Contemporary Worship

I have started a couple of posts about the problem modern churches have with the songs they sing and the way they use singing in the service of worship. I can't seem to finish those posts, but I'm sure I will some day.

In the meantime I came across this post which I think is very good. I don't agree that a liturgical form of worship must follow the so-called church calendar, and I do not like the word "Eucharist" used in reference to communion or the Lord's supper. It is mostly associated (at least in the U.S.) with transubstantiation, where the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. This isn't technically the meaning of the word, but the associations are tainted with Roman Catholicism, so perhaps it is best avoided in an article written for a mass (pardon the pun) audience.

Anyway, here is the article. Feel free to comment, even though I didn't write it.

7 Ways Contemporary Worship is Starving the Church

Infant Baptism

Today I'm going to offer a conversational and brief explanation on why our family practices infant baptism. My husband and I both come from a background of credo or believer's baptism so infant baptism is something new for us.

It starts with the presupposition that God deals with his people by way of covenants. He is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. Most Christians will agree that God made a covenant with Adam, a covenant with Noah and a covenant with Abraham.  Sometimes when God makes a covenant, He also makes a sign to signify the event. The rainbow serves as a sign of God's covenant with Noah and circumcision was a sign of God's covenant with Abraham. God frequently states that his covenant promises are "to you, and to your children" or "to you and to your generations." When God makes a covenant with a single person, it doesn't mean that only the one person is under the covenant. In the case of God's covenant with Abraham, God specified that all of the males born into Abraham's family were to receive the sign of the covenant in their flesh.

I don't know of any Christians who believe that everyone who received the sign of circumcision was necessarily a believer, elect, or saved. The sign isn't a proof of God's love, but it does signify who is to treated as part of the visible covenant community. God said that those men who did not have the sign of the covenant were to be cut off from their people.

Baptism is the sign of the New Covenant. In Colossians 2:11-12a we read

In whom also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism...

The sign is given to all those who profess Christ and to all in the household of a believing man, including children, servants, relatives, etc. just as circumcision was done to all males of the house under the Old Covenant.

To recap: God deals with His people through covenants. God commands us to remember these covenants by way of signs. God made a New Covenant in the blood of Christ and the sign of that covenant is baptism. The sign of the covenant is given to all professing believers and to those under their household authority.

Our duty to our children is found in the great commission. Preach the gospel, baptize them and make disciples, teaching them to obey all that Christ commands. 

The Power to Quicken The Dead - Who Has It?

Aging should bring more than grey hair. Hopefully, wisdom increases with age if I apply my heart to it. I don't know if I'm necessarily wiser, but I have realized two important facts lately. The first is that there is so much that I don't know. I mean so, SO, SO, much that I don't know! I am finally starting to see that I am barely touching the tip of the iceberg in terms of knowledge. Why are young people convinced they are on the cusp of discovering all things and old people are humbly ashamed at what they don't yet know?  I guess it's because the young don't know what they don't know, and the old are starting to get an inkling of what they don't know. I don't know.

The second important thing I'm learning is the utter and complete powerlessness of the dead. I guess I've always known the dead are weak, but the blinders have really been thrown off lately and I can almost sense with my being how impossible it is for the dead to do anything. My understanding of this has been evolving and growing, and honestly, if I have to go much further into this, my brain may collapse from awe. The good thing is, when I read the Scripture now and see the word "dead", the meaning of the passage is practically exploding in my face. I can't miss it. When God says someone is dead, He doesn't mean that he is weak, or only capable of a little work. Dead means dead. Not alive. Not even a little bit.

By now, you are probably wondering where I'm going with this. Well, on Sunday, while the pastor was butchering Ephesians 4, I decided to read Ephesians from the beginning to try to understand the overall point of the book. Naturally, I started in Chapter 1. Paul starts out by telling us that God planned and predestined those who would be in Christ. God also caused them to believe and gave them the Holy Spirit as an earnest of their inheritance in Him. All of this happened by a work of God and God alone. Those whom He chose didn't have to do a thing. which is good, because until He gave them life, they were dead and incapable of believing or doing any other thing. If they had to DO something in order for God to save them, they would never be saved because of their deadness and inability to act.

