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Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

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Here's the part where I try to avoid getting sued ...

As you undoubtedly noticed, I like comics. I wouldn't call myself a "fan boy" because I don't give a flying FOOM what they are worth. That said, almost all the images on my blog are scanned from comics I own, and it would be frankly impossible to tell you where each one comes from specifically.

Many are © and/or ® Marvel Comics Group, with all rights reserved.

Others are © and/or ® DC Comics, which is an arm of Time/Warner, and not only are all rights reserved but they are a little jealous about it, so if I get "the letter" from them, those images are just going to turn into blank spots until I configure out what to do about that.

There are also the occasional images from Valiant, Image, Defiant, and some indies which I'm not sure even have a name, and they are all also © and/or ®, all rights reserved.

All other images not covered by this disclaimer are the property of their respective owners, and if you are one of those people and you see your image on my blog, tell me what you want me to do about it and I will. No sense making people angry.

Hope that helps.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Come Together

But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. [1 Cor 11:17-22]

The question has come up regarding what Paul is talking about in 1 Cor 11 here, and for your Friday pleasure I thought I'd hammer out a couple of pages on the subject, especially as it relates to this comment recently proffered in the meta:

Since there is no biblical instruction that the table must be conducted in a "local assembly of believers" (I assume you mean a local church), then I posit that any group of believers who is gathered together (a family, a small group, a church, a gathering at a religious camp) may share the table.

Now, just for the record, the LBCF says this on the subject:

The supper of the Lord Jesus was instituted by him the same night wherein he was betrayed, to be observed in his churches, unto the end of the world, for the perpetual remembrance, and shewing forth the sacrifice of himself in his death, confirmation of the faith of believers in all the benefits thereof, their spiritual nourishment, and growth in him, their further engagement in, and to all duties which they owe to him; and to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him, and with each other.[XXX, 1]

And to be sure we reckon what the underlined part there means, consider this:

A particular church, gathered and completely organised according to the mind of Christ, consists of officers and members; and the officers appointed by Christ to be chosen and set apart by the church (so called and gathered), for the peculiar administration of ordinances, and execution of power or duty, which he intrusts them with, or calls them to, to be continued to the end of the world, are bishops or elders, and deacons. [XXVI,8]

That doesn't really have anything to do with 1 Cor 11, but it does point out that the historic Reformed Baptist view of the church, its officers, and the ordinances is that the church is right to call forth "officers" (we might say "ministers") by which the ordinances are administered, and that these ordinances -- particularly the Lord's Supper -- is to be administered to the whole church and not just smaller assemblies in fellowship. This is undergirded by the LBCF's stress on the use of the sabbath for Christian worship.

But that said, is this what Paul would have required? I mean, LBCF and all that stuff, but is it biblicious enough for us to have to follow it today?

Well, the place to start is that Paul wasn't happy with the Corinthians. He says, "I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse." Now, what does he mean by "come together"? "Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly"? I am pretty sure he means "when you come together as a church", because that's what he says in the next sentence. The Greek actually says, when you-all are gathered "ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ" -- which doesn't mean "whenever a couple of you are around". It means when you are gathered together for the purpose of worship as God's people. That doesn't mean "as smaller groups". It means "as the body of Christ; as one body; when you all come together as one assembly".

So as Paul continues his anti-commendation to the Corinthians here, consider that what he is criticizing is what the practice and what they ought to be practicing as a body together.

"When you come together," he says, "it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal." And to this, Paul says specifically, "What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?" Notice the contrast he draws between the "houses" of each one verses the "church of God" -- that whatever you do at home, it should not be that way when you come together as the church of God.

"yes, well cent," says one, "we come together as the church of God in many ways, and one of them is that we, in my neck of the woods, come together in our homes as smaller groups to worship God. And when we do that, we sometimes take the Lord's supper -- nobody in the group gets excluded. We come together in a different way than Paul describes here, but it's not disqualified by Paul."

Dude, that's hooie. That's simply wandering around the text rather than reading it. Paul says explicitly here that the church ought to come together specifically for the Lord's supper, and come together specifically without any divisions. When your church goes out to smaller groups in homes to occasionally have the Lord's supper, it's doing in fact what Paul here excoriates -- only it actually goes out to the homes to make the divisions rather than clique up even though the church is all in one place.

