John MacArthur has written several volumes exposing and refuting unscriptural church growth methodologies (Ashamed of the Gospel, Hard to Believe, Truth War, Our Sufficiency in Christ, etc.). Much of what he has written is excellent. In the last twenty years, when an unbiblical trend or fad has become popular, MacArthur has dealt with it by writing a book. Despite his professed opposition to the false doctrines and practices propagated by destructive methods, however, MacArthur sends confusing messages with the double standard set by his own church and his own lack of separation from those violating God’s Word.

I thought MacArthur’s Charismatic Chaos sent a heat-seeking missile into the Charismatic movement. MacArthur himself, though, does not separate from well-known Charismatic, C. J. Mahaney. He has had Mahaney preach at his own church a few times and also speaks with Mahaney in many places all over the country, cooperating with him in ministry and worship. The Bible doesn’t teach anywhere to write a book about false doctrine and practice, but God’s Word does tell us to separate from it. You might not sell as many books if you practice separation. This is the kind of self-denial that Jesus called for in His presentation of the gospel.

Over at Hip and Thigh, Fred Butler, a member of MacArthur’s church and staff member at Grace to You, MacArthur’s radio program, has written about some men who have attempted to point out apparent inconsistencies in the practices of Grace Community Church. I don’t know these men and I couldn’t say whether what they write about MacArthur is true or not. I don’t give them any endorsement. However, Butler’s blog post made me curious. These men are claiming that Grace Community is involved in Purpose Driven Church Growth ministry philosophy of Rick Warren. In summing up this methodology, Butler writes:

I can clearly see what a purpose driven ministry looks like: The watered down preaching, trendy music replacing good worship music, the emphasis on getting people to feel comfortable rather than on sound doctrinal teaching, marginalizing older saints as not having an important role to play in the life of the church, attempting to be relevant toward current cultural issues.

I want to focus on the second, third, and last of the characteristics expounded by Butler: trendy music replacing good worship music, the emphasis on getting people to feel comfortable rather than on sound doctrinal teaching, and attempting to be relevant toward current cultural issues.

The men who Butler referenced have criticized a part of Grace Community Church called “The Guild,” a singles group operating within MacArthur’s church. It has its own website and it is right now promoting a Christmas Concert with a group called “The Narrow Gate” with the Christian/country/pop singer, Christian Ebner. Butler defends his church by arguing that these groups by definition have a different tone than the whole church. In the advertising for this concert as a part of the marketing of the church that “The Guild” uses, they have invited the “mainstream” church to be with them for this Christmas concert.

Where in Scripture do we see the church segmented like this? Where does God’s Word say that one part of the church will have a different emphasis than others or will accomplish what it does in a different way than the rest of the church? Where in the Bible does this philosophy come from? And what is tone?

Christian Ebner is trendy and anything but narrow—very much the broad road in sound and style. You can hear some of their selections at their myspace site. The music is fashioned after worldly lust. You can also see that “The Guild” is relevant in current cultural issues. And this music gets people to feel comfortable, especially unsaved people. The whole rock concert philosophy is part of the modern day church growth movement. In Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren says that choice of music is the most important trait for church growth. He advocates finding what people want to hear and giving it to them. This philosophy contradicts what the Bible teaches about worship, which is that we give God what He wants. Getting what we want and offering it to God runs mutually exclusive to scriptural worship and confuses people about this most important activity for men. This is also the direction that Grace Community takes, especially in “The Guild.” Peter Masters in his own criticism of Grace Community Church describes it this way:

Worldly culture provides the bodily, emotional feelings, into which Christian thoughts are infused and floated. Biblical sentiments are harnessed to carnal entertainment.

If it isn’t “The Guild,” then it is the youth department, holding its yearly Resolved conference, which Peter Masters again explains:

Resolved is the brainchild of a member of Dr John MacArthur’s pastoral staff, gathering thousands of young people annually, and featuring the usual mix of Calvinism and extreme charismatic-style worship. Young people are encouraged to feel the very same sensational nervous impact of loud rhythmic music on the body that they would experience in a large, worldly pop concert, complete with replicated lighting and atmosphere. At the same time they reflect on predestination and election. . . . (Pictures of this conference on their website betray the totally worldly, showbusiness atmosphere created by the organisers.)

In times of disobedience the Jews of old syncretised by going to the Temple or the synagogue on the sabbath, and to idol temples on weekdays, but the new Calvinism has found a way of uniting spiritually incompatible things at the same time, in the same meeting.

God designed nothing but the same Christianity for singles as He did for everyone else in the church. This idea of customizing the church program to the unique fleshly desires of a particular age group fits the Purpose Driven profile. Grace Community Church caters to youthful lusts, exalting the wisdom of men. If church members happened to desire carnal amusement on their own, it would be one thing, but to offer it to lure them to the church property to satiate themselves is another. The flesh surely can be trusted to lust for its own delights on its own without the help of the church, couldn’t it?

Is there somewhere in Scripture that says that a church should organize people’s entertainment? What does mixing worldly amusement with worship do to the discernment of professing saints? It all gives the wrong view of God no matter how many passages a church exegetes. You can teach the Holy Bible, but what about holy conduct and offering up holy worship to God?

John MacArthur writes a book, Ashamed of the Gospel, and his church shows shame for biblical methods that depend on God for growth. He writes Hard to Believe, but his church wants to make it easier for the singles and youth to believe by giving them the fleshly lusts of the world. He authors Our Sufficiency in Christ, but his church puts confidence in the worldly methods to draw in new people.

Why write books that admonish everyone else about it when you are going to do it yourself? Why? People like it and it works. It doesn’t glorify the Lord, but people get what they want. Why follow anything John MacArthur has written if it isn’t good enough for him? It’s a blatant double standard.

I can already hear the defenses. I’ve read them over at Pyromaniacs among other Grace Community and MacArthur apologists. The defenses are very similar to those offered in revivalist fundamentalism. The one criticizing us “has a small group of supporters.” “He’s a hyper fundamentalist.” He’s one of those “King James Only types.” In other words, no substantial defense, just name-calling and blatant arrogance. There ought to be soul searching, but there is circle-the-wagons, close ranks, and often say whatever is necessary to deflect from what this is really about. These groups and their methods disobey Biblical methods, corrupt Scriptural worship, and diminish the true means of change in people’s lives. They are a worldly attraction that sends the wrong message about the purpose of the church.

Know what? God is our Judge. What I’ve written is lightweight compared to what the Lord already knows. When there is no Scriptural defense, there should be confession and repentance. May God then have mercy on their souls.

Ancient Greece rose out of the earliest cultures of Europe around the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea. Long before Homer, ancestor worship made family ties very strong and after that the families came together to form tribes and then villages. Villages joined to form the polis, city, from which our word “politics” comes. The government of these Greek city states was called ekklesia, assembly, the town meeting. The first known assembly was held as early as the reign of Draco in 621 B.C. At each meeting of the assembly certain topics were discussed and voted on. The assembly would also gather in cases of emergency and in cases of trials of law in which the assembly became a jury. Votes were taken by a tally of hands raised. After being tallied the majority decision ruled and carried.

Throughout the Greek world right down to New Testament times (see Acts 19:39), ekklesia was the designation of the whole body of citizens in a free city-state, “called out of” (ek–out of, klesia–called) their homes by the kerux, the herald, for the discussion and decision of public business. Translators of the Hebrew Old Testament used ekklesia to render the Hebrew qahal, which means “congregation.” We see Stephen in Acts 7:38 call the Old Testament congregation of Israel the “ekklesia in the wilderness.”

Jesus thought the same about ekklesia. Ekklesia occurs only twice in the gospels. It is clear from the second usage in Matthew 18:15-20 that Jesus had in mind an almost identical meaning to the historic usage of the word. He used ekklesia like the people hearing him in that day would have understood the word. It was a congregation possessing powers of self-government in which questions of discipline were to be decided by the collective judgment of members.

