October Days

Here's to the longest month and how it went by so fast.  To babies, boats, fall leaves, the islands of the upper NW, local brew, local church, and to the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of it all.

Luther in His Own Words

Listen to Martin Luther in his own, unabridged words here (ht: Johannes Weslianus).

The Weekly Argus

Below are the highlights from this week's Sheriff's Report:

1) Oct. 12-8:21 a.m.- A resident of the Sedro-Woolley area requested a check on a dog that had been in the neighbor's backyard for the past four days.  No one had been seen around the property for a week.

2) Oct. 12-1:47 p.m.- A caller from Cape Horn reported he had purchased a vehicle from an individual who now said he wanted it back.

There you have it.

Around the Web

1)  There are some conference audios available from the recent "kingdom of God conference" hosted by St. Johns Reformed church in Lincoln, NE.

2) All kinds of Feist sightings around.  The new album is growing on me.  Great Letterman performance.  And man, a secret Venica, CA show, epic, love Venice.  Gotta get the story on those background singers, and their jeans.

3) And hey, want to get pumped about Reformation Day?  Check out Steve Lawson's series of posts over at the Ligonier site.

4) Saw the above picture floating around the net and found it amusing.

Receiving the Sacrament of Common Grace

 The term Sacrament can be understood broadly and narrowly.  As Calvin says, “In the broad sense it refers to all those signs which God has enjoined upon men to render them more certain and confident in the truth of his promises.”[1]

So how does a rainbow fit into this scheme?  Calvin goes on to say:

When [rainbows] were inscribed by God’s Word a new form was put upon them, so that they began to be what previously they were not.  That no one may think these things said in vain, the rainbow even today is a witness to us of that covenant the Lord made with Noah.  As often as we look upon it, we read this promise of God in it, that the earth will never be destroyed by a flood.  Therefore, if any philosopher, to mock the simplicity of our faith, contends that such a variety of colors naturally arises from rays reflected upon a cloud opposite, let us admit it, but laugh at his stupidity in failing to recognize God as the lord and governor of nature, who according to his will uses all the elements to serve his glory.  If he had imprinted such reminders upon the sun, stars, earth, stones, they would all be sacraments for us…cannot God mark with his Word the things he has created, that what were previously bare elements may become sacraments?[2]

Indeed, a few days ago we were treated to the sacrament of common grace here in the beautiful Northwest.  You can watch our video here.  If you look closely you can see that a double-rainbow formed at one point.  I fancy it that God knows the amount of rain we get here, and so a double promise is needed to assure us Seattle and Skagit stay land.  Praise God for his true and lasting promises.

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[1] Calvin, Institutes, 4.4.18

[2] Ibid.

The Weekly Argus

One of the simple joys of my life at this time is turning to the back page of one of Skagit Valley's weekly rags to read the weekly Sheriff's Report.  The rag is called the Argus.  And below are my weekly top 5 highlights of the Sheriff's Report, which are printed verbatim for your enjoyment.

1) Sept. 22, 3:10am- A caller in Clear Lake reported seeing flashlights and hearing the sound of a drill

2) Sept. 23, 8:07am- A caller in the Sedro-Woolley area reported an ongoing problem with her neighbor's goats entering her yard.

3) Sept. 25, 4:44am- A woman sitting on the front porch of a home on Cape Horn Road said she was lost.

4) Oct. 5, 8:47am- A caller in the Mount Vernon area reported a large television left in a field near the caller's residence.  The caller did not know whether the TV was lost, dumped, or stolen.

5) Oct. 7, 12:11pm- A caller at Lyman Elementary School reported that an old female husky kept coming onto school grounds and leaving large droppings.

A Northwest Fall

Resurgence Does Westminster

Over at the Resurgence blog, they have a mini-blog puff on the Westminster Confession of Faith.  This, of course, makes this Presbyterian happy.  One of the great joys of my life has been coming into contact with historic Christianity, and realizing that God the Spirit has done wonderful things in his church in more than just the past five years.

The Westminster Confession is one of the big bright spots in church history.  It is a consensus document that was pounded out over the better part of 10 years (the confession along with the catechisms) and represents a remarkable summary of the vital system of doctrine that is contained in the Holy Scriptures.

I am grateful to be a part of a church communion that has adopted these Standards as her own.  The Orthodox Presbyterian Church is a confessionally Reformed church, and our confession is an adopted version of the Westminster Confession.  More than just admiration, we use our confession to guide us in our faith and practice.  Scripture is the only infallible rule of any Christian's faith and practice, and yet the confessions of the church serve as secondary, subservient authorities.

If you want to learn more about the Westminster Confession, by a church communion that has adopted those standards, check out the OPC's stuff here (not even resurgence offered the confession on kindle, ipad, and palm...who's with it?).  Also, check out Robert Letham's book on the assembly here.  And if you're really awesome you should check out the amazing work of OP minister Chad Van Dixhoorn here.

