I don't Twitter (or is it tweet?).  But I can't claim total purity, since I have facebook, myspace, and I blog.  Still, I've been purposefully avoiding the Tweet scene because it seemed to me to represent the worst of the other three.  No genuine conversation or community whatsoever, just an endless flow of (mostly trivial) information. 

I may rethink this position.  Not only did Abraham Piper point out that a narcissist is a narcissist regardless of where he is or how he spreads his narcissism (i.e. the powers of Twitter can be used for both good and evil, it all depends on the person), but the boys at Middlebrow (the podcast of Scriptorium Daily) have brought up a point worth considering:  If Christians are called to witness to the world and bring the gospel to the marketplace, and our marketplace is Twitter, isn't that exactly where we should go? 

It certainly is.  Christians who avoid new technologies and cultural trends altogether are not paying attention to the book of Acts.  Meeting unbelievers where they are and speaking their language is essential to evangelism.  But there's a danger lurking.  I would not be the least bit surprised to hear someone advocating "Twitter church" pretty soon.  This would be nothing new, of course.  Evangelicals have been advocating a move away from traditional church structures to private religion for years.  The point is that God knows what he's doing, and it's not up to us to decide to change the rules of the game. 

Dr. Reynolds has noted that Christianity is a religion of a book, not a movie.  This means that, however good it is that we are becoming more and more video literate as a culture, we can't allow our normal literacy to decline, because God isn't likely to send us an inspired DVD any time soon.  As a Christian, being video literate is important for witnessing to a video culture, but we can't allow ourselves to lose the ability to read and interpret a written text.  If we do, we will lose our only direct tie to the foundation of Christianity itself, the Word of God.

Likewise, Tweeting is not preaching.  In the Old Testament, the Word of God was delivered to messengers called Prophets, who personally and incarnationally brought that Word to the people.  In the Apostolic age, the Word was made flesh and the gospel of that Word was delivered by the Apostles through preaching.  It is in hearing the preached Word that God has promised to meet his people, to create and increase faith, and to seal believers with the Holy Spirit.  This simply can't happen on Twitter.

Just as we need to become more video literatre while not losing our ability to read and understand written texts, we must be careful not to let our increased Twitteracy diminish our ability to engange in genuine communication with real people in real community.  The more we retreat into Twitter and other online communites, the less at home we will feel in true, physical communities (such as church).  The body of Christ, like the Son of God Himself, is incarnational. 

A friend of mine recently asked if I think church attendance is necessary for Christians. Below is my response. I’m sure more could be said, but this isn’t meant to be a theological treatise.

 

I think the Christian life can be looked at in two inter-related ways: 1) Glorifying and enjoying God 2) Becoming more like God. One of the primary ways we glorify and enjoy God is by becoming more like Him (sanctification) and in order to become more like Him we must seek His glory and enjoy His goodness and beauty.

 

Within the context of these aims, the fellowship of the body of Christ is a necessity. It is not just commanded, but also explained in Hebrews 10- “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” The whole passage is about our assurance of faith, and encouragement between the saints is seen as a vital part of that. Elsewhere we see that church provides for the use of spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12, 1 Pet 4:10), accountability (1 Peter 5, Hebrews 13:17), and general love between believers (John 10:34, 17:20-21). These commands are meant to be followed within the body of Christ, and are typically neglected by those who cut themselves off.

 

There’s no such thing in the Bible as a “Lone Christian.” The letters in the New Testament are either to whole churches, or to leaders about churches. The expectation is that Christians will be meeting together regularly, and thus there is no instruction for those who do not.

 

I don’t think God has a checklist wherein He marks every Sunday we fail to attend. His concern, I believe, is about our heart in the matter. Why is it some have broken fellowship with others He has redeemed? The only explanation for someone who regularly excludes themselves from the gathering of the saints is sin- be it pride, selfishness, or whatever. Ironically, those are heart issues that are often confronted when people live in genuine community with other believers.

