Immoderate is moving

Unless I am struck my a sudden blow of fickleness, the new home for Immoderate will be:

http://immoderate.wordpress.com.

All future posts will be there. For the two or three of you out there, please change your links.

I will be automatically redirecting from this site to the new one after a few days.

Immoderate is back . . .

Blogger stinks, that's all I'm saying. I think I have been up a grand total of two and a half hours over the past few days (that may be an exaggeration). I guess I should accept their "sincere apology" for the inconvenience, but one cannot but start considering the values of wordpress.com as a host site instead of blogger.

What do you think? Should I do it? Give it a look:

Immoderate

Williams Stokes on Creeds (1855)

William Stokes, a Baptist from the mid-19th century, wrote,

"It is sufficiently suspicious that the only public bodies that have opposed themselves to the employment of Creeds have been those of the Arian and Socinian schools, with others, or portions of others, of a kindred theology. With the exception of some few excellent individuals from among the orthodox, . . . [avoiding creeds] has been confined to members of these several schools. But who are the most to be admired,--those who, conscious of honest sincerity and a thorough love of truth, declare openly the great principles of their faith;--or those who surround their profession with this mysterious reserve, and who in too many instances lead along an unknown path until it is too late to escape from the gloomy labyrinth? The advantages of an open-hearted honesty in a matter of such a moment, are far too great to be bartered for the dry sentimentality of the Arian, or the frigid, genteel, but Christless morality of the Socinian part; and when it is remembered that our forefathers set the example with bonds, imprisonment, and death, as the penalty of their fidelity; surely it is not too much to expect that we rigidly adhere to a pattern so noble."

William Stokes, The History of the Midland Association of Baptist Churches, from its Rise in the Year 1655 to 1855 (London: R. Theobald, Paternobter Row, 1855), 15.

Three parables: parable 3

A church was going through a battle in the worship wars. About half the congregation wanted liturgical lap dancing (a ministry to the married congregants only, of course), where the other half were taking a firm stand against it. Finally the Sunday came where the Pastor sat down with the leaders of the different factions to hash things out. Tensions were high. Disagreements were profuse. Then the Pastor had a moment of unparalleled wisdom.

"Listen, these are matters that outside of what the Scripture explicitly addresses. That makes them matters of personal opinion. Got that?"

"Sure do, Pastor" the men said.

The Pastor continued, "The unity of the church is really being upset by the side that wants lap dancing and the side that doesn't. So I have something to say to the side that does not want lap dancing during the worship service. Listen, you are trying to impose your personal preference on the rest of the congregation when you have no chapter and verse. Don't you know that what may be irreverent to one believer may be reverent to another? You are guilty of severely harming our unity. You should have known that you had no right to make your extra Biblical conclusions about lap dancing as authoritative as the Scripture itself. You can share your opinions around here (you know that we care about those), but you cannot preach your opinions."

"Wow, Pastor, that was profound," said the leaders of the conservative faction. "We'll do our best to be more accommodating in the future."

Three parables: parable 2

A conservative and a liberal minister had been hotly at odds for several years over the doctrine of inerrancy, particularly in the area of scientific and historical matters. One afternoon, the conservative minister stopped by the office of the liberal minister and asked to see him.

"Sir, I have an apology to make," said the conservative.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I have been wrong. All these years I have been condemning your stance against inerrancy as heterodox. I have finally awakened to the fact that I was terribly sinful."

"What's that?" asked the liberal.

The conservative answered, "Well, I tried to find a chapter and verse that said the Scriptures were inerrant at all, let alone with regard to where it addresses historical and scientific matters. I couldn't find one. If there is no verse, then I was merely preaching opinions."

"So you finally saw the light that your extra-Biblical doctrines cannot be as authoritative as the Bible itself?" the liberal asked.

The conservative looked up in sorrow. "Essentially, yes. And it was wrong for me to make this extra-Biblical doctrine so important that it dissolved the unity we could have had together. Will you ever forgive me?"

Three parables: parable 1

A man and his wife were preparing to go out one evening. The wife came up to the husband and said, "Is this outfit modest?"

"I dare not say," replied the man.

"Honey, I'm just asking if you think the outfit is modest or not."

The husband said, "I should not speculate concerning this matter. I have a personal preference, but I dare not give that."

"Why not?" the woman replied.

"Because I do not have a chapter and verse to tell me whether or not that is modest. The Holy Spirit is bound to use the word alone. Shouldn't I?"

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

"O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. " - Psalm 79:1

Chapter and verse, please

I need a chapter and verse to validate the books we use in our present canon of the Bible. Anybody got one?

Anybody have a chapter and verse proving that Christ was the same substance as the Father? Or that he had two natures in one person?

Anybody have a chapter and verse telling me that the marriage between two of the same gender would be immoral (after all, wasn't Paul just condemning pre-martial sodomy?)? Or a chapter and verse telling me that Christians (as long as they are not the pastor) should not be polygamists? Or a chapter and verse telling me that married couples should not have relations in public? Or a chapter and verse telling me what immodesty is? Or giving me the definition of reverence?

Does anyone have a chapter and verse telling me that I need a chapter and verse?

Baptists deserve the name Calvinists

G. B. D. Pepper (1833-1913), professor of church history at Newton and Crozer, said,

"Finally, faith is the Holy Spirit's fruit. God calls it into exercise by his own efficient acting. It is, indeed, the sinner's own personal, rational act, conditioned by appropriate knowledge and mediated by appropriate motives, but the sacrifice of the sinful self is not product of the sinful self sacrificed. It is an act of one who is born of God, of the Spirit, from above, Squarely has the denomination asserted this, firmly believed it, earnestly maintained it. This supernatural element of faith involves the doctrine of Election. It presupposes that salvation is by God's own sovereign will, hence, by his own sovereign act. So have Baptists borne, and deserved to bear, the name of Calvinists, as holding in this capital doctrine with Calvin rather than with those who either co-ordinate the divine and the human, or condition God's acting on man's faith, and not man's faith of God's acting. Were Baptists to cease, thus far to be Calvinists, they would cease to be Baptists. . . . Baptists maintain it at their centre and circumference, and at every point intermediate."*

I know a "true Calvinist" would not bear to hear this said, but I like the remark nonetheless.

*"Doctrinal History and Position," in Baptists and the National Centenary, ed. Lemuel Moss (Lewisburg, Pa.: Heritage Pub, 1976; repr. Philadelphia: American Baptists Publications, 1876); quoted in Tom Nettles, Ready for Reformation: Bringing Authentic Reform to Southern Baptist Churches (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 23 (emphasis mine).

