nevertheless, your stories should be full of phrases like, “We used to… and then I learned that God thinks… so we started…” That’s wisdom. Folly keeps doing the same things hoping for different results. Wisdom looks to the source of all wisdom (Christ) and His Word (the Bible), and trusts and obeys.

Now one of the most difficult things to judge and decide when it comes to being wise and making wise choices is when it comes to the gravity or undertow of various and sundry judgment calls in life. These are actually resident in millions of our decisions, and for those who trust in Christ, we can cling to His sure promises that His grace drenches our lives – such that we need not live in constant fear and agony (vanilla or chocolate?!). Nevertheless, these decisions do add up to directions and trajectory over time, and those directions have a gravity, an undertow that is pulling you, me, us in directions we are often not aware of.

A little while ago, I took my kids down to Ocean Beach in San Francisco, and since we’re from Idaho and it was over 50 degrees outside, all of my kids got into the water. And I watched as they splashed and ran up and down the sand, chased by the foamy surf, and sure enough, little by little, they would drift, not at all in random directions but in one direction, down the beach, the direction of the tide, pulling them silently away from me.

When you step into the water, you hardly notice the pull. And the words of a parent reminding the kids to stay close, to keep looking up to see where they are, can almost seem silly. Now imagine if the pull is even slower, it takes weeks, months, years to drift. On the one hand, some may think it’s safer. Possibly, but really only if you’re making constant corrections. Slower may also be more dangerous. Slower may seem less worrisome, and looking up may seem more confusing. It’s all the same beach, after all – and what’s 20 or 50 yards really? The current is going so slow, I can just walk back over to where we began at any time.

And the slowness can tempt people to be more offended by warnings. Pride is such a suckerpunch. The less dangerous a situation seems, the more pride comes out to play. What are you saying – that I’m compromising with egalitarianism? With feminism? With liberalism? C’mon, man. You’re such a culture warrior, another one of Machen’s warrior children. Go get a life and stop raining on everyone’s parade.

I recently heard a pastor give a great analogy. He pointed out that in olden days, currency was real precious metal (silver, gold, bronze, etc.). Scammers would sometimes trim the edges of their coins and pass them off as genuine. To the untrained eye, the gold pieces and silver pieces looked no different than the others. Only a trained eye or a true scale would detect the fraud. And then of course, the fraud would still only be very minor, but again, over time, the precious metal clippings would add up, and a great deal of value really would be lost.

Part of the challenge of leadership of all sorts (pastors, parents, teachers, etc.) is that the currency of Scripture isn’t exactly uniform or standardized. And nevertheless, it’s our job to pass on the true value of Scripture to our people: the diamonds, rubies, gold, and silver of God’s Word. And we have to realize that in addition to the many direct assaults on truth and wisdom out there, many of the greatest threats are inside the Church, defrauding the people of God, by passing off partial truths as whole truths.

Sometimes this happens when well-meaning Christians say some true things while bowing to various gods and goddesses in our culture. Truth has been stated, but it has been stated in a context that ultimately castrates it of its true potency. Sometimes this happens when leaders fail to guard their people from dangers and pitfalls. The people want/need a positive vision, we are told, and so all that the pastors teach on is positive. And every last word may be absolutely true, and yet without all of the Scriptural negatives, what is actually presented is only half-true. You’ve defrauded the people of God. You’ve promised to preach the whole counsel of God, but you’ve lied and robbed them.

The gospel itself is not merely positive. It’s come and welcome to Jesus Christ, and it’s run the Hell away from sin and the devil. It’s put on the new man in Christ, put on the full armor of God, and it’s put off the old man, and put off the works of the flesh. And back to wisdom, so much of that work is telling people to look up, to see how they’ve been drifting. Why that haircut? Why that dress? Why’d you share that wonky article? Why’d you “like” that post? Why do you talk to your children that way? Have you noticed how your children don’t obey you right away?

In order to be fully faithful to Jesus and His Word, we must not trim any of the gold He offers, and this is the only way to grow in His wisdom.

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An Armory for Modern Christians #11

Do Not Despise Discipline

Introduction

Perhaps one of the greatest dangers for Christians is thinking they know better than God. Of course we don’t say that or consciously think that (usually), but that is precisely how we often live. And we justify it by claiming that we get the same results. This happens liturgically when Christians allow traditions to displace duties (e.g. Gen. 3:3). This happens in our homes when we substitute what we think is “niceness” for obedience in disciplining our children and requiring obedience of them.

Do Not Despise

Hebrews says that people are tempted to grow weary and fainthearted in struggling against sin (Heb. 12:3-4). Why? It’s difficult! Struggling against sin is a long race of endurance (Heb. 12:1ff). And one of the places parents are tempted to grow weary is in the struggle against sin in their children, and this is because obedience to God in this area reveals our own sin. Some openly reject God and His Word in order to try to flee this responsibility, but others (frequently in the Church) rename their rebellion with sophisticated and virtuous sounding objections, which may include academic articles in psychology journals, sentimental stories about discipline gone wrong, abuse scare-mongering, excuses about their own poor upbringing, or fear of CPS or what family, neighbors, or friends might think. But Hebrews quotes Proverbs reminding God’s people not to “regard lightly the discipline of the Lord” (Heb. 12:5). The sense of the command not to “regard lightly” includes (reaching back into the Hebrew in Proverbs) not despising, refusing, rejecting, or even feeling disgust for. On one end of the lexical spectrum, Hebrews warns us not to trifle with God’s discipline, and on the other end, God requires us not to be disgusted by it. “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” (Prov. 13:24). There is of course a sense in which discipline is not pleasant but painful (Heb. 12:11), and yet there is another sense in which we really must love the gift of spanking. Parents sometimes slip into the misconception that they must choose between grace and the rod, but God says that the rod is grace. And the rod is grace precisely because it is not punishment. Jesus was punished for our sins so we might learn to walk in newness of life. Discipline is paideia: practicing life.

