Year's End, A Time To Look Back

It is that time of year to look back. Some pastors and Churches don’t like to look back, but want only to look ahead. But anyone who has read Louis L’Amour[1] books knows that you must always look at your back trail to see if you are being followed and as a way of making sure you’re going straight. I wonder if such pastors and congregations who don’t want to look back have been influenced by evolution, and thereby think there is nothing to be learned from the past. They think we are somehow evolved socially and spiritually, and we cannot learn from those who have gone on before us. Still other pastors and congregations, frequently those who think themselves to be conservative and old fashioned, look to the past, but they look only to the recent past. This, of course, limits them to seeing Christianity only since the deleterious effects of Charles G. Finney’s decisionism and Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture have so radically changed the face of American Christianity.[2] Because they don’t look back far enough, they think their approach to ministry is the way it’s always been done. How wrong they are.

Better than looking only to the recent past would also be looking back to those times centuries ago when God visited His people with revival and great numbers of souls saved, times like the First and Second Great Awakenings. Those were times when sinners were converted to Christ, and their conversions changed the faces of nations, altering the course of human history, and even bringing about the eventual end of slavery in the Western hemisphere. But those were the effects of pastors and congregations who rightly saw their duty and task before God to glorify Him and to seek to bring individual sinners to Christ. If pastors and congregations today would learn from those Puritans and old English and American colonies Baptists, who were concerned with real conversions and had no thought of generating big numbers for number’s sake, the state of Christianity would be much improved.

Finally, look way back. Look back to the Gospels and the book of Acts, when the Lord Jesus Christ issued His Great Commission, and men acted upon His directive. Is there any indication that the Lord Jesus Christ wanted His early disciples to do anything other than make disciples? No. Therefore, let us not change the ancient landmarks.^[3] Modern day pastors and congregations explain away the vast difference between what Jesus Christ commanded and what they do by saying, “the culture is so much different, and we are adapting to the culture.” To be sure, the culture is different. And we should adapt to the culture. But differences in the culture do not cause differences in the basic nature of sinful men. Neither do they justify in any way an alteration of Bible doctrine or Gospel ministry.

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[1] Louis L’Amour, nicknamed “America’s storyteller,” was an American novelist and short story writer of primarily of Western novels.

[2] As Charles G. Finney adversely influenced Christian evangelism in the young United States of America, so was the Sunday School movement in this country damaged by Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture, (Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, reprinted from the 1861 edition in 1994), page 33.

^[3] Deuteronomy 27.17; Proverbs 22.28; 23.10.

What A Man At Church Might Ponder

Imagine your prayers for a boy you see at Church one Sunday being answered by that boy coming back to Church again and again. Then more of your prayers being answered by that boy coming to know Jesus Christ as his Savior and being baptized. Then watch that young lad grow into manhood, as he sits under preaching, as he observes the lifestyles and practices of the older men in the Church, as he is taught God’s Word, and as he is discipled.

I can promise you that the greatest obstacle to his spiritual life that he will face from within the congregation will be those men he looks up to who disappoint him. He is likely already used to being disappointed by his dad, by his uncles, and by his mom’s various boyfriends. But when he sees the admired man who is a Church member drop the ball of faithfulness, consistency, or leadership in his home, the boy will be faced with his greatest temptation to slide from discouragement into skepticism and cynicism. Understand that skeptics and cynics are men whose hopes were dashed and whose expectations were crushed by someone when they were lads. The importance of consistent godliness is thereby seen.

Consider the thrill of being a part of that young man’s life. You greet him every time you see him. He sees that he is important to you and the other grown men whom he admires and hopes to someday be like. Eventually, he begins to consider the claims of Christ and is converted and baptized. Then come those challenging years when everyone who knows him outside Church, and the raging hormones of biology, combine to challenge him to forsake the faith. What gets him through it, by God’s grace? God may very well use you. Perhaps you are the man he most looks forward to seeing, to reach out to with his hand to shake, and to be treated with respect and love, as he is invited into this fraternity of Christian manhood the Devil both hates and fears. Maybe you are the encouragement he needs. You may be the one man in his life who has no desire to take his dad’s place, who has no desire to be an indulgent uncle type, but who longs to be the young fellow’s brother in Christ who walks alongside him on the pathway of life to help him grow to real Christian manhood.