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

"See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." - Ephesians 5:15

American Evangelicalism has issues (Entertainment Evangelism)

The name of the book says it all: Entertainment Evangelism. But let us allow the publisher to expand on why you should purchase this volume filled with deep spiritual substance; consider this bit taken from the front flap:

"We have the most important, the most exciting, and the most revolutionary news in all of human history. So we must find the most creative, the most innovative, and the most irresistible ways to attract the attention of pre-Christian persons. When we become committed to this apostolic task, then persons will line up to see, hear, and experience the good news that we are compelled to proclaim.

"Walt Kallestad came to this conclusion as he passed by the long lines of persons outside movie theaters and concert halls. Then he began to design and develop a ministry within a congregation that would surpass the excitement, the passion, the energy, and the joy offered by a world that is saturated with media and entertainment products such as films, books, television, CDs, sports, and theme parks."


Good thing we fundamentalists don't do anything like this.

You may purchase this classic of western spirituality here.

O Splendor of God's glory bright

by Ambrose and translated by Robert Seymour Bridges

O splendor of God’s glory bright,
O Thou that bringest light from light;
O Light of light, light’s living spring,
O day, all days illumining.

O Thou true Sun, on us Thy glance
Let fall in royal radiance;
The Spirit’s sanctifying beam
Upon our earthly senses stream.

The Father, too, our prayers implore,
Father of glory evermore;
The Father of all grace and might,
To banish sin from our delight.

To guide whate’er we nobly do,
With love all envy to subdue;
To make ill fortune turn to fair,
And give us grace our wrongs to bear.

Our mind be in His keeping placed
Our body true to Him and chaste,
Where only faith her fire shall feed,
To burn the tares of Satan’s seed.

And Christ to us for food shall be,
From Him our drink that welleth free,
The Spirit’s wine, that maketh whole,
And, mocking not, exalts the soul.

Rejoicing may this day go hence;
Like virgin dawn our innocence,
Like fiery noon our faith appear,
Nor known the gloom of twilight drear.

Morn in her rosy car is borne;
Let Him come forth our perfect morn,
The Word in God the Father one,
The Father perfect in the Son.

All laud to God the Father be;
All praise, eternal Son, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the holy Paraclete.

Quiz time

I wish I had a bunch of free TNIVs like Ben Wright, but I want to ask a question concerning your Scripture knowledge nonetheless, just to see if anybody out there knows it. Perhaps I will send you a free autographed copy of Immoderate: the Book, or an autographed picture, or maybe I'll even autograph your Bible if you get it right. Enough vain promises--here are the rules and the question:

Rules: No sources may be used in answering this question except your memory.

Question: Can you name all the sons of Jacob, with their respective mother and in order of birth?

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

"When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
indeed, the deep trembled.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies gave forth thunder;
your arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron." - Psalm 77:16-20 (ESV)

Some Bible verses against the use of P&W

"Glorious art thou, more majestic than the everlasting mountains.

But thou, terrible art thou!
Who can stand before thee
when once thy anger is roused?
From the heavens thou didst utter judgment;
the earth feared and was still,
when God arose to establish judgment
to save all the oppressed of the earth." - Psalm 76:4, 6-9 (RSV)

Tell us what you really think

I could not pass up posting this remark by Alexander Campbell on Baptists:

"I had unfortunately formed a very unfavorable opinion of the Baptist preachers as then introduced to my acquaintance, as narrow, contracted, illiberal, and uneducated men" (The Millennial Harbinger, V. No. 1, Third Series, 345-347. Bethany, VA., 1848; quoted in John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists of the United States: From the First Settlement of the Country to the year 1845 [Texarkana, TX: Bogard, 1926], 422).

The Church is an outpost of pilgrims

D. G. Hart and John R. Muether in With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002) say,

"Manna in the wilderness was a peculiar experience for the Israelites. It was unlike anything in their Egyptian diet. At times they were given to grumbling, for it was less appetizing than Egyptian fare. So too ought we to see something strange about the spiritual diet God provides for us. To change the metaphor, some have compared worship to the process of mastering a foreign tongue. 'We must learn Christianity,' writes William Willimon, 'even as we learn a foreign language' [Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 114]. Peter Leithart suggests that 'worship is a language class, where the Church is trained to speak Christian' ["Cult and Culture," First Things 29 (Jan 1993): 7]. One learns a language by mastering difficult rules through repetition. We have no hope of speaking any language fluently if its conjugations and declensions change every week. . . .

"The church that properly worships will be peculiar to the world. Its ways will seem at odd and irrelevant, and its language will sound strange. In a word, God's holy pilgrims will appear to be sectarians. This is because the church, saved by God in order to worship him, sees itself in light of God's purposes, not the world's expectations. God has elected us by his good pleasure, delivered us from the bondage of sin, and set us apart from the world, where, like the Israelites in exile, we are to sing the Lord's song in a foreign land" (59-60).

I think the authors are right in identifying the church as pilgrims. God has, after all, "delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col 1:13-14, ESV). Thus we can identify with the spirit and faith of the patriarchs when it says of them in Hebrews 11:13-16,

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Correctly viewing the church as an outpost of pilgrims frees the church to pursue wholly after the Lord in worship, without giving a backward glance to what the world may think of it. We can freely go to the Scriptures and let them prescribe our worship, without fearing whether or not it will be "relevant" to someone who does not even know what true Relevance is. We are freed to worship God with boldness and conviction, not hedging our culture and teaching around the dictates of the present age. Understanding the church in this way frees us from having to entertain or amuse, from feeling like we have to compete with the pagan liturgy of Saturday night. Understanding the church as an outpost of pilgrims for the Kingdom frees us to worship the true and living God as He is.

the development of a line in the Baptist Faith and Message

The New Hampshire Confession (1833), upon which the SBC's Baptist Faith and Message is based in part, wrote concerning God,

"There is one, and only one, living and true God, . . . revealed under the personal and relative distinctions of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption" (Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 362).

The original Baptist Faith and Message (1925) wrote,

"There is one and only one living and true God . . . He is revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being" (R. Baker, A Baptist Source Book with Particular Reference to Southern Baptists [Nashville: Broadman, 1966], 201; quoted in S. Harmon, "Baptist Confessions of Faith and the Patristic Tradition" [PRSt 29 Wint 2002, 350, n. 7]).

