Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory (Part Three)
War Against the Soul
A non-stop, real war exists through the history of the world between light and darkness. As a part of that war, Peter expresses an unstoppable advantage for guaranteed longstanding victory. He says in 1 Peter 2:11:
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
The appropriate part of the verse to declare an aspect of war and victory is at the end: “which war against the soul.” What wars against the soul? “Fleshly lusts” do. Abstinence from fleshly lusts eliminates a crucial component for losing this war with darkness. .
A question might and should arise, “How do fleshly lusts war against the soul of a person?” Fleshly lusts cause spiritual and psychological disadvantages in the war against the soul. You need your soul and spirit operating in an optimal way and fleshly lusts wound them.
Confidence in Christ
Confidence in Christ functions within the soul and spirit, not the flesh. Six different thoughts come to my mind on this, not necessarily in this order.
Persuasion
First, confidence is persuasion (peitho). You can behave with strength, because you have confidence, confidence in the Lord (2 Thess 3:4) and not in the flesh (Philip 3:3-4). Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you alway” (Matt 28:20). Jesus is sanctified in your heart, so you’re ready to give an answer of the hope within you (1 Pet 3:15). Readiness comes by fortifying the soul.
Uppermost Affections
Second, you can please God by faith because God abides in the uppermost of your affections (Heb 11:6). You live like He’s your Judge and He does not lie. This rest in Him provides a settled peace that isn’t moved.
Thinking on These Things
Third, anxiety comes not from victimhood, but from not thinking on what is true, honest, just, etc. (Philip 4:8). You’ll remain anxious if you adopt victim status. You’re not one. The peace of God keeps you through Christ Jesus, but only by thinking on it. That’s in your soul.
Sidelining Deflation
Fourth, Satan wants you a casualty, someone out of the fight. He uses those fiery darts that penetrate the heart, not in a deadly manner, but in an injurious or incapacitating way. The Apostle Paul had an open door in Troas, but because he had no rest in his spirit (2 Corinthians 2:13), he missed an opportunity. People become incapable of fulfilling God’s will because they subject themselves to fear and discouragement. Their deflation keeps them sidelined.
Boldness
Fifth, Paul twice asked church saints, once of Ephesus and once of Colossi, to pray that he would have boldness. Boldness comes when the Spirit fills a believer in his inner man. He speaks the truth in love and the Spirit encourages him.
Filled with the Knowledge of God’s Will
Sixth, Paul prayed that the knowledge of God’s will would fill the saints of the church in Colossi (Col 1:9). Furthermore, he says this knowledge of God’s will is in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. God’s will is not arbitrary. It is based on wisdom and understanding and not a feeling proceeding from the flesh.
Fleshly lusts debilitate everyone, both believers and unbelievers. It is a very sad tale when they strafe the souls of believers. They bring this on themselves. Believers have all the resources in the grace of God to abstain. They just won’t. The worst thing very often that you can do to one of these professing believers is exhort or admonish them about it. They are quick to speak, slow to hear, and quick to wrath.
Beach Heads or Gates
John Bunyan clued true believers to the methodology of fleshly lusts. Before him in Pilgrim’s Progress, it was James 1:13-16. The gates through which fleshly lusts pass are akin to the allies taking the beaches in the South Pacific and at Normandy. The flesh forms a beach head through the eye gate, the ear gate, and the three other lesser senses: touch, taste, and smell. Abstaining from fleshly lusts means guarding those gates, stewarding them.
The Nazis had deadly holds on the Beaches of Northern France. Those required removing for victory to occur. Allied soldiers eliminated them at great cost. Professing believers instead contribute to the fleshly strongholds in many different ways. They talk like God gives them liberty to keep those deadly beach heads.
More to Come
Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory (Part Two)
Fleshly Lust and Priesthood
Peter commands his readers (1 Peter 2:11): “Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” It is a crucial or key verse in 1 Peter as Peter moves into the primary message of his epistle. It’s also a mandate or instruction, or at least similar one, as in other passages and from other authors.
In the Old Testament, being a priest was a privilege. The priest could go directly to God unlike an average Israelite. Jesus, however, makes every believer a priest, as seen in 1 Peter 2:5:
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
You can see in that very verse: the New Testament priest “offer[s] up spiritual sacrifices,” ones that are “acceptable to God.” The priesthood requires responsibility. The sacrifices are a sacrifice. And the sacrifices are spiritual and acceptable unto God. The priest can’t give to God just any old thing.