A Brief Primer on Spanking

A wise father remembers the frame of his children (Ps. 103:13-14), and this means that he understands that as soon as God gives his child the ability to exercise his will, emotions, and bodily movement – those abilities must be ruled. This also means that the younger the child, discipline must be swift (quick flicks on the offending member – e.g. thigh, cheek). In the early years, you are teaching your children what words and actions mean and how to feel; discussions and emotional reactions are cruel. Pain is inescapable in life, but a little pain now is far more gracious than greater pain later on. A quick flick with a firm but calm “no” and a smile or hug is all that is necessary early on.

Imitate God’s fatherly goodness going back to creation: there was only one “no” in the Garden of Eden. Early on, pick one or two strategic battles (flipping over on the changing table, tossing food off the high chair, uncontrolled shrieking, crossing a boundary in the home). The point isn’t high-handed sin (yet); the point is to teach the concepts of obedience and authority. There is also a very practical safety issue in this. If you have taught your crawling child to listen to your voice, when he starts walking toward the street or putting a quarter in his mouth, you are that much further to saving his life (Ex. 20:12).

In the toddler years, the primary aim is self-control and obedience. Remember that we are required by God to require obedience (Eph. 6:1, Prov. 30:17). Obedience means doing what is asked immediately, completely, and cheerfully. If you have to say it multiple times, it is not obedience. If the task is begun but not finished, it is not obedience. If the command is obeyed with whining, stomping feet, or back chatting, it is not obedience. But Paul says: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). The word to “bring up” literally means to feed or nourish your children. When fathers fail to teach their children how to obey, they are provoking them (like Pharaoh). This means lots of preparing and practicing obedience before it is required.

In general, the goal should be to discipline children as privately as possible – though it is more important to obey God and discipline your child than it is to fear what anyone thinks. As the child grows in physical and mental maturity and awareness, it’s helpful to have a liturgy to your discipline: take the child somewhere private, explain the disobedience quickly, deliver the verdict, carry out the discipline, hug, pray asking God’s forgiveness and strength to obey, and have the child seek (and receive) forgiveness. Remember, the goal is the “peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11), which means that if there is still a bad attitude or disobedience, you’re not done yet. Do not grow weary or fainthearted (Heb. 12:3-4)! Fathers, it is your responsibility to make sure that your wife knows how to carry out effective discipline (it must be painful). Sometimes your wife (or mother in-law) will wonder if you are being too hard; when she is right you must listen and when she is wrong you must not.

The Discipline of the Lord

One of the striking things about the way Hebrews quotes Proverbs on discipline is the fact that it applies that specific instruction that Solomon gave to his son about discipline to the entire people of God in general. Thus, we can read backwards from Hebrews to Proverbs and understand that one of the ways the Lord disciplines parents is by requiring them to discipline their children. When children are young, God requires their parents to discipline them with swift, measured, physical pain consistently. As children grow older, discipline is admonition, advice, coaching. When children are grown and have their own children, God disciplines them by giving them children who need to be disciplined. Therefore, a father who refuses to discipline his son is refusing the discipline of the Lord. In other words, a father who insists on obedience to God’s word is insisting on the authority of God in his home. A father who does not require obedience is defying God’s authority in his home. Discipline is not about your parental feelings or preferences; it is about submission to God’s word. That’s where the consistency comes from. Therefore parents must repent when they fail to obey God. This is how Christian discipline is grounded in God’s love (Heb. 12:6-10).

Conclusion

The fundamental question is whether we trust God or not. Do we believe God or not? Those parents who have trusted and obeyed God in this matter can testify that God has blessed their faithful efforts (however clumsy!). There is a glorious and wonderful peace that descends on a home when a mother/father lovingly disciplines. This is the whole point of the “cloud of witnesses” that surround us (Heb. 12:1). All of those saints lived by faith in the promises of God and obeyed Him (Heb. 11:1ff). And we have even better promises in Jesus (Heb. 8:6). Therefore, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2). Remember the goal, the prize, the joy set before us, the peace set before us, the good set before us and our children, and keep running toward Him by faith with obedience.

Hypocrisy, Ash Wednesday, and the Gospel

So I need to follow up on what I said in my recent Ash Wednesday homily. I received a few questions from friends, and I’m just assuming that there are likely more folks out there who didn’t understand me or had lingering questions. And let me just say at the outset that I really am grateful for the opportunity to talk about it more. I really appreciate it when folks write me privately, and I’m happy to correspond that way. But hopefully this will be helpful to others as well. It really was an important point, and it’s really no trouble to repeat it again.

