Tag Archives: church

Why Sex Is Central in Our Lifetime

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From Rod Dreher’s article, “Sex After Christianity.”

… It is nearly impossible for contemporary Americans to grasp why sex was a central concern of early Christianity. Sarah Ruden, the Yale-trained classics translator, explains the culture into which Christianity appeared in her 2010 book Paul Among The People. Ruden contends that it’s profoundly ignorant to think of the Apostle Paul as a dour proto-Puritan descending upon happy-go-lucky pagan hippies, ordering them to stop having fun.

In fact, Paul’s teachings on sexual purity and marriage were adopted as liberating in the pornographic, sexually exploitive Greco-Roman culture of the time—exploitive especially of slaves and women, whose value to pagan males lay chiefly in their ability to produce children and provide sexual pleasure. Christianity, as articulated by Paul, worked a cultural revolution, restraining and channeling male eros, elevating the status of both women and of the human body, and infusing marriage—and marital sexuality—with love.

Christian marriage, Ruden writes, was “as different from anything before or since as the command to turn the other cheek.” The point is not that Christianity was only, or primarily, about redefining and revaluing sexuality, but that within a Christian anthropology sex takes on a new and different meaning, one that mandated a radical change of behavior and cultural norms. In Christianity, what people do with their sexuality cannot be separated from what the human person is.

It would be absurd to claim that Christian civilization ever achieved a golden age of social harmony and sexual bliss. It is easy to find eras in Christian history when church authorities were obsessed with sexual purity. But as Rieff recognizes, Christianity did establish a way to harness the sexual instinct, embed it within a community, and direct it in positive ways.

What makes our own era different from the past, says Rieff, is that we have ceased to believe in the Christian cultural framework, yet we have made it impossible to believe in any other that does what culture must do: restrain individual passions and channel them creatively toward communal purposes.

Rather, in the modern era, we have inverted the role of culture. Instead of teaching us what we must deprive ourselves of to be civilized, we have a society that tells us we find meaning and purpose in releasing ourselves from the old prohibitions. …

Read the entire article.

(HT: @drmoore)

Watch Out or the Devil’s Gonna Get You

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In rural America, off a country road, on the soft soil of a weathered field, stands a sobering message for every passer-by: Go to church or the devil will get you!

The words are neatly strewn across a homemade billboard adorned with flood lights and a painted silhouette of a red figure, apparently Satan, holding a sling-blade. Go to church, the warning hisses, or be his victim.

As hokey as it sounds, the warning is right, you know, at least in a sense.

Now to be clear, if the sign means (and it likely does) that you’d better attend a weekly meeting or else Lucifer will eat your lunch, then no, that’s not right.That would be Anglo folk religion — more akin to African animism than anything Christian.

But, more positively, if “go to church” means be part of a gospel-shaped community, and “the devil will get you!” means you’re more susceptible to his schemes apart from such community, then the sign is absolutely right. By all means, if this meaning is the case, go to church or the devil will get you. Here’s why: first, Satan is real and he hates you; second, God designs that Christians persevere in faith by means of one another.

Satan Wants to Destroy You

John Piper recently shared a few stories from his years of pastoral ministry at Bethlehem Baptist, including one instance, early in ministry, when he casted out a demon. The topic is immediately riveting. Right? But in case we mismanage its significance, Piper reminds us:

Before I tell the story I should say, I think people tend to think in terms of “extraordinary” when they think of the devil. And the New Testament pictures the devil not mainly as doing something extraordinary, but as doing very ordinary, deadly, horrible “arrow-shooting” at our hearts. So lift up the shield of faith, quench the fiery darts of the devil— that’s steady state, daily Christianity. . . We have an enemy who is everyday trying to destroy us.

Still, truth be told, this reality doesn’t impact us the way it should. And as much as we’d like to believe our strong faith is behind our not thinking much of the devil, it is probably our negligence. Paul told the Corinthians that he showed mercy to the sinner “so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs” (2 Corinthians 2:11 , emphasis added). He suggests that we know what the devil is up to.

But do we?

