North or Be Eaten--A Review

North! Or Be Eaten. Book 2 of The Wingfeather Saga. By Andrew Peterson. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2009, 323 page, $13.99.

I picked up this book because it was there. It wasn't given to me. I wasn't asked to read it or review it. My wife had it, said she couldn't get into it, so I thought I'd give it a try. I hadn't read any fiction in several years and felt I could use a break from academic reading. For those who are interested in fantasy literature, this review will give you some idea of the overall contents of the book and what I believe are its strong points and weaknesses.

North! Or Be Eaten fits neatly in the genre of fantasy literature. Peterson creates a world with a variety of strange but vaguely familiar creatures. The society is pre-industrial (for the most part), and there are talking lizards (called "Fangs") that have invaded and routed the world of men. The war is brutal for everyone, but especially for children, who are captured and forced into slave labor making weapons for the Fangs (the part of the book that hints at some industrial complex). They have a mysterious master called "Gnag" who seems to be a malevolent spirit of some kind. The purpose of the war on the world of men focuses on capturing the young heir to a throne from a land across the sea that many believe is only a myth, and his brother and sister. Being the second book in the series, there are gaps in knowledge for a reader like myself who has not seen the first volume. Footnotes in some places refer back to the first volume.

There is a broad variety of the society. Before the invasion of the Fangs there are towns and cities of respectable folk, but there are also towns filled with more seedy people, and then wild, roving bands of highwaymen known as "Stranders" because they live near the main road that passes along a strand of  a major river. The main characters are Tink (Kalmar Wingfeather, heir apparent to the throne), his brother, Jenner  (Throne Warden, charged with keeping Tink safe at all costs), Leeli (the sister and Song Maiden, who plays a semi-magical "mouth-harp"), Nia (the Queen Mother), Podo (Nia's father, a former pirate with his own secrets to keep), Artham Wingfeather (Throne Warden to Tink's father), and Ozkar (a bookseller). The story takes the reader on a journey of escape from the Fangs and also from each of the character's own past transgressions, failings, and fears. One harrowing escape after another move the action from beginning to end.

In terms of strengths, the book moves quickly. It is an easy read with short chapters. Character and plot development, overall, are well done. It is a tale of failure and redemption in the end, and of the importance of family and learning what really matters in life. Ordinary people do extraordinary things, things they didn't know or think they could do. Pride more than once leads to missteps and failures. As with most stories set in a mythical world, good wins out in the end, but in this instance, it is mixed with a great deal of pain and sorrow, and an odd turn in the plot at the end. Line sketches throughout the book help readers envision some of the odd creatures that inhabit this world.

What weaknesses are there in this book? Well, the most significant weakness is the final plot twist. It simply does not seem to contribute to the story in a meaningful way, unless it is to highlight the power of love to overcome failure. The ending is bitter-sweet, and the plot twist seems contrived somehow.

So, would I recommend this book? Well, maybe for older teen readers. It really doesn't seem to be a book intended for an adult audience, and if  you're accustomed to reading J. R. R. Tolkien, Stephen R. Donaldson, or C. S. Lewis, this book will come across as a pale imitation of great fantasy literature.

Baptist History Guy

Liberty's End

On the eve of the celebration of my ancestors' arrival on these shores in 1739, and just days before our annual celebration of Independence from a paternalistic and oppressive government, the Chief Justice of the Supreme, Justice Roberts, effectively sided with government tyranny over the rights of the people and the states in his historic swing vote decision on what is commonly called ObamaCare. Why? I have no idea. Of all the justices on the court, he was the one least likely suspected to have favored this far reaching power grab on the part of the federal government.

What I know is that no matter how long he sits as Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, his legacy will be forever marred by the events of this day. The press may praise him today, but history will not. The people of the Republic looked to him to uphold their rights and the rights of the states against an ever growing centralized power, and he betrayed us. Unless the next Congress and the new president repeal this horrendous law, we are doomed as a nation to the fate of Greece, Portugal, and Spain--socialist nations reeling under the weight of overwhelming debt, joblessness, and insufficient revenues to support their well-intentioned but failed programs of public assistance. May God spare us from ourselves and give us a Congress and President in the next election who will turn back the hand of tyranny and restore to us the guarantees of our Constitution and limit federal powers.

Tribute to Dad

Father's Day is a mixed day for me. On the one hand I reflect on my own father, who died when I was 14. Dad was a great man in my eyes. He only completed the 8th grade but was full of traditional wisdom. Few people I've known knew their Bibles as well as he knew his. He worked hard all his life, often 16 hrs a day. He was what we call today a "bi-vocational" pastor. He served as pastor of a small church on the edge of town and had a paint contracting business. Dad encouraged all of us to get a good education--something he never enjoyed the benefits of. He emphasized learning proper English, math skills, and history.

My dad's passions were the Bible and Baptist history. Granted, my dad grew up in a generation saturated with Trail of Blood landmarkism as the lens through which all church history was interpreted. His Bible was the 1906 C. I. Scofield Reference Bible. He would have nothing to do with the revised Scofield Bible that came out in the late 1960s. All attempts at modern language translations were, to him, a corruption of the Bible. From my dad I learned to love and trust as inerrant and authoritative God's word, and I learned to love Baptist history, even if we would not see eye to eye on every point now.

Dad taught me the value of hard work. From a very early age I worked, helping in my spare time with painting houses and learning the trade. He encouraged each of us to learn other skills as well. In addition he encouraged me as I went out in the neighborhood mowing lawns in the summer. Work was a part of life for us, and we never resented it.