If the priest must offer spiritual sacrifices, then he must abstain from fleshly lusts. Fleshly lusts run in absolute contradiction to spiritual sacrifices. God will reject a fleshly sacrifice. Evangelicalism offers non-stop fleshly sacrifices to God. He rejects those offerings. Yet, evangelicals will count them as accepted because of their feelings. What they feel, they feel is acceptable to Him. They even very often think they feel the Holy Spirit in an ecstatic experience produced out of their passions.
Deprivation of the Soul and Idolatry
Posing as Worship
What does rejected worship do for someone’s soul? It deprives the soul. Fleshly lust hollows out a professing priest of God, leaving him spiritually famished. In the realm of spiritual warfare, this fleshly lust wars against his soul.
Professing Christians pose as worshipers. Like the priests of Baal with Elijah (1 Kings 18), they major on their expression of worship. It originates from their own passion, just like sin arises from their lust (James 1:14). True worship humbles itself before God, subjecting to the truth, which is only His truth. That is authentic worship, not the unique expressions of ones own feelings, but that proceeding from Words of God.
Fleshly lust parallels with idolatry, as revealed by Paul in Colossians 3:5, when he writes:
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Mortification
Mortify your members, Paul writes. The members are body parts. Passions arise from body parts. Fleshly lust abides in body parts, as does indwelling sin. Body parts must be brought under subjection. Then they become instruments of righteousness unto God.
The first falling domino that ends in fornication is idolatry. Next is covetousness. Functioning in the realm of fleshly lust betrays fruit of the Spirit. It’s why Paul also commanded in Romans 13:14: “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
“Abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh” relate to idolatry. Both result in not offering spiritual sacrifices unto God. God doesn’t accept worldly and fleshly worship, which also means the perpetual offering of a person as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2).
Soundtrack for a Life
Commands and Disobedience to Them
Christians walk according to the soundtracks of their lives, what they might call their playlist. The reformed theologian and author, Douglas Wilson, who wears the mantel of father of modern classical education, wrote this:
While working on this post, to take a snippet of my playlist at random, I have listened to “Feelin’ Alright” by Joe Cocker, “Rivers of Babylon” by the Melodians, “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians, “Lonestar” by Norah Jones, “Almost Hear You Sigh” by the Stones, “Watching the River Flow” by Dylan, “Motherless Child” by Clapton, and you get the picture. Now here is a quick quiz. Get out your Bibles, everybody. Is that playlist worldly?
Not too classical. Education, probably not either. That playlist disobeys two commands: “abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh.” And actually many others in the New Testament.
Internal Procession of Unrighteousness
Paul writes in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest.” The works of the flesh are evidence. Like faith is evidence, the works of the flesh are evidence. One of those works is “lasciviousness,” which means “sensuality.” The soundtrack of a genuine Christian is not sensuality.
The viewpoint of “abstain from fleshly lusts” corresponds to the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. God’s righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20). The examples or illustrations of Jesus (Matt 5:21-48) then deal with the internal procession of unrighteousness. It’s not just murder, but hate. It’s not just physical acts, but the lack of abstinence from fleshly lusts. This clashes with the nature of God, the true identify of the believer, the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Fleshly lusts do not retard corruption. They speed it up.
More to Come
Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory
Supply Chains and Tripping Hazards
Something I never heard before 2020 were the two words, “supply chain.” I looked into those two words and didn’t find them used together before the last half of the twentieth century. Google books gives just one page of examples for the whole century and none in the nineteenth century. Examples explode in the last twenty years.
Now that people use “supply chain,” historians provide supply chain advantage as the primary reason for victory in World War Two. It was easier for the United States to get its supplies in Europe than for Germany to get theirs. The Americans, over two thousand miles from home, had more and better supplies than the Germans, only hundreds of miles away.
The success of the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War were short supply chains, essentially tunnels, jungle trails, and near limitless volunteers. Among an assortment of lesser causes, this led to their victory over a superior foe.
To achieve success in life requires eliminating as many possible factors that impede that success. Next week Monday, I’m supposed to have a hip replacement. The booklet to prepare for it explains certain fundamentals like removing threats of tripping from the walking surface of your floors. As you read that, it seems a bit of a “duh” moment. And yet, people leave tripping hazards all over their lives.
Supply Chain Dysfunction
Life became more difficult for many people beginning in 2020 because of “supply chain” dysfunction. The price of homes increased because it’s harder to get the supplies. It’s also more difficult to find the people to build the homes.
God in scripture points out factors comparable to a broken supply chain and a tripping hazard. Peter expresses one in 1 Peter 2:11:
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
Paul begs and commands those traversing their life’s path on earth, “Abstain from fleshly lusts.” He didn’t say, “Stop sinning.” Saying “stop sinning” is like saying, “Win the war.” You want to win the war, but more basic than that is “build and sustain a supply chain.” Remove tripping hazards.
