On May 14th I made a post about the coming of the documentary movie about the Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens debate about atheism. Here is an interview of Doug Wilson by John Piper that wonderfully summarizes Doug’s goals, desires and thoughts about the movie “Collision.”
I received notice of this interview from American Vision
When Doug Wilson debated the famed and articulate atheist Christopher Hitchens he had it filmed in order to make it widely available. Here is a promotional clip in which he reflects on his purposes and how he believes the movie turned out.
Wilson Review from Collision Movie on Vimeo.
I look forward to seeing this service Doug has done the Church and her Lord.
This is an interesting and informative video that I wanted to make available as a way to stir up creative thinking about how we can reach out to Muslims. Obedience to and fulfillment of the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus to disciple the nations means learning to minister to the Muslims in our communities and around the world.
I have been reading and thinking about what God has been doing throughout the world in the recent decades, and about urban missions.
One book I can recommend is Muslims and Christians at the Table: Promoting Biblical Understanding Among North American Muslims. I found it a useful resource for a Muslim history, doctrine, and worldview – And a biblical response. It also provides very helpful and practical ways to reach out to Muslims.
Another very helpful book is The Next Christendom, by Philip Jenkins. Jenkins provides convincing evidence that the center of Christian influence in the world is shifting from the West and North to the East and South. The implications of this and other demographic trends are profoundly important for the Great Commission.
Over the years I have marveled at how children, my own included, are able to learn to imitate those around them (for both good and ill) and participate in things that they have no understanding of. They catch onto the liturgical actions of the church more readily than most adults.
I have seen children less than 2 years old sing along with the congregation the Doxology and other songs, recite the Apostles creed and pray the Lord’s Prayer. They have no idea of the meaning of the words – but they are worshiping as truly and by faith (child-like) as we old folks do. I am certain, based on the words of our Savior, that God looks down on these faithful little ones with joy and pleasure – accepting their worship as a sweet smelling savor.
Having said that, when I see videos like this I just feel sad for the children – and about the level of maturity of the church. I know this sounds judgmental – but its not. I’m not talking about style. I’m talking about knowing the difference between a godly child-like faith that is a foundation upon which to build and a mature, articulate and effective faith that labors to see the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven.
If we (the Church and Bride of Christ) are to effectively build the Kingdom of God and bring Christ’s word to the world, we must have more maturity than to think that 2 year old children can be our “preachers” and leaders.
May God grant to us all to grow up in wisdom and stature, before both God and men – So that through our preaching of the gospel there may be “Peace on earth, and goodwill toward men.”
In the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches there is both liberty and warrant to be traditionalist or more innovative (within confessional lines) or some combination thereof. This is expressed in a number of different ways including liturgical thinking and practices.
On the one hand, there is a wonderful tendency among us to look back historically to what the Spirit has done through the centuries in the Church to form the Bride of Christ liturgically. Consequently, there are some among us that are desirous of learning more about and applying in our churches many Ancient, Medieval and even Magisterial Reformational liturgical practices that most Evangelicals have long forgotten or rejected.
On anther hand, there are some more adventurous among us that want to move beyond the older, historic liturgical forms and practices and begin to consider how they can be transformed along Protestant lines and concerns.
In the best spirit of the CREC’s desire to remain both historically grounded and biblically based in all things, two of our beloved sister churches have released a “Joint statement on holy days, approved by the sessions of Christ Church and Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow” Idaho.” It can be found on Doug Wilson’s blog, Blog and Mablog.
I am largely in agreement with this helpful statement, but I would like to interact with some elements of the statement as a means of discussing some of my own thoughts about the Christian concept of time. I will post my thoughts, so much as they are, in multiple postings.
In the first paragraph we read the following:
“We believe that the people of God have been freed from all bondage to observing days, weeks, months, seasons or years (Gal. 4:9-11, Col. 2:16). Those Old Testament laws were shadows of Christ who has come (Col. 2:17). And when Christ died we died with Him, and when He was raised and ascended into heaven, we were raised and seated with Him in the heavenly places (Col. 3:1, Eph. 2). This means that together with Christ, the saints are the rulers of time and space. We have all been established in Him as lords of the Sabbath, to rule time according to the wisdom of the Spirit (Rom. 8:14, Gal. 4:6-7). We are not under days, but now the days are under us. And therefore we confess that all celebration of days is voluntary, freely offered, and no one may judge or be judged on this basis (Rom. 14:5-6, Col. 2:16).”