After God does all that, He opens the eyes of their understanding so that they can know what He did. (verses 17 and 18) And even that is done for His glory. But then we see in verse 19 a new revelation about how God accomplished this feat. This was the stunning moment for me. God used the same power to save us that He used to raise Christ from the dead! Look at this:

And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead...   (vs. 19 and 20a)

When I think of the power required to raise someone from the dead, I think it must be large in both quantity and quality. It was one of God's greatest works, right? To raise Christ from the dead? And yet, it took this EXACT SAME power that God had to exercise to save me. Paul calls it "his mighty power." In the past, I have thought it a small thing for God to save me. But now I see that it was a huge thing. And not just me, but the entire Church, which Paul says "is his body." 

And all of this brings me back to Arminians. How could anyone think that he possesses ANY of the mighty power necessary to make himself believe? It is impossible for someone who is dead in his trespasses and sin to exercise faith. He doesn't even HAVE faith until God has already done a saving work in his life and given that man the gift of faith. (Ephesians 2:8-9)  After God opens your eyes to your sinfulness and his forgiveness, don't make the mistake of thinking that YOU realized it and chose to repent and believe. That is the very opposite of how God describes it in Ephesians 1. God chose you. God saved you. God quickened you and opened the eyes of your understanding.

Praise Him.

Dead Men Do Not Act

How dead is dead? Can the spiritually dead commit spiritual acts that result in them being quickened?

Calvinism answers that with a resounding, "No!"

R.C. Sproul, Jr. on Arminianism

What Does the Bible Primarily Teach?

I love the catechism. I love the wisdom of my forefathers in the faith who knew concepts can be better grasped when reduced to clear statements. I pity modern evangelicals who believe they are too pure to resort to such man-made documents and believe they only need read the Bible and all will be made clear. To them I ask, "What is God?" If they can answer that by using the Bible alone, I will agree that they have no use for the catechism or any of the accumulated wisdom of the elders.

I stumbled onto the catechism quite by accident. One day while attending an event at my local Christian radio station I was given the opportunity to choose a book for myself from a table. The station was giving the books away and listeners who attended the event were given first choice. Upon seeing the title "Training Hearts Teaching Minds" by Starr Meade, I was intrigued. Most of the other books were devotional in nature and did not appeal to me, so this title was my choice, sort of by default. The subtitle of the book is "Family Devotions Based on the Shorter Catechism." At that time, I was under the impression that only the Roman church used a catechism, so I took the book prepared to be critical.

Let's just say that after reading the first question and answer, I was curious.  I had heard my pastor recite this question and answer during a sermon, but I had no idea it was from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. By the time I got to question number 4, my mind was, as they say, blown. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't read it yet. It's free on the internet, go read it.

Question number 3 (In modern  English) says this:

What does the Bible primarily teach?

Simple question, right? And the answer is not exactly amazing, except that it sums up what could be a dissertation into one sentence. Here is the answer:

The Bible primarily teaches what man must believe about God and what God requires of man.

After learning this answer, it changed the way I understood the Scripture. Now, while reading, I am continually asking myself if what I am reading is telling something about God, or is it telling me something that God is requiring of me? Life changing, really. 

I thought of this today when I read this quote from Vaughn Olhman at Let Them Marry

But the point of coming to Scripture is to be changed by it   (From the post "Why Aren't you Married?")

Exactly.

Is An "Age of Accountability" Found In The Bible?

I was having a conversation with someone (O.k., it was my father-in-law) and he suggested that babies who die are saved because they have not yet reached the age of accountability. He was unable to define what that age was and he seemed really flummoxed by my next question which was, "Are you suggesting that there is more than one way to be saved?"

My reason in asking that question is that I believe there is but one way, and one way only, to be saved, and that is to be born again. Paul describes it like this in Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.

