Commentaries support the concept of house to house visitation in Acts 5:42 and 20:20, rather than church meetings in houses:[i]

“Every day, with great constancy and assiduity, both publicly and privately; in the temple, the place of public worship, where the Jews resorted on that account; and in each of their private houses . . . they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” (An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, by John Gill, Acts 5:42)

“The apostles taught and preached not only publicly in the temple, but ‘from house to house.’ In this they give an example to the ministry of all ages, which is well worthy of imitation. Private instruction and admonition bring the teacher and the taught into closer contact, and secure an individuality of effect not attainable in a public assembly. It can not, therefore, be well dispensed with; but he who employs it most diligently will, other things being equal, employ his energies most successfully.” (Commentaries and Topical Studies by J. W. McGarvey, Acts 5:42)

“Though Paul preached in public, and though his time was much occupied in manual labour for his own support, Ac 20:34, yet he did not esteem his public preaching to be all that was required of him; nor his daily occupation to be an excuse for not visiting from house to house. We may observe here . . . that Paul’s example is a warrant and an implied injunction for family visitation by a pastor. If proper in Ephesus, it is proper still. If practicable in that city, it is in other cities. If it was useful there, it will be elsewhere. If it furnished to him consolation in the retrospect when he came to look over his ministry, and if it was one of the things which enabled him to say, ‘I am pure from the blood of all men,’ it will be so in other cases. . . . His aim was to show the way of salvation, and to teach in private what he taught in public. . . . while public preaching is the main, the prime, the leading business of a minister, and while his first efforts should be directed to preparation for that, he may and should find time to enforce his public instructions by going from house to house; and often he will find that his most immediate and apparent success will result from such family instructions.” (Barnes’ Notes, Acts 20:20)

“It is worth noting that this greatest of preachers preached from house to house.” (Robertson’s Word Pictures, Acts 20:20)

“Did an apostle, whose functions were of so wide a range, not feel satisfied without private as well as public ministrations? How then must pastors feel?” (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, Acts 20:20)

“From house to house. Else he had not been pure from their blood. For even an apostle could not discharge his duty by public preaching only. How much less can an ordinary pastor!” (Notes on the Old and New Testaments, John Wesley, Acts 20:20).

The specific illustrations in the book of Acts, given for the saints’ examples and admonition, in addition to the general exhortations found throughout the Bible, including the Old Testament (Proverbs 11:30, Daniel 12:3, etc.), to give the gospel to every creature, and the logical necessity, for those with a Christ-like love for the unconverted (John 3:16; cf. Romans 9:1-3), for aggressive evangelism because of the fact that all without Christ are headed to eternal torment, renders inexcusable the churches and all Christians not bedridden and crippled that do not go house to house in nations such as the United States, where the chances of imprisonment or martyrdom for such a labor of love are essentially non-existent—first century Rome heavily persecuted believers, yet house to house evangelism was still practiced by all members. Saints who do not aggressively evangelize grievously sin against God, hinder the sort of revival found in Acts, and apparently do not esteem the blood of Christ highly enough to simply inform others, in line with the Savior’s command, of the great salvation their professed Lord had to leave heaven and suffer infinitely to make possible.

–TDR

Exegetical Endnote:

Recently, Matt Olson, the president of now Northland International University (formerly Northland Baptist Bible College), sent an open letter to constituents explaining recent decisions Northland has made. I got a copy of it myself from him in an email. Olson seems to be attempting to convince people that they should not perceive Northland as changing despite its changes. One of its changes, that he would like people to understand is not a change, even though it is a change, is in the music. Here’s what he writes:

Apostolic preaching “in every house” must have referred to house to house evangelism,[i] not to holding church meetings in the houses of the already converted. The context of Acts chapter five involves the apostles preaching the gospel to “the people” (from the Hebrew ha’am), that is, lost Israelites, and v. 42 is a continuation of this action; v. 42 involves the type of evangelistic preaching that had just taken place in Acts 5:30-33. In 5:20, the preaching in the “temple” was evangelism, preaching “the words of this life.” Every residence in Jerusalem obviously did not have believers in it, so preaching in “every house” supports bringing the gospel to the residences of the unconverted. The fact that this evangelistic preaching (euangelidzo) took place every single day (pasan te hemeran) and it was continuing to be so (note the imperfect tense of epausanto) also is more suitable to reaching the lost than it is to church meetings every single day of the year for a long period of time. Furthermore, the same sort of preaching and teaching took place in the temple and in the houses; since the temple preaching, contextually, was almost surely evangelistic to reach the lost, the house to house proclamation would have been the same. Finally, “preach” in v. 42 is not kerusso, but euangelidzo, which indicates that specific evangelizing or preaching of the gospel, rather than the simple proclamation of Biblical truths, is in view in this text; they were evangelizing in the temple and in every house.

