Not in Temples Made by Man

This Sunday will be City Church of Richmond's last worship service at our current site before moving to another congregation's building (we rent the space).  This will be our second move.  (After our inception in 2006 we moved to our present location in February 2011.)  Honestly, this is bittersweet for me, just as the first move was.  And I'm really bummed because I left my camera at school and won't get any photos of our last worship service.

But as I was looking through the photos on our church website, it helped me remember that City Church is not a building; it is the "household of God" (Ephesians 2:19) and the "family of believers" (Galatians 6:10 NIV).  City Church is the Stacks, the Walkers, the Bourgeoises, the Bonkovskys, the Bryants, the Warshaws, the Blanchards, the Shays, the Crawfords.  It's Gabe and Ellen and Ruthie and Todd and Jessee--all the wonderful people who gather every week to hear the gospel of God's grace to us in Christ, respond in prayer and praise, and to gather around the table to eat dinner with Jesus.  The real church sits in the pews.
  
"The God who made the world and everything in it ... does not live in temples made by man," the apostle Paul reminds us (Acts 17:24).  "In him [Christ] you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22).  It is the people of City Church that make the building special, not vice versa.  It is when we meet and because we meet in Jesus' name that the building becomes special, infused with the presence of Jesus by his Spirit.  "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them" (Matthew 18:20).  That fellowship with Jesus and one another in him is what brings us joy (see 1 John 1:1-4).  And this is not mere sentimentalism, but some kind of holy mystery that exists among those who belong to God.

Olivia and I are in the process of closing on a wonderful new house God has provided us in the Lakeside area of Richmond.  Just blocks away in "the white house" we rekindled our relationship in 2007 and began our married life in Richmond in 2009.  Yet as sad as it is to leave the white house or even our current apartment of 3-1/2 years, it's not the house that is important.  The address is simply the context for the memories--the questions and anxieties of our lives, the gladness of marital bliss, the challenges faced in our sin and the sweet joys of forgiveness, the birth of a child and watching him grow.  But we are that house, so that house will never die no matter where it moves.

Our new house!

P.S. - Daniel, Jennifer, and Caroline -- Our prayers are with you as you move to DC!  You'll be missed!

"You shall be the father of a multitude of nations"

I just came across something fascinating today. It's easy to think about Abraham being the father of the Jews, of ethnic Israel. Obviously this the primary reference in passages such as Genesis 15:12-21. But it was always a little more obscure how the New Testament authors could see Abraham as being the "father" of the believing Gentiles.

That is, until, I read Genesis 17 a little more carefully.* "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you" (vv. 4-6). Did you read that? Even in its earliest incarnation, God promised the inclusion of the "nations" into Abraham's blessed offspring.

This is repeated in God's blessing upon Jacob (given through his father Isaac): "God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples" (Gen. 28:3). God likewise later confirms this promise to Jacob, saying, "I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body" (35:11; cf. 48:4). This phrase, "a company [qahal] of nations," could also be translated "an assembly of peoples" or "a church of peoples." Qahal was the Hebrew word for the covenant people of God gathered for worship. In the Septuagint ekklesia is used to translate it, rendered in our English Bibles as "church."

This seems important for two immediate reasons. First, the covenant people of God are a unity both before and after Christ's earthly appearance. There is no division between Israel and the Church. Rather, the Church is the fulfillment and expansion of what Israel was always supposed to become.

Secondly, the claim that the promises of the Abrahamic covenant applied only to a temporal, ethnic, national administration are false. By viewing those among the nations as Abraham's offspring, even from the book of Genesis, the promises given to Abraham must always be seen as also--even ultimately--"spiritual" and eschatological promises awaiting something greater than ethnic Israel's life in Canaan.

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*I discovered this while skimming Meredith Kline's book Kingdom Prologue this morning.

Can Unbelievers and Apostates Belong to the New Covenant?