The Baptist Faith and Message 1963 revision slightly altered this and added subsections on the three persons of the Trinity,

There is one and only one living and true God. . . . The eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence or being" (Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 393).

The 2000 and current revision of the Baptist Faith and Message reworked this,

"There is one and only one living and true God. . . . The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being."

Why the Nicene creed is not enough

Although we insist in holding up the patristic symbols as necessary articulations of the orthodox Christian doctrine, we dare not muse that the Nicene Creed (or any of the others) is a sufficient theological articulation for us today. They simply leave too many doctrinal questions unaddressed. It is for this reason that Steven Harmon, one (apparently) sympathetic with theological liberalism, advocates that we do return to it. He believes that setting forth the Nicene symobl would first guard against the tendency of the left towards "doctrinal minimalism." He continues,

"Yet at the same time, the Nicene Creed is potentially more inclusive of diverse theological positions than most Bpatist confessions have been. It addresses neither the nature of biblical inspiration nor the gender of clergy, for example, nor does it require that one folow its example in the use of gendered God-language" ("Baptist Confessions of Faith and the Patristic Tradition," in Perspectives of Religious Studies 29 [2002], 355).

Here we have illustrated two important lessons: 1) articulations of doctrine happen (in part) because persons are concerned to set forth clearly what they believed to be the Scriptures' teaching on a particular point; and 2) that some would, for whatever reason, rather not articulate clearly what they believe.

On this latter point, here is my group-participation question: Is it ever right not to state your beliefs (assuming you've reached some conclusions) as clearly as possible on a particular point of doctrine or practice?

Forbidding creeds is tyranny

Campbellism was a movement that not only taught baptismal regeneration, but also against the use of creeds or confessions, arguing that creeds ended up being a kind of replacement for the Scriptures. Baptists reacted strongly against this, with the Kentucky brance of the American Baptist Association writing in the 1820's,

“Creeds formed or enforced by the civil authority, are usurpatious, leading to persecution and to despotism; while those formed by voluntary Associations of Christians, enforced by no higher penalty or sanction, than exclusion from the membership in the society are not only lawful, but necessary, in the present state of the religious world. To deny any religious society the privilege of expressing their views of the Bible in their own words and phrases, and of denying admission to those who reject their views, is a violent interference with the rights of conscience–it is tyranny.

“By a creed we mean an epitome, or summary exhibition of what the Scriptures teach. Are we to admit members into the church and into office, are we to license and ordain preachers, without enquiring for their creed?” (from A Sourcebook for Baptist History, edited by McBeth).

This last paragraph introduces an important question for American Baptist churches today: Do we place enough importance on the "creed" of those seeking to be members in our churches?

When evangelism is disobedience

The Christian church has long acknowledged the importance of evangelism. After all, the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ himself, said,

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20; ESV).

The activities associated here with the command to "go" are often truncated in our understanding to mean merely "convert" or "soul-win." But our Lord had much more in mind. We are to "make disciples," baptize, and, even more staggering, "teach them to observe all whatsoever I have commanded you."

Although I believe that we can and should rightly distinguish between the time a person confesses Christ and the rest of his perservance in the Christian religion, we are in danger of error when making evangelism (in the sense of conversion) as some kind of "end in itself." Instead, we are to immerse every convert into the Christian religion, baptizing them and teaching them all things, including, presumably, how to worship the true and living God. Our goal is to bring every convert "to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood" (Eph 4:13). Any understanding of the Great Commission that is less than this is disobedient to our Lord's command.

Hart and Muether on "discipleship"

from D. G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002), p. 46.

"What then is discipleship? To many people it means assimilation. This is the process of getting new members more fully involved in the life of the church, whether through Vacation Bible School or small-group Bible studies, singing in the choir, or serving in the nursery. We prefer, however, to use an older phrase--Christian nurture--to describe the process of discipleship. In this sense discipleship means being conformed to the whole counsel of God as it is revealed in his only begotten Son. It trains God's people for good works and sustains them with spiritual food for their pilgrimage in the wilderness of this world. Christian nurture sees salvation not as a momentary occurrence but as a continuous and arduous process, from which all Christians are prone to wander. It acknowledges that God's people are in need of salvation continually, from regeneration until death. In other words, the way to measure discipleship may have less to do with how active one is in the programs of the church than with how effective the people of God are in resisting worldliness."

Sometimes Presbyterians really put us Baptists to shame.

Love's Immensity

I found this poem by Gerhard Tersteegen (unknown translator) in The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, edited by A. W. Tozer (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1963).

    O past and gone!
How great is God! how small am I!
A mote in the illimitable sky,
Amidst the glory deep, and wide, and high
    Of Heaven's unclouded sun.
There to forget myself for evermore;
Lost, swallowed up in Love's immensity,
The sea that knows no sounding and no shore,
    God only there, not I.


More near than I unto myself cna be,
    Art thou to me;
So have I lost myself in finding Thee,
Have lost myself for ever, O my Sun!
The boundless Heaven of Thine eternal love
Around me, and beneath me, and above;
    In glory of that golden day
    The former things are passed away--
        I, past and gone.

Piper adds to our motivation to dispose of the boob-tube

This quote comes from one of his lectures (I think it was the third one) in the "Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning" series, which you can download here.

'You’ll never hear me on Sunday morning saying, “The problem with this service is people don’t come here to give, they only come to get.” That’s not the problem. You know what the problem is? The problem is people stuff their faces with the white bread of the world and then they come to the banquet table of God’s word and they’re not hungry. And I’m talking television mainly and a lot of other junk that we waste our time on. The world as I look at it is just filled with triviality. . . . Almost all T.V. is trivial. Almost all ads are trivial. They’re silly. It’s an epidemic of silliness, so that the soul that feeds itself on this an hour or two a night . . . can’t help but just shrivel up to the smallest capacities for real, magnificent, glorious joy. . . .

'How . . . much silly stuff . . . can you watch before you begin to realize you’re a stick-figure, you’re a puppet, you’re just a silly little echo of the silliness coming through that tube continually? . . .'

Technical notes

This is a technical note for anyone who has recently tried to rummage through the Immoderate Archives.

The archives are working again.

Wordpress messed them up when I was trying to import to my prototype wordpress blogsite (which I will probably not be using any time soon).

I have also changed by RSS feed to feedburner and would encourage you to use it instead of the blogger feed. You can link to it here (http://feeds.feedburner.com/immoderate) or on the syndication icon to your right. If you do not have a feed subscriber, I heartily recommend Google desktop.