Professing Christianity today acts like an industrial complex for fleshly lusts. It isn’t abstaining. It riddles the floor with tripping hazards. If the goal is winning the war, not abstaining is a losing strategy. It creates a disadvantage so large that it guarantees failure. Fleshly lusts destroy the supply chain.
Winning the War
People might say they want to win the war. They might publish multitudes of magnificent war victory posters. Until they want to abstain from fleshly lusts and then abstain, they won’t. In fact, professing Christianity today campaigns for feeding fleshly lusts. It thinks its worst enemy is the command. Professing Christianity reacts most harsh to the threat of abstaining from fleshly lusts than the fleshly lusts.
A popular phrase, reaching cliche status, I will still use because of its appropriateness. Professing Christians shoot themselves in the foot when they do not abstain from fleshly lusts. They might not like the idea, but they are in a war, a war they should desire to win. Instead, they provide the way for their own defeat. They have multiple bullet holes in both feet. I think we should say that they want to lose. Losing must in fact be their goal. They are going to get tired of losing, they’ll lose so much.
“Dearly beloved” or “strangers and pilgrims” in this world find their interests in the world to come, not this one. They instead plan their lives around a future kingdom and a heavenly city. They invest for eternity.
Still, 1 Peter 2:11 expresses a command to believers, an unpopular mode of communication. True Christians still participate in fleshly lusts, so Peter commands them to abstain from them. Commands are not options. He also provides the consequence of not abstaining. Psychological problems, soul problems, are the worst ones people have. They obliterate people and families like Sherman’s march tore through the South at the end of the Civil War.
Fleshly Lusts and True Christianity
Fleshly lusts cannot characterize true Christianity. If fleshly lusts do, it isn’t Christianity. It’s something else, not Christianity. Someone who laps up fleshly lusts is not a Christian.
Biblical Christianity, true Christianity, is more than just a series of things someone doesn’t get to do that he might want to do. It is wanting to do what Christ wants Him to do and liking it. Loving it.
The soul that will operate in a godly manner will unhitch itself from fleshly lusts. A soul that continues in its pursuit of worldly pleasure is not “converted” or “restored” (Psalms 19:7, 23:3). God does not possess that soul. It remains in the realm of the wicked one. This is not a person who has lost his life (psuche, his soul) for Christ’s sake. He still loves the world and the love of the Father is not in Him.
More to Come
Democrats Most Astonishing Hate of Democracy
The Symbol of the Reichstag in Germany
A pivotal moment in Hitler’s rise in Germany came from the Nazi burning of the Reichstag. They started the fire, put it out, and then blamed it on the Communists. Democrats in the United States steal this act in a campaign to destroy democracy. The Nazis convinced a large portion of the German population that the Communists burned down their Parliament building. Even their courts wouldn’t disagree.
The Democrats, which have the related word “democracy” imbedded in their name, similarly point the finger at Trump as an authoritarian or totalitarian. His policies looked and still look exponentially more democratic than the finger pointers. He would like the government out of most of the business of Americans. Evidence abounds for this, but let me first take a small step back.
Democracy
The United States isn’t a democracy. James Madison in Numbers 10 and 14 of the Federalist Papers makes this point quite well. But let’s set that aside for now.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that a Constitutional Republic is a form of democracy. A website called “Principles of Democracy” writes:
Freedom of speech and expression, especially about political and other public issues, is the lifeblood of any democracy. Democratic governments do not control the content of most written and verbal speech. Thus democracies are usually filled with many voices expressing different or even contrary ideas and opinions.
Citizens and their elected representatives recognize that democracy depends upon the widest possible access to uncensored ideas, data, and opinions. For a free people to govern themselves, they must be free to express themselves — openly, publicly, and repeatedly; in speech and in writing.
Freedom of Speech and Democracy
Wikipedia for “Freedom of Speech” reads:
Freedom of speech is understood to be fundamental in a democracy.
Democrats censor their opposition more than anyone and with unending examples. They are similar to the presence of Islam in any country. While Moslems are in a small minority, they cry for human rights, but the moment they take charge with less than a majority, they eliminate unfavorable voices.
Oligarchy followed democracy in Greece. Democrats control a vast majority of the public square in America. I include in that schools, media, and even government. They gladly censor opposing viewpoints. The Democrat controlled institutions don’t allow the truth of the Bible. Unless Christians privately fund their own museum, you won’t see a creation account in public. Democrats label many biblical truths, “hate speech.”
