A Pastoral Mistake
If I am God’s servant bringing God’s rule to bear in God’s church for God’s glory and the good of his beloved children, if I am a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the complete salvation of sinners, if I am a man who knows and trusts the influences and operations of the Holy Spirit bringing to bear the very truth he has made known, I need to be a man of the word, and we need to be a people of the Book.
I often make the same pastoral mistake. It is not deliberate, it is often well-intentioned, sometimes it is even hopeful. It is this: to presume upon the biblical knowledge of the people to whom I speak. I do not at all mean by this to deliver a backhanded insult, appearing to confess a shortcoming of my own while really assaulting the failings of others. If I am teacher, if am called to preach the word, to be ready in season and out of season, to convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching (2Tim 4:2), then I cannot presume upon the understanding of the saints. I cannot say things, even true, biblically-based, and scripturally-sound things, and assume that everyone picks up the quotation of God’s Word or makes the connections of various texts-in-context that may be hanging in my mind. Not everyone is thinking of the chapter where that is taught, or instinctively arriving at the same point in redemptive history on the basis of what has gone before, or seeing the types and shadows fulfilled, or ticking the box of a certain conclusion in systematic theology.
I need to remember this in a variety of settings. I need to remember it when I am preaching, so that I more regularly quote the Scriptures, and—when appropriate and helpful, and probably more often than I do—to turn people to a particular portion or passage, so that they can see it for themselves. I need to remember this in teaching, publicly or more privately, when I may be discoursing on some scriptural theme or principle which I assume is evident to all, but which may be entirely in shadow for someone who has not read or understood that portion of God’s Word, or who has only just come to faith, or who has never been taught these things before. I need to remember it in church members’ meetings, when there are, perhaps, complex or thorny matters of church polity and practice to address, some of which may be alien in principle and in practice to some of the members. I need to remember it in evangelising—not that I can ask open-air listeners to look at their Bibles, or even that I can always put a Bible in front of someone with whom I am speaking more informally, but rather that I can both emphasise that I am speaking from the Bible and encourage them to check.
I need to remember all this not just for unbelievers who may never have been exposed to the Scriptures, but for both new believers and for older Christians as well. Even new believers who have been for years under the sound of the gospel, perhaps under the soundest of ministries, or who were raised by godly parents in a well-ordered home, are likely to be encountering much as if for the first time. The Spirit of Christ has opened their eyes, and they are like people who have never really read their Bibles before! To be sure, we are hoping that the new life they have will vivify the entire framework of truth which they have been taught, but there are lively perceptions and lively connections which they have not yet made, and will not without someone to guide them. And older Christians, too, for various reasons, may be marked by confusion, suspicion, or accusation. I have heard saints of many years standing assure me that the plain teaching of the Bible is wrong, or claim some obscure (or even well-known) verse, poorly interpreted and carelessly handled, as trumping the clear instruction of the more obvious portions of the truth. Some do not so much manhandle as manipulate or even mutilate a text, making it mean what they wish or expect, in danger perhaps of twisting it even to their own destruction. (Now, do I leave that hanging, or do I refer to 2 Peter 3:16, so that people know where I got that language?) Some listen to a preacher or teacher (more often than not, online) with a novel interpretation, or have perhaps come from a religious background marked by ignorance or flawed, if not false, teaching, to which they cling. Some have been bruised by bad teaching in the past. Some just don’t read or engage with their Bibles—some are scared of portions of it, or seem to have spent a lifetime with their eyes going over the page but little truth penetrating the mind. Some are (perhaps natively) marked by suspicion and aggression, quick to accuse and slow to trust, often ready to impute something ugly, perhaps because they have never heard of it or thought of it before. Often people have had little training in basic thinking and learning, or have their own particular limitations.
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Christianity and Worldly Philosophy
Written by W. Robert Godfrey |
Friday, February 17, 2023
His reflections on the nature of true Christianity in each chapter show the profound and powerful importance of these truths. But before he develops this great theme, he reflects briefly on the broader issues confronting Christians in our times, particularly naturalism and materialism. “Material betterment has gone hand in hand with spiritual decline,” he writes. As Machen sees it, “modern unbelief” has not just attacked true religion but has also undermined the higher life of individuals more generally.J. Gresham Machen introduces his invaluable book Christianity and Liberalism by observing that he lived in “a time of conflict.” Perhaps all humans have lived in times of conflict ever since mankind’s fall into sin. The fundamental conflict is always between Satan and the Seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), but that conflict takes somewhat different forms in different times. Machen sees the conflict of his time as a conflict between materialism and the spiritual life, which remains very much the reality for us one hundred years later.