Let us not forget that Satan lies (John 8:44 ), that he blinds the minds of unbelievers (2 Corinthians 4:4 ), that he disguises himself (2 Corinthians 11:13–15 ), that he works signs and wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9 ), that he strangles our efforts at fruitfulness (Mark 4:1–9 ), that he causes disease and sickness (Luke 13:16 ), that he is a bloodthirsty murderer (John 8:44 ), that he hinders our ministry plans (1 Thessalonians 2:17–18 ), that he accuses us before God (Revelation 12:10 ), and that he tempts people to sin (2 Corinthians 11:3 ).1

This last point is really important: he tempts us to sin. We are tempted everyday — several times everyday. Yes, the problem is with us first. We are severely flawed individuals with indwelling sin. Repent, don’t blame. But an adversary is also prowling around, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8 ).That someone is you. Satan wants to devour you — to maneuver in such a way that there be in you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God (Hebrews 3:12 ).

Our Words in Jesus’s Power

This is where gospel-shaped community comes in. God has designed our warfare to include one another. We can’t wield the shield of faith alone. We need brothers and sisters to come alongside us to hold up our arms. More specifically, we need brothers and sisters to speak faith-building words to our souls.

After the warning of temptation, Hebrews 3:12 says “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

You see, the household of God is a talking family. We say things to each other, powerful things to each other about the truth of God and the victory of Christ.We exhort one another — be it encouragement, warning, or counsel — and the Holy Spirit breathes upon what is otherwise babbling to effect real devil-defying faith in our lives. This kind of speaking is a glorious staple of gospel-shaped community. And Satan wants you to have no part in it.

Satan wants us isolated from one another. He wants to find us all alone in the thunderstorm of our own thoughts, when we’re stuck in the sounds of our sinful souls. It is the oldest trick in the book, that he’d catch us when we’re perusing the tree by ourselves (2 Corinthians 11:3 ). We’ve too often repeated that scene of Genesis 3. But then imagine God’s truth crashing into the picture.Imagine that happening today as we gather together.

The only reason our words have any power is because of the Word who came in person. The Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8 ).When Jesus died on the cross in our place he disarmed the demonic rulers and shamed them in his triumph (Colossians 2:15 ). Jesus lives. Jesus reigns! And he will come again for his church against whom the gates of hell will not prevail.

Love his church. Surround yourself with voices of gospel truth and be that for others. And then be assured, because you are God’s, that the devil will not get you, nor will anyone be able to snatch you out of your Savior’s hand (John 10:28–29 ). Matter of fact, absolutely nothing will be able to separate you from God’s love in Christ (Romans 8:35–39 ).

1 See John Piper, “Resist the Devil! ” January 1, 1989.

Raise Your Hand If You Agree

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I have no good memories of third-grade math.

To be honest, I don’t remember most of my elementary school days, but math in Mrs. Smith’s classroom is strangely familiar. Maybe it is because that’s where a school subject first became hard for me, or because the homework was such a drag. Or, actually, it may be because third-grade math was the first time I realized I was a crock.

It happened like this. Soon I noticed my friends were picking up math quicker than I was. I can’t recall the exact lessons — just that I wasn’t good at them. And everyday, during that math hour, Mrs. Smith would have students step up front and rehearse homework problems on the board. My classmates would write out the problem and swiftly solve it. They would carry numbers here and make a few notes there, and voila! — the answer.

But what seared this exercise into my memory was that after every answer was offered, Mrs. Smith would ask the rest of the class if they had the same answer. “Raise your hand,” she would say. “Raise your hand if you agree.”

I don’t know that my real answer ever lined up, and to me it didn’t matter. When she asked for the class consensus, I would simply swallow the knot in my throat and scan the arms in the air around me. If there were enough hands held high, and the key kids were in (you know, the smart ones), I’d stick my hand up too. I didn’t really know what I was doing, or what I really thought, but I passed as if I did. It was a hollow agreement, a conviction by association. It was the same problem I fear persists today with many Christians who call themselves pro-life.