Acts 20:20-21 also refers to house to house evangelistic preaching of repentance toward God and faith toward Christ to unconverted Jew and Gentile. “Publickly” refers to preaching in the temple, synagogues, and wherever else a crowd can be gathered; it is mass evangelism of large groups at one time, similar to modern street preaching and tract distribution in public areas. The same word in Acts 18:28 refers to “showing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ . . . in the synagogue” (v. 28, 26). “House to house” refers to systematically reaching every residence in an area with the gospel. The Greek structure[ii] in the verse is never used for church meetings in Scripture. Verse twenty-one refers to “testifying”[iii] to Jews and Greeks “the gospel of the grace of God” (v. 24). The overwhelmingly majority usage of the Greek word “testify” in Luke-Acts speaks of evangelism (Luke 16:28; Acts 2:40; 8:25; 10:42; 18:5; 20:24; 23:11; 28:23), and Luke never uses the word to refer to preaching in church assemblies. Acts 20:20-21 indicate that Paul taught the elders at Ephesus to practice house to house soulwinning. To attempt to interpret the text otherwise would require it to refer simply to the teaching of Jew and Gentile elder within the Ephesian church the necessity of daily repentance and every-increasing faith in Christ. It would also make this sort of testifying about repentance and faith in the Christian life the essence of Paul’s ministry (v. 24). It would ignore the fact that the “Jew . . . Greek” distinction is contrasted with the church (1 Corinthians 10:32). It would make Paul’s action in the verse be the preaching of repentance and faith, not to lost people who came to church meetings, nor to normal church members, even, but specifically to the leadership, which, one would trust, would have a very high percentage of genuine converts[iv] and would need evangelistic preaching the least, and which is contrary to the emphasis in his letters to pastoral leadership (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus). Paul was “pure from the blood of all men” (Acts 20:26) because he sought to reach all of them, not just the tiny minority that would want to visit Christian church services. He carefully and clearly presented to the lost the counsel of God concerning their souls,[v] house to house, and he taught others to do the same. Going house to house is God’s will (v. 27).

-TDR

Exegetical Endnotes:

The book of Acts clearly teaches and models by example aggressive evangelism for every church member; all should go “every where preaching the word” (Acts 8:4), with the goal of preaching to “every creature which is under heaven” (Ephesians 1:23; Mark 16:15), that is, giving clear presentations of the gospel[i] to every single person on the face of the earth. House to house evangelism is the explicit pattern of the book of Acts.[ii] In Acts 5:42 the apostles “daily in the temple, and in every house, [] ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”[iii] The preaching was persistent (5:42, “daily”) and sought to reach every single person, “every creature” (Mark 16:15), in an area (Acts 21:28). They sought, successfully, to make sure that “all they which dwelt” in the local area would “hear the word of the Lord Jesus” (19:10), something possible only if particular efforts were made to systematically reach every household; if church members only witnessed to their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and whoever else just came along the way as they pursued other matters, having “all” in an area hear would never happen. They did not evangelize in public forums and go house to house only a few weeks a year to advertise Vacation Bible School or a special meeting, but consistently and continually.

Nor did New Testament evangelism rest satisfied if a person made some kind of decision that did not lead to evidence of repentance and a new heart; in Acts, people who made salvation decisions were baptized and continued in the faith even under persecution, so that those who were “saved” were also “added to the church” (Acts 2:41-47). The kind of preaching of repentance and faith (Mark 1:15; Acts 20:21) found in Scripture leads to converts that stick. The modern practice of leading countless people to make spurious decisions actually is doing the work of the devil in inoculating people to the true gospel. In the New Testament, numbers of stand-alone professions were not counted, but numbers added to the church roll through baptism and enduring faithfully in sound doctrine and practice (Acts 1:15; 2:4; 4:4, 32; 16:5). The Holy Spirit works in the saved to join the church by baptism and continue in holiness and true doctrine (Acts 2:47; Matthew 10:22; Mark 4:17, 20; 1 John 2:19). The apostles considered someone who made a decision but did not continue as “labour in vain” (Galatians 4:11; 1 Thessalonians 3:5), in which they followed the practice of the Lord Jesus (John 8:31-32).[iv] They were not considered genuine converts who just never followed their “Lord.” When Paul’s own converts were baptized church members who were themselves “holding forth the word of life” (Philippians 2:16) and by this means “shin[ing] as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15),[v] then the apostle had confidence that he could “rejoice in the day of Christ, that [he] had not run in vain, neither labored in vain” (Philippians 2:16). The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is to see people born again or made disciples, baptized into the church, and taught everything in Scripture, including the necessity of winning converts themselves and working to see established churches grow and new churches planted. Only when a convert has come to the point where he is himself making disciples has the Comission been fulfilled, and this, not some sort of “decision for Christ” that does not lead to baptism and a changed and consistent Christian life, must be the goal of Biblical house to house evangelism.

We had a first meeting in the Roseville/Citrus Heights/Granite Bay/Sacramento Area yesterday. We had 16 attend with 9 being folks not already from our church. We’re going to keep meeting on Sunday afternoons at 3pm. Our goal is to go and preach the gospel to that area of our state capital to expand the ministry of our church in El Sobrante. We passed out 2,000 flyers to announce the meeting. None came from the flyers. That didn’t surprise me. The 9 were all related in some way to folks in our church—friends, co-workers, etc. I was happy about the meeting, a good start.