Censorship
Democrats use both hard and soft censorship. By hard censorship, I mean official and legal disallowance of a place and opportunity to speak. It may be the loss of a job, because the Democrats don’t hear a statement of support for same sex activity. That turns the non-speaker, who would like to say something against the activity but doesn’t, into enemy status.
By soft censorship, I mean an avalanche of public repudiation and ridicule until speakers do not receive opportunities to speak. It’s also moderating who speaks. The establishment offers a phony, a fraud, as the representative of the alternative point of view, who goes along with the official or permitted position. Very little to nothing comes in a way of supporting the alternative position.
A historic label for soft censorship is the “kangaroo court.” The J6 Committee is a good example of this, but they abound in every state in either blue states, districts, or regions. They also exist in red areas with blue strongholds. The committee cherry picks their own rubber stamps to represent opposition. Opposition is actually major support with a fake label of opposition. I would hope everyone knows this, but I’m afraid it fools just enough of the disengaged.
Other Examples
The J6 Committee parallels with the internet. You read about the “algorhythms.” The oligarchs of the tech industry force opposition or non-supportive speech into an uninhabited hinterland. They are whole national forests of trees that fall and no one hears, so they don’t make a noise. Only approved speech moves into a hearing zone. Yes, people published something, but no one is reading, because no one is seeing.
The Hunter Biden laptop is a good example too. I say these are just examples of what is now normal. Any supportive tweet or internet entry of the laptop goes unseen, censored as disinformation. The censorship itself is the disinformation, much like the Russian collusion operation. I think this is the least of it though. It’s a censorship industry.
The industry removes the bad news about the favored issue or person. Right now, it has the ability to project a pro-Hamas experience, despite a relatively powerful coalition for Israel. Pro-Palestinian protestors crowd the White House and knock down a protective fence with little coverage from the media. The industry does not parallel or hearken to anything insurrectionist.
Massive Scale Elimination of Democratic Values
As I write on this subject, the most massive scale about which I speak is in education, where for years, the Bible, God, righteousness, and creation and the like are kept out of the massive state school complex even in red states. No one can take a male headship position in anything close to a public square. Can you imagine a professor at a major university who takes open biblical views? It doesn’t happen except in private. You must pay to hear the truth told.
I would agree that the Bill of Rights and especially the first amendment is the essence of democratic values. When do you read anything from the left defending free speech anymore? Democrats don’t write about their love for the first amendment. The closest is a totalitarian support of smut for small children in public schools and genderless bathrooms. These are not about the protection of speech or opportunity to have a voice.
Pent-Up Voices
The J6 crowd came to a rally and then walked to the capital out of a long pent-up frustration of censorship. Yes, better means of expression exist. The high percentage of silencing from the left came to a logger head. That group that day did wrong things. This is not what-aboutism. I see that day as the equivalent of throwing snow balls at the Old State House in Boston in 1770. The censorship industry, I’m afraid, because of its reaction, has not seen the worst.
We could hope that people care enough to do something about the actual attack on democracy from the Democrat Party. So far, I see it as a peaceful embrace of those who would allow free speech. It seems most represented by an ability to oppose masks and vaccinations. Still, do positions exist for scientists with an opposing view? Are there safe places of employment in hospitals and in medical schools with an alternate view? I’m saying this is just representative, because the worst relates to far more important issues of truth.
Democrats have a burning Reichstag type hatred of democracy. The Nazis opposed burning the Reichstag. But they burned it. The Democrats don’t mind burning everything down to get their way. They don’t care if you vote or not. They don’t even want you able to say what they don’t want to hear.
Wallace’s Remarkable Erroneous Paper On The Doctrine Of Preservation
Daniel Wallace
Certain names represent the biggest evangelical challengers to the biblical and historical doctrine of the preservation of scripture. They have written journal articles or books against preservation of scripture.
The Bible version issue starts with scriptural teaching on preservation. When you believe what God said, you come to perfect preservation. Then you have to deal with what that looks like in the real world. The teaching of the Bible presupposes the outcome.
One of the biggest names is Daniel Wallace, longtime professor of Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary. Any evangelical who takes Greek knows who Dan Wallace is. Second or third year Greek students use his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics. It is a very helpful book to own and use.
Manuscript Evidence
In recent years Wallace turned his attention to The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. A major stated mission of CSNTM is the following:
To provide digital photographs of extant Greek New Testament manuscripts so that such images can be preserved, duplicated without deterioration, and accessed by scholars doing textual research.
Wallace considers their task to continue the restoration of a lost text of the New Testament.
