Wishy Washy Preaching

Some time ago I posted one of my sermons that I had preached at a church where they need a pastor. To tell you a bit of background, I have known this church for 18 yrs, and have known the pastor as long as that. I've known the people for the same amount of time, and some were members of my Spanish speaking congregation before we folded it up and some of us joined the English speaking congregation where I am now. So I more or less know of the church's make up, history and beliefs. Some of the members have always complained about the lack of teaching in the church. I've been preaching about apologetics, and doctrine. They have endured me, well, the young ones, but one of the older ones (my age!!) said that my last sermon was "wishy washy".

I listen to Albert Mohler's interview with Michael Lawrence, in which they discussed his new book,"Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church: A Guide for Ministry " and taught that it would be a good idea to expose the congregation to a little of biblical theology. I didn't expect the response from one of the 'senior' members (not in age, but respected for having being a baptist from birth, well, so am I!!), that he found the sermon "dull" and "wishy", "washy". This confronted me with two options, either I am a very bad preacher, which by other persons' comments, I am not, or this person has not been exposed to biblical theology, EVER.

I've always heard that if someone is raised thinking something is to be done a certain manner, if they see it done differently, they easily condemned it. This brother in Christ, has never heard a sermon that is willing to deal with the unfolding revelation in Scripture, so sees any sermon doing that as suspect.

This can only be labeled as biblical illiteratism (did I coin a new word?). Wonder how this person would deal with the theme of the Messiah in Scripture, from Genesis, through to the Historical, Poetic and Prophetic books, culminating in the Gospels and distilled in the New Testament letters.

But I am afraid that this person is not alone in his error or rejecting biblical theology, but is in company of many who are labeled liberals, yet, this man is a conservative christian!!

Just shows that you don't have to be a liberal to disdain conservative stands, but then again, it may be a sin of ignorance.

But they haven't call for me to go back to preach there for some time. I guess that they have listened to this, mature and wise man as to the wishy washy way of preaching a solid biblical theology.

To refer to two comments after my sermon in this specific church, one said "I never knew I could relate Old Testament passages to the New Testament so easily", and the other, "Finally I saw how throughout Scripture God wants us to be missionaries". And the sermon that I preached, I also preached at my local church, where the pastor has a Masters degree in preaching, and he said that it was a very good sermon, lifting the essential passages, and another member who did his Master of Theology at Regent College, Vancouver Canada, commented that the sermon really helped him see the who picture of biblical theology regarding mission.

I am not trying to justify my sermon, I am just trying to get things into perspective. I guess that I am just concern that if such people are in places of leadership, the people of God will never receive the knowledge needed for their growth.

I see Scripture being fulfilled:

Hosea 4:⁶ my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.

"Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the law of your God,
I also will ignore your children.

Let's pray not all church leaders are so keen to reject biblical knowledge, because they lack it.

Luis A. Jovel.

Iron in our blood. The Evangelical need to pick a fight

I have been reading a very interesting blog, in which I found the following paragraph:

the culture of conservative evangelicals (and especially of the conservatively reformed) is sickening to me. everything is about a battle for x’ or ‘defending the heart of the gospel’ (which changes as the opponent changes…one day it’s justification and n.t. wright is a heretic, the next day it’s inerrancy and kenton sparks is a heretic). that’s not what i want to do with my time. i didn’t go to seminary so that i could get a ‘heresy hunter’ license and claim my spot among machen’s warrior children. i went to seminary because i want to positively contribute to the way christians think about the bible, about their god, and about how to live their lives in relationship to that god.

One can easily get that from listening to the White Horse Inn or Issues Etc. Mind you, I listen to them every week, and in the case of the later, every day. Their shows are interesting, but you just wondered if they ever have a positive view of something that does not involve Calvin, Machen or Luther.

Take for example Issues Etc, if you don't read Scripture under the lenses of Law and Gospel, you are no better than a donkey reading the newspaper, you just won't understand it. But if you if apply the Lutheran Method, then your eyes will be open and then you will understand the message. This sounds to me more like the Jehovah Witness claim about need to read the books written by Russel in order to understand Scripture. I guess both never heard about the guidance of the Holy Spirit!!!

In the case of the New Reformed, if you say that that Reformers' claim that Justification by faith is not the center of the gospel, you may as well reject being a christian. Jesus' proclamation was not that all were saved by justification by faith, which of course, was a central theme that was developed by Paul, but his initial and final instructions were the following:

Mark 1:14.."The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

and:

Mark 16:15...He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.

It looks like Jesus is very consistant about what the gospel was all about, was about the kingdom. Later, and rightly, the other historical aspects were added, cf. I Cor. 15:3-7.

