Being Intentional
When you intend to do something — some people today call that “being intentional” — you might plan it or schedule it. Does scripture regulate or legislate intentionality? This thing of being intentional even has a definition: “making deliberate choices to reflect what is most important to us.” King David begins Psalm 101 with intentionality:
1 I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.
2 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
When you intend to do it, you might schedule it. That’s good. It’s how you ‘redeem the time’ (Eph 5:16). How do you seek something first? You’ve got to move it up in priority on purpose. You will and then do of God’s good pleasure. This is sanctification. It’s how you keep something holy.
If I want to ensure I do something, I put it on a “to-do” list. For the year, I write those actions on a calendar. For an entire church, as a church leader, I have a church calendar. What goes on that calendar? I could put a “Jumper Day” on the calendar with intentionality. Jumpers are those inflatable fun houses, serving as a kind of trampoline. Let’s say instead, I intentionally schedule into the year of the church a spiritual emphasis. Let’s call it a “liturgical calendar.” Every year the church emphasizes scriptural events in the life of Christ and other biblical themes.
Using the Calendar
The Psalms are a guide for writing hymns. The prayers of the Bible are a guide for what to pray. In the Old Testament, God weaves into the year a means by which Israel will remember what God did. This included the weekly Sabbath and then festivals. This is a model, not for continuing to follow a Hebrew calendar, but for what to do with a calendar.
Israel began to observe also an event the occurred after the completion of the Old Testament, the Feast of Dedication. It celebrated an event in the intertestamental period. Israel then added that Feast to the Hebrew calendar. Jesus too observed the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22ff). Like the other Feasts, the Feast of Dedication helped Israel remember what God did in saving Israel during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Macccabees.
The New Testament church schedules services on Sunday. Scripture doesn’t say how many, but many churches meet three times on Sunday: Sunday School, Sunday morning, and then Sunday evening. They might hold a midweek time too. Through example, scripture regulates a Sunday gathering for the elements of New Testament worship. It does not regulate how many meetings.
Keeping Holy
A believer can keep his speech holy. He can keep his deeds holy. A true Christian can keep his thoughts holy. He can also keep his motives holy.
Paul says the believer can yield his members, his body parts, as instruments of righteousness unto God or yield them as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin (Romans 6:13). Yielding his body parts as instruments of righteousness unto God is how he presents his body holy unto God (Romans 12:1). Someone can “worship God in the spirit” (Philippians 3:3) or not do that.
Sanctification in the Truth
Sanctification in the truth starts with thinking and understanding what God says in His Word. More than a hearer, he must also be a doer. This requires volition, a readiness of will. It also means a delight in what God said, a holy affection.
Sanctification in the New Testament follows the example of Jesus. In John 17:19, Jesus prayed to God the Father:
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Jesus provided the perfect example to follow, and the Apostle John writes in his first epistle (2:6):
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Walking as Jesus walked is not arbitrary. It is looking to the scriptural example of Jesus. Also as John Owen wrote:
To see the Glory of Christ is the grand blessing which our Lord solicits and demands for his disciples in his last solemn intercession, John 17: 24.
The Glory of Christ
In 2 Corinthians 4:6, regarding sanctification, the Apostle Paul writes:
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
A church centers on the Person of Jesus Christ and Christ changes the church by its seeing of Him. To conform to the image of the Son a church must see the image of the Son.
I’m contending for purposeful, intentional seeing, thinking, and understanding the glory of Christ. The New Testament emphasizes certain events in Christ’s life. To be sanctified by the example of Jesus, to walk as He walked, and to see His glory, you must focus on Him. Jesus appeared on earth in real history in real time. He was here. In His time here, He accumulated important events in His life. The gospels, Acts, the epistles, and Revelation talk all about them. Put those on the calendar.
Keep Your Year Holy
Validity and Value
Don’t emphasize the events of Christ’s life according to their traditional dates on the calendar. Do emphasize them on their traditional dates. I like my emphasis on the calendar better than your no emphasis.
Putting the events of Christ’s life and other important biblical themes on your calendar is a way to keep your year holy. I’m saying there is a value to it. It is a means by which to accomplish many requirements for the believer from the New Testament. It’s not the putting it on a calendar that accomplishes the seeing, thinking, and understanding of the truth. It is the actual doing of seeing, thinking, and understanding.
Words mean things. The keeping in keeping something holy means something. This year I handed out a Bible reading calendar. Scripture doesn’t regulate the calendar I handed out. The calendar is how someone might keep things holy. Someone can have a calendar and remain unholy. I’m saying a calendar is valid and of value.
Remember and Emphasize
I didn’t hand out a fun-time-a-day calendar to our church. Our calendar did have one verse for each week for scripture memory. Scripture doesn’t regulate that. Does scripture regulate scripture memory? I’m guessing people won’t be arguing over a Bible reading calendar and a scripture memory calendar. Neither are in the Bible.
Believers should assume that they can keep something holy. They are told to keep things holy. Yes, in the Old Testament God instructs Israel to keep the Sabbath holy (Exodus 20:8). By what I read some people write, you might think that I’m writing this series for the purpose of keeping the word “Christmas” holy or keeping a date for Christ’s birth holy. I’ve not written anything like that.
I believe it’s been clear what I’m advocating. Some argue against it with what seems to be red herrings and straw men. I say, let’s be purposeful about remembering or emphasizing the events of Christ’s life during the year. A church can schedule more than that, but I support the use of a liturgical calendar to keep the church year holy.
Brother Brandenburg,
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but since this is a place for discussion about Biblical matters, I’d like to make one more comment from an opposing viewpoint, then I will hold my peace.
You said that it is clear what you are advocating for, which does not include keeping the word Christmas holy or keeping a date for Christ’s holy birth. Yet, you have implied that those who do not like the word Christmas or the use of December 25th as a remembrance of Christ’s birth do so because of scruples and/or a “holier than thou” attitude. I can’t speak for everyone else who doesn’t like the word Christmas or the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th, but neither of those two are my purposes.
The Bible is clear that we are to abstain from all appearance of evil. It also teaches that the world hates Christ and the things of Christ. Yet, the world loves Christmas on December 25th, and there are associations of Christmas traditions with paganism and Roman Catholic idolatry, which have the appearance of evil. There is no undeniable reason to believe that Christ was born on December 25th or in the month of December, yet your defense of a liturgical calendar repeatedly implies that you think we should celebrate Christ’s birth in December, although you haven’t come out and said it, you’ve implied it.
Even if I grant that it is good to have a liturgical calendar which remembers Christ’s birth, from your presentation and comments it seems you would still say I’m being “holier than thou” and making scruples if I chose to make it in June to separate myself from those things which have the appearance of evil. I would even contend that people in your church would be upset if you moved the remembrance of Christ’s birth to June rather than December. Why is that? Why do people want it in December?
Also, you’ve repeatedly dismissed the pagan nature of the traditions associated with Christmas as liberty issues. You say those aren’t what you are arguing for, yet you have treated the Scriptural arguments against them as non-existent. Do you really think there is no way that Jeremiah 10:1-4 could be applied to Christmas trees? Do you really think there is no way that nativity scenes could represent graven images? Do you really think there is no merit to the fact that someone does not want to take a pagan or Roman Catholic holiday and transform it into a Christian commemoration of Christ’s birth in accordance with the command not to make the profane holy? Do you really believe that there is no way that people associate the “mas” on Christmas with the Roman Catholic mass? I’m asking those questions in sincerity. If God didn’t want us to have Christmas trees or nativity scenes, how else could He have told us if not in those passages? If God didn’t want us to mix our traditions with the profane traditions of Catholicism, how else could He have stated it than “don’t mix the holy and profane”? I don’t think I’m holier because I don’t have those things. I don’t think its scrupulous to call people not to practice the way of the heathen. I think you are being dismissive of solid, Biblical arguments and calling them scruples. I’m saying that with love and kindness. If you aren’t arguing for those things, then why don’t you write a post denouncing them with Scripture?
You have said that you are arguing only for a liturgical calendar, yet your overall presentation appears to make allowance for everything that is “baked into the cake” with Christmas as it is currently celebrated among Bible-believing Christians. That is why I’m bringing them up. If you will denounce those things and say, “It is absolutely acceptable to have a liturgical calendar that celebrates Christ’s birth in June to disassociate from Catholicism and paganism and is not scrupulous or holier than thou to do so” then I’ll believe that you aren’t defending them. However, it seems that you want to force me, who has a Biblical conscience with Christmas practices that I think is entirely reasonable, to practice them so as not to be Amish (which by the way, drab clothing has no Scriptural defense as the issues I’ve presented) or making extra scruples and causing division.
I think you have been unfair to those who hold my position and while I think you’ve made a good case for a church purposing to think on Christ and His life, I don’t think you have at all made a case for partaking in current Christmas practices and traditions. Neither have you tried to separate yourself from them in your posts or comments, which I think based on my Biblical arguments is problematic. I would appreciate your defense of a liturgical calendar much more if it included warnings against excess and heathenism, which are rampant among Christmas celebrators, even if not you and your church.
Finally, John never says that Christ observed the feast. Maybe He did. I don’t know since the Bible doesn’t say.
I thought about making this a no comment post. I’m going to make it a no comment post after answering this comment, since I didn’t get that restriction in time.
Brother David,
I started writing an answer to this comment, but as I wrote it, it was, as you put it, just saying what I’ve already said, that you misrepresent above. I’m sticking with what I’ve written. Feel free to write whatever you want in whatever format and publish it to the world. I’ve said that I give liberty to those who take a different position. I think they’re wrong. I don’t think they’re wicked for taking a different position on this one, but I do think many have a wicked approach. It isn’t helpful. And I stick with how I’ve represented it.
With that, I close the comments here.