The best way to combat the forces of expressive individualism is full frontal attack. By showing up every week to church and to the table, we train ourselves to believe that feelings of authenticity are not our lord. Christ is.

In July 1798, John Leland, elder of Third Baptist Church in Cheshire, Massachusetts, decided that he could not in good conscience continue to administer the Lord’s Supper to his church. Admittedly bothered by the hypocrisy of his church members using harsh language with one another before joining in an ordinance symbolizing unity, Leland’s real problem was that “he had never enjoyed the Lord’s Supper, as he had preaching and baptizing.” He later discontinued his own participation in Christ’s ordinance.
Leland’s refusal initiated a heated controversy within the church that would last more than a decade and result in several members facing excommunication for their criticisms of the esteemed pastor. Eventually, Leland issued a lengthy statement clarifying his views: “For more than thirty years experiment, I have had no evidence that the bread and wine ever assisted my faith to discern the Lord’s body. I have never felt guilty for not communing, but often for doing it.” Interpreting his own feelings, he concluded that “breaking bread is what the Lord does not place on me.” His own attendance at church meetings would be determined by whenever he thought he could “do good, or get good.”
Leland’s biographer, Eric C. Smith summarizes well the implications of his position: “The cascade of personal pronouns, and the conspicuous absence of Scripture references, announced that Leland had unmoored himself from every authority outside of his conscience—his own church, eighteen hundred years of Christian tradition, and even the Bible. Leland saw himself as perfectly capable of arriving at religious truth all by himself.”
John Leland was a strange figure in the context of the 1790s, but his reasoning about the Lord’s Supper would have fit quite comfortably within today’s worldview of “expressive individualism.” Mark Sayers summarizes several tenets of this mindset in his book, Disappearing Church. Expressive individualists believe “the highest good [in society] is individual freedom, happiness, self-definition, and self-expression.” Consequently, “traditions, religions, received wisdom, regulations, and social ties that restrict individual freedom, happiness, self-definition, and self-expression must be reshaped, deconstructed, or destroyed.” Leland’s approach to the Lord’s Supper has now become the dominant approach to life for many in the modern world.
Read More
Related Posts:

If you’re willing to be patient, prayerful, and really persistent with your life and those in it, then you’ll find room for wisdom. God will give you wisdom in abundance if you ask him (James 1:5), and that wisdom will both save you from making mistakes that can be easily avoided and act rightly when the gray of life seems to offer opposing options.

Doing the dishes is one of my spiritual gifts. There aren’t many things I believe I’m excellent at, but the dishes are one of them. Efficiency. Stacking the drying rack. Maximizing space in the dishwasher. You name it. If it’s in the realm of dishes, I’ll happily label myself more than proficient. Yet even MJ had lousy shooting nights.
About a month ago, I was doing the midday dishes (as is my habit), and I found out I (still) have great reflexes, but I also realized that my wisdom could be improved upon. And great reflexes plus limited wisdom will equal bad outcomes.
Let me set the scene: it’s days after our third child has been born, which means we’re all running on a full 4 hours of sleep a night. I’m here washing a large knife and intricately stacking a drying pile because this is just what I do…then the knife falls off the pile. My reflexes told me to catch it, so I did. But if I weren’t just listening to my reflexes and instead yielded to common wisdom, I would have let the knife fall. Because wisdom says, it’s easier to clean the knife again than heal the gash catching it will cause. But I caught it, it cut me, and I’m pretty sure I’m wiser for it.
It’s been said that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But we all know that if wisdom were that black and white, then life would simply equate to only needing to know the right things.
Read More
Related Posts:

God attaches to the second commandment is His sovereignty over us. This is affirmed in Exodus 20:5, “For I, the LORD….” He is the Mighty King, the Creator of all things both visible and invisible. All things were created through Him and for Him. He holds all things together by the word of His power.[28] Because He is sovereign, He is free to speak, govern, and ordain as He pleases. He has commanded that we should not make any graven images or bow down to them.

The history of the visible church is fraught with temptation to know God through images made by human hands. During the Reformation and for most of the 500 years following, the use of images would be an obvious differentiator between Reformed Protestants[1] and Roman Catholics. In recent decades, images “of all or of any of the three persons”[2] have been introduced to Reformed churches. This two part series of articles first lays out the positive Biblical view of the second commandment in the Old and New Testament. Relying heavily on the 1981 Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod (RPCES) report “On Images of Christ”[3] the second article proceeds to lay out three arguments commonly used in favor of images. Responding to the modern arguments, these articles find that the Bible rejects images “of all or of any of the three persons,” and calls all people to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.  
The Return of Images
The history of the visible church is filled with examples of image making and idolatry. The Israelites had not left Sinai before they made a golden calf and called it their God who delivered them from Egypt (Exodus 32). From the time of the judges through the exile, idol worship was a regular sin among the people of the God.[4] The New Testament church was susceptible to idolatry through the superstitions of the Jews and the idolatry of the nations surrounding them.[5]
God did not leave men to wonder concerning images, idolatry, and worship but rather revealed His will by speaking in His Word. God gave the second commandment at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20 to direct the pure worship of God and forbid all idolatry.[6]  God asked questions concerning images to which no one could respond.[7] As John concluded his first epistle he did so with this positive command, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
Nevertheless, 500 years after the Reformation, images of the second person of the Trinity have found resurgence in Reformed churches and homes. For example, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Florida displays a stone statue of Jesus in front of the church building with the words, “Come Unto Me.”[8] Sunday School materials are filled with images of Christ and Christians now widely accept their use.[9] The Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES) position report “On Images of Christ” gave encouragement to the use of images of Christ in certain contexts.[10] Many professing Christians give little thought to movies and popular tv shows with actors pretending to be Jesus.
Should images of Christ be used in any context? Prior to addressing some contemporary arguments for images of Christ from the Reformed tradition, it is helpful to consider the second commandment from Scripture.
Biblical Overview of the Second Commandment

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Exodus 20:4-6
What Is Required?
The second commandment builds on the first by addressing the manner of God’s worship. In the first commandment God gives instruction concerning the object of men’s worship.[11] In the second commandment, God gives instruction concerning the practice of men’s worship.[12]
Whereas God gives the second commandment in a negative form, “thou shalt not make… thou shalt not bow,” a positive duty is required.[13] The Psalmist cries out, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker (Psalm 95:6). Jesus said, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).
God requires all His worship and ordinances to be pure and complete as instituted in His Word alone.[14]
Read More
Related Posts: