The Wittenberg Door

How Do You Use Liturgical Elements in Your Church Worship?

The Gospel Coalition Web site asks three young evangelical ministers about their liturgical practices. I think the readers of this blog will find their answers encouraging. Here’s how interview sets the stage . . .

If you look at any Roman Catholic cathedral, you will notice that the Mass shapes the architectural design, featuring the altar, bread, and wine. The pulpit is placed to the left, out of direct sight in the peripheral. Since the Reformation, most Protestant churches have placed the pulpit, the place for preaching God’s Word, at the center of the church and usually at the center of the stage.
Besides the preaching of God’s Word, however, there’s been much debate on what else we should do during our services. Some early Protestants argued that preserving some liturgical elements along with preaching looked too similar to Rome and distracted from God’s Word. Others disagreed and continued to use them to enrich devotion or for pedagogical reasons. Today, these debates continue in one form or another. Some use them, some decide not to.
For whatever reasons, the interest in the use of liturgical elements has increased in recent years. So I asked Scotty Smith, Mike Cosper, and Bob Kauflin, “To what extent does your church use liturgical elements such as responsive readings and creeds? Why?

You can read the responses here.

Labels: Worship

Be Encouraged: God Does Not Issue Bluebacks

During the Civil War, the economic systems of the North and South were set on differing paths—at least in their ability to gasp for air. The South was suffering grievously due to the North’s naval blockade, which disallowed the transport of the southern mainstay—cotton. Although fairing better than the South, the North was hardly swimming in a sea of revenue.

As early as 1861, the first year of the war, Lincoln and his cabinet were forced to make tough economic choices. One such choice was to increase duties and excise taxes. Another was to issue “greenbacks.” Greenbacks were printing-press currency backed by the federal government. Because it was not supported by gold, the greenback’s value was determined by how much the government could borrow; as a result, the value of the greenbacks fluctuated with each battle. The problem was resolved, however, by the passing of the National Banking Act of 1863. This act allowed banks to issue currency based on the purchase of government bonds, thus stabilizing the greenbacks.

As mentioned, the South was fairing much worse, lacking the industrial might and commerce of the North. In response to this dire situation, Davis’ administration imposed a 10% increase of taxes on farm produce. Of course, this did not sit well with the states’-rights southerners who opposed direct taxation by a central government. Only 1% of the Confederacy’s revenue was derived from this measure. Consequently, revenue quickly dried up.

So out came plan B: Printing press currency. The South began printing “blue-backed” paper money. Once the printing presses began to hum, the flow of currency into the market place would not be ebbed. Runaway inflation ensued. For example, if you and two others decided to have breakfast in 1864 Richmond, you would leave a $21.15 tip—that’s 15% of $141, the cost of the meal. By the time Lee surrendered, the Confederacy was experiencing inflation of 9,000 percent.

What's This All About?

You’re probably wondering why we’ve taken this short trip down history lane. Well, in my study at home, I have a $5 blue-backed bill, which was issued on February 17, 1864. The full faith and trust of the Confederate States of America backed this note. I’m sure this pledge gave solace to the note’s original recipient. Today, however, the bill is worthless as currency, holding value by historians and history buffs only. This note is void, despite the intentions and promises of the Confederate government.

History reveals that regimes come and go; political philosophies fail; nations rise and fall, their destinies not being in their hands. But with God, this is not so. Actually, He determines the times and seasons of nations and men.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.
(Acts 17:26)

He sovereignly decrees all that comes to pass.

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His Will.
(Ephesians 1:11)

He accomplishes His purposes.

. . . He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand . . .
(Daniel 4:35 )

His Word stands because of who He is. Therefore, unlike that Confederate note, God’s Word will never return void. It shall always retain its value, adequacy, clarity, power, and authority. It shall always accomplish the purpose for which He set it.

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

(Isaiah 55:11)

How we ought to rejoice upon hearing such a pledge. Our covenant-keeping God has the ability and the will to fulfill His promises and keep His Word. This holds much more meaning than the pledges of men, governments, or nations. Indeed, God’s Word stands because of who He is—And you can take that to the bank.

Labels: Doctrine of God, History

Calvinism: Still Changing the World

Here's something interesting from Time Magazine: 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now. Why is it interesting? Calvinism appears in the number three spot. Here's an excerpt . . .

