scottjacobsen

15 February, 202215 February, 2022

Am I Really Preaching the Bible?

A little exercise for men who preach.

It is common for preachers to have much more in their minds when approaching sermon preparation and delivery than they can say. We are often guilty of preaching “the right message from the wrong text.”

I suggest this little exercise for preachers who are preparing a message. (This won’t work for a topical sermon, which is another issue and subject to other criteria). This exercise is for men who are preaching expository sermons.

Imagine your sermon is recorded on audio only. It was edited poorly so that the reading of your sermon text is cut off. The listener has no idea what your text is.

Now consider your sermon: when listening through the average serious message, 35 minutes or so, could the hearer, from your sermon, figure out the passage your sermon is based upon? Does your message arise from the text in such a way that the hearer (at least the Biblically informed hearer) can find the passage, or a parallel passage to your text? Could those who are not familiar with the Bible at least know you are basing it on something, basing your message on something that is missing?

If you must honestly answer “no” to this question, please read on:

The reason this is important is that much of preaching today is assumed to be Biblical because a passage is read before, and then the message commences; and never the twain shall meet! The ideas, concepts, lessons, stories from the sermon itself may be excellent, even Biblical, but are they Biblical from that text?

Expository preaching has been called lazy by some mega-church pastors. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, or I don’t have the gift of gab and can “shoot from the hip” with my stories and illustrations, but I find expository preaching to be the most rewarding and challenging preparation I do.

Whether or not it is the sole cause of Biblical illiteracy in the church, I do find that fewer men are preaching expository sermons. The present day’s urgency pushes us toward passages that somehow seem to answer immediate needs. But are the immediate needs we perceive to be most important the same as those God says is important? Preaching through the Word can be a guard against preaching to immediate crises only, while still addressing those crises. Expository preaching can uncover what lies beneath and prevent us from making the Bible come off as a book of advice-giving fables.

It is an easy thing to look up topics in a topical Bible or a concordance, but it is very hard to gather verses together that don’t violate their own contexts. Thus proof-texting that doesn’t supply valid proof can become the norm.

So listen to your sermon. Does it flow logically from the text? Does the text supply the outline? What is the context—immediate (previous and following chapters or paragraphs) and the context of the book in Biblical history (OT or NT is the most obvious, but there are other contexts); what is the genre of the passage? What is it’s historical context? How is the passage used in the rest of Scripture? What are other passages that parallel the one you are expositing?

A Bible passage is not a diving board from which one takes a great bounce and leap into the unknown pool of our own ideas.

11 February, 202211 February, 2022

The Great Commission and Romans 13

Most reading this will be familiar with the text of the Great Commission:

“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” (Matthew 28:18–20, ESV)

“And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15, ESV)

“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:45–47, ESV)

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”” (Acts 1:8, ESV)

Each of these commissions give essentially the same commands: go, teach, proclaim, witness, make disciples, etc.

I believe that the failure of the church today rests upon a failure to understand and therefore carry out this commission. We have failed to carry out the commands of Christ. Not only so, but we encourage this failure.

Consider Matthew’s version: “make disciples of all nations (ethnē). The word nation is translated “Gentile” when it contrasts “Jew,” or simply “nation.” It is sometimes translated “pagan.” It is correct to see a command for an exclusively Jewish church to preach to the Gentiles. This began to happen in Acts 10.

What has changed, however, from the past centuries to today is that the term nation has come to be understood by Christians to apply only to the individuals within a nation. To disciple the nations was once understood to be both individuals within the nation (for a nation is at its core a collection of individuals), but to the nation as an entity: the nation itself was to be discipled. It was expected that a nation of Christians would express itself as freely submitting to God’s Law.

How does this work? The Gospel teaches a man how to be a godly man, a son, a husband, a father, employee, employer, etc. It teaches a woman how to be a Christian woman, a daughter, a wife, a mother, a mentor. The Gospel teaches obedience to what it means to be a Christian human in the settings in which God has placed them. The Gospel instructs Christians what it means to be a family. Teaching the nations includes the individuals and groups within those nations.

The Gospel has ordered the church: its task, its authority, structure, organisation; it identifies ministries within the church and how they are to be conducted.

