Justin Taylor's Blog, page 115

Church Discipline: Principles and Reasons

The following notes are from Jonathan Leemen’s short and very helpful book, Church Discipline: How the Church Protects the Name of Jesus (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012).

3 Forms of Discipline

Formative discipline helps to form the disciple through instruction.
Corrective discipline helps to correct the disciple through correcting sin (Matt. 18:15-17; Gal. 6:1; Eph. 5:11; Titus 3:10; 2 Thess. 3:14-15; 1 Cor. 5:1-13).
Preemptive discipline disallows someone from participating in the fellowship of the church in the first place (2 John 2:9-10; see an example of this in Acts 8:17-24).

The following notes have to do with “corrective discipline.”

6 Reasons Churches Should Practice Church Discipline

Church discipline is biblical.
Church discipline is an implication of the gospel.
Church discipline promotes the health of the church.
Church discipline clarifies and burnishes the church’s witness before the nations.
Church discipline warns sinners of an even greater judgment to come.
Most importantly, church discipline protects the name and reputation of Jesus Christ on earth.

4 Ways Church Discipline Demonstrates Love

Church discipline shows love for the individual, that he or she might be warned and brought to repentance.
Church discipline shows love for the church, that weaker sheep might be protected.
Church discipline shows love for the watching world, that it might see Christ’s transforming power.
Church discipline shows love for Christ, that churches might uphold his holy name and obey him.

5 Purposes of Church Discipline from 1 Corinthians 5

1. Discipline aims to expose.

Sin, like cancer, loves to hide. Discipline exposes the cancer so that it might be cut out quickly (see 1 Cor. 5:2)

2. Discipline aims to warn.

A church does not enact God’s retribution through discipline. Rather, it stages a small play that pictures the great judgment to come (v. 5). Discipline is a compassionate warning.

3. Discipline aims to save.

Churches pursue discipline when they see a member taking the path toward death, and none of their pleading and arm-waving causes the person to turn around. It’s the device of last resort for bringing an individual to repentance (v. 5).

4. Discipline aims to protect.

Just as cancer spreads from one cell to another, so sin quickly spreads from one person to another (v. 6).

5. Discipline aims to present a good witness for Jesus.

Church discipline, strange to say, is actually good for non-Christians, because it helps to preserve the attractive distinctiveness of God’s people (see v. 1). Churches, remember, should be salt and light. “But if the salt loses its saltiness . . . ,” Jesus said, “It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men” (Matt. 5:13, NIV).

4 Foundational Assumptions for Church Discipline

1. An expectation of transformation.

The new covenant promises that Christ’s people will live transformed lives through the power of the Spirit. Even if change comes slowly, churches should expect change—the visible fruit of God’s grace and Spirit. Discipline is the right response to a lack of visible fruit, or, even more, the presence of bad fruit.

2. The work of representation.

Christians are to be little Christs, representing Jesus on earth. The concept of representation depends on the idea that Jesus is Savior and Lord; it depends on the fact that Christians are given a new status and a new work. Discipline is the right response when Christians fail to represent Jesus and show no desire for doing so.

3. The local church’s authority.

Jesus gave the local church the authority of the keys to officially affirm and oversee citizens of his kingdom. Churches do not make people Christians. The Spirit does that. But churches have the declarative authority and responsibility for making public statements before the nations about who is and isn’t a Christian. A church’s act of excommunication, therefore, does not consist of physically and forcibly removing the individual from its public gatherings, as if the church had the state’s power of the sword to physically move people’s bodies; rather, it consists of the public statement that it can no longer vouch for an individual’s citizenship in heaven. Excommunication is a church’s declaration that it can no longer affirm that an individual is a Christian.

4. Membership as submission.

Christians are called, as a matter of obedience to Christ, to submit to the affirmation and oversight of local churches. When threatened by a possible act of disci­pline, therefore, church members cannot simply preempt the church’s action with a resignation. That would be analogous to an individual resigning his national citizenship before a court could prosecute the criminal activity for which he had been indicted.