 

Dallas Willard makes a related point in the forthcoming book God & Governing, “People sometimes ask me why, since I’m such a “profound thinker,” I’m still involved in church. I sometimes reply, “Well, the Bible says you’re supposed to love your enemies and you’ll find a few there.” I mean to be humorous, of course, but I sensed some recognition out there as I say that. Actually, however, that’s what the church is. It’s a place where you can get really mad at people and not run off and leave them. It’s a place where anger and contempt can be unlearned. It’s a place to learn the deep things of a fellowship in Christ that lovingly endures disagreement, anger and injury. “Churchmanship” in that sense is important. It’s vital. It’s in God’s plan and nothing is going to take the place of it. The church is intended to be a school of love.”

The bottom line is that if we’re genuinely seeking after God and seeking to become more like Him, we will desire to be in community with His people, even when it’s difficult. If we lack that desire, then it’s likely that we are no longer seeking after God.

Allen Yeh, a Professor at Biola Univeristy and tutor in the Torrey Honors Institute, has written an article in which he argues that missions is the central theme of Christianity.  The Bible, he says, is a means to an end, and that end is missions.

He offers many reasons for his choice of missions, such as the fact that all of the Apostles were missionaries, Jesus' lasts words on Earth were a call to missions, there is a whole book (Acts) devoted to chronicling missionary activites (and on top of that, most of Paul's letters are written in a missionary context), etc. 

Now, I agree with nearly everything that Dr. Yeh says.  Missions is an extremely important biblical theme, and it's one that can tend to be denegrated among academic theologian types (like myself).  At one point, Yeh comments, "The center of gravity of Christianity has shifted away from the Western world, and most of the Christians in this world are now in Asia, Africa, and Latin America."  This is no small matter.  Christianity is incurably multi-cultural and this is a direct result of its missional nature.  But is "missions" in and of itself really the "central theme" of Christianity?  If the Bible is a means to missions, might we ask if missions isn't a means to something else?

Yeh does stop to mention a few other candidates:

scholars have proposed various possibilities for what might be the main theme of the Bible. Some people say it’s the Kingdom of God. Some say it’s God’s sovereignty. Others say it’s God’s love. Still others say it’s worship (one of the most famous proponents of the last is John Piper, as he says in his book Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t”). Other possibilities include: the two Greatest Commandments (love God and love neighbor); the Great Commission (there are actually five Great Commissions, one in each Gospel and one in Acts); the Covenant; the Promise; and the glory of God. While I think all of these are valid, again I would argue that it is only mission that adequately encompasses all of these.

Later on, referring back to the reference to John Piper above, Yeh says:

Now it is here that I beleive Dr. Yeh falls into a common error that has plauged evangelicalism for a long time.  He places the proclaimation of the gospel exclusively in the realm of missions.  It is easy to see, then, why missions itself would become the central theme of the Bible.  A few paragraphs later, he says, "In most Protestant churches, the central part of the worship service is the sermon. The original function of the sermon was evangelism, as seen in the Greek word kerygma which means “proclamation” (of the Good News)."  Again, proclaimation of the good news is used here as a synonym for evangelism.  But this not how the Biblical authors treated the gospel.  Paul, in his letter to the Romans, begins (in chapter 1, verse 8) by thanking God for the church in Rome, because their "faith is proclaimed in all the world."  They are Christians (and apparently Christians of amazing faith) not pagans in need of evangelism.  And what does Paul go on to do?  In verse 15 he says, "So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome."  The first thing Paul does is proclaim the good news, to those who are already Christians.  This is how the gospel is treated in Scripture.  It is not a one-time bit of useful information that, once responded to, is no longer necessary.  It is the heart and soul of all Christian teaching and worship.  This is something that the Reformers recognized, which is why the sermon did become so central to Protestant Christianity.  Thus it would probably be better to view Missions and the local church worship service as two seperate but equal "pillars" that are the foundation of Christianity.  Both are important, both are commanded by Christ, and both are acts of worship that encompass all the myriad themes found in the Bible.  Theologians may have a tendency to forget about the unreached (except as an abstract theological concept in their systems), but missiologists can also have a tendency to forget about the reached! 

