Missional

Keller Kiosk

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

 Christianity Today has published an interesting interview with Tim Keller of Redeemer Church in New York City titled, Tim Keller Reasons With America.  If you have enjoyed Keller’s writing or teaching you may appreciate the insight behind his philosophy and ministry.  Or, if you are one who may be a little curious about this guy who is so frequently cited and quoted in Evangelical cirlces, this interview might be a good introduction.

On another front, from Justin Taylor, at Between Two Worlds, I have learned that Keller has a new book due out in October.  The new book, The Prodigal God, will describe and define Christianity in light of the parable of the Prodigal Son.  Having heard Keller teach on this topic, it should be radically profound. I am looking forward to the read.

Making a World of Difference

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

“What will it take to change the world – to really change it for the better?”

Ron Sider asks that question in the Introduction to his book, Living Like Jesus.  And his question resonates with me. It has for a long time – long before I heard Sider aksing it. 

I grow bored and frustrated with a faith that simply exists to perpetuate itself.  It has never seemed to me to be the faith I see in the Bible.  The early disciples of Jesus turned the world upside down! Jesus came to reclaim the world that is rightfully his.  Somehow, isolating oursleves while singing “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” does not seem to match God’s purpose for his church.

The church of Jesus Christ is intended to be an expression of what the Kingdom of God is and will be.  We are called to be influencers in a world that is corrupt to its very core.  (See Matthew 5:13-16 & Jeremiah 29:7)

And we are to be influencers while recognizing that we have been infected by the very corruption of sin that is continuing to devastate the world around us. We are not immune. But we are in remission because of the blood of Christ. (See Romans 3:25 & Hebrews 9:22) 

Such an understanding shapes our attitdes as we do what we are called to do. Knowing that we are not superior, but are totally dependent upon the grace of God in the blood of Christ, we are humble and compassionate toward the world we are called to serve.  And knowing that our only hope is God’s grace, we glorify God through thankfulness to him and dependence upon him. 

Sadly, I see too may churches, and too many Christians, who have chosen to isolate themselves from the world they see as polluted.  They have no intention of trying to influence it, only to escape it. 

This seems foolish to me for a number of reasons.

First, it is directly disobedient to God’s intention for his people (See Genesis 12:2-3).  The motive for this disobedience may be the understanding that we are not immune to the corruption of sin. It is therefore an act of self preservation; it is an attempt to avoid becomming infected.  But it is still disobedience to God.  And it is a lack of functional faith that he will preserve his people.

Secondly, self preservation is misguided because, as Romans 3:23 shows us, we have all already beeen infected! We can hide if we want, but it will do us no good.  The infection is already inside the camp!

Finally, worst of all are those who isolate themselves and live as if they think they are immune to the effect of sin. These are self-righteous separatists. If they are impervious to sin, why isolate themselves? Such people make no positive influence on the world that I can see.  And frankly, because of their wrong view of themsleves and their direct disobedience to God, I am not sure I really consider them truly Christian! (However, I don’t get a vote.)

So I wrestle with the question: How can we make a difference? How can we change the world? How can we influence it toward what God intends it to be?

Sider offers an answer to his own question:

“I think the answer is simple: It would take just a tiny fraction of today’s Christians truly believeing what Jesus taught and living the way Jesus lived.”

I think Sider is right.

Siders book elaborates on practical ways we need to examine our lives, and ways our lives are to reflect the life & teaching of Jesus.  It revolves around what Sider labels Characteristics of a Genuine Christian: 

1. Genuine Christians embrace both God’s holiness and God’s love.

2. Genuine Christians live like Jesus.

3. Genuine Christians keep their marriage covenants and put children before career.

4. Genuine Christians nurture daily spiritual renewal and live in the power of the Spirit.

5. Genuine Christians strive to make the church a little picture of what heaven will be like.

6. Genuine Christians love the whole person the way Jesus did.

7. Genuine Christians mourn church divisions and embrace all who confess Jesus as God and Savior.

8. Genuine Christians confess that Jesus is Lord of politics and economics.

9. Genuine Christians share God’s special concern for the poor.

10. Genuine Christians treasure the creation and worship the Creator.

1l. Genuine Christians embrace servanthood.

This list alone is worth the price of the book. 

I think much good would come if we sincerely reflected on these premises.  How much more if we began to humbly acknowledge that often we have been negligent in many of these areas, and began to act on them in accordance with the teaching and life of Christ?

I suspect we would see our influence grow; that our influence would be viewed as a positive thing.  I suspect we may even see Proverbs 11:10 come to life:

When the righteous prosper the city rejoices;  When the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy!

Antithesis Manifesto

/ Dennis Griffith / 3 Comments

 

Several years ago a now defunct web-based organization, Antithesis or ChristianCounterCulture.com, published a manifesto that prophetically challenges contemporary Evanglicalism.  It resonated with me then and, with the exception of the dating in the opening paragraph, it remains timely. 

From time to time I re-read, what I call, the Antithesis Manifesto to refresh my thoughts. As I reflect on it this afternoon I want to sumarize some of the assertions:

1. Today’s Christian Culture is destroying Christianity

While we are prone to lament the “world” and the decaying values, the truth is that we Evangelicals bear much responsibility for this.  We want so desperately to be accepted by the world (for the sake of evangelism) that we have largely become indistinguishable from it.  We mimic whatever is popular, and many seem to be driven by the same values systems.  (Think about it, How do we guage a “successful” church?  Often by size, money, fame, and political clout.) 

This value shift has not escaped notice. Not from those outside the Church. And not from a generation inside the church that has grown weary of our impotence, if not our outright hypocrissy.  

I recall John Stott saying that if the culture is decaying it is the fault of the church not being the preserving “Salt” it is supposed to be. (See Matthew 5:13)  Stott said you can no more blame the culture for decaying than you can a piece of meat. It is the salt that bears the responsibility to the work of preserving.

If we think the world is having a negative influence on the church it is only because the church has chosen to be like the world.  It is not the world that is destroying us. We are doing it to ourselves. And collectively, I’m afraid, we Westerners are doing little toward our mandate to preserve our culture. (See Jeremiah 29:7)

2. We must Practice Truth

It is not enough to claim the Bible is truth. We must live that truth.  This requires a serious assessment of all of our practices – ecclesiastical as well as personal – and an intentional submission of them to Biblical standards.  We need to be “formed” by the Word, not merely familiar with it.  And there is no sphere of our lives that is exempt from constant need of re-formation.

3. Our Fellowships must be REAL Communities.

The Gospel not only forms us as “new creations”, but it forms a New Community.  As the Manifesto correctly observes: “Too many of our churches are really teaching stations and activity generators. The ‘sharing of life’ in community has had little place.” 

The Gospel formed community is an open, inviting, honest place, where participants are interdependent.  This runs contrary to our individualism (another value we have assumed from the culture), but it is the Biblical model, and the environment in which Gospel Transformation really takes place. 

Conclusion

The whole manifesto reveals a definite touch of Francis Schaeffer’s influence.  Perhaps that’s why it resonates with me.  But a simple periodic review is not enough. We need to make the appropriate changes.  Without them this whole thing is rather ominous.  But if there is change there is also reason for great hope.

The Antithesis Manifesto itself concludes with these words:

If Christians take these factors into account, then we may hope for the stirring of a revolution in our day. And, should our Lord delay his return, the century before us may be marked as a time when radical Christian proclamation went forth yet again – in the power of the Holy Spirit – turning the world upside down, forever altering the cultural landscape.

(To read the original document click: Antithesis Manifesto.pdf)

On My Reading Table: The Tangible Kingdom

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

 Recent travel has made it difficult to get to a number of things – like posting on this blog.  I have one more trip to make this week, then I should be settled in for the better part of the Summer. 

Posting on the blog is not the only thing that has been put on the shelf recently. I have not had opportunity to read as much as I like, either.  But I have been reading some.  It’s rare that I go anywhere without a book or two.  It’s just that while I usually juggle three or four books, these past few weeks I’ve been limited to one: The Tangible Kingdom. 