But the Great Commission demands a discipleship of the nations. Just as we are to teach each person to be godly, we are to teach each nation what it means to be a godly nation. This means that there are roles and responsibilities placed by God upon all nations, and all nations are either obedient or disobedient to those roles and responsibilities. God’s Law is the definition of the responsibilities of the individual, and therefore the nation.

Jesus said in Matthew 28:18, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given me, Go therefore . . .” Please note:

There is no authority in heaven or on earth that exceeds Christ’s authority. This means that any individual nation is answerable for its laws, morals, collective behaviours to Christ. God’s Law is the standard. This submission, willing or not, is not something that can be refused by a nations. A nation that claims to be secular, atheistic, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Animist—all are under obligation to Christ’s rule. He is King of kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 17:3, 14). This is the meaning of Christ’s Ascension. His rule is present. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me . . .”
The ministry of preaching and teaching of the church is based upon Christ’s authority: go therefore. Because of His authority He has the rights and privileges of a king to order His subjects: the Christians. Christians are commanded to go and make disciples of the nations. Because a nation consists of individuals, nations are discipled when the individuals in that nation are discipled. People become Christians, and when that happens, the nation becomes Christian.
Like individuals, all nations are either covenant keepers or covenant breakers. An individual cannot, before Christ, say, “I don’t believe in Christ, therefore He has no authority over me.” This is, of course, said by many. But this doesn’t make it fact. Likewise ungodly nations cannot vote away the Kingdom of Christ. It is one of the perils of democracy that Christ might lose an election! But He isn’t asking permission to rule, He rules by crown rights.

Discipling the nations resulted what is now known as Christendom. It is not odd that this term is hated by unbelievers, but it is very strange that it is also despised by Christians. A nation that has been discipled has learned how to be a godly nation. It is in these nations that human rights, liberties, freedoms have been developed. This great good has occurred in the nations most under the discipleship of the Gospel and is markedly absent in nations where the Gospel is absent.

Human rights, liberties, and freedoms came through the Gospel-shaping of the nations, and to remove the Gospel is to remove the very foundations of these blessings. Democracies or monarchies can only guarantee rights when the nation is under the discipleship of the Gospel. A nation that has forgotten how to be a godly nation has forgotten how be a free nation, just as a man who has forgotten how to be a godly man has forgotten what it means to be saved.

For this reason, no nation that rejects the authority of Christ can guarantee the rights of its citizens, because those rights were taught to the government by the Gospel. If Christ is not understood to be King, then man is king, and anything is possible. The State forgets its role in the Kingdom of God and attempts to be god. Left to itself, the State establishes itself as a god, an idol.

Forgetting its God-ordained role, the State necessarily creates its own role, which is to expand beyond the authority given by God’s Law. The State takes over the role of family, educator, church, business. The State, not God, determines what is right and wrong, true and false, good and evil. This is seen in countless excursions by the modern State outside its realm of authority:

As the State determines who is and who is not a human, abortion and euthanasia are now determined good, rather than evil. The State, not God, determines this.
As the State determines what it means to be male or female, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, marriage, divorce, and all things of a sexual nature are determined not by God, but by the State. God’s Word is clear regarding which behaviours are sinful and evil, and which are good. God’s curses and eventual judgement will come upon sin.
As the State determines its own authority, it claims ownership over each individual and family. The State, not God, determines the content of education, proper healthcare, welfare, who may and who may not conduct a legitimate business (and what constitutes an essential business!), who may and who may not earn an income—all areas that are not the State’s role or business. It is clear in God’s Word-Law that these are areas of the individual, not the government.

The state’s claim to ownership of the individual has been made clear in its demand for vaccines in order to fully participate in society. Bodily autonomy, taught in Scripture, is denied.

The nations of Christendom, largely Europe and North America, have been rejecting the discipleship that has made them great. The church in these nations has ceded ground and has moved away from calling the nations to the obedience of God’s Law.

I do not expect unbelievers to agree with me. What I do expect is for Christians to be obedient to Christ. His claim on the world has not been relinquished. Now that the Western church has abandoned its role as teacher (disciple-maker) of the nations, it may seem an impossible task to start again. But start we must.

When Christians deny the authority of Christ over the nations, they are seeking to reverse the Great Commission. The Great Commission is expected by Christ to be successful (Matthew 16:18). This expectation was shared by the early Christians. The result of Christians taking their role as assigned by Christ meant that paganism failed, and Christ’s rule was advanced. Perfectly? No. But the abandonment of the Commission is today a return to paganism.

Today’s Christians, for the most part, have absolutely nothing to say to a judge or parliamentarian, what being a Christian means in those roles. Indeed, many when speaking of their position, claim that they cannot let their Christian commitments and beliefs influence them! Why not? Would the atheist act this way? The Muslim?

It would be a great thing for many Christians to be elected to office, but only if they thought like Christians and refused to set their faith aside! Otherwise, they are wasting their time and are actually working against the commands of Christ.

It is not impossible, by the grace of God, for the church to see this and repent, and begin the long task of discipling the nations once again. At the practical level it means this:

An understanding of the totality of God’s Law over man’s law. A nation’s leaders may only create law that is not contrary to the Law of God. This understanding will place the Christian against the modern nations, and can lead to severe persecution.
A knowledge of God’s Law and Gospel. Christians must know how God’s Law limits the role of the State, and the responsibilities of the individual, family, and church. Each has their own authority.
A refusal to accept State authority over what is not its proper authority: conscience, family, church; education, health, care, etc.
An absolute rejection of the State’s role in determining right and wrong, morals, or truth.
Limiting the role of the State as outlined in Scripture: (Romans 13:1-8).
1. To be a terror to bad conduct. Bad conduct and good conduct are not determined by the State but are recognised by the State. There is a great difference.
2. The State is to be the avenger on God’s behalf against evil (vs. 4).
3. The State is a minister of God.

Now it should be clear that no State or nation that denies the existence of God will do these things, any more than a non-Christian will behave as a Christian. Such nations have become their own gods, deciding for themselves what is good and what is evil. They will incur God’s wrath and judgement, and part of the Christian’s message to them is to flee from that to turn to Christ.

We must return to the full understand of Christ’s Great Commission.

9 February, 20229 February, 2022

Anti-Intellectual Christians

[edit: I want to clarify that an intellectual is not defined by one’ s formal education or credentials, but by the act of thinking. An intellectual is a critical thinker who asks questions, evaluates them, asks more questions, and seeks answers. When contradictions and inconsistencies arise, further questions are asked. When stonewalled and gaslighted, a critical thinker knows he is over the target.
A university education alone in no way creates a critical thinker–indeed it may promote group-think and close off critical thought. This is especially the case in the past few decades. I also know that this statement will brand me as an anti-intellectual. So be it.]

[The problem of anti-intellectualism in the church has a long history. I am skirting that history and hope I am forgiven for this. By anti-intellectualism I mean that form of religion that resists critical-thinking. It is an accusation that gets tossed around far too easily. It is a conscious withdrawal from the intellectual conflicts that inevitably arise when one holds to a religious faith in the face of another faith.]

“Christians are anti-intellectual.” This has been the charge since the late 19th century. At that time, many denominations and universities, once explicitly Christian, scrambled for credibility in the academy by accepting the presupposition of modernism: the universe is a closed system with no God and no supernatural intervention. On these terms, every miracle in Scripture had to be reinterpreted as myth. Of course, the divine inspiration of Scripture had to be rejected and God could only be kept as a personal chaplain to one’s own feelings, fears, and hopes.

There are really two reasons Christians who rejected the anti-supernatural biases of the day were labelled anti-intellectual: First, Christians rejected the assumptions of the modernist view of the universe. The assumption that the entire universe, all of it, was reducible to matter and energy. Because they did not accept the findings of the “assured results of modern science,” they were labelled as far less intelligent and backwoods rubes.

The second reason, and much more serious one, is that far too many Christians actually were anti-intellectual. Difficult, complex, and challenging questions left unanswered. Darwin, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, all presented challenges to the Biblical narrative, and many churches, denominations, and schools simply were not up to the task. Some were frantically trying to “save faith” from the onslaught of materialism and not spending their energies answering the false worldviews. These worldviews have proven in the 20th century to be devastating to humanity, but the Bible-believing church was largely quiet.