I also think Piper's comment is worth returning to, because I think Yeh may have misunderstood it.  When Piper says, "Missions exists because worship doesn’t", I doubt that he's trying to say that worship per se is the central theme of Christianity.  Once again, worship is a means to an end, and that end is to glorify God.  It seems to me that missionary activity is also a means to an end.  It is a means to bringing people to Christ, allowing them to come into his presence and worship Him, and ultimately spend eternity with him.  And as Yeh pointed out, missions can itself be an act of worship, which would in turn be an act of glorifying God.  Thus missions is not only an act of glorifying God in itself, but a means to the end of furthering God's glory throughout the world.  This is probably what Piper is getting at, and it seems to me to be the best understanding of the true central theme of Christianity.  Yeh is right to stress how important missions is, but we must always remember WHY it is so imporant (for the glory of God).  

Over the next year or so I will be exploring the concept of the "energies" of God.  This is an ancient Christian doctrine that goes back to the Early Church Fathers.  While it remains an integral part of the doctrine of God in the Eastern Orthodox churches, it never truly took hold in the Latin West and seems to have been almost entirely forgotten until the Reformers.  Both John Calvin and the Reformed Scholastics (such as Francis Turretin) made frequent use of the essence-energies (E-E) distinction in their theology.  Sadly, this began to fall out of practice even in Reformed circles, so that today virtually no Western Protestant has even heard of the energies of God. 

So, what are the energies?  Crudely speaking, they are the "activites" of God.  Because God's essence is wholly other, outside of the realm of space and time, incomprehensible, we cannot come into direct contact with it.  And yet God is a God who intervenes in his creation and enters into relationship with his creatures.  It is the energies of God that we come into contact with.  God's glory and love and goodness are all energies.  According to Mike Horton:


But we must also keep in mind that the energies are not ontologically separate from God's essence, nor are they parts or pieces of God.  They are God. 

This may seem a bit confusing, and I have not even begun to do the topic justice.  This is merely an introductory post that, I hope, will show that such a distinction is desperately needed in Western Protestantism today.  All that is important at this point is that idea that there is a distinction between God as He is in Himself (His essence) and God as He manifests Himself to His creation (His energies). 

Now then, three reasons Evangelicals need to start thinking about this distinction:

1) Pantheism (or Panentheism)

There has long been a tendancy in the West toward a kind of Pantheism.  Medieval mysticism and its quest for the Beatific Vision was an extreme form of this.  If God is absolutely simple and "only" an essence, how do we come into contact with Him without in a sense become a part of Him?  What does the Apostle Peter mean when he says that we will "partake" of the divine nature?  Do we partake directly of God as He is in Himself?  At the very least, this seems to imply some sort of Panentheism, which is the belief that God is contianed within and permeates all of the natural world, as if He were the "world soul."  By positing the doctrine of the energies of God, we can explain how it is that we come into direct contact with God and even partake of Him without falling into this dangerous tendency of Western theology.

2) Stoicism

This is not as dangerous of a problem for Protestants today, but it is always a potential.  If God is, as traditional Christian theology has always maintained, unchanging and impassible, not affected by his creation (as He says in Samuel, He is not a man that he should repent), one could easily come to the conclusion that God is like the great Stoic philosopher in the sky.  After all, impassible could mean "cold" and "unfeeling."  Perhaps God is just an impersonal being from which all reality flows, a being who doesn't care about us or love us (certainly not enough to save us from our sin).  Again, the E-E distinction saves us from such extremes.  God in His essence is simple, unchanging and impassible.  But his energies are manifold.  Through His energies He comes into contact and enters into relationships with his creatures, and in an analogous way He feels with them, responds to their pleas, etc. 