Let me say this: there's nothing wrong with small group fellowship. It's great for prayer and real spiritual intimacy. But the gathering in one body specifically has the charge -- seen here as said by Paul -- to remember the Lord's death in the ordinance of the meal.

See: Paul's point here is that if you were in your own home having a select few people over, that's a division which has nothing to do with the assembly of the believers -- it's your party, and you can cry if you want to. But when the believers are actually assembled, your private party time is over. Taking the Lord's Supper out to those smaller groups doesn't sanctify the smaller groups -- it only makes completely obvious that the church is not coming together for this act.

The believers are to assemble for the Lord's Supper, not merely meet up in little coffee claches. Paul says if you assemble but do not treat each other as one body, you are doing something unworthy. How can you then say that if you just don't meet up as one body but instead meet up as smaller units of one body you can get past the criticism that you haven't united?

Paul says come together, right now. I say he's got a good point -- and it's up to you to be in God's house with God's people on His day. You're not coming together if you're not actually with all of those people.

Labels: Baptists - pheh, local church

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Dr. Horrible

Don't watch it. Especially, don't watch episode 2. And when Episode 3 comes out on Saturday, don't watch that, either.

Listen -- I'm not even linking you to it, so don't blame me if you watch it -- you had to go out and google it, and figure out which site is the fan site and which has the episodes on it, so when you found it and watched it (and I'm saying: don't watch it, so if you watched it, it's because you chose to) it's because you chose to.

I mean, the police do watch the vodcast, so they know.

Just, you know: it's the internet. You shouldn't watch everything on the internet.
__________

UPDATED: well, but you should at least read the COMIC BOOK so you're not completely without sociological and missiological context. Seriously: don't live in a hole.

Labels: Blogosphere, rank materialism

Why I'm OK with being called "anti-catholic"

Listen: I ran into Justin Taylor's announcement of Francis Beckwith's new book of "road home" apologetics, and I posted a comment about as charitable as I could muster. However, let me admit something: there is nothing more distasteful to me than conventional pro-catholic apologetics, and, sadly, Dr. Beckwith participates in that -- he's nice about it, but that's what he does.

Honestly: I'm under Rome's anathema, and I'm OK with that. Their anathemas say more about them than anything I can say about them -- especially when it comes to stuff like how many books of the Bible I must accept and whether or not Mary was bodily assumed into heaven. Those anathemas speak to how stridently Rome applies the force of "anathema". When they anathematize me for believing in imputed righteousness and justification by faith alone, I respect them for admitting that they do not believe in a God who saves through Christ but a god who saves by rites, and I can walk away without any qualms.

Conventional pro-catholic apologetics try to sweep all that stuff under the rug, and that's what gets me.

Let me put it another way. 4 weeks ago, the boys on bikes came by and wanted to talk to me because I was out in the yard, and I gave them 30 minutes (I would have given them an hour, but they had a curfew). Their ploy was that they were just like any other Christian -- expect for that extra book they carry around, which was important to them -- authoritative to them -- but it's OK if I don't accept that.

yeah.

So they were in the neighborhood why? I mean: my town has 60 churches and 98% of these people are in church on Sunday. So are these guys evangelizing, or are they simply walking around? Because when we go on visitation, we're evangelizing -- we're seeking those who are either lost without Christ or lost without a church with which to fellowship.

And this is the thing: if the goal of Catholic apologetics is to get me into their mass and their sacraments because I'm under anathema and I'm denying what God has commanded so repent, let's talk about that. If the goal is to sweet-talk me by saying we aren't really very different, so try it, you might like it -- dude, forget it. I tried it, and I didn't like it. In fact, I hated it for its hypocrisy.

So am I "anti-catholic" in the sense that I am actually a Protestant? Why yes: I am. Deal with that and not the ridiculous idea that somehow I don't understand what it means to be under the anathema for believing Christ has actually saved me rather than think someday, after I have paid for my sins in Purgatory, Christ will have saved me.