The only other times after Matthew 18 that we see Jesus speak of the ekklesia are the nineteen occasions in Revelation 1-3 in which in each case is a distinctly local, functioning, and organized assembly of people. Those attempting to discern a definition of ekklesia based on His usage of the word would see it as something like the governments of the ancient Greek city states. The major differentiating factor was that these assemblies to which He referred were His assemblies, now sacred not secular. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus said that that He would build “my assembly” differentiating it from the then congregation of Israel and the secular Greek town meeting.

If I said that Greek cities operated with the government of the city-state, no one would assume that there was only one. They would assume that each city had its own town meeting. When Jesus said He would build up (oikodomeo, “edify”) His ekklesia, we should not assume that He meant that there was or would be only one in number either. His ekklesia would be how the Lord Jesus Christ would operate on earth until He left and after He was gone.

Hebrews 2:12 accounts for the ekklesia of Jesus functioning while He was still on earth and not yet ascended into heaven, when it says: “Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.” Jesus sang in the ekklesia. He could not have done that if His ekklesia had not yet started. He was not standing in the midst of every believer on earth.

When the Lord Jesus incorporated the term ekklesia, He took a word with distinctly local and visible connotation. He sanctified it for His own use, but He did not give it a whole different meaning. The word excludes anything broader than a meeting or gathering. The concept of universal or global contradicts the meaning of the word. If Jesus wanted His governing institution on earth to have some larger context than local, he could have used “kingdom” or “family” or “nation” or “empire” or “state.” But He didn’t. He used ekklesia.

In both 1 Corinthians 1:2 and 2 Corinthians 1:1, Paul writes: “unto the church of God which is at Corinth.” To make the ekklesia something more than local only deviates from the meaning of the word. An ekklesia must be at some local context—city, town, village, area. All believers did not reside in the city of Corinth. Paul wrote to the church at Colossae and he told that church to pass that letter along to the church of the Laodiceans, seeing that those were two separate churches (Colossians 4:16). Paul wrote to the church of the Thessalonians (1 & 2 Thessalonians 1:1). He said that the bishop, the pastor, is to “take care of the church of God” (1 Timothy 3:5). One man isn’t responsible to take care of all believers on earth. At the end of 2 Timothy, the afterwords say that Timothy, to whom 1 Timothy 3:5 was written, was “ordained the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians.”

A church is local only because that is what ekklesia, the word translated “church,” means. I’m not trotting out landmarkism or Baptist bride-ism. Those who make ekklesia anything other than local only are reading something into the word that isn’t there. It never has been.

My last post, an evaluation of Stephen Davis’ article on church planters at SharperIron, triggered my thinking on a major theme in his piece, that is, the place of culture in the evangelism of the lost. Here’s the way Davis’ pictured it:

You might be surprised at how many people think that new churches should dance to the same tune as churches which have existed for decades with their well-established traditions. The traditions are not necessarily wrong but may be unnecessary barriers in planting an urban church among those unacquainted with those traditions.

Davis earlier listed the traditions that he describes as “barriers”:

Suits and ties are still de rigueur, morning and evening Sunday services with Wednesday night prayer meeting is the established pattern, the doctrinal statements exhibit great precision, and music is traditional.

Davis sees these as impediments to evangelism in the inner city. As I look at his list, I don’t see any significant cultural issue with the time churches choose to gather on Sunday and midweek or especially a doctrinal statement. It seems that the music and dress are the two major contentions Davis thinks endanger evangelistic success. Both of these occur at a church meeting, the assembling of saints for worship. I’m stumped as to how they impede evangelism. I understand how that they might turn off someone who wants to dress casual and prefers faster or more heavily syncopated rhythms or sensually styled composition to their music, but I can’t see how that a suit and a tie and traditional music hold someone back from getting saved.

These thoughts expressed by Davis in his essay expose a faulty soteriology. They are a common way of thinking in modern evangelicalism or perhaps fundamentalism, if Davis would claim to be fundamentalist. SharperIron proposes to be fundamentalist. Nowhere does scripture show accommodation to the world’s way of living to help the gospel itself or someone’s comprehension of the gospel.

Certain behaviors can impede the gospel, but they are unscriptural ones. Anything that fits within the perimeters of the Bible can’t hinder the gospel. What Davis is communicating is that conservative dress and music hinder evangelism. Is that true? What is it about suits and ties and sober, prudent, and discreet music that keep people from being saved? Of course, there is nothing about them that would stymie someone’s salvation.

An unsaved person thinks a certain way. He loves himself and pleasure. He likes his own way. Therefore, he would like for his god to be all about himself, his pleasure, and his own way. He fears death. He’d like to have some peace about his thereafter, but he doesn’t want to give up the pleasure or his way to see that accomplished. Casual dress and modernistic music styles in his urban church plant send a signal to him that he can take care of that fear thing, while at the same time keeping his pleasure and own way. He likes that his religion can revolve around himself and his needs or wants. The casual dress and pop music fit right into his preconceptions. The Stephen Davis’ urban church plant feeds those preconceptions. This is the Davis’ idea of helping along the evangelism of the urban lost person.

Meeting the lusts of the lost does not aid evangelism. It wasn’t the strategy that Jesus used. When an unsaved person came to Jesus to inquire of salvation, Jesus didn’t feed his preconceptions. He challenged them. The unconverted need to know that salvation isn’t going to be about them, but about God. God is seeking for true worshipers, not taking applications for an eternal timeshare. When the rich young ruler came to the Lord asking how he might obtain eternal life, Jesus didn’t make it about something that he could get (Matthew 19:16-26). When a certain scribe told Jesus that he wanted to follow Him, Jesus told him that the “Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

Davis offers an evangelistic methodology that will make sense to a lost person. What we see with Jesus doesn’t seem effective as a church growth strategy. He didn’t care about the demographic. He went everywhere with the same message of repentance and faith. Paul eschewed man-made techniques for evangelism. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5:

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

There is one Christianity, one worship, one Jesus, one gospel, and one faith and we are to preach it. Just because the world doesn’t get it, doesn’t mean that we tweak it to fit the world’s preconceptions. We don’t depend on the wisdom of men. We preach the gospel. Later in v. 10 Paul says that He reveals His saving truth by His Spirit. The techniques that Davis propagates are the wisdom of men.

The Jews required a sign, the Greeks wisdom, and the inner city person requires something else, according to Davis. All of these things stand in the wisdom of men. But God hasn’t chosen to save people through man’s wisdom. Instead, God has chosen the things which people despise to bring men to salvation, “that no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Corinthians 1:29).

I would agree that we don’t unnecessarily offend and especially someone’s conscience. Paul’s idea of becoming all things to all men (1 Corinthians 9:22) was a sacrifice on his part. For instance, he wouldn’t eat certain food that he himself might like so as not to be a bad testimony to a Jew or a Gentile. All of this sacrifice by Paul, not self-gratification, was intended to “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things” (Titus 2:10). The grace of God that brings salvation teaches to deny “worldly lusts” (Titus 2:12). Accommodation to worldly lust tends toward the unsaved not being saved. We should trust God’s Word on this.

Accommodation to culture, that is, worldly lust, doesn’t help evangelism. It does not harmonize with the gospel. It sends the wrong message to an urban community. It sends a new church down the wrong path. Instead, simplify the methodology. Dress in a representative way of the message of the gospel and then go out and preach it to everyone. Don’t worry about whether they like your shirt and tie or the kind of music that you believe honors God. Be concerned as to whether you are preaching the gospel boldly, completely, and accurately. Depend on God. Pray. Live for the Lord. Don’t give up. Keep evangelizing for His glory. Teach new converts all things that Jesus commanded. Preach the Word. Confront sinning Christians in meekness to restore them to God-honoring living. Support the weak. Strengthen the feebleminded. Warn the unruly. Be patient with all men.

Forget the aspects of location, launch team, and demographics. Know Scripture well. Obey it.

My wife happened to be sitting next to me when I was reading this article on church planting over at SharperIron. Yes, I look at their main post to see what they’re talking about and I get sucked in. The moral of the story might be to stop looking there any more. I know that. My wife, I think, was giving me more than a big hint when she said, “Looking at that stuff would make me so mad that I wouldn’t want to see it.” Hmmmm. Very valid.

