Tag: Gospel (Page 1 of 2)

Simple Faith

September 18, 2024 / Chris

I remember sitting in a coffee shop (I know that’s a major shock) and hearing the group next to me introducing the topic of their meeting. I overheard phrases like, “This will change your life” and “game changer,” so I was naturally curious. In anticipation, I tried to lean in covertly, but the big reveal was that this life-altering practice was the art of couponing. Who doesn’t love a good deal? Still, it was anticlimactic from the opening sales pitch.

My reaction was an internal eye roll. Yet, in retrospect, perhaps I was too harsh on that group. Simple things can be life-changing. God works through the simple means of grace to bring life. Who could imagine that ordinary water, bread, wine, and preached words would have such powerful effects? Yet they do.
For most of my Christian life, theology was a concept to be studied and an abstraction for discussion. Now, it’s more like the daily bread needed for sustenance. I enjoy discussing, studying, and applying scripture and its overarching truths, but what I need is Christ crucified, proclaimed, and delivered to me.

Simplicity is not synonymous with shallowness. I tended to favor debating the philosophical side of theology to embracing the tangible simplicity of God’s gospel spoken and administered. If your theology bristles at indiscriminately proclaiming the forgiveness of sins to everyone on account of Christ, then you’ve elevated reason above scripture. The wisdom of God is the foolishness of the cross. We grow most in spiritual maturity when we become childlike in faith.

While studying is valuable, believing is greater. Faith is better than knowledge. That day in the coffee shop, I was snarky and dismissive of the coupon conversation. However, that conversation could have led to families making ends meet that week. How much greater are the sacraments our Lord has instituted to grant and sustain faith? Lord, forgive me for being too skeptical of simple faith in all its iterations. Help me to seek you in knowledge, faith, and love.

A Prescription for New Wine

August 31, 2024 / Chris

After nearly thirty years as a believer and fifteen in the ministry, this is perhaps the most difficult topic I’ve felt compelled to address. The difficulty comes because of the pharisaism in the first half of my Christian walk and ministry. As one childhood friend put it, “you’re so uptight if you ate coal, you’d get a diamond.” He was right. After a lot of study, ministry, failure, sin, and experience, I’ve come to understand that the gospel is the antithesis to the rigidity and self-righteousness I espoused, and that still haunts the hidden corridors of my heart.

A Prescription from Pharisees

The Pharisees sought the protection of their image and heritage. They were more concerned with the appearance of righteousness than actually possessing it. So, their call was to follow the rules. Wash your hands, abstain from healing on the Sabbath, and by all means, don’t associate with tax collectors and sinners. However, their prescription only addressed the symptoms and failed to understand the underlying cause of dead works.

If I’m honest, I’ve handed out more than my fair share of diagnoses and remedies over the years. More concerned with ensuring everyone toed the line, I was obsessed with behavior modification even if it was for the glory of God. What I misunderstood was that glorifying God involves more than merely doing what God has commanded. Amos 5:18-25, Hosea 6:6, and Psalm 51:16-17 reveal that there is a way to offer God precisely what He has commanded that does not please Him. Jesus’ intensification of the law in Matthew 5:17-48 demonstrates the need for a righteousness that exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees.

A Prescription for Pharisees

Jesus’ prescription for the Pharisees was not righteousness, but rather a recognition of their unrighteousness. His prescription was new wine; a wine that would explode the old wineskins of their expectations and religious bureaucracy. When Jesus pronounced forgiveness of sins to the paralytic in Matthew 9, the scribes cried, “blasphemy!” When the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners they questioned His disciples. Jesus’ response is a quote from Hosea that should strike us with the same force that it struck them: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13).

Then, John’s disciples approached to inquire about fasting. When Jesus replied, it was clear that something explosively new had come. What need is there for fasting when the incarnation of the entirety of your faith is right in front of you? What the Pharisees needed instead of obedience was to actually understand the very nature of God’s mercy as put on full display in the person of Jesus. That kind of divine mercy transforms one from the inside out and produces vibrant and joyous obedience instead of stale and begrudging obedience.

