Christianity’s Uncanny Habit of Renewal
Renewals, revivals, and awakenings are unpredictable, by definition. Christians should not credulously accept them as de facto works of God just because they’re on the news, or on YouTube. Sometimes revivals turn out just to be frothy chaos; sometimes they introduce aberrant beliefs and practices. But sometimes they produce godly results that last for generations: lives transformed and renewed, people called into vocational ministry, and communities brought to greater wholeness of bodies and souls.
In February 2023, the religion news beat took a sudden detour from its usual narratives of white evangelicals and politics, the rise of the unaffiliated (the “nones”), denominational schisms, and megachurch scandals. For several weeks, the news was dominated by an improbable and apparently unorchestrated revival at Methodist-affiliated Asbury University in central Kentucky. By late February, some 50,000 people had descended on the campus to pray and sing with Asbury students. The work’s logistical load at Asbury was massive (they did have courses to teach, after all!). University leaders eventually decided it was time to conclude the formal revival meetings.
As Jesus taught, the Holy Spirit does not operate on human calendars: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) It may seem surprising, in contemporary college culture, for a huge student-led revival to come out of nowhere and capture the notice even of the secular media. Aren’t all today’s college students supposed to be censorious, anti-religious, and “woke”?
In our age, religion typically appears in the elite media only when it is connected to politics or scandal. But the Asbury renewal echoed a theme woven deep in American history, and in the history of Christianity: the outbreak of religious awakening in unexpected times and places. As Christians meditate on the mysteries of Easter, a fresh look at the Asbury revival suggests that Christianity means expectations will always be defied—even in 2023.
Earlier Revivals
The spiritual outpourings of the Book of Acts have been the primary Christian template for revival since the apostolic period. In America, the modern history of revivalism began with the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and ’40s. Although some skeptical scholars have dismissed the significance of those revivals, most American history courses still acknowledge the First Great Awakening as one of the biggest social upheavals before the American Revolution. It also provided a style of popular appeal and moral intensity to Patriots such as Patrick Henry, who attended Virginia revival meetings as a boy.
In some ways, the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s was even more consequential than the First in shaping American Protestantism. As Ross Douthat recently noted, just when an aging Thomas Jefferson was (ludicrously) predicting in 1822 that rationalist Unitarianism would dominate American religion, the lawyer-turned evangelist Charles Finney was going through a conversion experience and contemplating a call to ministry.
Finney’s revivals introduced novel tactics and human-centered theology that bothered many traditionalist Christians, even at the time. But Finney’s success demonstrated again that the cool, skeptical rationalism of a Jefferson almost never appeals to the people at large. By the 1830s, upstate New York was so dramatically transformed by rampaging Finneyite revivals that some called it a “burned-over district.”
The Second Great Awakening was the greatest era of Protestant growth in American history. The old colonial denominations, especially the Congregationalists and Anglicans (the latter called Episcopalians after American independence), did modestly well during the Second Great Awakening. They remained the denominations of choice for many political and financial elites. But the real dynamos of the Second Great Awakening were the Baptists and especially the Methodists.
Baptists were a tiny sect as of 1776. Methodists were almost nonexistent in America at that time. By the eve of the Civil War, however, the Methodists and Baptists had become the largest Protestant denominations in the country, with tens of thousands of congregations each. If you go to virtually any downtown area in the South or the Midwest, there will be First Baptist Church on one corner, and First Methodist on the other. Those churches were largely founded during the Second Great Awakening.
The Methodists and Baptists, unlike the Episcopalians and Congregationalists, never were officially “established” churches in colonial America. They had an entrepreneurial spirit that the old churches lacked. If they didn’t pray hard and work hard, they had no reason to expect that their churches would survive.
Yet they didn’t “dumb down” religion to make it palatable to the culturally fashionable.
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The Meaning of “Sabbath” in Colossians 2:16
The overall teaching of the Bible is that the 10 Commandments as unit, including the 4th Commandment, still stand. The context of Colossians 2:16 is Paul speaking of Jewish ceremonies. Those ceremonies can rightly be called “sabbaths.” Rightly understood, “sabbath” of Colossians 2:16 refers to the various ceremonies. Paul also mandates that offerings be received in multiple churches specifically on the first day of the week in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, indicating he sees something significant about that day. With all of that, I conclude that the Sabbath is also for New Testament believers and that Colossians 2:16-17 does not indicate otherwise.
The 4th Commandment, the one that pertains to the Sabbath, is the most contested of the Ten Commandments. In fact it’s the only commandment that is actually contested among Christians who hold to an orthodox view of Scripture. A number argue that the requirement of Sabbath is not for today. It was for the Old Testament Jews, but it’s not for New Testament Christians. Among the strongest objections to the abiding authority of the 4th Commandment is Colossians 2:16-17:
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Some insist, from that text, that Paul is unilaterally declaring that Sabbath observance is now a matter of personal decision. It doesn’t matter what you do on Sundays, but what does matter as that you allow no one to judge you for your personal Sunday choices.
I believe the 4th Commandment still stands. I will explain what I believe Paul means by “Sabbath” in Colossians 2:16 in a moment, but, first, let me make a few Scriptural observations about the Ten Commandments in general and the 4th Commandment specifically.Each of the Ten Commandments was authoritative before the Ten Commandments were given at Mt. Sinai in Exodus, including the 4th Commandment (Exodus 16:27-29).
The Sabbath was instituted in Eden (Genesis 2:1-3), and the seven-day week remained standing beyond Eden (Genesis 7:10; Genesis 8:10-12; Genesis 29:27; Genesis 50:10).