But what I like about the article, is that the author rightly points out that the "heart" of the gospels changes so much, from every "defender" of it, that it looks more like the gospel is an octopus, with many hearts. The octopus has 3, but my neo Reformed friends, and other conservatives, are starting to look like the Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation, having many of Peter's heads, as well as more bones from the apostles than the apostles themselves had!!!!!!

Sounds like we got rid of some relics, to pick up another ones, more acceptable to their liking. Once the common enemy of the time, the Catholics, were "vanquished", the Protestants turned, and still turned against each other to say to the other that they were wrong. The Reformers would be turning in their graves if they would know what sort of legacy would follow their bible loving, Scripture upholding and true christian followers.

Looks like we have a long way to go in order to reach unity in the body of Christ.

Luis A. Jovel

Evangelicalism's Radical Diversity 2

posted by Scot McKnight @12:08am

When you hear these two words, the words "evangelical" and "eschatology," what is the first word that comes to mind? I'm asking you for the first thing that comes to mind.

Here's what would probably be said by conventional culture: "rapture."

What words are you hearing? What "eschatology" do you think evangelicals have?

Steve Wilkens and Don Thorsen, both profs at Azusa Pacific, have a new book that takes on misperceptions of evangelicals. I like the title: Everything You Know about Evangelicals Is Wrong (Well, Almost Everything): An Insider's Look at Myths and Realities .

What this book shows to me is that evangelicals have done a poor job educating the public and culture what it really believes, and instead have allowed a minority viewpoint to become the defining term. Here are some of their claims:
1. Prior to the 19th Century virtually no Christian thinker believed in the "rapture" theory. [The rapture theory, or secret rapture theory, teaches that the Church will be taken into the sky prior to the Great Tribulation and will be in (what I often call) a holding pattern until the Second Coming when the Church will descend with Christ to the earth and populate the millennium.]

2. Today the majority of Christian in the world do not believe this, and here they are including RCC and Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestants.

3. Most Prots today don't believe in the rapture.

4. Even among evangelicals, they argue, this view is not as prevalent as it once was. In fact, Luther and Calvin and Wesley and Whitefield and Edwards did not believe this. They were amillennialists -- they believed the Church age was the fulfillment of the "millennial" image of Rev 20. Some, like Hodge and Warfield, were postmillennialists, which means they saw a Christianization of the world. [I see a trend of this at times among the optimistic among some today.]

5. The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned belief in a literal kingdom on earth.

The point being made here is simple: evangelicals and Christians, as a vast majority, don't believe the rapture theory.

Instead, the Christian position has been the Second Coming (and there's no rapture in this belief), the resurrection, the kingdom of God/reign of God, and eternal life. That's what we agree on; all evangelicals believe such things.

Share

The Presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church

A small bible study for our church's camp this weekend:

The Presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church
The Holy Spirit is sometimes referred as the “forgotten member of the Trinity”. This may be due not only to the fact that most individuals and churches find it difficult to relate to the third member of the Trinity, but also because we, as human beings, love to as the old saying goes, “pulling your self up by your own bootstraps”. We forget that as a church, we don’t only follow an order or service, good as it may be, but we get things accomplished through and by the Holy Spirit.

Have you asked the Spirit to help you through this day?

God gives us the Holy Spirit so we can be assure of our salvation

We have been given the Holy Spirit to zeal us as God’s chosen people. In Ephesians 1:13-14, we read that the Holy Spirit is the zeal the marks us as part of God’s people. This is the same Holy Spirit that testifies to our spirit that we are children of God, cf. Romans 8:16. Too many Christians question their salvation by measuring how many good works they do. Some even claim that only through an external action the believer, and others will know if they truly have the Holy Spirit! But Paul says that all who believe in God, receive the Holy Spirit at that very moment, cf. Ephesians 1:13. Putting it in simple words, there is no Christian without the Holy Spirit!

How can we doubt that we have the Holy Spirit if the Bible tells us so?

The Church needs the presence of the Holy Spirit at all times

When we go to cathedrals, as tourists of course, we love to admire the beauty and grandeur of the place. We admire its paintings, architecture, and its awesome presence. We try to be quite and conduct ourselves with respect. This is not only polite, but we may feel overwhelmed by the place. But do we as a church, God’s temple, behave the same when we are gathered? A cathedral may be a place of peace, contemplation, but the Spirit of God does not dwell there. We are the true temple of God, I Corinthians 3:16. We are called the household of God, I Timothy 3:15. So we are confronted once again with this reality, just a there can be no Christian without the Spirit, there can be no Church without the Spirit

How do we behave within God’s house?