A Prescription for New Wine

Beware the arrogant, self-righteous ones who care more about you affirming their interpretation of scripture than understanding the gospel in all of its offensive glory. They hand out verses of scripture as if from a prescription pad like they wrote it themselves. Ironically, they miss their sickness and the real healing power of Christ’s atoning work. Like archaic doctors, they still attach leeches to their patients and seem dumbfounded by the resulting death.

The new wine of the gospel doesn’t offer a panacea for all our problems, but it does provide a cure for our most significant problem. Looking to and exclusively trusting Jesus Christ, His perfect life, His atoning death, and His glorious resurrection on our behalf is the sole sufficient remedy for our depravity.

What we need most is not more engaging preaching, more marks of healthy churches, more stringent adherence to our ethics, or more ardent defense of our theological presuppositions. Those prescriptions have been handed out in droves. Instead, we need to herald the unbelievable good news of the Son of God hanging on a tree to satisfy God’s wrath in our place. Once that is done consistently, then the conversation about other prescriptions can begin. After all, what use does a dead man have for wine at all?

Flipping Tables

May 15, 2024 / Chris

It’s easy to go with the flow and never push back against our churches or leaders when they drift from their straightforward mission. If Jesus were a consultant we could hire, what would be the results of His audit of our churches? I suspect that He’d flip over tables indiscriminately because there was so little of Himself and His gospel evident. If we hired a church growth consultant, they’d likely recommend we improve our search engine optimization and make every facet of our ministry relevant to the needs of a typical young family. Neither of those things is inherently wrong, but they are insufficient. To the degree we place faith in strategies like that instead of Christ, they are idolatrous.

My general approach to most issues is to find the center and to seek peace with all parties involved. However, I’ve become convinced that reclaiming the gospel’s centrality is an issue where we may need to flip tables because churches, leaders, ministries, and organizations have side-stepped Christ in the very name of Christ.

Mission Creep

Every institution, organization, congregation, and person is prone to mission creep. There are no exceptions. The gospel’s consistent proclamation in our churches every week is part of the rhythm of ministry and the means of grace that counterbalance that tendency. What if that consistent pronouncement of good news starts to fade into the background?

What begins with simple gospel proclamation morphs into a much more complicated ministry model. If we’re not careful, what could be an easy course correction could turn into cause for flipping tables. As time goes on, the singular focus on the gospel begins to drift as we emphasize disseminating knowledge, getting results, programming our way into relevance, and disregard the priesthood of believers.

Satellite Seminaries

Churches can often change into carbon copies of what pastors have experienced in their respective seminaries. We trade green pastures for lecture halls and gospel-centered sermons for theological TED talks. Where is the proclamation of Christ for the forgiveness of sins to those particular people gathered in His name at that very moment in time? Where is the pronouncement of absolution for all who have entered that room as believers in Jesus yet who are heavy-laden by their sin?

Our churches can be theologically pristine, our congregants well-read, and our services intellectually vigorous. However, if they lack the scandal of Christ’s atoning work, then they are like altars immaculately adorned with no sacrificial lamb. As ornate as it might all appear or sound, it is the sacrifice that atones. If we drift from proclaiming Christ’s dying work for sinners in favor of theological lectures, then we allow human knowledge to supersede wisdom, which is the foolishness of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:17-25). That is cause for flipping the seminary table.

Marketing and Metrics

Marketing and metrics are powerful forces that can lure church leaders into supplanting the gospel with gimmicks. The essential aspect of finding the balance here is ensuring that furthering your reach isn’t mistaken for gospel fruit. Furthering your reach can be a tremendous blessing; however, one cannot assume that reaching more people with your message is equivalent to reaching more people with and for Christ.

Conversion in the marketing sense is merely turning someone into a paying customer. Conversion in the Christian sense is supernatural, solely by grace through faith, and comes through hearing the word of the gospel. When churches become distracted by increasing their number of paying customers, enhancing their branding, or developing merchandise to spread the reach of their logo instead of delivering the timeless message of Christ for saints and sinners alike, it’s time to flip the merch table.

