Entries from May 2005 ↓

From tonight at Grace Central . . .

It is a wonder of Christ’s mercy that we don’t burn in Hell for withholding the Gospel and allowing it to “rot on the dock”, while spiritually hungry people starve and die.

(This is an approximation . . . the line was likely more powerful in its true form.)

Justin Taylor, Desiring God’s Director of Theology and Executive Editor, is offering bloggers free advance copies of Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, edited by John Piper and himself (with contributions by good Reformed folks like Mohler, Mahaney, and Dever).

In order to get your copy, you need to e-mail him with some information, and he’ll then send you a link to a PDF version of the book. Afterwards, you read the PDF, review the book in your blog, let him know (with a link and your snail-mail address), and he’ll send you a print copy.

Easy, right?

Details on his blog here.

Just thought I’d add my own view to the disclaimer below. These are questions and answers pertaining to baptism from A Baptist Catechism, a modernized version of The Baptist Catechism of 1689. Question 102 is the focal point for this post’s purposes, but those surrounding give it context.

Question 100: What is Baptism?

Answer: Baptism is a holy ordinance, in which immersion in the water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, signifies our being joined to Christ and our sharing the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s.

Scripture: Matthew 28:19; Romans 6:3-5; Colossians 2:12; Galatians 3:27.

Question 101: To whom is Baptism to be administered?

Answer: Baptism is to be administered to all those who actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ; and to no other.

Scripture: Acts 2:38; 8:12, 36; 10:47, 48; Matthew 3:6; Mark 16:16.

Question 102: Are the infants of professing believers to be baptized?

Answer: The infants of believers are not to be baptized; because there is neither command nor example in the Holy Scriptures, nor implication from them to baptize such. But baptism is made an expression of faith.

Scripture: Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21; Galatians 3:26, 27.

Question 103: How is Baptism rightly administered?

Answer: Baptism is rightly administered by immersion, or dipping the whole body of the person in water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Scripture: Matthew 3:16; John 3:23; Acts 8:38, 39.

Question 104: What is the duty of those who are rightly baptized?

Answer: It is the duty of those who are rightly baptized to give themselves to some visible and orderly church of Jesus Christ, that they may walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

Scripture: Acts 2:46, 47; 9:26; 1 Peter 2:5; Hebrews 10:25; Romans 16:5.

It should be noted, folks, that the inclusion of the Daily Catechism doesn’t necessarily imply my endorsement or agreement with every question-and-answer. A prime example is today’s: question #74 from the Heidelberg (which asks and answers in the affirmative whether infants should be baptized). While I understand the reformed paedobaptist position, I believe that it’s mistaken, and that the only proper recipients of baptism are those who have professed faith in Christ.

(Note to my paedobaptist readers: no need to beat me up on this. I’ve still got love for ya. ;-))

Leave no doubt, I still consider the catechisms to be reliable and useful summaries of the Christian faith, even if I don’t agree with every point. So . . . consider them disclaimed.

(Thank you, Revenge of the Sith.)

So, “not another blog” was a quick name I came up with when I first started it about a year ago. Until very recently, it lay fallow while I used my LiveJournal for all of my blogging needs. Now that I’m actually starting to use this one on an at-least-weekly basis, I’m wondering if a different (better?) name is in order, or if I should hold onto this one.

Thoughts? Opinions? What else could/should I call this thing?

Shane over at WesleyBlog raises an interesting point today in his post, entitled Church Music & Your Soul. He says that most people who convert to Christianity (at least, those who do so before age 20) do so as a result of camp and retreat ministries and parachurch organizations (and I might add “personal evangelism” to that list), rather than through the ministry of local churches. I think that he might be onto something. Is there something wrong here?

Obviously, God will use whatever means he determines necessary to bring his sheep into the fold . . . but beyond our knowledge of that fact, upon whose shoulders does the responsibility of evangelism fall? Does God call local churches to call unbelievers to repentance? Does he call us to form organizations exclusively devoted to evangelism? Does he only call us as individual believers to do this work?

While I think that there’s a real danger in a church’s main focus becoming evangelism or outreach, there seems (to me) that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the fact that so few come to repentance through the ministry of local churches. As far as I know, God did not appoint it for Campus Crusade, InterVarsity, Young Life, etc to make disciples of all nations. That mandate was given to the Apostles, and by extension, the church. The work that those organizations do may end up leading to wonderful things, but do ends always justify means? The church is here to edify the saints, yes, but it seems that it’s leaving the job of disciple-making to emotion-driven rallies and camps and parachurch organizations.