3) Open Theism

I saved the best for last!  Of the three reasons I've given, this one is obviously the biggest potential danger for contemporary Protestantism.  After considering Stoicism, it should be easy to see how the E-E distinction will help here, since Open Theism is simply the opposite problem.  Open Theists want a God who can feel our pain, react to our cries for help, and genuinely respond to our prayers.  Ignoring for the moment that the incarnation of Christ solves many of these problems (Hebrews specifically addresses how Christ can empathize with our struggles with sin, for example), the E-E distinction does as well.  God's essence can remain unchanging while  His energies remain manifold.  His essence is simple while His activities in creation are varied.

So, are you interested yet?  At any rate, I hope you can see how potentially important this distinction can be for the problems facing modern Protestantism.  As I said, I will continue to explore this theme in greater detail over the next year.  This is only the tip of the iceberg.  If I've managed to whet your appetite, you can hear more on the E-E distinction in Mike Horton's systematic theology lectures (click here), specifically the most recent lectures on the incommunicable attributes of God.  For a slightly more detailed introduction to the topic and its relation to the early Reformers' theology, check out the last section of Dr. Horton's book Covenant And Salvation.

Dr. Mike Horton is teaching a class on systematic theology at Christ United Reformed Church in Santee, California (where he serves as Associate Pastor).  The audio of the class is available online for free.  Dr. Horton will be coming out with a new, one-volume Systematic Theology for Zondervan next year, and this class is a sneak preview.  He's just finished the first section, "Prolegomena", and is now a few weeks into section two, "The Incommunicable Attributes of God."

To have a listen, click here. 


(Dr. Horton is also host of The White Horse Inn, a weekly radio show about theology and culture).

A couple of years ago I wrote a paper called "The Virtuous Case for Christ: How C.S. Lewis's Theological Virtues Should Aid Christians Living in a Postmodern Culture." I presented it first at the "C.S. Lewis: The Man and His Works" conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC October 27, 2007. I also presented it at "Standing Against the Tide: C.S. Lewis as Philosopher and Critic in the Postmodern Era" conference at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA August 9, 2008.

Each time I promised to post the audio from the presentation. Well, six months after the last presentation, I've finally done it:

"The Virtuous Case for Christ: How Lewis's Theological Virtues Should Aid Christians Living in a Postmodern Culture" (9.32 MB)

I'm planning on developing the "Virtue Apologetics" concept for an ETS/EPS paper this year, and eventually into a book. I welcome your feedback.

Each of the synoptic gospel accounts begins in a rather historical, matter-of-fact way. One begins with genealogy, one with a brief prophecy and John baptizing in the wilderness, and one with an explanation of how historical it is. The Gospel According to John is profoundly different and the difference runs through more than just his account of the gospel, but also his letters and apocalypse.

In some sense, the other writers said simply, “This is about Jesus. Here’s what happened…” John couldn’t do that. He couldn’t simply say Jesus and go about his narrative. The incursion of God into humanity must have demanded a far more dramatic introduction:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world…” (John 1:1-9)

It’s not until verse 14 that the reader is told that this Word was the Son of God, and not until verse 17 that He’s identified as Jesus. Perhaps that sweet name is not the most important thing about Him.

John did something similar at the beginning of his first letter. Again, he could not simply mention Jesus without expressing a grand vision of what he meant when he spoke of Jesus:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:1-5)

By the way, in case you missed it, John saw Jesus with his very own eyes! He only had to mention it four times. (Erik Thoennes did a great job of addressing this in his sermon on the passage.) So many years later, John still maintained the excitement of having seen God incarnate. He not only saw God, but touched Him and heard from His lips a great message. The message? God is light.

Perhaps even years later, John saw Jesus again. But again, John couldn’t just say he saw Jesus…

“Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long rode and a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as the snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in the furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.” (Rev. 1:12-16)

Sometimes I wonder if those who doubt the same person wrote each of these documents have actually read them. There are a number of similarities, but one especially stands out: God is light. I don’t think any other biblical author speaks to God as light as often as John. In his account of the gospel we learn that darkness cannot overcome this light, and similarly in John’s letter we are told there is no darkness in it at all. Furthermore, in Revelation, Jesus is described as “white as snow” and as “the sun shining in full strength” (neither of these have darkness either).