Marlowe and Becky Robles rode up with my wife and me. We are meeting in a care home with a capacity of about 25-30, that is owned by members of our church. The Robles’ brought their piano to the home to leave there for this start, so we had piano the first gathering with our singing. Afterward we went out evangelizing for an hour.

We switched things around at our church. I am now teaching in Sunday School, continuing my series in 1 Kings. Pastor Sutton at our church is preaching his Nehemiah series now on Sunday night. We leave for Sacramento right after the morning service, arrive at 2:30pm, have the meeting from 3:00 to 4:15pm, talk to folks afterward, then begin evangelizing at 4:30 every Sunday night. We’ll leave back to the Bay Area at about 6:00pm to get back home at 7:30pm.

Marlowe has a good part time job, teaches violin, and then teaches a little in our school. Becky also teaches a few classes in our school. Marlowe is in his third year of graduate training with me at what we call Bethel Advanced Pastoral Training (BAPT). David Warner is here doing about the same thing as Marlowe. We meet every week for class instruction. It includes historical theology, apologetics, systematic theology, biblical languages, counseling, etc. I also direct their reading and their research/papers. They do a lot of teaching and preaching. If you are interested in this kind of training, which I think is a M. Div. equivalent, but very hands-on under a seasoned pastor, it is available for you. There is no tuition, but you have to work hard.

Are we starting a church? We’re evangelizing with hope for a church in the future. My wife and I went to two doors. The first was not home. The second was a Jehovah’s Witness who invited us in, and we talked for an hour. Marlowe and Becky covered five or six houses, talking to someone at every one. That’s how we’re going to get it done. When someone is converted, one of us will start discipleship with them during that 4:30-6:00pm time, while the other is evangelizing. Some folks from our church may travel up to evangelize at certain times. If the number of new converts and interested believers grows, a church may come out of that.

You can pray for the future of this church and the new work that is being done. We have two goals. We want to provide a place for saints in this populated area to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. And we want to preach the gospel to every creature that lives there. We want to see the same kind of work start in other places in Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Recently Pastor Tim Jordan among others was invited as a main speaker for the national conference of the General Association of Regular Baptists (GARBC). This was considered to be a big deal to the GARBC because Jordan isn’t GARBC. He’s the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church of Lansdale, PA, where is Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary, a well-known independent Baptist graduate school, and a National Leadership Conference, which is attended by leaders especially of a particular variety of independent Baptist churches and organizations. However, John Greening, national representative of the GARBC, said at the meeting: “There are other independent Baptists who share our convictions. I want to make new friends with them. . . . The GARBC is not a closed club. The speakers we have had at our conference last year, this year, and will have next year, are indicative of that.”

Before a Wednesday sermon at the conference, Jordan said: ““So, why is it that we weren’t fellowshipping sooner? . . . . So what was the difference?” Let me guess here, or at least offer my opinion. I can’t speak for Calvary at Lansdale, but I’ve observed that institution enough to have a bit of a grasp for why there wasn’t a tie with GARBC before. E. Robert Jordan, the founding pastor of Calvary, Tim Jordan’s dad, wouldn’t have had anything to do with the GARBC? I think that’s a pretty educated guess. For a long time, he didn’t fellowship with Bob Jones University, not until after the seminary there had been started for a little while. I’m not surprised with Tim Jordan’s appearance at the GARBC. It looks like a fit to me. I can’t see what would keep one away from the other. And E. Robert died in November 2009.

Later on that day, Jordan spoke in a workshop, where he said this:

“If we produce ‘biblical’ reasons for cultural fundamentalism, they [the young Fundamentalists] know you are lying. And why do they know you are lying? It’s because you are! . . . . They’re not going to do the ‘emperor’s clothes’ thing anymore, . . . they won’t leave if you don’t lie to them!” (emphasis mine)

There we go. That’s as bad a thing that anyone could possibly say. To call these men liars in public. It amazes me that the audience would even go for it, but the fact that they would and then publish that he said it, and revel in it, says something about where this group of men stands. Let’s get it straight though. He’ saying that the independent Baptist separatists were and are lying when they gave and give biblical reasons for their cultural issues. That’s what Tim Jordan says.

The “emperor’s clothes” reference is essentially saying that these men are pretending to have biblical reasons, when either really know that they don’t have any reasons or they’re just crazy. In the end, the emperor, after having found out from a little boy that he wasn’t wearing any clothes, proudly acted as though he was wearing them anyway. I think you get the picture. These leaders with the convictions on these cultural issues know they don’t have any biblical reasons, but they go on like they do and everyone else is to go along with it, when it’s obvious they don’t have any. You’ve got to be a dupe or lemming to go along with it. I’ve been around enough of the Lansdale crowd to know that they do believe both—that men are liars and/or crazy—take your pick. And yet men go right along in fellowship with Calvary in Lansdale as if nothing is wrong. This doesn’t sound quite even like agreeing to disagree, does it?

