Live your theology.

For Lost in Translation, I take a document written in ye old tymey English and put it into modern terms. More or less.  Today’s subject is from the Directory for the publick (translated public) worship of God.

Of Publick Reading of the Holy Scriptures

READING of the word in the congregation, being part of the publick worship of God, (wherein .i.we; acknowledge our dependence upon him, and subjection to him,) and one mean sanctified by him for the edifying of his people, is to be performed by the pastors and teachers.

Reading the Bible publicly is a part of worship.  By reading God’s Word in our worship services we’re demonstrating that we are completely reliant on His revelation (found in His Word) for our lives.  We also show the Scriptures to be authoritative by making it a part of the worship service.  ”one mean sanctified” is another way of saying that this is a method that God has shown as being helpful for the wisdom of the congregation.  The public reading of God’s word has been practiced throughout church history, in the Old Testament and New (Nehemiah 8:1-8, Luke 4:16-19)

Pastors are good to read and so are teachers.  It sounds cute when little kids recite memory work.  Not really appropriate for worship, though.

Howbeit, such as intend the ministry, may occasionally both read the word, and exercise their gift in preaching in the congregation, if allowed by the presbytery thereunto.

Interns are allowed to read Scriptures to the congregation. Read more

Benny Hinn's Holy Coat of Smiting gives him +2 Defense.

Spiritual Gifts!  Let’s talk about them again.  Now I’m a cessationist when it comes to the issue.  I’d better explain what that means.  The popular straw-man is that a cessationist is fearful of the Holy Spirit and leaves no room for Him to work in the life of a Christian.  This is dumb.

No, a cessationist is someone who acknowledges the spirtual gifts mentioned in the book of Acts but believes they no longer continue.  Clarification: This does not mean that God cannot employ the means he thinks necessary for salvation – so cessationism isn’t putting a limit on God.

The cessationist argument in a nutshell is this: The work of the Holy Spirit in the apostolic age was to show the truth behind – (wait for it) – apostolic teaching (2 Corinthians 12:12).  Apostolic churches were regularly practicing these gifts, so much so that Paul’s letter to the infant church of Corinth gives language suggesting it to be a normal or common occurrence (1 Corinthians 14:26).  As the apostolic age came to a close, so did the expression of Spiritual gifts, as there were no longer apostles which needed validating as they had fulfilled their calling and purpose by establishing the canon of the Holy Scriptures.

So if the gifts are still happening – why are they still happening?

Even with a Biblical why, there’s still the problem of where & how it came to be.  That these gifts which were so regular that Paul included them in a discussion about common worship, it seems odd that they only pop up now in select groups.   We don’t see a similar pattern of preferential distribution of the fruits of the spirit, but we are led to believe that this is the case for the gifts of the spirit.  B.B. Warfield addresses this issue very aptly here and here.

And lastly, if the gifts are still happening, which ones and to what degrees?  This seems like a silly question, but there’s no shortage of folks to are cessationist with certain gifts but maintain continuation for others.  So which ones and why?  Tongues only? Prophesy too? Healing? Working Miracles?  Are these gifts a 1:1 representation of those in the apostolic age?  If not, is there any Biblical indication as to why this would be?  Am I asking enough questions?  Are these rhetorical questions?

I guess we’ll work this out in the comments.  Or at least, I hope we will.

Titus 2:3-5 says (emphasis mine):

[3] Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, [4] and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, [5] to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

My wife & I were talking about a post she read at Generation Cedar, a favorite of hers.  It was about the Scripture quoted above, and whether not working in the home constituted a blasphemous disobedience to the Word of God.  In the comments this seemed to be summed up as a matter of interpretation.  Some people felt it was an absolute command – be a homemaker & nothing else.  Others felt it was simply giving a primary responsibility, but not abrogating the possibility of a woman working outside the home.  Which way we go depends on how we interpret the apostle.

There are things in the Scriptures that we’ve accepted as open to interpretation, so long as it stays within the realms of orthodoxy.  Baptism is an issue with Biblical arguments at odds with each other.  The correct view includes infants of believing parents as part of the covenant, the other view narrows covenant involvement to only those who are old enough to proclaim their own faith.  Enough time has passed that we’ve all agreed that how you interpret certain verses  is what’s going to determine how you live our your baptismal theology.  Yes, there was once a time when it was clear to believers exactly how & who baptism should be applied to, but time has passed and no one can say definitively which came first, so we tolerate two views.  The same thing goes with eschatology (end times stuff).  Does that mean it’s the same with every issue where strong opinions are present, such as homemaking & Titus 2?