The article, entitled Planting Urban Churches, was written by Stephen Davis, someone who has taken a liking to influencing the young and restless fundamentalists and fundamentalist frauds at SharperIron. He is at a theologically correct location, Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary, and he has the credibility to make the connection—culturally, the deco black shirt and goatee beard, and educationally, the D. Min. in “Missiology” from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. Davis doesn’t have to build a blog audience, just plunk in the driver’s seat of the bus that is SharperIron and take everyone for a spin.

Davis’ article makes me feel sick to my stomach, renewing my wife’s suggestion to let these things go. But I want to tell you what’s so wrong about it, make it a teaching moment. Forget the title of his article. He’s not about churches. He’s about some kind of group or club or institution, but not a church. You’ll note the lack of scripture in his article. When you hear “Missiology” from Trinity you might not want to think the Bible.

A group across the street from us has exploded in numbers with their rock concert platform, uber-casual apparel, and carnal entertainment. Their leader comes from Trinity. People gather to hear a month long series on U2 lyrics or an “outreach” centered on the Hollywood film, Evan Almighty. The Trinity graduate will admit that most of the people who come are unconverted. There’s your Missiology. Something’s definitely Missing; it’s God’s Word. It’s fun though.

When I read Davis and watch the other Trinity grad, I think they could be twins. They both have the “I’m authentic” get-up required by the zeitgeist. They talk the same about the church. If the world is the NFL, they’re both wearing the replica jersey, at the same time insisting that they’re not in the game.

What Davis Describes

Nothing called church planting, urban or rural, should look like what Davis describes. He shouldn’t be listened to as an expert. It’s up to you, but you’ve been warned. I’m convinced that there shouldn’t be able to be an entire doctorate that could be gotten in something called Missiology. I recommend to anyone—just study the Bible—imitate what you read there.

And what is it you read there? You start by going out evangelizing. And guess what? The gospel is the same for rural, urban, kids, adults, elderly, grunge, biker dudes, and university professors. Remember that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16)? Remember that it is spiritual weaponry that pulls down strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)? Remember that the Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17)?

But that’s not why the urban church doesn’t grow, according to Davis. We’ve got to assume from what he writes that “meaningful relationships” are required with people “outside the church” in order to evangelize them. And why don’t we have those relationships? He says because of “personal separation issues” and “traditional taboos.” This is Trinity speak you’re hearing. You get it from your Missiology D. Min. It means “you gotta be likem to winnem.” For armchair theologians, it is Pelagian influence. And it is definitely you winnin’ ’em with your missiological technique. In the end, you get the glory too (see 1 Corinthians 1-2 on this)!

What you really have to do is to get to everybody with the gospel. That’s what Jesus said (Mark 16:15). When you do that, the lost will hate it. They walk in darkness and hate the light. Because love is supernatural, you can keep loving your enemies and Jesus says that they’ll like that—being loved. It’s not going to depend on what beans you choose for your cappuccino. Davis is saying that they’ll like the light if you offer it to them in a fancy container, maybe with a label in graffiti font. The young church planter, Davis says, has a dilemma. If he is to succeed he’s going to have to make a choice to burn some bridges with the mother church. The pews, the traditional hymns, and the reverent appearance all spell church planting disaster for the Davis system.

What’s ironic is that these things of which Davis speaks are just window dressing. They don’t matter. But they are really everything to the church planter. He’s doing the planting. You can see that plainly when Davis writes:

When people ask me how to plant a church, what steps need to be taken, I try to explain that church planting is more of an art than a science.

An art? What? The kind of brush strokes you make is what will will have the greatest impact, he says. This is the difference between success and failure in the urban community. He’s reading right from the Rick Warren playbook on this. Ignore him. Listen to him at your own peril.

This seems to be the paradigm that Davis learned in his Missiology work at Trinity:

Church planting involves numerous details such as strategy, demographic studies, fund raising, location, and gathering a leadership and launch team.

Wow. That’s foolishness. The world won’t think it is, but it is foolishness. Run away from his thoughts as quickly as you can.

Love the Lord Jesus. Go and evangelize. Learn your Bible. Preach it. Love people. Worship the Lord in Spirit and in Truth. That is the simplicity of all of it. How big will you get? I don’t know, but what does it matter? God will be glorified. It’s not going to make one bit of difference whether you have pews or padded seats. If the key is the big screen and powerpoint, then you are doing something very wrong. Know this. If you think the difference maker is the microphone head attachment, then you’ve got deep problems in your scriptural understanding.

Scripture doesn’t present church planting. It presents evangelism that might end in a church being organized if people are saved. You don’t need any of the things that Davis says you need. My first recommendation would be: don’t take Missiology like Davis did. Know your Bible. Know the gospel. Preach it. It’s powerful.

In his last paragraph, Davis crescendos:

Neither should church planters be expected to adhere to extra-biblical, albeit longstanding traditions (sic) which would be impositions on a new church and deform its identity. There should be mutual respect and humility between church planters and their sending churches.

This is a bunch of socio-economic psychobabble with all of the catchphrases included. Deform its identity? Come on!

New converts don’t need to be dressed up in a suit and tie, but the pastor wearing these will have zero impact on the newly saved. He has become a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:1-4). He won’t go out from you, because now He is of you (1 John 2:19). Be glad that you have a different culture than the world—your music is different and your dress is different. Don’t be ashamed of that, any of it.

The Reaction

So what’s the reaction of the SharperIronites? I’m thankful to say that the new owner wasn’t so convinced, even though he did publish the trash. Another comment reads of the typical new postmodern flavor.

Great article. The dynamic here between the more “traditionalist” approach and the less “traditionalist” is not just seen in new churches that are “inter-city.” Great work…..looking forward to seeing more on this. I like the idea that both sides must be careful. Both sides must show charity. Both sides must be what they believe God wants them to be.

Of course, this assumes that the old way was only tradition. It always was tradition. Does anyone see the disrespect here? The way churches operated were just tradition. The new way, the outside-the-box modernistic methods, what’s that? So they show charity and both agree that both sides are right? There is a mammoth chasm between them culturally, but those differences are meaningless—that would be the point. Really? Is that true? Of course not.

One of the young fundamentalists writes this:

More “close to home” is a friend of mine who wanted to rent out a theater for showings of “The Passion of the Christ” in his very secular culture–and found himself afoul of the “theaters are evil” conviction of his constituency.

“The Passion of the Christ” as an evangelistic tool, harmonizing with Stephen Davis. Renting out the theater. All of this about reaching a very secular culture. We’ve got secular, very secular, soft serve, and chocolate fudge. Where do we get this type of thinking? Missiology. Did Jesus do anything like this? Paul? Not all all. It’s not just foolish. It’s faithless. It’s a way that can’t just trust what God said to do. The scriptural way isn’t sufficient.

There should be outrage over this faithless foolishness.

Here’s a poem written in 1847, “Look Not Upon the Wine When It Is Red” by N. P. Willis.

Look not upon the wine when it
Is red within the cup ;
Stay not for pleasure when she fills
Her tempting beaker up ;
Though clear its depths, and rich its glow,
A spell of madness lurks below.
They say ’tis pleasant on the lip,
And merry on the brain ;
They say it stirs the sluggish blood,
And dulls the tooth of pain :
Ay, but within its gloomy deeps
A stinging serpent unseen sleeps.
Its rosy lights will turn to fire,
Its coolness change to thirst;
And by its mirth within the brim
A sleepless worm is nursed.
There ‘s not a bubble at the brim
That does not carry food to him.

Someone needs to put those words to music.

You may have heard that some are now saying we’ve got new evidence and new scholarship that overturns what has been called the “two-wine position” (what I know as “the view the Bible teaches”). And we’ve got to be honest with the scriptural data and allow it to lead us to the right conclusion. I agree with that second statement. Let scripture show us what the correct position is. What I don’t understand is how that the Bible would start saying something different than it has. God’s Word hasn’t suddenly begun teaching something that it didn’t teach before. Certain passages couldn’t have changed in their meaning.