One thing that did not change in the transition from Old to New Testament worship

Many notice the changes from Old Testament to New Testament worship. For example, the gathered local church is the temple of God where God's Spirit resides (1 Cor 3:16-17), in contrast with worship centered locally at the Jerusalem temple. We are also to approach the throne of grace with boldness on the basis of our Great High Priest Jesus Christ who has passed through the heavens (instead of the veils) (Heb 4). There are many examples of this.

Although there are some certain discontinuities in this present economy from the previous economy, I believe that some things remain the same. One of these things, quite obviously, is the object of the worship: the one true and living God (whom we now know, by virtue of progressive revelation, exists in three Persons). Another element of continuity is the reverence and awe that God requires. The gravity of worship has not changed, just as the object of that worship has not. The same fear and wonder that the children of Israel had at the foot of Sinai should be present in our worship. So Hebrews 12 reminds us,

6At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." 27This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken--that is, things that have been made--in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29for our God is a consuming fire.

In fact, if the repeated refrain of the author of the Hebrews, present even in this passage, be taken seriously, we should have more fear, more reverence, and more awe than the children of Israel had, for we have experienced something greater and more awesome than Sinai--Jesus Christ the Son. The inspired writer says in the verses preceding these,

18For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned." 21Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." 22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

And so may we render to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.

*Scripture cited from the English Standard Version (ESV) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Opportunity

Here is your opportunity to help me out.

I am obviously missing something. Could someone please tell me who Phil Johnson is and why I should listen to him talk about anything, particularly fundamentalism? I am not a big John MacArthur follower or anything like that. Perhaps this is my problem?

John Piper on perseverance and the doctrines of grace

I know I have been simply throwing a lot of quotations up lately, and I hope that is acceptable to my readers. I promise to have more original and controversial remarks coming in the next few days. Every once in a while it is good to take a break from critiquing things and show people what you love and what is on your mind. And if you quote people saying the things you agree with, the folks who disagree with you tend not to get as upset.

I want to recommend to you John Piper's discussion of the doctrines of grace, and the seventh lecture (part 1) in particular. I believe the Lord will use his conclusion of the exposition of these doctrines as a great source of encouragement for you. He begins the lecture finishing his discussion of perseverance, and then moves into why he loves that glorious flower we all call TULIP. You can find all the lectures here.I transcribed a couple of paragraphs of the lecture for your reading enjoyment.

Oh how many Christians in America treat their eternal life as if it’s, “I’m going to heaven; I can just live like everybody else.” And the Bible says, “Grab it! Grab it! Hold on to it! Reach out for it!” . . . There’s so much coasting in American Christianity. “Take hold of eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession among many witnesses.”. . . To stay a believer is a fight, if you don’t have a fight in your life, you are in terrible spiritual condition. If you are not fighting the fight of faith, you are drifting backward . . . because all of the current of the stream of this culture and of your own remaining corruption and of the Devil is backwards towards destruction. Christianity in this fallen age will always be a stroke. . . .

[The doctrines of grace] function as a kind of antidote to what I regard as a culture that is drowning in banality, cuteness, and cleverness, with television being the main purveyor, not of sex and violence—I almost want to say, “who cares about sex and violence? The Bible’s full of it. You know what the Bible’s not full of—not a verse? Triviality. Not a verse. Find it. Find one joke. The Bible is a deadly serious book. Lots of sex, and lots of violence, but no cuteness in the Bible. No silliness. No trifling. No banality. It is all blood-earnestness. . . . And America is exactly the opposite. . . .

What I find is that there are doctrines that function in an amazing antidotal way against the barrage of silliness in the world and make me serious about life. I hope not morose. [There’s a] huge difference between morose, glum, negative, sour and serious joy. Huge difference! And everybody knows it who’s stood at the graveside of a saint, and sung a song of joy with tears. Everybody knows the difference.

When I hear Piper talk like this, I wonder why his worship looks the way it does. I believe it communicates all the things he is speaking against here. It strikes as a "total disconnect."

Hiscox on preaching as worship

from Edward T. Hiscox's Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches (Judson Press, 1984; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1980), 217.

"As public religious serice is usually arranged by evangelical Churches generally, preaching holds a foremost place and the service is secondary. With a liturgical Church it is different. There the service rules, and preaching largley subordinate. Preaching, strictly speaking, is not worship, though calculated to inspire and assist worship. Preaching is a proclamation of truth, not an address to the Deity. The preacher is a herald (kerux), a proclaimer, and his address (kerugma), a message delivered to an audience. . . .

"The true object and design of preaching is the salvation of sinners and edification of the saints by means of instruction and persuasion. Instruction may properly be said to be the first object of preaching. Most emphatically it is not to entertain or recreate an audience; nor to crowd the house with hearers, nor to build up welathy and fashionable congregations; nor to rent pews and replenish the treasury; nor to teach literature, science, or art; but to save and sanctify souls by an exhibition of Christ crucified."

Another word from old Jonathan

Read this little selection, and then go read his sermon "The Christian Pilgrim":

"Heaven is that place alone where our highest end and highest good is to be obtained. God hath made us for himself. “Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” Therefore, then do we attain to our highest end, when we are brought to God: but that is by being brought to heaven, for that is God’s throne, the place of his special presence. There is but a very imperfect union with God to be had in this world, a very imperfect knowledge of him in the midst of much darkness: a very imperfect conformity to God, mingled with abundance of estrangement. Here we can serve and glorify God, but in a very imperfect manner: our service being mingled with sin, which dishonors God. — But when we get to heaven (if ever that be), we shall be brought to a perfect union with God and have more clear views of him. There we shall be fully conformed to God, without any remaining sin: for “we shall see him as he is.” There we shall serve God perfectly and glorify him in an exalted manner, even to the utmost of the powers and capacity of our nature. Then we shall perfectly give up ourselves to God: our hearts will be pure and holy offerings, presented in a flame of divine love.

"God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. — To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean. — Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey towards heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives, to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labor for, or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?"

Some Augustine

from Augustine's Confessions, XI.27. I think that an American evangelical today would probably rework this more like, "Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Who Art Beauty Relative to My Own Cultural Preferences."

Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee; deformed I, plunging amid those fair forms which Thou hadst made. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Things held me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not at all. Thou calledst, and shoutedst, and burstest my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scatteredst my blindness. Thou breathedst odours, and I drew in breath and panted for Thee. I tasted, and hunger and thirst. Thou touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace.