What does it mean to say that, “We have all been established in Him as lords of the Sabbath, to rule time according to the wisdom of the Spirit (Rom. 8:14, Gal. 4:6-7)?” What do the texts cited have to do with the assertion that we (those who are united to Christ) are lords of the Sabbath?
1) Presumably, the phrase “lords of the Sabbath” is an allusion to the Gospel texts where the Lord Jesus said that He Himself is the “Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matt. 12:8; Mk. 2:28; Lk. 6:5).
a. In none of these Gospel passages did Jesus make His assertion to the Pharisees as a way of distinguishing Himself and the New Covenant people of God from Old Covenant Sabbath keeping. He was not saying that the Old Testament Sabbath laws requiring special observance of days, weeks, months, seasons or years were a form of bondage that He came to release them from. He was not, in these passages, making any negative statement about the Sabbath keeping.
b. Rather, Jesus confronted the Pharisaical misunderstanding and misapplication of the Sabbath law that resulted in them placing heavy burdens on the people of God (Matt. 23:4; Lk. 11:46). Jesus, by declaring that He is Lord/Master over the Sabbath, was asserting that He had come to deliver His people from an unbiblical and unlawful misapplication of the Sabbath law and give us true biblical Sabbath rest (11:28-30).
c. It may be true to say that because we are untied to Christ we are also rulers with Him over time and space. However, it is not true to say that mankind before Christ was not a ruler of time and space. This was fundamentally man’s vocation on the earth is since creation (Gen. 1:28-30; Ps. 8). Man has always been tasked with ruling over time and space; however, it was not until the Second Adam came and became enthroned as the victorious ruler of time and space that mankind can hope to rule it effectively for God. We are now rulers with the assurance that our works and management over time and space are being effectively use by Jesus to bring the defeat of all of His enemies.
2) It is interesting that the joint statement says that we are “lords of the Sabbath” in the sense that we are to rule time “according to the wisdom of the Spirit.” Presumably, “according to the wisdom of the Spirit” is contrasted to the Old Testament Sabbath laws regarding time, which we have been freed from.
a. The phrase “according to the wisdom of the Spirit” in the joint statement is followed by two scripture references; Romans 8:14, Galatians 4:6-7. Try as I may, even with a sympathetic reading, I fail to understand how these texts relate to the proposition that we are to rule time according to the Spirit. Neither of these texts addresses ruling, wisdom or time. They merely assert that we are, by the Spirit, sons and heirs of God.
b. What troubles me about this is that there appears to be a contrast in the statement between the Old Testament Sabbath law and the Spirit, or wisdom of the Spirit. Law is associated with bondage to days in the statement, which is contrasted with wisdom, the Spirit and New Covenant liberty in which all celebration of days is entirely voluntary and not a matter of biblical requirement or conscience. This is merely, in my estimation, a misunderstanding of what Paul is arguing against in Rom. 14:5-6, Col. 2:16 (which I address briefly below).
c. The conclusion of the first paragraph, says:
“We are not under days, but now the days are under us. And therefore we confess that all celebration of days is voluntary, freely offered, and no one may judge or be judged on this basis (Rom. 14:5-6, Col. 2:16).”
These are very strong statements: “not under days” and “all celebration of days is voluntary.” However, in the second paragraph the joint statement also asserts that the Lord’s Day (Sunday) is “the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, our weekly Easter, and the only feast day which must be honored and kept.” Which is it? 1) We are not under days and all celebration of days is voluntary, OR 2) the Lord’s Day, the Old Testament Sabbath transfigured, must be celebrated, honored and kept?
d. What does the joint statement mean by, “We are not under days?” In what way were the Old Covenant saints under days? And alternately, what does “the days are under us” mean? Do the writers of the joint statement mean that God in the Old Testament determined what days the saints worshipped and celebrated, but now we get to determine what days we worship and celebrate without reference to the Bible or God’s will for us? Doubtful. Especially since we rule time according to the wisdom of the Spirit, whatever that means.
I applaud Christ Church and Trinity Church for attempting to provide a biblical rationale for, 1) the liberty we have in Christ, and the propriety of celebrating various days throughout the years as Christian holidays, and 2) to guard against allowing such celebrations to improperly bind the consciences of Christians, or a become a means of promoting unbiblical pride, prejudice and superstition. My concern is the arguments that have been used are not as helpful as they could be.