A question begged by biblical typology (see my previous post)--and several New Testament texts themselves--is the degree to which the church, as the covenant people of God, is analogous to Israel prior to Christ's death and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Listen to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:

I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things happened as examples [tupoi, "types"] for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. . . . Now these things happened to them as an example [tupos], but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (vv. 1-12)

Note that Paul uses language of the Christian sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper to describe the experience of Israel in the wilderness. He is reading back present-day experiences into the life of ethnic Israel 1400 years earlier, who foreshadowed the global people of God. Despite being delivered from Egypt and sharing in the goodness of God's presence and nourishment, they failed to enter the promised land because they set their hearts on evil desires. Nonetheless, these were those who had been "baptized into Moses in the . . . sea." They were those whom God had saved in the exodus, and they had come under the leadership of Moses and the covenant put into effect through his mediation. Paul seems to be warning the baptized new covenant church, delivered from bondage to sin and under the leadership of Jesus. He warns that if they likewise presume upon their religious privileges and the gifts of God (particularly in worship and sacrament, as chapters 10-11 of 1 Cor. unfold), but do not embody obedient faith and repentance from idols, they will fall under God's judgment (cf. Deut. 29:18-21) and "fall in the desert."

In similar fashion the author of Hebrews issues dire warnings of God's judgment upon those who have experienced Christian teaching, nurture, and worship and have made some profession of faith, and then have fallen away (2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 6:4-8; 10:26-31; cf. similar warnings in Num. 15:30-31; Deut. 29:18-21).

The question I have is this: Is this faithless idolater a person who is a member of the new covenant people of God? I think Scripture is clear that all genuine believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption (Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:21-22), are kept from stumbling by Jesus Christ (Jude 24-25; John 10:28-29), and remain faithful because Christ's death has secured it (Col. 1:21-23). Apostates are not recipients of the promised new covenant blessings of faith and love towards God, the seal of the Spirit, and forgiveness of sins, because they fail to meet its condition (persevering, repentant faith). But nonetheless in Hebrews 10:29 we read that there are those who've trampled Christ underfoot, who have "profaned the blood of the covenant by which [they were] sanctified" (v. 29), and who belong to God's people and will be judged accordingly (v. 30). Such passages appear to indicate that someone can belong to the covenant and thus set apart (sanctified) to God, at least externally, by virtue of an empty profession of faith (Heb. 4:14; 10:23).

Let There Be Light

As I was preparing my BSF teaching lesson tonight on Acts 2, the warmth of the early followers of Jesus really struck me. "... And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved" (vv. 46-47).

This joy, gladness, and deep communion is nothing less than the "fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. 13:14), that is, the reciprocal participation in one another's lives and in the joy the Spirit gives through the gospel of Jesus Christ. These were all those who had seen their own complicity in the Messiah's death and had received the gospel that in Christ their sins were washed away forever, and they had receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (vv. 36-41).

The image that keeps coming to my head is that of an incandescent lightbulb. When the switch is turned on and the metal connection is restored, the circuit allows electricity to stream from its source through the bulb's tungsten filament, causing it to glow and radiate warmth and light. In the same way, in the life of the repentant sinner who receives Christ and the forgiveness that comes through him, he is restored to connection with the very life of God--his Spirit, his Breath--who is poured out into the believer's soul and acts upon him in such a way that he cannot help but radiate joy, peace, and love over the grace of his God. "On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." ' Now this he had said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:37-39).

But even though this Spirit and the grace that comes through the message of the cross can be found even by a man alone with the Bible, how often do we rather encounter the life-giving, joy-producing Word through the prayers, consolation, hymns, and encouragement of other Christian brothers and sisters? As we've received, so we freely give to others. And so the church glows brighter, with the result that the Lord will add to her number day by day those who are being saved.

The Gospel Builds the Church AND Her Pastors

What are the riskiest jobs in America? Firefighter? High-rise construction worker? Street cop in Compton? Believe it or not, being a pastor can be a job fraught with perils, if only spiritual. Mark Galli writes about the dangers of pastoral ministry, namely, that due to the way American churches often function pastors lose sight of their calling as shepherds and personal caretakers as their congregation swells--a sure sign of ministerial "success." Concomitantly, they also succumb to pride in a number of ways.

When a church is edified (numerically, if not also spiritually) by her pastor, it's easy for her members to associate themselves with pastor So-and-So, that it's his church to which they belong. "The inadvertent effect of all this is that pastors have become the heads of personality cults," notes Galli. "Churches become more identified with the pastor . . . than with anything larger. When a pastor leaves, or is forced to leave, it's devastating. It feels like a divorce, or a death in the family, so symbiotic is today's relationship between pastor and people."