5 Principles for the Process of Church Discipline

The process should involve as few people as possible for yielding repentance.
When the process moves beyond one or several people, church leaders should lead the process.
The length of the process depends on how long it takes to establish that a person is characteristically unrepentant.
Individuals should receive the benefit of the doubt until the evidence indicates otherwise.
Leaders should involve and instruct the congregation as appropriate.

What Excommunication Signifies

“The church removes its public affirmation by barring the member from the Lord’s Table. It takes away his passport and announces that it can no longer formally affirm the individual’s citizenship in Christ’s kingdom” (p. 50).

1 of 3 Conclusions Churches Need to Arrive at before Determining It Is Time to Act

When a church becomes convinced that a person is genuinely repentant, it should not proceed with any form of discipline (and I cannot think of a single exception to this principle).
When a church becomes convinced that a person is characteristically (not temporarily) unrepentant, it should proceed with excommunication.
When a sin is so deliberate, repugnant, and indicative of a deep double-mindedness that a congregation is left unable to give credence to a profession of repentance, at least until time has passed and trust has been re-earned, it should pro­ceed with excommunication, determining to test for repentance after the fact. 

See also, Pastors, Don’t Let Your People Resign into Thin Air and 22 Mistakes Pastors Make about Church Discipline.

How to Use the Bible to Argue with God in Prayer

Charles Spurgeon, riffing on Job 23:4, argues that we are not to be “filling the mouth with words nor good phrases, nor pretty expressions,” but rather filling our mouth with arguments, which are “the knocks of the rapper by which the gate is opened.”

Why are arguments to be used at all? is the first enquiry; the reply being,

Certainly

not because God is slow to give,
not because we can change the divine purpose,
not because God needeth to be informed of any circumstance with regard to ourselves or of anything in connection with the mercy asked:

the arguments to be used are for our own benefit, not for his.

He requires for us to plead with him, and to bring forth our strong reasons, as Isaiah saith, because this will show that we feel the value of the mercy.

When a man searches for arguments for a thing it is because he attaches importance to that which he is seeking.

Again, our use of arguments teaches us the ground upon which we obtain the blessing.

If a man should come with the argument of his own merit, he would never succeed; the successful argument is always founded upon grace, and hence the soul so pleading is made to understand intensely that it is by grace and by grace alone that a sinner obtaineth anything of the Lord.

Besides, the use of arguments is intended to stir up our fervency. The man who uses one argument with God will get more force in using the next, and will use the next with still greater power, and the next with more force still.

The best prayers I have ever heard in our prayer meetings have been those which have been fullest of argument.

Sometimes my soul has been fairly melted down where I have listened to the brethren who have come before God feeling the mercy to be really needed, and that they must have it, for they first pleaded with God to give it for this reason, and then for a second, and then for a third and then for a fourth and a fifth until they have awakened the fervency of the entire assembly.

How to End Poverty in Ten Tough Steps

Dr. Jay Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and the author of Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem (HarperOne, 2009), recently delivered a lecture for the Impact 360 Institute, and you can watch the whole thing below. While it is true that “the poor we will have with us always,” it does not follow that there is nothing that can be done about poverty.

Here are the ten principles he sets forth:

Establish and maintain the rule of law.
Focus the jurisdiction of government on maintaining the rule of law, and limit its jurisdiction over the economy and the institutions of civil society.
Implement a formal property system with consistent and accessible means for securing a clear title to property one owns.
Encourage economic freedom: Allow people to trade goods and services unencumbered by tariffs, subsidies, price controls, undue regulation, and restrictive immigration policies.
Encourage stable families and other important private institutions that mediate between the individual and the state.
Encourage belief in the truth that the universe is purposeful and makes sense.
Encourage the right cultural mores-orientation to the future and the belief that progress but not utopia is possible in this life; willingness to save and delay gratification; willingness to risk, to respect the rights and property of others, to be diligent, to be thrifty.
Instill a proper understanding of the nature of wealth and poverty—that wealth is created, that free trade is win-win, that risk is essential to enterprise, that trade-offs are unavoidable, that the success of others need not come at your expense, and that you can pursue legitimate self-interest and the common good at the same time.
Focus on your comparative advantage rather than protecting what used to be your competitive advantage.
Work hard.