He loved music, had a ringing bass voice and could sing almost to the bottom of the piano keyboard. I'm still envious of his voice. He learned music in a day when people learned by "shaped" notes rather than "round" notes. He could not read lines and spaces on a score but knew pitches by the shape of the note (each note in the scale has a different shape). I learned to love music from my dad.

Dad loved the outdoors. He loved fishing the most, but he also taught us to hunt. Gun safety was a big issue with Dad because his Uncle John Land was killed as a result of a hunting accident. Every year, at the beginning of hunting season, Dad would tell us how Uncle John reached behind the seat of his Model T truck, grabbed his .22 by the muzzle thinking it was unloaded, and the trigger hung on a spring and it went off. Uncle John lay in a hospital in an "iron lung" for two weeks before finally dying. Dad would talk about sitting on a bench outside the hospital on a moonlit night, listening to the sound of the iron lung and Uncle John fighting for his life. What did we learn from that? Two things. First, no gun is ever "unloaded." Secondly, a gun can get you killed. Treat it with respect.

Most of all I learned that spending time with God, my wife, and my kids is more important than time spent at work. Work will always be there. My kids will be grown and gone some day. God's word is my treasure, and my wife is the one who makes me complete. What's the point of working 60--80 hours a week if you miss seeing your kids grow up, your wife becomes a stranger, and the Bible is squeezed out of your schedule? Thanks, Dad, for some great life-lessons.

Trusting in the Dark Times

"Save me, O God,
For the waters have threatened my life.
I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me."
Psalm 69: 1--2, NASB

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with trouble? Have you ever felt the darkness of despair closing in around you? Recently I have.

In the last 12 months my family and I have been through one tumultuous crisis after another. Every door of opportunity seemed to close and one major crisis after another has befallen us. This time a year ago my brother lay dying from a rare and untreatable disease. It was the most powerless feeling in the world. After he passed, work and the hectic nature of life prevented me from being able to grieve and move forward. For months I felt like I was in a mental fog. Just as I began to pull out of that, one of my children became seriously ill. After seeing many different kinds of doctors we began to see improvement but still had no diagnosis. Then this same child developed pneumonia. That's when the darkness really closed in. She and her mother were awaiting ambulance transport to a dedicated children's medical facility and I was driving ahead of them with packed bags. Alone in my car, the darkness began to close in. I had seen the x-ray of her chest. I had seen the blood oxygen count. This was not good. And this child was supposed to have been baptized on that very day. Would I lose her? I fought back against that darkness and poured my heart out to God for mercy for my child. Thankfully, she's home from the hospital and recovering. But still we face the same issues we faced before she developed pneumonia. There are still tests to be done and answers to be sought.

And still the darkness lingers. Always it is just there, hovering around the edges of my psyche, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. I feel like a man drowning, sunk in deep waters, with no place to get a footing. Every where I turn seems to be the wrong direction. But I have this promise: "All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8: 28). And I see the bright rays of his providence, even in my trials. In the midst of all of this my child came to faith in Christ. In the midst of her physical pain as she recovers, she hopes that her brother and one of her dear friends will come to faith in Christ in time to be baptized with her when she recovers. These are bright rays of God's grace in the midst of the darkness. So in all this I am reminded of the word of God that came by Isaiah:

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.
For I am the LORD  your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior" (Isa. 43: 2--3a, NASB).

In remembering these precious promises I know that God will deliver me and my family from all these trials. The hardships are proving grounds, and the reward will be worth all the struggle because the battles, like our very lives, are sanctified by his grace.

"I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made the heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep" (Psalm 121: 1--4 NASB).

Palm Sunday Meditation

I know it is late on Palm Sunday, but the idea for this meditation came to me during the worship service this morning at my local church as I waited for my pastor to begin the sermon. I began thinking about the "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem. I looked up the passage in Matthew and found the corresponding Old Testament prophecy in Zechariah 9: 9. Then I read the surrounding verses, looking for clues as to how I would preach this Old Testament text in a Palm Sunday service. From that came this meditation for Palm Sunday.

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope; This very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you" (Zech. 9: 9--12, NASB).

What is the promise of these verses? It is the promise of peace and deliverance. Prior to the invention of the stirrup the preferred animal for a king was a donkey because it is a sure-footed beast, unlikely to throw its rider. Kings in battle rode in chariots. Kings coming in peace rode donkeys. Here the promised Messiah comes in peace. He comes in humility, not in pomp and circumstance. He comes to end warfare and bring peace to the nations. His dominion will cover the earth. He comes to set prisoners free and to restore to us what has been lost. Let's unpack that just a bit.

The promised Messiah, we are told, is the Prince of Peace (Isa 9: 6). He brings shalom to his people and his world. Shalom is more than merely the absence of hostility. It is wholeness in our relationship with God that enables us to have wholeness in our relationships with each other.

The promised Messiah needs no pomp and circumstance to establish his presence. He is God incarnate. He does not need the testimony of men to support his claim to be Lord of lords and King of kings. Because he is God come in the flesh he possesses a unique sense of self-identity that has no need to be puffed up. He comes in humility, dressed in the style of a peasant carpenter-rabbi. But there is no mistaking that there is something radically different about this Jesus. He speaks with certainty, with authority, and yet condescends to the lowest people in society with love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Jesus came to bring peace to a world torn by strife, and yet it is not the kind of peace we imagine. Wars have continued since his coming. He even predicted that wars and rumors of wars would continue until the end. But the day is coming when the King will return, and when he does he will bring the final conflict to a swift conclusion and usher in the reign of the King of Peace, and then warfare will be ended forever.