In other words, God gives the gift of faith. That faith enables us to believe. We don't work up faith, it is given to the elect.  In fact, it is given at a time when we are

dead in trespasses and sins

Ephesians 2:1

Dead people don't believe anything. They have to be made alive first. And it can happen to babies. Even babies in the womb.  If it can't happen to babies in the womb, then how can they be saved?  If babies can't be born again, and the Bible doesn't describe any other way of being saved, then babies can't be saved and they go to hell if they die. 

This is Mark Dewey's explanation of the subject.

The Law And The New Covenant

As it says at the top of my blog, I'm a theonomist. A practical definition of theonomy, which I will borrow from R.C. Sproul, Jr. is "the conviction that the civil law God gave to Israel in the Old Testament ought to be the law of the land in all nations everywhere." Either we have man's law, which is autonomy from God, or God's Law, which is theonomy. But the question always arises when one first hears of theonomy, "What? Are you saying we should be offering sacrifices and observing the feasts? Are you saying that we are obligated to keep the law of Moses in order to be saved?" No. I am saying, with David, that I love God's law and the answers to how we are to love God and love our neighbor are found within the Law. We ought to love God's law and obey His commands. Christ said the same thing in Matthew 5, blessed are those who do and teach them, for they shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I'm not going to give a treatise on theonomy here, that is already spelled out elsewhere in thousands of pages. I recommend Rushdoony to any that wish to get a grasp on the subject. What I am doing here is trying to figure out or understand the contrast between the relationship of God's people and the Law under the Old Covenant and the relationship of God's people and the Law in the New Covenant, and in particular, the point being made in the Letter to the Hebrews. Under both Covenants, the Law of God is the Law of God. It is one and the same Law. But there is this mystical transference of the Law from tables of stone to residence in our hearts. What does this mean to the Christian? How is this manifested in her life?

My thoughts on this matter were provoked by an article from Every Thought Captive which was posted on facebook this week. The article was written in 2007, but the content is of the type that never becomes dated.The author, Mark Dewey, points out that great thinkers like Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin struggled with Hebrews 8: 6-13, so we shouldn't be surprised if the whole meaning isn't obvious to us. Dewey is attempting to explain the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New. But what really stood out to me in this passage, and throughout the entire context of chapters 8, 9 and 10, was how the Law was stored, so to speak, under the Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant.

In verse 8 we are reminded of the prophecy of the coming New Covenant:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah

In the next verse we are told why God will make a new covenant, because of what happened with the old one:

... because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

As part of the old covenant, God had given them His Law, written on tablets of stone. But His plan for the new covenant is different, He isn't going to put the Law on tablets of stone:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people

It is just as Jesus said, He didn't come to abolish the Law or the prophets. Not only is God not going to abolish the Law within the New Covenant, He plans to establish it by writing it on our hearts! Should the Law have less relevance to us than it did to Moses, or more?  In verse 11 of Hebrews chapter 8 we are told that God writing His Law on our hearts and into our minds will result in all of his people knowing Him.

And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

What a great and loving God! He wants us to know Him, so He facilitates that by writing His Law on our hearts and mind. Knowing God's Law is essential to knowing HIM. And if it wasn't clear enough already, by chapter 10 we are told that this new covenant that is to come is, in fact, HERE. That is, it was established with Jesus' sacrifice of himself on the cross and witnessed to by the Holy Ghost. (Hebrews 10:10-17)

The Cult of Statism

One of things that bothers me most about so many, many believers, at least in America, is the extent to which they worship the state without realizing they are doing it. Also, when I attempt to point out their idolatry, it is denied.

Rather than trying to explain what statism is, I'm just going to link to this video and ask you to watch it. Questions?  Let's talk about it.

Suicide is Sinful

I probably don't need to tell anyone that the Hollywood actor Robin Williams killed himself this week at the age of 63. We are told that he suffered from clinical depression. Many have rushed to announce that he is now "at peace" and "no longer in pain." I beg to differ.