Programmatic Distraction

It’s entirely possible to be so busy for God that you don’t have time for Him. As we fill our calendars with church events, activities, classes, sessions, and meetings, we find little time to organically love our neighbor, which is the truest form of ministry. Little by little, we distract congregants with things to do at church while sharing the gospel directly with those we’ve built relationships with is replaced by inviting people to hear the pastor preach. Even that invitation is iffy these days in terms of hearing the gospel clearly proclaimed.

Instead of the congregation having people over for dinner to live life, discuss the Bible, or pray, we put together a program for various groups or demographics to meet at the church. There is nothing inherently wrong with meeting at the church or intentionality in discipleship. Still, the danger is in edging out the opportunity for the kind of natural ministry that takes place when people eat, drink, and discuss life without a script. When our ministry definition only fits within the confines of our church calendars and program guides, it’s time to flip the sign-up table.

Professional Priests

Ironically, making clergy into professionals who conduct the business of ministry is one of the causes and a cumulative effect of letting the gospel take a back seat. There isn’t a pastoral tier and a laity tier of Christian ministry. The priesthood of all believers puts everyone who professes faith in Christ in direct communion with God and places a great commission call upon their lives in whatever vocation they serve.

If we perpetuate the false paradigm of professional priests, then the simplicity of ministry as the overflow of living life with neighbors and the gospel proclaimed in those relational contexts is lost. Ephesians 4:11-12 explicitly states that pastors and teachers’ roles are given to equip the saints for the work of the ministry where the subject is the knowledge of the Son of God. Too often, we find pastors veering away from the simplicity of gospel proclamation and equipping saints to build their platforms and personas. The former is profound yet simple, while the latter is shallow and complex. When pastors become celebrity CEOs instead of shepherds, then it’s time to flip the conference table.

Refocusing and Flipping

How might we avoid mission creep, and what does it look like to keep the focus on the gospel? First, we must center our weekly gatherings on the gospel to confront and reorient the works obsessed hearts of saints and sinners alike. Second, all aspects of our churches must pale in comparison to the consistent and clear proclamation of Christ crucified for sinners. Third, we may need to flip a few tables. We might need to have some difficult, tense conversations with church leaders and question why the gospel is not central in every aspect of our services and ministries. Fourth, we may need to be willing to walk away from our churches to find one that consistently proclaims the gospel. That is not an easy decision, and one should not make it lightly; however, it may be necessary.

Ask yourself what our churches ultimately have to offer people, if not real forgiveness, tangible peace, genuine hope, and eternal salvation through Christ. Could we provide tips to improve family life? Perhaps we might offer a more intellectual engagement with a philosophical faith. Maybe we could present them with a roadmap to more holy or productive Christian lives. In too many cases, our churches have lapsed into those merit-based ministry mindsets. When we notice the focus has flipped away from Christ, His finished work on our behalf, and His gospel, then it may well be time to flip a few tables.

Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing

March 16, 2024 / Chris

A recent sermon was a simple yet profound reminder that avoided falling prey to missing its mandate. We are individually and corporately prone to wander from the gospel of grace. The simplicity and meritless nature of the gospel make it an offense to our obsession with works. The pastor encouraged us to keep the main thing the main thing while making sure that he proclaimed the gospel to the congregation and kept the main thing central himself. Mission creep is a struggle for all kinds of organizations, but the stakes of the church missing the mark are dire. There are several common ways this can happen.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

What if we mine the scriptures for every ounce of exegetical content yet neglect what the scriptures themselves say they are ultimately pointing toward? I’ve sat through many sermons that missed the gospel forest for the historical, grammatical trees. While no syntactic or background rocks were left unturned, Christ crucified for sinners was left unproclaimed. This is a common way to miss the mark, with a veneer of hitting the target layered on top in the form of theological depth and hermeneutical proficiency.

Chasing Rabbits of Relevance

Pursuing cultural relevance is another common avenue of going off the Emmaus path (Luke 24:13-34) of focusing on Christ. There will always be shiny ideas or trends that captivate our attention and try to lure us away from the stranger who interprets the scriptures with an eye to the messiah. Sociological studies, entertainment fads, and the latest ministry hype are easy distractions. Still, those rabbits of relevance are as fruitless as they are numerous.

