Arranged in the Body with Purpose
Do not despise your gifting, but trust that God really has designed you for the good of the church, precisely as He has willed. Celebrate the variety of people God has placed within your local body and remember that He has done it all for the common good and the building up of the body. May God be honored in His church.
Jesus promised His disciples that He would build His church, “and the gates of Hell” would not prevail against it (Matt 16:18). And for the last 2,000 years, He has been faithful to do just that. He has saved men and women and brought them together for the praise of His glory and the good of the saints. And not only has He saved, but He has uniquely gifted each one, arranging His church, His body, in a very specific way. And this is the encouragement: That the church of God is arranged with purpose.
It’s one thing to understand that we are the body of Christ, and that we are each like different parts of that body. Some are like mouths and some are like ears. Some are like eyes and some are like hands. These are body parts with noticeable purpose. Still others can feel like pinky toes or the appendix. Not really sure why they’re there, but technically a part of the body. But it’s another thing to know that, not only am I a part of the body of Christ, but I am a purposeful part of the body of Christ.
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B. B. Warfield on the Formation of New Testament Canon
According to Warfield, the church did not create a new canon alongside the old by determining what ought to be included in it (or not). Rather, the church recognized the books of our present New Testament as they were given, and therefore added them to the existing books of the Old Testament canon. These books came from the apostolic circle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and therefore already possessed full authority as the word of God independently of the church’s recognition of them.
B. B. Warfield’s magisterial essay “The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament” was published in 1892. You can find the essay here. It has also been included in the various editions of Warfield’s The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible.
Here a few gems from that essay.
Warfield reminds us that the apostolic church did not “invent” the idea of a canon of New Testament books. The church possessed a canon of inspired and authoritative books from the very beginning–the Old Testament. The church was, therefore, never without a “canon.”In order to obtain a correct understanding of what is called the formation of the Canon of the New Testament, it is necessary to begin by fixing very firmly in our minds one fact which is obvious enough when attention is once called to it. That is, that the Christian church did not require to form for itself the idea of a “canon” — or, as we should more commonly call it, of a “Bible” — that is, of a collection of books given of God to be the authoritative rule of faith and practice. It inherited this idea from the Jewish church, along with the thing itself, the Jewish Scriptures, or the “Canon of the Old Testament.” The church did not grow up by natural law: it was founded. And the authoritative teachers sent forth by Christ to found His church, carried with them, as their most precious possession, a body of divine Scriptures, which they imposed on the church that they founded as its code of law. No reader of the New Testament can need proof of this; on every page of that book is spread the evidence that from the very beginning the Old Testament was as cordially recognized as law by the Christian as by the Jew. The Christian church thus was never without a “Bible” or a “canon.”
Through the revelation of the gospel preached by the apostles, Warfield notes that the Holy Spirit added to the existing Old Testament canon during the apostolic age. During this period of its development, the church did not possess a “closed canon,” but “an increasing canon.”
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An Altar of Earth: Exodus 20:22-26
As the Israelites built these simple altars of earth or uncut stones and made offerings to atone for their sins and in thankful fellowship to Yahweh, His name would be remembered by the people, and He would come to them and bless them. Remember that the explicit purpose behind God doing everything that He has done for Israel in the book of Exodus was so that they may know that He is Yahweh. Through the plagues, the parting of the sea, the provision and protection in the wilderness, and now through His covenant with them at Sinai, God was revealing His holy name to them and, therefore, also revealing His holy nature and character.
It is a tragedy that worship is one of the most divisive and conflict-filled areas within the church. Of course, it is also understandable. We tend to fight most fiercely over the things that are most important to us. If the chief end of man truly is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, worship ought to be highest priority of all of God’s people, so it is not to be taken lightly.