In death he is not a celebrity. In death he stands in judgment, as we all will.

Depression does not cause suicide. Suicide is a choice. If he had killed another person (homicide) would we be blaming his "mental illness" and saying he couldn't help it? Of course not. The man who kills himself does not fear God. He does not fear the Law-giver who said, "Thou shalt not kill."

I do not pretend to know what Robin Williams is facing now, whether he is in paradise or whether he is burning in the fires of hell. But I do know this, his fate is not dependent upon his fame or wealth. His fate, like the rest of our fates, is entirely dependent upon whether his sins are covered by the blood of Christ.

My sympathies do not go to the murderer who took his own life. I'm sorry for the ones who suffer in the aftermath of his evil deed.

Foreskins For Sale

I am opposed to infant circumcision for a myriad of reasons. As a Christian, I don't believe there is a Biblical imperative to circumcise our sons. Baptism is the sign of the New Covenant as circumcision was the sign of the Old Covenant. See Galatians 5 and Colossians 2:11-12.

Even if you believe that God commands you to circumcise your son, modern medical circumcision is nothing like what was meant by the Hebrew word which we translate as "circumcise." If modern medical circumcision refers to any procedure different than what God commanded, then NO ONE is obligated to do that to his son, even if a man believes he is commanded to circumcise. Medical circumcision is a barbaric mutilation which changes the structure and function of the penis. It is no more "Biblical" than if the entire penis was removed. And when the medical community starts applying the word "circumcision" to a procedure which amputates the entire penis, will Christians still be paying doctors to do it to their sons? Honestly, if you are unfamiliar with how a circumcision is performed, don't bother getting into the discussion at all. You are unqualified to discuss it. Educate yourself before you start handing over your sons to people who don't care a wit about your faith or religious practice but are more than happy to take your money.

Speaking of money, did you ever wonder what happens to all of those foreskins? I didn't until a couple of days ago. I just assumed they were thrown out as medical waste. I am such a dupe! A commenter on another blog led me to this Google search result: https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=neonatal+fibroblast&gws_rd=ssl  I did not know that foreskins are called "neonatal fibroblasts." Did you? I did not know that they are actually a commodity from which hospitals and medical technology corporations make money. While parents are forbidden by law from selling the foreskins of their sons, hospitals are not. These companies even have the audacity to refer to the baby boys as "donors." Seriously. This is disgusting.

What did I learn from going to some of the links listed in the above search results?  One company called ATCC will sell 1 ml of "fibroblasts" for $49. Life Technologies sells 1 vial of "Human Dermal Fibroblasts, neonatal" which is guaranteed to contain at least 500,000 cells for $371.00. Advanced BioMatrix sells a 1 ml vial for $295 and they guarantee 1.5 million viable cells per vial.  Life Map Discovery,  gave the following insight about the commercial use of human foreskins:

Human neonatal dermal fibroblasts are isolated from newborn foreskins (surgically discarded after circumcision). A single donor foreskin provides sufficient cells to produce 250,000 square feet of complete Dermagraft tissue.

Well, I'll be jiggered! A single "donor" foreskin contributes to 250,000 square feet of their product. The donors must be so proud... oh, wait, the "donors" had no idea they donated their body parts for someone else to sell.

Parents, please do not have your sons circumcised. If you believe they must be circumcised, do it yourself or have someone do it who is skilled with a knife. Don't let the medical establishment harvest body parts from your children. It is evil.

Sophie's Choice - Why Can't She Choose Her Own Husband?

I have been doing some more reading over at truelovedoesntwait.com. In this post, a young woman by the name of Sophie is arguing in the comments that she should not be prohibited from choosing her own husband. She claims that she isn't insisting on doing the choosing, but rather should simply have the veto if her father wants her to marry a man that she doesn't "like." In other words, as long as her father picks a man that she chooses, she will obey her father and marry him. That reminds me of a woman who obeys her husband in everything, as long as she agrees with him.