The implication here is that young people are leaving these churches because their leaders are lying to them. If they stop lying to them, that is, stop telling them the Bible has something to say about these cultural issues, then they won’t leave. I can tell you first hand, that young people won’t leave because you take stands on cultural issues and give biblical reasons for them. They sometimes will leave because they love the world and want to go live it up, in essence to eat, drink, and be merry. In other words, they choose the pleasures of sin for a season than to suffer derision with the people of God. The world is having its impact on churches like Calvary and Lansdale and the numbers are dwindling. Like many other churches, to combat that, you start dropping those standards on the cultural issues. You do keep the young people, but it doesn’t have anything to do with “not lying to them.”

The stronger the influence of the world and the tougher it is in this world to live the Christian life, the more we’re going to see a division taking place. There is a wider gap and clearer distinctions between a biblical Christian and the world than ever. It is an unbridgeable gap. Since it can’t be straddled anymore, the young and immature (restless) just drop out. Or the church can change, start taking on the mores and spirit and look of the world system. Calvary in Lansdale recently dropped their old music pastor for a different brand of “worship.” That’s part of what goes with the territory. And now Calvary and Jordan has moved that direction enough to reach a good comfort level with the GARBC and the GARBC with Calvary. That’s “what’s the difference” to refer to Jordan’s question. And you will always be able to find your crowd in this world, and the one that’s more like the world will be bigger. And when you join it, it might feel like a breath of fresh air. Don’t mistake that for the Holy Spirit, just a good feeling that you’ll have plenty of companions in the broader road.

There is still some feet dragging among some fundamentalists about this kind of development in fundamentalism. At SharperIron, which helped announce this GARBC event, Aaron Blumer, the owner, tried to put a degree of distance between him and Jordan’s comments. Right away, he said:

I also don’t think it’s possible to be Fundamentalist without reference to culture. That is, the fundamentals have cultural implications. So biblical fund. will always be “cultural” in that sense.

And later:

When Jordan says “cultural fundamentalism” in a negative sense, I do not believe he means “all efforts to apply Scripture to cultural choices.” Let’s be clear about that. There is absolutely no sphere of life that is exempted from the Lordship of Christ. So looking at some of these events and the “cultural trappings” they accept and trying to apply biblical principles to them is an obligation we all have.

Just want to be clear what our choices are here: it’s not like on one hand we have “cultural fundamentalism” and on the other we have “anything goes as long as its ‘cultural.'” The former is the error of much of fundamentalism. The latter is the error of most of evangelicalism. By “cultural fundamentalism,” Jordan (and several others I’ve heard use the term) is referring to the practice of taking a particular set of applications (or just opinions, for the many who never bothered to think them through) and making them them (a) equal in status to Holy Writ itself and (b) the defining essence of fundamentalism.

The cure for this is not to look at the evangelical landscape and say “none of this cultural stuff matters”!

But the GARBC representative who authored the report answers these comments later:

About “cultural fundamentalism” as it was described by the speakers at the GARBC conference: I think they used the term in reference to the set of cultural values that grew to “mean” fundamentalism. Drs. Jordan and Davey mentioned things like dress standards, music standards, Bible translations, smoking/drinking/movie attendance/mixed swimming, and even loyalty to particular schools and institutions. I don’t think we should interpret their comments as as an invitation to lawless living or an indication that they are soft on the subject of personal holiness. Rather, they seemed to refer to “cultural fundamentalism” as a set of cultural taboos that came to replace an authentic definition of historic fundamentalism.

Again, to be clear, Tim Jordan, leader in independent Baptist fundamentalism says that the men were lying who used the Bible to defend convictions related to the above list. Calvary in Lansdale organized mixed swimming, swim park activities, where the girls showed full thigh in their skin tight outfits in the pool with the guys. When I was considering going to Calvary Lansdale in the mid 80s, I saw this firsthand. This proximity of the immodestly dressed was accompanied by quite a bit of frolicking in the water between sexes as well. Certain impediments or barriers seemed to break down with the setting and context. It sort of gives new definition to the emperor with no clothes.

I’m not going to try to prove here and now that Jordan is wrong. He is. You can deal with cultural issues from the Bible. Everyone draws lines. So does Jordan. He’s just creating some space for his laxity and license. Men who do take positions on cultural issues, the so-called “cultural fundamentalists,” do defend their positions from the Bible. And they’re not lying.

Every year Grace Community Church (GCC, John MacArthur) puts on a youth gathering called the Resolved Conference. I’m not sure where the idea of the “youth conference” came from, but I know before GCC invented theirs, it was popular in revivalist fundamentalism. I don’t know of a “youth conference” that doesn’t play off of the “youth culture.” Resolved, from what I can see, seems to promote itself as a kind of anti-youth-conference youth conference with the use of Jonathan Edwards’ resolutions. It is a nice idea for a youth gathering. I emphasize “idea.” Edwards’ resolutions start with “Resolved,” from which comes the conference name. Of course, resolutions denote the operation of the “will,” something that you will find is big in Edwards’ writings. I’m writing this post to say that “Resolved” lacks in an Edwards-esque resolution. Even when you look at the home page for the conference, it has youth culture written all over, and not really a kind of “innocent” brand of youth culture—roller coasters, skits, tube tug, and mini-golf—but something that fits starkly within the world’s youth culture.