Labels: Blogosphere, Catholicism

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Why Timmy Brister is the luckiest man alive

Darrell Orman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Stuart, Florida, and chair of the convention's resolution committee, doubted that the resolution would lead to widespread purging of church rolls. "No one can tell Southern Baptists what to do," he said.

In response, Ascol said, "That's a sad reality. Even Jesus can't tell some Southern Baptists what to do."

Booyah.

BTW, Pastor Tom: nice work for Resolution #6. God willing the SBC will take it as seriously as it takes beer.

Labels: SBC Identity

Classic: communion

Yeah, I didn't want to bring it up, but somebody pointed me at this and I want to abstract it from any one person as much as possible. However, the opinion expressed here is one which is "going around", it seems related to the Piper thing from Monday, and I have a minute this week.

Then I should be addressed as an unbeliever, and treated as such. Forgive me, but what we have here is the creation of a special category that allows closed communion churches to say things like “we’re not denying your faith in Christ and that you are a Christian brother” and also say “You’re an unbeliever in what amounts to an incarnation level truth.”

Some context here, in case you can't draw it out from this quote. The conversation is about the Lord's Table, and the question is whether or not a "closed communion" is proper or improper, called-for or uncalled-for.

In that, how does one bridge the logical leap between "you can't partake in the table with us" and "you are, de facto, an unbeliever"? I can think of at least two good, biblical reasons not to partake in the Lord's table and to be rightly cautioned by the administer of the table not to partake, even if the person is a baptized believer and member:

[1] One is himself drunk -- that is a direct application of Paul's warning to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 11.

[2] One is seeking the ceremony for status rather than humility in the face of Christ's work -- also in 1 Cor 11. For example, one who wants to be seen taking the bread and wine in the Capital Cathedral prolly should just go home rather than try to make a name for himself using the remembrance of Christ.

Those aren't examples which say someone is an "unbeliever": they are examples of rightly-discerning the body, rightly seeking to remember Christ and not to make His table into something it is not. For the minister to say, "those who are drunk, or are here to be recognized as somehow special by being here -- please, do not partake. This table is not for those reasons," is not to also say, "you dirty unbelievers." It is to say, "be serious about what we are doing here because this is how we remember what Jesus has done for us."

When Fr. Charles says in public, “We’re so glad to have our Christian brother [name omitted] here with us today,” he really looks like a great guy. Catholic ecumenism and all those good Vatican II statements about how grieved everyone is about these divisions. But when we (and Baptists do the same) turn one another away from the table and say “Not just the words of Jesus, but the words of men are required to come to this table. Not just a belief in the real Christ and the real presence of the real Christ, but a belief in the real presence the way we understand 'really real,'" then the previous proclamation of our brother’s faith is blatantly contradicted.

I disagree whole-heartedly. I disagree because the refusal of the minister (in this case, the priest) to hand over the sacrament, which is what he believes he is dispensing, has that implication that he is responsible to dispense it in a worthy manner.

I think it is wholly inside the parameters of consideration to think that Fr. Charles has an obligation to abide by church discipline, which is what is at stake when a Protestant comes through the line to take the bread and the cup. His statement that he is "grieved" reflects something other than being "sorry" in some way he can fix: he is "grieved" because a Protestant is under discipline and is separated until he comes under the obedience of the Church (big "C" in his mind).

Being under discipline is not the same as being an unbeliever: it is a call to repentence. Whether you're a Catholic or not, that is actually a biblical principle: believers under discipline are spiritually separated from the church, and have to be treated that way until they repent. This is one reason why confession is such a big deal for the Catholic, btw: he doesn't want to be separated from the church by his sin and unworthily take the eucharist.

I think there is a way to see what Fr. Charles is doing here which does not speak to the soteriological condition of the person seeking to partake but who is turned away -- and it's not a very convoluted way to see it, either.

The fundamentalists I grew up with were far more consistent. They weren’t going to take fact that you said you loved Jesus as evidence of your Christianity. Nope. Until you’d been baptized by them and confessed their faith their way in their church, then you became a brother. Until then, you were lost and needed to believe the Gospel.

That's certainly more black-and-white. That's not hardly more consistent.

