Should I Leave My Critical Text Church?
First of all, I am here raising a completely hypothetical question. In over two decades of ministry, I have never had a person ask me that exact question. If someone had, I suppose my initial inclination would be to say, “Probably not, but it depends.”
Sadly, it has been reported that some ministers are interpreting the appendix of “Why I Preach from the Received Text” in a way that undermines my initial inclination and, I believe, misinterprets the actual advice offered therein. The charge has even been voiced that the advice is dangerous and decidedly divisive.
Leaving a local church is a monumental decision and always involves many different considerations. I, in fact, once wrote a ten-step procedure for how saints should make and execute so weighty a decision in a manner that honors the Lord. Apparently, and as previously stated, the advice I offered in the anthology is being interpreted differently.
The purpose of this article is to clarify the advice that was offered that none might misunderstand the intent. Could I have possibly been more clear? Undoubtedly. At the same time, could my critics also be more charitable in their interpretation? Probably.
Let us proceed to review the advice [indented] as I offer some brief commentary on my intent. *
The Advice
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Dead Men Talking – Part 1
Written by David S. Steele |
Saturday, June 24, 2023
The dead guys I’m referring to are the ones who believe in the authority of Scripture and embrace the doctrinal foundations that fuel our Christian lives. One of those dead men is none other than Charles H. Spurgeon (1834 – 1892) who died over 120 years ago. He remarked, “I shall live and speak long after I am dead.” John Rogers is dead, yet he still speaks. So what can the dead guys teach us? And what is the rationale for learning from these dead guys?The smell of burning flesh hung in the air. The villagers turned their heads and gasped. Stray dogs fled. The man’s wife wept bitterly. His children watched in disbelief. The stench was a vivid reminder of who sat on the throne. Mary Tudor ruled with ironclad authority. Her subjects were obligated to obey. Any dissenters would pay the ultimate price. The world would remember her as “Bloody Mary.”
The day was February 4, 1555. The man roped to the pyre was known well in the British village. A man of humble origins. A man with bold ambitions and simple obedience to match. A man who dared to challenge the throne with two simple acts – preaching the Word of God and printing the Matthews-Tyndale Bible. His name was John Rogers. Pastor, father, martyr. He was the first Christ-follower to pay the ultimate price of death during Mary’s bloody reign of terror. He was the first of hundreds who would die at the hands of this blood-thirsty tyrant.
John Rogers stands in a long line of godly men; men who preached the truth, lived uncompromising lives, and finished strong. Like Rogers, some were martyred. Others died of old age or were tormented with disease. Those who stand in the long line of godly men still have something to say. Their courage emboldens us. Their lives inspire us. Their theology instructs us.
Hebrews 11 recounts the stories of some of the godly men and women of Scripture that were people of faith – people who still have something to say. The Word of God says, “Now faith means that we have full confidence in the things we hope for, it means being certain of things we cannot see. It was this faith that won their reputation for the saints of old” (Heb. 11:1-2, Phillips). God’s Word says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6, ESV).
The historical figures in Hebrews 11 received their commendation from God – that is to say they were recognized by the God of the universe. The Bible says they were commended by God for their faith; for displaying remarkable courage under fire, resilience, and soft-hearted obedience. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Samson, David, and Rahab were commended through their faith.
Hebrews 12:1 says that these heroes of the faith are a great cloud of witnesses who surround us – giving us great impetus to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
Here is what’s intriguing. All of these heroes (with the exception of Enoch) is dead.
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Weakness: Our Unlikely Ally
Jacob limped the rest of his life after wrestling with God at the Jabbock, and that limp signified the power of God for generations to come. Therefore, I will boast of my weaknesses because God makes no mistakes in His providences. Countless Christians speak life into the souls of hurting people because they, too, have struggled with weakness and, in those infirmities, have found God’s grace to be enough.
If you want to turn the world’s wisdom on its head completely, this is it. The Apostle Paul says he will boast about his weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:9). We do not boast of weaknesses; we hide them because they hold us back from being who we should be. They threaten our competence. They are faults and defects. Instead, we boast of accomplishments, skills, talents, and abilities, but biblical wisdom says this is backward.
Weaknesses, we all have them. From illnesses to physical handicaps. From weak minds to weak knees. Some have speech impediments, anxiety disorders, melancholy, and poverty. There is not a single believer who does not struggle with something, but when was the last time we celebrated them? When was the last time we looked at our vulnerabilities and said, “what a blessing! These things cause Christ’s light to shine in my life more than my strengths.”