The Hollow Agreement

According to the statistics, 1.2 million abortions are performed each year in the United States. But we should not assume that 1.2 million abortions mean that all 1.2 million women are pro-choice. The numbers showing the racial inequality that exists in the abortion industry are outrageous. Most abortions occur with women who are minorities (66%), economically disadvantaged (69%), and live below the poverty line (42%). But none of these are 100%. Of course, abortions also occur with white women (34%), and those who are not economically disadvantaged (31%), and those who actually identify themselves as born-again Christians (13%).

Thirteen percent equals 156,000 women a year. Which means, there are quite a few girls who probably come from evangelical families, attend an evangelical church, say they are pro-life, and still have abortions.

To be clear, the point here is not to overdo the demographics behind abortion. I hate abortion of every kind, and I want it to end everywhere. I don’t intend to draw attention to the fact that self-attested Christians have abortions, as if that’s the epidemic upon which we should focus. The point I want to make, the epidemic of which I lament, is that our pro-life convictions too often prove too shallow.

Hopefully the above numbers get our attention and overturn the thinking that assumes the problem is “out there.” Hopefully these numbers make us realize that more than a few folks sitting next to us on Sunday mornings are just like me in third-grade math. They raise their hand because that’s what everyone else in the room does. They pass by (and even vote) like they have a conviction. But they really don’t. They — you? — have a conviction by association, a conviction that flakes the first moment the issue gets real for them. Ignorance is still a problem, even among those who are supposed to know. For not all who are identified as pro-life belong to pro-life. And I believe it would make a difference if all who said they were really were, like deeply and truly really were.

Some Steps Forward

So then what do we do?

Let’s deepen our conviction. We should be better at resourcing than rhetoric. It can do some good to hold up signs and state the stats, but all slogan and no substance won’t last. We may get attention from outside the church, but we won’t help the reluctant inside. As one pro-life apologist points out, “for too long the pro-life movement has been shouting conclusions rather than establishing facts.” We need to be clear about the humanity of the unborn and the inhumanity of abortion. One means to do this is the wise use of abortion pictures1, along with several other resources, whether specific ministries, important books2, or corporate study material. Our churches should have these and run the gamut in their use, from just making them available to starting regular reading groups. The hope is to really know and believe the truth, such as when life begins and why it matters.

Let’s have the conversations, which involves life outside of formal settings. The rights of unborn children should be a familiar topic among our friends. We shouldn’t assume that every Christian we know has a robust view on life, or even that our own stance is fully matured. We should talk about it. Bring it up. Make this an injustice that you expressively feel and want to influence others in. Brainstorm ways you can help in your communities and mobilize a team to make something happen, as small as it may seem.

Let’s love, truly love, single mothers, which means stepping up in tangible ways for women who find themselves unexpectedly expecting. This means partnering with pregnancy support centers, building real friendships, mentoring, and more. This can be a complex issue, especially when some fear that support for such pregnancies condone the fornication behind them. To be sure, sometimes it can. But it doesn’t have to, and it shouldn’t. Believing fornication is sin and that every life matters doesn’t form two opposing truths, despite their causality relationship. We must love single mothers without a stigma on their situation. The church must be clear on what sin is, but scarlet letters are not in the gospel’s alphabet. This plea has even greater urgency in some Christian subcultures, like the Belt where I grew up. It would not have been voiced, but the silent consensus suggested that the guilt of abortion is preferred over the shame of unwed parenting. Loving single mothers means the stigma must go. Love is not plausible words, but power.

And power is what we need. Power is what we need if our conviction is real, and not just raising hands.

1For a realistic look at abortion, see abortionNO.org (Gregg Cunningham) andthecaseforlife.com (Scott Klusendorf).

2Justin Taylor recommends three books, organized by beginner level to advanced: 1) Stand for Life: A Student’s Guide for Making the Case and Saving Lives, by John Ensor and Scott Klusendorf (Hendrickson, 2012); 2) The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture, by Scott Klusendorf (Crossway, 2009); 3) Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case against Abortion Choice, by Francis Beckwith (Oxford University Press, 2007).

What John Piper Says to Brothers

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The new edition of John Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not Professionals will be released on February 1. You can pre-order a copy now.

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Also check our new ebook related to the upcoming Conference for Pastors (related to the aforementioned new edition), Still Not Professionals: Ten Pleas for Today’s Pastors.

