Church and the Bible

Churches should be all about the Bible. Unfortunately some churches treat God’s Word like it is an afterthought; some read a token passage, and some never reference it at all. While it should go without saying, a church that is not built on the Bible is no church at all. Ligon Duncan, Chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary, wrote an article called “Foundations for Biblically Directed Worship” in which he said the motto of the church should be, “Read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.”  

Many of those elements are obvious; the Bible should be preached from the pulpit and taught in classrooms, it should be read aloud in various formats, and prayers should be biblically based. The Bible is sung when the message of the music teaches biblical truth and lifts up the name of Jesus. It doesn’t matter if the song was written three months ago or three centuries ago; it doesn’t matter if the song has drums or a banjo; if the song honors Christ, it can be used to praise the Lord. How is the Bible seen? Duncan went on to explain that the gospel is made visible through the ordinances of the Lord’s Supper and biblical baptism.

When the communion cracker and the fruit of the vine are properly observed, everyone present can see a picture of the broken body and poured out blood of Christ. When a new believer is baptized, everyone present can see what it looks like to die to sin and rise up to walk in a new kind of life.

Every element of the church service should in some way present the Bible; anything that is not Bible-centered should be removed from the order of service. You may not be the pastor, but you have a duty to make sure the church you attend is built on the firm foundation of Scripture. The Bible should be read, preached, prayed, sung, and seen.

Possible to Sin

Posse non Pescare

Non Posse non Pescare

Non Posse Pescare

Those three Latin phrases are how Augustine explained man’s relationship to sin as part of a famous dispute with the liberal Pelagius, who believed man had the ability to live a sinless life.

Posse non Pescare (possible to not sin). Before the fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had the capacity to live without sin. We do not know how long they lived in this condition (between Genesis 2-3), but we certainly know they did. They had free will, but for a time they chose to keep their trust completely in God, and they lived totally without sin.

Non Posse non Pescare (not possible to not sin). After the fall everything completely changed. Adam and Eve still had free will, but they lost the ability to live a life free of sin. This does not mean that all we do is sin, because with every temptation there is a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13); but it does mean that being sinless is not an option for us. There is none righteous, and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is why we need a Savior.

Non Posse Pescare (not possible to sin). Once we go to heaven and exchange our perishable bodies for ones that are imperishable, we will no longer be able to sin. In Glory sin will be but a distant memory, and like Christ, we will be perfect.

To transition from two to three, to go from not possible to not sin, to not possible to sin, something major has to take place. Only Jesus can account for this transformation. He offers you more than just heaven when you die; He offers a different kind of life right now.

Rejecting the Gift

There is an interesting story in 1 Chronicles 19. Following the death of the king of the Ammonites, King David wanted to send some of his men to comfort the crown prince. The deceased king had been a friend to David, and David wanted to show kindness after his death. Today the President may reach out and offer condolences after the passing of another world leader, and David’s gesture may have been something similar to that. They may have been bearing some kind of gift, but they were certainly bearing the well wishes of the Israelite king.

Hanun, the new Ammonite king, was skeptical of the gesture. David was motivated by the love of God, and this kind of love-thy-neighbor mentality would have been completely foreign to a pagan king. Hanun’s advisors gave bad advice, suggesting that David’s messengers were actually spies sent to get a lay of the land. The new king, possibly wanting to send a strong message, opted to humiliate David’s men. He shaved their beards (a huge disgrace in that culture) and cut their robes in such a way as to expose their backsides; they would have to make the trip home essentially with no pants. The text says, “the Ammonites had become a stench to David,” and a war ensued; the battle was started by the Ammonites, but easily won by the Israelites.

The foolishness of not accepting the free gift from the king resulted in disaster. I’m afraid this same scene continues to play out all around the world. The King of Kings has offered a free gift of salvation to sinners, but like Hanun, many have a hard time believing such an offer is really true. Some flat out reject Christ Himself, thinking they are just fine as they are and not in need of forgiveness. Others believe they can handle their plight themselves, believing behavior modification or good deeds will be enough to earn their place in heaven. These thought processes are essentially a rejection of the kind gift of God.