Resolved tries to set itself apart as different with the preaching. They don’t bring in “youth speakers” per se. They bring in what most would consider to be mainstream adult leaders in conservative evangelicalism, not straying much, if at all, from their normal content and presentation style, with the exception of the leisure clothes and open collars. Those alone do say “youth culture,” but they are very minimal bows to the culture of leisure that so characterizes the modern generation (see any of David Wells’ books to read about this as an expression of modernism). So if you listen to the preaching, you will get sermons from GCC’s reformed friends. I emphasize “reformed,” because cessationist doctrine is not one of the resolutions here with the inclusion of Charismatic C. J. Mahaney.

Either GCC and Resolved already are, have been, or have become Mahaney-like, or Mahaney has influenced GCC and Resolved in the bow to a Charismatic style of “worship.” The stage of Resolved with its grungy, post-modern look, rock band with electric guitars and trap set, and showtime lighting does send a giant statement to the attendees about the emphasis of Resolved. The scene is very urban, gritty, loose, edgy, and “authentic”—actually quite contextual, a concept commonly sneered at by GCC but perfectly acceptable to them on their own terms. This is the setting the leadership chooses for depicting the themes of Scripture and for portraying Jonathan Edwards-like resolution. The people in charge are letting this youth crowd know that they “get it,” that they know “what’s happenin’,” that they for sure didn’t fall of the back of the turnip truck. They “get it” and so, by the way, it’s OK for you to be a Christian and ” get it” too. It’s very fine to be right there with all the worldly lingo and fads. And this is the great irony for anyone who reads Jonathan Edwards.

It’s as if the GCC and Resolved people think that by pasting on the Jonathan Edwards label that it automatically becomes Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is who he is. He’s been dead for awhile, so he can’t really offer his say on what he thinks of the association of him with this, but I can tell you for sure, with complete assurance, with airtight confidence, that Edwards would hate Resolved. Hate it. “Resolved, I hate Resolved,” he would most assuredly write. But, of course, what does it matter what Jonathan Edwards thinks, because what really matters is what God knows. I think that was Edwards’ concern too, so I believe that God also hates it. And I’ll give you a hint. He hates the syncretism.

I give as my major exhibit the inclusion of the “worship” of their chosen rock group, Enfield, and then Bob Kauflin, the leader of the Sovereign Grace music group. I include a sample of “the worship” (click on link to get to video of conference “worship”), so you will have a basis for knowing what I’m talking about. I would have embedded the video into this post, but I don’t want someone to be able to watch and listen to that here.

This is where I want us to consider what Jonathan Edwards, the original author of “Resolved,” said about the “religious affections.” Edwards wrote his Treatise on the Religious Affections in order to differentiate false spiritual happenings from true ones during the first great awakening. The greatest differentiation that Edwards pointed out was between the passions, which originated with the flesh, and the affections, which started in the mind. Edwards taught that God wanted our religious affections, certainly our affections should arise above a level of indifference, but not to be confused with passions.

Some of what was being produced by religious folk during the first great awakening was nothing more than passions. These passions, Edwards contends, were not good. The passions is what Resolved attempts to produce. Succeeds, I believe, at that. And, of course, the participants are fooled into thinking that these are legitimate expressions of spirituality. They think that God has been honored, when He has not. Edwards was very serious about this. And I know that what Edwards was concerned about, and pointing out as unorthodox, was not as pernicious as what is done at Resolved and in the name of Edwards.

There’s a lot I could write about what I see in the Kauflin, Resolved, video that I linked to, about the worldliness of the music, the actions, the look, and the participants. Some might think that what they see is a lot of earnestness. What you see as supposedly so authentic, so real, is produced by the fleshly nature of the music. The words, some of which are good, other kitsch and trite, get dragged through the profanity that is the medium. The whole show reeks of it.

You should just go ahead and read Edwards’ Religious Affections, but the following are a few excerpts that apply.

The affections and passions are frequently spoken of as the same; and yet in the more common use of speech, there is in some respect a difference; and affection is a word that in its ordinary signification, seems to be something more extensive than passion, being used for all vigorous lively actings of the will or inclination; but passion for those that are more sudden, and whose effects on the animal spirits are more violent, and the mind more overpowered, and less in its own command.

And,

If it be so, that true religion lies much in the affections, hence we may infer, that such means are to be desired, as have much of a tendency to move the affections. Such books, and such a way of preaching the word, and administration of ordinances, and such a way of worshipping God in prayer, and singing praises, is much to be desired, as has a tendency deeply to affect the hearts of those who attend these means.

Such a kind of means would formerly have been highly approved of, and applauded by the generality of the people of the land, as the most excellent and profitable, and having the greatest tendency to promote the ends of the means of grace. But the prevailing taste seems of late strangely to be altered: that pathetical manner of praying and preaching, which would formerly have been admired and extolled, and that for this reason, because it had such a tendency to move the affections, now, in great multitudes, immediately excites disgust, and moves no other affections, that those of displeasure and contempt.

