The Centrality of the Gospel
Healthy churches don’t just use the gospel as a tool they have been given. They don’t think or talk about the gospel like it is merely an addition to their lives. But rather, they cling to it, with every ounce of their collective being, because they know that without it, they are both hopeless and helpless. But with it, they know that they have the very power of God, himself, working in them and through them, for their good and his glory.
In Paul’s first recorded epistle to the church of Corinth, the Apostle was writing to a church plagued by disorder, divisions, and a host of difficulties. To put it mildly, the Corinthian church had major issues. However, as complicated as some of those issues were, their root cause was all the same: they had taken their eyes off the gospel. So, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to put the church in order. He was writing to refocus their attention and to unify them around the gospel. But, of course, to be unified in the gospel, you must begin by getting the gospel right.
This is the fundamental premise of 1 Corinthians 15:1–2. Paul writes,
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
The gospel is not just another message. It is not a fable or some mythological tale, but rather it is the power of God unto salvation (1 Cor 1:18). The gospel is the good news of who God is and what he has done for us through his Son Jesus Christ. And therefore, it is this good news that all healthy churches are anchored to and empowered by.
Healthy Churches Know the Gospel
Paul begins by calling the church to remember the gospel. “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel…” (v. 1a). So, what is the gospel? Paul proceeds to tell them in verses 3–4:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
Therefore, at its most fundamental level, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the saving message of Jesus’s substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection from the dead. And what does Paul say testifies to this reality? It is the sound doctrine which has been revealed to us by God in the Scriptures.
Too often, churches become distracted by secondary matters. Even with good intentions, their ecclesiastical eyes become preoccupied by peripheral issues. However, Paul makes it clear that the primary focus of every healthy church must be the gospel.
Healthy Churches Proclaim the Gospel
The pattern Paul puts forth, then, is one that both the Corinthian church and every other church should follow. Just as Paul proclaimed this gospel to them, they should be a people who proclaim this message to others. There are two specific verbs that are important to note from the text. Looking first at the beginning of verse three, Paul says, “For I delivered to you…”
So, notice that this is not a message Paul invented. This is a message that was authored by God. Paul is simply being faithful to convey it accurately. Therefore, delivering is a matter of stewardship. This, too, is the job of the church. The church has not been called to be innovative. We have simply been called to be faithful. So how do we do that?
Well, that leads us back to Paul’s reminder in verse 1: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you.” This is a word that means “to herald” specifically good news. It is also the origin of our English word, “evangelize.”
Thus, the role of preaching is like that of the medieval town crier. Before the days of newspapers or modern media, it was the job of the town crier to stand up among the citizens of the town square and proclaim the news given to him by the king. It was the town crier’s job to deliver the news of victorious military battles, royal decrees, and the like.
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You’re Fearfully And Wonderfully White
Therefore, just as I’m fearfully and wonderfully black, if you’re white—you’re fearfully and wonderfully white. Your identity is shaped by your creator, not critical race theorists. A positive white identity is only an impossible goal if you believe (white) people are not made in the image of God. But since white people—like all people—are made in the image of God, all white people should have a positive identity.
Just as white supremacy made some black people ashamed of their skin colour, critical race theory has made some white people ashamed of their skin colour.
In her best-selling book, White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo said “a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy.”
The ramifications of that kind of racist rhetoric from authors, social media influencers, teachers, and imposter pastors cannot be understated. Critical race theory has altered many white people’s perceptions of themselves, especially young white people.
You’ve probably come across stories of children telling their parents they wish they weren’t white. You might not know, however, that critical race theory’s impact on young white people is significantly worse than that.
Young white people, especially young white women have been made to believe that though they can’t change their skin colour—they can change other parts of their body in order to achieve a positive identity.
White supremacy made some black people harm their bodies through skin bleaching. But worse, critical race theory is making some white people harm their bodies through transgenderism.
Many detransitioning white teenagers have admitted that one of the reasons why they once identified as transgender is because they didn’t think they could have a positive identity as white people.
For instance, a detransitioning woman named Helena Kerschner recently said, “I was just going through this period of like I don’t like how I’m treated as a cis person. I don’t want to be cis because cis means you’re uncool, and you’re privileged, and you’re an oppressor, and you’re bad. I don’t want to be bad. In that way I really incentivized to try to figure out a way to make my voice heard in these communities…Obviously I can’t change my race…so the only thing left was to start playing around with the gender stuff.”