The prophet promises that the reign of the Messiah will encompass all the earth. He is the supreme sovereign. As such he has entered into a covenant for the redemption of his people. He has promised to set the prisoners free and restore what was lost. We are prisoners of sin, and we have lost the beauty of our original holiness, and with it we have lost ourselves, our true selves. By the blood of his covenant, which he sealed on the cross, he has purchased us from the slave market of sin and is restoring in us by his grace the beauty of holiness that marks us as persons created in the image of God.

What is our guarantee that this is all true and that we will one day enjoy the full measure of this promise? He is risen. He is risen indeed.

The Danger of Prosperity

We are conditioned to look upon prosperity as a good thing, a positive blessing from God. Our culture, our society is driven by materialism, and popularity and success are seen as good things. Kept in perspective they can be a great benefit, but too often our sinful nature feeds on blessings and perverts them into shackles that bind or curses that destroy. God, through Moses, warned ancient Israel about this very thing:

"But Jeshurun (i.e., Israel) grew fat and kicked--
You are grown fat, thick, and sleek--
Then he forsook God who made him,
And scorned the Rock of his salvation" (Deut. 32: 15 NASB).

Today the Southern Baptist Convention, on paper, is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States with over 42,000 churches and some 16--17,000,000 members. Only 200 years ago Baptists were a small and despised minority in North America, just beginning to organize for global missions, In 1814 Baptists organized their first national body on American soil, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States for Foreign Missions. With a name like that you can see why it was quickly shortened to the nickname "Triennial Convention" (it met every three years). From that original Convention two major Baptist bodies emerged: the American Baptist Churches, USA (formerly the Northern Baptist Convention, then the American Baptist Convention), and the Southern Baptist Convention.

At the beginning of the twentieth century both the Northern and Southern Baptist Conventions were approximately the same size, but in the course of the twentieth century the SBC far outstripped its northern counterpart in conversions, churches, and missionaries on the field. The SBC has held, in the main, to a more conservative Baptist theology and retained more commitment to the Baptist confessional heritage. And yet, as I look at my beloved SBC, I see signs that all is not well, even in the wake of our Conservative Resurgence.

A colleague of mine commented one day that unless we also reclaim biblical authority the battle for biblical inerrancy will have to be fought all over again. We are all to ready to declare the shibboleth of inerrancy, but are we ready to come under the yoke of biblical authority? I've been reading Baptists of the nineteenth century, and I find a different "spirit" (for lack of a better term) at work among them than we see today. These were people who took the Bible to be the Word of God written--inerrant to be sure. But they also understood it to be God's authoritative law for the churches. A "profession of faith" meant something different to them. It was not a mere "decision" made by reciting a prayer and filling out a card. It was something you stood before the whole church and declared in your own words prior to baptism. A lifetime of godly devotion was expected of every church member. Failure to bring forth continual fruit in keeping with repentance meant being lovingly confronted with church discipline.

Today's apparent numerical success has become a hindrance to the hard work of church discipline and associational discipline. We dare not withdraw fellowship from wayward members for fear of what it would do to our numbers (only about 30--40% of our total members attend church regularly). We dare not withdraw fellowship from churches that have deviated in doctrine or practice for fear of what it would do to our numbers (upwards of 70% of our churches are not effectively reaching the lost). And so we allow people to remain on our rolls who give no credible evidence of genuine conversion and churches to remain in good standing that have long since ceased to be New Testament congregations. Success has become a shackle that binds us and is holding us back from being the people of God we are called to be.

What's Wrong with this Picture?

Friends, the last few days have been very frustrating for me. I have watched as a recurring debate has erupted, both on the social networks and in Baptist newspapers over whether and to what extent Baptists should or should not be disturbed by a resurgence of Calvinism in our seminaries and pulpits. I'm not going to get into who I think is right or wrong. That would only fuel the debate even more, and to no good purpose.

Why, I ask, are we debating this when 70% of our SBC churches are either plateaued or in decline? This sad state of affairs cannot be blamed on resurgent Calvinism because the best estimates I've seen put Calvinists in pulpits in the SBC at only about 10%. Something else is driving the downward spiral of our churches. But rather than try to face and deal with that we choose to debate theological minutiae like the Medieval Schoolmen who debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

It's time to set aside the theological wrangling for a minute and refocus on the Gospel. Both Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the SBC (at least the ones I know) believe in the free offer of salvation to all who hear the Gospel. Both believe that it is the responsibility of every believer to share his/her faith with unbelievers and call them to repent of their sins and trust in Christ for salvation. Both believe that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Both believe in biblical inerrancy and justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Both believe in the substitutionary atoning work of Christ on the cross.

How can we show a lost world the love of Christ if we can't even show it to each other? It's time to refocus on the main thing. We've got a lot of churches that are dying. Why? Each church has its own particular pathology that must be faced and dealt with. But behind it all may lie a kind of subconscious hardshellism that says "our four and no more." Oh, we would never state it so blatantly (okay, so I've heard of one church that did), but it prevails, I suspect in many of our churches. We say "Everyone is Welcome", but are they really? Do we want drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, and swindlers (you know, the people Jesus went to) coming through the doors of our churches? Our priorities are out of focus, and repentance needs to start with us if we're going to reach a lost nation and a lost world.

God's Sovereignty, Human Responsibility, and the Molinist Position

I've been reading the recently published book, Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue, edited by E. Ray Clendenen and Brad J. Waggoner.  On the whole this is a book worth reading, especially if you are a Southern Baptist with questions about Calvinism. The book presents an irenic debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the SBC on the role of Calvinism in Southern Baptist life, past and present. The authors of the various essays are well chosen and articulate. They share a common commitment to the Gospel and the evangelistic mission of the denomination.

