Written by Kevin P. Emmert |
Monday, January 15, 2024
The most profound reason that the sacraments engage our entire being is that they present to us the incarnate Son of God. Baptism and Communion help us encounter the crucified, risen, and present Christ in a full-bodied manner. Whenever these visible words of the gospel are celebrated in the context of the gathered body, our Lord invites us—all of who we are, soul and body—to come to him. And when we come to him in faith, we become more enamored and transformed by him. 

Dear Pastor,
Many pastors and churches today grant the sacraments a low status in public worship. Sure, we know they are important because our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has commanded us to be baptized and to celebrate his meal. But surely these rites don’t have a role as significant as Scripture’s. The preaching of God’s word is the central part of corporate worship. It is the primary means by which we hear from God, and then we respond to him with thanksgiving in prayer and praise. We can never exhaust the riches of Scripture, but an overemphasis on the sacraments can lead to cold ritualism and even superstition, right?
Right. But could it be that many of us are wary of ascribing the sacraments a more central role in corporate worship because we have misunderstood what the sacraments are and do?
Truthfully, the sacraments have played a vital role in nourishing God’s people throughout the course of church history. So significant are baptism and Communion (or the Lord’s Supper) that the Reformers, many of whom were pastors, considered right preaching (and hearing) of Scripture and right administration of the sacraments to be the two main marks of the church. Thus, the Scottish preacher Robert Bruce could say that Scripture and the sacraments are the “two special means” that God has chosen to “lead us to Christ.”1
Scripture and Sacrament
As heirs of the Reformation, we rightly recognize that Scripture is the chief source for theological investigation and religious matters, the one to which all others must submit. And so we cherish and champion sola Scriptura (Scripture alone): Scripture—as self-revelation of the triune God—is the perfect, sufficient, and ultimate authority regarding faith and practice.
Yet sola Scriptura must not be confused with nuda Scriptura (bare Scripture), or solo Scriptura (only Scripture), the flawed idea that Scripture can be understood outside any church context or that other sources have no bearing on the task of theology, which necessarily informs our worship and living. Even though Scripture is the chief means that God uses to nourish us and draw us closer to himself, it is not the only means he uses to do so.
God has given his people two types of words: the written word (Scripture) and visible words (the sacraments). While Scripture grounds the sacraments and gives them their meaning, the sacraments reinforce or accentuate Scripture. Baptism and Communion present to us in visible, touchable form the good news of Jesus Christ. Scripture and sacrament are therefore complementary, not competing, and both offer us Christ.2
How God Works
But is all this just fanciful talk? Does God really use such mundane physical objects to work in and through his people? The answer is a resounding yes! In fact, he has always worked through material stuff that he has chosen to be fitting instruments of his work.
He used water to judge rebellious humanity and to save Noah and his family. He used circumcision to confirm the righteousness that Abraham had received by faith (Gen. 17; Rom. 4:11), and he used the circumcision of infants to maintain his covenant with Israel and to incorporate children into his covenant people.
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Written by Keith N. Smith Jr. |
Sunday, April 9, 2023
The big reveal in the New Testament is that Jesus is the blessed man from Psalm 1, the anointed king from Psalm 2, the victorious king from Psalm 110, and the obedient king from Deuteronomy 17. Jesus is the king of glory that is mighty in battle from Psalm 24; but Jesus never picks up a sword and never takes the life of his enemies (John 18:36).

Throughout the Bible there is a theme that you might call “choosing between two ways.” It starts with the two trees in the Garden of Eden narrative: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil produced death, while the Tree of Life was a source of Eternal Life. You see it also in Deuteronomy, when God tells Israel they have a choice to make: life and prosperity, or death and destruction (Deut 30:15–16).
Five Psalms in particular urge readers to choose between two ways; and all point to the way of life and, ultimately, the way Jesus brings redemption to the world.
Psalm 1
Psalm 1 is the foundation for the whole Psalter. In this Psalm, we are immediately introduced to a comparison between two people who make very different choices: the “blessed man” and the “wicked.”
The former is identified by three things he avoids and by one thing that he does. The “blessed” man does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, he does not stand in the way of sinners, and he does not sit in the seat of scoffers. Instead, he chooses to delight in the law of the Lord through a rhythm of daily and nightly meditations. As a result, the blessed man becomes a fruitful tree that is rooted deeply in the soil beside a flowing stream.
In contrast, the wicked does not delight in God’s law and has no rhythm of daily and nightly meditation on it. As a result, the wicked becomes chaff blowing in the wind. “The way of the wicked will perish,” the Psalm says.
The metaphors here in Psalm 1 are rich; they suggest that the two “ways,” while leading to different places, may not always be obviously distinct in this life. A tree that is planted does not rapidly grow roots and spring up overnight. A tree planted is first a seed buried. Chaff, on the other hand, is either the husk of winnowed grain or dried grass (see the Lexham Bible Dictionary). Grain and grass grow at a much quicker rate and yield a larger quantity of produce than a tree. Depending on the stage at which you compare the tree and the grass, it can appear that the grass is outgrowing the tree. The way of the tree is different from the way of the grass. The way of the tree requires time and patience.
“The way of the wicked” (Ps 1:6) is a wicked and worldly understanding of how the world works, of what it takes to be successful. James Hamilton’s commentary on Psalms in the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary series brings out the connection between the blessed man in Psalm 1 and Israel’s king in Deuteronomy 17. Both choose the way of obedience to Yahweh instead of following the ways of other nations. Like the blessed man in Psalm 1, this obedient king is identified by three things he avoids and by one thing that he does. The obedient king will not acquire many horses for himself, he will not acquire many wives for himself, and he will not acquire for himself excessive riches. The kings from the other nations established their kingdoms by acquiring horses to build strong militaries. They acquire many wives in order to have many sons. Finally, these kings acquire silver and gold to have the wealth to accomplish whatever they desire.
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There are few safe havens for thoughtful people in today’s world; few forums where curious folks and creative thinkers feel comfortable enough voicing certain questions or contrarian thoughts. Church, let’s seize this opportunity, inviting our secular neighbors into what once was, and can be again, the world’s most electrifying intellectual community.