 

A Prayer for Community

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Father, thank you for the church. Here is the wonder of the gospel: We would hate you and hate one another, separated from you by our unrighteousness, and separated from one another by walls of hostility. But we are here now as your children, looking at one another with love, united as a new family, a new humanity, reconciled to you and reconciled to one another.

This is the victory of Christ. He died for us, bearing the penalty we deserved for our sins. And he died for us, abolishing the barriers that divided us from one another. Our fellowship is the testimony of his glory: your mercy through Christ, by the Holy Spirit, has triumphed and continues to triumph in our hearts and lives. So Father, for this we praise you! We praise you.

That the Lord of lords and the King of kings, the preeminent being and ruler of the universe, that he would walk into our midst and look at us, the Judge of the nations, that he would look at us and say , “Here are my mother and my brothers and my sisters! Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother”

Jesus, that you would be our brother. Our God and our King and our Savior and our true and better Brother. It is too much for us. It’s too much. And so we stop in wonder. . .  Who is like you, O Lord? Who is like you? Who can make this up? This is inexpressible wonder. Surely you hear our songs with gladness. Thank you. Amen.

God Is Great in All the Earth

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Over the past couple years I’ve had the joy of occasionally leading corporate prayer at Bethlehem’s Sunday night service. I write them out and read them, every time. By grace I mean it when I write it and I mean it when I voice it. Though I’ve archived them all, they’ve not been posted before. But perhaps they might be helpful — one more little means to direct our hearts and minds to the Lord and the wonder of his grace.

The prayers are typically angled by whatever the theme is of that particular service. This most recent theme was the greatness of God in all the earth.

________

Father, we come now and ask for a view of your greatness.

The nations rage and the kingdoms totter, you utter your voice and the earth melts. You have brought desolations to the end of the earth, you make wars to cease, bows to break, spears to shatter, and chariots you burn with fire. You speak and summon the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting, you measured the waters in the hollow of your hand, you make grass to grow in deserts that no man will ever see, you give food for lions and know every time a goat gives birth.

You know every star in the sky, every sparrow that falls on the earth, and every hair upon our heads. Your judgments are unsearchable, your understanding beyond searching out. You are greater than that which can be imagined, counseled by no one and constrained by nothing. Utterly independent and gloriously sovereign, you are great, you are good, and you do what you want.

And we don’t answer back, indeed we can’t. We are dust, our lives are vapors, you know our frame is like grass. You are eternal, your knowledge is incomprehensible, you dwell in inapproachable light. To see you would melt us, for you are holy and we are sinful.

For we have tried to be creatures apart from you. We have abandoned the glory of reflecting your image and have instead sought to forge our own. We have hoisted up for ourselves other gods who are not gods, and thus deserve your everlasting wrath.

But though great, you are not distant. You do not keep silent. You are high and lifted up, and yet you came and lived on this earth. Father, you have sent your Son, Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, who has come to reveal your glory and redeem your people. So that when he died in our place on the cross we see the preeminent display of your character, when he rose from the dead we witness the triumph of your greatest victory, and when we believed the news about this we experienced the power that it all accomplished.

Once separated and dead, now reconciled and alive, brought into fellowship with you, we realize that your sovereign prerogative is always aimed at your glory and our good. Glory and goodness that we will behold and delight in forever.

Thank you. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Putting the “Christian” in Christian Friendship

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Is there anything distinctive about Christian friendship? What’s different about how two fellow followers of Jesus relate to each other, compared with two friends who don’t identify with Christ? Romans 15:2 helps us consider one essential component of what puts the Christian into Christian relationships.

“Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”

Who Is Our “Neighbor”?

“Neighbor” can be used very broadly (as Jesus does in Luke 10:29), but in this case, Paul is plainly talking about fellow believers (as he does in Ephesians 4:25). This is confirmed in the verb “to build up” — a word which Paul reserves exclusively for the church. We’re talking about Christians here in Romans 15:2 — Christian neighbors, fellow followers of Jesus with whom we share some proximity. So we could say this text carries significance for Christian friendship.