The heart of her issue, which she herself doesn't even realize, is that she is as solipsistic as the typical woman. She is the measure of all things. Absolutely no one, no man and not even God, are going to put any limits on her. They are not going to limit her sexuality, for sure. This is the essence of  feminism. A woman can do anything she pleases without limitation and without guidance and it is the duty of others, including her God-given authorities to embrace her choices and to finance them. I'm sure that Sophie would deny being a feminist, but she is believing and practicing the core principles of feminism, therefore she is a feminist, even if she would protest.

No one should miss this post over at Vox Day's Alpha Game Blog. It sums up the solipsism of women very concisely.  And why should women read this and understand it? Because if we don't understand the evil residing in our nature, we are bound to either excuse and dismiss it or outright embrace it. Don't be put off by the strong language. It won't hurt you.

What follows is my response to Sophie and the other commentors over at True Love Doesn't Wait. I wanted to save it here for future reference, you know, for that book I'm going to write someday. It deals with the arguments which say that betrothal is not a command or that any way of getting a wife is ok. On the contrary, I believe that betrothal or an outright purchase are the only ways of getting a wife that conform to what is taught about marriage in the Scriptures. I also wanted to point out that while I agree with much of  what Vaughn Ohlman (the writer/owner of True Love Doesn't Wait) says about betrothal, I also have very serious differences of opinion with him. I do not accept his definitions of either betrothal or marriage, for example, which are pretty big differences.  Ok, my comment follows:

I don't think that Sophie really does have (or that she should have) choices. I think the Bible shows us that a woman does not have the authority over her own sexuality. Her father is the guardian of it until she marries, and he decides to whom and when she will be given in marriage. Once she is married the authority and control over her sexuality passes to her husband.

While there is no single passage of Scripture where this is explained and set forth, it is revealed all throughout the Scriptures. Obviously Vaughn has already written two books on the subject, and even in those he wasn't able to cover every verse where these principles are either mentioned or implied. When we say "show me the verse....!" we are demanding something we don't demand of other principles. For example, where is the verse in the law of God which commands parents to feed and clothe their children? What? There is no such command? But we see parents doing it. Is that just cultural?

In the case of betrothal, we not only see that it is implied as the natural and normal way of doing things, we also see that God, in his law, gives remedies to fathers and husbands when other men, or even the daughter/wife herself decide to exercise their sexuality outside their authority. We see a law wherein a man who suspects his wife of being adulterous can have the priest test her for it. If she is guilty, either by admission or by failing the test, she ends up dead. There is no such test for husbands. A husband's sexuality is not under the control or authority of his wife. He has a duty to her sexually, but it is not exclusive to her. God calls this "just". Is that cultural?

But the real convincer for me came after I became reformed. When I came to understand that the grace of God is irresistible to me. The father chose me for Christ and neither Christ nor I have any choice in the matter. God, Himself, uses betrothal for His Son. And then He created the institution of marriage as a picture of the marriage of Christ and His bride. Every aspect of the marriage, including the betrothal is pictured in how men take wives. The way we do this speaks the gospel. When we ignore betrothal we lie. We are hiding the gospel. When Christians let women choose or not choose their husbands we are using a picture of marriage that lies about the gospel.

There is nothing about marriage from its institution in the Garden until today that is cultural. It was created for the purpose of illustrating the gospel. Not the other way around. God didn't look around the earth and try to find some earthly thing that would help him explain what He is doing, instead, He invented marriage and gave us marriage as an aid to our understanding. When we accept the analogy as created we see that election is from the beginning, we see that betrothal is from the beginning. It is a vital part of the message of the gospel and therefore should not be excluded from the manner in which God's people express marriage.

Perhaps Sophie believes that she chose Christ? Or that she at least had the option to reject Him if she didn't like him? The Scriptures don't teach this. We are to love the God who first loved us, not just say "no" if He doesn't get our motor running. In the same way, we are to love our husbands and if we don't, the older women can teach us how. We don't "marry the one we love", we "love the one we marry". Huge difference. We have no business loving men who are not our husbands.