Success Versus Fruitfulness

Fruitfulness is being connected to the vine and carrying out ministry through word and sacrament based on Christ. That kind of ministry bears fruit in God’s way and time. Success often sees measurable results and may be entirely disconnected from the vine. We frequently view ministry apart from word and sacrament as we pursue visitor retention rates, social media impressions, and church membership rosters. Experiencing success apart from Christ should send chills up our “ministry” spines. Success and fruitfulness are not synonymous.

Making Good Things the Main Thing

When good and noble pursuits supplant the core of the Christian faith, we can quickly turn charity into idolatry. Make no mistake. Charity is a good and noble thing, and it is a command. It is the fruit of our identity in Christ. However, it is not the main thing. Likewise, biblical morality is a good thing. It should be pursued and cultivated in the lives of believers. But our moral caliber is neither the basis of our justification nor the church’s primary mission.

Keeping the gospel the main thing doesn’t mean always preaching the same sermon; it isn’t reductionism. It keeps the primary focus in its proper place while refusing to let secondary, tertiary, or preferential issues become the center. Like the apostle Paul, we would do well to know and proclaim the simple yet powerful message of Christ and Him crucified as the main thing (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

Unamazing Grace

January 19, 2024 / Chris

The old hymn writer didn’t get it wrong, but sometimes we do. God’s grace is a kingdom reality that strengthens, extends mercy, and offers hope practically and daily. Grace is amazing; however, we relegate its sheer power when we limit who or how much God can forgive.

Grace to Ourselves

The grace of God is not merely a term for us to look up in a theological dictionary. Nor is it an abstract notion for everybody else to discuss in Bible studies or sing about. Christ came and died for actual ungodly sinners in need of grace.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)

One of the most beautiful aspects of our church is the “for you” aspect of confession, absolution, preaching, and the sacraments. I’m in continuous, desperate need of God’s grace, chiefly displayed in Christ’s sacrifice for the forgiveness of my sins and the peace that only comes through the gospel. So are you. God’s grace unapplied to our own lives is unamazing grace.

Grace to Our Enemies

As glad sinner recipients of grace, we ironically struggle to see grace extended to our enemies. Jonah’s prayer to the Lord after seeing God grant forgiveness is more of a window into ourselves than we’d care to admit.

And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. (Jonah 4:2)

How often have we disregarded those who have fallen as second-class Christians or outcasts? How often have we fled from a God who would forgive our enemies as easily and quickly as He forgives us? Having been forgiven much, we are in no position to secretly or publicly call for the destruction of those with whom we are at odds. Grace not offered to our enemies is unamazing grace.

Grace Upon Grace

Is the grace of God like the widow’s oil or the unforgiving servant? Is it an occasional act of mercy within the confines of our interpretations of the law or the very prerogative of God to limitlessly forgive and restore without consulting our mindsets of merit?

For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:16-17)

Moses gave the law, and we’d prefer to be doctors of the law than disciples of grace and truth. The latter is far messier and involves eating with tax collectors, sinners, and breaking old traditions in light of new realities of grace (Luke 5:29-39). Receiving grace upon grace should make us glad recipients and joyful ambassadors of a kingdom of unmerited sacrificial love. Grace with human limitations is unamazing grace.

We theological types have grown adept at seeing the doctrinal trees and missing the redemptive forest. Unamazing grace is merely a biblical concept. Amazing grace makes its way into broken, sin-scarred lives and repeatedly leaves a trail of forgiveness for us and our enemies.

Curative Versus Performative Theology

January 6, 2024 / Chris

Where does your theology place the emphasis of Christianity? You may have a pristine systematic approach or favor a more simplistic framework emphasizing faith. Either way, we need to consider where the focal point of our theology lies. We default to merit as the basis of our right standing with God, so do we primarily need a cure or a performance evaluation? Is our theology curative or performative?

Curative Theology

Theology is curative when it focuses on Christ outside of us for the forgiveness of our sins. When ministry and forgiveness of sins for sinners intersect, abstraction gives way to absolution. We are absolved and empowered as the church fulfills its mission.