Denial of Preservation
When anyone asks Wallace about the preservation of scripture, he sends them back to a journal article he wrote in the 1990s, entitled, “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism.” Rather than interact on the subject, Wallace points to that article. He doesn’t need to talk about it. Wallace wrote the article and that ends the conversation. He wrote it, that settles it.
With Wallace’s demand, I acquiesced and read his article with an open mind and great interest. I didn’t assume he was wrong. I welcomed the possibility he was right. What he wrote, however, was very disappointing. It was filled with errors. Wallace and I had a brief back and forth on an evangelical blog in the comment section, since deleted. He claimed that I cherry picked the points I made about his article. I ask you to consider if that’s true with the below links to my analysis of his article.
First Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part one
Second Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part two
Third Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part three
Fourth Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part four
For a man of such renowned, his article denying the preservation of scripture is very, very poor. It’s still right there all over the internet though, remarkable multiple errors and all.
The Most Indispensable Quality for Manhood
Designed Manhood and Manhood Under Attack
A strange incongruity exists. On the one hand, the world blurs the distinctions between men and women. On the other, women want to be men and men want to be women and do so by embracing the natural distinctions between men and women. The world in which we live produces this incoherence.
“God created man in his own image, . . . male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). When God created the woman, he created her with a different role than the man. He made the woman to complement the man. Men and women are different.
Scripture throughout distinguishes men from women in their traits, their roles, their functions, and their appearances. To do His moral will, God intends for men to be men and women to be women in the way His Word prescribes.
To oppose the plan of God, Satan and the world system attack and confuse biblical manhood and womanhood. Men become more feminine and women become more masculine. From this arises sex and gender confusion. It damages both sexes, but especially the man.
The Loss of Manhood
Mostly today the man loses his identity, role, and function in society. This occurs either through the feminization of everything or the subversion of God created and ordained male qualities.
The culture now eradicates male qualities by calling them toxic. When a man acts like a man, he’s toxic, termed “toxic masculinity.” He receives approval when he terminates male qualities to act more like a woman. If he goes further to attempt a sex change, more the better.
Even though I don’t believe in toxic masculinity, I believe a fake masculinity exists that replaces the true. Like every other doctrine, a false one supplants a true one. Fake masculinity welcomes all the tokens of popular masculinity like beards, tattoos, booze, foul language, and risky hobbies. These are easier to inculcate then the fundamental traits of masculinity.
What Makes a Man, a Man?
What is it that makes a man, a man? The Bible evinces the most indispensable quality for manhood as “strength.” In 1 Corinthians 16:13, the Apostle Paul writes, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” “Quit you” in the KJV is “to acquit yourself.” “Quit you like men” translates a single verb which means, “act like a man.” Then when Paul defines what it is to act like one, he commands, “Be strong.”
Later, when Paul writes to Timothy in his second epistle, he explains to him ‘how to be strong.’ In 2 Timothy 2:1, he writes:
Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Again we read the command, “Be strong.” Paul starts that sentence with “therefore,” so he bases this command on the content of the previous section. If anything, its theme is unashamedness. Rather than be ashamed, be strong.
Not Ashamed
To help Timothy, he gives him portrayals of strength that would make him not ashamed: the faithful man, the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. These all describe this quality of strength.
What is the shame about which Paul speaks? It relates to telling the truth. Paul himself had declared in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Men should stand on the truth without wavering. They should say it, which includes firmness about manhood itself. Satan and the world system want men to back down on the truth and shirk responsibility to tell it, live it, and lead it.
Some might call this, having a backbone. Men diminish behind the skirts of women. They look to women for permission for what they can say. Many times women gladly accommodate or accept that. This changes everything in society.
Women Rule Over Them
Many times scripture says to the woman, “Keep silence or stay quiet” (1 Cor 14:34, 1 Tim 2:11-12). This says, “Let the man lead.” When things aren’t going well for a nation, Isaiah 3:12 describes:
As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.
This is role, function, and quality reversal. That means men are not ruling according to God’s design. Now men accept this quietly. They know if they say anything, they’re in trouble.
As a first indication of a man deferring his own manhood, he stops standing spiritually. A common scenario in my lifetime, I go to a door to speak about the gospel. A man or at least a male sex answers the door, sees who I am, and turns to say this conversation is for his wife. Men lack spiritual strength or conviction.
When men check with their wives, that might sound happily egalitarian. Maybe they use their wives as an excuse for their weakness. I’m not saying men can’t confer with their wives, very often today men can’t decide because they’re weak. Maybe today a majority of men support the idea of a woman ruling over them. It would just be easier.
The Validity and Potential Value of a Liturgical Calendar (Part Four)
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.
The Validity and Potential Value of a Liturgical Calendar (Part Three)
Regulative Principle of Worship
Over a period of time, professing Christians formulated from scripture what was termed, “the regulative principle of worship.” I believe in that. This took awhile in the history of Christianity to develop. I believe it because it is scriptural and, therefore, I want to follow it. The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 expresses it:
The acceptable way of worshiping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.
One example of the seriousness of regulating worship by scripture is that of Nadab and Abihu, when they offered strange fire to the Lord (Leviticus 10). Offering strange fire meant changing the recipe for the incense for the altar of incense in the holy place. Silence was not permission for them to offer a different recipe.
God prescribed a specific recipe, spelling out percentages of the ingredients. Scripture regulated the recipe. That was an element of Old Testament worship. Since God spelled it out, that’s all you could do. Nadab and Abihu changed it. God killed them for that. This indicates the seriousness of it.
What changes with observing Christ’s birth around December 25th? Next year Sunday is actually December 28. Emphasizing Christ’s birth changes nothing that God prescribed. It’s not like changing the recipe for the altar of incense. I contend it does not violate the regulative principle of worship.
Application of the Regulative Principle
Canon of Dort
Like one Reformation group, the Puritans, another, the Dutch Reformed Church, whom like the Puritans I’m not endorsing, committed to the Regulative Principle of Worship. In 1618-19, that group held their Second Synod of Dort, the Dutch term for the town of Dordrecht. This council explained its decisions in a document, The Canons of Dort. In Article 67 of the Canon, the council says:
The Churches shall observe, in addition to Sunday, also Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, with the following day, and whereas in most of the cities and provinces of the Netherlands the day of Circumcision and of Ascension of Christ are also observed, Ministers in every place where this is not yet done shall take steps with the Government to have them conform with the others.
Earlier in Article 63, it writes:
The Lordly Supper shall be administered once every two months, wherever possible, and it will be edifying that it take place at Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas where the circumstances of the Church permit. However, in those places where the Church has not yet been instituted, first of all Elders and Deacons shall be provided.
Helvetic Confession of 1564
Another Reformation group in Switzerland wrote Helvetic Confessions in 1536 and 1564. The second of these writes:
THE FESTIVALS OF CHRIST AND THE SAINTS. Moreover, if in Christian liberty the churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord’s nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly. but we do not approve of feasts instituted for men and for saints. Holy days have to do with the first Table of the Law and belong to God alone.
Finally, holy days which have been instituted for the saints and which we have abolished, have much that is absurd and useless, and are not to be tolerated. In the meantime, we confess that the remembrance of saints, at a suitable time and place, is to be profitably commended to the people in sermons, and the holy examples of the saints set forth to be imitated by all.
Variations of Applications
All of these varied groups, including the Puritans, claimed the Bible as their final authority. They disagreed on the application of the regulative principle. Some said “no” on the organ. Certain ones said only psalms and no hymns. Groups differed on a liturgical calendar. They had their unique reasons for all of these variations, but all believed and practiced the regulative principle of worship.
Puritans sprinkled infants. How many infants do we see baptized in scripture, let alone sprinkled? Sure, Pilgrims and Baptists separated from the Church of England. Many Puritans, however, saw no problem with a state church as seen in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Puritans heavily involved and led the English Civil War. Most Puritans would not use musical instruments and sang only Psalms (total Psalmody).
Word Meanings
“Christmas” derives from “Christ’s Mass.” “Sunday” derives from “Day of the Sun” and Hellenistic astrology. If I called you “gay” in the not too distant past, that was considered a compliment. Not anymore. The word “mass” comes from the Latin missa, which means “to send or dismiss.” You could argue that “Christmas” literally means “Christ sent,” like John 17:18, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.”
If I say, “Merry Christmas” to you, I’m not saying, “Go have a merry time at Roman Catholic Mass.” No. This is a joyous time, like when the ark returns to Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 6. This symbolizes God’s presence back in Jerusalem and David celebrates with all his might. Christmas means “Christ’s birth” to most. Be gone the idea that every word must revert to its original etymology. It’s one reason we revise our dictionaries — words change in meaning based on usage. Here’s a definition you might read: “the annual commemoration by Christians of the birth of Jesus Christ on Dec 25.”
Special Occasions
Philadelphia Confession
A liturgical calendar acknowledges special occasions. The Philadelphia Confession of 1742 says:
The reading of the Scriptures, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord; as also the administration of baptism, and the Lord’s supper, are all parts of religious worship of God, to be performed in obedience to Him, with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear; moreover, solemn humiliation, with fastings, and thanksgiving, upon special occasions, ought to be used in a holy and religious manner.