This book by Hugh Halter & Matt Smay is focused on cultivating an incarnational community, or on turning the local church into a vital and visible presence in our local community. The premise is that the Body of Christ is called to be a visible and authentic expression of the Kingdom of God as it presently exists. 

I think it is important to remember the Kingdom of God is both a present reality AND future hope. At least that’s what Jesus taught. Sadly, though, I think we are prone to focus solely on its future coming.  To the extent we focus only on the future manifestation of God’s Kingdom we miss out on a lot. And we fail to give the world around us a glimpse of what will one day be universal – only far better; more perfect than we presently express even on our best days. 

I long for such an expression of the Kingdom, so I am excited whenever I can catch a glimpse through those who are practicing such community in their churches.

I’m not quite finished yet, but I’ll probably give a summary and review in a few weeks.  In the mean time you might want to check out the related web site: TangibleKingdom.com.

The Mark of the Christian (part 6)

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

by Francis Schaeffer

Love In Practice

Let me give two beautiful examples of such observable love. One happened among the Brethren groups in Germany immediately after the last war.

In order to control the church, Hitler commanded the union of all religious groups in Germany, drawing them together by law. The Brethren divided over this issue. Half accepted Hitler’s dictum and half refused. The ones who submitted, of course, had a much easier time, but gradually in this organizational oneness with the liberal groups their own doctrinal sharpness and spiritual life withered. On the other hand, the group that stayed out remained spiritually virile, but there was hardly a family in which someone did not die in a German concentration camp.

Now can you imagine the emotional tension? The war is over, and these Christian brothers face each other again. They had the same doctrine and they had worked together for more than a generation. Now what is going to happen? One man remembers that his father died in a concentration camp and knows that these people over here remained safe. But people on the other side have deep personal feelings as well.

Then gradually these brothers came to know that this situation just would not do. A time was appointed when the elders of the two groups could meet together in a certain quiet place. I asked the man who told me this, “What did you do?” And he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what we did. We came together, and we set aside several days in which each man would search his own heart.” Here was a real difference; the emotions were deeply, deeply stirred. “My father has gone to the concentration camp; my mother was dragged away.” These things are not just little pebbles on the beach; they reach into the deep well-springs of human emotions. But these people understood the command of Christ at this place, and for several days every man did nothing except search his own heart concerning his own failures and the commands of Christ. Then they met together.

I asked the man, “What happened then?”

And he said, “We just were one.”

To my mind, this is exactly what Jesus speaks about. The Father has sent the Son!

Divided But One

The principle we are talking about is universal, applicable in all times and places. Let me, then, give you a second illustration — a different practice of the same principle.

I have been waiting for years for a time when two groups of born-again Christians, who for good reasons find it impossible to work together, separate without saying bitter things against each other. I have long longed for two groups who would continue to show a love to the watching world when they came to the place where organizational unity seemed no longer possible between them.

Theoretically, of course, every local church ought to be able to minister to the whole spectrum of society. But in practice we must acknowledge that in certain places it becomes very difficult. The needs of different segments of society are different.

Recently a problem of this nature arose in a church in a large city in the Midwest in the United States. A number of people attuned to the modern age were going to a certain church, but the pastor gradually concluded that he was not able to preach and minister to the two groups. Some men can, but he personally did not find it possible to minister to the whole spectrum of his congregation — the long-haired ones and the far-out people they brought, and, at the same time, the people of the surrounding neighborhood.

The example of observable love I am going to present now must not be taken as an “of course” situation in our day. In our generation the lack of love can easily cut both ways: A middle-class people can all too easily be snobbish and unloving against the long-haired Christians, and the long-haired Christians can be equally snobbish and unloving against the short-haired Christians.

After trying for a long time to work together, the elders met and decided that they would make two churches. They made it very plain that they were not dividing because their doctrine was different; they were dividing as a matter of practicability. One member of the old session went to the new group. They worked under the whole session to make an orderly transition. Now they have two churches and they are consciously practicing love toward each other.

Here is a lack of organizational unity that is a true love and unity which the world may observe. The Father has sent the Son!

I want to say with all my heart that as we struggle with the proper preaching of the gospel in the midst of the 20th century, the importance of observable love must come into our message. We must not forget the final apologetic. The world has a right to look upon us as we, as true Christians, come to practical differences and it should be able to observe that we do love each other. Our love must have a form that the world may observe; it must be seeable.

The One True Mark

Let us look again at the biblical texts which so clearly indicate the mark of the Christian:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)

That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:21)

What then shall we conclude but that as the Samaritan loved the wounded man, we as Christians are called upon to love all men as neighbors, loving them as ourselves. Second, that we are to love all true Christian brothers in a way that the world may observe. This means showing love to our brother in the midst of our differences — great or small — loving our brothers when it costs us something, loving them even under times of tremendous emotional tension, loving them in a way the world can see. In short, we are to practice and exhibit the holiness of God and the love of God, for without this we grieve the Holy Spirit.

Love — and the unity it attests to — is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.

The Mark of the Christian (part 5)

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

by Francis Schaeffer

When Christians Disagree

What happens, then, when we must differ with other brothers in Christ because of the need also to show forth God’s holiness either in doctrine or in life? In the matter of life, Paul clearly shows us the balance in I and II Corinthians. The same thing applies in doctrine as well.

First, in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 he scolds the Corinthian church for allowing a man in the midst of fornication to stay in the church without discipline. Because of the holiness of God, because of the need to exhibit this holiness to a watching world, and because such judgment on the basis of God’s revealed law is right in God’s sight, Paul scolds the church for not disciplining the man.

After they have disciplined him, Paul writes again to them in 2 Corinthians 2:6-8 and scolds them because they are not showing love toward him. These two things must stand together.

I am thankful that Paul writes this way in his first letter and his second, for here you see a passage of time. The Corinthians have taken his advice, they have disciplined the Christian, and now Paul writes to them, “You’re disciplining him, but why don’t you show your love toward him?” He could have gone on and quoted Jesus in saying, “Don’t you realize that the surrounding pagans of Corinth have a right to say that Jesus was not sent by the Father because you are not showing love to this man that you properly disciplined?”

A very important question arises at this point: How can we exhibit the oneness Christ commands without sharing in the other man’s mistakes? I would suggest a few ways by which we can practice and show this oneness even across the lines where we must differ.

Regret

First, we should never come to such difference with true Christians without regret and without tears. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Believe me, evangelicals often have not shown it. We rush in, being very, very pleased, it would seem at times, to find other men’s mistakes. We build ourselves up by tearing other men down. This can never show a real oneness among Christians.

There is only one kind of man who can fight the Lord’s battles in anywhere near the proper way, and that is the man who by nature is unbelligerent. A belligerent man tends to do it because he is belligerent; at least it looks that way. The world must observe that, when we must differ with each other as true Christians, we do it not because we love the smell of blood, the smell of the arena, the smell of the bullfight, but because we must for God’s sake. If there are tears when we must speak, then something beautiful can be observed.

Second, in proportion to the gravity of what is wrong between true Christians, it is important consciously to exhibit a seeable love to the world. Not all differences among Christians are equal. There are some that are very minor. Others are overwhelmingly important.

The more serious the wrongness is, the more important it is to exhibit the holiness of God, to speak out concerning what is wrong. At the same time, the more serious the differences become, the more important it becomes that we look to the Holy Spirit to enable us to show love to the true Christians with whom we must differ. If it is only a minor difference, showing love does not take much conscious consideration. But where the difference becomes really important, it becomes proportionately more important to speak for God’s holiness. And it becomes increasingly important in that place to show the world that we still love each other.

Humanly we function in exactly the opposite direction: In the less important differences we show more love toward true Christians, but as the difference gets into more important areas, we tend to show less love. The reverse must be the case: As the differences among true Christians get greater, we must consciously love and show a love which has some manifestation the world may see.