And,

Indeed there may be such means, as may have a great tendency to stir up the passions of weak and ignorant persons, and yet have no great tendency to benefit their souls: for though they may have a tendency to excite affections, they may have little or none to excite gracious affections, or any affections tending to grace. But undoubtedly, if the things of religion, in the means used, are treated according to their nature, and exhibited truly, so as tends to convey just apprehensions, and a right judgment of them; the more they have a tendency to move the affections the better.

And,

As from true divine love flow all Christian affections, so from a counterfeit love in like manner naturally flow other false affections. In both cases, love is the fountain, and the other affections are the streams. The various faculties, principles, and affections of the human nature, are as it were many channels from one fountain: if there be sweet water in the fountain, sweet water will from thence flow out into those various channels; but if the water in the fountain be poisonous, then poisonous streams will also flow out into all those channels. So that the channels and streams will be alike, corresponding one with another; but the great difference will lie in the nature of the water.

And,

Lest their religion might too grossly discover itself to be nothing else but a piece of art, there may be sometimes such extraordinary motions stirred up within them, which may prevent all their own thoughts, that they may seem to be a true operation of the divine life; when yet all this is nothing else but the energy of their own self-love touched with some fleshly apprehensions of divine things, and excited by them.

And last,

And as the motions of our sense, and fancy, and passions, while our souls are in this mortal condition, sunk down deeply into the body, are many times more vigorous, and make stronger impressions upon us, than those of the higher powers of the soul, which are more subtle, and remote from these mixed animal perceptions: that devotion which is there seated, may seem to have more energy and life in it, than that which gently and with a more delicate kind of touch spreads itself upon the understanding, and from thence mildly derives itself through our wills and affections. But however the former may be more boisterous for a time, yet this is of a more consistent, spermatical and thriving nature. For that proceeding indeed from nothing but a sensual and fleshly apprehension of God and true happiness, is but of a flitting and fading nature, and as the sensible powers and faculties grow more languid, or the sun of divine light shines more brightly upon us, these earthly devotions, like our culinary fires, will abate their heat and fervor. But a true celestial warmth will never be extinguished, because it is of an immortal nature; and being once seated vitally in the souls of men, it will regulate and order all the motions of it in a due manner the natural heat, radicated in the hearts of living creatures, hath the dominion and economy of the whole body under it. True religion is no piece of artifice, it is no boiling up of our imaginative powers, nor the glowing heats of passion, though these are too often mistaken for it, when in our jugglings in religion we cast a mist before our own eyes: but it is a new nature, informing the souls of men; it is a Godlike frame of spirit, discovering itself most of all in serene and clear minds, in deep humility, meekness, self-denial, universal love to God and all true goodness, without partiality, and without hypocrisy, whereby we are taught to know God, and knowing him to love him, and conform ourselves as much as may be to all that perfection which shines in him.

The feelings produced by Kauflin and Enfield bypass the mind and go straight for the flesh, for the feelings, for the passions. The music is sensual, like the wisdom of this world is (James 3:15). The listeners and participants are convinced that this is something spiritual. It isn’t. It is not a religious affection. Some may even feel sincere. What makes the deceit of it difficult to discern is much like that of the Charismatic experiences. People feel something and it seems genuine. However, if it was something in line with God, pure and sacred, not targeting the emotions or the body, true affections for God could be manifested. It is not that emotions are wrong, but that the emotions should be a byproduct of the right intellect and volition. All the squinting and swaying and waving and the throbbing, pulsating beat fool people into thinking that they are having some genuine experience of worship, getting in touch with and pleasing God to some greater extent. That’s all manufactured by the music. It’s deceiving. God isn’t pleased by the passion or the worldliness that it is.

I’m sure that the Resolved and GCC leaders would find it interesting to see what would happen to their conference if they made the platform plain, orderly, and beautiful, and then played and sang hymns with only a piano and strictly by the book. Just the music without all of the passion involved. And then see what kind of response their conference would get from the youth. I’m guessing that every year Resolved would get a little bit smaller, more streamlined. And how could that be a success?

I would be one in opposition to the whole Falwell and Liberty University scene. Recently a lot of folks in the GCC and Resolved circles have savaged Liberty for the whole Ergun Caner fiasco, his lying about his biography for pragmatic purposes. Pragmatic purposes. Like if you associated your conference with Jonathan Edwards and Resolved, but yet you were the furthest thing from what what was important to Edwards. The Caner thing was bad, but which is worse? I’m at least as repulsed by the Edwards corruption.

All of this does a very damaging thing. It damages the discernment of thousands of professing Christians. That’s what the Charismatic movement is very much known for with its confusion on the true nature of spirituality. A discussion about the content of this post would take on the nature of one had with a Charismatic—offended or peeved over criticism of the experience. “I know what I felt and I know it was genuine.” I believe that Resolved also confuses these young people on the true nature of spirituality. This is what Edwards wrote and warned about.