What Is the Mission of the Church?

If the theological high ground for Protestants separating from the western church at the time of the Reformation was nothing less than the gospel (and I believe it was), it seems that Protestants of various stripes have had trouble reaching that same high plateau in our day in attempts to legitimate their various differences.  Yet, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any principled justifications given by different groups for separating from churches, there are.  And it seems like one place of high ground these days being espoused at the denominational level, as well as at the local level, for separating from churches and for planting and starting churches apart from already established churches is, dare I say it, mission.

Even my own communion, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, likes to champion missions and evangelism as our reason for existence.  Yet, in the case of the origins of the OPC, it was clear that the missions issue was unavoidably connected with the gospel issue.  The missionaries in the mainline church weren’t preaching the gospel.  This is not to suggest that the affair wasn’t messy, and that there weren’t other reasons for the separation.  But it is to say that it isn’t too hard to argue that the gospel was at stake in the formation of the OPC.

However, when other groups pull out the “mission card” these days in order to justify their existence, it is not entirely clear what is meant.  Where did the churches from whence these groups arose go wrong?  If one church is preaching the gospel, yet someone plants another church nearby that preaches the gospel, and says that they are different because they are on “mission”, what does that mean? 

If the logic is that “established” churches disciple christians, but the new church is going to try and reach the lost, than the inference is that the said established church doesn’t care about reaching the lost, or at the very least that its not as “effective” in doing so.  Sometimes this goes hand-in-hand with the so-called demographic reason that “our parents’ church reached their generation, but our new church is trying to reach a different generation.” 

All this to say, it seems odd for such a thing as “missions” to be so divisive, or at the very least, cited as reason to no longer be in visible communion with other brothers and sisters in Christ, because “we’re going to go reach the lost now.”

The crux of the matter then becomes, “what is the mission of the church?”  which happens to be the title of Kevin DeYoung’s & Greg Gilbert’s new book recently published by Crossway.

As DeYoung and Gilbert state at the outset, the question as to the mission of the church is, “deceptively complex and potentially divisive.”[1]  Moreover, it is an issue that is hot right now in evangelicalism, and thus books such as this one can only be expected.

The thesis of DeYoung and Gilbert’s book is that the mission of the church is simply, the Great Commission that Christ gave the disciples in Matthew 28:18-20.

Indeed, the Great Commission is the lodestar for any theology of mission.  Yet the exact content of the Great Commission, and its appropriate implications, seems to be the rub.  DeYoung and Gilbert rightly note the tendency right now in evangelical churches to turn mission into everything, and thus turn mission into nothing.  As Stephen Neill says, “if everything is mission, nothing is mission.”

Now, what may or may not be obvious to the casual evangelical reader, is that DeYoung and Gilbert are simply arguing for traditional Reformed ecclesiology at this point.  Seeing the Great Commission as the purpose of the church is nothing new, it is actually quite old.

Even for those who only pay attention to the “new releases” shelf at the local Christian bookstore, the Great Commission-as-being-missional idea has already been argued 5 minutes ago by Michael Horton in his book The Gospel Commission.[2]

Why another book arguing this thesis?  I’ll let others answer that.

What I can suggest, however, is that DeYoung and Gilbert’s book might stand out more if they asked and answered their question in reverse.  That is, “what is the church on mission?”  As others have pointed out, evangelicals lack an identifiable ecclesiology.[3]  And given that at least DeYoung, a minister in the RCA, has a hearing right now with evangelicals, it seems like there is a golden opportunity.

 

Now DeYoung and Gilbert do provide some instruction on this matter.  After all, the question as to what the church is, cannot be avoided if one is seeking to talk about the church’s mission.

This becomes apparent in the penultimate chapter when the authors finally confess that, “we need to bear in mind that there is a difference between the church considered as a bunch of individual Christians and the church understood as an institution—as an organization of Christians that can and indeed must do some things that individual Christians cannot and indeed should not do.  Perhaps we can talk about these two different entities as ‘the church organic’ and ‘the church institutional.’”[4]

Perhaps too its helpful to realize that the distinction between the church as institution and the church as organism is as old as ants.  And yes, I would agree it is a distinction that would be most helpful for evangelicals to adopt.

What isn’t as clear, however, is how this distinction is supposed to play out in our churches.  DeYoung and Gilbert, while calling evangelicals to center the mission on the Great Commission, don’t want to be heard as saying the institutional church shouldn’t involve herself in community affairs, social justice, and the like.  They write, “we believe that a local church could very well decide that adopting a local school and spending time and resources improving that school is actually a good way—though an indirect one—of furthering their mission of bearing witness to Jesus and making disciples.”[5]

It seems to me that here is the origin of some divergences in reformational circles right now regarding ecclesiology.  Many Emergent’s think social justice is not an indirect, but a direct way of being missional, and thus DeYoung is too narrow.  Folks like Horton would say that perhaps adopting a local school is too broad an activity for the institutional church, but proper for a para-church organization to embark upon.[6]  Perhaps someone like David VanDrunen, who has recently argued that the distinction between the church organic and the church institutional is being misunderstood and misapplied, would represent a third divergence.

