What Grows in the Local Church
Many years ago I visited a store that featured a display of freshwater planted aquariums, and I immediately became enamored with them. I was entranced by the lushness of the plants that can grow underwater and by the symbiotic relationship of the aquatic flora and fauna. I had to have one. Eventually, I found a good-sized used tank that was reasonably priced. I installed all the hardware, put down the substrate, filled it with properly-treated water, and added the first plants and fish. It took some time, but soon enough the plants began to grow and to spread. In a matter of weeks, the aquarium was nothing short of stunning.
But it didn’t take me long to realize that the same conditions that cause the plants to thrive also cause algae to thrive. The same water temperatures, pH levels, and lights that cause the plants to grow also cause algae and other unwanted organisms to grow. And from that moment forward, I was engaged in a never-ending battle to foster the former and eradicate the latter. It was a battle I eventually became weary of fighting and after a couple of years I emptied the aquarium, sold it off, and found a new hobby.
I recently found myself pondering that aquarium and the battle between good growth and bad growth. I was considering the local church as the place where Christians are meant to grow. The church is the “aquarium” in which every good Christian quality can grow and thrive. It is in the church that we learn to embrace and display the heavenly virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is in the local church that we experience the kind of contagious zeal that causes us to imitate the best qualities we see in others (and that causes others to imitate the best qualities they see in us). All of this and so much more develops and increases in God’s church.
All of this develops and increases in God’s church because of the church’s relational and communal nature. We live life together, we bare our hearts, souls, and lives, we see one another at our best and worst, and in so many ways become like one another. That’s just how God intends it.
And yet the same context that can promote such wonderful virtues can also foster such terrible vices. Because we live out our Christian faith in such proximity to one another and because we are natural imitators, we are likely to imitate poor qualities as well as good ones. So if love can spread in the local church, so can suspicion. If faithfulness can spread in the local church, so can distrust. If zeal, then also apathy, if submission then also rebellion.
What grows in an aquarium? Plants and weeds, because the conditions that foster one fosters the other. What grows in the local church? Virtues and vices, because much of the context that fosters one can as easily foster the opposite. The challenge, then, is clear, and it is a challenge that goes to each one of us: To bless the church by putting on all those precious Christian graces and to bless the church by putting off all those unChristian vices. It’s in this way that we will serve the church, guard the church, and keep it pure.
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A La Carte (April 18)
Grace and peace to you on this fine Easter Monday (which is a holiday in these parts).
There is a very long list of Kindle deals available today.
(Yesterday on the blog: Why Should We Try To Add One Stitch To a Finished Garment?)
We Should Talk About Disney
Trevin Wax tells how Disney’s current controversy is different from some other issues that appear similar. “In this case, it’s not about your Whopper with rainbow-colored wrapping, or the propriety of Pepsi taking a position on a particular piece of legislation. In those cases, the product from the organizations remains the same. Consumers may roll their eyes at the leftward virtue signaling or the TV commercials, but the Oreo remains the Oreo.”
An Ordination Prayer
I love a well-prepared prayer like this one, meant for an ordination.
Earlybird Discount Ends April 3OTH For Radius Missiology Conference
Join Alistair Begg, Kevin DeYoung & others June 29-30, 2022 @ Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, NC. RMC is a two-day conference with great—speakers, breakout sessions, missiology, and information on current missions. (Sponsored Link)Roman Road-Construction
I recently came across this video which shows how Roman roads were made. Roman roads were made for traders and soldiers but also allowed missionaries to spread the gospel far and wide.
Our Christian Terminology Is Built on the Old Testament
Here’s an interesting look at something we may take for granted: “how the NT authors regularly draw on the OT to explain the key steps or aspects of personal salvation.”
Totally Torn
“It’s almost a throwaway line in Mark’s gospel, sandwiched between the cataclysmic darkness as Jesus, the eternal Son of God, breathed his last whilst nailed to a wooden cross and the centurion’s amazing declaration, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God.’ Yet, the tearing of the curtain in Jerusalem’s temple wasn’t just incidental, a by-product, or an act of divine vandalism but a sign of the profound significance of each and every event leading to this point.”
Intense, Debilitating Emotions
“I often experience intense emotions that can feel debilitating. How can I grow?” That’s the question at the heart of this video.
