We Need the Local Church
And with that I fear there is a bigger problem. The problem is that the church—or, at the very least, those who profess to be a part of it—is neglecting the spiritual benefits of the locally gathered body.
Grow in Knowledge
The primary function of the local church is the shepherding of God’s people. One of the most important ways God’s people are led is by the preaching and teaching of his Word. Simply put, if you neglect the local church, you in turn neglect the opportunity to grow “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).
Many Christians don’t fully understand the necessity of the local church. Because of this, they are neglecting to get back into church and are therefore fumbling the opportunity to grow more in Christ. Can a Christian grow in knowledge outside of the local church? Of course, but we lose a vital instrument of our growth when we neglect the body of believers God intends to place around us.
Part of this may reveal we never truly appreciated the local church in the first place. But it also shows we don’t think we need the church.
I can listen to sermons online, some may say. Why do I need to go to a church building when I can pull up my favorite preacher on YouTube?
I’m glad you asked.
Sanctification is a Community Project
Friends, we will not grow into the Christians God intends us to be if we neglect the means he intends to use, that is, if we neglect vibrant participation in a local church. Period. Our sanctification does not happen in a vacuum. Our sanctification is a community project.
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Rejoicing in Suffering
Written by Guy M. Richard |
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Just as our muscles grow and are strengthened by resistance and pain and they wither without these things, so the same can be said of saving grace. It grows stronger in difficulty and atrophies in the absence of it. Grace, as Rutherford also said, really does grow best in winter weather. It is not like most of the agricultural produce in our world that grows best when the sun is shining and the temperatures are mild. Saving grace grows best in the coldest and harshest of seasons. And that too is why Paul can rejoice in his sufferings.Many years ago, as part of our church’s search to find a new assistant pastor, my wife and I took the leading candidate and his wife to dinner so that we could all get to know one another better. At some point during our conversation, we began discussing the hobbies that we each enjoyed. In describing my love for intense forms of exercise (I can’t do anything moderately!), I told them rather matter-of-factly, “I love pain.” And I didn’t think anything about it at the time. I was just sharing something that was rather unique about myself.
Several years after this dinner conversation, the candidate—who had since become our assistant pastor—told me how intimidated he had felt when I had mentioned my love for pain that night. After all, only a crazy person would say something like this. No one, in their right mind, actually loves pain, do they?While it certainly wasn’t my intention to intimidate anyone, it is nevertheless true that it can be quite overwhelming for most people to hear someone describing themselves as I did on that occasion. I may not have seen that in connection to my own comments, but I have seen it in the words that the apostle Paul writes about himself in Colossians 1:24: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings.” Surely we all find this statement to be a little overwhelming. Some of us may even be intimidated by it. How can Paul say this? How can suffering be something that anyone rejoices in, ever?
In answering this question, I need to point out that Paul isn’t saying that his sufferings are worth rejoicing in all by themselves. I mention this for at least three main reasons. First, Paul’s use of the word “now” in Colossians 1:24 suggests that he is rejoicing in the present time (the time of his writing) for those sufferings that he had previously experienced in the past. He seems to be looking at his sufferings after the fact and seeing how God had used those afflictions for good in his life and rejoicing in that rather than in the sufferings themselves. Second, and this confirms the first reason, the context of Colossians 1:24 and of Romans 5:3-5—which are the only two times that Paul explicitly speaks of rejoicing in suffering—both explain why it is that Paul is rejoicing in his suffering and why we should be too. Third, when I say that I love pain, I don’t mean that I love the pain itself. I love what it accomplishes in me when I push myself and refuse to give in to it. I know that I become stronger, faster, better than I was before. The pain is a means to an end. I want the end, and so I embrace the means to get there. And the same thing would appear to be true of the apostle Paul.
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Mark Driscoll and The Danger of “God Told Me”
Written by R. Scott Clark |
Monday, October 18, 2021
Had we only this one case to which we could point to show the dangers of claims of extra-biblical revelation, it would be enough. Sadly, however, we have hundreds and probably thousands of cases to which we can easily point to show the dangers of claims of continuing revelation.Introduction
I am catching up Christianity Today‘s podcast series, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. The August 30, 2021 episode, “Questioning the Origin Myth: A Rise and Fall Short Story,” centered around what, in Reformed theology, piety, and practice, we call the internal call to ministry. In our understanding of Scripture and its outworking in the life of the church there are two aspects to the call to ministry, the internal and the external. The former describes that God-given sense within a man that he ought to become a minister of God’s Word, that he ought to become a preacher. The latter refers to the confirmation which comes from the visible church. In Reformed theology, piety, and practice, the two go together. To illustrate this there is an old story that circulates in the Reformed churches about the farmer who, upon looking up in the sky while plowing, sees the letters PC in the sky. He gets off his tractor, goes to the preacher and tells him what he has seen and that he thinks it means, “Preach Christ.” So, as the story goes, the minister tells him to write a sermon and then gives him the pulpit next week. The farmer does as instructed. After his sermon he asked the minister, “Well, what do you think?” The minister replies, “I think PC means Plant Corn.”
