Evangelical Jargon (What’s that mean?)

Here it is, faithful few, your very own opportunity to sound off about various religious sayings in ‘Evangelical Christianity’.
Each Wednesday I’ll post a phrase from the world of Christianese for you to tell everyone what you like, dislike, or think about that phrase.
This week’s phrase:

“Make a decision for Christ.”

What does that mean? My honest gut reaction the first time I heard it was, “Can’t He make His own decisions a lot better than I can?”

Things Held In Common With Russell Moore

Last night my brother and I drove up to Carson-Newman to hear Dr. Russell Moore preach. I have only listened to a couple of his messages on the internet (I still have dial-up ’cause nobody wants to sell me high-speed, so it takes a while to download audio), but I really enjoyed what I heard.
Once again, last night, Russell Moore was faithful, unapologetic, and more importantly, faithful to the text. He reminded us that creeds are everywhere, and especially in the Christian faith.
His text was taken from Matthew 16:13-18. Peter’s confession is the foundational creed for the Church. We believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world, and the Son of God. Upon this confession Christ has promised to build His Church. And as we, the Church, remain on this foundation the gates of hell will not prevail against us.
After the message, Steve and I went down front to talk with Dr. Moore. It was here that I learned of at least ten different characteristics, beliefs, and qualities that we hold in common.

1. We both shake with the right hand.
2. We both have names.
3. We are both from the south.
4. We are both good looking fellers.
5. We have both met my brother.
6. We both drove to the meeting.
7. We are both Southern Baptists.
8. We wear shoes.
9. The ESV seems to be our preferred translation.
10. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Proclaiming The New Covenant (2 Corinthians 4:1-6)

Introduction: In Chapter 3:7-18, Paul contrasts the Old and New Covenants. He calls the Old Covenant a ministry of death, while he calls the New Covenant a ministry of the Spirit. Paul does nothing to take away the glory of the Old Covenant, instead, he does the opposite. He tells of the glory of the Old Covenant, a glory that when Moses descended Mount Sinai, he had to cover his face, because of the glory that shone as he had been in the presence of God. But whatever glory the Old covenant had is far surpassed in the New. This is why, Paul says, “We use great boldness of speech.” Not like Moses, who hid the glory of the Old Covenant by the veil over his face, but by the clear preaching of the Gospel. And as the Gospel is preached we are beholding the Glory of the Lord, and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.
I. The Open Proclamation Of The Gospel 1-2

A. The Privilege Of Proclaiming
B. The Renunciation Of Trickery
C. The Commendation Of Truth

II. The Veiling Of The Gospel 3-4

A. Those Who Are Perishing
B. The God Of This Age Matt 11:25, Rom 11:8-10, 1 John 5:19, Eph 2:2
C. What Is Hidden? The Glory Of Christ

III. The Revelation Of The Gospel 5-6

A. We Preach Christ
B. A Supernatural Work
Just as God has called everything into existence ex nihilo, He has called His elect out to be a kind of firstfruits of His new creation. He has called those whom He foreknew, not based upon their good works, because they are fallen creatures, and incapable of any sort of works that are pleasing to Him, but out of the nothingness of our fallen selves He has created us unto good works.
We may express our wonder at the created order, the galaxies and wideness of creation, or the glory of God that is seen in the smallest insect in the minute detail and complex order that exists within it’s small shell. But for the Christian, the work of redemption is every bit as breathtaking, every bit as glorious, every bit as lovely as any other supernatural work of God. We intend to give God as much glory in this supernatural work of salvation as we give Him for His equally supernatural work of Creation.
C. The Goal Of The Gospel
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” (Isa 40:1-9)

Conclusion: We gaze intently upon the glory of God as we look into the face of Christ by reading (devotionally), hearing (preaching), seeing (in the ordinances), and speaking (meditating upon) the Gospel. The Gospel is not a commendation of our own selves, but the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Christ. This leaves no room for boasting, for, “Salvation is of the Lord.”

Losing my Religion Redux part 5

Awaking from my tryptophan induced coma I realized that the passage of time had exceeded my planned vacation from blog posting. So to remedy this I have decided to finish the history of my migration from Dispensationalism to Reformed Theology. Of which I am sure some are saying: Finally!