I long for the church to return to the days when “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

(Note to those who noticed: There is indeed no entry for week 2 of the search. We . . . as in both Amy and I . . . went back to Lifepoint last week and again enjoyed it thoroughly. Writing about it, though, would largely be a rehash of the previous week’s post, so I decided to spare everyone. Your powers of observation are impeccable. :D)

This week, another church that meets at 6 PM (yes!), and again, I was alone, as my wife wasn’t feeling too great.

Week 3: Grace Central Presbyterian Church, Columbus, OH.

I’ve long maintained that, were it not for infant baptism, I’d almost certainly be a Presbyterian. So when someone from the Vagrant Café suggested this young PCA upstart church in downtown Columbus, it intrigued me.

This congregation of about 50 people meets in a beautiful old brick building (owned by another church) in the “Short North” district of downtown Columbus, surrounded by Victorian housing and eclectic shops . . . the arts community of the city (which happens to have a rather large gay population as well). There were some folks hanging out on the church steps as I walked up, Bible and notebook in hand, dressed in my favourite sweater and jeans (I was relieved when I saw that everyone else was dressed rather casually as well). After some introductions and handshakes, I was shown around and told more about the place.

Walking inside, I saw some things that stood in stark contrast to my most recent church experiences . . . stained glass, wooden pews rather than plush individual seating, the communion table as the centerpiece. I grabbed a bulletin and took a seat in an empty pew.

Things soon got started with a welcome from Greg, their shaven bald 30-something pastor, and a call to worship from Psalm 19.1-6. After a prayer, we sang Come, Thou Fount Of Every Blessing, probably one of the greatest hymns ever penned. Greg then stood before the congregation and explained, in simple terms, our sin and how it separates us from God. He then led the repentant in a Confession of Sin that seemed to be adapted from the Strassburg Liturgy. Good stuff.

The whole service was likewise filled with beautiful hymns (including Derek’s She Must And Shall Go Free) and liturgy (catechism readings, The Lord’s Prayer, etc.). Greg preached on Romans 1.18-32 (from the ESV, even). Long, but good sermon. Really impressive, especially for a preacher so young.

We concluded by celebrating Communion . . . something that they do every week, which I think is great (see my LiveJournal post from December on this topic).

I left this place with a really good feeling about it. The blend of ancient Reformed liturgy with the contemporary really resonated with me in a way I can’t recall happening elsewhere . . . the fact that it’s a conservative Reformed voice in a part of town that so desperately needs the Gospel helps, too.

I wasn’t anticipating such a dilemma in choosing a church. When I moved to Jackson, we visited two churches and almost immediately knew where we were supposed to be. So far, we’ve visited two and I like them both a lot, and for different reasons, as they’re very different churches. A good dilemma, I suppose.

Thanks to Tim Challies, there will now be a daily question and answer from one of two classic Reformed catechisms . . . either the Westminster Shorter or the Heidelberg . . . on the sidebar on the right. (Hopefully I’ll be able to get the ESV verse-of-the-day up there as well. - edit: Crossway just got back to me and informed me that I could do that without an access key, so there it is.)

To find out how to add this to your blog or website, click here.

As much as I love to sit and read scripture (often with a steaming cup of some coffee-related beverage close at hand), I’ve had a hard time lately with bringing it to bear upon my intellect and my life. Likewise, I’ve found it really difficult recently to consistently make time for private prayer. (These two are doubtless linked.)

It’s funny, because I have so many tools to make reading and understanding God’s word not only easier, but practical . . . I have such an intellectual concern for accuracy in translation and great study notes . . . I’ve learned how to interpret scripture and discern its different literary characteristics. I (probably) have more brains and (definitely) more training at this whole “Bible” thing than 85% of America’s evangelicals, yet many in that same 85% are probably growing spiritually at a rate exponentially higher than mine.

Stagnancy. That’s where I am. I read scripture out of duty and out of a desire to cram facts into my head . . . not out of a desire to hear God speak. So . . . I’ve identified the problem and it should be easy to correct.

Not so much.

I’m really a slacker at this whole “following Jesus” thing.
Pray for me.