The thing is, Paul had something specific in mind when he wrote this.  The Holy Spirit inspired him to say something.  Either he meant that women should work at home. Period.  Or he didn’t.  He didn’t leave it up to us to make our own decision and then say, “I think this… and so long as I can get it to line up with that, I’m sure that’s what Paul meant.”

The point of all this isn’t to tell you exactly what Paul was thinking.  That post will come along when as I work through 1 Timothy, I think.  Instead it’s to point out the general hermeneutic that leads to the most common error in the church today:   We come up with an idea or a preference, and then we go to the Bible for proof texts.   The “interpretation” card needs to be used sparingly.  As a last resort when we’ve thoroughly examined the issues through the lenses of Scripture.  Instead, it’s become the church’s go-to play.

This is why the church so closely mirrors the world – the way we live our lives is coming from the outside and influencing the church.  When the opposite happens, we have a Reformation.

I began my 10th year of marriage on Wednesday the 11th.  That in & of itself doesn’t give me any special insight into having a marriage that glorifies God.  The Scriptures have already done that.  But, 10 years of marriage has my wife & I talking about the subject.  If we were to write a book about marriage, what would the chapters be about? (this is the kind of stuff we talk about in the evenings).  So here’s one thing we’d include in the book.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.  A recently married couple is receiving advice from a more experienced married couple.  Maybe they asked for it.  Probably they didn’t.  The old routine goes something like this:

Advice giver turns to the husband and says; “These are the two most important words for your marriage: ‘Yes, dear.’”  The rim-shot is optional, as is the courtesy laugh usually offered to this modern day sage.  Of course, this is spectacularly bad advice.  Men who simply acquiesce to the every whim of defer to every tantrum their wife has without opposition are bad husbands, failing to fill the role set forth for them by God in marriage.  There’s a similar problem with wives who understand headship to mean that you do whatever your husband asks immediately and without discussion or question, regardless of the implications.  More on that another time, though.

Keeping quiet about your marriage isn’t necessarily bad advice.  You don’t want it to be a principle of the communication between husband and wife.  But in several cases, you absolutely do want it in the communications husbands and wives have outside the home.  What do I mean?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Christian husband goes out with his buddies.

“Hey, glad (wife’s name) finally let you out!”

“No doubt.  It’s nice to be released from the ball & chain every once in a while.”

“I hear that.  (Other dude’s wife’s name) absolutely freaks whenever I say I want to go out.  She won’t even talk to me for like 15 minutes.”

“Don’t get me started on the cold shoulder thing.  Last week I…”

And the conversation continues.  The same scenario can involve a group of wives getting together and collectively lamenting the shortcomings of their husbands.  Or just an individual conversation (say between a parent & their married child) going over what they get annoyed about in their marriage.

It’s these conversations that needs to be killed.  This is where you need to just stop talking.   Making your spouse look bad in front of your friends or whoever else is not just making conversation or having a laugh.  It’s marital sabotage.

Why do I think so? A couple of reasons:

1. People have itching ears for dirt.  Sites like TMZ exist only because people want to know and see the sin in other people’s lives. They love it.  They spend money to find out about it.  We’ll take 2 seconds looking at our own sin and 2 hours breaking down someone else’s.  So if someone seems willing to talk about the faults of their significant other, you can bet someone else is going to be there rooting them on to dig deeper and dish out more.
2. We have a desire to be appreciated & liked.  If we’ve got some information that other people take an interest in hearing, we’re likely to offer more and more details all in exchange for a bigger laugh or more rapt attention.  The kind of people that desire this info, desire the attention that will come with passing it along.  So it won’t be long before everybody knows what you think sucks about your spouse.  This is a good thing?
3. “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” (Proverbs 18:17).  That is to say, when you’re talking about all your spouse’s shortcomings with your friends, you’re inadvertently (I hope) painting a picture of your marriage with you as the victim, struggling through until the sweet release of death parts you.  So now everyone has a whacked out view of your marriage and it’ll only get worse if your spouse is equally willing to talk smack.