So let us consider this: Is my difference with my brother in Christ really crucially important? If so, it is doubly important that I spend time upon my knees asking the Holy Spirit, asking Christ, to do his work through me and my group, that I and we might show love even in this larger difference that we have come to with a brother in Christ or with another group of true Christians.

Costly Love

Third, we must show a practical demonstration of love in the midst of the dilemma even when it is costly. The word love should not be just a banner. In other words, we must do whatever must be done, at whatever cost, to show this love. We must not say, “I love you,” and then — bang, bang, bang!

So often people think that Christianity is only something soft, only a kind of gooey love that loves evil equally with good. This is not the biblical position. The holiness of God is to be exhibited simultaneously with love. We must be careful therefore, not to say that what is wrong is right, whether it is in the area of doctrine or of life, in our own group or another. Anywhere what is wrong is wrong, and we have a responsibility in that situation to say that what is wrong is wrong. But the observable love must be there regardless of the cost.

The Bible does not make these things escapable. 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 reads,

If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother goes to law against another — and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

What does this mean? The church is not to let pass what is wrong; but the Christian should suffer practical, monetary loss to show the oneness true Christians should have rather than to go to court against other true Christians, for this would destroy such an observable oneness before the watching world. This is costly love, but it is just such practicing love that can be seen.

Paul is talking about something which is observable, something that is very real: The Christian is to show such love in the midst of a necessary difference with his brother that he is willing to suffer loss — not just monetary loss (though most Christians seem to forget all love and oneness when money gets involved) but whatever loss is involved.

Whatever the specifics are, there is to be a practical demonstration of love appropriate to a particular place. The Bible is a strong and down-to-earth book.

A fourth way we can show and exhibit love without sharing in our brother’s mistake is to approach the problem with a desire to solve it, rather than with a desire to win. We all love to win. In fact, there is nobody who loves to win more than the theologian. The history of theology is all too often a long exhibition of a desire to win.

But we should understand that what we are working for in the midst of our difference is a solution — a solution that will give God the glory, that will be true to the Bible, but will exhibit the love of God simultaneously with his holiness. What is our attitude as we sit down to talk to our brother or as group meets with group to discuss differences? A desire to come out on top? To play one-up-manship? If there is any desire for love whatsoever, every time we discuss a difference, we will desire a solution and not just that we can be proven right.

The Difference of Differences

A fifth way in which we can show a practicing, observable love to the world without sharing in our brother’s mistake is to realize, to keep consciously before us and to help each other be aware, that it is easy to compromise and to call what is wrong right, but that it is equally easy to forget to exhibit our oneness in Christ. This attitude must be constantly and consciously developed — talked about and written about in and among our groups and among ourselves as individuals.

In fact, this must be talked about and written about before differences arise between true Christians. We have conferences about everything else. Who has ever heard of a conference to consider how true Christians can exhibit in practice a fidelity to the holiness of God and yet simultaneously exhibit in practice a fidelity to the love of God before a watching world? Whoever heard of sermons or writings which carefully present the practice of two principles which at first seem to work against each other: (1) the principle of the practice of the purity of the visible church in regard to doctrine and life and (2) the principle of the practice of an observable love and oneness among all true Christians?

If there is no careful preaching and writing about these things, are we so foolish as to think that there will be anything beautiful in practice when differences between true Christians must honestly be faced?

Before a watching world an observable love in the midst of difference will show a difference between Christians’ differences and other men’s differences. The world may not understand what the Christians are disagreeing about, but they will very quickly understand the difference of our differences from the world’s differences if they see us having our differences in an open and observable love on a practical level.

That is different. Can you see why Jesus said this was the thing that would arrest the attention of the world? You cannot expect the world to understand doctrinal differences, especially in our day when the existence of true truth and absolutes are considered unthinkable even as concepts.

We cannot expect the world to understand that on the basis of the holiness of God we are having a different kind of difference because we are dealing with God’s absolutes. But when they see differences among true Christians who also show an observable unity, this will open the way for them to consider the truth of Christianity and Christ’s claim that the Father did send the Son.

As a matter of fact, we have a greater possibility of showing what Jesus is speaking about here in the midst of our differences, than we do if we are not differing. Obviously we ought not to go out looking for differences among Christians: There are enough without looking for more. But even so it is in the midst of a difference that we have our golden opportunity. When everything is going well and we are all standing around in a nice little circle, there is not much to be seen by the world. But when we come to the place where there is a real difference and we exhibit uncompromised principles but at the same time observable love, then there is something that the world can see, something they can use to judge that these really are Christians, and that Jesus has indeed been sent by the Father.

Are We Declaring a Defective Gospel?

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

by Rick Wood, Managing Editor

Mission Froniers Magazine

U.S. Center for World Mission 

 

Is the Gospel message that hundreds of thousands of missionaries are proclaiming around the world defective?  Have hundreds of millions of people bought into a message that is, at its heart, unbiblical?   If true, this would be like Bill Gates sending out the latest Microsoft operating system which after installed for a year deletes all the files on the computer. To say the least, it would be a disaster, a catastrophe, and an apocalyptic nightmare all in one. But some are claiming that we are in fact proclaiming a defective, unbiblical Gospel.

 

Could this be one reason that so many are leaving their faith behind and the once vibrant Evangelical awakenings in Britain and America are but distant memories? The implications for world evangelization are immense. If the Gospel we proclaim will self destruct once installed on the hard drives of people’s hearts, then much of our work among un-reached peoples could be in danger of collapse as it has in much of Europe. Vishal Mangalwadi warns of this danger in his home country of India in his article, Pursuit of Knowldege & Truth: Key to a New Reformation.

 

Hundreds of millions of people have likely read the Four Spiritual Laws, the booklet written by Bill Bright and published by Campus Crusade for Christ. The first law in this little booklet says, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” This sounds great and it is just the kind of message that people want to hear. Many are eager to accept such a message and justifiably so. Who would not want this to be true in their lives. They say, “Wow, I would love to have a loving God on my side to make my life wonderful, to make my life complete.”

 

This message is proclaimed in books, songs and sermons across the world.

 

But what if this message is not true – at least not true in the way that most people want it and expect it to be true? Don’t get me wrong, I have the greatest respect for Bill Bright and the ministry of Campus Crusade, but this focus of our Gospel presentation can be misunderstood by, and misleading to, a whole generation of people who want to add God to their lives to make their lives complete. In all fairness, the Four Spiritual Laws does go on to identify sin as the problem and to provide the proper solution.

 

But what kind of expectations are we providing to people when we say, “Come to Christ and God will reveal to you a wonderful plan for an abundant life?” Are we setting people up with false expectations of what God will do for them? Are we promising more than what God has promised to deliver? Are we trying to market the Gospel to a generation of self centered people who really don’t understand their desperately lost state before a holy God and are therefore not really saved? Have millions of ‘believers” simply hired God to make their lives complete?

 

Ray Comfort in his book, The Way of the Master says,

 

“[t]he enemy has very subtly diverted our attention away from our core message. Instead of proclaiming the Good News that sinners can be made righteous in Christ and escape the wrath to come, we have settled for a “gospel” that implies that God’s primary purpose in saving us is to unfold a “wonderful plan” for our lives to solve our problems, make us happy in Christ, and rescue us from the hassles of this life.” (p.19)

 

Is that the central purpose of the Gospel we preach, to give us an abundant, full and rewarding life? Many have sadly bought into this and are disillusioned when everything does not go according to plan.

 

One dedicated missionary family I know had their daughter brutally murdered. The very first house they ever owned after years of faithful overseas service burned to the ground just days after they moved in along with a lifetime of possessions. They did not even have a chance to unpack their boxes. Then the wife dies of cancer after a long battle.