Some chapters I found somewhat lacking were the two chapters on the extent of the atonement, and then a later chapter on a Molinist interpretation of God's sovereignty. David Nelson sought to make a biblical defense of general atonement and for the most part he succeeded. However, at one point he raises the issue of God's love in relation to the Calvinistic position of particular redemption (the idea that Christ died particularly to redeem the elect; 132). He implies that the doctrine of particular redemption indicates God does not love all people, at least not in the same way. At the same time he admits to holding unconditional election (131). But does not his affirmation of unconditional election raise the same questions regarding the nature and extent of God's love for sinners as does particular redemption? It is a question worth asking.

In the next chapter Sam Waldron set out to present a "biblical" defense of particular redemption. However, this chapter, rather than building on key biblical passages that affirm the definite nature of the atonement, argued primarily from logical deductions and inferences for the doctrine of particular redemption. Waldron most commonly cites the Puritan John Owen and the twentieth century commentator John Murray, with an occasional nod to B. B. Warfield.

For me, however, the most interesting and troubling chapter is the one by Ken Keathley on Molinism as the best solution for the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. For Keathley logical consistency is a driving force. He wants to find a way to make the infralapsarian position logically consistent, and for him Molinism is the key. Molinism was first advocated by a Jesuit priest named Molina. His position has been roundly criticized by all sides as giving too much ground to the other side and so has never enjoyed a great following among either Catholics or Protestants, Calvinists or Arminians. Essentially Molina argued that God knows at three levels. He knows what is necessarily true, he knows what will be, and he knows what could be if circumstances were different. This third knowledge is said to be "middle knowledge" and stands between God's necessary knowledge and his knowledge of what will be. In the Molinist system God employed his "middle knowledge" or knowledge of what would be in any given circumstances, to plan the course of creation to accomplish his perfect will by establishing the circumstances in which free moral agents would free choose to do what God intended. At first glance this looks like a good proposal. Bruce Ware has also argued for God's use of middle knowledge (God's Greater Glory, chapter 4, although Keathley doesn't present Ware as holding to middle knowledge). A thorough and much more capable critique of middle knowledge can be found in John D. Laing's "The Compatibility of Calvinism and Middle Knowledge" in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47, no. 3 (Sept 2004): 455--67. My only observation is that, looked at carefully, Molinism doesn't really resolve the tension. It only moves it back one step. As I understand it (and maybe I don't, really; Molinism always gives me a headache when I try to look at it too closely), in the Molinist schema, God simply governs the universe with a stacked deck, so to speak.

God determines the context in which we live and move in such a way as to secure our doing his will because he knows perfectly how we will each respond in a given circumstance. In one sense this is little different than the Arminian view that God merely ratifies our choices through his foreknowledge. In another sense the hard determinism of some forms of Calvinism are maintained, except this time God is merely manipulating his creation to achieve his goals.

Herein lies the problem of a theological system too slavishly devoted to human logic. God says, "For  My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways" (Isa 55: 8 NASB). I find pure, supralapsarian Calvinism, pure Arminianism, Molinism, and Open Theism to be far too committed to perfect internal logical consistency. They all share a common arrogance--that the human mind can fathom the mysteries of God through logic. Can I resolve the tension between God's sovereign rule of the universe and the free moral agency of humanity and angelic beings? No. Is that a problem for me? No. I assume that God has the issue resolved in his mind, and that satisfies me. I don't need for my system to be perfectly symmetrical. Let me rest in the biblical witness. Those who are saved are saved completely owing to God's grace--his undeserved favor freely given for reasons known only to God (Eph 1: 4--6). Those who are lost are condemned for their sins and for no other reason than that they die in a state of unbelief, unforgiven and unregenerate (Rom 3: 23; 6: 23). Some say this makes God unfair. If God were fair and if every individual received his proper due, we would all be lost. None would be saved because no one of us deserves even the next breath of air we breathe (Rom 3: 10ff). I'll take his mercy over fairness any day. "God, be merciful to me, the sinner" (Luke 18:13, NASB).

Reflections on the New Year

I don't make new year's resolutions, at least, I haven't since I resolved never to make them again. It's the only resolution I've managed to keep. But the turning of the year is a good time to think about the future while reflecting a bit on the past. In many respects 2011 was quite a mixed bag for me. I lost my brother unexpectedly. My family finished the year coping with some unexpected stress. On the other hand, I was elected president of the Association of Baptists for Scouting (http://www.baptistscouters.org) and both my older son and my older daughter have excelled in their respective Scouting activities (Boy Scouts and Venturing Scouts, respectively). I've enjoyed being part of a great praise team in my church and have launched, by God's grace, a wonderful Bible study class of very caring and devoted people. Memories of the past are a great gift because they anchor us--give us a context in which to face the future. There is a danger, however, in dwelling too much on the past. An anchor can give stability in times of storm, but it can also become a burden that impedes progress.

In his letter to the church at Philippi, the Apostle Paul wrote, "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3: 13--14, NASB). Paul, here, is clearly not saying to forget completely the past, for in this very chapter he reviewed his past in Judaism and his role in persecuting the early church. So what is he saying? He is saying that the past doesn't have to define our future. We who are followers of Christ have been called by God through his Spirit and his Word to become more and more like Christ. That is the goal of our salvation (Rom 8: 28). Because God has called us to this, and because he both works the will to be Christlike in us (Phil 2: 13) and dwells in us by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8: 9), then we are both willing and able to strive to be more like Christ in our daily lives (Phil 2: 12). What Paul is saying here is that we should not become fixated on the past in such a way that it keeps us from reaching for the goal of becoming like Christ. Don't let your past sins and failures define the limits of your future growth in Christian maturity. Rather, with gratitude to God for his indescribable gift, press on toward the goal of being like Christ.