The particular questions I’ve received a couple of times center around this paragraph:

This is why we here at Trinity do not walk out of this building with ashes on our foreheads. There are extra tissue boxes scattered around the narthex so that you may wash your face and go out in public and not cancel out the prayers you have offered in here. The millions of Christians that go out in public with ashes on their foreheads are doing something that God hates and they are asking God not to listen to their prayers. Many of them do it ignorantly, having been deceived by their pastors who do not actually teach them the Word of God or how to actually be free of their sins but rather perform superstitious ceremonies to falsely comfort them as they meander their way to Hell. The same thing goes for announcing your fast on social media. Jesus says, do not be like the hypocrites.

Now this paragraph follows on quotations from Isaiah 1 and Matthew 6 about hypocrisy, and so I need to retrace my steps to make the connections clear between the two passages. Isaiah is talking about one particular form of hypocrisy, which is doing what God says to do with impudent hearts. God says to stop offering sacrifices and lifting hands in prayer, because the Israelites don’t really mean it. And the reason God knows they don’t really mean it is because they are living double lives. They sleep around and sing in the choir; they lie, steal, and murder and then come say their prayers. God says He hates it. It’s an abomination to Him. He won’t listen when they pray. In fact, He goes so far as to say that He didn’t command them to do any of those things! Just imagine the emails Isaiah got after that message. Um… but actually Isaiah, you are not technically correct, God did command us to offer sacrifices and feast days and lift our hands in prayer. So you might want to tone it down next time… I’m afraid you’re losing your audience when you overstate things like that…

Now fast forward to Matthew 6. Jesus says, do not be like the hypocrites… they already have their reward. They pray to be seen by men, they blow trumpets while they give alms, they disfigure their faces so everyone knows they gave up Facebook for Lent, they pray on street corners with megaphones. Now, Jesus does a number of things in this diatribe that need to be followed closely. He is not merely addressing soft-hearted and well-meaning folks who were saying sincere prayers on street corners and didn’t realize that actually wasn’t a good testimony — though that is certainly one application. No, Jesus says that the people who do these things already have their reward. What does that mean? It means God isn’t listening to them. Their reward is the kudos they get from their friends. God doesn’t care that they didn’t eat breakfast or lunch; He doesn’t give a damn that they gave up coffee or cheese balls or Xbox for Lent. They already have their reward. Their prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, getting lost in cyberspace. Why? Because God hates that kind of hypocrisy. Why does He hate it? Not because they are soft-hearted, well-meaning people. He hates it because it isn’t well-meaning at all. It’s impudent. It’s defiant. It’s rebellious. The kind of people who lead churches, families, and communities to do that kind of thing are already neck deep in hard-hearted confusion and creating more of it in the hearts of their people.

There are at least two things to notice here. One is that Jesus isn’t buying what the people say or think they are doing. This is something that parents have to learn to do with their children and pastors/elders need to learn to do with their sheep. People frequently don’t realize what they’re doing and that doesn’t get them off the hook. They frequently think they are doing the opposite of what they are actually doing. So if you ask your son, ‘how is your relationship with Jesus going?’ And he says good, and then you breathe a sigh of relief and go back to minding your own business until next year when you’ll ask that question again, you have not taken care to make sure your son is growing up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You can’t tell Jesus on the Last Day, well I asked him and he said good! Likewise, the young man who tells his pastor that he’s doing really great spiritually and smoking pot on the weekends. The pastor doesn’t smile and pat the fellow on the back and tell him to keep up the good work. Likewise, when people are busy disobeying Jesus, flaunting their pieties, when you raise concerns with them and they soberly explain in hushed tones that they most certainly are not doing it to be seen by men at all, it won’t do to sigh in relief and go back to sermon preparation. Jesus knows that some of those people praying on street corners and disfiguring their faces are just doing what everyone else seems to be doing and they *think* they’re doing something good. But Jesus says, no, no they’re not. You can be a hypocrite even when you don’t mean to be. And hypocrisy is like gangrene. It doesn’t just get better.

So Jesus is addressing the same kind of hypocrisy that Isaiah addressed, and if anything, Jesus’ condemnation is wider, broader, even more universal. Isaiah condemned empty shows of religiosity that God had actually commanded, and Jesus is saying not to be like the hypocrites at all, ever — who do things to get earthly kudos. He gives examples of hypocrisy in prayer and fasting, but the application is actually broader. Don’t be like them. They already have their reward. It’s an abomination. God hates it. And this is related to the second thing: Jesus is universally condemning practices that surely have exceptions. And He heartily does it elsewhere as well: Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces (e.g. Mt. 23:13). But what about the good Pharisees? What about Nicodemus? What about all the good scribes? All the good scribes and Pharisees knew Jesus was right.

Or, what about public days of fasting and prayer for a city or a nation? What about Nineveh? Is Jesus condemning any and all signs or symbols of piety and repentance? Is a sign outside a church building blowing a trumpet on a street corner? Is a pro-life rally or a Psalm sing or open air preaching in a public square praying and giving alms in order to be seen by men? No, not in our day, because there really are very few cultural kudos you can get for any of those public displays. I’m certainly willing to grant that it’s possible to turn those sorts of things into showy displays, but the battle lines are drawn so clearly in our culture today that you’re choosing to be maligned and rejected more than anything. Likewise, if all the evangelical and Reformed churches in North America banded together for a day of fasting and prayer for our national sins of abortion, fornication, and sodomy, and our Church leaders recommended that faithful believers wear black for the day as a sign of repentance to God, I would have no problem showing solidarity for that purpose for that day. The reason that would be fine and good is because the terms have been defined and would require a significant portion of the population to count the cost of being associated with Jerry Falwell, Douglas Wilson, and Jesus Christ. And the consequences would be significant. And you better believe there would be a bunch of guys at the Gospel Coalition wringing their hands nervously, announcing that they’re not exactly against the whole thing but they’re just not sure this is the right time for it. Ah, gotcha. Not quite ready to repent.