 

For a book-length argument devoted to this theme, see Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus, The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution (Crossway, 2013). Of this book, Dr. Richards writes:

There are many secular books on poverty, and there are many books on the Christian response to poverty. But Wayne Grudem, a theologian, and Barry Asmus, an economist, have done something far less common and far more valuable. They have successfully integrated Christian ethics and theology with sound economics. The result is a comprehensive and deeply satisfying synthesis. If you want to understand and help alleviate poverty, rather than merely supporting feel-good policies that may do more harm than good, you should read this book.

Also, here is another video of Dr. Richards, speaking on eight myths of economics, summarized in Money, Greed, and God.

The Nirvana Myth: contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its live alternatives
The Piety Myth: focusing on our good intentions rather than the unintended consequences of our actions
The Zero-sum Game Myth: believing that trade requires a winner and a loser
The Materialist Myth: believing that intellect cannot create new wealth
The Greed Myth: believing that the essence of capitalism is greed
The Usury Myth: believing that charging interest on money is always exploitative
The Artsy Myth: confusing aesthetic judgments with economic arguments
The Freeze Frame Myth: believing that things always stay the same (e.g., assuming population trends will continue indefinitely, or treating “rich” and “poor” as static categories)

Adler’s Three Stages for How to Read a Book Analytically

Mortimer Adler, in his classic How to Read a Book suggests that there are three main stages for analytical reading, which can be seen in these three questions: (1) What is this book about as a whole? (2) What is being said in detail, and how? (3) Is it true? What of it?

Here are the rules. Adler occasionally restates the rule, so I’ve included both versions when necessary:

Stage 1: What Is the Book About as a Whole?

Rule 1. You must know what kind of book you are reading, and you should know this as early in the process as possible, preferably before you begin to read. / Classify the book according to kind and subject matter. (p. 60)

Rule 2. State the unity of the whole book in a single sentence, or at most a few sentences (a short paragraph). State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity. (pp. 75-76)

Rule 3. Set forth the major parts of the book, and show how these are organized into a whole, by being ordered to one another and to the unity of the whole. / Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole. (p. 76)

Rule 4. Find out what the author’s problems were. / Define the problem or problems the author has tried to solve. (p. 92)

Stage 2: What Is Being Said in Detail, and How?

Rule 5. Find the important words and through them come to terms with the author. / Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words. (p. 98)

Rule 6: Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the propositions they contain. / Grasp the author’s leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences. (p. 120)

Rule 7: Locate or construct the basic arguments in the book by finding them in the connections of sentences. / Know the author’s arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences. (p. 120)

Rule 8: Find out what the author’s solutions are. / Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and as to the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve. (p. 135)

Stage 3: Is It True? What of It?

General Maxims of Intellectual Etiquette

Rule 9: You must be able to say, with reasonable certainty, “I understand,” before you can say any one of the following things: “I agree,” or “I disagree,” or “I suspend judgment.” / Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book. (pp. 142-143)

Rule 10: When you disagree, do so reasonably, and not disputatiously or contentiously. (p. 145)

Rule 11: Respect the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion, by giving reasons for any critical judgment you make. (p. 150)

Special Criteria for Points of Criticism

12. Show wherein the author is uninformed.

13. Show wherein the author is misinformed.

14. Show wherein the author is illogical.

15. Show wherein the author’s analysis or account is incomplete.

For more detailed notes on the book, see Brian Fulthorp’s series.

A Tale of Two Gospels: Which One Do You Believe in and Share?

Jonathan Leeman:

Which “gospel” do you believe in?

Your answer to that question will have a direct bearing on what you think about church discipline. Therefore, it’s worth making sure we are talking about the same gospel before we talk about anything else.

Here are two subtly different versions of the gospel. The first one will probably shut down any talk about church discipline. The second one will start the conversation.