Curative theology is supernaturally transformative from within rather than an external push for behavioral compliance. Focusing on the cure does not negate the importance of Christian living but properly establishes the priority of dealing with the sickness instead of the symptoms.

Performative Theology

Theology is performative when it focuses on our actions or desires. Someone once told me I was so uptight that a diamond would be the output if I ate a coal brick. My mindset was that we had to adhere to the principles we could derive from scripture with self-flagellating enthusiasm. As time passed, I shifted the focus from outward behavior to inner desire, but the result was the same. I was obsessed with performance; as all sinners know, that was a losing game before it began.

Performative theology is needed but should be secondary. Our conduct, behavior, and desires flow from our identity. Our identity is formed and reformed by the gospel. Does our performance matter? You bet! Is our performance curative? Not in the slightest, or Christ’s sacrifice was meaningless.

Medicinal Ministry

Where does your church spend most of its time regarding your faith? Does it reinforce your proclivity toward religious observance? Are sermons one part diagnostic TED talk and one part marching orders, or do they prioritize proclamations of Christ crucified for you? Imagine a bottle of medicine sitting on the pulpit that could cure the condition of the congregation. Does your pastor spend more time reviewing the ingredients, directions, and side effects or dispensing the cure? Is the cure even administered?

Jesus didn’t come to heal those who were well. He came as the great physician to call sinners (Mark 2:17). The ministry of the local church should focus on the gospel such that the side effects of the Spirit’s fruit overflow in generosity, love, and obedience.

The great physician didn’t come to give us weekly checkups or to run lab tests on our works. He came to resurrect us as we lie dead in our trespasses. He gifted us with the means of grace to continuously renew and refresh us. Performative theology should be the natural product of curative theology. Our good works flow from hearts and hands transformed by the heart of the Father toward us and the nail-scarred hands of the Savior bleeding for us.

A Holly Jolly Melancholy Christmas

December 8, 2023 / Chris

Tis the season to be jolly. What if you fall somewhere between Buddy the Elf and Ebenezer Scrooge? Christmas is a time for remembering and focusing on family and faith. However, each of those areas can be a cause for sorrow and joy.

Family

Old emotional wounds tend to flare up at Christmas like achy joints that feel a change in the weather. Others may have difficulty understanding why dark clouds hover over the Christmas decorations and events. While everyone else sings along with Bing and Mariah, we may feel more like Billie Eilish.

What is it about family that can bring out the best and worst in us? Cherished memories and haunted flashbacks can surface as we attend gatherings or even think about them. Reminiscing is a double-edged sword that cuts through to our souls as we long for what is gone and ache for what never was. Our faith would typically be a reservoir of joy, but it can also highlight our struggle.

Faith

Sometimes, cultural goodwill softens the heart during this time of year. Other times, our faith is as distant and cold as the North Pole. Unresolved pain, being hurt by the church, guilt, or shame might leave us ironically feeling far away from God in the season we emphasize God with us.

We’ll likely have Christmas Eve services, lots of Christmas hymns to sing, and an advent sermon series to bring the incarnation into the spotlight of our spiritual lives. Yet, if we’re already feeling disconnected from God, these expressions of faith only serve to underscore the distance. Thankfully, our God seeks us out, draws us in, and reminds us that Christ has bridged any gap between us.

Foretold Joy

For those who lean toward melancholy, lights and tinsel aren’t enough to lift our spirits. Faith and family can lead us in the opposite direction of the candy cane forest or the tenderness of a manger scene. Nonetheless, we have a tremendous reason for peace and joy. The foundation of our hope is something ancient and perpetually new.

We must look past all the family baggage and celebrate our spiritual family heritage. We have to look beyond our faith to the object of our faith and listen anew to the angel’s pronouncement of old. “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Zechariah’s prophetic words unpacked some of the substance of that good news.

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
Luke 1: 68-70

I’m happy for everyone who can slide into the Christmas spirit effortlessly. For those who find melancholy sprinkled into this holly, jolly season, our hope, peace, and joy can only be found where it’s always found: in Christ.