I know a thing or two of this. From 2004-05 I was a member of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, when Kevin DeYoung first arrived from Iowa as our new senior pastor. Back then he was a lanky, somewhat nerdy, and unknown guy--but one who could preach the Word with clarity and conviction, and who had a deep love for the church and for right doctrine. DeYoung is now known among evangelical circles nationwide, he has published several excellent books, and URC is growing. I recall with fondness my time at URC, mostly for different reasons (the loving people there and the way they taught me godly living), but it's easy for me to think I'm somehow cooler because I belonged to the church over which he was (is) pastor.

In light of this, I think there are a few important truths both pastors and the church need to keep in mind.

1. Christ Jesus alone is the Head of the church, and all good and growth belongs to him. "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I [Paul] planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth" (1 Cor. 3:5-7). The church's Chief Pastor is none other than Jesus (1 Pet. 5:4), who bought the church for himself at the price of his blood (Acts 20:28). Consequently pastors are only undershepherds participating in the work God is doing among his people. All credit, all thanks, always goes to God alone through Jesus Christ.

2. It's the Word that is preached, not the preacher, that builds the church. Scripture tells us that we were called to God and are built up not by a sermon per se, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace of God proclaimed in that sermon. It is through this message the Spirit kindles faith and nurtures growth (Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:2, 5; James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23-25). "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith" (Heb. 13:7). In times of change, when leaders come and go, the thing to trust in isn't that leader himself, but to have hope that the very word of God they taught is still present and available. Success in life and as a church therefore comes not from having a particular pastor, but from living out the same faith that they had--faith in Christ, who never leaves or changes. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (v. 8). In part this is why I favor churches in which multiple elders take turns preaching, so the church knows it owes thanks to the gospel and not to one particular leader.

3. The church is more than a pastor. "From him [Christ] the whole body . . . grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Eph. 4:16 NIV). When you join a local church, you're joining a group of people, a spiritual family. You're not just a spiritual lone ranger, or a solitary knight pledged to his lord and no other. And it's through the loving service, care, and concern of the church family that each individual Christian and the congregation as a whole is strengthened and edified.

4. Pastors are temporal, but the church is eternal. God keeps raising up new men and women to lead his flock in each generation. They don't last forever. But what they're working toward does endure, which is the same as Paul's goal: "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Cor. 11:2). One day our faith will give way to sight (1 Cor. 13:8-13), and the great Wedding will come. The church will no longer need pastors. But the church herself will live on into blissful eternity.

5. We should thank our pastors and pray for them, but not exalt them yet. Paul warned the Corinthian church to regard him and his fellow workers merely "as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). The Corinthians lauded Paul and Apollos, but Paul knew that any human judgment is irrelevant; it is God's evaluation that matters (1 Cor. 4:1-7). We should be serious about praying for our pastors, and they need our verbal encouragement. They're human, just like us. They need to be thanked and picked up. Pointing out the good in someone isn't sinful; just read Paul's letters. But in doing so, we need to be careful to prevent any boasting in human achievement. Everything good any person has done is simply an undeserved gift received from God (v. 7).

6. Even when pastors sin in pride, lovelessness, or impurity, the gospel is every bit as much for them as for their congregations. In writing a letter to the elders and shepherds of churches in modern-day Turkey, Peter reminded these leaders that God gives grace and bears their burdens, and he encouraged them to stand firm in the grace of God (1 Pet. 5:5-7, 12). This grace isn't just for rank-and-file Christians, after all; it's for pastors too. Jesus' blood and righteousness covers even their sins. His open arms and nail-pierced hands welcome with joyful tears every pastor whose pride has led them to stumble and stray from their Savior. So when we hear of a pastor or priest succumbing to sin, don't wag your finger at them. You're a sinner too. Just as one of the greatest displays of gratitude and love a child can have is to care for his parents when they are old and weak, it's wholly appropriate that we also pray for our spiritual fathers, that they would know the love and forgiveness of God for them, even taking our turn to speak the Word of life to them in their need.

The True Church according to The Belgic Confession

We believe and confess
one single catholic or universal church--
a holy congregation and gathering
of true Christian believers,
awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ
being washed by his blood,
and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

As for those who can belong to the church,
we can recognize them by the distinguishing marks of Christians:
namely by faith,
and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness,
once they have received the one and only Savior,
Jesus Christ.
They love the true God and their neighbors,
without turning to the right or left,
and they crucify the flesh and its works.

Though great weakness remains in them,
they fight against it
by the Spirit
all the days of their lives,
appealing constantly
to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus,
in whom they have forgiveness of their sins,
through faith in him.

--from the Belgic Confession, articles 27 & 29

"Every baptism is an infant baptism"

Last weekend the local RUF (Reformed University Fellowship, that is, not a ministry for canines) pastor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Peter Rowan, was ordained at our worship service. It was a beautiful and moving event to see a young man step forward to commit his life to guiding people to their Savior through the Word of the gospel. Then, in his first act as an ordained pastor, Peter baptized his infant nephew. Peter started his brief explanation of baptism with this provocative phrase: "In some sense, every baptism is an infant baptism." The sign of baptism, Peter explained, shows that we, like newborn babes, live entirely dependent lives before God, living entirely on what he gives us by grace alone in Christ.

I think this really is a beautiful picture we miss often by too quickly getting on with the business of responding to our baptisms by following Jesus' call to death-and-discipleship. No matter how zealously we follow Jesus and serve his church, we must recognize that every good and every blessing come to us not on account of our faith or our energy for God, but far prior to that. Baptism reminds us that it was "while we were still weak" and powerless like a little child with no strength or skill or virtue to offer, "Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6). Brennan Manning points out in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel that children are the model citizens of God's kingdom "because they have no claim on heaven. If they are close to God, it is because they are incompetent, not because they are innocent. If they receive anything, it can only be as a gift" (p. 28).

Greetings, NALC!

I've heard this was coming down the pipleline for a while. But apparently it's official: Confessional Lutherans disaffected with the gospel-diluting Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have broken off and formed a new ecclesiastical body, the North American Lutheran Chruch (NALC). I don't know all their doctrinal stances, but if their drive is to return to confessional Lutheranism and to Scripture itself, then why not simply join the more conservative, confessional Lutheran Church--Missour Synod (LCMS)? I imagine the NALC might be like the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), which upholds the Westminster Standards but allows female elders. I wonder myself why there are so many denominations with similar intents, even subscribing to the same confessions and standards and interpretational frameworks. So why not allow for a little more wiggle room in the peripheral matters of difference and unite for the sake of the church's greater unity? Why don't the (Lutheran) NALC, LCMS, WELS, and ELS all join? Why not the (Presbyterian) EPC, OPC, and PCA? There is far more uniting these respective bodies than there is dividing them.

Okay, rant aside, does anyone out there know what makes the NALC distinct enough from the LCMS to warrant a new body?

How close should you live to your church?

I've been wondering off-and-on this year: How important is it to live nearby to the church you worship in/with? (Here I am referring to the church as a building where the baptized gather for weekly worship.)

Of course in years past, when people lived among ethnic enclaves within either a more distinct rural or urban setting, and at best had one car--and forget expressways--this wasn't a real question. In my German- and Pole-stocked childhood hometown of Bay City, Michigan, there were three options: Catholic churches for the Poles, Catholic churches for the southern Germans, and Lutheran churches for the northern/western Germans. Churches were everywhere, and everyone near Germania St. was German, and over by Kocscuisko you were a Pole. Every Lutheran church belonged to the Missouri Synod and used the same liturgy, hymnal, and sermon texts. It just didn't matter.

But nowadays we have a smorgasbord of church options. What happens if the "best" church is farther away from a "good" or even "so-so" church? And how far is "too far"?

Certainly I think it can be difficult for a church's members to invest themselves in a church if they live far away. People are less likely to come to other meetings or take up opportunities to serve if they have to drive thirty minutes instead of five. And I think living far away also hinders one's ability to buy into a church's vision and outreach. A church's mission focus ought to be the neighborhood around it. But if your church is in the middle of the city, and you live fifteen miles out in the suburbs, how much harder might it be to invest your heart in city-dwellers whom you may walk past on Sundays but who aren't truly your neighbors?

Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback and thoughts you have to offer.

The Spirit of the Reformation

Happy Reformation Day!

As always for me, today is sort of a special day. It's not just that as a child I loved Halloween and all its spookiness. I was raised in the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod, and October 31 commemorates the date in 1517 on which Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the cathedral door in Wittenberg, Germany, thereby sparking what would become the Protestant Reformation.