Psalm 104:15

I also get this vibe. The growing number of “one wine” guys talk like the prohibitionist position is the digging-in-the-heels view, that refuses to look at the evidence. Where did this come from? I don’t know. Nothing has come along that I’ve read that seems like ignored scholarship. What I’ve seen is, “Wine makes the heart glad in Psalm 104:15. See, that’s alcohol. Gotta be. Why? Everybody knows that non-alcoholic grape juice could not make anyone glad.” Anything coming close to scholarship would be looking at the Hebrew word for “make glad” to see if it is talking about the kind of affects that alcohol would cause, you know, the buzz. This Hebrew form is found 30 times. Consider Psalm 48:11:

Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.

OK. The judgments of the Lord give the daughters of Judah a buzz. What do you think? In the same chapter Psalm 104, in v. 31, we read:

The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.

The same Hebrew verb here is translated “shall rejoice.” We know that Jehovah is not feeling tipsy over his works. And yet here’s the argument. “Alcohol” makes the heart glad. God gave alcohol. Therefore God wants us to drink alcohol. There’s something missing here, isn’t there? You can’t assume that yayin is alcohol. So you can’t argue that yayin is alcohol just because a heart gets glad because of it.

This brainy argument is nothing better than an assumption that the English word “wine” must be referring to an alcoholic beverage. You can’t get that from reading Psalm 104:14-15. You get it by reading into the text.

Deuteronomy 14:26

Another gem of “alcoholic scholarship” centers on a rather remote reference to “strong drink” in Deuteronomy 14:26. This clinches this issue for many drinkers. Here’s the verse:

And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household,

To understand what’s going on in Deuteronomy 14:26, consider what’s happening in the context beginning in v. 22. The Israelites were to tithe, that is, give a tenth of their agricultural production every year. Certain Israelites lived so far away that it wasn’t practical for them to transport their tithes of agriculture all the way to Jerusalem to offer to God. Because of this, God permitted them to exchange it into silver where they lived and then turn it back into agriculture when they arrived by purchasing the equivalent for a feast at the tabernacle location. This Israelite could use the money, which he would otherwise give as a tithe, for the support of the Levitical priesthoood and for such Levites as might happen to live in his neighborhood (v. 27) and for strangers, fatherless persons, and widows.

Here’s their argument. All strong drink (shekar) is alcohol. God wants a portion of their alcohol given in the form of this feast. Therefore, alcohol is acceptable to God. Go ahead and drink alcohol, God is saying, in other words. And they would say that is taken from this passage. It doesn’t look like such a crucial verse, but it is to them.

Of course, to start, this clashes with what Proverbs 23:29-35 says about alcohol. This is where the “alcoholic scholarship” comes in. It would say that Proverbs 23 must be something other than a prohibition of alcohol. So Deuteronomy 14:26 would guide what we see in Proverbs 23:29-35. And so everything here rests on the meaning of “strong drink” (shekar).

So does God really want the drinking of alcohol based on Deuteronomy 14:26? Definitely not. If God was encouraging it, that would contradict the plain Proverbs 23 passage. If they really were to buy alcohol for a feast with the money from ten percent of their agricultural product, what would that feast be like? If shekar, strong drink here, is alcoholic, and it is saying that with the tithe of a wealthy man’s income he could purchase a great amount of intoxicants, this text would encourage not just moderate drinking but drunkenness that even moderationists forbid.

If shekar and yayin were both alcoholic drinks, you would have two words for alcohol in Deuteronomy 14:26 listed side by side, forcing the verse into an impossible redundancy—“or alcohol or alcohol”—only alcoholic drinks. God would be advocating an open bar for the festivity, and yet, of course, encouraging temperance. I don’t think so.

The big grin on the face of the drinkers is because they believe that “strong drink,” shekar, is always intoxicating, that’s the whole point of the word. They usually point to lexiconal usage. The argument goes like this. Shakar is the verb, meaning drunken. Therefore, the noun form, shekar, is always speaking of intoxicating drink. That idea, which is only an unsubstantiated concept, had been debunked many times over. Others have written wonderful treatments on this, from Robert Teachout to Stephen M. Reynolds to Samuele Bacchiocchi. This article in Bibliotheca Sacra (1880) also says “no.”

Samuele Bacchiocchi takes almost all the evidence which has been written that proves that “strong drink” is not always alcoholic in scripture and cobbles it together in his book Wine in the Bible from pages 193 to 201 (you can read it all here). He ends with this conclusion on p. 201:

The preceding considerations have suggested five major reasons why the phrase “wine and strong drink” in Deuteronomy 14:26 refers to an unfermented beverage. First, the larger context of the passage, which calls the people to be “holy to the Lord” by abstaining from anything unclean (Deut 14:3-21), precludes the free consumption of intoxicating beverages at a solemn harvest festival “before the Lord” (vv. 23, 26).

Second, the immediate context (v. 23) specifies that the tithe was to be paid with fresh harvest products (grain, grape juice [tirosh], oil and newborn lambs and calves by those living close to the sanctuary. When consumed, the grain would be known as bread and grape juice (tirosh) as unfermented wine (yayin). It is absurd to imagine that while the worshipers who lived in proximity to the sanctuary celebrated the harvest festival by eating fresh produce, those who had come from distant places would be drinking fermented beverages.

Third, the participation of the priestly Levites in the harvest festival (v. 27) would preclude the consumption of alcoholic beverages (Lev 10:9-10).

Fourth, the word shekar, like yayin, is a generic term which could denote either a fermented or an unfermented beverage. For the text in question the context presupposes the latter.

Fifth, the derivation of shekar as well as its usage in Isaiah 24:9 and in cognate words of Semitic and Indo-European languages, indicate that the word originally denoted a sweet beverage, which could become bitter when allowed to ferment.

All of this, of course, harmonizes Deuteronomy 24:26 with Proverbs 23:31. The Bible is going to harmonize. God won’t deny Himself.

More to come in this series.

Deuteronomy 22:5 isn’t hard to understand.

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

Even if someone were to rely on modern translations (which are made from the same Hebrew text in this instance), he would come to the same conclusion about what it says:

NASV A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.

NIV A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.

We see nothing in the verse about Canaanite worship or women in the military or transvestism. It is about as straightforward as it can get.

Even further, and this is important, the verse doesn’t say, “women, don’t look like men,” “men, don’t look like women,” or “you’ve got to be able to tell the difference between men and women.” Those are only means by which someone can ignore the verse. It also doesn’t say, “This issue is a joke!” Which is the most common argument that I hear. Or another version of the same argument, “This is so stupid!” Given by outstanding Bible scholars.

In almost every case, I’ve found in a debate or discussion over Deuteronomy 22:5 that those who do not want to obey it will start with arguing about what it means. Once they find out that they can’t get any traction there, then they argue about the application. When someone has been unbiased and without predisposition in studying a passage, he won’t discuss or debate this way. He starts from scratch with the desire to understand the meaning and the application, not explain it away.

I’ve dealt with the interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:5. Now I will show you that women in dresses and skirts and men in pants is how that it has been practiced. I’m just the messenger. I think men and women are equal. They have differing roles. The differing roles are seen in their distinct design. Men and women are different. God wants those differences reflected in designed distinctions in their clothing. Western civilization and particularly the United States practiced these designed distinctions. They still have never been replaced with other designed distinctions. This is reflected in the comment of experts in the history of fashion.

Kidwell, Claudia Bush Kidwell and Valerie Steele write in Men and Women: Dressing the Part (pp. 2-14):

In analyzing gender identities, we use the term gender conventions to refer to the social and cultural expectations of behavior, clothing, and images that have divided men and women into separate spheres. . . . [T]he existence of these behavioral standards has always been an integral part of our social structure. . . . When we examine how clothes define an individual, we must also set the man or woman within the context of their (sic) place and time. . . . The full impact of these gender conventions on fashion is only revealed when the two sexes in fashion history are examined side by side. It then becomes obvious that historically clothing has served to separate men and women. . . . Consider the image of a woman dressed in pants. It is a clothing symbol laden with gender meaning. . . . The most obvious division in clothing today is between trousers and skirts. . . . In Europe, over the centuries, flowing robes became associated with femininity and tailored trousers with masculinity. . . . Women in Europe did not wear trousers because the garment had acquired such strong masculine connotations.