Those are just the problems that come from the outside perspective.  You effectively dishonor your spouse when you verbally drag them through the mud, and you teach others that such is a part of marriage and perfectly acceptable.  But it’s not.

Now you may say – “So what! Let them think that.  It doesn’t change how much I love him/her.”

Are you sure about that?

Ever have something come into your life that annoys you?  Then you start talking with someone about it and you go over it and over it and soon you’re filled with soul crushing rage for the former annoyance?  I’ve seen memos sent by a Boss turns into an affront against the recipient’s very being after the topic was kicked around the water cooler long enough.  The same thing applies to relationships.  ”Dude, my wife’s cooking is horrible.” easily turns into “Your cooking is awful! And you know what else?” // full disclosure – my wife’s cooking is THE BOMB.

More importantly, gossiping about your spouse in no way resembles the relationship between Christ and the church it is modeled after.  Jesus loves the church.  Fully. In spite of the blemishes and spots.  Jesus makes the church pure as snow through his sacrificial death.  He doesn’t sit back looking at the church and lament their sinfulness (Sorry to break it to any political cartoonists hoping to recycle the gag about Jesus looking down from a cloud and getting all bummed about His sheep).    Christ predestined his church because that’s what he chose to do – not because of how awesome we are.  Take that view to marriage – that the charge of the Christian husband is to love his wife like Christ loves the church… and then explain to me how exposing all the sins and shortcomings of your wife to whoever you’re talking to is an apt illustration of how Christ views you and your sins.  It’s not.  So just stop talking.

Does the Reformed tradition breed an unbiblical fear of works?  Perhaps fear is the wrong word.  Let me elaborate: When I write a particular sermon that  I call  the “If you’re a Christian, act like it” sermon, my Reformed cohorts can get kind of squirrelly.   Eyes dart back & forth.  Eyebrows raise.  Thumb and index finger move to stroke the chin.

I preached one on Sunday evening.  1 Timothy 1:3-11.  Paul’s charge for Timothy to live out true doctrine out of faith & love naturally leads for a call to repentance and obedience to the Christian and a proclamation of the Gospel to the unregenerate.  But why the discomfort?

That works have no part in our justification is a doctrine clearly taught in the Scriptures (Ephesians 2, etc.).  This truth was obscured by a hegemony in the church that valued tradition and non-biblical authority more than the Bible itself.  It took a Reformation to give an unfiltered gospel to the masses.  Reformed Christians today continue in the Reformation tradition, but perhaps we have become something of an overprotective mother when it comes to justification and works.

How so?  Raise your hand if the mere mention of works made your doctrine alarms go off sending you into full apologist mode, scanning to see if I’m about to get all Pelagius up in this blog.  Go ahead.  I can see you through your webcam.

And that response is what I’m talking about.  I’m thinking that we’ve become so careful to guard against the ever popular heresy of salvation (full or part) via works that we get all itchy whenever works are brought up.  ESPECIALLY when works are brought up in conjunction with a call to, you know, actually do them.

As a result of this, we are constantly having to put caveats in our speech whenever we discuss works.  Just like the good Calvinist knows to say “providence” and never “luck” so the good Reformed believer knows never to mention good works without adding “Not that [works] will provide you with salvation.” — Not that there’s anything wrong with that!  I’m a Presbyterian, so naturally I’m fond of precision.  But too many caveats sometimes lead us to bend our thinking away from Biblical doctrine and into a warped theology that allows us to declare “We are not saved by works.  Therefore, I don’t need ‘em!”

A few weeks ago I tweeted that I see far more Christians struggle with antinomianism (armchair definition: Faith in Christ makes the moral law irrelevant. Sin and be free, faith will bail you out).  Several folks replied that they were shocked that such was the case, having grown up in churches where salvation was offered for those who ne’r took a sip of beer.  They wondered where I was going to church.  While a legalistic attitude (if not legalism) is common among certain groups — I think w\ us Reformed peeps it can be just the opposite.  We get that we’re not saved by what we do.  It’s a part of our heritage.  Salvation by Grace alone through Faith alone is the gigantic belt buckle of the Reformed cowboy.   In some cases the buckle is getting too big for the britches, and we overreact when someone points out that you still need to wear chaps when you’re riding the trail.

//end cowboy illustrations

Anyone seeing this, or am I making things up again?  If you have noticed it, how do you deal with it?