When You’re at Your Worst

December 2, 2023 / Chris

Christianity isn’t a religion for the few who have their acts together. Our great temptation is always to think that merit is our path to God. The gospel’s good news is that despite being at our worst, Christ’s perfection is our own by faith. We have faulty assumptions and protest the notion that our standing with God would come from outside ourselves.

Faulty Assumptions

We think God might accept us when we string together a few weeks of decent Christian living. We fail to realize that the cross settled our acceptance before God. Our striving to bring our accomplishments, hard-won victories, and good deeds as the basis of our forgiveness is a slap in the face of the Savior who alone lived perfectly, died redemptively, and rose again triumphantly.

On the day that we live our most God-pleasing life and on the day that we find ourselves in the dumpster heap of sinful failure, God is equally for us in Christ. We find that mind-boggling, and it leads to spiritual hand-wringing. What is the alternative except works righteousness, which God describes as the filthy rags of human merit?

We Doth Protest

At this point, you might be protesting. Such a radical view of God’s grace, mercy, and love will undoubtedly lead to reckless Christian living. Paul anticipated such an objection and raised it himself. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! Getting it right requires a shock to our meritorious mindset, followed by the exclamation that we must not tolerate sin. One does not negate the other.

Where do you find yourself? Have you had a good month? Or have you made such a mess of things you can scarcely lift your head to utter a prayer? Remember, Christ came for sinners. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Go and sin no more. Think about what is honorable, just, pure, commendable, and lovely.

Do your iniquities burden you? Lift your head. You’re worse off than you think. Yet God in the great gospel reversal is for you in Christ. Your biggest problem is more profound than your actions of failure. You are a sinner who inherited a fallen nature from our first father. But thanks be to God that Jesus Christ has lived a perfect life, gone to the cross on our behalf, and risen from the dead.

Lift your head, but only to look to Jesus. Swim in the depths of His mercy and grace. Seek His face, deny yourself, and repent daily. When you’re at your best and when you’re at your worst, look to Christ, and you will find your judge and Savior.

Lording Logic Over Faith

November 24, 2023 / Chris

Logic and faith are not antithetical—however, only one leads to salvation. As I think back over my journey from Baptist through the Reformed and now to Lutheran, one of the strongholds I had to bring down was a rigid logical systematization of belief. Would I allow scripture to speak and form my belief, or would I superimpose my theological system onto the scripture? No better area highlights this struggle than the sacraments.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper caused the most struggle in my transition. It took years of wrestling through the texts and recognizing my presuppositions to come to a point of open-mindedness. A combination of historical hubris, rationalistic reading, and a hint of Gnosticism was a recipe for lording logic over faith.

Historical Hubris

For the first 1500 years, the church accepted the efficacy of the sacraments nearly unanimously. Church tradition does not equal scriptural authority, but what changed in the next phase of church history? We must arrive at our conclusions from the text of scripture. Still, are those closer to the original author’s time or those centuries removed better temporally equipped to understand?

Ignatius, who was discipled by John, Augustine, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Cyril, and Thomas Aquinas, is a small sampling of the testimony of the early church for the bodily presence in the bread and wine. Zwingli departed from this and contributed to the many elements that hold a strictly symbolic view today.

The further away we get from the original events, the more likely we bring our cultural and philosophical baggage to the interpretive process. Does this mean we must hold all views that the earliest patristics espouse? No. However, to ignore their writings and teachings in favor of the contemporary is historical hubris.

Reading by Rationalism

If a equals b and b equals c, then a also equals c. That is exemplary logic. Does that translate over to Biblical interpretation? Does syllogistic law apply equally to scripture? How I understood scripture and formed theological convictions largely depended on a rationalistic reading of texts.

Sometimes, harmonizing seemingly contradictory thoughts in the Bible merely extrapolates our presuppositions. When this happens, we’re engaging in eisigesis. We assert that what the scripture plainly says cannot be the case because it rubs against the grain of our theological framework. We exhibit this tendency most clearly when we affirm the antithesis to a positive Biblical proposition despite the scripture not explicitly stating the antithesis.