Allison Lurie in The Language of Clothes (p. 224) writes:

Real trousers took much longer to become standard female wear. It was not until the 1920s that women and girls began to wear slacks and even shorts for sports and lounging. The new style was greeted with disapproval and ridicule. Women were told that they looked very ugly in trousers, and that wanting to wear The Pants in our culture, for centuries, the symbolic badge of male authority, was unnatural and sexually unattractive. . . . This freedom, however was limited to the private and informal side of life. Wearing slacks to the office or to the party was out of the question, and any female who appeared on a formal occasion in a trouser suit was assumed to be a bohemian eccentric and probably a lesbian. . . . At Frick Collection library in New York (in the 1960s) women [were] not admitted unless they [were] wearing skirts; a particularly ancient and unattractive skirt [was] kept at the desk for the use of readers ignorant of this rule.

Ann Hollander in Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress (p. 53) writes:

Trousers for respectable women were publicly unacceptable except for fancy dress and on the stage, and they were not generally worn even invisibly as underwear until well on in the nineteenth century. At that period the common adoption of underpants by women seems to represent the first expression of the collective secret desire to wear pants, only acceptably brought out on the surface with the bicycling costumes of the 1890’s, and only finally confirmed in the twentieth century with the gradual adoption of pants as normal public garments for women. . . . Pants were still a forbidden borrowing from the male, so unseemly that they could only be generally hidden until their time finally came.

The movement away from gender distinct dress has been termed the “unisex movement.” This movement was a purposeful erasing or blending of the delineating lines between male and female appearance. An article in the 1970 Compton Encyclopedia Yearbook states, “Paris couturer Jacques Esterel states that identification of the sexes in terms of clothes will become a thing of the past. He designed an identical tunic and pants outfit for father, mother, and child . . . unisex clothes.” In Life magazine, January 9, 1970, Rudi Gernreich writes, “When proposing his vision of the future of fashion in 1970, he predicted that the traditional apparel symbols of masculinity and femininity would become obsolete, . . . women will wear pants and men will wear skirts interchangeably. The pant-skirt controversy is a male-female role controversy.” Kidwell and Steele write (p. 144):

Controversial fashion changes such as women adopting trousers can only take place after women’s roles in society have altered. The mass acceptance of a style may accompany a change in public opinion, but does not precede it. Dress reformers were correct in seeing the connection between women’s roles and their clothing, but erred in believing that by changing the costume, changes in gender conventions would automatically follow.

Our country practiced the pants as male dress and the dress or skirt as the female dress. Those were the designed distinctions. None other served as the distinction between the genders. They were erased by the culture because the culture didn’t care to keep those distinctions any longer, despite what God had said. They were replaced by nothing.

For more information on this topic, read the study here.

Writing on Deuteronomy 22:5 isn’t my favorite activity. However, it is one of the those truths under attack in our culture. It becomes a practical squeaky wheel. Therefore, I keep applying the oil. As it applies to this particular issue, I like this quote from Martin Luther (Luther’s Works, St.L. ed., vol. 9, pg. 825):

When the devil has persuaded us to surrender one article of faith to him, he has won; in effect he has all of them, and Christ is already lost. He can at will unsettle and take all others, for they are all intertwined and linked together like a golden chain so that if one link is broken, the entire chain is broken and can be pulled apart. There is no article which the devil cannot overthrow once he has succeeded in having reason dabble in doctrine and speculate about it. Reason knows how to turn and twist Scripture in a masterly fashion into conformity with its views. This is very agreeable, like sweet poison.

This isn’t a difficult issue. Deuteronomy 22:5 isn’t hard to understand. It isn’t even hard to apply in our culture. However, like many other issues, it becomes difficult because of the pressure of this world system in which we reside. What men have done to Deuteronomy 22:5 reminds me of what they also do with 1 Corinthians 11:3 among other verses. Theologians go back into history and etymology to define “head” as “source” instead of “authority over” (an article that deals with this issue, and another). They do this to support an egalitarian society without male headship, removing distinctions in role between men and women.

In the case of Deuteronomy 22:5 men use the same types of arguments . I think they’re even worse. They simply speculate the intention of the biblical text. God prohibits women from putting on the male garment and men from putting on the female garment, but instead the intention was to avoid Canaanite worship rituals or to stop women from impersonating men for purposes of seduction, or if those don’t work, to keep women from attempting to join the military. All of those read into the text something that isn’t there.

I believe that the intention of the text of Deuteronomy 22:5 is interesting. However, what we’re guessing was the intention could not be the intention if it changes the plain meaning of the words and syntax of the verse itself. You can’t start getting into intention until you understand what the verse is saying. Nothing in the surrounding context of the verse will help us understand the intent. Explaining a probable intention after understanding the meaning of the verse could help someone who doesn’t wish to obey the verse. It could help someone comprehend why God would say someone is an abomination. However, we shouldn’t allow possible intent to alter the clear meaning of the verse. I believe what men are doing is what Jesus warned the Pharisees about in Mark 7:13:

Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

The Pharisees didn’t just teach for doctrines the commandments of men (Mk 7:7). They also made the Word of God of none effect. Many professing Christians want to make Deuteronomy 22:5 of none effect. They don’t like the law. It embarrasses them before the world. So they nullify it with all sorts of strained hermeneutical ploys. Know what? You can chop the verse up however you want to. You’re still responsible to keep it. And don’t tell me you love God if you won’t.

How Men Have Understood Deuteronomy 22:5

Here are some commentators and their understanding of this plain verse.

Barnes’ Notes were published in 1884-1885, and it states,

[D]istinctions between sexes is natural and divinely established, and cannot be neglected without indecorum and consequent danger to purity (cf. 1 Cor. 11:3-15).

Keil and Delitzsch, foremost Hebrew scholars, wrote:

As the property of a neighbor was to be sacred in the estimation of an Israelite, so also the divine distinction of the sexes, which was kept sacred in civil life by the clothes peculiar to each sex, was to be not less but even more sacredly observed. There shall not be man’s things upon a woman, and a man shall not put on a woman’s clothes.

Pulpit Commentary states,

[T]his is an ethical regulation in the interest of morality. . . . Whatever tends to obliterate the distinction between sexes tends to licentiousness, and that the one sex should assume the dress of the other has always been regarded as unnatural and indecent.

Lange’s Commentary reads,

The distinction between the sexes is natural and established by God in their creation, and any neglect or violation of that distinction, even in the externals, not only leads to impurity, but involve (sic) the infraction of the law of God.

Louis Entzminger wrote in 1936,

Notice v. 5 (Deuteronomy 22), forbidding women to wear male attire. This law was given to preserve the distinction of the sexes which was established at the creation of male and female.

Joseph Excell wrote in 1849, as recorded in The Biblical Illustrator: Deuteronomy:

God thought womanly attire of enough importance to have it discussed in the Bible. Just in proportion as the morals of a country or an age are depressed is that law defied. Show me the fashion-plates of any century from the time of the Deluge to this, and I will tell you the exact state of public morals. Ever and anon we have imported from France, or perhaps invented on this side of the sea, a style that proposes as far as possible to make women dress like men. The costumes of the countries are different, and in the same country may change, but there is a divinely ordered dissimilarity which must be forever observed. . . . In my text, as by a parable, it is made evident that Moses, the inspired writer, as vehemently as ourselves, reprehends the effeminate man and the masculine woman.

In a sermon entitled, “The Sinfulness of Strange Apparel,” Puritan preacher Vincent Alsop said in the mid 17th Century:

Nothing can justly pretend to be lawful ornament, which takes away the distinction which God has put between the two sexes.—That law, Deut xxii. 5, is of moral equity and perpetual obligation: . . . That which pertaineth, keli—The word signifies any “vessel, instrument, utensil, garment, or ornament,” military or civil, used for the discrimination of the sex: so Ainsworth (In Pentateuchum). . . . God therefore will have the distinction between the sexes inviolably observed in the outward apparel. . . . What particular form of apparel shall distinguish the one sex from the other, must be determined by the custom of particular countries; provided that those customs do not thwart some general law of God, the rule of decency, the ends of the apparel, or the directions of scripture.