A Year of Trials

I have not posted a blog entry since March of 2010. The year 2011 has been a year of trials for me and my family. Faith in God, the support of our church family, and the prayers of many faithful friends have sustained us.

In spite of all our trials God is good and his grace in Christ is sufficient. The trials began for us in March, when my older brother suddenly became ill. He was experiencing strange lapses in memory and confusion. By about Easter he was given a preliminary diagnosis of Cruetzfeldt-Jakobs Disease, a neurological disease that progresses rapidly, destroying the brain. It's pathology is hardly understood by medical science. There is a hypothesis about the disease, but it seems to raise more questions than it answers. It is extremely rare and always fatal. At age 54 my brother passed on May 29, 2011. I had a very hard time finding closure because the very nature of the disease required a closed casket. My only comfort is in knowing that he is now whole and with his Lord Jesus.

The summer was hard, emotionally. I couldn't focus on work. I only wanted to spend time working on an old truck I had bought from a friend. It became my therapy. The old truck and my involvement in Scouting kept me sane, I think. I simply pushed through each day.

Just as I felt I was climbing out of the whole of losing my brother, one of my children became ill. On or about her 11th birthday she began exhibiting odd behavior. We've been to the pediatrician and three specialists. We're now preparing to see a fourth specialist. God has been good and sustained us in this most recent trial. We're hopeful that we will get a diagnosis and course of treatment soon.

Trials are often God's way of preparing his people for some new challenge. They are God's training ground for our next step in his service.  They also serve a purgative purpose. They wean us from the world and aid in our sanctification. As the writer of Hebrews observed, no trial is pleasant at the time, but the outcome is always worth the hardship. So, I'm looking to 2012 and wondering just what God is up to and what will the new year bring for me and my family.

Taking a Stand in the Political Debate

How should Christians respond to the current political climate in the United States? Glenn Beck has recently called on anyone who attends a church that supports a leftist socialist agenda, often termed "social justice" to leave such churches. His call is rooted in his deeply held political belief that such an agenda will undermine American liberties guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution and replace our representative republican form of government with a socialist/communist state. For an excellent discussion of Beck's call, see Dr. R. Albert Mohler's blog at http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/03/15/glenn-beck-social-justice-and-the-limits-of-public-discourse/

Recent moves in Congress do have some elements that I think should be disturbing to any Bible reading and history savvy Christian. On the front burner is the debate over national health care. On the back burner is an immigration bill that would require every U. S. citizen to have a federally issued identification card with his/her fingerprints on it and other possible biological markers as well as a condition of employment.
In the big picture this looks ominously like the federal government seeking more and more control over every aspect of our lives in complete disregard of the Tenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. But how should a Christian view such events?

At the risk of being labeled an apocalyptic, I'm going to venture into territory where I don't usually go. I want to be clearly understood at this point. I am not saying that this is the fulfillment of a specific biblical prophecy. I'm saying this looks similar to that. In Revelation 13: 11-18 John describes a "beast" from the earth. That "beast", I believe in context, represents the fascist state of the Roman Empire and stands as a type, or figure of a future government or dictator that will seek to impose his will on everyone.

Fascism is nothing new. It was not invented in the twentieth century. It was the heart of the Roman political system after the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Caesars. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines fascism as " a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism). At its heart, fascism usually includes the worship or adoration of the state or the dictator. Such was the case with the ancient Roman emperors, who saw themselves as gods, and such was the case with Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist (NAZI) Party in Germany.

In the text in Revelation 14 the "beast" assumes the role of God vis-a-vis the people of the world. There is no way for anyone to provide for his/her own needs or those of his/her family apart from the permission of the "beast", which is the state or the dictator. To me the current trend in Washington toward government sponsored health-care, the welfare program, social security, medicare/medicaid, and the new immigration reform bill all look like attempts to make the federal government all-powerful and the place everyone must turn to for help instead of turning to God.

I believe it is the duty of every God-fearing Christian to resist these items of legislation whether they become law or not, as unjust laws that infringe on the rights of every free-born U. S. citizen under the Bill of Rights of the U. S. Constitution. I also believe that to submit to this movement is to allow the state to assume the role of a "god" in your life by making the state your source of hope for deliverance from life's trials rather than the God of the Bible. Resist the cult of big government. God alone is sovereign over your life.

Saved by Grace, through Faith

Grace is God's unearned favor. But how does it become effective in the life of a sinner? Here is a man who is lost in his sins. He's perfectly content to live his life as he pleases without God. How is it that he is going to come to benefit from God's grace? God has to do several things in order to save this man.

First, God must bring this man to an opportunity to hear the Gospel. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Rom 10: 17). No person of ordinary years and intelligence can be saved apart from hearing the Gospel. That is why the church has and must fulfill its mandate to preach the gospel to everyone. You and I are part of the means by which God fulfills his saving purpose in the world by sharing the Gospel with friends, relatives, neighbors, and strangers. The kind of faith necessary to appropriate God's grace is not natural to a fallen man or woman. It is something that must "come" to him or her as a gift of grace from God, and God bestows that gift, according to Paul, through the hearing of the Gospel: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes" (Rom 1: 16). The Gospel message, not my testimony, is what God has promised to bless for saving sinners. I need to share my testimony, but I need to be sure that it contains the Gospel and not just my religious experiences.