Therefore, just as the civil rights movement used the phrase “black is beautiful” to affirm black beauty in the era of white supremacy, I’ll paraphrase the eternal words of our creator in this era of critical race theory and say: if you’re a white person, you’re fearfully and wonderfully white.
You’re wonderfully white because you’re wonderfully made by God. Your skin colour is just as beautifully painted by God as my black skin.
When King David said in Psalm 139 that he is fearfully and wonderfully made, he was speaking of every single part of his body, including his (probably) light brown skin—and he was also speaking of everyone with different shades of skin.
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The Ten Words: The Tenth
The mere desire of wanting that which is not yours, and entertaining that desire with any delight and approval and yearning, is itself rebellion against God, even if you have not outwardly acted on that desire. You may not have made the choice to take any action at all in taking away your neighbor’s wife from him, but the thought, the desire, still condemns you before God’s holy law.
The Law, though written on tablets of stone, is still able to condemningly penetrate into the depths of our hearts, and the last Commandment leaves us all with our “mouths stopped”, as Paul argues (Romans 3:19), that in our own strength we are unable to love the Lord our God with all our heart. Which is the tenth commandment? The tenth commandment is, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17).
To covet (in the Hebrew khamad) is to desire and in and of itself the word does not alone denote anything evil or wrong. The word is used for legitimate desires as it’s used in Psalm 19:10, “More to be desired are [God’s word] than gold, even much fine gold.”[1] What makes coveteous desire wrong is the object of that desire, namely, if it what you’re desiring does not belong to you because it already belongs to someone else. Hence the repeated emphasis of thy neighbor’s house, neighbor’s wife, neighbor’s ox, etc. This is the sin of envy. Seeing something or someone that belongs relationally or legally to someone else and wanting – desiring – that person or thing. And therein lies the penetrating depth of this commandment.
It’s not merely acting on the desire that’s sinful. It is the desire itself that is sinful. That is, the mere desire of wanting that which is not yours, and entertaining that desire with any delight and approval and yearning, is itself rebellion against God, even if you have not outwardly acted on that desire. You may not have made the choice to take any action at all in taking away your neighbor’s wife from him, but the thought, the desire, still condemns you before God’s holy law. Does not Jesus himself strike this same note when he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28)?
Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley are absolutely right when they say that “the desire for evil is evil and arises from a sinful heart.”[2] There’s much to ponder here, especially in our current climate where many folks, even from within the church, argue that desire – any desire at all – is not evil or wrong, but only acting on those desires. Not so, according to the tenth commandment.
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Pregnant People are Birthing Distrust of Science
Written by Anthony J. Sadar |
Sunday, June 19, 2022
There is so much wonderment to nature that wondering about the truth of the obvious, such as your sexual identity, distracts from appreciating what is naturally real. Alternatively, being required by “settled science” to stop asking “why” and “how,” stop testing hypothesis, and stop challenging predictions also withers wonderment. The public knows that people who are not biologically female cannot get pregnant and that knowledge of future conditions of the climate are not settled. Maybe the scientific establishment will catch up with those mundane notions before it loses too much more of the public’s trust.A recent news article in one of the world’s most prestigious science journals, Nature, contained an editor’s statement that sadly apologized for being insensitive to a new unscientific norm. The article was titled, “COVID vaccines safely protect pregnant people: The data are in.” The journal editor thought it was necessary to assure readers that, “Nature recognizes that transgender men and non-binary people can become pregnant. We occasionally use ‘women’ in this story when discussing studies that used the same language.” Even if some of the editors and subscribers to Nature may not be sure of the reality of biological science, the public surely is.
The trend to render flaccid the biological sexual divide is seen throughout science publications. The April 23, 2022 edition of Science News, published by the Society for Science & the Public, shows that even the title of an article — for example, “The Pregnant Pause: Why excluding pregnant people from medical research is a problem” — can display an unabashed ignorance of reality.
In short, biological science is real. An admixture of biology and personal preferences is synthetic.
Unfortunately, the sciencey idea of the fluidity of the sexes is now reverberating throughout society, such as where required pronouns are popular and where Microsoft Word prompts you to use “identified as female at birth” rather than “biological female.”
Confusing the public with the idea that an individual who is not biologically female can get pregnant is just one instance of the undermining of true science to the detriment of society. Of course biological males competing in women’s sports is another obvious example. Confusion is never helpful to maintaining a healthy social structure.
Yet, another, possibly overarching, problem to be solved, is the imposition of reputed final-form science or “settled science” on the public sphere.
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