Matthew Poole wrote in 1560,

Now this (a woman wearing a man’s garment) is forbidden, partly for decency’s sake, that men might not confound nor seem to confound those sexes which God hath distinguished, that all appearance of evil might be avoided, such change of garments carrying a manifest umbrage or sign of softeness and effeminacy in a man, of arrogance and impudency in the woman, of lightness and petulancy in both, and partly to cut off all suspicions and occasions of evil, which this practice opens wide door unto.

Jewish scholar Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote in 1966:

It seems to us that it is clear that, according to this way of taking the prohibition, is not so much disguising one’s sex by dressing in female clothes as forbidding each sex that which is more specifically pertaining to the nature of the opposite one. A man is just as little to get himself up with powder and paint and lipstick, etc.; which is all quite in order for women to do, and is in accordance with feminine nature, as a woman is to appear in a profession which belongs to the nature of men.

The Jewish Publication Society Commentary: Deuteronomy, states,

“Put on a man’s apparel,” Literally, “a man’s keli may not be on a woman.” The translation “apparel” makes this clause synonymous with the second part of the verse; it is based on the fact that the plural of keli means “clothing” in rabbinic Hebrew. . . . The halakhah combines both views: women may not wear armor or clothing, hairdos, or other adornments that are characteristic of men, not may men wear what is characteristic of women (what is characteristic of each sex is defined by local practice).

Walter C. Kaiser, who has a tremendous handle of the Old Testament law, writes concerning Deuteronomy 22:5,

The maintenance of the sanctity of the sexes established by God in the created order is the foundation for this legislation, and not opposition to idolatrous practices of the heathen. The tendency to obliterate all sexual distinctions often leads to licentiousness and promotes unnaturalness opposed to God’s created order. Such a problem can arise in contemporary culture when unisex fashions are aimed at producing the bland person in a progressive desexualization of men and women. Thus, this provision aims mainly at one’s clothes as an indication of one’s sex.

Baptist Commentary says,

The text teaches that Israel was to maintain a clear-cut distinction between the sexes. It was, thus, necessary that clothing, as well as other things, which pertained to one, must not be utilized by the other.

The Wycliffe Bible Commentary says,

It is this fundamental principle which underlies the opening requirement of this section (i.e., of Deut. 22) that the distinction between man and woman should not be blurred by the one’s appropriating the characteristic articles of the other (Deut. 22:5).

Davis’ Dictionary of the Bible reads,

By the Mosaic law a man was forbidden to wear a garment that pertains to a woman, and a woman to wear that belonging to a man (Deut. Xxii.5; cp. 1 Cor. Xi. 6, 14).

J. Ridderbos in the Bible Student’s Commentary: Deuteronomy, states,

The wearing of clothes of the opposite sex is forbidden.

Fred H. Wright in Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, writes,

The law of Moses forbade a man to wear a woman’s clothing and a woman to wear a man’s clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5).

Merrill Unger says,

While the costume of men and women was very similar, there was an easily recognizable distinction between the male and female attire of the Israelites, and accordingly Mosaic law forbids men to wear women’s clothes, and vice versa (Deuteronomy 22:5).

Jack S. Deere on “Deuteronomy” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, writes,

The same Hebrew word translated “detests” (toebah, lit., “a detestable thing;” KJV, “an abomination”) is used to describe God’s view of homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13). . . . Since this law was related to the divine order of Creation and since God detests anyone who does this, believers today ought to heed this command.

For those who try to make “intention” guide the actual meaning of the verse, we have these commentators.

Jewish rabbi, Rabbi Tilson, reports what the Jewish literature says about this position:

Some commentators have noted, however, that this understanding as explained by Rashi and the Shulhan Arukh does not seem to be based on the language of the verse. If the Torah had wanted to prohibit men from going out among women in women’s dress it could have said that. This context of social mixing of men and women is imposed on the verse.

Earl S. Kalland writes in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary:

The prohibition against a woman wearing the habiliments of a man and of a man wearing the clothing of woman can scarcely refer to transvestism . . . evidence for religious transvestism in ancient Canaanite religion is not conclusive.

More to Come. I’ll be showing that this is the historic application of Deuteronomy 22:5.

Quite a few reviews have been written for Peter Masters’ article, “The Merger of Calvinism with Worldlinessm”and mainly negative.

Douglas Wilson’s Review

I have enjoyed reading Douglas Wilson in the past and using the Canon Press logic curriculum. I watched his debate with Christopher Hitchens and learned some helpful truths in dealing with atheists, which we have in plenty here in California. However, as I have become more familiar with him, my appreciation has grown dim. He ends the first paragraph of his review of Masters with this high opinion of himself and personal insult of Masters:

If you are involved in ecclesiastical punditry, never ever let a fat pitch go by.

The assumption is that Wilson has taken Masters’ article and hit a home-run. Masters lobbed an easy one to Wilson, so he need only argue with half his brain tied behind his back. I’m sure this is the “serrated edge” that Wilson claims to wield. Let’s see what he can do with Masters’ soft ball.

Before we can even witness a swing of the bat, Wilson scorns again:

Masters . . . rejects some of the doily arrangements on the davenport of old school pietism. So to speak.

The portly Wilson begins his subtle attack on Masters’ manhood, relegating his concerns over genuine worship to the sewing and knitting room. Later you get his hint of the feminine with these phrases:

[H]is (Masters’) definition of worldliness is more indebted to the residue of Victorianism.

[People like Masters] sprinkle their daytimers with weekly wine and cheese events in support of the local symphony and/or arts councils.

[Y]ou also have ask the same question about Liszt and Chopin, not to mention other composers of other pieces that sweet homeschool girls play at their piano recitals.

Wilson mounts a preemptive defense of this line of mockery with an explanation of what a bad thing Masters has done in implying that MacArthur and Piper “don’t have the love of the Father in them.” I didn’t read this implication in Masters’ piece but Wilson applied the special juice for reading between the lines. I wonder if one can purchase the juice at Canon Press.

Wilson’s main problem with Masters’ review is his “appeal to certain sectarian traditions as though they were the emerald glow around the throne of God.” Nowhere does Masters appeal to sectarian traditions. Pass the cracker-jacks as we wonder when Wilson might waddle to the plate.

Wilson gives himself three wacks at Masters’ underhand tosses. Right away he displays the most apparent contradiction of himself. On the one hand, he claims that he would not “allow a Time/Life worship song into a worship service,” because of his understanding of “what kind of music is suitable for that occasion.” Then later, he writes 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?

Wilson says he understands “what kind of music is suitable” for a worship service. Based on his standard of exegesis for his musical playlist, how does he know what music is suitable? Where does the Bible list the music suitable for worship? I’ve got a simple solution for Wilson: use the same “understanding” that you have for “suitable worship music” to determine whether your playlist is worldly. Wilson wants to have it both ways. He can judge his worship service music with an understanding that he has, but no one can judge his musical playlist because those songs aren’t specifically listed anywhere in scripture.

Masters must have had some movement on that fat pitch because I felt a breeze coming from Wilson’s bat.

The other genius reason that Wilson says we don’t use rock music for a worship service is because “ours (sic) forms of it are almost always lousy rock music.” Aaaaah. Yes. If we just knew how to do “good” rock music, then it would be acceptable—I guess good like Dylan, Clapton, and the Stones. Every good classical piano player I’ve ever asked says that rock music isn’t hard for him to play. Maybe our Christian rock isn’t violent, syncopated, or sexual enough.

Most of Wilson’s essay just assumes that Masters doesn’t have the special knowledge, cultural education, and maturity that Wilson possesses in discerning what is worldly music.

Before agreeing with Masters that young Calvinists shouldn’t go clubbing, Wilson takes his last big whiff. Masters writes that Christians need “the personal guidance of God in the major decisions” or else strike “a death blow to whole hearted consecration.” Wilson spins this into making “personal life-decisions as though the gift of prophecy were still operative today.” How did “personal guidance” become extra-scriptural revelation? That’s not what I got out of Masters’ statement. What I read in Masters’ sentence, and perhaps he was not clear enough at this point, was that God can guide believers in the application of Scripture. Application of the Bible doesn’t require extra-scriptural revelation. Consecration to God requires applying Scripture. The Bible doesn’t tell us the name of the person we’re going to marry or what the titles of the songs are on our playlist, but it gives us the principles and we rely on the Holy Spirit (“personal guidance of God”) to live a consecrated life.