Among the concerns of Luther and other reformers was the issue of justification, that is, on what basis we are set right with God and declared innocent of our sins. Taking St. Paul's testimony in Ephesians 2:8-9 to heart, the reformers' answer was this:

Sola gratia (by grace alone)
Sola fide (through faith alone)
Solus Christus (on the basis of Christ alone)
Soli Deo gloria (to the glory of God alone)

Nearly five centuries later, the debate over justification still continues--only this time within the Protestant churches themselves. Are we justified though faith alone apart from works, or are we justified on account of the works produced by our faith? The latter has always been Rome's position, not Augsburg's or Geneva's. But even that is beginning to change. I think the debate itself is somewhat beneficial for the church, because it always forces us to go back to the God-breathed Scriptures as our ultimate authority for faith and practice, and not any church traditions, confessions, or creeds (sola scriptura). It is times of heresy, heterodoxy, or division which often enable the church to become more pure, more convicted, and more unified in her doctrine as she is forced to reckon with the whole of Scripture and not simple proof-texting. These times also are a proving ground for how well church leaders and laity of differing traditions and convictions can continue to love one another and promote brotherly unity while seeking fidelity to their Head alone, Jesus Christ.

In the end, when the dust settles and heads clear, I think that we'll have a fuller picture of God's covenantal relationships with mankind in history, his saving work in Jesus Christ, the nature of the church, the role of the sacraments, and the relationship between justification and sanctification in our union with Christ. And while the divisiveness is bitter for now, we must pray that God will be glorified by the truth and that the church will be strengthened and unified from it. Just as Jan Hus and Martin Luther and others never sought to split the church, but rather to correct her according to God's Word (while nevertheless standing firm in their convictions even in the face of death), so too must we do so today. That is the true spirit of the Reformation.

No one has ever seen God, but . . .

Yesterday I was pleased to find a timely article in Christianity Today about, of all things, my most recent post's topic--how church architecture can teach about God and guide us into worship. (Well, really, it's about how the mystery of God guides us into a true knowledge of him.)

Westminster Abbey in London is one of the few places in the world that doesn't disappoint. The main part of Westminster is the cathedral: an enormous, basilica-style monastery of Gothic architecture that leaves one with a breathtaking vision of the height and depth of, if not God, at least of the worshipers' concept of God.

With the sheer amount of space between the floor and soaring vaults, from the back of the nave to the altar, as well as the complicated artistry on every wall and window, you find yourself awed by everything that speaks of the unimaginable greatness of God. You have a peculiar sense that God is very present and yet not altogether accessible. This is not an unpleasant experience; on the contrary, you realize that your idea of God has probably been domesticated and confined.

The author goes on to explain how we as Christians live in the tension of God's immanence (that he is present and accessible) and his transcendance (that he is infinitely beyond us). On one hand, God is our Creator; it is we who are finite and within his grasp, not the other way around. He remains a mystery beyond us, and at best we can only learn about him what he has himself, in his lordship over us, deigned to reveal.*

"God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen." (1 Timothy 6:15-16)

"Do you know how God controls the clouds
and makes his lightning flash?
Do you know how the clouds hang poised,
those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge?
You who swelter in your clothes
when the land lies hushed under the south wind,
can you join him in spreading out the skies,
hard as a mirror of cast bronze?

"Tell us what we should say to him;
we cannot draw up our case because of our darkness.
Should he be told that I want to speak?
Would any man ask to be swallowed up?
Now no one can look at the sun,
bright as it is in the skies
after the wind has swept them clean.
Out of the north he comes in golden splendor;
God comes in awesome majesty.
The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power;
in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
Therefore, men revere him,
for he does not have regard for any who think they are wise."
(Job 37:15-24)

On the other hand, God has in fact revealed himself. He spoke to Moses and the Patriarchs, revealed his Law, and manifested himself in storms and visions. He later spoke through his prophets. But mostly God spoke through his actions; he's known by what he does. And then there's Jesus, God-in-the-flesh.

"No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John 1:18)

"Jesus answered: 'Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.' " (John 14:9-11)

Beyond that, God has given us his Word and the sacraments, his "visible words" to speak to us and guide us. God isn't always entirely a mystery. But then again, when we think we know his Word, we keep on finding more and more about God and his story there, never to be fully probed.

How do we capture both of these realities in our worship--not only in our church buildings, but even more so in our songs, actions, liturgy, sacraments, preaching, and the like? What would it look like to honor both of these realities and embody them in our corporate worship so that both of these aspects of God are communicated and entered into? I'd appreciate your feedback.