Secondly, God must bring the sinner to an awareness of his sinfulness, lostness, and need of salvation. This is often referred to as "conviction of sin". This is an aspect of evangelism that I believe has been by-passed in our day. Look at most of the evangelistic methods that are trumpeted in churches and what is substituted for this step is a quick admission that "you are a sinner". There is no brokenness in that. It is merely an acknowledgment of a fact. Sinners must come to be "broken" for their sins. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt 5: 4 NASB). Our society has become jaded to sin. We watch it on T.V. and laugh about it when we should blush for shame. God give us sinners broken over their sins and desperate for some kind of deliverance!

Thirdly, God must work in the sinner the gift of the new birth. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3: 3 NASB). This "new birth" must come from God and not ourselves: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3: 6 NASB). Contrary to the teachings of the revivalist Charles Finney, the new birth is God's work, not ours.
"[W]hen we were dead dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ" (Eph 2: 5 NASB). "In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth" (James 1: 18 NASB).

What results from this labor on God's part toward his enemy is that the sinner, as a result of God's merciful working, receives a new nature through the new birth that instinctively looks to Christ for salvation. Faith and repentance are born in the heart and the one who was a rebel now submits to the will of God freely and gladly. God drags no one kicking and screaming into his kingdom. Repentance from sin and faith in Christ come as the natural outflow of a life changed by the new birth. God then deals with the legal status before his bar of justice in relation to the changed sinner. He forgives all sin and declares the sinner to be as righteous as Christ himself. The sins of the sinner have been paid for by Christ on the cross, and the perfect obedience of Christ is "credited" or "imputed" to the sinner on the basis of his faith. Luther called this an "alien" righteousness, because it is not our righteousness that justifies but the righteousness of another given by grace through faith in Christ. "Therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 5: 1). And so the sinner is saved by grace through faith.

Saved by Grace, Part II

Yesterday I wrote about the problem of sin. Without understanding our predicament with sin it is simply impossible to understand grace. Today I want to talk about grace specifically. Paul wrote, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast" (Eph 2: 8--9). What Paul says here is that your salvation and mine is God's work from beginning to end. There is nothing we can boast before God or men about as having made us worthy of God's gift of salvation.

Some people have a hard time accepting this. It strikes at the heart of human pride. It is God's intent to humble us before his majestic presence. Grace is God's to give or withhold as he sees fit: "For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion'" (Rom 9: 15 NASB). You and I have no "claim" on God's mercy. We must come as beggars in need of mercy. There is no inherent "right" to God's forgiveness, even though he has promised it to whoever will call to him for salvation (Rom 10: 9--13). The promise is not an entitlement. To use Andrew Fuller's term, we must come as "supplicants" and not as "claimants".

God is not merely the Merciful One. He is also the Just Judge of all people. As Judge God has the right, because of our sins, to withhold his mercy or to give it. He is sovereign over who he will save. You and I stand in a position of complete dependence upon him. He can be glorified in our salvation or in our condemnation. One brings praise to his grace and the other brings praise to his justice. Yet the words of the Bible are encouraging--"Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom 10: 13 NASB).

So, rather than becoming discouraged because all depends on God's mercy, have hope because he is a merciful God. He has provided the only perfect sacrifice for the salvation of sinners in the person and work of Jesus Christ. But do not come to him thinking you are somehow worthy of his attention. Come to him realizing that you stand in abject need of mercy and have nothing to offer him. It is you who stand in need of him, not him in need of you. Embrace him with a loving heart of surrender and faith and you will find him merciful.

Saved by Grace Alone

This will be a short week of posts because I have a lot of student papers to grade. I want to address the issue of salvation by grace. What does it mean? How is it appropriated? What is God's role, and what does call tell us to do in order to be saved? These are some of the common questions people ask.

First of all, to be saved by grace means to be saved apart from any merit I possess. I have nothing to bring to God by which to earn his love and favor. He is free to give his love or to withhold it. He is free to show mercy or not show mercy. Someone might say, "Well, that doesn't seem quite right." Why would someone think that? Perhaps because he or she doesn't understand and appreciate the sinful condition of lost human beings.

Every person born except one has a problem. That problem is SIN. It's an ugly three letter word that people don't like to use anymore. We may be neurotic, socially maladjusted, dysfunctional, or any of a number of other conditions defined by psychologists today, but don't use the word SIN. Sin involves guilt, and guilt involves personal responsibility for my actions. Furthermore, sin means that I've offended a holy God and earned his wrath. It means I stand justly condemned to eternal torment unless God saves me out of sheer grace.

In its fullest sense to say that I am a sinner means that I am corrupted in my person and my actions. It means I've inherited a "sin nature" from my ancestors going all the way back to humanity's original parents, who violated God's law and brought condemnation on themselves and all their posterity. God finds me worthy of condemnation for two reasons: (1) I bear in my person a defaced and deformed image of God that has been corrupted by sin--I have a sin nature--a propensity to sin. God finds that nature worthy of his condemnation because it is contrary to his standard of perfect holiness. (2) Because my nature is corrupted, left to myself I freely and willingly choose sin over holiness, even when I do "good" things. That is, even my best actions are tainted with self-will, pride, or other impure motives. But given the chance and not guided by grace, I am capable of the most horrendous crimes. So, I stand condemned for my actions, thoughts, and words, as well as for my nature. No wonder the old hymn writer said "Be of sin the double cure."

In order for me to come to God for salvation I need to realize first just how lost I am and in what kind of state I live. I must first realize that God is perfectly just to do with me as he sees fit. I have nothing to offer him that would move or motivate him to show me mercy. I must face squarely the problem of my sin and see it as God sees it. Otherwise I will never appreciate what it means to be saved by grace.