Gospel 1: God is holy. We have all sinned, separating us from God. But God sent his Son to die on the cross and rise again so that we might be forgiven. Everyone who believes in Jesus can have eternal life. We’re not justified by works. We’re justified by faith alone. The gospel therefore calls all people to “just believe!” An unconditionally loving God will take you as you are.

Gospel 2: God is holy. We have all sinned, separating us from God. But God sent his Son to die on the cross and rise again so that we might be forgiven and begin to follow the Son as King and Lord. Anyone who repents and believes can have eternal life, a life which begins today and stretches into eternity. We’re not justified by works. We’re justified by faith alone, but the faith which works is never alone. The gospel therefore calls all people to “repent and believe.” A contraconditionally loving God will take you contrary to what you deserve, and then enable you by the power of the Spirit to become holy and obedient like his Son. By reconciling you to himself, God also reconciles you to his family, the church, and enables you as his people to represent together his own holy character and triune glory.

So what do you think? Which of these two gospels better characterizes what you believe the Bible teaches?

The first version emphasizes Christ as Savior. The second version emphasizes Christ as Savior and Lord.

The first version points to Christ’s new covenant work of forgiveness. The second version includes both this and the Spirit’s new covenant work of regeneration.

The first version points to the new status that Christians have as children of God. The second version includes both the new status and the new job description that Christians are given as citizens of Christ’s kingdom.

The first version points to a Christian’s reconciliation with Christ. The second version points to a Christian’s reconciliation with Christ and Christ’s people.

If your understanding of the gospel stops with the first version, you will not have much use for the topic of church discipline, or for this book. But if you embrace the second one, then there is a longer conversation to have. Aside from being an explicit biblical mandate, church discipline is an implication of the second version.

Everything affirmed in the first version is true, but there’s more to say. Left to itself it tends to yield a belief in cheap grace. The second version, I believe, is a more robust account of the biblical gospel, and is more likely to lead to an understanding of the kind of grace that calls Christians to take up their crosses and follow Jesus in holy mission.

—Jonathan Leeman, Church Discipline: How the Church Protects the Name of Jesus (Crossway, 2012), 11-13.

What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done

One thing I have learned about John Piper over the years is that he does not hand out compliments lightly. His standards are high and he is not given to false praise.

That’s why it’s worth sitting up and taking notice when Piper writes what he does about Matt Perman’s new book, What’s Best Next (Zondervan, 2014).

This book is simply extraordinary.

This is largely because of the way God has wired Matt Perman. His mind is saturated with biblical truth, and he is passionate, sometimes to a fault (as you will see in his personal stories), about being effective for the glory of Christ.

Those two traits have combined to produce a God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated book that, without blinking, gets into stuff like Al Mohler’s midnight productivity and Seth Godin’s method for carving out time for work that matters.

I doubt there is a person on the planet who knows both theological issues and time-management literature to the depth and extent Matt Perman does. This combination is at times mindboggling.

Of course I am totally biased—not dishonest, I hope, but biased. I’ve known Matt as his teacher, pastor, colleague, and friend for almost fifteen years. From hundreds of interactions on all kinds of issues, my judgment is this: Here is a theological mind that keeps pace with the best. Almost without fail, a conversation with Matt about any biblical or theological issue proves fruitful.

I’m also biased because I view his book as a colossal effort to push Christian Hedonism—the theology I have trumpeted for 40 years—into all the corners of life. In fact, Matt told me in an email at the last minute, “In a real sense, this book is really about the horizontal dimension of Christian hedonism.” Yes. That’s what I thought.

Which means that the book is really about how to be so satisfied in God that the power of this joy is released “to love people better in the midst of the current, very challenging environment of our modern, technological, constantly interrupted knowledge work era.”

Matt says, “This book is also for those who do not share my faith perspective.” If you doubt that a God-besotted book can be useful to a secular person, consider that Rick Warren’s multi-million-copy-selling Purpose Driven Life begins, “It’s not about you. . . . If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.” Matt’s book takes that truth and gives it flesh for the sake of getting best things done.