Well I ate it all up. I picked up all of Hal Lindsey’s books I bought a Ryrie study bible. All my answers in any bible study I consulted the notes before I ventured any answers. The pastor at the church was an old time Southern Baptist and under his influence I was rebaptized (which I am sure relieves any concerns of my Baptist brothers since I started out a Lutheran) and things continued on like that for quite some time and then the church split. I went with the separatists since I thought their reasoning was more scriptural. But the church they formed didn’t last so I wound up at a little Bible Church (Again Baptist only not called that. I mean really have you ever seen any “non-denominational” “bible” churches that practice paedobaptism?) whose pastor was a teacher at the local bible school ( it eventually would become Moody Northwest). It was there I met Ted Campbell.

Now Ted was a student at the bible school with ideas about becoming a missionary to Ireland. And he taught karate. I had always screwed around with martial arts and I had hesitated from doing anything like that again because of some teachings I had received that taught that bowing that happened in karate classes was the worship of false gods. (Charismatic influences). But Ted assured me that what he taught was divorced from eastern philosophy and was in fact an American version of T’ang Soo Do. There wasn’t a Buddhist shrine, nobody bowed to the founders photo, in fact the only bows were to the instructor and the American flag. So I sat in and yes there was nothing that offended my conscience so I became a pupil. I prospered under the teachings until I gained the rank of first gup (red with two stripes equivalent to a third degree brown belt for Japanese systems; just under a black belt rank) but injuries kept me from attaining my black belt. (Someone I was sparring, full contact, took my knee and turned it around 180 degrees, makes it difficult if not impossible to do the jump kicks when the knee won’t hold up.) I also went with Ted and did demonstrations where we would break bricks and wood and Ted would give his testimony. That was my ministry for a number of years. It ended when Ted’s marriage dissolved.

It was around that time that I was wandering through the local Christian book store and I spotted this title:

Dispensationalism: Rightly dividing the people of God? by Keith Mathison.

I don’t know why I picked this book up. For that matter I don’t know why this book was in that particular store since it carries mostly dispensational theology books. And hardly any books of substance. You know the type a million Rick Warren and Joel Osteen and maybe one by R.C. Sproul and the only reason its there is because I put it on hold.

But I picked it up and I decided to buy it and read it. And I got mad. I mean really how dare this, this Mathison fellow tell me that the last decade of my life was based upon a faulty theology. So I reread it, I mean if your going to rebut and argument you have to know the argument right? (I realize that isn’t the popular theory now [take a look at the guys debating Steve Hays and Paul Manata at Triablogue for the latest theory in practice] but its how I was taught back in the stone age) So I read it again. And then I did something I had never done before I read about the history of the Christian church. That was a mistake Christian History tended to agree with Keith Mathison’s statement about the age of Dispensational theology. Well then I started to really examine the Bible verses that Mathison had used, I mean really examine them. And I wasn’t really comforted by what I was reading. It didn’t seem to follow what I had previously been taught. In fact it seemed to be the direct opposite. Yet there it was in the Word of God. So I bought another book by R.C. Sproul and I read that, and I realized that “salvation was of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). This caused me to re-evaluate what I had been taught about Man’s free will. I knew I no longer believed that. During this time I started searching the Internet for Reformed Theology. And I came across some great websites. They had things like Jonathen Edwards, and John Owens works on them. They ruined me. I could no longer hold to Dispensationalism and the dystopian world view that taught me that all of God’s purposes end up in failure. (Check it out for yourself, why do the dispensations end? Does anyone really pass the test? Even in the millennium?) Instead I saw the progressive revelation of God to man that would culminate in His glorious restoration of all things into what they were originally and even better.

Well that settled it for me. So I knew I had to make a change. Now, here’s a clue for those of you persuaded to change your views. Don’t do what I did. I went home and started examining all my books everything that was obviously dispensational in its view (all of Lindsey’s books say) I threw out. This tends to to make the wife look at you strangely especially if everytime you toss a book you are muttering “Crap, its all crap.” With a strange gleam in your eyes. Not the best way to do things, your wife may think you’ve gone over the edge.

And that is how I became Reformed.

Why?