Consider two things as you ponder your life and your predictable encounters with the lad at Church: First, unless you are willing to allow someone to play that role in your life, you will never, ever, be prepared to play that role in someone else’s life. That is a role God wants for you. Don’t you think it’s about time, regardless of what anyone else in your life has to say about it, that you stepped up and began preparing for the rest of your life this side of eternity? What am I challenging you to do? I am challenging you to take the next step in your Christian life to begin discipling someone. Following is a poem I received only yesterday that applies not only to fathers and sons, but also to Christian men and the boys who look up to us.

“THAT LITTLE BOY WHO FOLLOWS ME”

A careful man I want to be,

            A little youngster follows me.

I do not dare to go astray,

            In fear he might go that same way.

I cannot once escape his eyes,

            And what he sees me do he tries.

Like me he says he wants to be,

            That little boy who follows me.

Now he thinks that I’m so big and fine,

            He believes every single word of mine.

Lord, the bad in me please don’t let him see,

            I wish that I could much stronger be.

I must remember as I go through summer’s sun and winter’s snow,

            I’m molding for eternity

            That little boy who follows me.

Yes, I’m molding for eternity,

            That little boy that follows me.

- Harlan Howard, an icon of country music songwriters

Second, where, other than the Church of Jesus Christ, can a boy be transformed by God’s grace into a man, a real man, a man fitted for eternity and useful to God until he reaches eternity? Only in Christ’s Church are the eternal considerations, the spiritual aspects of life, addressed intentionally so that a lad, a young man, or any man will become a Christian man, who will then be trained to walk worthy of God Who has called us unto His kingdom and glory.

An Eighteen Hundred Year-Old Conflict Rooted In Pride?

     Reading "A Theology For The Church" edited by Daniel L. Akin, particularly the chapter titled "The Nature of God: Being, Attributes, and Acts" written by Timothy George, I was very surprised to learn on pages 211-212 that Athanasius was the bishop of Alexandria in Egypt while Arius was an elder in the same church. Recall that a conflict developed between the two about the nature of God, with Athanasius contending for Christian orthodoxy regarding the Trinity that accurately reflects the message of God's Word and Arius advocating a heretical position that both denied the triune nature of the Godhead and the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ to be worshiped.
     How could I have missed so important a point as that? Could this entire matter be the result of a clash of personalities? Might Arius have been jealous of the much younger Athanasius for being appointing bishop while he was passed over for promotion? Is this close association between one of the most courageous defenders of truth and one of the most divisive of heretics known by many but not known to me? Or is this a fact that has not been widely disseminated? I confess that I do not know.
     What I do know is that pride is often at the root of many conflicts in which honest disagreement about doctrine is pretended. Could such be the case with Arianism, and its heirs Islam and Jehovah's Witnesses? I confess that I do not know. However, I would not be surprised to learn this is the truth when I get to heaven.
     Pride is a despicable sin. It was one of the sins of Lucifer, along with lies. When you think of it, pride and lies are everything Satan has been guilty of since his fall. And when the serpent enticed Eve he did so with lies and the enticement to pride.
     I know that the theological dispute between Athanasius and Arius is recorded to have turned on the relationship of the Son of God to the heavenly Father. However, I cannot help but be suspicious after forty years of ministry that what started it all was jealousy resulting from wounded pride. How carefully we must be on guard to preserve our humility.

Sanctification By Obedience To The Pastor?