The fruits/gifts of the Holy Spirit are to be used within the Church and wider world

One of the main problems within the Corinthian congregation is that the manifestations of the Spirit were used to show off their “spirituality”. They didn’t appreciate that by God giving those gifts to such a sinful people, God was showing his mercy rather than his favouritism. The gifts were given to up build one another in love, not to put those who were seen to have lesser gifts, cf. I Corinthians 12. But as mentioned before, we are not going to achieve unity by our own efforts. We may be polite to one another, but that politeness must be because we love one another. Only the Holy Spirit can change our hearts of stone into a heart of flesh, cf. Ezekiel 36:26. Paul warns the Galatians what it is to live a life where the Spirit is not present as a church, cf. Galatians 5:13-21. But after that, he gives us what to live through the Holy Spirit is, 22-26. If we live a life in the Spirit, then, the world will see that we are one, and be a great testimony as to the power of God among us, his church, John 13:35.

Are we allowing the Holy Spirit to take hold of our church?

Prayer.

Women Bishops or biblical fidelity?

What's wrong with this picture??? Depends who you ask, if you are a liberal, culture driven, pro-feminist, pro-abortion, pro-gay, scripture trumping so called "christian", then the answer may be twofold: how come it took so long to reach this stage, and, there should be more women, if not the majority, sitting there as bishops and ordained ministers.

If you are a biblical based, scripture driven, pro-life, pro-family, pro-marriage, conservative christian, the answer would be another question, How could the church of God reject God so clearly in his face?

I don't deny that there are other, more pressing issues that we, as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ should be battling, the likes of poverty, justice and above all, the salvation of souls. Nevertheless, this issue is one of those that Salomon refererred to as:
Song of Songs 2:
5 Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.

So, to say as some have suggested, that we shouldn't fight or confront this issue, don't see the greater issue, or don't comprehend it's repercussions. As Wayne Grudem has pointed out in his excellent book, Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?, all those churches that claimed that in order to survive they had to move in with the times, are rather dying, losing members. An example is that the Uniting Church in Australia sees its own demise by 2050, or the Episcopal Church USA, that despite ordaining women not only to the ministry, but also to the post of bishop, and as if that was not wrong enough, went ahead and ordained Gene Robinson, an open homosexual with a partner, as a bishop, the church is still losing members, while the dissenters are growing.

One of the women in the picture (notice all the women "bishops" except one have short hair, makes one wonder!!!), Barbara Darling, third from the left first role, once interviewed me as to gather if I was called to the ministry. Our interview was a mere formality, nevertheless, the interview turned to the topic as to how she had been passed over by men, who did not see God's calling in her life. She saw that as one of the greatest injustices of our time. At the end, I went away thinking if I really wanted to be ordained an Anglican (I was walking strayed from my Baptist roots!!), there were many Anglicans that I admired, N. T. Wright for example, but he has also endorsed women to be bishops. I have written to the good bishop that this approach contradicts his other approaches to be faithful to the biblical sources. However, he said something very encouraging during the debate that the Church of England is going through this last couple of days.

Answering to Cannon Robert Cotto, who suggested that " he was worried that the Church could turn into a sect, refusing to listen to the wisdom that was available in the outside world." Wright came responding to Cotto and others like him in the following statement: "that when the Church started to follow the dictates of contemporary society, it "would cease to be the Church" "

Wright's answer is the correct one, and he shouldn't be answering an ordained minister in that manner, since you would expect him that he had read James 4:⁴You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. And also I Corinthians 1:²¹For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. It seems that some have never cared about what the bible says, unless it's their pet subject, and even then, they twist the Bible to say what they want it to say.

Now, the Anglican Church, as many other denominations in the past, are trying to keep their denominations together, even when they take decisions that are totally against Scripture. I still remember when the Evangelical Church of America, ELCA, took the decision to accept practicing homosexuals to the ministry, and the conservatives walked out of the convention, and the presiding bishop, Mark Hanson, called out to them to "stay in the conversation" What conversation I ask?? The decision was taken, there's no going back.

And why I am talking about homosexuality and the ordination of women? Because they are issues that go hand in hand. As Grudem points this out in his book above mentioned, we can see how women are the ones that make the ordination of homosexuals an issue of justice, the same argument they took when dealing with their recognition to be ordained. One is just a stepping stone to the next.

I haven't touched on the biblical verses that clearly teach that women cannot be ordained, or that practicing, unrepentant homosexuals can be christians, let alone ordained. If people are so blind and don't take the bible seriously, well, that's their choice, but please, don't call yourself a christian, since that title applies to those who are willing to follow not just his teachings, but those of his followers as well. It is very difficult to argue against those who don't see the Bible as authoritative, but rather see the culture as their norm to follow.

With this entry, I just hope to point out some points that are not touched as often in conservative circles, and to show that in this debate, we can go beyond those passages usually cited, to give a stronger and more complete response to those who have rejected Scripture in all of its forms.

Luis A. Jovel