I concur with Wilson’s last statement—“It is not that difficult.” Unfortunately, Wilson has taken tee-ball and made it look like Nolan Ryan.

Frank Turk’s Review

Frank Turk, the Centurion, chimed in the discussion. Many might have a hard time believing that I essentially agree with Frank through his entire post until he gets to his eleventh paragraph. I don’t know if that will make him happy. I would tweak the first ten paragraphs here and there, but it is this statement about Masters that brings Turk and myself into conflict.

[H]e honors and confesses a proto-fundamentalist view of all things, down to making even matters of style and context into urgent doctrinal crises and therefore matters over which to separate.

It isn’t as simple as this for Masters. For him, like myself, this is a worship issue. He wants God to be recognized, believed, and worshiped. When evangelicalism offers a worship that so contradicts the character and nature of God, men will be deceived as to who God is and what He desires in worship.

That is about all I differed from Frank.

Dan Phillip’s Review

Dan Phillips writes a criticism of Masters’ article after he had read both Turk’s and Wilson’s. Phillips makes this amazing statement about Masters and about Spurgeon:

As disappointing and largely wrongheaded as Masters’ rant is (basically he dismisses “new Calvinists” because he doesn’t like their music style and their worship style), I am afraid he is at least somewhat in Spurgeon’s tradition.

I can applaud the honesty of Phillips. He agrees that Masters takes the same position as Spurgeon on this, so that he rejects what both of them say. Later he says that Spurgeon should not have condemned theater-going—this, of course, coming from a Phillips who is a regular theater attender and who writes reviews on his blog for many of the movies he has seen.

His other problem with was the statement about “personal guidance” that Wilson referred to. I think that Phillips read Wilson and then interpreted Masters in light of reading Wilson. I think they are both wrong about what they are rather reading into what Masters believes and teaches. The pretty much renders moot most of the second half of his post.

One of the most famous churches in the world is the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England, where for thirty-eight years (1854-1892) Charles Haddon Spurgeon pastored and preached. By the time we get to the late 1960s, the church had shrunk down to a tiny membership. Then Peter Masters became its pastor in 1970 and, despite horrible moral, spiritual, and religious conditions in England, the church has experienced a renaissance of numerical growth with a comparable belief and practice to Spurgeon himself.

Masters, like Spurgeon, is a Calvinist, and one in the Spurgeon tradition. He and his church are aggressively evangelistic while remaining God centered. They have expanded from preaching the gospel, notwithstanding a strong position against many of the unscriptural modern church growth innovations.

Masters has written many books and essays, including Worship in the Melting Pot. Less than a month ago, he wrote an article entitled, “The Merger of Calvinism with Worldliness,” a quasi book review of Young, Restless, Reformed, by Collin Hansen. His analysis became more a jumping off point for him to warn of false worship within “new Calvinism.” Many well-known, online blogs have responded to Masters’ piece, very little positive. This post will support and explain what Masters has written, as well as expose the negative reviews he has received.

The Crux of Peter Masters’ Concern

The title of Masters’ article aptly communicates his proposition. This section sums it up well:

Indeed, a far better quality Calvinism still flourishes in very many churches, where souls are won and lives sanctified, and where Truth and practice are both under the rule of Scripture. Such churches have no sympathy at all with reporter Collin Hansen’s worldly-worship variety, who seek to build churches using exactly the same entertainment methods as most charismatics and the Arminian Calvary Chapel movement. . . . The new Calvinists constantly extol the Puritans, but they do not want to worship or live as they did.

He warns about worldly, syncretistic worship utilized as church growth methodology and reflecting continuationist charismaticism. He sees Calvinism as the adhesive employed for keeping together the various and contradictory points of view. He evaluates this as an erroneous separation of soteriology from sanctification, yielding a conduct incongruent with God’s sovereignty.

Most of the reviews of Masters decried his lack of scriptural exposition. Masters was editorializing. It took on the form of a scriptural exhortation. He didn’t refer to specific passages, but he did use biblical, doctrinal truths as a basis of his criticism. He’s also exegeted the passages in previous books he’s written that stand as a basis for what he says here. He has a reason to be upset. He sees false worship as very bad. Everyone else should too.

My Take on What Masters Was Concerned About

The new Calvinists target the gospel as the minimum objective of fellowship. They get together to revel in the gospel with too much emphasis on reveling. The gospel has become another commodity to consume. They‘ve been saved with the accent on they. They‘re lovin’ their salvation.

The gospel will end in worship, but worship for them has become more about how they feel than what God wants, compatible with the spirit of the age. The current of consumerism flows strong in the United States. The customer wants the best deal for himself. He chooses by what makes him feel the best. What is to make this so special to God is that He gets something that worshipers feel so good about.

The points of Calvinism are not alone enough to stir the new Calvinists’ affections above the level of indifference. Instead adoration must be propelled along by the histrionics of the musical composition. They reason that something living must be felt. The music causes a feeling so it must be alive and, therefore, is authentic. The theological content of the words justifies the feeling.

Physiological manifestations validate spiritual reality like is seen in the charismatic movement. They are feelings choreographed by musicians with the credit going to the Holy Spirit. If not produced by the music, they are faked according to the importance of facial expressions to the communication of authenticity. Grimacing, eyes closed, hands waving, and heads wagging are all stock reactions in the catalog of sincerity. And yet the Holy Spirit hasn’t worked through music not characteristic of His work. And these aren’t responses anywhere in scripture that authenticate spiritual reality.

Within the five points Christ is to be glorified by Calvinism. Jesus chose, atoned, supplied grace, and secured. Instead of the Lord being raised high above and separate from what is common and profane, He is dragged along by the musical choices of professing adherents. Jesus has become an icon to them. They use Him as an excuse to celebrate. The party is fun and Jesus is a good reason to have it. It’s so much fun that it must be real, so He must be pleased. And on top of that, ‘Jesus’ logo is imprinted on my teeshirt with matching grafiti font.’ Hardly anything is more heart-felt than grafiti, the crumbling brick walls of a third world infrastructure, and a Mao Cap with a “resolved” symbol in place of the red star.

The most recent spiritual, historical patriarch of new Calvinism is the Jesus movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. These evangelicals often mention fundamentalism’s infatuation with the 1950s. Most evangelicals, whether they know it or not, love the 60s and 70s. The Jesus movement invented the new measures for new Calvinism revivalism. Masters makes reference to this when he mentions the “Arminian Calvary Chapel Movement” as well as Francis Schaeffer’s sixties sit-in style of biblical dialogue that mirrored what college students were doing on the campuses at the time. Schaeffer’s method could easily be the forefather of today’s online forum where everyone with an opinion counts as much as anyone elses.

Some of the important new measures the Jesus movement introduced into evangelicalism are worldly music, very casual dress, new hip styles of communication, casual relationships between boys and girls outside parental authority, and cutting edge marketing. All of these provided a comfortable and accepting environment for that generation of young people. We see the same new measuresas the Jesus movement (except worse) in the new Calvinism with Piper, Macarthur, Mahaney, and Driscoll. The reason these new measures work is because these young people are immersed in the world as a Christian liberty. The measures speak their langugae, a worldly one, and makes the religion an acceptable one to them.

There really isn’t that much different, probably only a little in degree, between the new measures of new Calvinism and the methods of Rick Warren and the seeker sensitive. It is obvious that this new missiology and contextualization are appealing to a demographic. The content has more substance in the new Calvinism, but the methods are often the same. The joy in Jesus Christ and the teaching of scripture isn’t enough. It must be embellished with the enoucrements of the natural man.

The points of Calvin start with total depravity. The new Calvinism parks on the inability of depravity, so that when Christ chooses, ability is what they’ve received. They were unable and now they’re able. They seem to forget that depravity was alleviated as well. Enabling grace limits the power of unredeemed flesh. Its power no longer has dominion. Children of darkness become children of light. That separation is blurred by the revivalistic new measures of new Calvinism.