Baptism is exhibit A. We see the passages that connect baptism to salvation and the forgiveness of sins, but we reason that they cannot mean what they say because it would “contradict” justification by faith. In our rationalistic bent, it doesn’t occur to us that God’s means are true and perfectly coherent despite our inability to connect the dots.

A Hint of Gnosticism

Gnosticism is multi-faceted and complex, but at its core, it has two key elements: a belief in secret knowledge and that the material realm is inherently evil. This mindset creeps into our perspectives on the sacraments as the secret knowledge of logic and our suspicion of the world and the flesh cast aspersion on any view that connects physical elements to faith.

With an inflated view of our knowledge on one hand and a distrust for anything material on the other, the efficacious nature of the physical means of God’s grace has two strikes. Supposing we are wise, we eisegetically undercut the wisdom that is the foolishness of the gospel revealed biblically in word and water.

How is it that we can affirm that a Jewish man was virgin-born, lived a sinless life, walked on water, raised the dead, and conquered death Himself yet stumble over biblical truths that don’t seemingly align with our theological system? Why do we balk at the supernatural when it defies our logic but not when it defies the laws of nature?

God’s revealed truth is never outdated, inherently contradictory, or subservient to our notions of logic. Do you believe that a particular divine Jewish man was born, lived, died, and rose again for the forgiveness of your sins? Christ is Lord over faith and logic. All of us should reflect on how we are prone to elevate logic over faith.

A New Wine Reformation

October 25, 2023 / Chris

Time cyclically dulls our memories. This gap in remembrance occurs over centuries, decades, or even weeks. We lapse into a Pharisaical understanding of faith and find ourselves settling for the old wine of works instead of the new wine of the gospel. We are also offended by Jesus forgiving sins (Mark 2:7), eating with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:16), his disciples’ lack of religious observance like fasting (Mark 2:18), or plucking grain on the sabbath (Mark 2:24). The religious gatekeepers in the reformation era were offended by scripture being available in the common language and relinquishing their authority to Christ.

Reformation New Wine

The new wine of Christ, crucified and resurrected, is poured fresh and anew into the old wineskins of our expectations, and the results are explosive. The reformation was such a rediscovery with implications still felt today. Indulgences and meritorious works had become commonplace while the church became the intermediary between the ordinary person and God. Years of observance, tradition, and ignorance aged the wineskins of society. The reformers poured the new wine of the solas, and the church still feels the ripple effects.

Just as the reformers came along and identified how the church’s practices had veered away from the scriptural realities of justification by faith alone, we must examine current church practices to see where we are operating counterintuitively to the gospel. The new wine is perpetually ready to do its exploding work.

An Old, New Wine

While protestants are in doctrinal alignment with sola fide, we still tend to hand out prescriptions to treat the symptoms of our sin sickness. Spiritual disciplines and experiences have become the new indulgences. Spiritual disciplines are a good thing, but they are not a justifying thing. They do not impact our standing before God. Spiritual experiences can be incredible, but they can also be incredibly misleading. Experiences have ebbs and flows, and we must weigh them against scripture.

God has promised that He would continuously work in the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28). The proclaimed gospel and the sins forgiven in the body and blood of Christ broken for sinners should explode the old wineskins of our misguided drifting to merit each time we receive the Lord’s supper and hear the good news heralded. These basic paradigms of Christianity are the old, new wine that shatters our illusions of faith by works.

Tasting New wine

Jesus’s offensive statement that we must eat His body and drink His blood to have eternal life was a new wine many of His followers’ wineskins could not contain. Modern reformation can only happen when we embrace this scandalously meritless and merciful promise (John 6:54).

The goodness of the good news is so powerful that it is unbelievable, except by faith. Many cannot accept that salvation rests entirely outside themselves, their effort, or their performance. The new wine of Christ’s all-sufficient, atoning sacrifice tastes off to our pseudo-connoisseur palates.

Our quest for a massive outpouring of religious fervor is an exercise in frivolity. Such an awakening cannot be manufactured by increased spiritual grit (disciplines) or the sweeping emotional movements we’ve become adept at creating. Instead, all we have to do is pour out the gospel and watch as any expectation that doesn’t align explodes.