Scripture presents the Ten Commandments as a distinct unit and body of law, unique from the rest of Old Testament law (Exodus 31:18; Deuteronomy 5:22).
Jesus held the Ten Commandments as binding and quoted them authoritatively (Matthew 15:3-4; Matthew 19:17-19).
Jesus taught that the Sabbath is for all men, not just for Jews (Mark 2:27), and the refence to “Sabbath,” “man,” and “made” in that text links it to creation.
The text of the 4th Commandment teaches that the Sabbath is for all men (Exodus 20:10). However, the food laws and worship services were only for Jews (Deuteronomy 14:21; Nehemiah 13:1-3).
Paul quoted the Ten Commandments authoritatively (Romans 13:8-10; Ephesians 6:1-3).
Paul taught that the Law is righteous (Romans 2:13), that the Law teaches what sin is (Romans 7:7), and that the Law is good (Romans 7:12; Galatians 2:19).
James, in the context of quoting the 7th and 6th Commandments, said that the Law is an indivisible unit that stands or falls as a unit (James 2:10-11).
The Ten Commandments are a standard of righteousness (1 Timothy 1:8-9).
There is a convincing case to be made that “profane” in 1 Timothy 1:9 refers specifically to Sabbath violations.1
A New Covenant promise is that the Law will be written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10; Hebrews 10:16), and that Law, in the context of Jeremiah, is the Ten Commandments.All those points need to be fresh on our minds as we consider the meaning of Sabbath in Colossians 2:16. If we determine that Paul is doing away with the abiding authority of the 4th Commandment, we need to explain all the preceding points which indicate that the 4th Commandment remains in effect. Either the Sabbath abides or it doesn’t.
My conviction of course is that the Sabbath abides. There remains a Sabbath for the people of God, and the New Testament church is to set aside one day in seven for rest and worship. But what is Colossians 2:16 talking about?
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Mad Hatters, March Hares, and Mad Laws
Written by Rev. Dr. Jim Tonkowich |
Friday, December 31, 2021
Mad Hatters and March Hares will be with us until the Second Coming. And until then mad laws will be commonplace. In part, we need to deal with it. In part, we need to avoid making matters worse by our cupidity and stupidity, acting instead with wisdom as we love God and our neighbors.One hundred years ago it was illegal to kick back with a beer, celebrate with champagne, or sip a martini even in the privacy of your own home. “National prohibition of alcohol (1920–33) — the ‘noble experiment’,” wrote economist Mark Thornton, “was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America.” In truth, it did none of these things, benefitting only “bootleggers, crime bosses, and the forces of big government.”
So how did we get what was, in retrospect, an insane constitutional amendment? And how did we end up with other outrageous laws?
For example, California demands that by 2045 all trucks and vans will be electric while simultaneously shutting down power plants even as Californians today endure power shortages without adding hundreds of thousands of electric trucks, vans, and eventually cars.
How do things like that happen?
A Lesson from the Mad Hatter and the March Hare
In 1923 as Great Britain toyed with Prohibition, G.K. Chesterton explained it with a little help from Lewis Carroll.
All mad laws proceed, he wrote in How Mad Laws are Made, from collusion between two unlikely allies: the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. That is, from “a compromise between a fad and a vested interest.”
The Hatter is mad, in a quiet way; but he is merely mad on making hats, or rather on making money. He has a huge and prosperous emporium which advertises all possible hats to fit all possible heads; but he certainly nourishes an occult conviction that it is really the duty of the heads to fit the hats. This is his mild madness; in other respects he is a stodgy and rather stupid millionaire.
If money can be made, the Hatter is at the table. Thus Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, and Honda think California’s new rules are just wonderful. Replacing a vast fleet of vehicles will do wonders for their bottom line.
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Keeping the Brevity of Life in View
We live in a culture that holds out the glitter of wealth and opportunity and calls us to spend our days pursuing its goods. We live in a culture that presses us to compromise God’s truth to find acceptance and success here and now. But in the face of these temptations, remembering the brevity of life keeps us from getting drawn off course. Remembering the brevity of life keeps us focused on what matters, that we might live a life of wisdom, giving ourselves wholeheartedly to the work of the Lord.
The poet Percy Shelley captured one of the most striking images of the brevity of human life and our tendency to forget it. The pedestal of a great statue reads, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair.” But that ancient pedestal sits alone in the desert, forgotten and irrelevant. Trunkless legs stick into the air. The head, with its look of arrogant command, lies knocked off, half buried in the sand. Even the mighty are leveled by time; even their works are impotent beyond the few years of their existence.
The temptation to forget the brevity of life doesn’t belong just to the rich and powerful. Each of us, caught up in the routine of daily life and our sense that we have many years yet to live, easily forgets that our lives on this earth pass quickly and are gone. Just consider the analogies that Scripture uses for human life: a mist, a breath, a shadow, a sigh, grass that withers, and flowers that fade. Those are some of the most ephemeral images on earth. But God’s Word does not emphasize the brevity of life to minimize life’s significance; it does so to focus our hearts on what matters. In doing so, God’s Word offers three specific ways that the brevity of life should shape our priorities.
First, the brevity of life should diminish our efforts to strive after wealth and the things of this world. David writes:
O Lord, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am! . . .
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!
Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! (Ps. 39:4–6)
The picture that David paints is a flurry of busyness, of anxious turmoil, in an effort to build up wealth and attain success and security in this life. But as David points out, our lives are a breath and a shadow; we don’t even know who will receive all that we have worked for.
Psalm 39 brings to mind Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 6:7 that we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world.Read More
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