And this brings us back to Ash Wednesday. I believe that there have been times and places where the season of Lent has been used faithfully by true saints who love Christ and His Word, and used the annual season to call upon God in all sincerity for the grace of repentance, to renew their commitment to walk in humility and holiness, and to reach out to the lost in acts of mercy and evangelism. And it is for that reason, we have continued to have a private Ash Wednesday service at Trinity. Nevertheless, in the same way that the Pharisees descended from faithful men like Ezra and Nehemiah but eventually became a stinking mess, I believe Ash Wednesday (and Lent) has publicly/culturally become something similar. There are still good things there (as with the Pharisees), but they have become popularly and culturally coopted by high handed hypocrisy. The fact that the leading liturgical churches in the West (Church of England, Episcopal, mainline Lutheran, Roman Catholic, etc.) are so chalk full of celebrations of homosexuality, fornication, abortion, and government enforced secularism is an abomination. I know that there are wonderful exceptions in every denomination. Praise God for your great aunt Louise who loves Jesus in some episcopal homo-shrine in Tampa. Happy to grant that she really means to repent of her sins and follow Jesus when she walks out of the homo-shrine with her ashen cross on her forehead. But here’s the thing: I know there were well-meaning Christian women with pink hats walking around at the women’s march a few months back, but it must be said they do not understand in the least what is going on in the world around them. As some wise woman in the south might say, God bless her heart.

In other words, what Jesus calls us to is to actually take up our crosses and follow Him, not pretend to. He died for us not that we might have committee meetings about how to take up crosses, so that we all coordinate and lift at the same time and make sure it doesn’t hurt too much and nobody gets any splinters. No, He died so that we might leave father and mother behind, so that we might leave our respectability behind and follow Him. Taking up a real cross to follow Jesus is not respectable; it’s shameful. It stands out; it’s awkward and embarrassing. And that’s a big part of how you can tell whether you’re actually following Jesus or not. If you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty trendy to wear ashen crosses out and about on Ash Wednesday. If it actually meant repentance to the watching world, you better believe people wearing them wouldn’t be served in certain restaurants, certain businesses would be boycotted, some people would lose their jobs, and there would be protests in the streets.

In other words, if it actually meant repentance, it would actually take courage. It would be like Neil Gorsuch looking one of those leftists in the eyes during the confirmation hearings and saying, “Human life begins at conception because the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ said so, and we are therefore duty bound to protect it.” Just imagine the shrieks. And if you haven’t noticed, there’s nothing like that kind of reaction to people walking around with ash on their foreheads. This is why, “The millions of Christians that go out in public with ashes on their foreheads are doing something that God hates and they are asking God not to listen to their prayers. Many of them do it ignorantly, having been deceived by their pastors who do not actually teach them the Word of God or how to actually be free of their sins but rather perform superstitious ceremonies to falsely comfort them as they meander their way to Hell.”

So if you haven’t noticed, God bless your heart.

When God Sent the First Tweet

Ok, so social media is a gigantic topic, and one that will not be exhausted here or anywhere anytime soon.

But one we need to be working on.

First, Christians (of all people) need to quit whining and complaining about Facebook and Twitter, etc. This is like Christians complaining about books or newspapers or magazines — the stuff people write! I can’t stand it! Reading is just not good for me! I’m giving up books for Lent! 

All the whining and complaining, and all the pious attempts at sounding holy about it, is actually complaining about people. It’s actually whining about people. They say things they should not. They write things they should not. They like things they should not. They share things they should not. They read things they should not. Have I missed anything?

But Jesus saw the multitudes and had compassion on them, as sheep without a shepherd. I think Jesus would have the same reaction to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Now of course Jesus did sometimes leave the crowds behind to rest, to pray, to teach His disciples, etc. So of course, my point is not to let the (internet) crowds invade and run your entire life. You have duties to God, your husband, your wife, your children, your boss, your teachers, your parents, your friends and neighbors. You must not neglect those duties. But sometimes, when Jesus’ mother and brothers showed up outside a crowded house where Jesus was teaching and healing, He didn’t drop everything and run out to see his family right away. Sometimes, Christian love and patience lingers a little longer in the comments of a Facebook post.

While we use the word virtual to describe much of what happens online, it simply is not the case that the people writing, commenting, liking, and sharing are fake or unreal (Ok, except for all the truly *fake* web bots prowling about seeking whom they may devour). For the most part, they are real people like you and me with loves and hurts and hopes and confusions and sin and wisdom all wound together in different combinations. They are real people, and therefore, the internet is an extension of real community. Notice that I said extension and not replacement. You cannot go to church on the internet, and this is because church requires physicality: people greeting one another with hand shakes and hugs, receiving bread and wine. You cannot be baptized over the internet. Nevertheless, live streaming services, recorded sermons, articles, and encouraging words sent to nursing homes and hospitals and sick beds and military outposts and mission fields all over the world instantaneously can be true and lovely and powerful extensions of Christian community and ministry.