Immoderate is moving

Unless I am struck my a sudden blow of fickleness, the new home for Immoderate will be:

http://immoderate.wordpress.com.

All future posts will be there. For the two or three of you out there, please change your links.

I will be automatically redirecting from this site to the new one after a few days.

Immoderate is back . . .

Blogger stinks, that's all I'm saying. I think I have been up a grand total of two and a half hours over the past few days (that may be an exaggeration). I guess I should accept their "sincere apology" for the inconvenience, but one cannot but start considering the values of wordpress.com as a host site instead of blogger.

What do you think? Should I do it? Give it a look:

Immoderate

Williams Stokes on Creeds (1855)

William Stokes, a Baptist from the mid-19th century, wrote,

"It is sufficiently suspicious that the only public bodies that have opposed themselves to the employment of Creeds have been those of the Arian and Socinian schools, with others, or portions of others, of a kindred theology. With the exception of some few excellent individuals from among the orthodox, . . . [avoiding creeds] has been confined to members of these several schools. But who are the most to be admired,--those who, conscious of honest sincerity and a thorough love of truth, declare openly the great principles of their faith;--or those who surround their profession with this mysterious reserve, and who in too many instances lead along an unknown path until it is too late to escape from the gloomy labyrinth? The advantages of an open-hearted honesty in a matter of such a moment, are far too great to be bartered for the dry sentimentality of the Arian, or the frigid, genteel, but Christless morality of the Socinian part; and when it is remembered that our forefathers set the example with bonds, imprisonment, and death, as the penalty of their fidelity; surely it is not too much to expect that we rigidly adhere to a pattern so noble."

William Stokes, The History of the Midland Association of Baptist Churches, from its Rise in the Year 1655 to 1855 (London: R. Theobald, Paternobter Row, 1855), 15.

Three parables: parable 3

A church was going through a battle in the worship wars. About half the congregation wanted liturgical lap dancing (a ministry to the married congregants only, of course), where the other half were taking a firm stand against it. Finally the Sunday came where the Pastor sat down with the leaders of the different factions to hash things out. Tensions were high. Disagreements were profuse. Then the Pastor had a moment of unparalleled wisdom.

"Listen, these are matters that outside of what the Scripture explicitly addresses. That makes them matters of personal opinion. Got that?"

"Sure do, Pastor" the men said.

The Pastor continued, "The unity of the church is really being upset by the side that wants lap dancing and the side that doesn't. So I have something to say to the side that does not want lap dancing during the worship service. Listen, you are trying to impose your personal preference on the rest of the congregation when you have no chapter and verse. Don't you know that what may be irreverent to one believer may be reverent to another? You are guilty of severely harming our unity. You should have known that you had no right to make your extra Biblical conclusions about lap dancing as authoritative as the Scripture itself. You can share your opinions around here (you know that we care about those), but you cannot preach your opinions."

"Wow, Pastor, that was profound," said the leaders of the conservative faction. "We'll do our best to be more accommodating in the future."

Three parables: parable 2

A conservative and a liberal minister had been hotly at odds for several years over the doctrine of inerrancy, particularly in the area of scientific and historical matters. One afternoon, the conservative minister stopped by the office of the liberal minister and asked to see him.

"Sir, I have an apology to make," said the conservative.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I have been wrong. All these years I have been condemning your stance against inerrancy as heterodox. I have finally awakened to the fact that I was terribly sinful."

"What's that?" asked the liberal.

The conservative answered, "Well, I tried to find a chapter and verse that said the Scriptures were inerrant at all, let alone with regard to where it addresses historical and scientific matters. I couldn't find one. If there is no verse, then I was merely preaching opinions."

"So you finally saw the light that your extra-Biblical doctrines cannot be as authoritative as the Bible itself?" the liberal asked.

The conservative looked up in sorrow. "Essentially, yes. And it was wrong for me to make this extra-Biblical doctrine so important that it dissolved the unity we could have had together. Will you ever forgive me?"

Three parables: parable 1

A man and his wife were preparing to go out one evening. The wife came up to the husband and said, "Is this outfit modest?"

"I dare not say," replied the man.

"Honey, I'm just asking if you think the outfit is modest or not."

The husband said, "I should not speculate concerning this matter. I have a personal preference, but I dare not give that."

"Why not?" the woman replied.

"Because I do not have a chapter and verse to tell me whether or not that is modest. The Holy Spirit is bound to use the word alone. Shouldn't I?"

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

"O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. " - Psalm 79:1

Chapter and verse, please

I need a chapter and verse to validate the books we use in our present canon of the Bible. Anybody got one?

Anybody have a chapter and verse proving that Christ was the same substance as the Father? Or that he had two natures in one person?

Anybody have a chapter and verse telling me that the marriage between two of the same gender would be immoral (after all, wasn't Paul just condemning pre-martial sodomy?)? Or a chapter and verse telling me that Christians (as long as they are not the pastor) should not be polygamists? Or a chapter and verse telling me that married couples should not have relations in public? Or a chapter and verse telling me what immodesty is? Or giving me the definition of reverence?

Does anyone have a chapter and verse telling me that I need a chapter and verse?

Baptists deserve the name Calvinists

G. B. D. Pepper (1833-1913), professor of church history at Newton and Crozer, said,

"Finally, faith is the Holy Spirit's fruit. God calls it into exercise by his own efficient acting. It is, indeed, the sinner's own personal, rational act, conditioned by appropriate knowledge and mediated by appropriate motives, but the sacrifice of the sinful self is not product of the sinful self sacrificed. It is an act of one who is born of God, of the Spirit, from above, Squarely has the denomination asserted this, firmly believed it, earnestly maintained it. This supernatural element of faith involves the doctrine of Election. It presupposes that salvation is by God's own sovereign will, hence, by his own sovereign act. So have Baptists borne, and deserved to bear, the name of Calvinists, as holding in this capital doctrine with Calvin rather than with those who either co-ordinate the divine and the human, or condition God's acting on man's faith, and not man's faith of God's acting. Were Baptists to cease, thus far to be Calvinists, they would cease to be Baptists. . . . Baptists maintain it at their centre and circumference, and at every point intermediate."*

I know a "true Calvinist" would not bear to hear this said, but I like the remark nonetheless.

*"Doctrinal History and Position," in Baptists and the National Centenary, ed. Lemuel Moss (Lewisburg, Pa.: Heritage Pub, 1976; repr. Philadelphia: American Baptists Publications, 1876); quoted in Tom Nettles, Ready for Reformation: Bringing Authentic Reform to Southern Baptist Churches (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 23 (emphasis mine).

