Luther, Spiritual Disciplines, and Our Neighbors
Christians have to attend to the mastery of their sinful impulses so that they can serve their neighbors effectively. Luther approached the issue of sanctification with some reserve for fear that his generation, so recently weaned from the idea of good works as a means to grace rather than the fruit thereof, would fall back into the old patterns of thought.
One of the many practical effects of the Reformation was a change in how people viewed what are now called “spiritual disciplines.” In the context of the Reformation, most people believed that their good works contributed to their justification. They also believed that doing super-spiritual things like becoming a monk/nun would be rewarded by God. However, as the Reformers taught and preached the truths of Scripture, slowly but surely, people began to understand that their good works did not help in the matter of justification. Furthermore, they began to understand that super-spiritual things like monasticism were not found in Scripture and therefore could be abandoned. However, the Reformers noted that good works and biblical spirituality were still certainly part of the Christian life. Here’s a good summary of how Luther emphasized good works and the “spiritual discipline” of serving one’s neighbor.
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There Are Plenty of Good Fish in the Sea
Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
The reality is that there are plenty of high quality single Christian women, and men, in America. The problems of frustrated singleness are real and shouldn’t be discounted. The technological and cultural problems of America when it comes to marriage are likewise real. But an absolute shortage of high caliber potential marriage partners is not one of those problems.As I’ve noted many times, the degree of difficulty dial on finding a spouse and staying married has been turned up a lot in America. Falling marriage rates attest to the problems here, ranging from the rise of technology mediated dating, to an imbalance in college degree attainment between men and women, to a politically polarized dating environment.
At the same time, a bad macro environment does not necessarily determine our individual results. In some cases, these trends can even help a subset of people. For example, if more women than men are getting college degrees, then if you are a man with a degree, in theory that could work to your advantage.
However, I hear a lot of complaints from some singles about how this environment makes it all but impossible to get married. For example, one of the tropes of manosphere thinking is that the dating pool for men is poisoned. In their view, the American woman has been ruined as wife material — by feminism, sleeping around with too many men, etc.
One of the more recent incarnations of this view is the rise of the so-called “passport bros,” or men who decide that there are so few good women in the US, that they have to seek out a wife overseas. There are a ton of Youtube videos on this phenomenon, many with hundreds of thousands of view. I think that only a small number of men have actually done this, but the huge amount of debate over it is revealing of a certain attitude.
While few Christians likely spend time consuming this kind of material, I’ve noticed that a lot of single Christian guys also seem to believe it’s hard to find someone to marry, even in cities with tons of Christian singles like NYC.
My church in New York never had more than a few hundred members, and many of them (most?) were married. Yet there were several single women there that I thought seemed to be high quality dating and marriage prospects. Now, I didn’t date any of them. Maybe they had hidden flaws or were not compatible in some way that I don’t know about. Maybe they were prima donnas with ridiculous standards who ended up breaking it off with every guy they ever went out with. Some of them were out of my age range. But if I were single in that church, I would not have been complaining about a lack of quality women to ask out on dates. I have to believe that the same is true of most other churches in town, maybe even to a greater extent, since many of them are larger and with a higher percentage of singles.
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Christian Character
If we humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand of sanctification, we will submit to those whom God wills. We will worship Him instead of self. We will walk by faith not by sight. That means that temptations to not be honorable can be defeated and left powerless because they depend on our functioning within our flesh and pride.
18 Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. 19 And I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you the sooner.20 Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, 21 equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:18-21 (NASB)
R.C. Sproul shared the following story in the September 2007 issue of Tabletalk magazine. “Several years ago I was participating in a discussion with some business men in Jackson, Mississippi. In the course of the conversation, one of the men made reference to a man who was not present at the meeting. He said, ‘He is an honorable man.’ When I heard this comment, my ears perked up as I thought for a moment I was hearing a foreign language being spoken. I realized that I was in the middle of the Deep South where customs of old had not entirely been eradicated, yet I still could not get over that somebody in this day and age was using the word honor as descriptive term for a human being.”
Is the term ‘honor’ as a descriptive term for a human being out of place in our day and time? If we look up ‘honor’ in our dictionaries we will find that its chief synonym is ‘integrity.’ Before we begin to determine the lack of this characteristic in the current body of Christian believers, especially among its leadership, let us define what we mean. Integrity describes one who has an uncompromising adherence to moral and ethical principles. It describes one who possesses soundness of character. There are many more definitions, but this is enough for now. A honorable person is a man or woman of principle. He or she puts principle ahead of personal gain. Also, they do not compromise their principles. That would mean that once they grasp the truth they would never let go, no matter the cost.
One of the major attacks against my posts on the doctrines of grace over the last several years was that I presented them as truth. Sometimes, this aroused some very ugly attacks because I did not say what I presented could possibly be wrong and the opposing views could be right. If I believed that then I wouldn’t have bothered posting them. What sort of truth is it that we can say, “this is the truth, but I could be wrong and your view could possible be true too.” That’s not standing on principle. That’s called compromise. Some would call it political correctness. This is why I despise our political system in the United States. Politicians must often compromise everything, including their principles in order to function. That is not right. That is why I could never hold public office.
Compromise is with us wherever we go. It seems that our entire lives are challenges to our principles. Those of us who are Christians experience this on an even higher plane. I promise you, the world system is anti-everything that God tells us from His Word that should makeup genuine Christian character.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
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What’s in Your Jar?
Written by Reuben M. Bredenhof |
Friday, March 3, 2023
Counting God’s daily blessings is something like having a jar of manna. We should mentally store up one gift from God, and another, and another, and one more—and soon the jar is full to overflowing, and we are moved to thank the Lord.If you’ve had the thrill of getting a new and shiny possession, then you’ll also know how quickly the excitement can wane.
The enthusiastic ‘unboxing’ of your new iPhone becomes the frustration of yet another software update. The ‘new car smell’ in your Ford fades. Even the person we once fell in love with begins to look a little tired.
The magic of the new wears off, and soon we’re taking God’s good gifts for granted. Even though we prayerfully asked for His blessings, and happily received them, perhaps we quietly assumed that we were going to get them anyway.
The Israelites showed how hard it can be to value God’s gifts rightly. He had delivered them from Egyptian captivity, opened the sea for them to pass through, and He was now leading them through the desert. They had a spring in their step and a song on their lips as they went forth. Yet as the trip entered its second month, the fuel gauge was getting perilously close to ‘Empty.’ Stomachs were rumbling, and mouths getting dry and parched.
How did God’s people respond? With murmuring. They remembered how in the good ol’ days along the Nile, the food supply was so much better. Facing the cruel uncertainty of the desert, they complained against God. And this was a serious failing. William Law once said, “For as thankfulness is an express acknowledgement of the goodness of God towards you, so repinings and complaints are as plain accusations of God’s want of goodness towards you.”[1]
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