Starving Sheep

It's funny how God uses circumstances sometimes to make us think of a particular thing. For me, there were two things that God had me hear and that spawned this blog. The first was a radio podcast of Renewing Your Mind, a ministry by R.C. Sproul that was endorsing a book called "Feed My Sheep." The book is directed at pastors and teachers to not be trying to attract the unchurched or unsaved people in their teaching and preaching. Instead they are to simply explain to the congregation what the Scriptures say without bringing any personal presuppositions to the text.

The second circumstance was from reading Ephesians 4. There was a part in that chapter that I remember hearing before in a different context. It regarded what role the church has in whether or not to be relevant, and if so, how important it should be. The specific passage was Ephesians 4:11 and following, "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for..." stop right there. How would you finish that sentence? What would you say pastors and teachers are given by God (verse 8 talks about God giving gifts to men) for? Or maybe the better question is, who are pastors to focus their pastoring or teaching on? From the way many pastors act today in the U.S., the answer would be for unbelievers. Even more specifically, it would be to get unbelievers to come to church, using means that may not based on Scripture, or may even be further fueling their greed or selfishness. Once they are in the church, relevance is key. If your teaching is relevant, which usually means trying to be cool, you will try to avoid the less cool parts of what Christianity is all about, things which are essential to Christianity. Some of those things include telling people they are not in good standing with God right now, or that God will hold them accountable for their actions after this life... all of them. Also, hell awaits all who do not give their life to Jesus Christ. There may be more, but these truths are part of the gospel. And if we leave those out and simply teach the positive things, then it would be as empty as only talking about hell and sin and that everyone is wicked without mentioning that God loves us or Jesus died for sinners so that we might be forgiven. Some of those positive things that may be taught are that God loves us and wants us to be in relationship with Him (which I never fully understood because we all have some relationship with God, either as His friend or as His enemy), and that Jesus died on the cross for sinners and we have a way of escape from hell, which in their intended meaning are true, but what is the point of only teaching that? In other words, I am claiming that only understanding the good news and not the bad news is just as wrong as only understanding the bad news without the good news. It takes both the good news and the bad news (for of what purpose would the good news be if there was no bad news?). The bad news is that all are sinful, and sinful people deserve hell. The good news is that Jesus died for sinners and those who commit the rest of their lives to God and believe Jesus is God's Son and that Jesus rose from the dead are forgiven. But I digress.

This good news without the bad news is what many pastors end up doing when trying to use their gifts for unbelievers. But let's finish the Ephesians 4 section: "He gave some... as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." Pastors and teachers were given for the saints. Shepherds don't shepherd those that are outside their fold, only the sheep in their fold. Their concern (in this passage) is not to try to get the unchurched in the church building and preach a relevant message that avoids the less easy-to-swallow teaching of Scripture. Their purpose is to equip the saints by teaching and preaching to them about "the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man..." This surely means more than just recognizing Jesus is God incarnate. In Christ is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). So the sheep (speaking as one of them) need to be taught wisdom and knowledge of which the storehouse for these is greater than anyone could imagine. Surely we are not able to understand everything that God understands since we are finite and He is infinite, but the Word needs to be preached and explained to us who are so easily led astray (Isaiah 53:6).

Pastors and teachers were given for this reason. Yes, we need to hear the gospel too. Both the saints and the unbelievers need to hear it, but not at the expense of failing to equip the saints, or making them to be somewhat of a mature man, or just a little like the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We are called to be fully perfect (Matthew 5:48), and that is what we are to be trained for. God will bring those whom He has chosen; there need not be compromise for unbelievers to believe, for all they have is compromise. We, both pastors and laymen need to fulfill our calling by God which is a holy calling: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

It's been a while since I've posted I know, so I'll get back into it with something simple. I heard a really good hymn at church this morning. It's called, "Let All Mortal Flesh Be Silence" and here are the lyrics.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

The tune is somber against the typical worship music today, which makes it all the more interesting. Here's the link to the tune if you care to hear it.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/e/letallmf.htm

Constant warfare

John Owen is one of the most powerful Puritan writers. He has a great quote in his book, "The Mortification of Sin," (actually it has many great quotes) which is based off of Romans 8:13. This quote comes after the obvious point that no one is going to be perfect in this life:

"Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting; but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. The apostle tells us what the works and fruits of it are: 'The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleannes, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like' (Gal. 5:19-21). You know what it did in David, and sundry others."

He continues, "Sin always aims at the utmost: every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin of that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery, if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression; every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head. Men may come to that, that sin may not be heard speaking a scandalous word in their hearts; that is, provoking to any great sin with scandal in its mouth: but every rise of lust, might it have its course would come to the height of villany. It is like the grave, that is never satisfied. And herein lies no small share of the deceitfulness of sin, by which it prevails to the hardening of men, and so to their ruin (Heb. 3:13). It is modest, as it were in its first motions and proposals; but having once got footing in the heart by them, it constantly makes good its ground, and presseth on to some further degrees in the same kind."