In a recent article in Modern Reformation magazine, VanDrunen writes that, “some teach that when individual or groups of believers take up their various vocations in this world and seek to perform them in God-honoring ways, they are the church as ‘organism’ at work.  Scripture never quite describes things in this way and for good reason.”[7]

Instead, VanDrunen argues that even the church “organic” is to be an expression of the whole church that is guided and governed by the ordained officers.  I found this to be an interesting take on an old distinction.  Interesting in that I had never quite heard it put this way before.  Like VanDrunen, I have recently heard the church organism distinction thrown around in a way that basically means, “anything that Christians do outside of worship.” 

But like VanDrunen notes, “when Christians weed, eat, golf, start businesses, or do a myriad of other things as part of their earthly vocations, they must do so as the fruit of faith for God’s glory, and for their neighbor’s good, but it is not the church itself at work.”[8]

Without unpacking what he thinks the so-called organic church looks like when constituted, VanDrunen does say that it has no, “independent sphere of operation.”[9] 

I get the sense then that perhaps the organic church, in VanDrunen’s scheme, might look like fellowship meals after worship, Sunday school classes, hymn sings to prepare before a worship service, etc.  Things directed by the elders, and for the entire congregation.  But it would definitely not be, a group of Christians adopting a school, renovating a strip club, serving meals at a park to the homeless.  Those activities, given VanDrunen’s understanding, are best understood as Christians in the world bearing fruit.

In essence, what I perceive to be the area of divergence then, is what is known as the spirituality of the church.  That is, the Reformed theologians of the 16^th and 17^th Century (and beyond) talked about the church as being the place where the Holy Spirit does its redemptive operations on the covenant community that it is creating and sustaining.  The church is an institution that has been given the task of preaching the word, administering the sacraments, and doing church discipline, nothing more or less.  These are the activities the Spirit has promised to bless.  Now, it seems to be a category that has fallen on hard times.  It sometimes gets associated with the churches slothfulness during the slave-trade era in American history.

However, even if the category has been abused, I would hesitate to neglect its abiding usefulness.  I think it helps us understand the church’s mission, but also the means that God has given the church to carry out its mission.  The church can so often lose its focus and lose the plot, that it simply becomes one more society trying to engage the culture, and transform the world.  Its interesting that just the other day, our local NPR station used that exact motto for its fund drive, “engaging the culture…transforming the world…NPR.”

Which is a why books like Horton’s Gospel Commission and now DeYoung and Gilbert’s Mission of the Church are helpful.  They would be good reads for the elders and deacons of local churches to work through and help them fashion out a healthy church DNA.

I am grateful that there is some contemporary literature trying to refocus the church on word and sacrament ministry.  And I am also grateful there is a dialogue going about the extra-curricular activities as well. 

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[1] Kevin DeYoung & Greg Gilbert, What Is the Mission of the Church?  Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission (Crossway:  Wheaton, IL, 2011), 16.

[2] Michael Horton, The Gospel Commission:  Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples (Baker Books:  Grand Rapids, MI, 2011).

[3] See John G. Stackhouse Jr. Editor, Evangelical Ecclesiology:  Reality or Illusion? (Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Books, 2003).

[4] Mission, 232.

[5] Ibid., 234-35.

[6] Horton, Gospel Commission, 208-9.

[7] David VanDrunen, “The Vocations of Christians and the Ministry of the Church,” Modern Reformation (sept/oct 2011), 24.

[8] Ibid., 25.

[9] Ibid., 26.

The Giver of Gifts

Every time the subject of spiritual gifts arises amongst Christians, I think it is important to agree from the outset that all parties involved should make a good effort to understand the scriptural teaching on the subject.  We need to turn to our highest authority in faith and life, which is the word of God, to instruct us in this matter.  We should not turn to our own subjective experiences, but instead we should turn to the objective and eternal word of life.

We also need humility and the ability to listen to one another. Unfortunately, I often hear well-meaning Christians just pass off the issue without trying to understand the arguments of those with whom they differ.  I see this with cessationists and continuinationists alike.  The discussion needs to be doused with the word, wisdom, and winsomeness. 

This is the case precisely because we are talking about an extraordinary issue.  After all, we are talking about gifts that we believe a holy, transcendent, eternal God has freely given to finite, sinful creatures.  We are talking about things from heaven brought down to earth, things meant to help Christ’s bride on her pilgrim journey to that heavenly Zion. 