Why do we as Christians think that we are living a good Christian life as long as other Christians are unaware of our sin and shortcomings?
Why do we accept a “performance based” Christianity?
Why don’t we realize that we still sin and fall short of the glory of God?
Why do I feel like a good person of I think I haven’t done anything “really bad” today, when the Bible says that in my flesh even my good works are as filthy rags in God’s sight?
Why don’t we walk in the light and be honest about our mistakes, failures and sin?
Why do we want others to think we are someone who is holy and pious, when it is only by the righteousness of Jesus that we are blameless in the eyes of God?
Why do we get upset at our fellow believers when they ever so slightly sin against us?
Why can’t we see that it’s only by God’s grace that we didn’t do the same thing to them?
Why can’t we have a more honest Christianity in America, instead of the fake shell of flesh-produced psuedoholiness?

Why can’t we have a more Gospel-centered/cross-centered Christianity?
One that daily looks to the Gospel as a foundation for our lives, the hope of our salvation (past, present & future) and the answer to our sinfulness… and not the shifting sands of self-righteousness that produces a performance based, man-centered Christianity.

Why?

Thankful For Pain

I’m not a masochist. I don’t enjoy pain. In fact, I don’t like pain at all. And in one sense, I could see how the title of this post might seem a bit ridiculous. Isn’t pain a product of the fall? Isn’t it part of the curse? To both of these questions I must give an unequivocal answer of, “Yes.” Pain is part of the curse. But even in this part of the curse we can be thankful for God’s mercy of pain.

In a world where death, decay, sickness, and sin do not exist, pain would have no merit at all. It would be an unnecessary evil. But in the fallen world in which we live, a world riddled with death, decay, sickness, and sin, pain can be a blessing. It can be a merciful blessing from the hand of the Creator.

While some would rather argue over the so-called ‘problem’ of pain, I would like to point out first of all, that pain is not a problem. I have no problem whatsoever reconciling the existence of pain with the creative acts of God in a created world that has rebelled against Him. Pain is just. In fact, it is merciful because it is not all that we really deserve. We all deserve much worse. And yet God in his forbearance has granted that we not immediately go into the bottomless chasm of pain, the place that does await each and every human who refuses to bow the knee to Christ as Sovereign Lord, He has instead granted us this gentle reminder of earthly, temporal pain, that teaches us to bow our knee to Christ now.
He has given pain to point to Himself as our Savior.

Pain is also a mercy because it points to potential decay here and now. When we get the flu and our bodies ache with pain we know that it is time to see the doctor. When we place our hand on a hot stove, pain is there to tell us to remove our hand from the burning element. Pain protects us from an early death by presenting itself in varying degrees, telling us to turn the saw off, pull our finger from the light socket, or sit down after breaking a leg.

Finally, pain is a mercy because it points Christians back to Christ. It points us to the One who endured pain as no other being has ever endured. Christ suffered not only at the hands of rebellious men, but also at the hand of an angry God. He endured wrath that Christians will never know, and the reason He endured that pain was so that all who trust in Him would never have to experience that pain.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for pain. Not because of an overly romantic notion of pain and strength, but because God has allowed it for our good and His glory.

Losing My Religion Redux part 4

I have to say that I am rather surprised by the response to this I really don’t think of this as important as what Jeremy writes. Or what D.J has posted. But to continue:

While attending this church they offered a class in Sunday School called “God’s Plan For the Ages”. I was told that this would explain God’s working through the ages. This intrigued me as I had never heard of this before. So I signed up for the class which was to last three months. So in March of 1980 I walked into class with my bible and a open mind. The first thing they handed out was a map reproduced here:

This blew me away I had never seen anything like this before. I was excited, this seem to outline the whole of recorded history as regards to the bible, in a neat and concise manner. I was told that there were seven distinct dispensations and during each dispensation Man was given a test and how he responded to that test determined whether or not he was saved.

Now let me state right now that most of the Dispensationalists that I have talked to since I was first taught this do state that what I just wrote isn’t what is currently being taught. Most do assert that salvation is entirely by grace and that during the various dispensations that people were saved by grace. However, I spent a long two weeks listening once again to the tapes that I have kept from that teaching and I can state that what I previously written was what was being taught. Now the best I can say about this is that it is more like classical Scofieldian Dispensationalism than say what Ryrie had reconstructed Dispensationalism into or what is now Progressive Dispensationalism.

One of the most stirring memories of this time was when the teacher said “You should all be glad that we are living right now in the dispensation of Grace (aka the Church Age) because during the next dispensation, the Kingdom Age, the millennium, we will be judged by our very thoughts! Anyone who has a thought against Christ will be struck down dead!” Can you imagine this? The millennial reign being a source of terror to some.

Well I took it all in. This was the truth of Bible to me. Now in my naïveté I had no idea about the history of Dispensationalism I thought it was standard Protestant theology. This is what Luther had taught right? So when it came to studying the Old Testament it was always through the lens of which dispensation was going on at the time. Same with the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all had been the teaching of Christ during the Law dispensation so that it didn’t apply now it would apply during the millennial reign of Christ. What was applicable to me now was the Pauline letters (not Peter, Jude, or John they were for the Jewish Christians) because Paul was the apostle to the gentiles and the Church was that mystery that had never been talked about at all in the Old Testament.

To be continued…

Post Script: I’m trying to finish this by Thanksgiving or right after.

Biblical Pattern For Reformation

I’m still planning on writing a recommendation for Turning Back the Darkness: The Biblical Pattern of Reformation, but go ahead and by it now.
In the meantime, here’s a good quote;

“If you look up the noun reformation in your concordance, you will not be impressed by the results. In the New International Version (NIV), the word does not occur at all; int he King James Version (KJV) it occurs just once; and in the New American Standard Bible (NASB) it is also found only one time (Heb. 9:10)…By this standard reformation must not really be a biblical concept, or not an important one anyway. The prospects for discerning a biblical pattern seem dim at this point.
There are, however, two other words that describe what reformation is all about, and they are repeatedly encountered in the Scripture. These words are remember and repent. That is what reformation is-remembering God and His saving work and His authoritative Word, repenting from unfaithfulness in heart and in action and to the pattern God established through His Word when He formed a people for Himself. It is in the use of terms such as these that reformation occurs all though the Bible, defining faithfulness in every generation.
One of the great reformation texts is found in the opening chapters of the book of Revelation, the letters to the seven churches from the Lord Jesus Christ…Ephesus was the mother church of these seven, and in the first of the letters Jesus praises this important congregation:

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.-Rev. 2:2-3

The next paragraph, verses 4-5, presents a well-developed definition of reformation, establishing it firmly as a mandate from the Lord:

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Reformation, as we see it biblically defined and commanded by the risen and exalted Lord Jesus Himself, consists of both holding fast to what we have received from God and the ongoing work of repenting and conforming to His Word in every area and aspect of our lives.”
Richard D. Phillips, Turning Back The Darkness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 17-18.

While We’re Waiting On Peter To Finish His Yarn…

I need some exegetical commentary recommendations on 1 and 2 Samuel. Thanks.

Losing my Religion Redux part 3

I had decided to go to the local community college and get a degree in electronics. It seemed the best idea to support my growing family. By then my wife and I already had a son and my daughter was on the way. While there, still not attending church, I met a man who would become one of my dearest friends. His name is Bruce Hogan and I thank God every day that He allowed Bruce to come into my life. Indeed it is evidence of God’s providential hand in my life that Bruce was one of the people that was part of my class in electronics. Bruce was the only Christian in the entire group besides myself. And I was a poor specimen of Christian.

One day in lab I said to Bruce (and he remembers differently than I but then he is a kinder towards me than I deserve) a flippant remark about seeing him “Here, there or in the air.” Do you remember that trite phrase? Even now I shudder while remembering what I would say to brothers in the Lord. As if the coming return of Christ was something to say in a flippant manner. Well needless to say Bruce’s’ head swiveled around and he fixed upon me his gaze. Now I admit that my language in that room wouldn’t have pointed me out as a Christian. I was just as foul mouthed as some of the others. But of all the garbage I might have spewed that was something that was totally out of character for who Bruce thought I was. (unregenerate pagan)

Now Bruce had two things working for him, he was a former Marine and he had been trained by the Navigators. He would need both to whip me into shape. And once he ascertained that I was indeed a born again Christian he knew that I had never been discipled in my entire life. Then setting his face like flint he discipled me. And I made his life miserable, and he loved me. I told him to go to hell and he said: “Sorry, that isn’t possible for me anymore or for you.” And he loved me some more. All the time pointing out things in the Word. Having a Bible study with me during lunch. Helping me memorize verses. And encouraging my wife and I to go to church. Which we did.

It was at Bruce’s church that I was formally training into Dispensational Theology.

To be continued…