For example, where did they call their pastors from? Did they raise up a man from inside the congregation based on the letters to Timoth and Titus, or did they call a man from the outside? Did that man have to be baptized in that particular church (again) in order to have his confession of faith be believed? Prolly not.

So as far as consistency goes, as they say on the internet, meh.

Fr. Charles is being consistent both historically and, ironically, biblically. The table is closed to those who are sepaparted from the Church -- and it ought to be.

Now, the chat about Fr. Charles was interesting, but this bit to follow is even moreso:

The Table is the essence of the invitation of Jesus to come to him. It is thereby the primary evidence that Christ has received a person as his own through faith and, at least in most understandings, after baptism. Tossing around the term “Christian brother” in the same room where you’lll telegraph to me that I’m not able to come to the table of Jesus says much louder “NOT a Christian brother.” It really does take a theologian to make it say anything else. Even a 4th grader knows what exclusion is and what it means.

Wow. I've been through my NT a couple of times trying to find out where it says that, and I can't find it. Jesus says that the cup is the cup of the covenant of which He will not drink again until the final establishment of the Kingdom (Mt, Mk); Luke adds it's a "remembrance" of what He will have done with His body for us; Paul adds that it be taken in a worthy manner rather than in a drunken or selfish manner.

The implication that the meal is for the sake of unity can be drawn 1 Cor 11 -- no question. But I think Paul's "unity" point is rather one of not seeking to use the table as a means of garnering status, a lesser version of his complaint to the Galatians. I'm not sure how one goes from there to a place there the Table is the sine qua non of Christian fellowship, and that all-comers must be admitted or else they are de facto unbelievers.

Seriously: the man Paul commanded to be cast out in 1 Cor 5 -- should he be admitted to the table before he returns to obedience and repentance? I think his return to fellowship in 2 Cor speaks to that clearly -- and the answer is "no". In disobeying the Church (big "C") as Protestants, we should expect that Church (big "C") to hold us apart from fellowship.

So the problem may not be my lack of Lutheran or Catholic theology. The problem may be how that theology works with the intention to relate to other Christians. Fundamentalists would tell me I was not a Christian and treat me as such. (Think Phil Johnson would let me near a communion table?) But the “inclusive” closed communionist is going to tell me I am the brother for whom Christ died, but then refuse to commune with me.

Yeah, I think Phil Johnson is not the problem here -- because Phil, as I understand it, would hold closed communion at his church for members only for the sake of protecting the table from unworthy use. It wouldn't be a personal, subjective thing: it would be a pragmatic application of a Scriptural command that the table not be used in an unworthy manner. Very much, btw, the way Fr. Charles would administer his "sacrament".

I don’t think the problem is that I feel rejected. I think the problem is that some people think they’ve included me on some level. And I’ll tell you why I think that happens: because exclusion of those with a living faith in Christ is so un-Jesus shaped that a lot of people aren’t comfortable doing it. So they find ways to come out of the logical implications of their beliefs and instead treat other “Christians” as if they are really there.

Yeah, no. One of the great inequalities between me and Christ (and there are many of them) is that Jesus knew what was in the hearts of men -- so when he called the Pharisees "whitewashed tombs", he knew from filthy and rotten. For me, all I know is my filthy and rotten, and most people, frankly, look pretty good when you compare them to me.

But when Jesus said, in words to this effect, "be like me", He didn't mean, "look into people's hearts so you can know them; see what's there and that's how you treat them." He said things like, "remember the widowed and the orphan," and "keep the Law in letter and spirit," and "do this in memory of me." But then He also had this guy Paul who said things like, "let him who has done this be removed from among you," and "rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine". So the "Jesus shape" we have to get to has the condition that we know where the boundaries of Jesus-likeness lie for us on this side of glory.

Jesus loves church discipline. I know because the Bible says so. Sometimes that means that people with good faith but bad practice have to see that in "incarnational" ways. And let me say this frankly: maybe the problem is that the one giving out the bread and wine is the one who is wrong. You know: maybe when the Westminster divines called their mass "idolatry", they were right -- and taking the idol is itself a kind of disobedience which one might be glad to be separated from.