Thus, when talking about gifts, charity and genuine engagement should abound, given the glorious nature of these gifts.  If there are gifts, for instance, that cessationists are missing out on, we should want to know, just like a child at Christmas time wants to know that he has opened all his presents.

For starters, I think the terminology used in this discussion needs some clarification.  Let me happily proclaim that I am Reformed and I am Charismatic?  Eh?  Yes, I say this to be deliberately provocative.  Fact is, the word used for gift(s) in the NT is the word charismata.  It is a word with a good degree of flexibility.  Suffice it to say, where the NT talks about the church possessing spiritual charismata, I totally agree! 

As famed Reformed scholar Richard Gaffin has observed, the word charismata (gift) and the word charis (grace) are closely linked in the NT.  Thus, every gift is a manifestation of grace and any manifestation of grace can be termed a gift.

Gaffin then says it well when he writes that:  “Both in its origin and continuation the church exists solely by God’s grace.  The whole church, then, in all its aspects and activities is properly seen as charismatic.”[1]  That’s right, if you are a true church of Christ, you are Charismatic in this broad sense of the word.  Gaffin goes further and writes, “biblically speaking, ‘charismatic’ and ‘Christian’ are synonymous.  The Christian life in its totality is (to be) a charismatic life.  Christ’s church as a whole is the charismatic movement.”[2]  I think its important to bring this aspect out to demonstrate that Reformed churches (so-called cessationists) do believe in the gifts of the Spirit in a big way.

Of course, the discussion is not necessarily over the church being Charismatic in this sense.  The issue then is over the particular gifts known as “sign gifts” or “revelatory gifts”.  That is the issue.  We needn’t lose focus by conflating the matter.  Narrowly defined, when Christians discuss the ideas of cessationism and continuationism, Charismatic and non-Charismatic practices, they are discussing the narrow topic of the relevance of sign-gifts for our day.  The sign-gifts are healings, prophecy, and tongues.  It is these particular gifts that are in view in the discussion.

Godly folk disagree on this issue.  People that strive to live biblically disagree on this issue.  Great exegetes of the word disagree on how to interpret the biblical data on this issue.  Suffice it to say then, each side deserves a hearing.  Also, it is appropriate to point out that the cessationism that most Reformed people would claim to hold, is not one that would die on the hill of cessationism (as articulated here by Michael Horton).  God can work whenever and however he chooses.  Cessationists see God the Spirit promising to work in and through the Word, there is no separation there.  Moreoever, as John Piper as noted, cessationists have a valid point in terms of the validation of God’s work apart from the word.  If someone says they had an ecstatic experience, or were miraculously healed from cancer, or that God spoke to them, there is no way to prove, nor a desire to necessarily falsify that.  There is no objective adjudicatory.  So the cessationist sticks with the Spirit working through the word. The objective, authoritative word of God written is where cessationists hang their hats, yet we do so, realizing that God works in mysterious ways.  Yet we also believe that God, in his ultimate freedom, has bound himself to use ordinary means for his extraordinary purposes.

One final point that I think is sometimes missed in these discussions is the fact that cessationism is concerned about the idea that God is giving new revelation to his people.  The WCF 1.1 says, “for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit [God’s revelation of himself] the same wholly unto writing:  which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.” 

Cessationists aren’t waiting for any new revelation for God’s people, except the glorious and awesome return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Sometimes the discussion is solely about the subjective experience of people.  “God prompted you to do that” some would say, “so see the Holy Spirit hasn’t ceased to work”…or so it goes.  But that really is missing the point.  Reformed people in particular are all about the Holy Spirit, and always have been.  John Calvin is known as the “theologian of the Holy Spirit.”  The Reformed confessions talk a lot about the Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost (Synonyms).  The Westminster Confession mentions the Spirit 32x’s, the Shorter Catechism 10x’s, the Larger Catechism 26x’s, the Heidelberg Catechism 42x’s, the Belgic Confession 44x’s, and the Canons of Dordt 34x’s.  Far from being absent from Reformed theology, the Holy Spirit is well attested in the tradition, and still believed to be doing miraculous things in the present.

I think sometimes people forget that we have wisdom literature in the Bible.  Instead of looking for a voice to speak from heaven (which may be a fancy of your imagination), avail yourself to lady wisdom, she is there to help.

God is indeed the giver of good gifts to his people.  Gifts too numerous to count.  And we should always want to avail ourselves to the gifts he wants his people to have in any given era of history.  Cessationists definitely believe in a strange world, one so strange that the Spirit of God has bound himself to speak and work through simple, ordinary means of extraordinary grace.  That is a strange, miraculous, and glorious world.

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[1] Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Perspectives on Pentecost:  New Testament Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (P&R Publishing:  Phillipsburg, NJ, 1979) 47.

[2] Gaffin, Jr., Perspectives, 48.