And the imperative is to “please” them, to accommodate them, to make their welfare of higher interest than our own. To please our Christian neighbor is to serve them. Undoubtedly, this will be for our own joy — no one is really served when it’s done in stiff reluctance. But it being for our joy doesn’t mean it’s always (or often!) comfortable. Pleasing our neighbor will take sacrifice. It’s not typically easy — it’s “not to please ourselves.” We’re giving something up for something better and that better is the building up of our brother or sister.

Sacrificially Build Up One Another

The sacrificial building up of one another — this is what makes Christian friendship, well, Christian. It’s Christian both in the adjective (sacrificial) and in the verb (building up).

Sacrificial building up (“not to please ourselves”) means it’s Christian in its manner. The foundation to our serving, our sacrificial edifying of others, is rooted in the example of Jesus. We’re to have the Philippians 6:6–8 mind among ourselves. He didn’t give prominence to his own comfort when he “left glory.” Nor when he prayed in the Garden. It wasn’t easy when he bore our sins and suffered the wrath we deserved. Yet even in the midst of the pain, there was a joy set before him. It wasn’t easy, but it was glorious. And when we walk in that example, it works the same way (1 Peter 2:21). It shocks the world — for the glory of God.

But this sacrificial building up is not only Christian in its manner. It’s also Christian in its goal. The friendship goes beyond discussing the latest scores (though it may involve that), or the newest app (though that may be a part, too), or the best book we’ve read (another good one). The purpose is to build them up. This is what the pleasing is about, for their good. It’s about their conformity to Jesus. Our little place in their life is to serve the goal to which God has elected them, Jesus has died, and the Spirit is working. We want to build them up.

For Your Friends

Now then, let each of us, by grace, please our neighbor for their good — count them more significant than ourselves, and their needs more pertinent than our own; to build them up — play the God-ordained role of a means of grace in their lives, investing in their transformation into the likeness of Jesus. Let’s stir this Christian intentionality in our relationships — that we not seek to please ourselves, but that we pursue the pleasing of our neighbor for their good in Jesus.

Read the original post at DG.

Believe, Sent, Speak, Heard, Believed, Sent…

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Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, Paul tells us, will be saved (Romans 10:13).

This is good news.

And then comes the best possible question, and subsequent questions, that could be asked.

How then will they call of him in whom they have not believed? There’s not going to be a confession of the mouth if there’s not a believing of the heart. Okay, okay, next question. How are they going to believe in him of whom they have never heard? There’s not going to be any believing unless they hear about the one worthy of their faith.We’re tracking with him now. Another question: how are they to hear without someone preaching? There’s not going to be any hearing about Jesus unless someone tells about Jesus. Last question: And how are they going to preach unless they are sent? Those who tell others about Jesus have to go forth, leaving one spot and traveling to another.

So the good news of salvation to everyone who calls on Jesus is coupled with a glorious mandate: tell this good news to others. No Uncle Sam posters here. No long, skinny finger is pointing at you. This is a call more amazing than we can imagine.

There is good news! This is good news that’s meant to be told. And we’re the ones, you and me, us, we’re the ones who get to tell it.

Let us be sent. Let us go speak. Let them hear. Let them believe and call on Jesus. Then let them be sent. . . . This is how it works.

Read the original post at Fighterverses.com.

“The gates of Hades will prevail against every institution but one…”

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Nice find by Josh Etter in the Piper archives.

Pastor John writes,

The church of Jesus Christ is the most important institution in the world. The assembly of the redeemed, the company of the saints, the children of God are more significant in world history than any other group, organization, or nation. The United States of America compares to the church of Jesus Christ like a speck of dust compares to the sun. The drama of international relations compares to the mission of the church like a kindergarten riddle compares to Hamlet or King Lear. And all pomp of May Day in Red Square and the pageantry of New Year’s in Pasadena fade into a formless grey against the splendor of the bride of Christ.

Take heed how you judge. Things are not what they seem. “All flesh is like grass. And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord (and all his family) abide forever” (1 Peter 1:24–25). The media and all the powers, and authorities, and rulers, and stars that they present are a mirage. “For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). The gates of Hades, the powers of death, will prevail against every institution but one, the church.

Excerpted from The Cosmic Church (1981).