Jesus and the Feast of Dedication
I call to your attention the words, “special occasions.” Churches advocated for special occasions. Regarding this, Stephen Doe writes concerning the regulative principle of worship:
God commands us to worship him once weekly in a corporate manner, but allows us to apply biblical principles to worship him at other times. The church under the new covenant does not have less liberty than the church under the old covenant; we are not the underage church, but the church which has been baptized in the Spirit of Christ. If we were to apply the regulative principle without clearly understanding these things, then we would have to condemn the apostolic church for meeting daily, since God had never commanded such meetings. Instead, they understood that what God was commanding was for them to worship him acceptably (cf. John 4:24; Rom. 12:2; Heb. 10:25; 13:15).
This balance is seen in the example of our Savior, who exercised his liberty of conscience, while not violating the regulative principle, when he attended the Feast of Dedication (that is, Hanukkah; cf. John 10:22). That was an extra-biblical feast not commanded by God in Scripture, but begun by the Jews to commemorate the rededication of the temple after the close of the Old Testament. Jesus was free to go up to Jerusalem or not to go up. God commands us to worship, and Jesus was using that occasion to obey the command of God.
The events on a liturgical calendar are not special occasions because a church sets them apart for observation. No, they are special because they are events in the life of Jesus Christ. If a church adds Thanksgiving, Mothers Day, and Fathers Day, those are justifiable. These do not violate a regulative principle.
Keeping Holy
The term holiday has diminished in its meaning. If I say, Happy Holiday, today, I might mean something akin to a Hallmark card greeting. It probably is the opposite of holy, the meaning of “Holy Day” or “holiday.” When we observe it, set apart for special emphasis, then it is holy, like the ground around the burning bush with Moses.
Exodus 20:8 says, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” I could say, “Remember the birth of Christ, to keep it holy.” “Remember the resurrection of Christ, to keep it holy.” If we can keep something holy, then we can sanctify something. We can set something apart to keep it holy, rather than just being a worldly item during the year. Churches can and should do that. This is the value aspect, I’m advocating, for a liturgical calendar.
(More to Come)
The Validity and Potential Value of a Liturgical Calendar (Part Two)
The Suggestion of a Church Calendar
Perhaps as you read, I don’t have to argue for Christmas and Easter. You accept that already for your church calendar. Churches should acknowledge and honor the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They include the birth and resurrection in the prayers, singing, and preaching of their corporate worship.
I suggest that a church have a calendar with events for the worship of the Lord. Scripture does not require the special days, but a church should acknowledge the truth of them. They can do that by putting them on the calendar, very much like inserting them into an order of service.
The Requirement of Order
The belief, teaching, and practice of scripture requires order. You see order all over the Bible. This is the nature of God. Romans 8:29-30 reveal an order of salvation:
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Here’s the order: (1) foreknowledge, (2) predestination to conform to the image of the Son, (3) call, (4) justification, and (5) glorification. Other examples of order exist. Consider Matthew 5:23-24:
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Here’s the order: (1) Decide to bring a gift to the altar, (2) remember brother has ought against you, (3) Leave the gift before the altar, (4) go, (5) be reconciled to the brother, (6) come back to the altar, (7) offer your gift at the altar.
The Truth of Order
God is a God of order. God requires order. “Order” translates the Greek, taxis. According to BDAG, it means: “an arrangement of things in sequence,” “a state of good order,” and “an arrangement in which someone or something functions.” Here are two usages of the word by the Apostle Paul:
1 Corinthians 14:40, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”
Colossians 2:5, “For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.”
Very often the priesthood, like that of Zacharias in Luke 1:8, is called an “order.” The worship of Israel required order. If you think about the tabernacle, it started with an outer court, then an inner court, the altar of burnt offering followed by the laver, and then into the holy place. It ended in the holy of holies. God prescribed order in the worship.
Worship, Order, and a Church Calendar
When one reads the account of the Lord’s Table in the New Testament one sees a particular order of observance. This is seen in Matthew 26:26-27, Mark 14:22-23, Luke 22:17-20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23-29. Someone takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, explains it, partakes of it, remembers, and then in the same manner takes the cup. He takes the bread first and then the cup. One could say that the order makes sense as it will always.
True worship requires order. A calendar puts the events of Jesus’ life in an order and observes them according to that plan. It treats them like they occurred. They happened at a time of the year.
One does not have to put events on a calendar to give them acknowledgement and honor. Doing so, however, fulfills a principle of order, which is in the nature of God. That obeys doing things in order. It ensures the church will think on these events, meditate on them, emphasize them, and include them in prayer, singing, and preaching.