Skipping to what our response is to be: "Now nothing can prevent this, but mortification. That withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour, so that it is crossed in whatever it aims at. There is not the best saint in the world but, if he should give over this duty, would fall into as many cursed sins as ever any did of his kind."

This is a daunting task for anyone. It is impossible for those who are not committed followers of Jesus Christ to do this, for Romans 8:13 says, "If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live" (emphasis added). Only those who are true disciples of Christ have the Spirit. So we need to not rely on our own strength to put sin to death. But as Owen says elsewhere, we are still exhorted to do this. The Spirit gives us the ability and the motivation to do it, so we must do it. The opposite attitude is contrary to the Spirit.

"Be killing sin, or it will be killing you."

What is love?

Recently I have been listening to a series of sermons by Art Azurdia on 1 Corinthians 13. I would highly recommend them to anyone (the url is: http://www.spiritempoweredpreaching.com/sermons.htm, a total of seven sermons).

Some points that were well made are worth sharing I think. Of course there are many, many more points that he makes, but these in particular stuck out to me. The first is that without love, theology doesn't matter. Not only that, but good works don't matter and faith doesn't matter. Nothing else matters (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Related to this is the passage where we are commanded to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). We cannot merely condemn the unrighteous acts of others or speak of what is good without showing God's love to them. Those who carry signs that say "Gays go to hell," or who in their heart look down on the "lowlifes" in society are not loving them, but judging them, forgetting that it is only by grace that we ourselves are not like that. Even if the statement is true (those who practice homosexuality and are unrepentant will be punished eternally) does not change the fact that God loves them and we should be willing to meet their needs of being lonely, rejected, and isolated from society.

In the main text of his series, where love starts to be defined extensively ("Love is patient, and kind..."), Azurdia first defines patience. "It's not waiting in line at the DMV," he says, "it's choosing not to retaliate when someone wrongs you." And as if that's not hard enough, he goes on to say that patience does not retaliate even if you are wronged over and over again. That's the inward expression of biblical love.
Kindness on the other hand refers to being useful, which is the outward expression of love. It tries to help people in ways that really do benefit them, not just with spiritual needs, but physical needs also. So love is not merely just abstaining from retaliating when someone offends you, but also looking for ways to serve that person in the midst of being offended. In addition, Christians should not be doing random acts of kindness, like the bumper sticker says. Rather, kindness should always be practiced by believers.
Skipping love not envying, "love does not boast"simply refers to our speech. This is not as hard, he argues, because nobody likes to hear someone who only talks about himself/herself. Even unbelievers think this is socially unbecoming of someone. Being arrogant on the other hand, is the boasting of the heart. This is the root of boasting outwardly. It's easier to mow the weeds than pull them out by the root. This we must be particularly careful of. No one see it that well except God, so if we are only concerned with what other people think and not what God requires of us, this characteristic of love will be neglected, and we will soon be falling short of his standard for us (John 13:34).
As mentioned already there are many other points that he makes, but this is enough to practice. On our own though, we cannot reach these standards. We naturally retaliate when wronged, like to focus on our successes (at least inwardly), and rely on our own strength to get through life. Only the changing power of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the realization of our own depravity can cause us to love one another. Anyone who does not have Christ within him will not be able to love in the biblical sense, which is just one reason why it is so important to be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).

The purposes of blogging

My brother has told me to start a blog, but it's taken me a while to see the benefit of doing it. I can see now why it is a good thing, and thought it worth posting the first blog to share why it is, mostly for those who are not bloggers for whatever reason, and also those who do blog and maybe see have new perspective.
First off, blogging is helpful for making sure you're learning something new and thinking through it on a deep level. Obviously you can do this without blogging, but it definitely keeps you accountable for learning, and thinking it through enough so that it could be seen by a worldwide audience (which is scary, now that I think about it).
Secondly, it trains you to communicate clearly in written words. We get a good amount of practice in speaking with our social networks, so building skills in that area is continually practiced. Writing is much different though. Many people don't write on their own (apart from school or work), especially not in a rational and coherent manner, so blogging is a good way to do this.
Thirdly, it is a good way to counter ideas that are clearly wrong. The best example of this is the media. If something is said that you know is not true, blogs are a good way to get the truth out there. It's not censured in the way that other mediums are today. Though I haven't read it completely, Hugh Hewitt talks about this more in his book called, "Blog."
One last thing is that it is a good way to interact with others and discuss ideas. Sure you can do this in conversation, but you can't refer back to it unless you record it or write everything down. It is also not readily available to the rest of the world.
This is pretty basic in reasoning, but arguably important reasons to consider blogging if you haven't started yet. Even if it's not scholarly in form or content (I couldn't claim that for myself!), it's good for the above mentioned reasons, along with other reasons that are probably out there.