     When was the last time you attended a preacher's meeting and heard a sermon on the subject of sanctification? I am not referring to that word so much as that issue. Most of the preacher's meetings I used to go to emphasized soul winning, the King James Bible, or soul winning and the King James Bible. I don't go to many preacher's meetings these days. Not because I don't enjoy good preaching. I love good preaching. But there is very little good preaching being delivered at most preacher's meetings these days, at least the ones I stopped attending.
     I have little patience for a young guy haranguing me about soul winning and the King James Bible who is confused about the one and ignorant about the other, thinking the Bible versions issue is something of recent origin instead of an issue that originated in the Italian and French Alps more than a thousand years ago. For anyone who still thinks soul winning can be reduced to persuading someone to repeat the words of a prayer I commend Decisional Regeneration vs. Divine Regeneration by James E. Adams, published by Solid Ground Christian Books.
     That which seems most rare in preacher's meetings these days is preaching on issues related to sanctification. Where are you on the doctrines related to the spiritual growth and development of believers, preacher? Do you subscribe to Thomas Aquinas' proposition that the Law of Moses is vital to Christian growth and maturity? Or do you favor what is referred to by some as New Covenant Theology, whose chief spokesman is the British writer and preacher David H. J. Gay, a personal friend of mine? On reflection, I seem to recall that a number of my IFB friends eschew the Law of Moses as useful to sanctification, while most others are unfamiliar with NCT.
     In the Churches I am familiar with here in SoCal there have always been a number of Baptist Churches with a very interesting approach to Christian sanctification, seeing Christian growth and maturity, as well as spirituality, being very specifically compliance with the desires and demands of the pastor. That is, the standard of spirituality is not seen by many IFBs as yieldedness to some moral aspect of the Law of Moses, or even conscience compliance with the leading of the Holy Spirit and Scripture, but the expressed will and demands of the pastor.
     What do you think? Am I wrong? Is unity of the Spirit a oneness of mind and spirit around the dictates of God's Word and the expressed will of the Spirit of God? Or is it reduced to the commands and demands of the pastor? What would Spurgeon's position have been on this issue? Or Carey's? Or Judson's? Or Paul's?
     I would appreciate your response to my musings on this matter.

Your Right Task, Your Wrong Tendency

First, There Is YOUR RIGHT TASK

Our goal, our job, our responsibility, our task as Church congregations, is to make disciples. Making disciples is not an optional assignment but has been given to us by the One Who has all power in heaven and earth. And when He issued this assignment He did not suggest that we make disciples. Neither did He ask us to make disciples. This task was issued in the form of an imperative. We have been ordered to make disciples. You and I as members of Churches have been commanded to make disciples.

Implicit in our Lord’s Great Commission is resistance to the completion of our assignment. After all, the Lord Jesus did tell us “go ye therefore,” did He not? And why did He direct us to go forth to make disciples? Because of man’s sinful nature, his inherent depravity means that men would not come seeking to be made disciples. Rather, mankind’s essential nature results in avoiding and hiding and escaping from the Church’s efforts to make disciples of them. So, you can mark it down that those who are not disciples of Jesus Christ will not want you to involve yourself in making them or anyone else disciples of Jesus Christ. Left up to them, they would be delighted if you left them to their sins so they can go to Hell in hand baskets. It is not so unusual to see them also wanting to preoccupy you so that you have little time to reach anyone else besides. As well, there will always be those who pose as Christians who, too, will greatly resist engaging in the making of disciples. Despite their profession, they will so demonstrate their unwillingness by their refusal to be a disciple who in turn is engaged in making disciples, that they are very willing to leave the lost to their own devices. It should terrify you to come to the stark realization that you know a Christian who simply refuses to act like a disciple of Jesus Christ, and who is perfectly willing to do whatever he or she can get away with to avoid participating in efforts to make disciples of the Savior.

Our task as a Church is to make disciples, against the opposition of all nations. Thus, the scope of our Great Commission is worldwide and diverse, extending to every nation, tongue, and tribe. There is no one who does not need our Church’s ministry. There is no one who does not need our Church’s message. There is no one who is so well off that he does not need to be improved by becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Your Church, then, in seeking to fulfill the Great Commission our Lord Jesus Christ gave to like congregations, will find herself comprised of every sort of person, as God blesses your efforts and as you see disciples of Jesus Christ being made. It is reasonable to expect that your greatest success will be among people who are like you. It is unreasonable to expect that your success will be limited to people who are like you. Indeed, if you do not remain an ethnically mixed group of disciples, and succeed in some measure in penetrating each ethnic group that lives within traveling distance of your place of assembly, then you are disobedient to your Lord and Master’s Commission. This is your right task.

