Post Modern Catechism Q-7

The Post Modern catechism can be found here. Question 7 and its answer may be of service to some.

Q7: How doth God execute His decrees?

A: God executeth His decrees in the work of watching us exercise our free will.

For those whose religion is a series of cliches i.e., "God didn't make a bunch of little robots, of course we have free will," you may want to add this to your collection.

Newt on Sharia Law

I don't particularly like Newt Gingrich. Some of the the things he has done in his private life go against what I believe as a Christian. But, then, we are all guilty of doing stuff we don't like from time to time. It's called sin and every human is touched by it.

Gingrich is not stupid, however, and he understands and fights against what he knows to be the real battle confronting those on the planet who desire to live free.

Here is a portion of a speech he gave recently at the American Enterprise Institute. Like him or not he gets my vote for President in 2012.



(HT Gates of Vienna)

The Lord's Supper

As a Baptist I don't often get the opportunity to participate in more formal kinds of worship services. By that, I mean those services which serve the Lord's supper on a weekly basis. The most familiar of these formats of service to me are Catholic and Anglican. I've always just accepted my church's tradition of approximately every six weeks for this most solemn service as perfectly acceptable since the Bible is not specific concerning how often we should participate.

Lately however, I've been wondering if a more frequent serving of the Lord's Supper might be a means of strengthening the unity of our congregation. Following is a quote from an article that I found most interesting. Perhaps this is something those of who infrequently follow our Lord's command to "do this in remembrance" of Him might want to rethink.

[...]The apostle Paul [...] tells us that the Lord’s Supper signifies the oneness of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). According to Paul, “We, being many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.” When Christians gather to partake of the same bread and wine, there is no Jew or Gentile, there is no rich or poor, there is no male or female. All are one because all partake of the one body of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. If the faithful teaching of this truth accompanies the frequent observance of the Lord’s Supper, it inhibits division because it repeatedly and forcefully emphasizes the sinfulness of worshipping with an unforgiving heart (cf. Matt. 5:23-24). In fact, it is not beyond possibility that the infrequent observance and corresponding devaluing of this sacrament has contributed to the ongoing division and strife in the modern church. Again, we have to ask why any Christian would not want such a sign of Christian unity to be a part of the regular worship of the church.

Jesus Christ commands that the Lord’s Supper be observed in remembrance of him (Luke 22:19; cf 1 Cor. 11:24). This does not mean that the Lord’s Supper is merely a time for subjective mental recollection. It is a memorial of the saving acts of Jesus Christ by which he inaugurated the new covenant. In the Lord’s Supper, we do not merely recollect these great acts of redemption. We unite ourselves with the new covenant community for which they were accomplished. If the Lord’s Supper is truly to be observed in remembrance of Christ’s mighty saving acts, why would any Christian not want this remembrance to be a part of every Christian worship service?[...]

The entire article can be found here.

Do We Believe What We Say We Believe?

Sunday our Pastor mentioned in his morning sermon that our church subscribes to a statement of faith generally accepted by most Baptist churches in America. That statement is the 1833 New Hampshire Baptist Statement of Faith.

I have issues with what we actually teach and do and what we say we believe as codified in this statement. I won't get these issues resolved any time soon because there are many among us who say they believe one thing but their actions don't align with what they say.

For instance: This Statement of Faith says, in part, (the full section quote is below) "...the new creation is brought about in a manner above our comprehension, not by culture, not by character, nor by the will of man, but wholly and solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in connection with divine truth...."  [emphasis mine]. To my mind that seems plain, clear and simple enough for a literate person to understand. The Holy Spirit changes a person internally - the person is unable to comprehend what happened - but he knows he is different. He has been "born again." Yet, we insist that a person must "choose" of his own "free will" to "accept" Jesus as his savior. My question is this, if the new creation is brought about in a manner above our comprehension how is it that the sinner can be expected to comprehend he must "choose" to "accept" Jesus as "his personal savior" solely on the basis of his "free will?" He has been born again - past tense - there is nothing for him to "choose." (Jhn 15:16)

If that is the actual situation, we are saved by means beyond our comprehension, why do we waste so much time trying to ramp-up emotional responses with the "altar call?" Perhaps we really don't believe what we say we believe.

 

(I) OF GRACE IN THE NEW CREATION. We believe that in order to be saved, sinners must be born again; that the new birth is a new creation in Christ Jesus; that it is instantaneous and not a process; that in the new birth the one dead in trespasses and in sins is made a partaker of the divine nature and receives eternal life, the free gift of God; that the new creation is brought about in a manner above our comprehension, not by culture, not by character, nor by the will of man, but wholly and solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in connection with divine truth, so as to secure our voluntary obedience to the gospel; that its proper evidence appears in the holy fruits of repentance and faith and newness of life. (John 1:12-13, 3:3, 3:6-7; II Corinthians 5:17 & 5:19; Luke 5:27; I John 5:1; Acts 2:41; II Peter 1:4; Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:1 & 5:9; Colossians 2:13; Galatians 5:22)

Concern for the Church

I visited Australia a couple of years ago. Other than the obvious difference in landscape one of the major differences I noticed was the apparent lack of churches. I didn't survey for numbers, but here in the states we seem to have as many churches as we do gas stations. It feels like there is one on every corner, not so in Australia. In fact, I noticed the difference in church numbers more readily there because there appeared to be so few in comparison.

Pastor, teacher, Rowland Croucher who is Australian, has written a good article (here) about the apparent demise of churches in Australia by beginning with some statistics from the states.

According to the latest set of figures for Baptists in the Garden State, not everything is rosy:

* Two thirds of our churches are plateaued
* Just nineteen churches accounted for more than half the baptisms last year “Six churches accounted for just on one third of the total baptisms
* More than 40% of our churches baptised no one
* We are more adept at roll revisions than roll additions

My own church seems to be in a unique situation considering the numbers above. We baptize new believers regularly, but our actual growth seems to be stagnating. For each new believer we loose one or two for various reasons. Part of this is due to economic conditions as folks must move for employment reasons, but I sense a larger part of the stagnation is due to "church-hopping." I know of several young families who have moved to nearby churches for no other reason than someone hurt their feelings. When that happens I wonder why it is we seem unable to bring these folks to Christian maturity. Life happens, people are people, feelings get hurt - get over it.

I'm beginning to wonder if there are not a lot more "goats" among the "sheep" than we care to admit. We don't like to think along these lines because we have so much invested in convincing new converts and older members as well, that all they have to do is believe without teaching them that that belief carries with it certain obligations to the One we believe in.

Croucher's article does not have the sense I have just given but I think in the back of his mind he might agree. He goes on to say;

What is even more concerning is the growing trend reported in many churches: as much as one third of the regulars will be absent on any given Sunday making communication difficult and continuity in preaching and teaching almost impossible. The point is that the local congregation is not seen as the place to be. Worship simply does not belong as a priority activity.

If "worship is not a priority" among a given congregation there is obviously something drastically wrong with our labeling as saved those who are really just looking for temporary relief from some immediate personal problem.

Perhaps we need to seriously consider actually reading what Scripture says about salvation and forget all the gimmicks that have been passed down to us the way "to win the lost."