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

"See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." - Ephesians 5:15

American Evangelicalism has issues (Entertainment Evangelism)

The name of the book says it all: Entertainment Evangelism. But let us allow the publisher to expand on why you should purchase this volume filled with deep spiritual substance; consider this bit taken from the front flap:

"We have the most important, the most exciting, and the most revolutionary news in all of human history. So we must find the most creative, the most innovative, and the most irresistible ways to attract the attention of pre-Christian persons. When we become committed to this apostolic task, then persons will line up to see, hear, and experience the good news that we are compelled to proclaim.

"Walt Kallestad came to this conclusion as he passed by the long lines of persons outside movie theaters and concert halls. Then he began to design and develop a ministry within a congregation that would surpass the excitement, the passion, the energy, and the joy offered by a world that is saturated with media and entertainment products such as films, books, television, CDs, sports, and theme parks."


Good thing we fundamentalists don't do anything like this.

You may purchase this classic of western spirituality here.

O Splendor of God's glory bright

by Ambrose and translated by Robert Seymour Bridges

O splendor of God’s glory bright,
O Thou that bringest light from light;
O Light of light, light’s living spring,
O day, all days illumining.

O Thou true Sun, on us Thy glance
Let fall in royal radiance;
The Spirit’s sanctifying beam
Upon our earthly senses stream.

The Father, too, our prayers implore,
Father of glory evermore;
The Father of all grace and might,
To banish sin from our delight.

To guide whate’er we nobly do,
With love all envy to subdue;
To make ill fortune turn to fair,
And give us grace our wrongs to bear.

Our mind be in His keeping placed
Our body true to Him and chaste,
Where only faith her fire shall feed,
To burn the tares of Satan’s seed.

And Christ to us for food shall be,
From Him our drink that welleth free,
The Spirit’s wine, that maketh whole,
And, mocking not, exalts the soul.

Rejoicing may this day go hence;
Like virgin dawn our innocence,
Like fiery noon our faith appear,
Nor known the gloom of twilight drear.

Morn in her rosy car is borne;
Let Him come forth our perfect morn,
The Word in God the Father one,
The Father perfect in the Son.

All laud to God the Father be;
All praise, eternal Son, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the holy Paraclete.

Quiz time

I wish I had a bunch of free TNIVs like Ben Wright, but I want to ask a question concerning your Scripture knowledge nonetheless, just to see if anybody out there knows it. Perhaps I will send you a free autographed copy of Immoderate: the Book, or an autographed picture, or maybe I'll even autograph your Bible if you get it right. Enough vain promises--here are the rules and the question:

Rules: No sources may be used in answering this question except your memory.

Question: Can you name all the sons of Jacob, with their respective mother and in order of birth?

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

"When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
indeed, the deep trembled.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies gave forth thunder;
your arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron." - Psalm 77:16-20 (ESV)

Some Bible verses against the use of P&W

"Glorious art thou, more majestic than the everlasting mountains.

But thou, terrible art thou!
Who can stand before thee
when once thy anger is roused?
From the heavens thou didst utter judgment;
the earth feared and was still,
when God arose to establish judgment
to save all the oppressed of the earth." - Psalm 76:4, 6-9 (RSV)

Tell us what you really think

I could not pass up posting this remark by Alexander Campbell on Baptists:

"I had unfortunately formed a very unfavorable opinion of the Baptist preachers as then introduced to my acquaintance, as narrow, contracted, illiberal, and uneducated men" (The Millennial Harbinger, V. No. 1, Third Series, 345-347. Bethany, VA., 1848; quoted in John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists of the United States: From the First Settlement of the Country to the year 1845 [Texarkana, TX: Bogard, 1926], 422).

The Church is an outpost of pilgrims

D. G. Hart and John R. Muether in With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002) say,

"Manna in the wilderness was a peculiar experience for the Israelites. It was unlike anything in their Egyptian diet. At times they were given to grumbling, for it was less appetizing than Egyptian fare. So too ought we to see something strange about the spiritual diet God provides for us. To change the metaphor, some have compared worship to the process of mastering a foreign tongue. 'We must learn Christianity,' writes William Willimon, 'even as we learn a foreign language' [Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 114]. Peter Leithart suggests that 'worship is a language class, where the Church is trained to speak Christian' ["Cult and Culture," First Things 29 (Jan 1993): 7]. One learns a language by mastering difficult rules through repetition. We have no hope of speaking any language fluently if its conjugations and declensions change every week. . . .

"The church that properly worships will be peculiar to the world. Its ways will seem at odd and irrelevant, and its language will sound strange. In a word, God's holy pilgrims will appear to be sectarians. This is because the church, saved by God in order to worship him, sees itself in light of God's purposes, not the world's expectations. God has elected us by his good pleasure, delivered us from the bondage of sin, and set us apart from the world, where, like the Israelites in exile, we are to sing the Lord's song in a foreign land" (59-60).

I think the authors are right in identifying the church as pilgrims. God has, after all, "delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col 1:13-14, ESV). Thus we can identify with the spirit and faith of the patriarchs when it says of them in Hebrews 11:13-16,

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Correctly viewing the church as an outpost of pilgrims frees the church to pursue wholly after the Lord in worship, without giving a backward glance to what the world may think of it. We can freely go to the Scriptures and let them prescribe our worship, without fearing whether or not it will be "relevant" to someone who does not even know what true Relevance is. We are freed to worship God with boldness and conviction, not hedging our culture and teaching around the dictates of the present age. Understanding the church in this way frees us from having to entertain or amuse, from feeling like we have to compete with the pagan liturgy of Saturday night. Understanding the church as an outpost of pilgrims for the Kingdom frees us to worship the true and living God as He is.

the development of a line in the Baptist Faith and Message

The New Hampshire Confession (1833), upon which the SBC's Baptist Faith and Message is based in part, wrote concerning God,

"There is one, and only one, living and true God, . . . revealed under the personal and relative distinctions of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption" (Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 362).

The original Baptist Faith and Message (1925) wrote,

"There is one and only one living and true God . . . He is revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being" (R. Baker, A Baptist Source Book with Particular Reference to Southern Baptists [Nashville: Broadman, 1966], 201; quoted in S. Harmon, "Baptist Confessions of Faith and the Patristic Tradition" [PRSt 29 Wint 2002, 350, n. 7]).