Some saw this as an answer:

Brunner maintained that the biblical witness could not be taken seriously in light of the assured results of modern science: “The conflict between the teaching of history, natural science and paleontology, on the origins of the human race, and that of the ecclesiastical doctrine, waged on both sides with the passion of a fanatical concern for truth, has led, all along the line, to the victory of the scientific view, and to the gradual but inevitable decline of the ecclesiastical view.… The pitiable comedy which is produced when theology claims that a ‘higher, more perfect’ human existence of the first generation existed in a sphere not accessible to research, as it retires before the relentless onward march of scientific research, should be abandoned, once for all, since it has for long provoked nothing but scorn and mockery, and has exposed the message of the Church to the just reproach of ‘living at the back of beyond.’ … The ecclesiastical doctrine of Adam and Eve cannot compete with the impressive power of this scientific knowledge.” Emil Brunner, Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1947), 85–87.

But we know better now. We should have pointed out that atheistic, materialist science is thoroughly religious: it presupposes that God does not exist because it cannot prove His existence. But if science cannot prove His existence then it must also admit that it cannot disprove it either. Both the Christian and the atheist live by faith at this point, but the atheist must be arbitrary and irrational. The Christian believes that knowledge is only rationally possible, that is, certain, if there is a God who Created and ordered the world.

But rather than to address this as the worldview assumption it is, the answer from the church was often, “just believe,” or “you need to accept what you are told,” or “your questions show a lack of faith.”

This led to a “Check your brains at the door” mentality. Although it has always been true that the faith speaks to the mind, the assumption was that faith had no answers. Faith was separated from fact. It became widely accepted that Christianity had no answers, so those asking the questions went on as thought that were true. Looking to the church for alternatives to the dehumanizing view of mankind, (Darwin, Marx) none was offered. (I will note here that there were many who did answer and did so very well. Those answers were largely dismissed because they rested on a pro, not anti supernatural worldview. It must be remembered that anti-supernaturalism has not nor cannot be proved. It is assumed).

I have much more to say about how this has worked out in our culture—the loss of Christian influence in almost every institution and sphere of life, most notably those of government, education, and media, but others have pointed this out.

But I want to get to the point: we are doing it again. We are choosing to be anti-intellectual in our response to Covid-19 and the rules set down by civil governments.

How often did we hear these phrases? “Stay home, stay safe,” “follow the science” “masks save lives” “vaccines save lives” and others? Besides these, how many churches, (following a defective reading of Romans 13:1-7, Titus 3:1, 1 Peter 2:13-17), have without thought (critical thinking) succumbed to mandates to close their doors, restrict attendance, track attendance, demand masks, forbid worship in song, forbid the Lord’s supper, forbid assembly, and demand vaccine passports for attendees? We have uncritically accepted that online worship is equivalent to the assembly that defines the church (see Hebrews 10:25). It has even been reported to me that a group of churches in New Brunswick met with the Minister of Health in that province to ask how they might further co-operate with the already severe lockdowns.

Were any of these rules, regulations, and bylaws ever arrived at by real science and critical thinking? Were any of them adopted by churches after careful study of the Scriptures (which are sufficient for faith and practise in the church) and prayer? I don’t think so. It was “the State said it and that’s good enough for us.” We did what we were told and even with the science changed and contradicted itself, we held on to the myths that promised safety and freedom in exchange for obedience.

Why are we accepting a science that is based upon the irrational worldview of atheistic materialism? Why is the church, apparently without much thought, bowing to this?

This is anti-intellectualism! In allowing the State to define us, we have shouted to the world that we have no answers and no hope. Our hope is in the name of the State! Just believe and obey the State. Check your brains at the door (when you’re finally allowed to approach it).

There are people looking to Christ’s and His church right now, but they will be disappointed in us.

We proclaim that we have a hope in the resurrection, but our fear betrays our unbelief in that reality. Our fear of sickness and death shows that we are as terrified as anyone else.

We proclaim that Christ is Lord over all things and is Head of the Church. Our actions have shown the watching world that we only acknowledge Christ as King over all if we have permission!

We believe that God is sovereign, and in His providence, nothing happens outside His will. But we live as though we too are on our own. We are practical atheists.

We are in a crisis of credibility, and we have largely lost it. Perhaps as many as 300 churches in Canada, many of them very small, have done the hard work of resisting the propaganda. Some have paid a high price in fines and imprisonment. All have been smeared as foolish. But in God’s history, we will be seen as anything but anti-intellectual.

Repent.