The foolishness of not accepting the free gift from the King results in destruction. Don’t repeat the mistake of Hanun. See God’s offer for what it is: a chance to have your sins forgiven and be in a relationship with the King of the Universe.  

How Shall We Live?

As a Christian it seems to constantly get harder to live in such a fallen world. Turning on the news makes me want to turn it right back off. Finding a wholesome movie or TV show is almost impossible, and music lyrics are filled with graphic descriptions of one-night stands. Everywhere we look we see the effects of sin, through rising crime, glamorizing immorality, and bragging about debauchery. How are Christians supposed to live or conduct themselves on this fallen planet?

The way I see it we have three options. First, we can disengage. We can withdraw from society, ensuring that we are not negatively influenced by the world. We can sever contact with anyone whose standards do not match ours, and huddle together in Christian communities. This is tempting at times, but I don’t imagine anyone has ever come to faith in Christ because the church has withdrawn itself. What the lost world needs is not fewer Christians around them, but more. The church has too much to offer for us to disengage.

Our other option is to engage culture, and this can be done in two ways. We can radically engage, yelling about everything with which we disagree. We can boycott Disney, Hollywood, and Nashville, and we can show up at parades with protest signs. We can make clear everything we oppose, pointing our fingers at the sinful culture. But again, how many people have come to Christ because the church vocalized their opposition to sinful institutions? I think our best option lies in between these extremes, when we let our light so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

This raises another question: is our role to change culture or to change people? We can make it our mission to influence change where we can, with our votes, lobbying, and making our voices heard where we are able. This is good practice, but it should not be our top priority. While many believe that changing sinful culture will change sinful people, I believe the opposite to be true; changing sinful people will lead to a changed culture. We saw it in the Great Awakenings, when bars and brothels closed down as whole towns converted to Christianity. To go back to the original question, the best way for Christians to live on this fallen planet is to love our neighbor as ourselves, letting God’s light shine through us; every time a sinner repents, that is one less soldier for Satan, and one more saint on our side.  

Are Miracles Real?

The Bible contains many incredible accounts of God miraculously intervening on behalf of His people. The Old Testament especially is rich with these events: Jonah in the fish’s belly, and Daniel in the lion’s den; escaping a fiery furnace, and flying in a fiery chariot; parting water with a stick, and using a stick to get water from a rock. We could go on and on with similar occurrences that many of us learned in children’s church.

Obviously there is no way to prove the validity of these stories; they defy science, and the only record of them is in the ancient pages of Scripture. We must take these accounts in faith, believing that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” Critics, however, seek to disprove these events, dismissing them as stories, fables, or myths that only the weak or simple minded could still believe in once they have graduated from children’s church. Some of those critics seek to attach a logical explanation to biblical accounts, thus explaining them away naturally, and removing God from the miracle. One of those natural explanations comes with the parting of the Jordan River.

In Exodus God parted the Red Sea so the Israelite slaves could pass over on dry ground, but He repeated that miracle a generation later, parting the Jordan to give entrance into the Promised Land. Joshua 3 records the crossing of the Jordan this way: And when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap (v.13).” Christians call this a miracle.

But there is a naturalistic explanation offered. In the year 1267, on December 7-8, “The water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away[1].” This was the result of the dunes upstream collapsing, completely damming the Jordan up from midnight until 10:00 the next morning. Is this true? Does this explain away the miracle? Absolutely not! “This is not to take away the miraculous timing and nature of this event, but merely to provide an explanation as to how God may have done it[2].”

Yes, God is a miracle-working God, and sometimes He does things out of thin air, but other times He may use explainable, naturally occurring phenomenon. There may be an explanation as to how the waters stopped flowing, but the why and when are only because God wanted it to. Don’t get tripped up by people who offer naturalistic ways to undermine God’s miracles; instead, celebrate the fact that our God is sovereign over the universe He created.

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[1] Nowairi, Al, Early History, p.607

[2] Kaiser Walter, and Wegner, Paul, A History of Israel: From the Bronze Age Through the Jewish Wars, p.220