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.
No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, "everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world" — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom's hottest links.

Labels: Reformation

Fathers, Instruct Your Children!

Being raised in an unbelieving home, I had no idea how to instruct my children in the faith. When my wife and I had our first child, we were attending a Pentecostal church. We were taught how to demand God do certain things for our daughter, and we were taught how to chase away those pesky demons, but we were never taught the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. So what were we to do except to book another trip to the next Benny Hinn crusade?

After six years of demon chasing, loud suits, and big hair, God providentially brought us out of Pentecostalism and into the Reformation. On my first Lord’s Day in the Reformed church I was awarded a Heidelberg Catechism. I devoured it! What a treasure I had found; not only for my own growth—learning to worship the right God rightly—but also for my children’s. Now I had a tool to instruct my children, a tool that has been tried and tested for 400 years.

What is a Catechism?

To catechize a child is to instruct her in the faith using questions and answers. It’s a method that traces its history back to Scripture (Mat. 16:13, 22:42). The catechism I use in my home is the Heidelberg Catechism. Completed by Zacharius Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus in 1563, the Heidelberg Catechism offers 192 questions and answers and is divided into three parts: man’s guilt, God’s grace, and our gratitude. Here’s a sample:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?
A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.

If you are raising children, or if you're just a Christian who wants to better understand his faith, I recommend a good catechism—it’s a tried and true method of learning the faith that has stood the test of time.

Labels: Creeds Confessions and Catechisms

Notable Quote: Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon on God's gracious election . . .

I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.
C.H. Spurgeon (1834 - 1892)

Labels: Quotes

Good Works vs. Virtuous Acts

Paul declares in Romans 14:23 that “whatever is not from faith is sin.” Here’s the dilemma: An unbeliever sees a child drowning in the river. In response, he dives in and saves her. Was this a good act?

Consider Paul’s teaching regarding obedience to the civil government in the previous chapter:

1) Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

2) Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.

3) For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.

4) For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

5) Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.

Romans 13:1-5

Paul is teaching that “every soul” (not just believers) must subject themselves to “governing authorities.” We find here, and in other portions of Scripture, that obeying legitimate authority is a moral good—even for the unbeliever. But what are we to make of this in light of Paul’s comments in the next chapter regarding faithless acts?

Behind the Act

When considering this dilemma, I find helpful a distinction that many Christian ethicists make—distinguishing a “good” act from a “virtuous” act. The unbeliever saving the drowning child is a “good” act, but not a “virtuous” act. For an act to be virtuous, the person committing the act must be doing so with the right goal in mind, with the right motive, and according to the right standard.

The right goal

The act must be done to God’s glory.

Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
Westminster Shorter Catechism (1642-1647)

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Cor. 10:31

And it must be done in service to the Lord.

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men

Col. 3:23

The Right Motive

The act must be done in true faith.

Q. What is true faith?
A. True faith is not only a sure knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also a hearty trust, which the Holy Ghost works in me by the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.
Heidelberg Catechism (1563)

But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.

Rom. 14:23

And it must be done in love.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

1 Cor. 13:2-3

The Right Standard

It must be according the right standard—God’s law.

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law

Rom. 7:7

Conclusion

Saving the life of the drowning child is a “good” act. This does not mean, however, that the person committing the act is good—the quality of “goodness” applies to the act not the person. If, however, the act is committed with the right goal in mind, with the right motive, and according to the right standard, then it would be appropriate to call it “virtuous,” i.e., both the act and what’s behind the act are good.

Labels: Ethics

True But Unusual Facts About C. H. Spurgeon

From Christian History magazine . . .

One woman was converted through reading a single page of one of Spurgeon’s sermons wrapped around some butter she had bought.

Spurgeon read The Pilgrim’s Progress at age 6 and went on to read it over 100 times.

The New Park Street Pulpit and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit—the collected sermons of Spurgeon during his ministry with that congregation—fill 63 volumes. The sermons’ 20-25 million words are equivalent to the 27 volumes of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The series stands as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity.

Spurgeon’s mother had 17 children, nine of whom died in infancy.

Spurgeon’s personal library contained 12,000 volumes—1,000 printed before 1700. (The library, 5,103 volumes at the time of its auction, is now housed at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.)

Before he was 20, Spurgeon had preached over 600 times.

Spurgeon typically read 6 books a week and could remember what he had read—and where—even years later.