Side Notes: A few asides. In the video, what’s the point of the urban windmills on the back wall? I get the decaying bricks—very hip, very inner city, so authentic, right where people live. The hood. The noble savage. Next, Bob Kauflin sings effeminate (besides not singing very well). What’s with men with this contemporary music singing like women? I think I understand. Men becoming like women is popular in this culture. It’s hip too. “Get in touch with your feminine side.” Do we think that is what male youths need to have in front of them, to be listening to? And you know, by the way, that it’s contrived, because when he shouts out phrases and talks, his voice is much different than his singing voice. He does all the throaty improvisation to sound Hollywood. I could say much more, but I’ll stop there.

A blogroll contributor for SharperIron (SI), a professing fundamentalist web-blog and forum, is promoting hip-hop and rap music (I warn you about the lewdness of this link, blaspheming our blessed Lord). Even though SharperIron does not endorse everything that’s said among their blogroll participants (in this case paleoevangelical, Ben Wright), this promotion of rap and hip-hop has not led to any kind of negative assessment, objection, or sanction from SI for this blatant advocacy for rap or hip-hop. The impression is that rap and hip-hop are not cause for separation within fundamentalism. It seems that the most recent position of many fundamentalists, if not all evangelicals, is that music is amoral. This point has been furthered by the inclusion of this post, whose author is also a part of the Southern Baptist Convention.

This particular hip-hop and rap has “Christian words,” that is, some kind of biblical theme to the lyrics. The idea is that the alliance of the “Christian words” with the profane medium will somehow sanctify the rap or hip-hop. The reality is the opposite. The scurrilous, vulgar medium defiles the words. The collusion of the words and the medium adulterates the content. The combination creates a false worship, something pagan and barbaric, that is unacceptable to God. The medium gives people the wrong message about God, dragging God, the one and true, holy, Almighty God through the filth of this salacious medium. These professing conservative evangelicals take the name of the Lord and reduce it to the degradation of the medium.

These professing “conservative evangelicals,” Mark Dever and Ben Wright, among others, produce this pollution to the name of our loving, majestic, and pristine God. SI remains indifferent to it. I have read no one that has criticized the exhibition and hyping of this abominable work, with the brief exception of Scott Aniol, who commented that he shouldn’t be surprised, even though he was. We are to take, I surmise, that it met his disapproval. For this very light disapproval, Ben Wright found it necessary to take a jab at Aniol in response. Wright implies that this filthiness would further the cause of biblical ecclesiology.

This activity illustrates the woeful lack of discernment in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. It also depicts the recent evaluation of the loss of manhood in America, as seen in the fear of opposing rap and hip-hop as ungodly. These people anticipate the charge of racism that will likely follow (as if music, the notes on a page and instrumentation, have anything to do with skin color). Many are afraid of being ignorantly perceived as intolerant or bigoted.

Side Note: I was talking with my wife about this post. I played her a little of the hip hop/rap. When I did, her face twisted up in dislike and disbelief. I stopped it about 15 seconds in. She said, “Even if I was an unsaved person, I wouldn’t want my children to listen to this. It’s not just wicked. It promotes stupidity.” I agree. It doesn’t just blaspheme God and break down godly living. It sounds mentally retarded. Jesus grew in wisdom. This will diminish that.

I’ve heard some criticism of our church music. At least three different visiting preachers have said something. A visiting family member has said something in the past and a couple of church members through the years. Here’s what I have heard from the preachers. First, visitors don’t know these songs. They’re unfamiliar to visitors. Another preacher asked why we used “orthodox” music, him meaning something like “Eastern Orthodox” or perhaps Anglican. The third said that the songs were hard to sing and that they had a “high church” sound.

Don’t get me wrong. More people have liked our music than not. What’s not to like? No one says the music is “bad.” The criticisms are superficial, really. I think that I ought to listen to criticism. I do. But when I’m criticized, I wait for something substantive, something that refers to scripture.

The essence of the church music issue is simple to me. Here it is. Does God like our music? Why do I ask this question? Because the music is being played and sung to God. God is the only audience of our music. Truly the congregation is a bystander. The assembly overhears the communication to God. The church benefits, but in a secondary kind of way.

I believe there are priorities to church music, regarding this question of whether God likes it or not. Surely we must be able to sing it. It must be singable. If it isn’t singable, then it can’t be sung. But whether it’s easy for us to sing it or not isn’t that important a consideration. I know, by the way, that our songs are singable, because they have been sung much longer than the songs found in almost all more modern hymnbooks. Their singability relates to what people are accustomed to singing today.

When someone says something like “orthodox” or “high church,” I understand it as it relates to his perspective, but I can’t help but think it’s ridiculous. If someone says that visitors won’t know the songs, I don’t even care. I’m really ambivalent about that criticism. Our music is for our church to sing to God. More than ever people not in the church will not understand church music. I’d be happy to know that’s the case. Most of them can’t praise God anyway. They’re going to have become a part of the church and learn how to praise God.

The kind of thinking that results in these types of criticisms is damaging and even destroying church music. What’s at stake is God isn’t being worshiped. I believe God is a lot less receptive of what we like than what we think He is. I say that based on what I see of what God rejects in Scripture. He will not accept from us what doesn’t conform to His nature. So that ought to be what we think is important. Worship is giving God what He wants. It isn’t giving God what we like and expecting Him to accept it anyway. Do you see who is in authority in that situation? We are.