So I am happy to entice all kinds of people to this book. There are surprising tastes everywhere. Like: “The only way to be productive is to realize we actually don’t have to be productive.” “This book is also for screw-ups and failures!” “Serving is exciting. It’s like steak, not broccoli.” “Gospel-Driven Productivity is about . . . bringing the gospel to all nations.” “Productivity is the only long-term solution to world poverty.” “Productivity is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.” “The most important principle for being productive is Bible reading and prayer, before the day begins, every day.” “Surfing the internet for fun at work makes you more productive, not less.” “Productive things are things that pass muster at the final judgment—and hence receive the verdict ‘eternally productive.’”

May God give this book wings for the glory of Christ and for the good of the world; and may it bring a blessing back on Matt Perman’s head with wholeness and joy in every corner of his life.

Here is my comment on what Matt has accomplished:

I have been learning from Matt Perman for nearly twenty years, and I am eager for leaders around the world to benefit from his work the way that I have. To my knowledge, there is no one writing today who has thought more deeply about the relationship between the gospel and productivity. You will find in these pages a unique and remarkable combination of theological insight, biblical instruction, and practical counsel that would change the world if put into practice. I could not recommend it more highly.

You can read online for free the other endorsements, the preface, the introduction, the table of contents, and the first chapter (PDF).

The book is available at Amazon, but if you are ordering multiple copies, you can get it for 50% off from WTS (only $10 each) if you order 5 or more copies.

Final comment: if you’re still not convinced, check out this review from  Matt Heerema, who runs a web design company:

If you read only one book this year, it should be What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman. Yes I mean that.

The aim of the book is “to reshape the way you think about productivity and then present a practical approach to help you become more effective in your life with less stress and frustration, whatever you are doing.” And the book delivers.

Stop everything and read it.

If you read this book, and put into practice the things contained within, you’ll be able to get to other books on your list, and all the other things you put off to make space for reading this book and putting into practice the habits he suggests, and a bunch of other things as well.

You can see his whole review here.

C.S. Lewis on the Psychology of the Scathing Book Review

From the concluding chapter to C. S. Lewis’s Studies in Words (2nd ed, Cambridge University Press, 1990):

Adverse criticism, far from being the easiest, is one of the hardest things in the world to do well. . . .

Reviews filled with venom have often been condemned socially for their bad manners, or ethically for their spite. I am not prepared to defend them from either charge; but I prefer to stress their inutility. . . . Automatically, without thinking about it one’s mind discounts everything [the venomous critic] says, as it does when we are listening to a drunk or delirious man. The critic rivets our attention on himself. When we get to the end we find that the critic has told us everything about himself and nothing about the book. Thus in criticism, as in vocabulary, hatred over-reaches itself. Willingness to wound, too intense and naked, becomes impotent to do the desired mischief.

Of course, if we are to be critics, we must condemn as well as praise; we must sometimes condemn totally and severely. But we must obviously be very careful. . . . I think we must get it firmly fixed in our minds that the very occasions on which we should most like to write a slashing review are precisely those on which we had much better hold our tongues. The very desire is a danger signal. . . . The strength of our dislike is itself a probable symptom that all is not well within; that some raw place in our psychology has been touched, or else that some personal or partisan motive is secretly at work. . . . If we do speak, we shall almost certainly make fools of ourselves. Continence in this matter is no doubt painful. But, after all, you can always write your slashing review now and drop it into the wastepaper basket a day or so later. A few re-readings in cold blood will often make this quite easy.

The Final Days of Jesus

Lent—when many in the Church mark the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday—begins this Wednesday.

Crossway has recently published The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived, which I co-authored with noted New Testament scholar Andreas J. Köstenberger.

The book is available at Amazon, WTS, B&N, CBD, and other retailers.

For those who might want to read the book during Lent as a small group or for churches who wanted to order multiple copies, the best deal I’ve seen is from WTS, which is offering it for only $7 a copy (61% off) if you order 5 copies or more.