I suppose lots of traditions tell this story or they should but for us it means that the confirmation of the visible church is essential. We do not leave a man to decide on his own whether he is called to ministry. Thus, it was interesting to hear Mike Cosper narrate the story around Mark Driscoll’s sense of internal call. Here is a clip.
According to Cosper and others whom he interviewed for this episode, this is the story that Driscoll told over and again. Indeed, Cosper illustrates how often and consistently Driscoll has told the story of his call by playing several clips in succession. The discrepancy between the way Driscoll accounts for his call and the way the Reformed think about the call is notable.
Its Churchlessness
According to Driscoll’s repeated, public testimony he knew with certainty that certain things must happen: he must plant churches, study the Word, marry Grace, and train young men. He knew all this, however, as one of his friends at the time pointed out to him, before he was ever actually involved in a local congregation. This is remarkable. It is consistent with the nature and history of American revivalism going back, in some aspects, to the First Great Awakening in the early eighteenth century and entirely consistent with the theology, piety, and practice of the Second Great Awakening in the nineteenth century.
Often these movements frequently emerged outside the visible church. In this regard Driscoll is a classic American religious entrepreneur. He knew his market (or his marks), his message, and his method before he was ever accountable to a visible church. In Reformed practice, however, that should never be. In our understanding of the Scriptures and the life of the church, a young man usually grows up in a congregation or is at least a part of a congregation long enough for them to begin to see in him a giftedness for ministry. They take an opportunity to test those gifts in various ways. Only after they have had time to get to know him, after he has been catechized, after he has been evaluated do they ordinarily commend him to the church as a candidate for ministry. Then he made a candidate for ministry, i.e., put “under care” of one of the assemblies of the churches (e.g., consistory/session, classis or presbytery) and sent off to seminary to get the eduction a minister ought to have. He should learn the original Biblical languages so that he is not reliant upon English translations, the Old Testament, the New Testament, Biblical Theology, church history and historical theology, systematic theology, the confessions of the churches, and the practice of pastoral ministry. A serious and genuine ministerial education normally takes 3 or 4 years. As part of that process the candidate serves as an intern in a congregation under the supervision of an experienced minister. He is also ordinarily licensed by the churches to exhort in order to serve the churches (by providing pulpit supply) and to gain experience. Only then is he presented to the regional church (presbytery or classis) for examination prior to becoming available for a call.
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Bernard of Clairvaux and Mysticism
Bernard represents a refreshing spring in the arid environs of medieval theology. It would be a few centuries yet until the Reformers would come along and be used by God to help the church find its way. But we can, like those Reformers, be appreciative of this medieval monk and his writings.
One has to appreciate a medieval figure whom Martin Luther and John Calvin looked on with favor and, to a certain degree, approval. The figure in question is Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk, abbot, mild mystic, and formidable theologian. It’s an understatement to call him an abbot. His monastery eventually founded a daughter institution, then another, then another. By the time of his death, seventy monasteries had been directly planted or started by him, with those institutions responsible for establishing hundreds more.
So revered was Bernard that Dante left his faithful Beatrice behind as his guide and had Bernard of Clairvaux lead him into the final sphere of heaven (Paradiso, Canto XXXI). Dante was not only drawing on Bernard’s recognition, but also on one of his most significant writings, On Loving God.
Before Bernard wrote On Loving God, he enjoyed a life typical of medieval nobility in the Burgundy region of France. At twenty-two, he entered the abbey at Citeaux, France. Showing his leadership potential, Bernard brought thirty others with him when he joined. The monastery at Citeaux was purposefully committed to recovering the ideals of the Benedictine monasteries, many of which had drifted from their moorings. Bernard would go even further when he assumed leadership.
Bernard’s desire to reform his church extended far beyond the monasteries. He made a career of advising and rebuking popes, playing a significant role in the eventual settling of the papal schism in the 1130s. He entered the theological ring, confronting the heretical tendencies of Abelard. Bernard also advocated for the Second Crusade and preached rather stirring sermons promoting it. Cambridge University historian G. R. Evans makes the point well: “Bernard never did things by halves.”
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