 

The husband of another missionary couple I know developed Multiple Sclerosis and spent years bedridden and unable to speak until his death left his wife with four kids to raise by herself. Are these the exceptions to the wonderful, abundant Christian life that we have been promised? There seems to be a disconnect here between what the “wonderful plan” Gospel message promises and the reality of our life experiences in Christ.

 

This disconnect between the promise and the reality has all sorts of ramifications for our spiritual lives. As Ray Comfort explains,

 

“Those who come to faith through the door of seeking happiness in Christ will think that their happiness is evidence of God’s love. They may even think that God has forsaken them when trials come and their happiness leaves. But those who look to the Cross as a token of God’s love will never doubt His steadfast devotion to them. (p. 44)

 

Certainly many of those who have walked away from their faith have done so because the reality of their lives does not match up with the promised wonderful plan that their loving Heavenly Father has for them.

 

When the Church presents Jesus as the one who came to “solve our problems” and “make us happy” then we attract only those who have problems or are unhappy and those are the kinds of people who will then fill our churches. If they do not repent of their sins then they are false converts and they are not new creatures in Christ. As unsaved people who claim to be Christians, they have simply brought their sins and problems into the church. This overworks the pastors, hobbles the outreach of the Church and its mission, and defames the name of Christ when supposed Christians continue in their sins. The irony is that these will also be the people who will be most likely to leave when Jesus does not solve all their problems or make them happy. They become disillusioned and bitter because they were not presented with the true Gospel in the first place (Comfort, p.36).

 

The Gospel is a promise of the righteousness of Christ for all who will repent of their sins and trust Christ as their Savior. To have a right relationship with God, people must come to the understanding that they are lost and doomed to suffer the wrath of God unless they repent of their sins and trust Christ for their salvation. This must be at the heart of our Gospel message. The Gospel is not a promise of a happy, problem-free life-just the opposite.

 

When someone comes to genuine faith in Christ and seeks to live a life of obedience, he becomes an active soldier in the ongoing battle between God and Satan. His faith in Christ essentially puts a target on his back and makes him an object of Satan’s wrath. That person becomes an active threat to Satan and his hold on power. Satan will then take every opportunity to take any genuine believer out of action.

 

But if people who come to Christ are not told of this spiritual reality then there will be tremendous confusion and disillusionment when the truth of this unknown spiritual reality breaks in upon their lives.

 

It is like a person who buys a vacation package to the French Riviera expecting a wonderful time of fun and relaxation only to discover upon his arrival that there is open warfare taking place with bombs going off , bullets flying and the wounded littering the sandy beaches. Such a person would naturally think: “What is going on here? This is not what I signed up for.”

 

Until we realize that we are in a war for our lives, we will be sitting ducks for Satan’s attacks and schemes. We will continue to lose those people who were never adequately prepared for battle. We must proclaim a true Gospel of grace and forgiveness of sin and stop trying to market the Gospel as the solution to all of our problems. It is already the greatest gift anyone can receive.

 

 

For a .pdf copy of this article click: a-defective-gospel?

 

Gospel Advancement & World Perspective

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

 The March/April 2008 edition of Mission Frontiers magazine addresses a very important issue effecting the contemporary American and European church.   While the Gospel is advancing wildly in several parts of the world, many formerly active church members are walking away from the church – and often Christianity – across North America and in Western Europe.  

 

It was not long ago that these regions were the strongholds of Evangelical Christianity, and the seemingly inexhaustible source for mission sending and support for generations to come.  But no longer is this the case.  Now these giant of faith are themselves mission fields.

 

MF Editor Rick Wood suggests the problem is the Gospel.  It is not that the Gospel itself is defective.  Instead Wood observes that what is often presented as the Gospel deficient and misleading.  And practically speaking, what we present as the church is often the only Gospel that most people know and understand. 

 

What is the result of a compromised Gospel?

 

1. Ineffectiveness. 

 

Once people realize that what they thought they bought into is not what they get in reality, inevitably they grow frustrated, distrusting of the church, and finally chuck it all.  That’s what Wood sees happening.

 

In the long run we are losing ground in the “home-front” at the very time we are seeing the Kingdom advanced on the frontiers. 

 

2. Impotence. 

 

The Gospel alone is the power that transforms lives.  The Apostle Paul was adamant about this. He challenged the Galatian believers because they were embracing a Gospel that was “no gospel at all”. 

 

As Evangelicals, if we proclaim a message that distorts the Gospel, simply for the purpose of getting people to easily join us, we will see our churches full of unchanged members.  Our churches will be composed of those who are spiritually unhealthy, self-absorbed, and consumer oriented, not those who seek first the Kingdom and glory of God, and who are committed to faithful discipleship and service. 

 

Sadly, I think Wood is dead-on right.  I’ve had a number of conversations with those who have expressed similar sentiments. They feel misled. They are understandably skeptical and disenchanted. And while not all have walked away entirely from their faith, I’ve found many no longer see any value in being part of the visible church. 

 

Because I believe Wood’s article offers a radically important perspective, I will publish it in a subsequent post.  It is worth reading for anyone who is missions-minded, theologically oriented, or if you or someone you know has grown disenchanted with contemporary Evangelicalism.

 

 

Cat & Dog Theology

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments
It seems to be going great.

Our church is in the middle of hosting the Cat & Dog Theology seminar as part of our missions conference. And despite those reservations that would usually be expected when a conservative church hosts a seminar with such a preposterous sounding theme, those in attendance seem to be benefiting from the teaching and experience.

To be honest, this is what I expected when we scheduled the conference. I’ve been familiar with this seminar, and the host agency, UnveilinGLORY, for some time. We hosted this same seminar in the previous church I served, and we used the material that pre-dated Cat & Dog Theology in the church I served before that.

The seminar title catches your attention, but most people are not quite sure what to expect. It’s easy to assume that even if the teaching is kosher, how much depth could there possibly be? But you’d be surprised.

Cat & Dog Theology is based on an old joke about the differences between cats and dogs. It is said that while dogs have masters, cats have staff. And the sad truth is that too many Christians live in relationship to God more like cats who assume God exists simply to provide for us, with little regard for His Glory, His Purpose, and His Mission, except as it benefits us. Dogs, on the other hand, delight to be in their master’s presence. And in that sense we ought to be far more dogged.

What has any of this to do with World Evangelization? That’s a common question, once people understand the basis of the conference, and overcome initial apprehensions and skepticisms.

The fundamental motive and goal of Christian mission should be God-centered: it is for the purpose of declaring His glory among all Nations. While the result of effective mission will be the salvation of peoples from every tribe, tongue, and Nation, the ultimate goal (and result) is the gathering of heartfelt worshippers of the One True God from among all the Peoples of the Earth.

Cat & Dog Theology, by helping unveil the Glory of God, the mission of God (Missio Dei) revealed consistently from Genesis to Revelation, and the call to all Christians to be participants in this mission, not only moves us out into the world, but it reminds us of the ultimate reason we go.

The conference continues and concludes tonight.

If you are in the area I invite you to join us. For readers of this blog who are not part of Walnut Hill Church, I highly recommend hosting the Cat & Dog Theology seminar in your church. It will make a world of difference, as you consider how you can – and why you should – make a difference in the world.

For those of you from Walnut Hill, I invite you to comment on what you learned and what you thought. It should make for some enlightening discussions.

Love: The Sixth Mark of the Church

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

heart-3.jpgby James M. Boice

What is the greatest mark of the Church? I do not mean by this: What is the first mark of the Church, or even, What is the mark that we perhaps most lack? I mean: What is the greatest mark, the one that holds the others together? What is the one that gives meaning to the others, the one without which the Church cannot at all be what God means it to be? There is only one answer. The greatest mark of the Church is love. 