The new Calvinism lacks the distinction between the sacred and the profane. Indeed, they are jumbled together in a way that you can’t tell where one stops and the other ends. Recently John MacArthur has become incensed with the smutty language used in the preaching of Mark Driscoll, and rightly so. However, he doesn’t seem to have the discernment to see how that the new revivalistic measures his church employs have profaned the holy name and character of Christ by framing Him within the common fashions of smutty culture.

In contrast to Finney revivalism, some serious exposition in the conferences and gatherings supposedly justifies the new measures of new Calvinism. Many of the various video clips of preaching used to advertise this preaching attract using worldly means. The clips themselves accentuate the theatrics one would experience if he chose to attend. The exposition in these meetings does enlighten in doctrine, but often without the specific and strong application that would give pause to a seeker more interested in the fun time.

Comments on Varied Details of Masters’ Piece

“Immoral Drug-induced Musical forms of Worldly Culture”

The forms of present rock music utilized in contemporary Christian music was induced by drugs. The world itself says this (also here among many other places online). Rock musicians were often on drugs when they wrote their music. However, they also wrote music that used fuzztone, feedback, synthesizers, and volume to mimick the supposed mind-expanding properties of marijuana and LSD. The drug induced state was simulated by electronic amplification. The Jesus movement and the hippie subculture both arose from the same location and with this same music. The grunge used by Mark Driscoll in his “worship” was part of the drug counter-culture in Seattle, the location of his church. This is the type of music that Douglas Wilson proudly proclaims is on his playlist at home:

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.

I suppose that this is what the grace of God means to Douglas Wilson.

One of the vaunted new conferences is called Resolved, after Jonathan Edwards’ famous youthful Resolutions (seventy searching undertakings). But the culture of this conference would unquestionably have met with the outright condemnation of that great theologian.

I believe that Masters could safely say these two sentences in the light of Edwards’ book Treatise on the Religious Affections. This conference violates the major theme of Religious Affections that Edwards unpacked from scripture.

Worldly culture provides the bodily, emotional feelings, into which Christian thoughts are infused and floated. Biblical sentiments are harnessed to carnal entertainment. (Pictures of this conference on their website betray the totally worldly, showbusiness atmosphere created by the organisers.)

Masters is here differentiating between passions and affections that Edwards treated in his book. The latter starts with the mind and the former with the flesh. Masters implies that the doctrinal message is ruined when it is harnessed to carnal entertainment. MacArthur decries the attack on truth in our culture and yet what Masters describes is at the very root of the attack. David Wells has much to comment on this in his No Place for Truth:

What shapes the modern world is not powerful minds, but powerful forces, not philosophy but urbanization, capitalism, and technology. As the older quest for truth has collapsed, intellectual life had increasingly become little more than a lgoss on the process of modernization. . . . Christian faith, which has made many easy alliances with modern culture in the past few decades, is also living a fool’s paradise, comforting itself about all of the things that God is doing in society (which is the most commonly heard religious version of this idea of progress) while it is losing its character, if not its soul.

Wells says this about the place of feelings in evangelicalism:

Today we “demand instant access to authentic reality, ” he [author Brian Wilson] says, and these ministries do indeed offer instant and painless access, the authenticity of which is “guaranteed by subjective feeling, reinforced by group-engendered emotions”; the televangelists capitalize on the widespread perception that “reality is to be felt rather than cognitively realized.”

The contradiction in harnassing “Biblical truths to carnal entertainment” is exposed by Wells:

The growth in this type of evangelical faith in America is in part also to be explained by the powerful undercurrents of self-absorption that course through the modern psyche. Many charismatics have made the experience of God rather than the truth of God foundational. The self therefore becomes pivotal. This, in turn, links with the deep subterranean sense of progress that is inescapable in America, as the proponents of this movement tout it as the most recent cresting of the Spirit.

When you look at their ‘favourite films’, and ‘favourite music’ you find them unashamedly naming the leading groups, tracks and entertainment of debased culture, and it is clear that the world is still in their hearts.

The new Calvinists talk about worldliness being only a matter of the heart. Even if it were just in one’s heart, it will come out in the life and Masters is right to point out that this is how it is seen. The new Calvinists talk about their favorite lager, the latest blockbuster, and the music of their most beloved rock group. This displays the world in their hearts.

The new Calvinism is not a resurgence but an entirely novel formula which strips the doctrine of its historic practice, and unites it with the world.

The old Calvinists like Spurgeon, Gill, Owen, and Turretin, among many others had much to say against worldliness. And they did in a day when there was so much less to be attracted by in the world. You can’t appreciate their soteriology with appreciating their seperation from the world. When you read those old Calvinists, you see that their sanctification arose out of their soteriology. You couldn’t divide the two with them. The new Calvinists have separated them anyway.

A final sad spectacle reported with enthusiasm in the book is the Together for the Gospel conference, running from 2006. A more adult affair convened by respected Calvinists, this nevertheless brings together cessationists and non-cessationists, traditional and contemporary worship exponents, and while maintaining sound preaching, it conditions all who attend to relax on these controversial matters, and learn to accept every point of view. In other words, the ministry of warning is killed off, so that every -error of the new scene may race ahead unchecked.

Wells talks about this phenomenon in No Place for Truth:

The kind of pluralism that is necessary to eliminate antagonisms among the competing views has the effect of reducing the values of each inhabitant to the lowest common denominator. City life requires the kind of friendliness that allows us to cohabit with the mass ethic. It is typically assumed that this sort of friendliness must be divested of moral and religious judgment, since it is difficult for our society to see how judgments about truth and morals can escape the charge of social bigotry. And so we settle for the kind of friendliness within which all absolutes perish either for lack of interest or because of the demands of social etiquette.

It doesn’t seem that Masters is willing to settle for that “friendliness.” I know I won’t. The new Calvinists do.

(to be continued) I will deal with several of the negative reviews that Masters has received.

A few days ago, I received a nasty comment here from ‘anonymous,’ and he started it with some sarcasm about my majoring on the minors. Don’t look for the comment. I didn’t post it. It was error-filled, so I wasn’t interested in anyone entertaining its content, especially since he wouldn’t own it. But it did motivate me to speak to the concept of “majoring.” I’ve found the criticism, “you major on the minors,” to be common. Rather than dealing with the actual exegesis or application, the critic attacks the choice of subject matter. It is akin to a poor review of a book on Gettysburg because the author didn’t choose Antietam.

I refuse to accept the ‘majoring on minors’ charge. The Bible chronicles the technical character of God. He wants minutiae kept. I believe we invented “minors” for fake unity or to excuse some kind of disobedience. A violation is minor to the ones who want to do it. Our concern should be whether God is pleased or not.

Cain thought fruits and vegetables were minor. Nadab and Abihu thought their unique recipe for the altar of incense was minor. Achan thought the Babylonian garment was minor. Uzzah thought touching the ark was minor. David thought the means of carrying the ark was minor. Moses thought that striking the rock was minor. Ananias and Saphhira thought that holding back part of their offering was minor. Israel thought that using Gideon’s ephod for worship was minor and that worshiping God in the high places was minor.

What we have with these denials of the “minors” are presumptuous sins. We ought to instead pray with the Psalmist (19:13):

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

2 Peter 2:10 speaks of presumptuousness:

But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

We can see the presumptuousness comes from a disrespect of authority. The presumptuous takes liberty where he doesn’t have it. He assumes too much. He takes matters into his own hands, presuming that it shouldn’t matter as much as other issues, because it isn’t as important. And yet, if God said it, it’s important. He possesses all authority. If He said it, He meant it, and He expects us to obey it. If we love Him, we will keep what He said, and it won’t be burdensome to us to do so (1 John 5:3).

The “minor” that my critic disapproved was the obedience of Deuteronomy 22:5. Deuteronomy 22:5 ends by saying that all who violate one of its prohibitions “are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” My critic is saying that an abomination to God is a minor issue. How could anyone who loves God think that becoming “an abomination to God” is permissible, only a minor issue? John writes in Revelation 21:8 that “the abominable . . . . shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” You can see how presumptuous they are who say that disobedience to Deuteronomy 22:5 is a minor issue.