Next, There Is YOUR WRONG TENDENCY

A term that has gained popularity over the last few decades is “mission drift.” “Mission drift” is the tendency for organizations of every kind to deviate from the purposes for which they were established.^[1] Churches, which are in some respects like other organizations, are very susceptible to “mission drift.” Our mission, which was given to us almost 2000 years ago, is to make disciples for Jesus Christ. But what has happened in the intervening 2000 years that can be ascribed to “mission drift”? Churches of all stripes and persuasions have run so far down rabbit trails that it seems they exist for anything but making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Even among Churches most like your own, there are the terrible fruits of “mission drift.” How else can you explain ministries that have resorted to counting the number of “souls saved” each year, or the number of “baptisms” each year, or the number of members who have “joined” that year, or the total number of “members,” or the total number of “decisions” at special meetings? Such efforts to measure a Church’s success by tabulating numbers cannot only give evidence that “mission drift” has occurred in a Church but can cause “mission drift” to occur.

Churches and pastors need to be extremely careful of “mission drift.” As well, we need to keep in mind that Charles G. Finney’s efforts to subvert orthodox ministries succeeded, in a great measure, by his use of numbers and statistics to “show” that his methods were superior to those he was supplanting. And if we are not careful, a pastor who finds greater numerical success in one area of ministry will tend to focus on that area in which he enjoys apparent success leading him off in a direction that will result in “mission drift.”

Thus, a pastor and Church can focus on stewardship more than making disciples, or can focus on decisions more than making disciples, or can focus on attendance goals more than making disciples, or can focus on professions of faith more than making disciples, or can even focus on seeking to reach certain ethnic groups to the exclusion of others instead of making disciples. But remember, what the Lord Jesus Christ told us to do is make disciples, something that’s much harder to track statistically than baptisms and professions and new members or attendance.

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^[1] http://mtprof.msun.edu/Win1994/McBroom.html   12/6/2002

Kindness

      After a challenging week, I decided to feed my cravings for news by scrolling through some Internet news articles this afternoon before going home. What should I find but an article detailing the Pennsylvania governor’s decision to revoke the state police security protection provided to the lieutenant governor for his repeated verbal abuse of the officers assigned to him. The article, in part, reads 

“But the move follows a state Inspector General's office investigation, requested by [Governor] Wolf, into complaints that Stack and his wife, Tonya, had repeatedly verbally abused members of the State Police detail that protect them, as well as staffers who help maintain their official residence… After news of the probe surfaced, Stack last week apologized and pledged both he and his wife would try harder. Later, sources confirmed that Wolf’s office had repeatedly warned the lieutenant governor and Wolf said he had personally delivered such a warning.”[1]

I already don’t like this guy, even though I have never met him. Who needs this kind of individual in a position of responsibility? This is the same type of verbal abuse that Hillary Clinton is notorious for. Sadly, this is the type of verbal abuse that some pastors are known to display.

Perchance there is a reader of this blog who is unfamiliar with where God sets the bar for kindness for His people, especially His leaders. Following are a few of the passages in the Old and New Testaments where the words kind and kindness are found:

Jonah 4:2:  “And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.”

Luke 6:35: “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.”

Acts 28:2:  “And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.”

1 Corinthians13:4: “Charity [love] suffereth long, and is kind; charity [love] envieth not; charity [love] vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.”

2 Corinthians 6:6:  “By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned.”

Ephesians 2:7:       “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

Ephesians 4:32:     “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Colossians 3:12:    “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering.”

2 Peter 1:7:   “And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.”

You have certainly heard or read of the advice given for evaluating the real character of a person you’ve just met, or perhaps are even considering marrying. Because everyone is nice to people they want to impress, the key to evaluating what a person is really like is the individual’s conduct toward those they are not seeking to impress and those who cannot do anything for them. How does he treat a waitress? How does she treat the teller at the bank? How about the ticket agent at the airport? Does he explode to his staff when they disappoint him?