Now it is absolutely true that learning to communicate with written words and images and emojis (!) is somewhat different than talking to another person face to face in the same room. But we really must not overplay this difference. God invented the written word. It was His idea. It is not an unfortunate byproduct of humanistic consumerism. Adam may have figured out written words shortly after creation; or perhaps by the time of Noah, God’s people were writing down the stories of God’s covenant faithfulness. But certainly by the time of Moses, God Himself established a precedent of written communication as good, holy, and sufficient. He did this when He wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone with His own finger and sent them down the mountain (twice!).

In other words, God sent the first email. God made the first blog post. God sent the first tweet. It was His idea. He said it was good. He wrote down words that could travel around the world, that would be read and heard by different people at different times in different places. He wrote down words which He intentionally determined would not be delivered face to face. And He insists that they are sufficient, good, and holy. In fact, while we certainly do long to see Jesus face to face, He said it was better for us that He go and send the Spirit. For now, it is better for us not to see Jesus face to face, and it is better that we hear and read His written words in the Bible. In this sense and for the time being, God’s social media is better for us. In fact, this is what Sola Scriptura is all about.

Not only that, but God insisted that His people imitate Him in this. In the law of Moses, God began requiring that all the most important things be written down. Divorces must be written down. Landmarks and boundaries must be written down. God required that Moses expand upon and explain the laws of God in the Book of the Covenant, which included or was combined with the entire Pentateuch. This pattern continued with the prophets who were instructed to write down their prophecies, to send them as letters, to deliver them to kings, to be preserved and remembered for generations. The nation was required to write down the words of God on the doorposts of their home and the gates of their cities. Paul and the other apostles set the same pattern for how they took the gospel to the ends of the earth and have continued to hand it down to us today through their written words. Pastors and teachers must embrace this calling to be men of the written Word and men of written words. All Christians should love and rejoice in the gift of written communication and social media.

The primary and fundamental difference with modern social media is speed. The actual business of writing words down and people in another place at another time reading them is nothing new. Archaeologists and historians run into this all the time. The work of exegesis and interpretation is nothing new. The difference is speed, and with speed comes volume. We can write and publish more words per minute than ever before, and therefore, we have access to many more words per minute than ever before. And with this opportunity (and blessing!) comes dangers and temptations. In the multitude of words, sin is not lacking. But notice that the sin can be on either end of the telegraph. We can sin in hasty writing, but we can also sin in hasty reading, interpreting, and exegeting. One of the ways we can sin is by not giving grace to the learning curve on either side of that equation, and another way we can sin is by not sharpening one another when people are misbehaving.

A rather straightforward rule of thumb is to treat your interactions with the real people on social media as real, human interactions. If you shouldn’t say it to their face then certainly don’t write it. If you’re trying to interpret something wonky, try to imagine them saying it. Sometimes picking up the phone, switching to email, or just setting up a coffee or lunch can help fill out the picture. On the other hand, remember our job is not to get along with everyone and be nice all the time. Neither of those are fruits of the Spirit. Love is patient, but love also confronts. Love covers a multitude of sins, and love tells the truth. Sometimes, working up the courage to say what needs to be said might begin with putting it in writing. It helps to think through your words carefully, to say it as best as you can, and then to follow up with clarifications or conversation. On the whole, Christians are far too concerned about not offending people and not being misunderstood than they are about the honor of Christ. Christians fear men far more than they fear God. So, remember, Jesus is sitting there with you as you’re looking at your phone, scrolling through Facebook, as you’re getting ready to send that email, that tweet, that private message. And the thing to realize is that often, He would confront a lot more sin than we do, He would be in many more internet skirmishes than we’d prefer to stomach, He’d have many more enemies than we do, and He wouldn’t really care. 

Relativism with Bible Verses

[image error]One of the things the Church is up against is the external pressure from the unbelieving world to cave on the authority of Scripture. But one of the reasons the world badgers and mocks the Church is because the Church sends signals of insecurity and vulnerability to the world. The Church doesn’t trust her Lord and His Word and telegraphs to the world that we can be bought. And the Church does this by letting professing Christians in its midst cave on the authority of Scripture on pious sounding grounds.

I don’t spank my kids because I had an angry father who sometimes hit me, and one time I read an article online about how statistics showed that kids who are spanked tend to have anger issues and struggle with addictions. So when our kids misbehave, we do timeout and color pictures of the tabernacle, the temple, and Jesus on the cross. Pretty sure little Jimmy is really starting to see the biblical theological connections between his temper tantrums and the gospel. Planning to share this at small group on Friday. 

I don’t mind saying I’m the head of my household, I mean duh, it’s in the Bible. But I would never (ever) dream of saying my wife has to “obey” me. Sounds like she’s a child or my slave! We always talk through everything and then on those really, really (really) rare occasions when we just can’t agree (like Taco Bell or Pizza Hut!), I shrug my shoulders and give two winks, and she gets the idea that it’s time to play the complementarian game. And if I guess the one she’s thinking, she gives me a high five and there might be some Song of Songs snuggling later  tonight.

I know that the Bible says that homosexual acts are sinful, but it can’t be sinful to remain a celibate single man who wears tight fitting clothes and gets his hair and nails professionally done every two weeks (pedi and mani of course) who totally longs for the resurrection (and same-sex fulfillment — without actually acting on it). And of course, it’s not a sin to cultivate many close “spiritual” friendships with other same-sex attracted people (handsome ones) and live with them in the same house (and cuddle during movie nights on the couch).