My view of the Sabbath – Lord’s Day issue pastoral-position-paper-sabbath-keeping:
The Bible (Old and New Testaments) is God’s progressive revelation of Himself and His relation to His creation. He created time and space and gave it to man to rule. God set in motion the cycles of seasons, days and years in creation. Adam, by his sin, failed as God’s appointed ruler. Importantly, the created order continued with the same cycles of seasons, days and years in creation. The creation pattern was more clearly explained by God progressively in terms of Sabbath, and other feasts, fasts, and laws. The Sabbath laws (i.e. periods of time set aside from regular time for rest, celebration, feasting and liberation) were given by our gracious Lord of Time, and were holy, just and good. They were liturgical patterns that reflected and were connected to the creation patterns. They were given to man. Man was not made for them. They helped covenant men to learn to regularly worship God, to submit himself to God, and to rule for God in time. Time is a creation of God that man was created live in terms of.
Over time, God’s people perverted God’s good law regulating time so that instead of being a blessing to men, the Sabbath laws became an occasion for spiritual pride and oppression. The Sabbath, for the Pharisees and other Jews, had become a means of demonstrating that they (and they alone) were the recipients of God’s favor. Men became servants of the Sabbath – rather than the Sabbath being a creation of God for man’s wellbeing. Jesus made it clear that they had perverted the true meaning of Sabbath and human lordship over time, making the movement of the days, seasons and times a burden and badge of Israelite exclusivity.
With the finished work of Christ, the whole complex system of Sabbath laws governing days, months, seasons and years was transformed. Much of the Sabbatical system was tied to land of Israel and a centralized worship system. Now, in Christ, the world is the Promised Land for the Church. Worship is no longer associated with the Jewish Tempe in Jerusalem, but is located within the Church wherever she is found. Thus, the Sabbatical ordering of time needed to be transformed and applied in the new context.
From the earliest days of the Church, the first day of the week has become the memorial of the resurrection of Christ, and the Christian Sabbath, the sign of the New Creation, and the full redemption of the sons of God. The first day of the week became known among the churches as “the Lord’s Day.” Hebrews 3:6-4:13 teaches that there remains a sabatizmos, literally, a “Sabbath-keeping” for the people of God because we have not fully and finally entered into God’s eternal rest (cf. 4:9). Hebrews 10:24-25 commands us, New Covenant believers, not to forsake the assembling (literally: “super-synagogue”) of ourselves together, which has reference to the time of Sabbatical weekly worship. Failure to do so indicates a person’s status as a covenant breaker through willful sin (10:26). Thus, Sabbath-breaking (in both covenants) is to be understood as rebellion and unbelief in the promises of God.
The early church struggled over the question of how the Sabbath was to be kept in the New Covenant. Some of these struggles are given to us in Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2. Nowhere in the New Testament or in early church history is there any record of disputation over the question of Christians worshipping on the first day of the week (the day we now call Sunday). It was indisputably a special day. Therefore, whatever days are being referred to in Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2, they do not refer to the Lord’s Day.
The Word ‘Sabbath’ is nowhere used in the New Testament of the Christian Lord’s Day. That word was used exclusively to denote the holy days of the Old Covenant. The point is that during the time before the destruction of Jerusalem, many Christians observed both the seventh day (Saturday) Jewish Sabbath and Sunday Lord’s Day worship. Christians were obligated to observe the Lord’s Day celebrations (Heb. 4 & 10), but were free to decide whether or not to observe the Jewish practice of the Saturday worship. Paul commands that no judgments be made against the latter practice.
Thus, we do have a holy day that is indisputably an obligation for all Christians, in all ages and in all places. It is Sunday, the Lord’s Day! All other days are conditioned by this great holy day. We are free to observe other days as we choose and free to refuse to observe other days. We are free to create other days of Christian celebration and yet we are not required to participate in any days of celebration besides the weekly, Sunday, celebration of the Christian Lord’s Day. It is our high holy day!
Conclusion (of this overly long post):
In light of the above, I agree (with the joint statement) that, in Jesus, we are indeed lords of the Sabbath. We are truly rulers of time, as our ancestors before us were lords of time. The Old Covenant saints were trained to think and act in accordance to the patterns of time established in creation and the law. Because of the resurrection of our Lord, we are assured that we are part of His victorious kingdom that will culminate, on the Last day, with His second coming.
The Lord’s Day confirms to us each week that we are the New Covenant people of God who are continually transformed into new creatures in Christ through His Word, the Sacraments and the life of the Church. As such, we move out of special time on the Lord’s Day with Christ and into the rest of time and history to manifest the Holy City of God on earth.