Southern Baptists Are NOT Calvinists

I read something today that I found to be rather amusing. One lady wrote, "Southern Baptists are Calvinists". To which another lady responded, "Southern Baptists can be both Calvinists and Arminian."

I just want to set the record straight by saying that the Southern Baptist Convention's 2000 Baptist Faith and Message is undeniably NOT Calvinist. It stands in direct disagreement with  Calvinism on at least 3, if not 4 of the 5 points of Calvinism.

A reminder of the 5 points:
T - Total Inability (or Total Depravity)
U - Unconditional Election
L - Limited Atonement
I - Irresistible (Efficacious) Grace
P - Perseverance of the Saints

 Here is part of what the Southern Baptist Convention says about "Salvation":

Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.

We can contrast that with the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is arguably Calvinist, and what it says about Effectual Calling:

I. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed time, effectually to call,[1] by His Word and Spirit,[2] out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ;[3] enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God,[4] taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh;[5] renewing their wills, and, by His almighty power, determining them to that which is good,[6] and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ:[7] yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.[8]
II. This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man,[9] who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit,[10] he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

The Southern Baptist Convention does not entirely line up with Arminianism, either. Especially with the last point, "Falling from grace", as the Southern Baptist position could be described more as "once saved, always saved."  Here is a review of the 5 points of Arminianism:



1. Free Will or Human Ability
2. Conditional Election
3. Universal Redemption or General Atonement
4. The Holy Spirit Can Be Effectually Resisted
5. Falling From Grace

While there are some people who call themselves "baptist" AND "reformed" or "Calvinists", this is definitely opposed to the official position of the Southern Baptist Convention.  This includes such notables as John Piper. I believe a reformed baptist is a Calvinist who ascribes to baptism after profession of faith rather than infant baptism. Infant baptism is the traditional Calvinist teaching. Correct me if I'm wrong, please?
 

Judge Not Thy God

Have you ever wondered if you have the mind of Christ? Do you believe that God's thoughts are actually higher than yours? Do we agree with God? In all things? Has God ever said something at which you took offense? Does the Bible actually teach the things that you have been taught by your parents, your Sunday school teachers and your pastor? If you were to be shown that God does not endorse your morality, would you change what you believe to align yourself with what God has said?

During worship this past Lord's Day, the pastor reminded us that we are to be renewing our minds. He stated further that what we read in the Bible should be changing us. I just had to shake my head as he just had a woman get up front and "lead" us in lighting the advent candle. She spoke for a full five minutes. So much for women "keeping silence" in the church. I took that opportunity to let my mind wander a bit and to question whether I am currently harboring any wrong thinking that directly contradicts what God has revealed about Himself and his requirements for me. I couldn't think of anything but I'm sure there is something.

In the recent past, within the last 5 or 10 years, I have had to completely revamp my understanding of marriage and the regulation, by God, of sexual relations between humans. Why, I even had to change my definition of adultery to make it line up with the Bible! Yes, I just said that my definition of adultery was not the same as what is described as adultery in the Bible. How could that be? Don't be so surprised, because yours is probably wrong, too. Words mean things. Ideas have consequences. Take care to get it right.

How does the Bible define adultery? It doesn't have a verse that says "Adultery is...." But, we can find several verses which show us what adultery is and, equally important, what it ISN'T.  When a woman who is married or betrothed has intercourse with a man other than her husband (or betrothed) both the woman and her paramour are committing adultery. Adultery always, always, always involves a married woman. If sexual intercourse occurs between a man an unmarried woman, it is never adultery. I don't mean that it isn't some other sin, but it is most definitely not adultery. Likewise, a man having sexual intercourse with a woman to whom he is married (assuming the woman is not already the wife of another) is never adultery, regardless of whether he has one wife or 20. A man may have more than one wife, and this is not adultery. A woman, however, may only have one husband at a time and if she has sexual intercourse with another man, or marries another man while she is married, she commits adultery.