What would lead a man to speak so dramatically of someone in this way? Who could sustain this man’s interest, excitement, passion, devotion, and adoration for some sixty years? What thought could send this man into a frenzied abundance of joyful recollections, theological metaphors, and zealous praise? I fear that too often I speak of Jesus as theological and historical fact, but not often enough as magnificent light and creator of all things. Father, inspire us, as you inspired your beloved disciple, to speak not so simply about your Son; but fill us with such awe and wonder that we cannot contain it,

We've been digging into 1 John at Grace EV Free and I highly recommend Dr. Thoennes's sermons thus far:

1/11/09: The Word Came and Changed Everything

1/18/09: God is Light

1/25/09: Walking in the Light

The rest of the series will be posted on Grace's mp3 page.

The relationship between biblical laws and the covenants or testaments has been the centered of much debate through church history. Today views range from there being no laws that apply to Christians to the view that every law in the Bible is still enforced. All Old Testament Laws Cancelled by Greg Gibson offers a version of the New Covenant Theology view. Gibson contends that “All Old Testament laws are cancelled, and all New Testament laws are for our obedience.” (p7)

 

In the first part of the book, Gibson entertains nine objections to his thesis that all Old Testament laws are cancelled. These include the notion that the Ten Commandments are the eternal “moral law” of God, that Christ did not come to abolish the law, that there is only one covenant of grace, and that all scripture is God-breathed and useful. The second part of the book provides eight reasons why Gibson believes all Old Testament laws have been cancelled. They include the claim that the Decalogue is the foundational document of the Old Covenant, that the law cannot be divided, that the Jerusalem Council did not require obedience to the law from gentiles, and that the Decalogue had an historical beginning and end.

 

Part three moves on to the second part of Gibson’s thesis; that all New Testament laws are for our obedience. He responds to antinomian arguments that we’re not under law, but under grace and that the only law is love. He then provides four reasons why Christians must obey the New Testament laws. He cites the mere presence of hundreds of commands given after the cross, points out the sin is lawlessness, and focuses on the praise the Bible has for the law of Christ.

 

The book’s conclusion centers on the issue of sanctification. Gibson argues that sanctification must by Christ-centered instead of law-centered. At the end of the book are two appendices. One considered that objection that New Covenant Theology allows for beastiallity and incest and the other offers thirteen ways we should still use the Old Testament.

 

All Old Testament Laws Cancelled makes many good arguments based on the Bible, and these good arguments make the book a worthwhile read for those familiar with the debate. However, I believe there are at least two significant problems with the book, and these are reflected in the title. It really should be “All Old Covenant Laws Fulfilled.”

 

 The first problem is that Gibson is not persuasive that all Old Testament laws are cancelled. In Genesis 9:6 God gives a law against murder to Noah. This law is clearly pre-Sinai and therefore not part of the Mosaic Covenant. Jesus is the priest of a “better covenant” according to Hebrews, not a better testament. Hebrews tells us that with a new priest there is a change in the law and the old covenant is obsolete. Gibson fails to show how a law (such as Gen 9:6) in the same testament as a particular covenant (such as the old covenant) is subject to the same conditions as laws actually given within that covenant. His logic would lead us to expect God to flood the earth again since His promise to Noah is in the Old Testament and must have been cancelled by Christ.

 

The second problem has to do with “cancelled.” We journey into dangerous territory when we replace biblical terminology. The Bible never refers to the Old Covenant (or Testament) laws as cancelled. Instead, Christ is described as having fulfilled the law and prophets. Christ being born in Bethlehem did not cancel the prophecy that He would be born there- His birth fulfilled it. Changing the terminology in this way does something to Christ’s vicarious death on our behalf. Christ’s fulfilling the law for us is far more valuable and precious than if He were to simply cancel the law. Cancellation often implies incompleteness, and there is nothing incomplete about Christ’s work on the cross.

