The Father's Day Gospel

Father's Day provides an annual chance to awkwardly think about why you love your dad.  But what if you are the dad?  Do you start shifting in your chair, wondering if you're doing a good job?  What if you fall short?

Maybe you're a dad who worships the living God and reads the Bible.  What would you do if you came across these passages in the Old Testament?

"You shall have no other gods before me. ... You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Deuteronomy 5:7, 9-10) 

"And the LORD said to me, '... Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and keep my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!'" (Deuteronomy 5:29)

The Old Testament is rife with examples of poor fathers raising foolish children who don't fear the Lord, and of how indeed the sin of fathers consumes their whole families.  (Take, for example, the families of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in Numbers 16, or the sons of Eli in 1 Samuel 2!)  God works in and through family relationships throughout the Bible, and for the most part, families rise and fall on the faith of the father who leads the home.

So when we as fathers read these passages about the God who is "the same yesterday and today and forever," how can we have good hope for our children after us?  How can we be sure we will raise a wise family who repent of their sins and embrace Jesus, who fear and trust God and call him Father?  How will we know we will see his blessing upon our households rather than curses?  After all, does not God threaten to return fathers' sins upon their children's heads?

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!

B.O.C.

Back in high school, some of the guys in the preppy ski-bum crowd had this phrase, "B.O.C." -- ballin' outta control.  Well, our son Ephraim seems to have picked up on it, except now he's bawlin' outta control.  This kid cries all. the. time.

If I sleep in more than one-hour stretches, it's a good night.  On Sunday night I got a whopping two-and-a-half hours total.  In order to alleviate Ephraim's madness, our pediatrician has put Olivia on a strict no-dairy diet.  (You'd be amazed how seemingly everything contains some kind of milk protein!)

Not coincidentally, I read 1 Corinthians 13 last week.  I definitely have a context for learning that "Love is patient and kind. ... Love is not irritable or resentful. ... Love bears all things, ... endures all things."

So just to spare you an angry look, in case you're another one to ask us, "Are you loving every minute of it [being a parent]?"  The answer is No.  We love our son, but we don't love parenting.  But that doesn't really matter, because it wasn't our choice anyway.

Some Notes on Household Baptisms

One of the common criteria used in debates over who should be baptized (that is, only professing believers, or also their children) is the accounts of household baptisms in the New Testament. (See my previous post.) One's "household" (Greek oikos) referred generally to their dependent family in an immediate and certain sense, but also possibly any other voluntary bondservants pledged to their care. There are five explicit household baptisms mentioned: that of Cornelius (Acts 10:44-48), Lydia (16:15), the Philippian jailer (16:31-34), Crispus (18:8 with 1 Cor. 1:14), and Stephanas (1 Cor. 1:16). Presumably the household of Gaius was also baptized, because his name is included between the two others whose households were baptized (1 Cor. 1:14-16).

Baptists try to argue that everyone who was in the household believed and professed faith, therefore giving only a pattern of "believers-only baptism" (called credobaptism, baptism upon professing a creed or statement of faith). Reformed/Presbyterian and Methodist folks use these accounts to say that the household head's faith reckoned the whole household under covenant membership, so the whole family was baptized regardless of whether or not they believed. This would include the baptism of any infants or young children if present (paedobaptism). Who's right?