Punitive Church Discipline

In what should be hoped would be only rare cases there are instances when the church should move to exclude a wayward member from the congregation. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 18, which was referenced yesterday, and Paul discusses it in 1 Corinthians 5. If a case of corrective discipline advances to the point where it must be brought before the whole church, then it is has become a very serious matter indeed. This is reserved only for those are remain unrepentant or in situations that private intervention cannot resolve. It is to be hoped, once the church hears all the facts and gives admonition to the parties involved, that a reconciliation will be achieved. However, if one or both parties fail to follow the instruction of the church, then Jesus said that such persons were to be treated as unbelievers-outside the fellowship and privileges of church membership.

Similarly, in the case of the incestuous marriage discussed yesterday, there are situations where the integrity of the church, the honor of Christ, and glory of the gospel compel swift and decisive action. It is not unloving or unkind to take such action. In fact, it is unloving to leave such persons in their sins and in the church, for it engenders a false assurance of spiritual well-being where none exists.

Even at this point the goal of church discipline is the eventual restoration of the one who comes under the church's rebuke. That a person is excluded from membership does not mean he or she should be told to "go away." Rather, they should be loved as any other unconverted person and encouraged to attend to the teaching and preaching of the word in the hopes that it will have its desired effect upon their lives.

I knew a young man once, a deacon's son, who took up a life of sin. His father moved to have him excluded from the church, and the church complied. Some years later I saw that same young man come before the church, confess his sin, acknowledge that he had been an unconverted church member but that through the ordeal of church discipline he had come to see his lost condition. God saved him, the church restored him, and he himself went on to become a deacon in the community. Done right church discipline works. It is another way we are commanded in Scripture to take a stand for Christ.

Corrective Church Discipline

Formative church discipline focuses on positive instruction in both right belief (orthodoxy) and right living (orthopraxy). It happens in relationships, sometimes formal (such as with a mentor) and sometimes less formal (discussions and observations between friends). It should be intentional. It should move each of us closer to Christlike living, for that is what it means to be a "Christian", to live like Christ.

What happens when formative discipline fails? What do you do when a fellow believer strays from the path of truth (doctrinal error) or falls into sinful conduct? This is where corrective discipline comes into play. If the problem is a private one-not publicly or widely known-Jesus said to handle it privately if at all possible. The detailed instructions are given in Matthew 18:15-20. Go privately first to the one who has offended you and attempt to be reconciled without the matter going any further. If that fails, then take one or two as witnesses of your efforts and help in persuasion, and attempt again to be reconciled. Only if that fails should the matter then be taken to the whole congregation for help. All should be done in a spirit of love and humility and with the goal of restoration and reconciliation (Gal 6: 1).

What do you do, though, if there is a case of open, flagrant sin or doctrinal error? What do you do if everybody already knows about it? Paul encountered such a case in the city of Corinth. A young man had taken up cohabitation with his step-mother in a clear case of incest. Rather than dealing with the young man the church at Corinth had taken pride in how "loving" they were in accepting this relationship which Paul said would not even have been tolerated by the pagans in the city. Paul instructed the church, in 1 Corinthians 5, to move quickly and decisively to put this young man out of the church-to exclude him from the rights of membership until he repented (that he did repent is indicated in 2 Cor 2: 6-8).

Corrective church discipline serves the function of believers aiding one another in progress toward greater sanctification and perseverance. It serves as a check on our residual sinful tendencies that continue to war against the spirit. It also reminds us that, as a church is supposed to be a company of redeemed souls, so there should be evidence in each life that redemption has come to each member through a life-changing experience with Christ.

Formative Church Discipline

In most of today's Baptist churches the weakness in the cord of regenerate church membership is the strand of church discipline. Once Baptists succumbed completely to the combined pressures of (1) Jacksonian individualism, (2) revivalistic piety, and (3) urban prosperity, church discipline became an apparent problem rather than a potential solution. Numbers began to matter more than purity, and efficiency became the watchword of Baptist life in the early twentieth century. Nothing is less efficient than church discipline. And so the practice of opening each church conference with the examination of the spiritual health and unity of the church was discarded. Southern Baptists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have reaped a bitter harvest from this careless discarding of church discipline.

Today the Southern Baptist Convention claims some 17 million adherents in the United States, but at least sixty percent are unaccounted for on any given Sunday. Why? What happened? Well, in part there was a change in evangelistic methodology that followed the revivalistic approach of Charles G. Finney, and a mere outward response in the form of "walking the aisle" or reciting a "sinner's prayer" was made to "seal the deal" between God and the sinner without further examination for proof of a genuine conversion experience. Secondly, discipline in its various forms was lost on an entire generation in the name of the right of individual soul competency and the right of private interpretation.

In recent years Southern Baptists have taken a step in the right direction and begun to focus on what is often called "formative" church discipline-discipleship training. But the nagging problem of shallow evangelism still persists in many places, and serious discipleship remains an option and not an expectation for most church members.

Formative church discipline involves the careful instruction of the new believer in both the teachings of the church and the expected life-patterns of a Christian. It is not a matter of indifference how church members live their lives. It is not merely a matter of learning what the Bible says. Christians must learn to live their lives patterned after biblical obedience to the commands of Christ as an evidence of their life-changing relationship with him. This is formative church discipline, and it requires mature Christians modeling and teaching the less mature how to live the Christian life while equipping them to pass their knowledge to the next generation of believers.

A Cord of Three Strands

Last week was spent dealing with the very touchy issue of believer's baptism vs. infant baptism. Baptists practice "credo-baptism" because we believe that a church, ideally, should be composed of those who have experienced God's grace and have been born again by the Holy Spirit. We do not believe that any rite or act of man can cause this to happen but that it is a work of grace in the heart resulting in repentance and faith (Baptist Faith & Message, IV, A). But a number of problems have arisen in Baptist church life in the last 100 years. Believer's baptism serves as an entry point into a regenerate church, an initial check against unconverted members, but alone it cannot ensure a believer's church.