We often fail to understand that our weaknesses are our unlikely allies because we forget our purpose in life. Or we, if we do know our calling, we forget how to fulfill it best. Our chief end in life is to glorify God and enjoy him forever (WSC). We bring glory to the Lord not by showing the world how strong we are but by showing them his strength.
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The Lamb of God: A Pattern of Redemption
We have witnessed one of the myriad of ways God unfolds his plan of redemption in salvation-history. This pattern of redemption is not God’s backup plan but his “plan for the fullness of time” (Eph 1:10). Indeed, before the foundation of the world, John speaks about “the book of the life of the Lamb who was slain” (Rev. 13:8). We worship the Lamb especially at Easter, not only because he died in our place as the lamblike Servant, but also because he is “standing after having been slain” (Rev. 5:6, my translation).
The apostle John’s title for Jesus as “Lamb of God” (John 1:29) has caused interpreters to puzzle, as Dr. Seuss once put it, “till [their] puzzlers were sore.” They puzzle because there are many possibilities to which this phrase may refer.[1] Is this the lamb of Genesis 22:8, the Passover lamb of Exodus 12:21, or some other lamb? Rather than saying that John created a novel composite metaphor, I suggest that he just read his Bible well. I propose in this article that in John 1:29, the apostle John evokes a pattern of redemption in the Old Testament that culminates in the Servant of Isaiah 52:13–53:12 (esp. v. 7) understood in his proper canonical context.
To explain this, I will highlight key developments in the pattern depicted below before returning to John’s Gospel.
Genesis 22: A Substitutionary Type
In Genesis 22, the Lord tests Abraham by commanding him, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (Gen. 22:2). The language of “only son” (Gen. 22:2, 12, 16) accents how Isaac is Abraham’s firstborn child from Sarah, his only child of promise, the one he had waited over 25 years to meet. In route to obey God’s command, Abraham responds to Isaac’s query about why they didn’t bring a lamb for the sacrifice: “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (Gen. 22:8). God would see to it that there was a lamb, and Abraham’s faith was rewarded by the sight of a ram, which he offered “as a burnt offering instead of his son” (Gen. 22:13). In this episode, we see the expectation for God to provide a lamb which would die in the place of Abraham’s firstborn child of promise—a clearly substitutionary sacrifice.
Two details merit additional comment: (1) Why might Moses insist so repeatedly that it was a burnt offering (Gen. 22:2, 3, 6, 7, 13)? And (2) What significance may the Lord intend in appointing a ram (ʾayil)? First, the burnt offering is consumed entirely by fire upon the altar before the Lord, that is, it is completely devoted to him. This suggests what the Pentateuch confirms, namely, that the Lord intends for the children of promise to be wholly devoted to him. Second, the provision of a ram is intriguing for at least three reasons: First, the Lord will later prescribe a ram for priestly ordination offerings (Lev. 8:22). Since the Lord intends for his people to be wholly devoted to him and the ram is later employed this way, perhaps this foreshadows the Lord’s declaration of his people as a “kingdom of priests” (Exod. 19:6). Second, a ram is the prescription for the guilt offering (ʾāšām, Lev. 5:16), which Isaiah says is the kind of offering that the Servant is (ʾāšām, Isa. 53:10). Third, the term ram is also used metaphorically in the OT for a ruler or leader (e.g., Exod. 15:15; 2 Kgs. 24:15; Jer. 25:34). Taking this observation in hand with the previous, Gentry observes, “Since this same word for ram is often used metaphorically of community leaders, the ʾāšām [=guilt offering] is perfectly suited to describe a sacrifice where the king suffers the penalty on behalf of his people.”[3] Therefore, we are warranted to see in Genesis 22 the seeds of future sacrifices.
The significance of this event is far-reaching in the OT. After observing that Mount Moriah is the place the temple was built at the direction of the Lord (2 Chr. 3:1; cf. 1 Chr. 21), Michael Morales writes, “the entire cult of Israel—that is, the temple system of priesthood and sacrifices—was built on an event, narrated in Genesis 22, where Yahweh God had provided a substitute, an animal replacement, for the seed of Abraham whose utter consecration to himself he had commanded.”[4] Yet, before the temple was built on that mount—before even the tabernacle service was instituted—God would again see to it that a lamb would die in the place of his firstborn.
Exodus 12: Variation on God’s Provided Lamb
The exodus from Egypt was determined in the mind of God before Isaac was even born (Gen. 15:13–16). Likewise, while Moses was still in Midian, God disclosed his plans beforehand that he would harden Pharoah’s heart until the plague on the firstborn liberated God’s firstborn Israel (Exod. 4:21–23). Specifically, it would be by the blood of the lambs upon the doorpost (Exod. 12:13, 22–23) that God would bring about Israel’s redemption.
But why require blood?
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