The Lord Jesus Christ, having spoken of joy, holiness, truth, mission and unity as essential marks of the Church in his high priestly prayer of John 17, concludes by an emphasis upon love. It is the new commandment of John 13:34,35 once again – “that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 

We see the preeminence of love quite readily, if we look at it in reference to the other marks of the Church. What happens when you take love away from them? Suppose you take joy and subtract love from it? What do you have? You have hedonism. You have an exuberance in life and its pleasures, but without the sanctifying joy found in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Subtract love from holiness. What do you find then? You find self-righteousness, the kind of virtue that characterized the Pharisees of  Christ’s day. By the standards of the day the Phariseeslived very holy lives, but they did not love others and thus were quite ready to kill Christ when he challenged their standards, and actually did kill him. They were hypocrites. 

Take love from truth, and you have a bitter orthodoxy, the kind of teaching which is right but which does not win anybody. Take love from mission, and you have imperialism. It iscolonialism in ecclesiastical garb. We have seen much of that in recent history. 

Take love from unity, and you soon have tyranny. This develops in a hierarchical church where there is no compassion for people nor a desire to involve them in the decision-making process. 

That is one side of it. On the other hand, express love in relation to God and man and what do you find? You find all the other marks of the church following. What does love for God the Father lead to? Joy! Because we rejoice in God and in what he has so overwhelmingly done for us. What does love for the Lord Jesus Christ lead to? Holiness! Because we know that we will see him one day and will be like him; therefore “every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). What does love for the Word of God lead to? Truth! Because if we love the Word, we will study it and therefore inevitably grow into a fuller appreciation and realization of God’s truth. What does love for the world lead to? Mission! We have a message to take to the world. Again, where does love for our Christian brothers and sisters lead us? To unity! Because by love we discern that we are bound together in that bundle of life which God himself has created within the Christian community. 

What can we say about love on the basis of these verses? First of all, we can say that it has its source in God. This is the kind of love we are talking about. We are not talking about the kind of love the ‘world invents, aspires to or imagines, but rather the love of God which is revealed in Jesus Christ and which we come to know as we come to know God. It is obvious that Jesus has precisely this thought in mind, because verse 25, the prelude to verse 26, talks about knowledge. In it Jesus says, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.” It is after this that Jesus goes on to say, “And I have declared unto them thy name [that is, I have made you known in your essential nature], and will declare it, [in order] that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”What Jesus is saying is that, if we know God, we will know God’s nature as being characterized by love and that, if we do not know love, we do not know God. It is the same point that John later makes clear in his first epistle (1 John 4:7, 8). 

When Jesus says that the world has not known God, this means, in addition to everything else, that the world does not know God as a God of love. This was demonstrated true in Christ’s day. No Greek, no Roman, no Egyptian, no Babylonian in Christ’s day, or in any of the centuries before, had ever thought of God’s nature as being essentially characterized by love. It is just not there. Read all the ancient documents, and you simply do not find this element. At best, God was thought to be impartial. Or, if one chose to think optimistically, God could sometimes be said to love those who love him; meaning that he might be favorable to them for their service. But this is a tit-for-tat arrangement (you serve me, and I will take care of you), not the benevolent, unmerited love of God disclosed in the Bible. It simply does not exist in antiquity, except in apreparatory form within the pages of the Old Testament. 

With the Lord Jesus Christ an entirely new idea entered history. For he taught, not only that God is loving, but also that he loves with an extraordinary love, entirely beyond all human imaginations. That love had sent Christ to die. Moreover, on that basis it would now draw a host of redeemed men and women into an extraordinary family relationship with God. 

This leads to a second point, the revelation itself. We ask: Where does the revelation of God’s love occur? Again, it is a somewhat complicated answer. Certainly God had revealed himself to be a God of love in the pages of the Old Testament. God indicated there that he had set his love upon Israel even though there was nothing in the people to merit it. Again, God is revealed to be a God of love in Christ’s teaching. He called him Father, indicating that his was a father’s love. All that is true. Yet the best truth is that God is declared to be a God of love by the cross of Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).  

This is what Jesus is looking forward to in the words that close his prayer, for he says, “I will declare it,” meaning the name of God. What is he thinking of here? We could understand the phrase if it Ihad occurred in the past tense, for it would then clearly refer to the previous teaching in the Gospel. But why the future tense? What is Jesus thinking about? It must be the Cross itself. For it is as though Jesus is saying, “That which I have been speaking of in years past I am now going to demonstrate in a dramatic and tangible way through my crucifixion.” 

There has never been – there never will be – a greater demonstration of the love of God. So if you will not have the Cross, if you will not see God speaking in love in Jesus Christ, you will never find a loving God anywhere. The God of the Bible is going to be a silent God for you. The universe is going to be an empty universe. History is going to be meaningless. It is only at the Cross that you will ever find God in his true nature and learn that these other things have meaning. 

There is something else in this text. For Jesus does not merely show where we can find love. He also shows where we can demonstrate love, for he goes on to pray that “the love with whichthou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Love is to be shown in us personally. 

Why is Jesus concerned about this? I am sure he is concerned about this simply because it is only in his followers that anyone in this age, or any other age save his own, can see this great love. Jesus was aware that he was about to die. Following his death, there would be a resurrection and an ascension into heaven. Therefore, this one who was himself the perfect manifestation of love, the only one in whom this world had ever seen what true love really is – this one would be gone. He would not be here for men and women to contemplate. So he says as he closes his prayer that this love is now to be in us, even as he is in us, and that the world is to see it there. It must be love in action. 

But how do we do it? That is the real question. How do we love one another? How do we put this great love of God into practice? Let me share a few very practical ways. 

First, we need to love one another by listening to one another. We live in an age in which people do not listen to one another. Oh, we talk to one another, and others are constantly talking to us. But it is a hard world in which no one really listens. So one of the things we need to do, if we are truly characterized by the love of God at this point, is to listen. God listens to us.  

Second, we should share. That is, we should let others share, and we should share ourselves. We are not professional counselors, trained to do nothing but listen and never interject ourselves. Weare brothers and sisters in the Lord. We have a family relationship. So we do not sit like computers, analyzing what we are told and then coming back with answers carefully based upon social science surveys. We come back as people who are on the same level as the ones to whom we are talking, and we say, “Yes, I’ve gone through that. God has done this and this for me.” 

Our problem is that we do not like to share ourselves. And the reason we do not like to share ourselves is, if we put it quite frankly, that we are ashamed of ourselves because we are sinners and are afraid that if we really did tell what is down inside, the other person would turn away and be disgusted. We would lose the relationship. So how do we get to the point of being able really to share? There is only one way, and that is to know deep in our hearts that before God we are fully known as we are, with all our blemishes, sins and shames, and that, nevertheless, Jesus Christ has loved us, died for us and that we are now fully accepted in the beloved. If you can know that, that you are known and yet loved, then you can share your true self and love others. 

Third, we must serve. The thirteenth chapter of John begins with a reference to service as the outworking of Christ’s love: “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (13:1). It continues with a demonstration of what this love means in the washing of the disciples’ feet. Jesus concluded, “If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one I another’s feet” (13:14). Later Jesus goes on to teach what this love means, what the Holy Spirit will do in enabling us to love and then, finally, in his prayer, what are the special marks that should characterize the Church in this and every age: joy, holiness, truth,unity, mission and love. The last of these involves service. 

And quite rightly! For the Christian Church is not in the world to be served. She is in the world to serve. 

 **********

This is the sixth in a series of six posts by Dr James M. Boice concerning the characteristics of a healthy church.

Mission: The Fourth Mark of the Church

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

A number of years ago, when the well-known conference speaker Ralph L. Keiper was preaching at a missions conference in Deerfield Street, New Jersey, he told about a little girl who had come to see him early in his ministry. She was about eight years old.  She had been to the church’s daily vacation Bible school. And when she came into his study she asked, “Mr. Keiper, is it all right if I commit suicide?” 

 The young pastor was startled. But he had learned never to give a quick Yes or No answer to a child’s question without first discovering why the child is asking the question. So he countered,“Mary, why would you ever want to commit suicide?” 

 “Well,” Mary said, “it’s because of what I learned in Bible school this morning.” 

 Keiper wondered to himself, “What was this child told?” 