I don't know about you, but when I first discovered this, I was quite shocked. A married man, who has sexual intercourse with an unmarried woman is not committing adultery. You can't swap the words around in the Bible and make it the same for husbands and wives. Men and woman are not the same. When a marriage takes place, the man and woman are not doing the same thing and assuming equal positions in the relationship. A man takes a wife. A woman is taken "to wife" by a man. She is pledged exclusively to him. He is not bound by exclusivity.

Rather than take my word for it, and I hope you won't, please check the Scripture and study it for yourself.  Here are a few examples where the concept is covered:

And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Leviticus 20:10

There is no corresponding verse about the woman who commits adultery with a neighbor's husband. The marital status of the man in an adulterous relationship is never mentioned in the Scripture. If the woman is married and her sexual partner is not her husband, both of them are guilty of adultery, regardless of the man's marital status. In the same way, regardless of the marital status of the man, if he has sex with an unmarried woman, it is not adultery for either party.

In Numbers chapter 5, verses 12 - 31 we are given a  program to be followed when a husband has a "spirit of jealousy" and believes his wife is committing adultery. He brings her to the priest and makes an accusation against her, she drinks a special drink after swearing her innocence. If she is innocent, she will conceive, if she is guilty, her thigh rots and she becomes cursed in their neighborhood. She isn't put to death because this would fail the required "two or three witness test" for putting people to death. There is no corresponding law for a wife who thinks her husband is sleeping around. Is this an accident or oversight on the part of God? I can say with much confidence, "No."

What of a man who keeps marrying women after he already has a wife? Is this adultery? Is the modern crime of bigamy prohibited by God? Clearly not. There is no command not to do it and there is no mention that God is even displeased with it. Unlike adultery, which God has claimed is evil. Consider King David. He had plenty of wives. I was able to find the following list in less than 5 minutes of searching:  Michal, Abigail, Ahinoam, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah. He took these wives, sometimes two at a time, such as Abigail and Ahinoam, and they barely get mentioned. But when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, God noticed. This was not just another wife. This was the wife of another man, one Uriah the Hittite. Even after Uriah was killed in battle, God continued to refer to Bathsheba as "the wife of Uriah." There is a clear difference between adultery and a man taking more than one wife.

The New Testament is a grand commentary on the Old Testament. No new law. No destruction of the law, just a better explanation. Paul sums up the law concerning adultery in Romans 7:3 "So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress." This was not so for a man, in that while is wife lives, he MAY marry another as long as he doesn't  put away his first wife to do so. (See Matthew 5:31-32) That would cause his first wife to commit adultery and he, himself, commits adultery by putting away his wife according to Matthew 19:9.

Now, back to the original point of this post. If I accuse God of being wrong or unjust or unfair for not calling it adultery if my husband should have sex with some other woman, then I am judging God. If I think in my heart that God is evil for putting different requirements on men and woman, then I need to be rebuked and I need to renew my mind and conform my thinking to God's. Not the other way around. After all, where was I when God caused the doe to give birth in the forest? (paraphrasing what God answered Job)

Why, oh why does any of this matter? It matters because it is the first step in admitting that the standards for righteousness don't come from us, or from our wicked hearts or our puny brains. They come from an almighty God whose thoughts are actually higher than ours. After coming to grips with that understanding, we will be less shocked and more willing to yield to God when we see that his definitions for other things that we imagine are one way, are actually not that way at all. We won't attempt to set ourselves up as more holy than God when we see, for example, that there is no such thing as "rape" as we currently define it, in the Bible. Our indignation and desire to put "rapists" to death does not come from God. We aren't exercising a "godly anger" when we wish castration upon so-called "child molesters." Those ideas come from somewhere, but they don't come from God or what He has revealed to us about Himself. And really, all we know about God is what He has revealed. We have no other way to know Him. No one has special knowledge, apart from the Bible, about God's opinion of forced sexual intercourse and how it should be handled. Can we trust God to make the proper judgment? Or is He in his heaven wringing his hands because we are obeying Him and what he commands rather than going our own way? Can you imagine God saying, "I know I told you that if a man forces himself on a virgin that he must marry her, but what I really meant was that he should be put to death!"?