This kind of conduct is very revealing. From Jonah 4.2 we learn that God is of great kindness. In our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, in Luke 6.35 the Savior informs us God is kind to the unthankful and the evil. Luke recorded the kindness of barbarians toward Paul and himself when they were shipwrecked in Acts 28.2. The rest of the verses listed above establish from Paul and Peter that kindness accompanies Christian love, Christian spirituality, and spiritual maturity. Thus, kindness is more revealing than many people recognize.

I know that some people get crabby when they are tired, irritable, and frustrated. At least, they justify their unkindness for those reasons. However, that is as irrational as being cranky when you are sick; it takes more energy to be nasty than it does to be nice just as it takes more muscles in your face to frown than to smile.

Why are people routinely unkind to others, especially those who serve them? Do they imagine themselves to be superior? Or are they the product of poor parenting, with mom’s and dad’s who did not strongly correct their fits of anger when not getting their way? Who knows?

All I know is, if I lived in Pennsylvania I would not vote for the guy. Or if I was a Church member and a man prone to such unkindness were a candidate to become our next pastor; I could not in good conscience vote for him. Kindness is too important to let the absence of it pass by without consequence.

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[1] http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/Stack-Wolf-state-police-detail.html

Is Bible College For Every Church Kid?

In volume one (pages 302-303) of his brilliant "The Baptists: Key People Involved In Forming A Baptist Identity," author and noted Baptist historian Tom Nettles addresses the educational philosophy of pioneer missionary William Carey and his colleagues in India.

Those men were committed to providing a general education to Indians that was not limited to Bible instruction only, being convinced their approach was clearly demonstrating a commitment to the entire trustworthiness of Scripture and their belief in the unity of all truth. They were also convinced that a general education would increase one's appreciation of the biblical material they were teaching and that true learning would reveal the perverseness of false religion.

This speaks indirectly, in my opinion, to the general disregard I have observed among many IFBs for education. Where are the doctors, nurses, lawyers, chemists, mathematicians, engineers, developers, and entrepreneurs that could be and should be growing up in our churches? Not that one even has to go to college to be a godly individual. I am thrilled to see a spiritual young person work in a warehouse or framing houses, to see others develop into an office managers or learn trades. My point is that one size does not fit all, yet the thrust of so many youth camps and ministries is to push as many young high school graduates as possible into Bible college, at least for a year. Why? Since it is the pastor's responsibility to equip Christians for service and ministry in the congregation, what is the point of attending Bible college for a year? To find a spouse? That is not a credible reason for funneling impressionable young people who have not been called to the Gospel ministry into a Bible college.

Focusing at present only on those properly bound for academic training, is it at all possible that the spiritual barrenness in many secular colleges and universities in the USA is the result of so many Christian young people being directed by pastors and youth camp speakers to Bible colleges where so many who are not called to the Gospel ministry end up being herded into ministry positions they are not called to, and while in Bible colleges they receive a sub par STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education? I praise God for the Christian law school student who posed a challenge to the founder of Harvard's Law School, the renowned Simon Greenleaf, that he apply the same rules of evidence to the Gospel story that he wrote about in his three-volume work A Treatise on the Law of Evidence. The result was his conversion to Christ. Sadly, such things rarely happen in colleges and universities anymore because so few Christian kids from IFB Churches go to secular schools.

Don't get me wrong. I am not decrying a good Christian education, so long as it is good and not just Christian. A mediocre Christian education is not really Christian, in my opinion, since to be a Christian education it must be an excellent education. That is not often found in today's Bible colleges, as those of us who graduated with STEM degrees from secular schools can attest. A school virtually no one flunks out of is not a legitimate school at all.

My point? If we are really and truly confident that the Bible is true and that the faith once delivered to the saints can withstand even the closest scrutiny, we have nothing to fear from rigorous study, honest research, or academic integrity. Where are the Christians at UCLA, at USC, at Harvard, at Princeton, at UCI, at Columbia, at MIT, and at Cal Tech?

Without naming them, I am so delighted with the young men and women at our Church who are fulfilling their hopes, dreams, and aspirations, be they as tradesmen, as homemakers, as professionals, or as academics. So long as they use what they do as a platform from which to serve and glorify God as a member of Calvary Road Baptist Church I am one very happy pastor.