I begin with the topic of worship because that is the overall theme of the second half of Exodus. In chapters 1-14, Yahweh rescued Israel from their slavery in Egypt and slew their oppressor, Pharaoh. Then in chapters 15-19, God led Israel through the wilderness to Sinai protecting and providing for them along the way like a shepherd over his flock. The remainder of Exodus takes place at Sinai, where God is outlining His covenant with Israel, detailing how they are to live as His treasured possess, a holy nation, and a kingdom of priests. We properly call that life of response to God’s salvation, worship.
However, let us make two important notes on worship that will serve us going forward. First, while the entire life of God’s people is to be lived in worship to God, there is a distinction to be made between daily, personal worship and the corporate, gathered worship of God’s people. Yes, we are called to offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices and to do all things to the glory of God, and yes, that is the all-encompassing daily and personal worship that God requires. Amen! However, we should note that Paul told the Corinthians that some of their personal habits of worship would not transfer to the gathered worship of God’s people. We can think of this example. A professional dancer ought to dance with excellence to the glory of God, which then becomes an act of worship; however, the Lord’s Day gathering would not be the time or place to do so.
We should also note that worship is not Burger King, that is, the ultimate goal of worship is not to have it your way. Because we are worshiping the Almighty Creator, who has spoken to us from heaven, we ought to be supremely concerned with how He desires and commands to be worshiped, not with how we would best like to worship Him. It is this principle that we see most clearly in the laws before us, which particularly dictate what kind of altars God would permit the Israelites to build for Him.
The God of Heaven: Verses 22–23
Having taken two weeks to properly introduce us to the laws that God gave in the Old Testament, we now begin to move through the portion of Exodus that is called the Book of the Covenant. As I noted last week, this section of Exodus both begins and ends with a discussion of Israel’s proper worship of Yahweh, their God and Redeemer, while the other laws in the middle focus upon laws of justice in dealing with one another. Our text begins with these words:
And the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven.
Here the LORD is referring back to His speaking of the Ten Commandments. Remember that God had the people consecrate themselves for three days in chapter 19 before He descended upon Sinai in thick clouds of darkness, with fire, thunder, lightning, and the blast of trumpets. He then spoke the Ten Commandments audibly for the entire nation of Israel to hear. But even though God did descend to speak directly to His people, notice that He still says that He spoke to them from heaven. They could not endure His complete presence but could only bear Him speaking from afar. Of course, truly they could not even endure that. Indeed, no one could, which is why God ultimately had to become flesh and dwell among us.
Recall that after God finished speaking, the people begged for Moses to be their mediator, speaking to God on their behalf and delivering to them the words of God. Moses embraced that role. While the rest of Israel shrank back in fear, Moses drew near to God. And now we have Yahweh speaking, not to all of Israel, but to Moses, telling the prophet His words for the people of Israel. Philip Ryken notes:
From this point on, Moses would do the talking. He was the mediator—the man who spoke for God. So whenever God had something to say to Israel, he would do it through his prophet Moses. In the chapters that follow, Moses applies God’s law to various life situations. But the first thing God wanted his prophet to do was to remind the people about who spoke to them on the mountain: It was the great God of the covenant. From this point on, everything Moses said was based upon this great fact, that God had spoken to his people. The Law did not come from earth; it came from Heaven, and for this reason the Israelites were obligated to obey.
EXODUS, 648.
You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, not shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. This ought to sound quite similar to the first two of the Ten Commandments. The First Commandment forbid the worship of any gods other than Yahweh Himself, while the Second Commandment forbid the making of images for worship. This commandment appears to be mixture between the two, and that should not surprise us. Recall that the Ten Commandments are summary of the God’s law, so that every other law is essentially a more detailed explanation of the principle of one of the Ten.