The videos of all speaker addresses and panel discussions from this year's T4G conference are available online for free at Ligonier.org (for a limited time).  These conferences are amazing, encouraging (and often humorous) and it would be well worth your time to watch the videos (if you don't have a lot of time, just watch the panel discussions!)

Check them out here. 

Unfortunately this will not be a book review.  I haven’t had the opportunity yet to read the book, though I plan to in the near future.  I did however read the Christianity Today article bearing the same title two years ago, and I’ve seen, heard or read several interviews with the author (here's a good one).  Here I simply wish to make a few comments in light of a recent study done by ChurchRelevence.com (more on that in a moment).

Basically, a good chunk o’ Christian youth (roughly 18 – 25) are moving away from the Arminian, mainstream evangelicalism of their childhood toward (to differing degrees) classical Reformed theology (the primary motive being, at least according to the CT article, a desire for deeper theology grounded in historic creeds and confessions).  The majority of the credit for this Renaissance of Reformed thought is given to John Piper.  Because of his passionate preaching and evident concern for world missions, Piper has managed to break into circles (such as the annual Passion Conference) that were previously closed, sometimes even hostile, to Reformed theology.   Thus, Let The Nations Be Glad became a “gateway drug” to Piper’s deeply Reformed emphasis on the radical sinfulness of man, the radical holiness of God, and His absolute sovereignty in all things. 

All this makes sense to me (and I have no doubt that it’s true), but as a blogger, I can’t help but wonder if the recent advent of New Media has contributed to this exodus into the Reformed promised land.  R. C. Sproul was on the cutting edge in the late 80’s and 90’s.  Ligonier made use of every available medium of communication, from radio to cassette tapes, to videos.  Now Dr. Sproul’s teaching series are available daily on the internet and satellite TV.  So, you might ask, why wasn’t there a Reformed Renaissance in the 90’s?  I think it has been slowly building.  Many today who are in the 18 – 25 bracket could have grown up with Dr. Piper’s or Dr. Sproul’s ministries, or their parents could have been first introduced to it.  The use of so many different forms of media mean that some folk who would not have otherwise been exposed to Reformed teaching had the opportunity to see loving, Christ-like pastors and teachers arguing passionately for the clear teaching of Scripture as expressed by historic Reformation theology.  Both Piper and Sproul (and others), it must be admitted, break the mold of what most non-Reformed people tend to think of Reformed people (or worse…Calvinists!).  The point being, there have probably been 1,000 John Pipers preaching faithfully to their small Reformed congregations over the last 100 years, but no one outside their limited communities knew them.  And no one would actually pick up the writings of Calvin or Edwards because of the stigma surrounding “Calvinism.”  Godly men like John Piper, in most cases, remove that stigma.

Now fast forward to 2009.  ChurchRelevance.com has posted a list of the “Top 60 Church Blogs.”  As I looked at the list I was suddenly struck by how many of these blogs are Reformed (some of them are even “confessional”!).  Not only are the top 2 blogs Reformed, which really says something all by itself, but of the 60, a total of 10 are definitely Reformed, at least 1 (the Evangelical Outpost, formerly of Joe Carter) was Calvinist, though Joe didn’t wear it on his sleeve, and perhaps 2 or 3 others as well, but I’m not confident enough to say for sure.  Now 10 – 12 isn’t a LOT out of 60, but consider that no other single theological strain or movement has nearly so many (the Emergent movement had 3 or 4 by my count). 

Now, the correlation-causation relationship is always tricky.  Are there so many popular Reformed blogs because of the movement, or has the movement grown, at least in part, because of so many average Reformed Joes and more-than-average Reformed mega-stars getting into New Media and using it more effectively than the other guys?  I can’t really say for sure, but given what I’ve seen happen with New Media in other arenas over the past decade, I’m inclined to think the latter. 

Has anyone read Hansen’s book?  Does he address this issue at all, and if so, what does he have to say?