Live your theology.

1 Timothy 2:11-15 is a passage of Scripture that has been picked up by all sorts of folks, abused, misused, and mishandled.  It’s justified all sorts of bad theology complete with lives that reflect Jesus poorly because of said theology.

Last Sunday, I preached on the issue showing that Paul’s words to women have been controversial (for different reasons) from the time he wrote them up to today.  Give it a listen if you have a chance and weigh in with what you think about the Women teaching & holding authority.

Sermon Link

Tomorrow: Some more thoughts on education.

Andrew Fisher started a blog, Man’s Chief and Highest End.  If you know Andrew, you’ll want to check it out.  If not, you should get to know him.  Solid dude.

From his blog:

Every time we sin, we take a slash at our relationship with God, which is our life-line. Consider for a minute the affects of sin on our every day life. I think most Christians would agree that when sin comes into your life it has a tangible effect. I would argue that most people don’t even realize just how much their relationship with God matters until they sin. When sin cuts a wedge between ourselves and God its a divide that can be felt. I find myself having the worst days, and being the most discouraged when I have allowed sin to enter into my life, and put a gash in my relationship with God.

Just like a cutter isn’t trying to commit suicide, the Christian isn’t trying to sever their relationship with God (not that they can…Praise God) but they are doing damage to it.

You can tell that Andrew is more serious and scholarly than I am because he used the above image for his post, when I would have gone with this:

Fly Casual? Sure. Worship casual? Well...

Would you consider your worship casual?  Is the way in which you go about worshiping God relaxed?  Sort of a time to chill, not be too heavy.  Just have a good time, stuff like that?  Is the way you worship casual?  Is it, to take words from the Directory of Publick worship a ” grave and seemly manner”, or is it more chill?

Pastor GW Fisher’s sermon from Sunday evening has been in my this week.  The thing that has been sticking with me is a point he made about the nature of worship.  Specifically, he looks at the casual style of worship so popular today, and suggesting that while the kids might be all right, a casual worship of God isn’t.

Most folks that I know who employ a laid back style or worship (I’m thinking of corporate prayers that begin with “Hey God… “, sermons that are more stand up than worship, etc.) go to one or two similar proof texts.  They point out that God is a God of Mercy, and doesn’t desire that we sacrifice our personalities and they also point to the fact that the veil between God and Man has been torn (Matthew 27:51) – so the formality of OT worship is gone.  Another popular idea is that our relationship to God is altered in such a way that we approach him as we would our natural father “Hey Abba” (Galatians 4:6).

While I wouldn’t dispute any of those passages, do any of them actually provide license for a casual worship in the larger context of Scripture as a whole?  In the sermon, the argument that our intimate knowledge of God through Christ gives us license to worship in a casual manner is tested against instances against some of the Scriptures where God most intimately reveals Himself:

After God declares his mercy (for thousands) in Exodus 34 to Moses we read:

And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.  And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” (Exodus 34:8-9 ESV)

Moses responds not by saying “Whew, well that’s great God.  Say, I wanted to talk to you about my people…”  and then continue to chit-chat with God in a common fashion, like a couple of guys sitting at a bar, but from a position of worship (the KJV paints him as lying down as one dead) he pleads with God.

But that’s Old Testament.  What about how we respond to God now that Jesus is in the picture (as though God changed his mind about His holiness after the Incarnation)?  Consider how the apostle John reacted to being with Christ in Revelation 1:17-19

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,  and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.  Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.

John personally knew Jesus.  He personally saw the love of Christ.  He witnessed Jesus’ death and resurrection.  He heard with his ears when Jesus called God Abba.   He meets Jesus in His glory & he doesn’t respond “Hey! Jesus!  Awesome.”

Rather, he falls down like one dead.

In these examples, we see the response from men who met God in a very near sense.  I’m not advocating that we fall down dead as soon as prayer starts, but if Christian worship is a gathering of the church, where God is to be worshiped with reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:28-29) then how do we move from Moses & John’s response on the one hand and get to a casual worship akin to a book club on the other?

I preached the final sermon on the book of Ruth chapter 4 yesterday morning.

The man with no name (the redeemer who opts not to take on Naomi & Ruth) is a good illustration of many in the church today.  He’s willing to serve Christ… to a point.  When all he was required to do was put some money up front and take care of an old woman, he was all about it.  In fact, he might even get ahead on the deal.  After Naomi dies, he’s got some extra land all to himself, since she didn’t have any sons to inherit it.  But when Boaz revealed the fine print (Ruth came along with the purchase, and he would have to provide an heir for Naomi) the man with no name backed out of the deal.

The nameless man saw his finances getting stretched, his inheritance diminishing and said the cost was too high.  Boaz had no such qualms and continued to serve the Lord by providing for the poor and the needy – he’d been helping Ruth & Naomi for a while, all without even a whiff of personal gain.

So it is with following Christ.  We’re slack when it comes to counting the cost of discipleship (Luke 14:28-33).  Instead of cultivating a life where we seek to glorify God (even, gasp! at a personal cost) we cultivate a life where we’ll only go so far.  Love your neighbor unless they’re just too annoying.  Love one another so long as they meet your personal marks for piety, competence, or personality.  Make disciples so long as you’ve got the time, etc.  The Christian who lives like this, will be nameless, while the believer who seeks to honor Christ by loving Him and keeping His commands will, like Boaz, be known.

Also: Boaz totally “gets” the importance of having a godly, Proverbs 31 kind of wife.

Also, Also: God is amazing & incomprehensible and Christ’s suffering and love for us are brought into a clear perspective via this chapter.  Let me know what you think.

Ruth Finds Redemption, is available for streaming or downloading on the TBPC website.

Our youth group started studying the book of Revelation 3 weeks ago.  We’re going through the book verse by verse and comparing and contrasting four different viewpoints: Futurist, Preterist, Historic Pre-mill & dispensational (it’s wrong, but it’s also what so many Christians believe today).

Initially, everyone was decidedly in the Futurist camp, with those who had viewed the Left Behind series leaning towards a dispensational understanding.  But as we’ve finished up a general overview of the four systems and began looking at the first chapter there seems to be a predominant mix of the Historicist & Preterist view.

The Historicist view looks at the book of Revelation as a commentary on the church age. So in this view each day that passes by in Revelation is equal to a year of time on earth. So various events are reflective of actual church history — the swam of locusts from Revelation 9 was fulfilled with the rising of Islam.  The 1260 day (which is really 1260 years) reign of the beast is equated to the Papacy’s control over Europe. This is pretty well out of favor now but it was the view that most Reformers held including John Calvin, John Knox, & Martin Luther as well as later theologians such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeon.

The Preterist view looks at the book of Revelation and finds that the majority of the prophecy was fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  Jesus’ prophecy in Mathew 24 that “this generation” would not all die until his coming in judgment is interpreted literally and locally.  This view requires accepting an earlier dating of the book of Revelation than many scholars allow for, but not so early that it becomes outlandish.

It’s interesting to see what will come out of this study. We’re doing a point / counterpoint style as we read through the book. The group is doing an admirable job arguing for all the positions as we think it through.  They’ve asked a number of times what position I hold with regard to eschatology.  My mind is fairly well made up on the issue, but I won’t spill.  I want them to think on the issue critically rather than going along with what I say.  But… I ask you the same question they’ve asked me.  Revelation. What do you think? How come?