Don’t get me wrong: I totally believe in male pastors and elders. But when it comes to understanding the needs of women, you can’t really expect a man to understand us, especially when we’ve been abused and mistreated. Paul said that the older women should teach the younger women, and I’m pretty sure Paul was thinking that those same older women would teach the pastors and elders how to appropriately pastor hurting women. It’s not like they’re “in charge” or anything, but if the pastors don’t listen to them and do exactly what they say to do, you should really find another church.

Now here’s the point: In each of those scenarios, the person may be a well-meaning Christian, but they are in rebellion against God. And they are in rebellion specifically by caving on the authority of Scripture. They need loving correction, admonition, and discipleship.

And what happens over time, when you have nice, well-meaning people in churches saying these kinds of things, believing these kinds of things, and doing these kinds of things without gracious but firm confrontation, there is no defense mechanism. Of course, not everyone will want all of these things at once. But if the non-spanker wants to confront the effeminate man or the softy-complementarian wants to confront the lady-counselor gal the appeal can’t really be to Scripture. Of course it can be, but it will be a hypocritical appeal. And therefore, it will be an appeal without any authority. In other words, without honest submission to God’s Word and a sincere commitment to doing whatever it says to do, the Bible just becomes a grab bag of aphorisms and shibboleths that serve to confirm whatever it is that we already think, even while everyone is still saying that it’s “inspired.” But they clearly don’t believe that. This is just relativism-lite, relativism with Bible verses. People say Christian-y sounding things in order to manipulate others, run power plays, crush the weak, and get what they want in the name of Jesus. Sound familiar? No wonder that’s exactly what the world is doing. They learned it from us. We are the light of the world, the salt of the earth. In other words, we are the problem.

But there’s a fifth scenario, it’s the people in the church who say they believe in the absolute authority of Scripture over every area of life, the ones who believe with all their heart that God still speaks in His perfect, flawless word, and every single word in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is pure gold. Those people are the fifth scenario, the ones confronted with these scenarios (and many others like them). Maybe they are confronted with those scenarios in their own hearts, in their own families, or in close friends. What will we do? Will we be obedient to Christ, tell the truth in love, and confront the disobedience, or will we hope they figure it out, hope it just gets better, hope someone else helps, hope the pastor gets to that in a sermon some day? You see, the folks in the fifth scenario are perhaps even worse because they know something is wrong, but they make excuses for why they can’t speak up, for why they can’t do anything about it. They’re afraid of being misunderstood, afraid of what people will think, afraid of losing friends, afraid of the fallout.

But whom do we trust? Whom do we truly fear? Do we fear God or do we fear man? Do trust in horses and chariots or do we trust in the Lord our God and His Word?

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Why Beauty Will Not Save the World

While I have argued to the contrary previously on this blog, I need to retrace my steps and make some clarifications.

There is of course some sense in which Beauty will save the world. God is ultimate goodness and beauty, and God most certainly will save the world. He will put all things right. He will finally cast Satan, his evil angels, and all of the wicked into Hell. And amen. God in His Infinite Beauty will do that. In that ultimate sense, Christ Himself as the Beautiful One will save the world.

Yet there is so much muddle going about these days that we really must be more careful. There are a number of ways in which beauty will not save the world. Perhaps the central, most fundamental muddle is related to the nature of man and our predicament in sin. The Bible teaches not that man is born merely inclined to sin, not that we are dying, but rather that we are born dead in our trespasses and sins, enslaved to our sinful passions, hating God, hating our neighbor, and willfully refusing to submit to God our Creator, much less, God our Savior.

And directly related to this is our stubborn refusal to see the beauty of the universe for what it is. We have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:23), which means, among other things that we have willfully twisted the beauty of the world.

Now, at times in my own writing and thinking, I have crept up to the edge of an understanding of beauty that says despite all of this, God in His sovereign grace sometimes melts our cold hearts of stone with beauty. I have thought that perhaps a beautiful sunset, a beautiful piano sonata, a beautiful woman, a poem, a dance, a meal and so on may in fact turn someone from their sins to God. If not in a definitive way, I’ve at least thought that these things are at least something like breadcrumbs leading back to God. But I want to go on record as repudiating that view. To the extent that I have stated that elsewhere in any form, I retract it.

Now, let us be clear: it is of course absolutely true that those truly beautiful things do radiate with the glory of God. They do point to God. They are the flecks of gold that lead back to His infinite treasures of glory and beauty. And if we could see them and hear them and taste them for what they truly are we could not help but fall down and worship our Creator and Redeemer. But the trouble is that the Bible teaches that we cannot see them, we cannot hear them, and we cannot taste them for what they truly are. Imprisoned in our sins, we refuse to. And worse than that, we willfully choose to worship those flecks of gold rather than the Creator. In other words, beauty for an unregenerate sinner is just a little more rat poison sprinkled on top of the maggot infested meal we insist on eating. While the natural man certainly may have some appreciation of beauty, the natural man is dead to God, and therefore his joy and appreciation of beauty is not merely severely handicapped, it is actually an obstacle getting in the way. All of that beauty is sufficient to damn him, but it is not sufficient to save him.