Spurgeon once addressed an audience of 23,654—without a microphone or any mechanical amplification.

During his lifetime, Spurgeon is estimated to have preached to 10,000,000 people.

At least 3 of Spurgeon’s works (including the multi-volume Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit series) have sold more than 1,000,000 copies. One of these, All of Grace, was the first book ever published by Moody Press (formerly the Bible Institute Colporage Association) and is still its all-time best seller.

Labels: History

Notable Quotes: The Scots Confession

The Scots Confession (1560) on the three marks of the church . . .

The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the Word of God, in which God has revealed Himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, with which must be associated with Word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God’s Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished.

HT: Valiant for Truth

Labels: Creeds Confessions and Catechisms, Doctrine of the Church, Quotes

What Makes Heaven Heaven?

When I was a Pentecostal, my understanding of heaven was shaped by those who had claimed to have visited, such as Roberts Liardon in his book I Saw Heaven. His book reads like a child’s visit to Disneyland, with magical creatures (". . . it seemed as if they were talking among themselves"), water fights with Jesus in the River of Life ("He dunked me! I got back up and splashed Him, and we had a water fight"), and our own personal mansions filled with gadgets too advanced for earth ("I sat down on a black velvet couch - it was alive - and comfort just reached up and cuddled me").

According to Liardon, heaven is a place where the Trinity has an office ("Sometimes when the Trinity are inside having conferences in the back . . ."), where there's a warehouse of unclaimed miracles ("On one side of the building were arms, fingers, and other exterior parts of the body"), and where there’s a Pentecostal-style worship service where-in Jesus is but a spectator ("Jesus and I were met by two angels who escorted us down to the second row, were two seats were reserved for us"). Indeed, like the rest of Pentecostalism, heaven is man-centered, and Christ is but an appendage.

Christ: The Glory of Heaven

To the contrary of Mr. Liardon’s “vision,” heaven isn’t a place dedicated to our pleasures and comfort, where Christ is a mere means to an end. Instead, it’s all about Christ and His glory--He is the center of all things, and worshiping and serving Him is our chief end (Rev. 5:9–14). This will be our privilege for all eternity, as Jay Wingard over at the Soli Deo Gloria blog reminds us:

. . . I firmly believe that part of what will make heaven so glorious is that we will forever be learning and marveling at Christ. Heaven will be heaven because Christ is there. It truly teaches us that only the Bride of Christ will truly be happy in heaven. Everyone in the world wants to go to heaven – they just don’t want God to be there. But for true believers – the Bride of Christ – one of the many glorious wonders of heaven will be growing in the knowledge of God for all eternity and never reaching the end of Him.

Heaven is heaven because Christ is there, and He is there in the same glory that caused the apostle John to fall to the ground as dead (Rev. 1:17). Not a buddy to play with, but a king with a “name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9–11).

Dwight L. Moody once told the story of a girl whose mother became very ill. Neighbors took the girl in while her mother struggled with the affliction. After a time, however, the mother died. The neighbors didn’t know how to break the news to the girl, so they kept it from her. After the funeral was over, they returned the girl to her home. From room-to-room the girl ran looking for her mother until she finally asked, “Where is my momma?” After learning that her mother was gone, the little girl asked to go back to the neighbors’ home, for her own home had no further attraction without her mother. Moody concluded, “No, it is not the jasper walls and the pearly gates that are going to make heaven attractive. It is the being with God.”

Labels: Doctrine of God, Doctrine of Salvation, Pentecostalism

Today in Church History: Heidelberg Catechism

On January 19, 1563, the Heidelberg Catechism was published in German under the title, "Catechismus, or Christian Instruction, as Conducted in the Churches and Schools of the Electoral Palatinate.

It was named after the German city where it was prepared by Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, at the request of the Elector Frederick III. Soon after it was written, it was translated into Dutch, and along with the Belgic Confession and the Canons of the Synod of Dort, the Heidelberg Catechism became part of the doctrinal standards of the Dutch Reformed churches. For centuries it has been cherished by Presbyterians as well, especially for its warm and autobiographical style, as displayed in its first question and answer:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong " body and soul, in life and in death " to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to serve him.

John Muether

Labels: History

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

How Do You Use Liturgical Elements in Your Church Worship?

Friday, January 27, 2012

Be Encouraged: God Does Not Issue Bluebacks