Today (03/29/09) Dennis Tuuri, Pastor of RCC, in a sermon related to Lent and Christian suffering, mentioned that “fasting is an anticipation of a change in history.” This is a very helpful perspective to keep in mind as people consider the meaning and use of both Lent and fasting generally. Isaiah 58:3, 5 tells us that fasting is an affliction of our souls. Properly understood, fasting, when practiced, should be seen as part of our praying that God would use us to change the world around us. Specifically, in Isaiah 58:6-7 we are told about fasting that pleases the Lord:
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh?”
It is the kind of fasting that moves us to action and service. In our service we see the world transformed around us. The future we hope for is brought into the present. Fasting brings us into conformity to the will of God so that we become part of the establishment of His Kingdom.
This is a communion homily I gave on March 22,2009:
This is the season of Lent. We at RCC don’t emphasize or do much to practice Lent, but the 40 days of Lent is a reminder of other 40 day events in scripture, not the least of which is the 40 days our Savior spent in the wilderness after His baptism.
In the gospel accounts of His baptism by John (which is Christ’s appointment by God as the warrior priest, prophet and king), Matthew says the Spirit descended on Him like a dove and the Father commended Him from Heaven, and then,
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. (4:1-2)
Mark says,
12 Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. 13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts…
And Luke says,
1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
The very first thing Jesus did following His baptism was to do battle with the Devil. It was the Spirit who filled Him and led Him into this battle. He is our Spirit-empowered deliverer par excellence. When He finished the skirmish in the wilderness the Gospels say that the Devil left Him and angels came and ministered to Him. Presumably by giving Him food and rest. But that was just the beginning. Luke said that He went by the power of the Spirit to Galilee and began His public ministry, preaching about the coming of the kingdom and doing works that brought it forth in the world. Peter Leithart wrote:
The Spirit is the Warrior Spirit. He clothes Othniel and Gideon, Jephthah and Samson and Saul, and trains their hands to fight. He descends on Jesus like a dove, and then drives Him to the wilderness to battle Satan in the howling waste. By the Spirit, Jesus heals. By the Spirit, He casts out demons. By the Spirit, He cleanses lepers. By the Spirit, He topples Satan’s kingdom. By the Spirit, He binds the strong man and plunders his house.
He is our example, for after the first Christian Pentecost, we too are Spirit-empowered deliverers. Again Peter Leithart:
The Warrior Spirit falls on the disciples, and Peter boldly calls the Jews to repentance for crucifying the Prince of Life. The Spirit makes war against the flesh, as the flesh wars against the Spirit, but the Spirit will be the victor. It’s only through the Spirit that we can trample Satan underfoot. By Him, we put on the armor of God to fight principalities and powers and wickedness in high places. The Spirit is a sword that circumcises hearts rather than flesh, and the word is the sword of the Spirit that divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow. The Warrior Spirit stirs our spirits, filling us with battle rage, with holy blood wrath. By the Spirit, each of us become one of God’s beserkers, [driven with] the zeal of Jesus.
After we are baptized we are filled with the Spirit and led into battle with the world, the flesh and the devil. We become hungry and weakened in the battle, and God invites us to this table to renew our strength so that we can rise up again for Kingdom work. Interestingly, the section in 1 Corinthians that deals with Paul’s instructions to the Church about the Lord’s Supper is followed immediately with a discussion of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to believers enabling us to be His ministers of Christ in this world. We are His Spirit-empowered deliverers.
Discussions about the amount of continuity between the old and new covenants continue unabated. The old adage “The Old Testament is the New concealed. The New Testament is the Old revealed” is good so far as it goes. It does presuppose a connection between the two in Christ, and that there are differences. But it’s not sufficient to explain everything that needs to be said about the subject. The problem in my mind is that too often our theology drives what we think about continuity questions, causing us to ignore some biblical text in favor of others.
Dispensationalists tend to primarily see a radical discontinuity between the covenants in order to secure their presupposition of the fundamental difference between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church.
The Reformed school of thought tends to primarily see a general continuity between the covenants so as to secure their presupposition that the New Testament Church is a continuation and culmination of God’s work through out history.
Often such assumptions tend to ignore the truly biblical continuities and discontinuities that exist on the other side of our theological presuppositions. It is important to allow the Bible to speak on its own terms without imposing our theological assumptions about the degree of continuity.
An example of this can be found in discussions of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old and New Covenants. Is His role virtually the same in both, or are their significant differences that the Bible talks about? This became a matter of discussion at church following a sermon entitled, “Spirit-Empowered Deliverers.”