Baptists, historically, have held that two other lines of defense are both biblical and necessary to maintain regenerate church membership. One of these is church control of the Lord's Table. Communion is a church ordinance to be observed in accordance with the biblical pattern under the authority of the church. It is not just for anyone who wants to have it. According to the Apostle Paul the Lord's Supper not only represents our union with Christ but our union with one another in a church relationship through shared doctrine and practice, a practice that includes holy living (1 Corinthians 10). That is the second cord.

Church discipline is the third cord that is necessary to make the rope of the believer's church a living possibility. Christ himself enjoined the practice of church discipline (Matthew 18) and Paul tied it to the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 5). Without church discipline it is near to impossible to practice the identification of false believers who slip past the baptismal waters unawares and work with them redemptively to bring them to Christ, or failing that, punitively to purify the congregation. This week's blog will deal with the even more touchy issue of church discipline, its decline, and its needed restoration in our churches.

From Immersion to Sprinkling

So how did the practice of the Church go from immersion to sprinkling or pouring? Or, more properly, how did the practice in the Western Church go to sprinkling and pouring? The rite of immersion persists in the Eastern Tradition, even of infants.

Basil the Great, according to Apostolic Canons, I, enjoins trine immersion, stating "if any bishop or presbyter shall administer baptism not by three dippings but by one, let him be punished with deprivation" (cited in Robinson, History of Baptism, 74). That immersion was the common practice in the fourth century can be seen by the design of the baptistry of St. Sophia, built by the Emperor Constantine. In Rome itself the baptistry of St. John Lateran had a depth of up to thirty-seven inches and was obviously suited to immersion. A. H. Strong cites Dean Stanley (March 1879), as stating that immersion remained the mode of baptism until at least the thirteenth century (1200s) in the West (Systematic Theology, 936). Some writers maintain that the immersion of infants (at least of Edward VI and Elizabeth I) continued in England into the sixteenth century (Robinson, 124). Even today the Catholic Catechism admits that the original and full sign of baptism was complete immersion (http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/628.htm).


According to Robinson sprinkling began as a pagan ritual that can be traced to Roman antiquity and was introduced into Christian practice as part of the act of exorcism in conjunction with the practice of baptism (in the Catholic tradition, Eastern and Western, an exorcism is performed prior to any baptism). From this beginning point the act of sprinkling eventually was confounded with the act of baptism and sprinkling supplanted immersion as the mode (Robinson, 137). As was shown in a previous blog, sprinkling or pouring was allowed as a substitute in extreme cases as early as the early second century (see the Didache cited in a previous blog). In 1311 the Synod of Ravenna set sprinkling and pouring on equal footing with immersion, and so from that point onward sprinkling or pouring became the dominant mode practiced on the European continent.

That immersion was not the practiced mode on the European Continent at the time of the Reformation is clearly evident by the fact that Martin Luther argued for its restoration in his 1519 Treatise on Baptism (Works of Luther, vol.1, 56), and by the fact that Calvin admitted that immersion was the primitive mode but in his opinion the mode was a matter of indifference and ought to be left ot local preference (Institutes, IV. xv. 19). I find it odd, given Calvin's emphasis on strictly biblical worship based on the Second Commandment, that he should so lightly set aside the explicit practice of the ancient Church for what was undoubtedly a human innovation of late origin. Furthermore, his detailed treatment of the significance of baptism as a Christian rite can only properly be answered by the baptism of adult believers. His defense of infant baptism at this point is most inconsistent with his theology of baptism.

Moving from immersion to sprinkling was a long, winding path for the Church. The first step involved extreme cases. Eventually infant baptism rose to prominence, and many other factors also came into play which resulted in the acceptance of infant sprinkling as a recognized form of "baptism". In all of this both the form and the true significance of baptism as an individual's profession of faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for salvation was lost and the gospel perverted. Scholars of all Christian denominations have been forced to admit that the Baptist claim to believer's immersion was the practice of the New Testament Christians. So why would someone who professes to follow Christ not follow him in the waters of baptism?

How We Got Infant Baptism

The question must be asked and answered, "Where did infant baptism come from?" We know from the writings of Tertullian, who lived in North Africa, that infant baptism began to be practiced in the second century (A. D. 100s), because he wrote a challenge to this practice. New Testament scholar and Lutheran Kurt Aland wrote an excellent short study of the subject in the early 1960s entitled Did the Early Church Baptize Infants?

Aland carefully examines all the New Testament evidence and writings of the apostolic fathers. He concludes that the New Testament church only baptized professing believers and that the practice of infant baptism developed along side the church's growing understanding of original sin, the concept of baptismal regeneration, and the issue of infant mortality. The earliest instances of infant baptism involved children who were sickly or ill, and the Christian parents feared that these children, if they died, would end up in hell.

The practice of the Church in the Patristic period down to about the fifth century, was to delay baptism. The Cappadocian Fathers, considered some of the greatest theologians fourth century (A. D. 300s), were all from the homes of Christian bishops, and yet they were not baptized until they were grown and in their 20s and 30s. It was St. Augustine who, more than any other, pushed infant baptism into the norm in his anti-Pelagian writings and his defense of the doctrine of original sin.

What can be concluded from this is quite clear. Infant baptism was an innovation of the late second century that gradually grew in acceptance until it became the norm in the late fourth or early fifth century. It was not a biblical practice. It substituted baptism for faith in Christ as the basis for salvation as baptism took on a sacramental meaning, becoming the primary means by which grace was dispensed by the Church through the priesthood.