The Baptist Faith and Message 1963 revision slightly altered this and added subsections on the three persons of the Trinity,

There is one and only one living and true God. . . . The eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence or being" (Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 393).

The 2000 and current revision of the Baptist Faith and Message reworked this,

"There is one and only one living and true God. . . . The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being."

Why the Nicene creed is not enough

Although we insist in holding up the patristic symbols as necessary articulations of the orthodox Christian doctrine, we dare not muse that the Nicene Creed (or any of the others) is a sufficient theological articulation for us today. They simply leave too many doctrinal questions unaddressed. It is for this reason that Steven Harmon, one (apparently) sympathetic with theological liberalism, advocates that we do return to it. He believes that setting forth the Nicene symobl would first guard against the tendency of the left towards "doctrinal minimalism." He continues,

"Yet at the same time, the Nicene Creed is potentially more inclusive of diverse theological positions than most Bpatist confessions have been. It addresses neither the nature of biblical inspiration nor the gender of clergy, for example, nor does it require that one folow its example in the use of gendered God-language" ("Baptist Confessions of Faith and the Patristic Tradition," in Perspectives of Religious Studies 29 [2002], 355).

Here we have illustrated two important lessons: 1) articulations of doctrine happen (in part) because persons are concerned to set forth clearly what they believed to be the Scriptures' teaching on a particular point; and 2) that some would, for whatever reason, rather not articulate clearly what they believe.

On this latter point, here is my group-participation question: Is it ever right not to state your beliefs (assuming you've reached some conclusions) as clearly as possible on a particular point of doctrine or practice?

Forbidding creeds is tyranny

Campbellism was a movement that not only taught baptismal regeneration, but also against the use of creeds or confessions, arguing that creeds ended up being a kind of replacement for the Scriptures. Baptists reacted strongly against this, with the Kentucky brance of the American Baptist Association writing in the 1820's,

“Creeds formed or enforced by the civil authority, are usurpatious, leading to persecution and to despotism; while those formed by voluntary Associations of Christians, enforced by no higher penalty or sanction, than exclusion from the membership in the society are not only lawful, but necessary, in the present state of the religious world. To deny any religious society the privilege of expressing their views of the Bible in their own words and phrases, and of denying admission to those who reject their views, is a violent interference with the rights of conscience–it is tyranny.

“By a creed we mean an epitome, or summary exhibition of what the Scriptures teach. Are we to admit members into the church and into office, are we to license and ordain preachers, without enquiring for their creed?” (from A Sourcebook for Baptist History, edited by McBeth).

This last paragraph introduces an important question for American Baptist churches today: Do we place enough importance on the "creed" of those seeking to be members in our churches?

When evangelism is disobedience

The Christian church has long acknowledged the importance of evangelism. After all, the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ himself, said,

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20; ESV).

The activities associated here with the command to "go" are often truncated in our understanding to mean merely "convert" or "soul-win." But our Lord had much more in mind. We are to "make disciples," baptize, and, even more staggering, "teach them to observe all whatsoever I have commanded you."

Although I believe that we can and should rightly distinguish between the time a person confesses Christ and the rest of his perservance in the Christian religion, we are in danger of error when making evangelism (in the sense of conversion) as some kind of "end in itself." Instead, we are to immerse every convert into the Christian religion, baptizing them and teaching them all things, including, presumably, how to worship the true and living God. Our goal is to bring every convert "to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood" (Eph 4:13). Any understanding of the Great Commission that is less than this is disobedient to our Lord's command.

Hart and Muether on "discipleship"

from D. G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002), p. 46.

"What then is discipleship? To many people it means assimilation. This is the process of getting new members more fully involved in the life of the church, whether through Vacation Bible School or small-group Bible studies, singing in the choir, or serving in the nursery. We prefer, however, to use an older phrase--Christian nurture--to describe the process of discipleship. In this sense discipleship means being conformed to the whole counsel of God as it is revealed in his only begotten Son. It trains God's people for good works and sustains them with spiritual food for their pilgrimage in the wilderness of this world. Christian nurture sees salvation not as a momentary occurrence but as a continuous and arduous process, from which all Christians are prone to wander. It acknowledges that God's people are in need of salvation continually, from regeneration until death. In other words, the way to measure discipleship may have less to do with how active one is in the programs of the church than with how effective the people of God are in resisting worldliness."

Sometimes Presbyterians really put us Baptists to shame.

Love's Immensity

I found this poem by Gerhard Tersteegen (unknown translator) in The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, edited by A. W. Tozer (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1963).

    O past and gone!
How great is God! how small am I!
A mote in the illimitable sky,
Amidst the glory deep, and wide, and high
    Of Heaven's unclouded sun.
There to forget myself for evermore;
Lost, swallowed up in Love's immensity,
The sea that knows no sounding and no shore,
    God only there, not I.


More near than I unto myself cna be,
    Art thou to me;
So have I lost myself in finding Thee,
Have lost myself for ever, O my Sun!
The boundless Heaven of Thine eternal love
Around me, and beneath me, and above;
    In glory of that golden day
    The former things are passed away--
        I, past and gone.

Piper adds to our motivation to dispose of the boob-tube

This quote comes from one of his lectures (I think it was the third one) in the "Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning" series, which you can download here.

'You’ll never hear me on Sunday morning saying, “The problem with this service is people don’t come here to give, they only come to get.” That’s not the problem. You know what the problem is? The problem is people stuff their faces with the white bread of the world and then they come to the banquet table of God’s word and they’re not hungry. And I’m talking television mainly and a lot of other junk that we waste our time on. The world as I look at it is just filled with triviality. . . . Almost all T.V. is trivial. Almost all ads are trivial. They’re silly. It’s an epidemic of silliness, so that the soul that feeds itself on this an hour or two a night . . . can’t help but just shrivel up to the smallest capacities for real, magnificent, glorious joy. . . .

'How . . . much silly stuff . . . can you watch before you begin to realize you’re a stick-figure, you’re a puppet, you’re just a silly little echo of the silliness coming through that tube continually? . . .'

Technical notes

This is a technical note for anyone who has recently tried to rummage through the Immoderate Archives.

The archives are working again.

Wordpress messed them up when I was trying to import to my prototype wordpress blogsite (which I will probably not be using any time soon).

I have also changed by RSS feed to feedburner and would encourage you to use it instead of the blogger feed. You can link to it here (http://feeds.feedburner.com/immoderate) or on the syndication icon to your right. If you do not have a feed subscriber, I heartily recommend Google desktop.