Flashback: Spiritual Drafting and the Danger of Christian Complacency
Drafting is a great strategy for racing. Drafting is a lousy strategy for Christian living. Yet I fear that many Christians allow themselves to fall into a form of spiritual drafting. Let me explainThe resurrection of Christ is the Amen of all His promises. —John Boys
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Don’t Waste the Days When You Feel Little Need for God
It would be a strange man who would meet a woman, pursue her, marry her, and then immediately establish a pattern of ignoring her. It would make little sense for him to marry someone he has little intention of continuing to get to know, of continuing to build relationship with. It would make for many wasted years if he sat cold and silent until their twentieth anniversary before finally beginning to open up, to finally draw her out. Their relationship would inevitably have suffered grievous harm through his cold indifference.
Yet there are many people who come to faith in Christ, who build a relationship with him, who pledge allegiance to him, who are baptized and received into the church, but who then quickly go stagnant. They are slow to establish the habits and patterns that will cause their relationship to grow and to thrive. They fail to implement the disciplines of reading and prayer through which they will speak to God and God to them. They fail to commit to a local church where they can increase their knowledge of God and love for God, and where they can learn how to love others in the way Christ has loved them. They, like that husband, accumulate many wasted years—years in which they could have gotten to know the God they love.
It comes as no great surprise when the faith of such people fails to thrive or even to survive in times of trial and trauma. It comes as no surprise when their faith proves unequal to the inevitable challenges that come to all of us who live in this world of woe.
You may set out on a camping trip when the sun is high in the sky and the day still long, and it may then seem silly to carry a flashlight with you—to ensure that the batteries are charged and bulb still bright. But it will not be long before night falls and darkness looms under the dense trees of the forest. And this is when your preparation will prove itself, for this is when you need a lamp for your feet and light for your path.
And just so, it is when we encounter deep sorrows and losses that we are most thankful to have fostered a relationship with the Lord. It is when we are in the dark valley that we are most thankful to know the Good Shepherd, when we are in the deepest distress that we are most grateful to know the great Healer, when we are in the greatest agony that it’s most needful to know the great Physician. It is in these times that it proves so important to have established and fostered a relationship with the Lord.
Ideally, trials are not the time to construct a relationship but the time to lean upon an existing one. Ideally, trauma is not the time to begin trying to understand how God is present in our pain, but the time to lean into what we already know to be true. Ideally, darkness is not the time to begin groping around for a light, but the time to depend upon the light you have been carrying with you all along.
And so the call upon each of us is clear. We must not waste the days when we may feel little need for God, we must not neglect the times when we may feel little desire to build a relationship with him. It is when things seem to be at their best that we need to plan for the worst, when all seems to be gain that we need to prepare ourselves for loss. -
A La Carte (April 28)
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today.
The FAQs: Anglican Group Calls on Church of England’s Leader to Repent
Joe Carter has one of his FAQs about what’s been happening lately with the Anglican Church.
What Does ‘Salvation” Mean?
“Almost no word so well captures the heart of the message of Scripture as does the word salvation. It appears more than 170 times in our English translations of the Old and New Testament. The related word, saved, appears approximately one hundred times throughout the pages of Scripture. But what is salvation? What does it mean for someone to be saved?” Nick Batzig answers.
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June 28-29, 2023, with John MacArthur, Costi Hinn & others. Throughout Christian history, the fight for the clear true gospel has existed. Paul warned the Galatian church of a new “gospel” that was no gospel at all. Augustine, Luther, Jan Hus and many others down through history fought for the one true unadulterated gospel. As ambassadors of the gospel go to the ends of the earth, uppermost in the minds of their sending churches should be the question, “What gospel are they preaching?” (Sponsored Link)
Should You Accommodate A Person’s Requests?
“Christians are routinely pressured to compromise their convictions. Sadly, it’s other Christians who leverage a good-faith principle to achieve an unfair end. I want to encourage you, though. If you’re feeling pressured to accommodate a request from an LGBT person that violates your conscience, know that there’s a line you do not have to cross.”
God Delights in You
Lara considers our love for our children and the Father’s love for us.
Themelios
There is a new issue of Themelios available in a variety of formats for those who would like to do some academic reading.
Flashback: Whatever Is Not Christ
When we come to Christ in repentance and faith, we surrender ourselves to the purpose of God and submit ourselves to the hand of God. We are the block of marble and he the artist, we the medium and he the one who must remove from it whatever is not Christ.How…could God remain equally faithful to His love for us and His just judgment of our sins? The glory of the cross, its unimaginable wisdom lies in the way God has devised to provide salvation for His people. —Sinclair Ferguson