(More to Come)
The Validity and Potential Value of a Liturgical Calendar
You Might Have a Liturgical Calendar
If you have Easter and Christmas on your calendar, you have a liturgical calendar. You might not call it one, but it still is. Should you though? Is it permissible or maybe even of value for a church to keep a liturgical calendar every year?
Let’s say that you mark Easter and Christmas at their traditional and maybe historical times. That means every year you acknowledge that Jesus rose from the dead and was born of a virgin in Bethlehem about nine months apart. You do more than that. You make those a major emphasis in every aspect of the service on those days. That is liturgy.
The Liturgical Calendar, Per Se, Not in Bible, But…
Regulative Principle
Scripture doesn’t teach a New Testament, Christian, or church calendar of any kind. Based on that, I understand a rejection of these special days under a regulative principle of worship. The Bible does not regulate a Christian calendar. Is that end of discussion? I don’t think so.
I would still argue for a liturgical calendar, even if you don’t want to call it a liturgical calendar. The Bible does not require it either by precept, principle, or example. It also does not require using hymn books, offering plates, even the construction of church buildings for worship.
You can plan worship days on a calendar around the events of Jesus’ life, but the Bible doesn’t tell you to do that. Prayers, preaching, and singing in a true church should on a continual basis emphasize especially certain events in Jesus’ life. Biblical events really occurred. Churches should treat them like they did. It is right to do that.
Circumstances of Worship
Our church celebrated Christmas this year on December 24th. We went out and caroled on December 21st at the houses of seven different people or families. I did a three part Christmas series with sermons on December 10, 17, and 24. I would call that liturgy.
Even though a liturgical calendar, I contend, is not an element of worship, it does fall under a sub-category of a circumstance for worship. Every theme of a liturgical calendar fits within the elements of worship. As an example, for Christmas a church can bring Jesus’ birth into prayer, preaching, and singing. That is still regulating the service based on scripture.
I would further contend that the order of a calendar gives more necessary order to the worship of God. Order is in the nature of God. Worship in truth should reflect the truth about God. Liturgy itself is an order of service. Service should be orderly.
The Use of the Term “Liturgy”
Most Baptists do not use and have not used the term, “liturgy.” Professing Christians define liturgy as the standard order of events in a gathering of worship. When people attend church, they do things. They might start with prayer, sing a psalm, then sing a hymn, take up an offering, read scripture, pray again, preach a sermon, and then end in prayer. This order of events, planning out what the church will do in worship, is liturgy.
“Liturgy” is the transliteration of a Greek word in the New Testament, leitourgia. BDAG, the foremost New Testament lexicon says the word primarily means: “service of a public or formal type.” In certain instances, the word “minister” is the translation of leitourgos, another form of the word. This is “one engaged in administrative service.”
Here are three usages of leitourgia as “service of a public or formal type,” translated “ministration,” “service,” or “ministry”:
Luke 1:23, “And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.
Philippians 2:17, “Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.”
Hebrews 8:6, “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.”
All three of the usages relate to worship of God. They are service of a public or formal type.
Roman Catholic Liturgy?
Some oppose liturgy, because Roman Catholics use the word. Some would say liturgy originated out of Roman Catholicism. In the most fundamental way, liturgy is order of service. If you plan an order of service with prayer, singing, reading, and preaching, you prepared liturgy. If you plan that out further in a general way for your year, that’s a liturgical calendar.
Historical evidence exists for pre Roman Catholic liturgy. Of course, this isn’t the English word “liturgy” from the first three centuries, because English didn’t exist. However, liturgy in its most fundamental understanding existed in the first few centuries. Scripture also reveals the liturgical aspects of a worship service.
Liturgy of American Consumerism?
After preparing with many thoughts on this subject of liturgy, I read these paragraphs by Scott Aniol:
I always find it ironic when I hear Christians in America state with conviction—and a little bit of piety—that they won’t be tied down by “Catholic” traditions like the Church Calendar, and yet through their actual practices they prove to be constrained by a liturgical calendar of another sort—The Liturgical Calendar of American Consumerism.
They insist that they won’t celebrate Epiphany, the Baptism of Christ, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Eastertide, Pentecost, Ascension Day, Trinity Sunday, Advent, or the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas.
And yet instead, their churches celebrate New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Easter Bunny Day, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and a Christmas season stretching from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day—days with customs rooted not in biblical events or Christian tradition, but in the tradition of American commercialism.
His article and a few to which he linked argues for liturgy in churches. A church could opt to plan out the traditions of American commercialism and plan into the calendar the events of Jesus’ life.
(More to Come)
Recent Comments