She said, “We were taught that heaven is a wonderful place – no fear, no crying, no fighting, just to be with the Lord. Won’t that be wonderful! We were taught that when we die we will be with Jesus. Did I hear it right, Mr. Keiper?” 

“Yes, you did, Mary. But why would you want to commit suicide?” 

“Well,” she said, “you have been in my home. You know my mother and daddy. They don’t know Jesus. Many times they are drunk. So we have to get ourselves up in the morning, get our own breakfast and go to school with dirty clothes. The children make fun of us, and when we come home again we hear fighting and things that make us afraid. Why couldn’t I commit suicide?” 

It is clear that Mary did not believe in theoretical theology; she believed in practical theology, and she was facing a very practical problem. What she was really asking is why are we in this world anyway. If this world is such a sin-cursed place and heaven is such a blessed place, why do we have to stay here? Why does God not take us to heaven immediately upon our conversion? Or, failing that, why do we not all take our own life and so speed up what is an inevitable ending anyway?

Keiper answered by saying, “Mary, there is only one reason in God’s world why we are here. And that is that through our testimony, by life and by word, we might have the privilege of bringing people to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus.” He then indicated that, as Mary did this, it might be in the Lord’s providence that her parents would come to know the Lord as their Savior. Later, her mother did. 

Keiper’s story is important in light of the fourth mark of the church.

Up to this point we have been talking about those things which concern the church itself or which concern individual Christians personally. We have looked at joy, holiness and truth. But while these are important and undoubtedly attainable to a large degree in this life, nevertheless it does not take much thinking to figure out that all three of them would be more quickly attained if we could only be transported to heaven. Here we have joy; that is true. But what is this joy compared to the joy we will have when we see the source of our joy face to face? The Bible acknowledges this when it speaks of the blessedness of the redeemed saints, from whose eyes all tears shall be wiped away (Rev. 7:17; 21:4). Again, in this world we undoubtedly know a degree of sanctification. But what of that day when we shall be completely like him (1 John 3:2)? Or again, here we are able to assimilate some aspects of God’s truth and know truly. But in the day of our final redemption we shall know fully. “Now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then, face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). If this is true, why should we not go to heaven immediately? 

The answer is in the mark of the church to which we come now. For the church is not only to look inward and find joy, to look Christ-ward and find sanctification, to look to the Scriptures and find truth. The church is also to look outward to the world and there find the object of her God-given mission. 

The word “mission” comes from the Latin verb mitto, mittere, misi, missum, which means “to send” or “dispatch.” A mission is a sending forth. “But to whom is the church sent? Where are we sent as Christian missionaries?” The answer is, into the world. Jesus says quite clearly, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world” (v. 18). 

Here is why the evangelical church in the U.S. is not as much of a missionary church as it claims to be. It is not that the evangelical church does not support foreign missions. Rather it lies at the point of the evangelicals’ personal withdrawal from the culture. Many seem afraid of their culture. Hence, they try to keep as far from the world as possible lest they be contaminated or polluted by it. Thus they have developed their own subculture. As some Bible teachers have pointed out, it is possible, for example, to be born of Christian parents, grow up in that Christian family, have Christian friends, go to Christian schools and colleges, read Christian books, attend a Christian country club (known as a church), watch Christian movies, get Christian employment, be attended by a Christian doctor, and finally, one may suppose, die and be buried by a Christian undertaker on holy ground. But this is certainly not what Jesus meant when he spoke of his followers being “in the world.” 

What does it mean to be in the world as a Christian? It does not mean to be like the world; the marks of the church are to make the church different. It does not mean that we are to abandon Christian fellowship or our other basic Christian orientations. All it means is that we are to know non-Christians, befriend them, and enter into their own lives in such a way that we begin to infect them with the gospel, rather than their infecting us with their worldliness, which is the wrong way around. 

The second thing the text talks about is the character of the ones who are to conduct this mission. The point here is that we are to be as Christ in the world. This is made clear both in verse 18 and 19, for Jesus compares the disciples to himself both in the area of his having been sent into the world by the Father and of his being sanctified or set apart totally to that work. He says, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” In other words, we are to be in our mission as Jesus was in his mission. We are to be like the One whom we are presenting. 

Perhaps you are saying, “I do not know if I am like Jesus or not. In what areas should I be like him?” Obviously we are to be like him in every way. In other words; as his life was characterized by joy, so is our life to be characterized by joy. As he was sanctified, so are we to be sanctified. As he was characterized by truth, so are we to be. 

We are also to be like the Lord Jesus Christ in our unity. The world is fractured in a million ways. It is the logical outcome of the work of Satan, one of whose most revealing names is the disrupter (diabolos). If Christians would win the world, they must show a genuine unity which is in itself desirable and winsome and which at the same time points to the great unity within the Godhead, which is its source. 

Finally, the church must be marked by love, if it is to be as Christ in the world. Jesus loved the world; he really did. It was out of love for it that he died. Consequently, if we would win the world, we must love the world too – not the world’s system or sin, of course, but rather those who are in it. 

Once my family was eating in a restaurant, and my youngest daughter knocked over her glass of coke for about the thousandth time. I was visibly annoyed, as I always am (since we never seem to get through a meal without the identical accident). But we cleaned up and shortly after that left the restaurant. My daughter walked along in silence for awhile; but then she said, “You really hate it when we spill our cokes, don’t you?” I replied that I certainly did. She looked serious, but then she brightened up as if a particularly happy thought had just passed through her mind. She threw her arms around me in a big hug and added, “But you love me!” 

She knew the difference between love of the sinner and hatred of sin. And so will we if we look to Jesus. We must be like him in love, knowing that if we are, the world will see it and be drawn to him.  

********

This is the fourth in a series of six posts by Dr James M. Boice concerning the characteristics of a healthy church.

Holiness: The Second Mark of the Church

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

 by  James M. Boice

 Holiness is the characteristic of God most mentioned in the pages of the Word of God and is therefore, quite rightly, that which should characterize God’s church. We are to be a “holy” people (1 Pet. 2:9). We are to “follow” after holiness. Indeed, without it “no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). Jesus speaks of this characteristic of the church in our passage (John 17) by praying – it is his second petition combined with the third – that God would keep it from the evil one. 

ansel-adams.jpg

But what is holiness? Some people have identified holiness with a culturally determined behavioral pattern and so have identified as holy those who do not gamble or smoke or drink or play cards or go to movies or do any of a large number of such things. But this approach betrays a basic misconception. It may be the case that real holiness in a particular Christian may result in abstinence from one or more of these things, but the essence of holiness is not found there. Consequently, to insist on such things for the church is not to promote holiness, but rather to promote legalism and hypocrisy. In some extreme forms it may even promote a false Christianity according to which men and women are justified before God on the basis of some supposedly ethical behavior. 

The Apostle Paul had found this to be true of the Israel of his day, as Jesus had also found it before him. So he distinguished clearly between this kind of holiness (the term he used is “righteousness”) and true holiness which comes from God and is always God-oriented. He said of Israel, “For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3). 

This biblical idea of holiness is made somewhat clearer when we consider those words that are synonyms for it in the English language, namely “saint” or “sanctify.” Christ uses the second one in verse 17. What is a saint? A saint is not a person who has achieved a certain level of goodness but rather one who has been set apart to himself by God. 

But now we need to ask this question: If holiness has to do with separation (or, better yet, consecration) and if believers are already holy by virtue of their being set apart to himself by God, why does Christ pray for our sanctification? Why pray for that which we already have? The answer is obviously that although we have been set apart to himself by God we often clearly fail to live up to that calling. 

We are worldly in the sense that the world’s values often remain our values and the world’s priorities our priorities. 

First of all, there is the matter of the world’s wisdom. The old wisdom of the church, in every age and in every denomination, was the wisdom of the Scriptures. Christian people stood before the Word of God and confessed their own ignorance in spiritual things. They even confessed their inability to understand what is written in the Scriptures except for the grace of God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit who opens the Scriptures to us. Christian people confessed their resistance to spiritual things and the fact that, if left to ourselves, we always go our own way. But what has happened in our time is that this old wisdom, the strength of the church, has been set aside for other sources of wisdom with the result that the authoritative and reforming voice of God through the Scriptures is ignored. 

Second, it is not only in the area of the world’s wisdom that we are faced with secularism; we are also faced with it in the area of the world’s theology. The world’s theology is easy to define. It is the view that man is basically good, that no one is really lost, and that belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is not necessary for salvation. 

Finally, secularism in the church is seen in the world’s methods. God’s methods are prayer and the power of the gospel, through which the Holy Spirit moves to turn God’s people from their wicked ways and heal their land. That has always been the strength of the church of Jesus Christ. But today that power is despised. It is laughed at, because the methods that those laughing want to use are politics and money. 

Well, the secularism of the church is bad. I will be considering the cure for it in our study of the church’s next distinguishing characteristic: truth. But, of course, we must notice the cure even now.  Jesus makes it clear in his prayer by saying at the beginning of this section, “I have given them thy word” (v. 14), and then again at the end, “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth” (v. 17). It is by means of the Bible, then, by the Word of God, that we are to become increasingly separated unto God and grow in practical holiness. 

Without a regular, disciplined and practical study of the Bible the church will always be secular. It will fall into that state described by Paul for Timothy, when he warned that in the last day “perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it” (2 Tim. 3:1-5). That is the secular church: “having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it.” But on the other hand, by means of the Bible, God’s people will become the opposite. For if the secular church employs the world’s wisdom, the world’s theology, the world’s agenda, and the world’s methods, the true church will invert it. It will employ the wisdom of God, the theology of the Scriptures, the agenda of God’s written revelation, and the methods that have been given to us for our exercise in the church until the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 

This is the second in a series of six posts by Dr James M. Boice concerning the characteristics of a healthy church.

Marks of a Healthy Church

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Over the next several weeks the leaders of Walnut Hill Church will engage in a number of discussions concerning the health and direction of our church.  These discussions will cover a wide range of considerations. 

Walnut Hill, though a smaller church is in many respects already a healthy congregation.  I believe that if we were to compare ourselves with the majority of churches around the country, we would find that we are doing quite well.  But such comparative health is not our aim. Instead we want to be faithful to all that our Lord calls us to be and to do. We want to be and do everything that we were designed for; we don’t want to just be (or seem) better than some others.

Toward that end…

  • Our Elders will be going to Birmingham, AL in a few weeks to participate in the Embers to Flame Conference, which I expect will provide some common ground for our discussions.  The key concepts emphasized by the Embers Conference will then serve as a sort of “scaffolding” as we labor to strengthen and build and our various ministries.  
  • We will continue our process of moving from a church that prays toward becoming a House of Prayer for all Nations.  Already Walnut Hill displays a priority of prayer that is very encouraging to me as the pastor.  But we want to explore how we can still grow in this area. (I’ll compose several posts that I hope will clarify some of the distinctions between a Praying Church and a House of Prayer.) 
  • We will explore the Gospel, and its various aspects. And we will consider how the Gospel applies to us each day as followers of Christ, and not just as a plan of salvation to be explained to those who do not (yet) believe. (See Colossians 2:6, Galatians 3:1-3, and 2 Peter 3:18)
  • We will reflect on the Core Values, or the DNA, of our church, so we can build on those things that make Walnut Hill unique. And we anticipate developing a clear and comprehensive philosophy of ministry – which we will put in writing. Much of this is already in place, but still needs to be clearly articulated so we can communicate it to those who will be – and already are -joining us. 

These are a few of the things that we will be undertaking, and obviously only a broad sketch. But I wanted to share it with you so you will know how to pray for us. And I also wanted to provide an open door for you to consider some of these same things along with us. 

As part of our discussion I will also post a series of articles by Dr. James M. Boice from his series: How to Have a Healthy Church.  While these are not exhaustive, I find these insights to be very helpful and, as I look at Walnut Hill, encouraging.   

Dr. Boice suggests there are 6 Marks, which will be published in six subsequent posts: 

I invite you, the Walnut Hill Church family, to reflect on these marks, and consider to what extent they are evident at Walnut Hill, corporately; and in our own lives, personally.

To any degree you find us lacking, please pray that, by God’s grace, these marks would become increasingly evident in and among us. 

The Beauty of Human Relationships

/ Dennis Griffith / 3 Comments

by Frances Schaeffer

This is the fourth of four posts in a series titled Two Contents, Two Realities.  These posts are slightly edited excerpts of a paper delivered by Dr. Francis Schaeffer  as part of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland.

*********

The second reality is the beauty of human relationships. True Christianity produces beauty as well as’ truth, especially in the specific areas of human relationships. Read the New Testament carefully with this in mind; notice how often Jesus returns us to this theme, how often Paul speaks of it. We are to show something to the watching world on the basis of the human relationships we have with other people, not just other Christians.

Christians today are the people who understand who man is. Modern man is in a dilemma because he does not know that man is qualitatively different from non-man. We say man is different because he is made in the image of God. But we must not say man is made in the image of God unless we look to God and by God’s grace treat every man with dignity. We stand against B. F. Skinner in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity. But I dare not argue against Skinner’s determinism if I then treat the men I meet day by day as less than really made in the image of God.

I am talking first of all about non-Christians. The first commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. After Jesus commanded this, someone said, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus then told the story of the good Samaritan. He was not just talking about treating Christians well; he was talking about treating every man we meet well, every man whether he is in our social stratum or not, every man whether he speaks our language or not, every man whether he has the color of our skin or not. Every man is to be treated on the level of truly being made in the image of God, and thus there is to be a beauty of human relationships.

This attitude is to operate on all levels. I meet a man in a revolving door. How much time do I have with him? Maybe ten seconds. I am to treat him well. We look at him. We do not think consciously in every case that this man is made in the image of God, but, having ground into our bones and into our consciousness (as well as our doctrinal statement) that he is made in the image of God, we will treat him well in those ten seconds which we have.

We approach a red light. We have the same problem. Perhaps we will never see these other people at the intersection again, but we are to remember that they have dignity.

And when we come to the longer relationships–for example, the employer-employee relationship–we are to treat each person with dignity. The husband-and-wife relationship, the parent-and child relationship, the political relationship, the economic relationship 3 -in every single relationship of life, to the extent to which I am in contact with a man or woman, sometimes shorter and sometimes longer, he or she is to be treated in such a way that – man or woman – if he is thinking at all, he will say, “Didn’t he treat me well!”What about the liberal theologian? Yes, we are to stand against his theology. We are to practice truth, and we are not to compromise. We are to stand in antithesis to his theology. But even though we cannot cooperate with him in religious things, we are to treat the liberal theologian in such a way that we try from our side to bring our discussion into the circle of truly human relationships. Can we do these two things together in our own strength? No, but in the strength of the power of the Holy Spirit, it can be done. We can have the beauty of human relationships even when we must say no.

Now, if we are called upon to love our neighbor as ourselves when he is not a Christian, how much more – ten thousand times ten thousand times more – should there be beauty in the relationships between true Bible-believing Christians, something so beautiful that the world would be brought up short! We must hold our distinctives. Some of us are Baptists; some of us hold to infant baptism; some of us are Lutheran, and so on. But to true Bible believing Christians across all the lines, in all the camps, I emphasize: if we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.

Every big company, if it is going to build a huge plant, first makes a pilot plant in order to show that their plan will work. Every church, every mission, every Christian school, every Christian group, regardless of what sphere it is in, should be a pilot plant that the world can look at and see there a beauty of human relationships which stands in exact contrast to the awful ugliness of what modern men paint in their art, what they make with their sculpture, what they show in their cinema, and how they treat each other. Men should see in the church a bold alternative to the way modern men treat people as animals and machines. There should be something so different that they will listen, something so different it will commend the gospel to them.