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*For an amazing, eye-opening discussion of God's "immanence" and "transcendance" and how it relates to our knowlege of God, see the first chapter of John Frame's book The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ

As we search for a church, I have actually been quite encouraged by the fact that no church is perfect, and it's okay if I don't fit in or click with people immediately. Real Christian growth in community, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer incisively points out in Life Together, means to acknowledge that I am related to others as brothers and sisters in Christ. It's important to break this down. It's more than just a cliche or terminology.

We are brothers and sisters in Christ, part of the "family of believers" (Galatians 6:10). Just as we may choose our friends but not our family, so too do we not choose with whom we will and will not have fellowship. That's God's choice, not ours. He is our Father, and we don't get a say in family membership. And what family is perfect, without awkwardness or strain? If we want a church or fellowship without these, then what we desire is something other than the church God is building by his Spirit and calling his own.

Second, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. This means that we our family and fellowship exists not because we're in a social club, but because we're members of one body--Jesus's. With his blood he has purchased us for himself and to be one with himself in glory (Acts 20:28; Revelation 5:9-10). Therefore as Christians we mysteriously find our deepest fellowship not at a concert or playing ultimate frisbee, but at the Communion table. If I'm going to find a brother, it will only be as mutual recipients of God's grace and forgiveness. If God has accepted him, who am I to look down my nose at him? The church body exists solely on account of Christ's grace and for his purposes: the glory of God in the salvation of the world. And because living for God's glory in the world, fed and sustained by the gospel, is only done through the Word and prayer, my fellowship in Christ demands that I care more about building up someone in the Word and praying for and with him.

It's easy to seek out fellowship on the basis of shared interests. And it's not bad at all to have friends who like the same music, television shows, careers, etc. But this can lead to superficial relationships, which Satan loves. Being part of the body of Christ means something else, something deeper. The grace of God and the deceit of the the world demand that, in searching for a church and in cultivating new relationships, I need to be about more than just "fitting in" or feeling comfortable. It's even okay if I don't. Because what we need aren't more buddies or pals who never rub us the wrong way, but real brothers and sisters in Christ.

From One Degree of Glory to Another

Today at Redemption Hill, pastor Rob Greene preached used the following quote from Martin Luther in a sermon about the gospel riches of our sanctification, a work of God which he is bringing to completion (2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 John 3:1-3).

This life, therefore, is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.

This made me think of Olivia's and my recent lesson about sanctification (see my earlier post "Puzzled by Sanctifiction?"). Even though it may be slow and piecemeal, it is a progressive work that has both its origin and culmination in the promised word and work of our faithful God.

* * *

No, we haven't decided upon a church yet, in case you were wondering. We know it's unrealistic to expect another University Reformed Church or New Song Church--not because those churches were perfect, but because all churches are different. We've seen both good things as well as caveats in all the churches we've visited, and the task before us is finding which body will allow us best to grow through God's Word as well as allow us to serve and build up others with the gifts we have. We're able to rest knowing that in the end it's not engaging expository preaching nor enthralling worship music which will build us up in Christ, but rather it is the Holy Spirit, who is present and at work in even the less-than-ideal churches.

Angels in our midst

Reading the Revelation of St. John is always a mind-stretching experience. I used to get really perplexed by it because I thought it mostly had to do with hidden secrets about some far-off "end times." Then I realized two things core to its message: (1) We are now living in the "last times" (Hebrews 1:2; 1 Peter 1:20). (2) It is literally "the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1:1). "Revelation" (Greek apokalupsos) means "unveiling" or taking away a covering so that we can see the truth. In this book we do not see Jesus as a dead historical figure, nor the church as an impotent amalgamation of rejects, nor the powers of the world as ultimate. We are given a glimpse behind the veil of our eyes to embrace reality in faith: Christ is a living King, the church is God's dwelling place on Earth, the saints are a victorious, conquering army, and the forces of evil are the real losers.

One thing that struck me is this: Jesus gives a message through St. John to the "angel" of each of the seven churches in Asia Minor (present-day western Turkey). It occurred to me that these angels are not the "heavenly host" as I once thought they were. After all, it would be very strange for the Son of Man to use a mortal human to mediate his words to the heavenly beings who serve him at his throne. The word "angel" can also just as easily be translated "messenger." To whom, then, is Jesus speaking through John? It is the pastors of the local church bodies! The Chief Shepherd is giving counsel to his designated vice-shepherds (see 1 Peter 5:2, 5).