I don’t believe we have some kind of inside knowledge that is not available to other Christians. We haven’t been sucked up into some kind of mystical understanding of God that is unobtainable to others. Just the opposite, we’re looking at this as objectively as possible. We learn who God is. We learn what music says. This is more sure than what people make it today. What music says must conform to or fit with Who God is. And then there is a matter of degree. Some music is much better than other. Some merely passes. Other music nails it. I ask, “Why not nail it?” Why not try to have the music fit exactly with God? And then when it comes to the lyrics, the words, let’s have them be the best words—most scriptural in content and best said. We can know what good poetry is, what good writing is. We should have God hear that. His name is excellent and the praise should be excellent.

Much music considered to be conservative, and, therefore, acceptable to God, is actually kitsch and banal, not fitting with God’s nature. I could use other words to help you get the point: cheesy, commonplace, carnival, or trite. When you go past those horrible descriptions of the quality, you get to saloon and honky-tonk.

We want the best for God. We seek out the fitting tunes or compositions with the best possible words. We examine the psalms as a model for the content. Jesus said that when men come to Him that they start with “deny self.” We’ve got to deny ourselves if we’re going to come to Jesus. Self can’t be a consideration in worship.

The following should not be considerations:

1. What We Like
2. What Is Easy For Us
3. What Makes Me Feel Good
4. What Do Unsaved People Like

I think that what God likes or wants has become the actual enemy in most churches today. We see the influence of man on worship. The music has become our music, not His.

If I’m a chronic liar, I want to change the subject from lying. It’s a minor issue. What’s important is the gospel, justification by faith, bodily resurrection, and the deity of Christ. If you even bring up lying, it’s obvious that you are not interested in the deep doctrines of God. In the way that you bring up lying you are actually devaluing the gospel and, therefore, cheapening it. By cheapening as you are, by talking about lying, you are actually guilty of something far more serious than lying. You’ve distorted the gospel. So there, we’re off the subject of lying now.

The lying isn’t just about lying. It’s about God, about displeasing Him, about not living the gospel, and about abusing God’s grace. It relates to all those, so-called, major doctrines. If someone is into pornography, he might also be into all the major doctrines, reading about them deeply, and regularly talking about them. I’ve seen this. A man could sit and read three deep theological books while his wife is out working to bring home the bacon. He can’t keep a job because that doesn’t interest him so much.

I’m an expository preacher. I preach books, preach through them, all their verses. I preach the vast, heavy doctrines of the Bible when I preach through all the passages of scripture. But I will find myself talking about those areas most in which someone is having trouble, like how he’s treating his wife. Paul does the same kind of thing. For instance, when Paul writes the Thessalonian church, of all the things he would choose to talk about to a church where he left after three weeks? The way they went about acquiring or obtaining a wife or a husband (1 Thess 4:1-9). Meddlesome, huh? Really missing the majors.

The they-just-talk-about pants and versions and bad music is nothing more than a dodge. It would be like Nadab and Abihu criticizing someone for bringing up the subject of the recipe for the altar of incense. They both died for messing with the ingredients. On this blog, I write most about those areas that people are not hearing about in evangelicalism and from which fundamentalism has mostly departed or is at least slipping. That means, of course, that I don’t think about salvation, God, my sermons I prepare for my church, or heaven. At least that’s got to be what it means when I bring those subjects up all the time. I think of nothing else; that’s just got to be what it is.

And pants are not really about pants. They are about God’s design and the roles of men and women, keeping the distinctions. And that’s about God. That’s theology. And the version issue is not really the version issue. It’s about the inerrancy and authority of the Bible. And that relates to all the other doctrines, including the so-called deep and important ones. I heard someone on an evangelical radio program recently mock men preaching against music with a “beat in it.” That’s, by the way, typical of the reforming fundamentalists or the young fundamentalists. It’s also a lie. Nobody preaches against music having a beat. That’s ridiculous. But again, the music issue is about worship of God, and what is more important than whether God will be worshiped? Someone can make these types of issues sound like they’re not important, but that doesn’t mean they’re not.

What’s really important for you is that area where you are disobedient or that doctrine where you don’t believe right. What’s important to you is the teaching of scripture from which you have strayed. If someone deals with that issue, it’s no wonder that you would want them to change the subject. And there is no wonder that you don’t think it’s an important doctrine. The nature of preaching, and you see this in the epistles, is to deal more with where people are off, then only repeating what they already know and where they are on.

It’s pretty easy to see why it is that certain issues today are controversial and disliked—the pants issue, the version issue, the dress issue, the movie issue, and the music issue. Those are places where Christians have clashed with the world. Now churches have just taken the characteristics of the world and those professing Christians don’t want to hear about it. So they use the “they-just-talk-about” dodge. They dodge having to hear about it with their “aren’t there more important doctrines?” argument. It’s a red herring, a smokescreen. It doesn’t fool God. God still sees it and knows it.

What I’m saying is please let go of this excuse. That’s all it is. And it doesn’t work. We’re either doing what God says or we’re not. We’re believing what He said or we’re not. And if we’re not, we need to hear about it.