The Bible teaches two fairly offensive things on this count:

First, that only God saves, through His supernatural working. “[God]… even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ… For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). One minute everything is like the adults talking on the Peanuts cartoons, wah-wah-wah wah-wah-wah, and the next minute there’s meaning and poetry. It’s like playing music for a dead man, like reading a poem to a corpse — that beauty does nothing for the corpse, unless or until resurrection happens. We are a valley of dry bones, demon infested corpses, deaf, dumb, blind, and lame — utterly helpless. Salvation is pure gift, so that no one may boast. To say that beauty saves is at best to introduce muddle and ambiguity about the state of man in his sin. And at worst, it suggests that man is not entirely dead or entirely helpless, and that perhaps with some of that remaining innate goodness, he may rehabilitate himself by following that trail of beauty to salvation. But this not only credits man with an innate goodness that the Bible denies, but it robs Christ of His glory in the act of salvation by sheer grace.

Second, God’s primary instrument for working supernaturally is His Word proclaimed. Now, is there beauty in the Word? Of course. And this may seem like a difference without a difference to some, but it really does touch on some fundamental truths. When God spoke creation into existence, He did so from nothing. There is something fundamental about the Word spoken, read, preached, proclaimed that echoes that original event. Of course, the Word proclaimed by a man in this created world always includes sound waves, mouths, tongues, facial expressions, tone of voice, ears, minds — in sum, a great deal of created matter is involved in the Word proclaimed. And while we may say there is something analogous to the incarnation taking place — the Word takes on flesh in a sense. Nevertheless, it is of the utmost importance that we not collapse the two things into one another. To put it in theological terms: there is no new hypostatic union involved when men are born again. The Word does not take on the “flesh” of a symphony, a poem, a sunset, a movie, or even a really good sermon in the same way that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus Christ. Despite the good “creational packaging” that ordinarily accompanies the process/moment someone is saved, there is still something utterly transcendent that is occurring, something akin to that original Word: “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:5-6).

In other words, if we mean roughly the same thing when we say Beauty made the world as when we say Beauty will save the world, then my objections decrease (though not entirely disappear). However, there’s a subtle ambiguity that creeps in when we do not distinguish between beauty as creation and Beauty as God Himself before all creation, outside of all creation. If we are not careful, we are imbibing a creeping pantheism. Despite the fact that God did create the world to mediate His glory and presence, sin has severely marred our ability to rightly receive Him. And even after regeneration, believers are still prone to idolatry: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 Jn. 5:21). Even when we begin to be able to hear rightly and taste and see truly, we are still tempted to worship the creation rather than the Creator. And in some ways the temptation can be even more insidious because we can see how God works through created things and subtly, slowly begin to confer deity on those created things, all the while thinking that we’re actually honoring the Creator. Think of it as a sort of Protestant version of iconolatry. We think (or at least implicitly assume) that because God works through some aspect of creation, the honor we bestow there accrues and transfers to Him in heaven.

The sacraments remain the glorious signs and seals of the great reversal of the curse of sin and idols, and for the regenerate heart all of creation sings His praise and leads toward Him in ever increasing wonder, but all of it must be received by faith. And faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17).

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An Armory for Modern Christians #10

The Glorious Strength of Fatherhood

Introduction

The Bible teaches that the glory of men is their strength (Prov. 20:29), and this glory is specifically given to every man to carry out their calling of fatherhood. This is not because every last man marries or begets biological children, rather this is because every man is created and called by God to follow Him in masculine shaped holiness called fatherhood.

Act Like Men

At the end of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he writes: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). It’s striking that Paul writes this to the entire church at Corinth, and yet his charge is that they act like men. This presupposes that God has designed men with a particular kind of strength, which they must embrace and in appropriate ways women respond to and even imitate. The inverse of this can be seen in multiple places describing the fear of women: “In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of Hosts shakes over them” (Is. 19:16, Jer. 50:37, 51:30, Nah. 3:13). When the courage of men fails, the Bible says they’ve become like women. The other word the Bible uses to describe men who have lost their nerve is “soft” or “fainthearted” (Dt. 20:8, cf. Jdgs. 7:3). A little boy is described as “soft” or “tender” (Prov. 4:3). This is why the Bible calls it a curse to be ruled by women and children (Is. 3:12). It’s striking that the Bible often describes this softness as turning violent: “His speech was smooth as butter yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords” (Ps. 55:21, Prov. 25:15, 26:22, cf. Mk. 14:45). The word translated “soft” in the Septuagint here and elsewhere (cf. 4 Macc. 6:17), is used in two places in the New Testament: the first time when Jesus asks the crowds about John the Baptist. “What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses” (Mt. 11:8). The only other use of the same word is in 1 Cor. 6:9: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind” (KJV). A man who fails to embrace his glory to be strong is acting like a woman, is being soft, effeminate, or what modern parlance would call gay. (cf. Dt. 22:5).

Let me just give a few examples of this and try to offend as many people as possible. But let me start with a story. When my wife was studying elementary education at the University of Idaho around 15-16 years ago, in an elementary literature class, a teacher presented on a children’s author named Tomie dePaolo. He’s the author of over 200 children’s books and has received virtually every significant award possible (Caldecott, Newberry, etc.). The final book of that unit was dePaulo’s book Oliver Button is a Sissy. The book is about a little boy who doesn’t like to do things that boys are supposed to do. And he gets made fun of because he likes to play with dolls and to dance. Of course the moral of the story is that Oliver Button is just different and should be celebrated for being different. Now there are at least two reasons why Christians are susceptible to this kind of propaganda: we have an anemic view of masculinity and we are cowards. We are cowards when it comes to confronting effeminacy. And we do this often when we begin sentences with “well, it’s not a sin to…” Well, it’s not a sin for a man to care about his clothing, his hair, how he smells – no, but it is a sin for him to be effeminate, to care about those things like a woman. Paul says that those kinds of men will not inherit the kingdom of God. There is a kind of male fastidiousness about personal appearance, which can often be measured in time spent looking in the mirror and looking at clothing catalogues which is vanity and effeminacy. And to be clear, you can find this vanity in other places, like the gym for example. Men can be effeminate about the care of their beards or boots or boats or trucks. This softness and effeminacy is fundamentally exhibited in self-serving obsessions that distract and excuse men from exercising their strength and courage to perform their duties to serve and protect others. They’d rather do the dishes back at camp than face the taunting giants.