Where I grew up, the church leaders didn’t feel bad about excluding other Christians from being called or treated as Christians. They took it as their duty to address them as lost and their churches as false and their faith as mere religion. Their version of Jesus was on their side on these issues. No stress involved in considering the possibility of Christians outside of [church name omitted]. It just wasn’t possible.

My opinion is that this is, in the best case, hyperbole. Even if they may have had a pigeon ecclesiology, however, that's besides the point. The question is whether the church -- in all its forms -- has an obligation to have an open table or a table which is used in a worthy manner. It plainly has the obligation for the latter.

Labels: Baptism-related, local church

Haloscan is down

That's particularly annoying to those who were enjoying the baptism thread.

Will update when it is working again.
____________________

UPDATED 9:10 AM

Haloscan is back up.

Labels: Reasonable Questions

Monday, July 14, 2008

Classic: Baptism

Dr. Piper opens up the can of worms at his church again by beginning a series on baptism and church membership.

The long-time readers of this blog know for a fact that this topic is near to me and dear to me -- because it's one of the topics I have blogged about most often. And in that, I think I am more a Baptist for it today than I was 3 years ago.

I respect Dr. Piper and the elders of his church wanting to have an open door at their church for all believers in Christ -- for wanting, as they have said, to keep the front door of the local church as wide as the front door of the universal church -- namely, all who believe in Jesus Christ.

Dr. Piper's message yesterday delivered a stirring call for the importance of church membership -- one with which I would agree almost entirely. Almost.

He says this in the middle of his message:

One of the key convictions behind the elder proposal (that was made and then withdrawn) is that excluding from membership a truly born-again person who gives credible evidence of his saving faith is a more serious mistake than receiving into membership a true believer who is not biblically baptized though, according to his own conscience, he believes he is. But that conviction assumes church membership is really important, so that excluding a person from it is very serious.

So one of the arguments against the elder proposal was that membership in a local church like Bethlehem does not matter very much—certainly not as much as baptism—because a non-member can worship and take the Lord’s Supper and go to Sunday School and be a part of a small group and be visited by a pastor in the hospital; or he can simply go to another church that shares his view of baptism.

So if membership is not that important, then excluding someone from membership will not seem a serious problem. That would mean that the elders are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. This is one of the most crucial issues we need to think through as a church: How serious is it to say to a regenerate person: “You are not permitted to be a member of this church”?

Let me say frankly that this is not a matter either of subjective belief or of merely-judicial or -authoritarian caveat. This is the place where the reasoning at Bethlehem goes of the rails, in my opinion, and let me explain briefly why I would say that.

In Acts 19, Paul finds the "disciples" at Corinth who had received John's baptism but not the baptism of Jesus. Those people there sincerely believed they had been baptized, but in fact they had not been baptized into Christ. That example speaks clearly, I think, to the question of whether or not what one thinks about one's baptism is what we should weigh when we are considering them as members of our fellowship and churches. We are not saying they are not disciples: we are saying they are not baptized, and they should hear that call plainly for what it is: a call to be obedient to what God has ordained for the church and for the believer.

In that way, we are not questioning anyone's status as being regenerate or not regenerate. We are calling them to do what God has called them to do. The excuse, "I think I already have done it," is dispelled by they fact that they did not, in fact, do it -- it was done to them before they could agree or decline. What they have had done is not objectively the same as what we are calling them to.

By saying that, we are not saying to a regenerate person, "your salvation doesn't matter to us and you cannot join our church." We -- that is, the church and specifically its elders -- are saying what the elders ought to say in the name of Jesus Christ: if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Baptism is a commandment from God for the believer. And without overstating this matter, it is the charge of the elder to exhort the believer to do what God has commanded, and not merely settle for what seems good to every man in his own eyes. Someone who doesn't want to do what God has commanded is someone, I think, who is not under the authority of the elders but on his own program.

I really love that Bethlehem Baptist church is thinking deeply about this matter. But one of the most deeply-resounding themes of its preaching pastor is the matter of obedience to God out of love and joy for what God has done for us. Is it really such a hard thing, in that context, to tell those who want to fellowship in an assembly which hears the Lord commanding us to baptize the believer that this is their first step in truly desiring God?

Labels: Baptism-related, local church, Piper fan club