Every group ought to be like that, and our relationships between our groups ought to be like that. Have they been? The answer all too often is no. We have something to ask the Lord to forgive us for. Evangelicals, we who are true Bible-believing Christians, must ask God to forgive us for the ugliness with which we have often treated each other when we are in different camps.

I am talking now about beauty, and I have chosen this word with care. I could call it love, but we have so demoted the word that it is often meaningless. So I use the word beauty. There should be beauty, observable beauty, for the world to see in the way all true Christians treat each other.

We need two orthodoxies: first, an orthodoxy of doctrine and, second, an orthodoxy of community. Why was the early church able, within one century, to spread from the Indus River to Spain? Think of that: one century, India to Spain. When we read in Acts and in the epistles, we find a church that had and practiced both orthodoxies (doctrine and community), and this could be observed by the world. Thus, they commended the gospel to the world of that day and the Holy Spirit was not grieved.

There is a tradition (it is not in the Bible) that the world said about the Christians in the early church, “Behold, how they love each other.” As we read Acts and the epistles, we realize that these early Christians were really struggling for a practicing community. We realize that one of the marks of the early church was a real community, a community that reached down all the way to their care for each other in their material needs.

Have we exhibited this community in our evangelical churches? I have to say no – by and large, no. Our churches have often been two things – preaching points and activity generators. When a person really has desperate needs in the area of race, or economic matters, or psychological matters, does he naturally expect to find a supporting community in our evangelical churches? We must say with tears, many times no!

My favorite church in Acts and, I guess, in all of history is the church at Antioch. I love the church at Antioch. I commend to you to read again about it. It was a place where something new happened: the great, proud Jews who despised the Gentiles (there was an anti-Gentilism among the Jews, just as so often, unhappily, there has been anti-Semitism among Gentiles) came to a breakthrough. They could not be silent. They told their Gentile neighbors about the gospel, and suddenly, on the basis of the blood of Christ and the truth of the Word of God, the racial thing was solved. There were Jewish Christians and there were Gentile Christians, and they were one!

More than that, there was a total span of the social spectrum. We are not told specifically that there were slaves in the church of Antioch, but we know there were in other places and there is no reason to think they were not in Antioch. We know by the record in Acts that there was no less a person in that church than Herod’s foster brother. The man at the very peak of the social pyramid and the man at the bottom of the pile met together in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they were one in a beauty of human relationships.

And I love it for another reason. There was a man called Niger in that church, and that means black. More than likely, he was a black man. The church at Antioch on the basis of the blood of Christ encompassed the whole. There was a beauty that the Greek and the Roman world did not know–and the world looked. And then there was the preaching of the gospel. In one generation the church spread from the Indus River to Spain. If we want to touch our generation, we must be no less than this.

I would emphasize again that community reached all the way down into the realm of material possessions. There is no communism, as we today know the word communism,  in the book of Acts. Peter made very plain to Ananias and Sapphira that their land was their own, and when they had sold their land they were masters of what they did with the money. No state or church law, no legalism, bound them. What existed in the early church was a love that was so overwhelming that they could not imagine in the church of the Lord Jesus having one man hungry and one man rich. When the Corinthian church fell into this, Paul was scathing in 1 Corinthians in writing against it.

Note, too, that deacons were appointed. Why? Because the church had found difficulty in caring for one another’s material needs. Read James 2. James asks, “What are you doing preaching the gospel to a man and trying to have a good relationship with him spiritually if he needs shoes and you do not give him shoes?” Here is another place where the awful Platonic element in the evangelical church has been so dominant and so deadly. It has been considered spiritual to give for missions, but not equally spiritual to give when my brother needs shoes. That is never found in the Word of God. Of course, the early church gave to missions; at times they gave money so Paul did not have to make tents. But Paul makes no distinction between collections for missions and collections for material needs, as if one were spiritual and the other not. For the most part when Paul spoke of financial matters, he did so because there was a group of Christians somewhere who had a material need, and Paul then called upon other churches to help.

Moreover, it was not only in the local church that the Christians cared for each other’s needs; they did so at great distances.  The church of Macedonia, which was made up of Gentile Christians, when they heard that the Jewish Christians, the Jews whom they would previously have despised, had material need, took an offering and sent it with care hundreds of miles in order that the Jewish Christians might eat.

So, there must be two orthodoxies: the orthodoxy of doctrine and the orthodoxy of community. And both orthodoxies must be practiced down into the warp and the woof of life where the Lordship of the Lord Jesus touches every area of our life.

True Spirituality

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

This is the third of four posts in a series titled Two Contents, Two Realities.  These posts are slightly edited excerpts of a paper delivered by Dr. Francis Schaeffer  as part of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland.

*******

The first reality is spiritual reality.

Let us emphasize again as we have before: we believe with all our hearts that Christian truth can be presented in propositions, and that anybody who diminishes the concept of the propositionalness of the Word of God is playing into twentieth-century, non-Christian hands. But, and it is a great and strong but, the end of Christianity is not the repetition of mere propositions.

Without the proper propositions you cannot have that which should follow. But after having the correct propositions, the end of the matter is to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds. The end of the matter, after we know about God in the revelation He has given in verbalized, propositional terms in the Scripture, is to be in relationship to Him. A dead, ugly orthodoxy with no real spiritual reality must be rejected as sub-Christian.

Back in 1951 and 1952, I went through a very deep time in my own life. I had been a pastor for ten years and a missionary for another five, and I was connected with a group who stood very strongly for the truth of the Scriptures. But as I watched, it became clear to me that I saw very little spiritual reality. I had to ask why. I looked at myself as well and realized that my own spiritual reality was not as great as it had been immediately after my conversion. We were in Switzerland at that time, and I said to my wife, “I must really think this through.”

I took about two months, and I walked in the mountains whenever it was clear. And when it was rainy, I walked back and forth in the hayloft over our chalet. I thought and wrestled and prayed, and I went all the way back to my agnosticism. I asked myself whether I had been right to stop being an agnostic and to become a Christian. I told my wife, if it didn’t turn out right I was going to be honest and go back to America and put it all aside and do some other work.

I came to realize that indeed I had been right in becoming a Christian. But then I went on further and wrestled deeper and asked, “But then where is the spiritual reality, Lord, among most of that which calls itself orthodoxy?” And gradually I found something. I found something that I had not been taught, a simple thing but profound. I discovered the meaning of the work of Christ, the meaning of the blood of Christ, moment by moment in our lives after we are Christians–the moment-by-moment work of the whole Trinity in our lives because as Christians we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That is true spirituality.

I went out to Dakota, and I spoke at a Bible conference. The Lord used it, and there was a real moving of God in that place. I preached it back in Switzerland. And gradually it became the book True Spirituality. And I want to tell you with all my heart that I think we could have had all the intellectual answers in the world at L’Abri, but if it had not been for those battles in which God gave me some knowledge of some spiritual reality in those days, not just theoretically but, poor as it was, knowledge of a relationship with God moment by moment on the basis of the blood of Jesus Christ, I don’t believe there ever would have been a L’Abri.

Do we minimize the intellectual? I have just pled for the intellectual. I have pled for the propositional. I have pled against doctrinal compromises, specifically at the point of the Word of God being less than propositional truth all the way back to the first verse of Genesis. But at the same time there must be spiritual reality.

Will it be perfect? No, I do not believe the Bible ever holds out to us that anybody is perfect in this life. But it can be real, and it must be shown in some poor way. I say poor because I am sure when we get to Heaven and look back, we will all see how poor it has been. And yet there must be some reality. There must be something real of the work of Christ in the moment-by-moment life, something real of the forgiveness of specific sin brought under the blood of Christ, something real in Christ’s bearing His fruit through me through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. These things must be there. There is nothing more ugly in all the world, nothing which more turns people aside, than a dead orthodoxy.

This, then, is the first reality, real spiritual reality.