All Fatherhood

Since the very first days of the Christian Church, the followers of Jesus have confessed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty…” Jesus taught His followers to address God as “Our Father…” And Paul says this is directly related to all fatherhood: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named…” (Eph. 3:14-15). Notice too that the particular point Paul is making is about strength and power (Eph. 3:16, 18, 20). In fact, one way of reading the book of Ephesians would be as an extended meditation on fatherhood: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Eph. 1:3). He (the Father) chose us, predestined us for adoption as sons, redeemed us and forgave us by the blood of Christ, and has guaranteed us an inheritance through the Spirit (Eph. 1:3-14). This “Father of glory” is the one who raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand, and it is His fatherly power which is at work in those who believe (Eph. 1:15-20). This is the power of begetting: “even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God the Father] made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him…” (Eph. 2:5-6). Peter says the same thing (1 Pet. 1:3-5). Notice the similarities: the fatherhood of God begets and takes responsibility, provides, guards, and anticipates and prepares for the future. Scripture shows us that this fatherhood extends to kings (Is. 49:23), prophets (2 Kgs. 2:12), pastors/elders (1 Thess. 2:11), and mentors (1 Cor. 4:17).

What Does Biblical Fatherhood Look Like?

Be Fruitful: “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blesses is the man who fills his quiver with them!” (Ps. 127:3-5) Fatherhood begets. God made men to be the kind of people who plant seeds. This is true biologically, and that is the sign that this is true generally. What are you planting?

Take Responsibility: Just as Joshua famously spoke on behalf of his household (Josh. 24:15), so too God our Father in Jesus Christ has made provision to bring all of His sons to glory: “Behold, I and the children God has given me” (Heb. 2:13, cf. Is. 8:18). This may include your wife and children, but it may also include any other people God has placed in your immediate vicinity. Recognizing that you are your brother’s keeper/guardian is an act of fatherhood. This is what your strength is for. This is why we have Men’s Forums and Head of Household meetings, and address vows to heads of households. Fatherhood is learning to say, “We…”

Set an Example: “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church” (1 Cor. 4:15-17). The more you can say, “be imitators of me,” the more you are being a father.

Plan for the Future: “… giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12, cf. Prov. 13:22, 19:14). But an inheritance is much more than a 401K; it stands for and includes all of our actions being pointed toward the future and not just the immediate results. What are you storing up? Fatherhood looks to tomorrow, next week, and to grandchildren.

Be Strong & Compassionate: “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him” (Ps. 103:13). A faithful father is feared and loved – notice that combination throughout Psalm 103. Men must be strong and courageous in the truth and tender and compassionate towards all men.

Let me give you several examples: David was a man after God’s own heart. He was a warrior and a poet, a shepherd and an accomplished musician. He fought lions and bears and giants, and he loved Jonathan dearly. Paul was no pansy. He preached to crowds that wanted to kill him. He was bold and courageous, and yet the number of times he would say that he loved his people is astounding. When he said his farewells to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he had the audacity to tell them that some of them would likely become wolves (Acts 20:29-30) and then all of those men hugged and kissed one another. Or our Lord Jesus, the manliest man that ever lived could be so fierce and terrible in His wrath and yet so tender and compassionate. Remember Jesus reclining at the Last Supper with John apparently leaning on his chest (Jn. 13:23), and Jesus saying that one of the disciples would betray him. Our great temptation as men is to be soft in the wrong ways and hard in the wrong ways. We are tempted to be soft and lazy on sin, and we are tempted to be hard and harsh with people. And when we are hard on sin, people will accuse us of being harsh with them, and this will tempt us to go back to being soft on sin. But we must not do that. We must be men who learn to say, “I love you.” We must be men who embrace and kiss our children and one another. And we must be men who tell the truth about sin.

Conclusion

The truth is that every man in this room is tempted to be a sissy like Oliver Button. And the reason we are tempted to be sissies is because we are descended from Adam, the first sissy. Instead of despairing, instead of listening to the voice of his wife, instead of going soft on evil when he realized that the sentence of death was now over his wife, Adam should have firmly refused her offer, led her straight to God, taken responsibility for her actions, and offered to die in her place. Adam didn’t do that, but God in His Fatherly love and mercy sent His only Son Jesus into the world to do just that. Jesus came as a man, and he played the man for all of us cowardly, soft, effeminate men. This is why embracing the strength of manhood and fatherhood is not fundamentally about trying harder and getting stronger. Fundamentally, the glorious strength of fatherhood is all about believing God. Abraham did not become a father when Isaac was born. Abraham embraced the strength of fatherhood when he believed God.

“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham… so then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:7-9).