What importance this has for us! As Protestants we toss about the Reformation doctrine of "the priesthood of all believers" as license to seek our own paths to God or, more likely, simply include our pastor's preaching and counsel as simply one course in the spiritual smorgasbord by which we grow in knowledge and faith. But if these are are, as Christ himself reveals through his Spirit, his very angels and messengers, how much more important do these men become! How much more attentively ought we to heed their preaching as the very voice of Christ to us!* How much more authority do these seemingly weak, worldly men actually wield upon the earth!

So easily do I stuff my sermon notes into the back of my journal, leave them on the desk, or toss them out. It's my daily, personal "quiet time" that counts most, I think. That's where God really speaks to me. Personal study of the Scriptures is invalulable, it's true; but Christ promises his presence in the church. "Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Even in the Revelation of Jesus as exalted and in holy splendor (1:12-20), he is found nowhere other than standing among his churches.

But there is more: "In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a double-edged sword" (Revelation 1:16). Jesus then tells the apostle, "The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches" (v. 20). In his book Reversed Thunder Eugene Peterson points out that to the ancient Greco-Roman world, the constellations and the seven known planets (or "unfixed stars") were of supreme importance. The constellations represented the pantheon, and the movement of the planets among the Zodiac was believed to determine one's destiny.

Yet Christ holds the stars in his hand! It is not mere stars or planets nor some fickle soap opera of deities which rules the outcome of history. Neither is it Rome nor the Third Reich nor the U.S.A. nor any other political power. It is Jesus Christ who is Lord! And it is his stars--his messengers--which influence the world. It is his lampstands--the churches--which bring light and truth. The work of the church and her pastors cannot be unceremoniously scraped into a pile of impotent failures, all apparent realities to the contrary. It is through the church which Jesus acts: He wields his sword, as Peterson points out, not through the mouth of a gun, but though the mouth of his people bearing his Word to the world.

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*Romans 10:14 highlights that when the message of Christ is preached, we do not merely hear about Christ; we hear Christ himself. "How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?" (NASB).

Don't Look a Gift Horse, er, Church in the Mouth To See if It Chews the Cud; Neither Look at its Hooves to See if They Are Cloven

With my move to Chicago's western suburbs comes a new church. As I've been involved with several Reformed/Presbyterian churches over the past few years and have seen increasingly the worth of Reformed theology, it's a little hard for me to leave that for an Evangelical Free Church. I have developed understandings (which are always developing, of course) about corporate worship, soteriology, church government, and eschatology which would, at least in part, be left behind with my new church.

In chapters 10-11 of the Acts of the Apostles, Peter has a dream in which the Lord Jesus urges him to eat from a cornucopia of animals which would normally be unclean under the Jewish ceremonial law. Peter is in shock, but he learns through it that God has opened the way for "unclean" Gentiles to himself. This is soon confirmed at Cornelius's house, where the Holy Spirit is given to many Gentiles. Peter concludes that "if God gave them the same gift [of the Holy Spirit] that he had given us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?" (11:17). Barnabas comes to the same conclusion that the Gentiles in Antioch likewise were approved by God, since they bore "evidence of the grace of God" and were "true to the Lord" (11:23).

Peter had to yield his prior notions of what constituted the people of God and the marks of their worship, as God opened the door of salvation to everyone (cf. Acts 15). As good as the ceremonial laws in which Peter believed were, they were no longer allowed to supercede the true badge of God's people: faith in Jesus as the Messiah, given and sealed by the Holy Spirit. God's judgments overrode those of Peter or any other Jewish Christian.

In similar fashion, I've got things that I value about worship and doctrine. But what really is more important: valuing good and valid theological understandings, or loving the very people whom God has himself chosen? We're called as the church to love those everywhere who belong to Christ, regardless of denominational preferences, and that call includes me. The question is: Will I love doctrines or even personal preferences (however rational or biblical they may be) more than people? Am I somehow above them?

At the end of his letter to the Galatians, in which he deals with controversy over "marks of the true church," Paul urges the Galatian Christians in every opportunity to "do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10). In a family, children don't get to choose their own brothers and sisters, but they are called to put aside their sibling rivalries and live in loving unity (cf. Psalm 133:1). In the same way, we're a "family of believers" because Christians are born not according to our own human wills, but by God's Spirit (John 1:12-13; 3:1-8). Faith only comes from God, so it's his choice that counts. Who am I, then, to question the church I'll be joining, those who are loved by God and given his Spirit? Who am I to look suspiciously--even ungratefully--at God's very own provision for me in people whom I can build up and who also will build me up?