Free thinking, fearlessly open dialogue, a willingness to voice unpopular ideas: these are increasingly endangered species in a society ever more surveilled by Orwellian thought police. A new, fundamentalistic secular religion has emerged, with tenets that demand total adherence. To question the logic of any aspect of this secular creed—for example, a statement like “transgender women are women”—is to be branded a hateful heretic. Books that logically challenge prevailing orthodoxies are being banned by Amazon. There are countless more examples.
You know it’s bad when atheist hero Richard Dawkins is disowned by an atheist organization (which explicitly defines its purpose as including advocacy for “freethinkers”) over a tweet where he (very cogently) questioned the new orthodoxy on transgenderism. Rather than engaging Dawkins’s entirely reasonable tweet on its own terms, the American Humanist Association saw it as grounds for retroactive cancellation. Nothing says “advocacy for freethinkers” like canceling someone for a thought that goes against the grain.
In a strange twist, Christianity—long accused of being narrow-minded, anti-intellectual, and afraid of difficult questions—has the potential to fill a growing void in Western culture. In a world where we increasingly walk on eggshells—unsure when, if, and how we’re allowed to speak publicly on contested issues—Christianity can become a grace-filled haven for curious questioners, doubting dissidents, and anyone seeking truth in a world where partisan narratives take precedence.
In short, Christianity has an opportunity to again become the most fertile intellectual ground—as it was for most of the last 2,000 years (until fairly recently). Why? Because a truly fruitful intellectual culture must be built on unshakeable, transcendent foundations—which Christianity has in God’s Word. Without this, all discourse about “truth” is arbitrary and devolves into power struggles. All claims become mere ammo for inflicting injury on one identity or another, rather than bricks for building in a shared intellectual project.
Scriptural Foundation Should Inspire Intellectual Curiosity
The secular approach to discourse results only in deconstruction—as we’re seeing. With no ability to gain consensus on truth, secularism can only cancel, condemn, ban, silence. It’s fundamentally destructive. But the Christian approach can be constructive because there’s a solid foundation on which to build. This is why, in my “Wisdom Pyramid” rubric, Scripture is the foundation. God’s infallible Word functions both as a horizontal, “solid ground” foundation and as vertical scaffolding, keeping the structures above it rightly ordered. We can build knowledge using all sorts of materials—books, the arts, nature/science, reason, community, lived experience—but none of it will be structurally sound, in the end, unless it is built on an unshakable foundation.
God’s objective, transcendent, true-for-everyone Truth is not a constricting, check-your-brain-at-the-door truth. It’s a liberating, world-expanding, galvanizing, purposeful truth that gives a common vocabulary and telos for intellectual pursuits. As Jesus says, it’s the truth that “will set you free” (John 8:32). This liberating truth is what inspired the founding and flourishing of Oxford, Harvard, and most of the great universities. It’s the truth that undergirded the world-changing discoveries and revolutionary ideas of Johannes Kepler, Nicholas Copernicus, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, and many others. It’s the truth that, for countless artists, writers, and philosophers, provided life-giving illumination and impetus to explore.
As C. S. Lewis famously said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.”
God’s Word is the settled truth that unsettles our intellectual complacency and compels us to plumb the world’s mysterious depths. It’s a framework through which we can read and study widely and know how to evaluate the relative merits of an idea. It gives us bearings to navigate a fallen world glutted with ideas—some true, some false—in a way that doesn’t turn into a nomadic, frustrating wander.
Challenges for the Church
In recent history, though, many Christians have failed to see Scripture as the catalyst it should be for profound intellectual energy and curiosity—and that’s a scandal.
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