In his book, Machen celebrates the modern advances in improving our physical lives that have come from scientific discoveries. The danger he sees is that these very successes have blinded many to the reality that there is more to life than physical well-being. They have focused exclusively on the material and have become materialists. The natural world that surrounds us, that can be seen and touched, is the only world. The supernatural, which is to say God’s acting beyond the natural in this world, is ruled out entirely. But Machen wisely alludes to the words of Jesus (Matt. 16:26): What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?
The great purpose of Machen’s book is to insist that only true Christianity can answer the challenge of materialism and to show that true Christianity is entirely different from and opposed to liberal or modernistic pseudo-Christianity. His reflections on the nature of true Christianity in each chapter show the profound and powerful importance of these truths. But before he develops this great theme, he reflects briefly on the broader issues confronting Christians in our times, particularly naturalism and materialism. “Material betterment has gone hand in hand with spiritual decline,” he writes.
As Machen sees it, “modern unbelief” has not just attacked true religion but has also undermined the higher life of individuals more generally. He sees a materialistic worldview as restricting the freedom of individuals to cultivate the great achievements of the human mind and spirit. He points to the modern arts, music, and literature as evidence of modern decline of human accomplishment.One example that he offers of the deadening effects of the neglect of the spirit is in the field of modern education. His remarks seem truly prophetic. Remember, he is writing in 1922. He complains that “the choice of schools must be taken away from the individual parent and placed in the hands of the state.” In state education, “the child is placed under the control of psychological experts, themselves without the slightest acquaintance with the higher realms of human life.” Indeed, “bureaucratic regulation” in education as elsewhere is leading to a “drab utilitarianism in which all higher aspirations are to be lost.” Such education values teaching only what is useful in the estimation of materialism.
As an example of this tendency of the state to ruin education, Machen refers to a law passed in 1919 in Nebraska.
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Bernard of Clairvaux and Mysticism
Bernard represents a refreshing spring in the arid environs of medieval theology. It would be a few centuries yet until the Reformers would come along and be used by God to help the church find its way. But we can, like those Reformers, be appreciative of this medieval monk and his writings.
One has to appreciate a medieval figure whom Martin Luther and John Calvin looked on with favor and, to a certain degree, approval. The figure in question is Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk, abbot, mild mystic, and formidable theologian. It’s an understatement to call him an abbot. His monastery eventually founded a daughter institution, then another, then another. By the time of his death, seventy monasteries had been directly planted or started by him, with those institutions responsible for establishing hundreds more.
So revered was Bernard that Dante left his faithful Beatrice behind as his guide and had Bernard of Clairvaux lead him into the final sphere of heaven (Paradiso, Canto XXXI). Dante was not only drawing on Bernard’s recognition, but also on one of his most significant writings, On Loving God.
Before Bernard wrote On Loving God, he enjoyed a life typical of medieval nobility in the Burgundy region of France. At twenty-two, he entered the abbey at Citeaux, France. Showing his leadership potential, Bernard brought thirty others with him when he joined. The monastery at Citeaux was purposefully committed to recovering the ideals of the Benedictine monasteries, many of which had drifted from their moorings. Bernard would go even further when he assumed leadership.
Bernard’s desire to reform his church extended far beyond the monasteries. He made a career of advising and rebuking popes, playing a significant role in the eventual settling of the papal schism in the 1130s. He entered the theological ring, confronting the heretical tendencies of Abelard. Bernard also advocated for the Second Crusade and preached rather stirring sermons promoting it. Cambridge University historian G. R. Evans makes the point well: “Bernard never did things by halves.”
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What Does “Scripture Alone” Mean, and Why Should You Care?
What led the Roman Catholics astray was their understanding that the church birthed the Word of God, rather than the Word being the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20). Yes, God gives us consciences, good sense, and even the traditions of the church from which we can glean insight into life, but knowledge of salvation is found in Scripture and Scripture alone.
When we talk about sola scriptura, we are talking about the fact that it is God’s word—not man’s—that gives us the instruction we need to attain everlasting life. It’s not to say that Christians should only read the Bible and nothing else. If your sink gets clogged, a plumbing manual will be of more use than anything in the Old or New Testament. Sola scriptura means that the Bible gives us everything we need to know about everything that truly matters—specifically, our salvation.
The Sufficiency of Scripture
At the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church did not deny the importance of the Word of God but rather its sufficiency. Rome said Scripture was insufficient to reveal to us the way to heaven. Rather, Rome argued that we needed something in addition to Scripture: the traditions of the church. According to theologian Michael Horton in The Christian Faith,The Council of Trent [in the sixteenth century] established the view that Scripture and tradition are actually two forms of God’s Word—”written” and “unwritten”.” (p. 188)
What led the Roman Catholics astray was their understanding that the church birthed the Word of God, rather than the Word being the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20). Yes, God gives us consciences, good sense, and even the traditions of the church from which we can glean insight into life, but knowledge of salvation is found in Scripture and Scripture alone.
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