One thing that did not change in the transition from Old to New Testament worship

Many notice the changes from Old Testament to New Testament worship. For example, the gathered local church is the temple of God where God's Spirit resides (1 Cor 3:16-17), in contrast with worship centered locally at the Jerusalem temple. We are also to approach the throne of grace with boldness on the basis of our Great High Priest Jesus Christ who has passed through the heavens (instead of the veils) (Heb 4). There are many examples of this.

Although there are some certain discontinuities in this present economy from the previous economy, I believe that some things remain the same. One of these things, quite obviously, is the object of the worship: the one true and living God (whom we now know, by virtue of progressive revelation, exists in three Persons). Another element of continuity is the reverence and awe that God requires. The gravity of worship has not changed, just as the object of that worship has not. The same fear and wonder that the children of Israel had at the foot of Sinai should be present in our worship. So Hebrews 12 reminds us,

6At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." 27This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken--that is, things that have been made--in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29for our God is a consuming fire.

In fact, if the repeated refrain of the author of the Hebrews, present even in this passage, be taken seriously, we should have more fear, more reverence, and more awe than the children of Israel had, for we have experienced something greater and more awesome than Sinai--Jesus Christ the Son. The inspired writer says in the verses preceding these,

18For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned." 21Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." 22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

And so may we render to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.

*Scripture cited from the English Standard Version (ESV) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Opportunity

Here is your opportunity to help me out.

I am obviously missing something. Could someone please tell me who Phil Johnson is and why I should listen to him talk about anything, particularly fundamentalism? I am not a big John MacArthur follower or anything like that. Perhaps this is my problem?

John Piper on perseverance and the doctrines of grace

I know I have been simply throwing a lot of quotations up lately, and I hope that is acceptable to my readers. I promise to have more original and controversial remarks coming in the next few days. Every once in a while it is good to take a break from critiquing things and show people what you love and what is on your mind. And if you quote people saying the things you agree with, the folks who disagree with you tend not to get as upset.

I want to recommend to you John Piper's discussion of the doctrines of grace, and the seventh lecture (part 1) in particular. I believe the Lord will use his conclusion of the exposition of these doctrines as a great source of encouragement for you. He begins the lecture finishing his discussion of perseverance, and then moves into why he loves that glorious flower we all call TULIP. You can find all the lectures here.I transcribed a couple of paragraphs of the lecture for your reading enjoyment.

Oh how many Christians in America treat their eternal life as if it’s, “I’m going to heaven; I can just live like everybody else.” And the Bible says, “Grab it! Grab it! Hold on to it! Reach out for it!” . . . There’s so much coasting in American Christianity. “Take hold of eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession among many witnesses.”. . . To stay a believer is a fight, if you don’t have a fight in your life, you are in terrible spiritual condition. If you are not fighting the fight of faith, you are drifting backward . . . because all of the current of the stream of this culture and of your own remaining corruption and of the Devil is backwards towards destruction. Christianity in this fallen age will always be a stroke. . . .

[The doctrines of grace] function as a kind of antidote to what I regard as a culture that is drowning in banality, cuteness, and cleverness, with television being the main purveyor, not of sex and violence—I almost want to say, “who cares about sex and violence? The Bible’s full of it. You know what the Bible’s not full of—not a verse? Triviality. Not a verse. Find it. Find one joke. The Bible is a deadly serious book. Lots of sex, and lots of violence, but no cuteness in the Bible. No silliness. No trifling. No banality. It is all blood-earnestness. . . . And America is exactly the opposite. . . .

What I find is that there are doctrines that function in an amazing antidotal way against the barrage of silliness in the world and make me serious about life. I hope not morose. [There’s a] huge difference between morose, glum, negative, sour and serious joy. Huge difference! And everybody knows it who’s stood at the graveside of a saint, and sung a song of joy with tears. Everybody knows the difference.

When I hear Piper talk like this, I wonder why his worship looks the way it does. I believe it communicates all the things he is speaking against here. It strikes as a "total disconnect."

Hiscox on preaching as worship

from Edward T. Hiscox's Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches (Judson Press, 1984; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1980), 217.

"As public religious serice is usually arranged by evangelical Churches generally, preaching holds a foremost place and the service is secondary. With a liturgical Church it is different. There the service rules, and preaching largley subordinate. Preaching, strictly speaking, is not worship, though calculated to inspire and assist worship. Preaching is a proclamation of truth, not an address to the Deity. The preacher is a herald (kerux), a proclaimer, and his address (kerugma), a message delivered to an audience. . . .

"The true object and design of preaching is the salvation of sinners and edification of the saints by means of instruction and persuasion. Instruction may properly be said to be the first object of preaching. Most emphatically it is not to entertain or recreate an audience; nor to crowd the house with hearers, nor to build up welathy and fashionable congregations; nor to rent pews and replenish the treasury; nor to teach literature, science, or art; but to save and sanctify souls by an exhibition of Christ crucified."

Another word from old Jonathan

Read this little selection, and then go read his sermon "The Christian Pilgrim":

"Heaven is that place alone where our highest end and highest good is to be obtained. God hath made us for himself. “Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” Therefore, then do we attain to our highest end, when we are brought to God: but that is by being brought to heaven, for that is God’s throne, the place of his special presence. There is but a very imperfect union with God to be had in this world, a very imperfect knowledge of him in the midst of much darkness: a very imperfect conformity to God, mingled with abundance of estrangement. Here we can serve and glorify God, but in a very imperfect manner: our service being mingled with sin, which dishonors God. — But when we get to heaven (if ever that be), we shall be brought to a perfect union with God and have more clear views of him. There we shall be fully conformed to God, without any remaining sin: for “we shall see him as he is.” There we shall serve God perfectly and glorify him in an exalted manner, even to the utmost of the powers and capacity of our nature. Then we shall perfectly give up ourselves to God: our hearts will be pure and holy offerings, presented in a flame of divine love.

"God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. — To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean. — Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey towards heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives, to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labor for, or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?"

Some Augustine

from Augustine's Confessions, XI.27. I think that an American evangelical today would probably rework this more like, "Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Who Art Beauty Relative to My Own Cultural Preferences."

Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee; deformed I, plunging amid those fair forms which Thou hadst made. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Things held me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not at all. Thou calledst, and shoutedst, and burstest my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scatteredst my blindness. Thou breathedst odours, and I drew in breath and panted for Thee. I tasted, and hunger and thirst. Thou touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace.