Summer months

So what have we been up to this summer:

*moving. we settled into our new house here in Omaha, NE. Still a lot to do, but there is time to do it.

*family. Lots of family activities. It has been wonderful to see so many family members in bulk this summer. what a blessing.

*Licensure. I was brutalized by the written portion of the exam, having about a week and a half to complete it (it was about 25 pages). And now I am in the throes of preparing for the oral examination and preaching before the presbytery.

*Gearing up for internship. I start officially this Monday (8/3) with many preaching duties. very blessed.

*enjoying some omaha music. yea, i got reacquainted with some ol' omaha troubadours the other night. i caught a great show with pals simon joyner and steve bartolomei. omaha still has an edge on any songwriter scene in the country, maybe i'll get to play some...ive still got the myspace up here.

*yes, still enjoying Isaiah. he's cuter and bigger everyday. hopefully we can get some pictures up.

Great Post

Here is a great post on why Reformed churches baptize babies, which is for entirely different reasons than Lutherans and Roman Catholics. I started a blog series on baptism awhile back, maybe this will help inspire me to continue.

Ministering to those coming out of Rome

Yesterday George Lucas (no not that George Lucas) was sworn in as the fifth Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Omaha. The ceremony took place literally right out my window. I minister at a Presbyterian church right across the street from the historic St. Cecilia's cathedral here in Omaha, NE which is where the hoopla was occuring.

The whole thing caused me to reflect on how at our church we get a lot of burned out ex-Roman Catholics that need to be ministered to. Many are confused, frustrated, buried in guilt, etc. Anyway, it causes myself and those I minister alongside to be very mindful of the teachings of Rome and how we, as Reformed-catholics, differ. Many that we minister to come to understand the doctrines of grace and immediately latch hold of vital truths taught plainly in the Bible, others struggle with the role of tradition and how it plays into the function of the church. This latter issue is one I had to read much on in seminary, and one I continue to explain to many needing answers. So I thought I would post a few thoughts critiquing what I believe to be an error in Roman thought.

The Roman Catholic church has two primary understandings of church tradition within her tradition at the current time. One view of tradition was laid out at the Council of Trent, the other was put forth at the First Vatican Council. The first view of tradition current in Roman Catholic thought espouses that tradition is a second source of revelation, and the other main view is that the magisterium of the church, as voiced by the pope when he speaks ex cathedra is infallible and is considered the one real source of revelation. These two positions co-exist side by side in the Roman tradition (Heiko Oberman calls the former tradition II and the later tradition III).

As Keith Mathison explains, the first view of tradition is problematic for a number of reasons. One, tradition in Rome can be defined as the unwritten tradition of the apostles. It is impossible to verify everything Paul or Peter said apart from what they wrote down. However, Rome claims that this process has been possible because of the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. The tradition, she argues, was not passed on by fallible men but an infallible church. Mathison is quick to point out the circularity of this claim. You see, it is only on the authority of tradition that Rome can claim infallibility, yet infallibility is required in order to guarantee the truth of the tradition to which Rome appeals. This is circular.

Second, the intervention of God upon unwritten tradition is simply assumed by Rome. There is no way to objectively verify this as there is with the written tradition of the apostles found in Scripture. Mathison explains that, it is only on the authority of tradition that this divine intervention is taught, and yet the intervention is necessary in order to trust the tradition which teaches it. This is a vicious circle.

More than that a simple read of history shows how Rome hasn't even hesitated to explicitly state that her tradition is not the teaching of the apostles. In Session V of the council of Trent, the Roman church made the following declaration in the decree concerning original sin:

This concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin. And if anyone is of a contrary sentiment, let him be anathema.

This is quite a statement. This is basically an admission that the Roman church has never understood concupiscence in the way that the Apostle Paul admittedly understood sin. This is a clear and explicit example of tradition undermining the authority of scriptural teaching, even though of course, no one in Rome would want to say that, even though their council does.

So those are just some initial thoughts on that issue. But another related issue that I think is important to understand is the issue of how both Rome and Reformed folk claim scripture to be infallible but yet Reformed churches do not claim the church to be infallible. Many have trouble with this. But it should be observed the difference between infallibility and innerrancy. Infallibility is the inability to ever err, or be in error, it is a quality. Innerrancy means the actual absence of error. Reformed churches believe it is entirely in accord with common sense and scripture that a fallible body of people can make innerrant statements. Mathison brings up the example of "2+2=4." That is innerrant, yet I am a fallible human being. Reformed people have a high view of church tradition. We believe God has used the fallible church, one that can make errors and has made errors, to make innerrant statements, which we also believe it has. The difference between Rome is that we believe the Scriptures are the only inherently infallible source of divine revelation, thus it is the standard which the church is to be judged by, with tradition as a helpful guide.

Yet the Roman church claims that for the church to have an infallible Bible, the infallible church had to have closed the infallible canon. But it stands to reason that this is simply not the case historically, nor does it stand to common sense. This is clearly illustrated by the Jews as Mathison points out so well. The infallible OT canon was created and preserved and closed by the Jews, who were obviously fallible. Rome believes the OT is part of the infallible canon, and she also believes that the Jews were very fallible in that they rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet it was the church of the OT (Rome uses this terminology) that wrote, formed, and preserved the OT canon. I'll let Mathison take it from here with this lengthy quote that really nails this point:

The point is that the fallible Jewish Church was entrusted with the OT books for around fifteen hundred years and through God's providential guidance managed to preserve an inerrant canon, so there is no prima facie reason why we cannot believe that God could entrust the NT canon to a fallible NT church. How does this happen apart from an infalible decree from an infallible church council telling the people of God which books are truly the word of God? Jesus said His sheep hear His voice and do not hear the voice of strangers (John 10:4-5). Apart from such supernatural providential intervention there is no way to explain the extent of unanimity that gradually arose concerning the 27 canonical books of the NT.

The criticisms of Protestantism on the issue of the canon made by Rome do not even fit the actual historical process by which the NT canon came into existence. Madrid and many other Roman apologists claim that unless we have an infallible church infallibly declare what books are canonical and what books are not, we cannot have an authoritative scripture. But what actually happened in history? If such an infallible decree is necessary, why do we not find Rome, the pope, or a council "infallibly" telling the church what the canon is for centuries? There are local synods in Hippo in AD 393, and in Carthage in AD 397 and in AD 419 that deal with the question. But Rome did not authoritatively define the canon at these councils. There were still scattered questions about particular books for the next thousand years. The book of Laodiceans, for example, is found in early medieval editions of the Vulgate and in different translations into the 15th century. Where is the dogmatic declaration of Rome that is said to be necessary for the church?

Rome's criticisms of Protestantism are then self-destructive because the Western Church existed for fifteen hundred years before Rome acutally did what Rome claims is ablsolutely necessary to have a certain scriptural authority in the church [...] Dr. Roger Nicole says the best way to describe the way we know the canon is 'the witness of the Holy Spirit given corporately to God's people and made manifest by an early unanimous acceptance of the NT canon in Christian churches.' The unanimity is not due to coincidence, and it is not due to centuries of conciliar decrees; it is due to the action of the Holy Spirit enabling God's people to hear his voice.

I would add to those points that if the church had no scriptural authority for fifteen hundred years. How was there a church? How does Rome believe that God would supernaturally oversee the preservation of the church for fifteen hundred years without any verifiable, objective revelation? Of course they circularly appeal to tradition which has contradicted itself many times and has no verifiable data.

So Reformed people believe in tradition. We believe the dead should vote. Which of the dead do we give priority to vote? The apostles. How do they vote? By what they wrote down for the church for all ages in Scripture. That is the primary vote of the dead. It seems to me then the difference is that Reformed people believe in the Holy Spirit's preservation of God's word from error through fallible people, which can be verified by history, and seen promised in the scripture, but Rome believes that the Holy Spirit preserves church tradition from error which is only verified by history (yet is clearly and flatly falsified by history, i'll try to post some examples later).

Well, maybe i'll post more in days to come. This can hopefully wet your appetite. My Mathison quotes come from his book "The Shape of Sola Scriptura" if you are interested. I should add that we here at Harvest befriend many Roman Catholics and we believe there are true Christians within her walls (a view that recent Roman pronoucements do not seem to reciprocate toward protestant churches). We pray fervently that God would grant repentance to the Roman church abroad and next door. We sincerely hope that those in the Roman communion would come to see the error of their ways. Our God is in heaven and does what he pleases, it would really be a small thing for him to convince the pope of true biblical doctrine, even though that seems like a big thing for us. Just look at Paul's conversion story in Acts, a most vigorous enemy of the church turned into one of her greatest servants...

Brief Addendum

Dovetailing off my post titled "you are nowhere" regarding place relative to divine revelation, I thought I would add that yesterday Rebecca and I randomly saw an old acquaintance at an old coffee shop. When we told said acquaintance that we moved back to Nebraska they said, "well, what did you do that for," followed by a half-joking scowl. It immediately popped into my mind how when we first landed in San Diego and told some new acquaintances that we moved to the area, we were greeted with, "well, what took you so long," followed by a smirky grin. Point illustrated again;0

Coming Soon...

Super excited about this.

Call me an extremist, but...

I think the most significant issue for the American church is being discussed right now over at this blog. The blog features a review of Jason Stellman's (fellow WSC alumni now, and PCA pastor) new book due out soon called "Dual Citizens" which is by and large about the historic Reformed doctrine of the two kingdoms (first espoused by Augustine and other church fathers and recovered and expanded by the reformers). I have had many talks about this doctrine with folks, and read a lot about the topic, and I can assure you, in the next year there are some heavyweight books scheduled to drop that will thoroughly and persuasively get this biblical doctrine back into the American Christians vocabulary and conscience. You can call me an extremist, but I think this doctrine might be the most vital thing for the American church to recover (except those churches of course which do not understand the gospel, specifically justification by faith alone). There are a vast amount of systemic, and in my oppinion toxic, implications for other notions of the relationship between the church and the world. I would urge anyone reading to pick up a copy of Stellman's book. Perhaps reading the blog posts about the book will wet your appetite.

He's Drn Cute

And guess what, we get to keep him!

Myspace music

So I caved in and posted a myspace site with a bunch of tunes Ill probably never record in high quality. Anyway, Ill post a bunch and then shut down the site. If you want to download the songs, feel free. The site is here.

Great Post

Dr. Clark over at the Heidelblog has a great post about this week's episode of the White Horse Inn. I am so grateful to God for these guys and these episodes. These guys absolutely nail the truth, and clarify so much of what gets distorted by Rome and muddled in evangelicalism. Read the post and listen to the episode.

The great EP preview

Matt Haeck and the Quiet Light have posted their new EP due out in the fall. Seriously, dig it, Matt has done an excellent job.

You Are Nowhere

The sky was swelling up a storm and our little jalopy putted into a roadside gas station in North Platte Nebraska. I was all groggy, as I still am currently, and I stumbled up to the counter to prepay on pump 1. I got up to the counter and an ill-shaven desk clerk the size of a pro-wrestler was watching soaps on a fuzzed out black and white TV with severe storm warnings covering half the screen. Hanging behind the counter were some beer ads and hunting hats, and plopped right in the middle of those there was a shirt with the slogan "You Are Nowhere." The clerk told me the shirt could be mine for a mere $15. I chuckled louder than he smirked, but decided against buying the sage tee.

The rest of our trip back to Omaha I have thought about that extra-large shirt at the gas station. Where have I taken my family? Where are we? Why would people say that about where they live?

Well, the shirt reminded me of how the midwest has a way of being self-deprecating. You would never see this shirt in Southern California. The weather folks in SoCal sometimes begin their faux-cast with, "lets see what's going on in paradise today." If the midwest knows something of its own despair, SoCal is not immune to its bulky pride of place.

All of which had me thinking about place, and the importance of place. We all have our different addresses, we all, by necessity, are somewhere. We are a located, situated, human race. So even though I didn't buy the t-shirt, I think at first I bought into the message. What do I mean? Well, I read the tee and my inward man mumbled, "got that right." But then I thought, if the midwest, and particularly Omaha, NE believes it is nowhere, if it believes it is a gaping gap, a formless void, a piece of negative space, what am I doing here?

Well, the question has to be answered, "Nowhere relative to what?" As I thought about this, I feel the 'nowhere' believed to be the address of the midwest has something to do with being discontent. I do live nowhere if somewhere involves mountains, beaches, 'culture centers', etc. Everyone asks us, "why did you move here?" And thus we think a lot about that. Did we really move nowhere?

The answer is no. We moved to a place. We moved to a place where a door for effective work has graciously opened for me. A place where the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth is gathering in his elect, a place where the forces of darkness are being subdued by ambassadors of light, that invisible war. We moved to a place that needs the gospel. We moved to a place that veers towards dispair, depression, thievery, darkness, Roman superstition. In essence, we moved to another place that is most properly mapped by divine revelation as a door for effective ministry. For the Christian, this world is not our home. We are just passing through. We are pilgrims on the way. Omaha is another passing city. As Christians who live in this place, this 'somewhere' in need of the gospel, we must take a glance at this place with a vision of sowing and reaping, a most apt metaphor for a place dependent on crops to survive. No, our goal is not to transform this city, redeem this city, or claim this city for Christ. Christ rules everything including Omaha. But he rules all things in two distinct ways. He rules the church as redeemer with his special grace, he rules the world as creator under common grace.

As a church, we always are citizens in two kingdoms. Rebecca and I must change our earthly residency to Nebraska. But our ultimate citizenry belongs in the kingdom of God. And what is great about this is that the church is not just a people, but it is a place. Every Lord's Day we are called to worship by a loving heavenly father to enter into the ministry of the kingdom of God. This place we enter into on Sunday builds and equips the Christian to carry out their vocations they practice Monday through Saturday in the other kingdom. The Christian then receives on Sunday so that they can go serve and love their neighbor Monday-Saturday. This is the wisdom of God regarding the two kingdoms his people live in.

So whether the place we live considers itself a 'nowhere' or a 'paradise' we must always remember that everywhere on our maps is now identified as places of transition, it is fleeting, it is upheld by our gracious God to serve the purposes of his eternal kingdom. Even though people say we moved to nowhere, the map of divine revelation indeed knows Nebraska as a somewhere. A somewhere with an open door for the gospel to go forth by the power of the Spirit to reconcile all men to the living God. This keeps me from despair of place, and pride of place. This world is in the midst of a passing age. Every place is now marked by 'kingdom advancement' whether it be Jerusalem, Judea, or the utter most parts of the planet, even this most peculiar of cities that ends in a laugh. A place that may fancy itself a void, and thus a place needing to be called out of that dark story into the great story that is afoot even now. That story of sinners being ransomed by the blood of the God-man. Here there is hope wherever you live. A psalm can be then be sung. A pilgrim song, making disciples while traversing this earth wherever the Lord wills. You are somewhere and you are there for a reason. A grand reason, a reason far greater than either you or I can comprehend.

...So this hit me as the rain started to lighten while Rebecca and I sat on the porch of the house where we now reside. Smiles came again. The gift of our child remains gift, Rebecca's heart warm, and Omaha can once again be called home, for now...