I see a number of texts that demonstrate considerable difference in the Old and New Covenant treatment of the work of the Holy Spirit. Primarily, in my view, the Holy Spirit in the Old Covenant is seen as coming upon people for a specific purpose to empower them for a particular function.
Thus, in the Old Testament the Spirit primarily “comes upon” people to empower them to do a particular task in service to God and His people. He is not generally described as working in, or filling all believers in the same way that we see in the New Testament.
We are united to Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, who guarantees that we will receive all the benefits of Christ. By the Spirit we have all (believers) been baptized into the body of Christ. By the Spirit, we who believe are given understanding of what we could not otherwise understand about God. We are all given power to do great things for God by His Spirit.
Jesus is the great Spirit-empower deliverer, and as those who have received the Holy Spirit, we are made Spirit-empowered workers in His Kingdom.
One element of the significance of the work of Christ is that He has now poured out His Spirit, and is transforming the world in a new and powerful ways – Ways unseen and unprecedented in history. In Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, the whole of humanity is being renewed and transformed so as to be brought into conformity to Christ.
This is a fascinating article written by Peter Leithart:
In the article Peter provides some excellent theological background for properly understanding fasting and Lent. Lent and it’s propoer use has been the subject of much discussion recently amoung some of the CREC pastors. I think his insights are very useful to recovering a biblical and a modern Protestant understanding of the Lenten season.
Today on a list serve that I participate in one of the men asked a question that is on many people’s minds:
“OK. Could someone explain to me what’s going on in Israel right now, please?”
He received the following two responses that I thought were particularly insightful:
“Hamas has been dropping bombs on Israel daily ever since the cease fire ended — and even before.
“The Jewish government has no intention of allowing its citizens to be subjected day in and day out to Hamas’ terrorism, so they decided to blow them off the face of the planet — which is a good temporary solution, but not a real solution at all.
“What is happening is that God is using Jews and Muslims to educate the dull, stupid, Christian West about the simple truth that one’s faith in God and understanding of who God is actually is the most important political idea a man can hold.
“The Muslims in particular are God’s discipline against the West for its Enlightenment, anti-Christian mentality. God is showing the world that there will be no realization of the secular, democratic, capitalist dream.
“Outside of Christ is chaos.
“Something like that is what is happening in Israel. The Jews and Muslims are bearing testimony to Jesus in spite of themselves.”
The other astute post highlighted another theologically important point that would help a good many Christians reorient their thinking not only about the Middle East, but also the comprehensive salvation wrought by Christ.
“You could also argue that this is what happens when people (Muslims and Jews) try to hold onto the OC [Old Covenant] land promises, whereas God’s focus is now the world (Rom. 4:13), not a tiny strip on the eastern shore or the Mediterranean Sea.”
Christ did not come merely to save a minority of humans from their sins so that they can go to heaven someday and be with him. No! That is not the gospel!
The good news, the Gospel that is to be declared to the world is that Jesus Christ our Lord was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). By His resurrection and ascension He was seated at the right hand of the Father, and rules all things (Eph. 2:20-23; Acts 2:24-36).
What does our Lord Jesus rule, as the exalted Savior? Psalm 2:7-8 (cf. Acts 13:33) tells us that by the resurrection the Father declared that He will give His Son the nations as His inheritance to rule. This reign is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that the nations would be blessed through him and His seed. Through Jesus Christ and Him alone will the nations find salvation and peace.
This is the Gospel – This is the hope of the nations: That Jesus will bring peace and salvation to the earth. There is no other name under heaven by which a man or the nations of the world can be saved except Jesus Christ. And this salvation is not just spiritual, heavenly, other dimensional salvation – it includes a transformation of the world under the Lordship of Christ. It is our prayer that the will of the Father in heaven would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
If this is true – Why do so many Christians today limit the salvation of God to he hearts of men, and the geographic reign of Christ to Israel/Palestine (and that limited to a millennial period in the future)? Why the preoccupation with the Land of Israel when Christ is the sovereign ruler of all the earth? Since all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him so that the nations of the world will be disciple through His people – Why the inordinate interest in Israel?
Because, like the Jews and Muslims that have rejected the Messiah, most Christians today hold on to the Old Covenant land promises as if Christ were irrelevant to the history of the world. The Great Commission imposes on the Church the duty to declare to the nations (i.e. the Jews, Muslims, all peoples, tribes, tongues and nations) that Jesus rules all of the earth and the only hope for peace is to be found in Jesus Christ.
May God give us the faith to believe the Gospel enough to preach it in its fullness – Then maybe, just maybe – There could be a real and enduring peace in the Middle East.
None
None