Note that Crossway has also made available a free discussion and study guide (by Alexander Stewart), along with a free 40-day reading guide (by David Schrock).

Here are a couple of comments about the book that summarize what we were trying to accomplish:

“This is an immensely helpful guide to the last week of Jesus’s life—historically, theologically, and devotionally. Historically, it provides a likely chronology of Passion Week, chock full of historical, cultural, and geographical insights. Theologically, the authors provide the text of the four Gospels with helpful commentary, noting the theological contributions of each evangelist. Devotionally, the reader has the privilege of walking with Jesus through the most important week of human history—the climax of God’s redemptive plan. A feast of insights for both mind and heart.”

—Mark Strauss, Professor of New Testament, Bethel Seminary San Diego

“Holy Week is arguably the most sacred time of year for Christians. Andreas Köstenberger and Justin Taylor provide a simple yet eloquent survey of the final week of Jesus’s life. They take readers on a pilgrimage through the Gospels and invite us to follow Jesus in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, on to the dark and tragic moments of Golgotha, and through to the glorious and unspeakable joy at the feet of the risen Jesus. In short, this is a wonderful resource for individuals, families, and fellowships to learn more about the Easter story, the greatest story ever told.”

—Michael F. Bird, Lecturer in Theology, Ridley Melbourne College of Mission and Ministry

In short, you’ll find the complete Gospel accounts of Jesus’s final week, arranged in a day-by-day order in harmony format, with informed but accessible commentary, along with maps, charts, diagrams, and a glossary.

You can take a look here:

Mere Epistemology: Christian Wisdom about Knowing from C.S. Lewis

Justin Barnard—associate dean of the Institute for Intellectual Discipleship and associate professor of philosophy at Union University—has a fun and informative lecture here on what we can learn about knowing from C.S. Lewis:

Barnard makes two “shocking” claims: (1) C.S. Lewis is probably not the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th century, and yet he probably is the greatest Christian epistemologist of the 20th century.

Lewis, he points out, died in 1963, the same year that epistemology as a profession took off. Because Lewis’s most overt epistemological work was done before he was a Christian (in the 1920s), it can be difficult to piece together a full-fledged epistemology. But Barnard argues that Lewis rightly restores knowledge as situated in the context of wisdom and the fear of God, doing this in uniquely Christian though appropriately limited way. Lewis’s epistemology is distinctively eschatological in orientation, focusing on hope as surrendering to the long that the summons of Divine Love is real.

It’s worth watching the whole lecture to see this case made in full.

David Dockery Appointed 15th President of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School/Trinity International University

The Board of Regents at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School/Trinity International University announced today that they have selected David S. Dockery as their next president. You can read the whole press release here.

Dr. Dockery previously served as the president of Union University, which saw 16 consecutive years of increased enrollment—117% total—under his watch (from 1996-2013). The annual budget for the school increased each year of his presidency, going from $18 million to $90 million. And Union has been named a Top Tier institution by U.S. News & World Report for the past 17 years. He currently serves as chancellor of Union and will begin at Trinity in June of 2014.

One of the most encouraging things to me about Dr. Dockery is that he is not only an administrator and a fundraiser but he is also a theologian and a gifted scholar. He has an MA, two MDivs, and a PhD in the humanities. He served as general editor for the New American Commentary series (B&H). He has authored or edited 35 books, contributed to more than 50 additional volumes, and published over 100 articles. Most recently he has served as the general editor for Crossway’s Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition series, an ongoing series of short guides designed to help undergraduates (and theological educators) see the various ways in which we can engage the disciplines from a Christian worldview.

Perhaps Dockery’s finest hour at the helm of Union was his leadership, shepherding, and rebuilding after a devastating tornado hit their campus in February 2008:

At the end of the day, this is a blog post I have been hoping to write for some time. Dr. Dockery is a godly man and a trusted leader. I am so thankful that the Lord has moved in this way. This is an exciting new day for Trinity.

Evangelical seminaries and institutions play a large role in shaping future pastors and leaders in various vocations. They are worth praying for. (Here are 20 ways to pray for them.)