Of course, the Second Commandment described the likeness of the images being made, but here the emphasis is upon the material with which they are made. Idols were often made simply of wood, which Isaiah ruthlessly mocks, saying of a cut down tree: “Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it” (44:15). Yet precious metals like gold and silver were certainly preferable whenever they could be obtained. Douglas Stuart writes about this command:
Mentioning “gods of silver or gods of gold” represents a synecdoche and does not imply that these metals were the only materials from which idols were made. But since they the most common, they stood for all materials and helped the Israelites remember that no idol—no matter how lovely in appearance or expensive in composition—could be worshiped as representing a god. Beautiful, expensive things cannot be excluded from the command against idolatry by the argument that they are “appropriate to God” or that they “call him to mind because their excellence suggests his excellence.” That such a prohibition would need to be repeated virtually immediately after the Ten Commandments has been given is evidenced by Aaron’s construction of the golden calf days or weeks later (chap. 32).
EXODUS, 471.
Indeed, that is a point worth repeating. Just because items like gold and silver are precious and valuable to us, that did not inherently make them fit for worship. After the king disobeyed God’s command, Samuel gave this famous rebuke to King Saul:
Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.
1 SAMUEL 15:22-23
If that is true about the sacrifices and burnt offerings, which God Himself did command, how much more does the principle apply to things like gold and silver? I make this point because it seems to be rather common in evangelicalism today to apply the “it’s the thought that counts” principle to worship.
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We Don’t Wanna Talk About This
In 2021 American pastor Eric Tonjes wrote Either Way, We’ll Be All Right (NavPress). He and his wife married young, and while still quite young, Elizabeth got cancer and eventually died from it. This book is about his story, and his wrestling with God. I want to highlight one chapter here. Given that I wrote a piece yesterday discussing purpose and meaning, how does cancer fit into this? Is there a reason for it – does God have a purpose in it? Most believers are aware of the famous statement that our chief aim in life is to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” But with cancer?
In the West at least, the related topics of suffering, grief, dying and death are not something we like to talk about. Sure, these are not pleasant things, so one can understand the reticence. But they are also universal things – we ALL experience them.
In fact, to speak of certain people having a terminal condition is misleading – we all have a terminal condition. Because of the universality of sin, death is universal as well. We will all die. But unless one is going through this, or knows someone who is, we shy away from it and really try not to think or talk about it.
And that includes most Christians. But it should not be this way. We all pay lip service to the truth that ‘this is not our home, we’re just passing through’. However most believers live as if the opposite is true. We avoid thinking about the next life and we put everything into this one.
It often takes some tragedy or illness to get our attention, and to get us to refocus. Cancer – whether in yourself or a loved one – will certainly do that. Millions of people right now are struggling with cancer. Some of it is curable, some not. Some people seem to get through it, yet often remission occurs.
We have friends in this situation. And much closer to home, my own wife is in this boat. While we all know about the word ‘cancer’ and many would know the word ‘metastasis’, it is usually not until it happens to us or someone we love that we really stand up and take notice.
There are different ways to deal with this. If you are like me – a hardcore reader – you will start buying books on the topic. I already have many hundreds of books on the broader topic of suffering and evil, and many of those books would cover practical matters such as dealing with grief. A subset of this would be dealing with cancer.
There are hundreds of books out there on this. Let me highlight just one very good volume. In 2021 American pastor Eric Tonjes wrote Either Way, We’ll Be All Right (NavPress). He and his wife married young, and while still quite young, Elizabeth got cancer and eventually died from it. This book is about his story, and his wrestling with God.
I want to highlight one chapter here. Given that I wrote a piece yesterday discussing purpose and meaning, how does cancer fit into this? Is there a reason for it – does God have a purpose in it? Most believers are aware of the famous statement that our chief aim in life is to ‘glorify God and enjoy him forever.’ But with cancer?
Tonjes cites Isaiah 43:7 among other passages: “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Says Tonjes, “Isaiah’s point is inescapable: God’s purpose, and the purpose of his people, is his glory.” He continues:
How does God’s glory meet our grief? We think that happiness is the goal of life, but happiness is a mediocre purpose. Those seeking it never accomplish much of worth. Given that life includes suffering and, ultimately, death, what we need is a purpose big enough to make that struggle worthwhile. We need something worth laboring for, and there is no worthier goal than God’s glory embodied in our lives.
Pursuing the self cannot sustain us in the face of this world’s brokenness.
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