On Election and Sheep

In John 10 Jesus paints a beautiful picture of the sheep fold. He identifies his followers as sheep and himself as both the door and the shepherd. See what Jesus says in verses 14-16:

I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I  the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

I recently heard a man say this about the above passage, "See, this is a verse about evangelism. There are other sheep out there that need to come into the fold and we need to bring them in."

*pulls out hair in frustration*

No, no, no. The job of the undershepherds is to feed the sheep, not to make them a part of the fold. Jesus does that himself.  Jesus brings them, they hear HIS voice. When they get there, just feed them. You are making this much harder than it has to be.

Accepting Christ

Must we "accept Christ as our personal savior" in order to be saved?

If so, why doesn't the Bible just say that?

If not, then why do Christians assert it?

I have no tolerance for Christian jargon being passed off as doctrine.

Leading Others To Christ

What do people mean by "leading others to Christ"? Is this a Scriptural directive, command or principle? Does the Bible allude to such a concept? Anywhere?

But it sounds good. Sounds sort of "spiritual" doesn't it?

Presuppositions

It is best to read the Bible without any preconceived notions about what it should be saying. I like how Doug Phillips says it in his Publisher's Introduction to How God Wants Us to Worship Him by Joe Moorecraft, III:

"Suppose you lived on a desert island, had never had contact with modern culture, and the only thing to guide you in your decision making or in formulating your worldview was the Bible. How would you live?"

In other words, lay aside everything you've been taught, disassemble the incorrect framework you've built on which you hang Bible teachings and just let the Bible speak for itself. Or, more correctly, let the Bible speak for God.

I agree with this. But I also believe that it isn't possible to entirely jettison doctrine, once it is acquired, and that proper doctrine can be an aid to understanding the Bible.

In terms of culture, Christian lingo, popular movements, yes, discard them all and start from scratch. But when it comes to doctrine, hold fast to the truth. Which brings me to my point. Reading the Psalms is so much more enjoyable, not to mention edifying, when read with proper understanding of the Kingdom. Not just the Psalms, of course, but that is what I was reading this morning when I had my "ah-ha" moment.

Before I embraced Reformed theology, before I was a Calvinist, back when I was a rabid dispensationalist, I could never get a grasp on the Psalms. As a matter of fact, so many things I read did not fit into my dispensations, as I had been taught to understand them. Some things in the Bible seem to transcend the dispensations, and this was very confusing for me. But now, I see that God has been at work since the beginning of time, building a Kingdom, choosing his people, preparing a bride. Of course! Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever!

The Pro Choice Christians

What is wrong with the Church? Why is it that the children of the chosen go the way of the world nearly as frequently as the children of those not chosen? I would assert that it is because dispensationalists are Pro-Choice.

By "dispensationalist" I am referring to those whose theology is not reformed. Those who are not Calvinists. Primarily these folks believe that God saved his Old Testament people in one way, and his New Testament people in a different way. They believe that the Old Testament is useful, but not really authoritative in terms of God's justice or God's commands and that the New Testament somehow supersedes the Old. It's as if God suddenly did something completely different, disregarding everything He had said previously. The term itself comes from the idea that God has acted differently during different "dispensations" of time. I know and love the dispensationalists, for I, myself, was one of them. Thank God He delivered me from dispensationalism.

But my beef with dispensationalists is not so much their nonsensical beliefs about time but with their wrong-headed insistence that man chooses Christ rather than Christ choosing man. When it comes to salvation, they believe man is Pro-Choice.

I don't have the time or the theological training to launch into a full-blown defense of Calvinism here. If you are truly interested there are plenty of websites and books available on the subject. What I want to point out is one of the practical consequences of being Pro-Choice which is that their children leave the Church in droves. According to Barna Research Group, somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of teens who claim to be born again will not be practicing Christianity by their twenties.

What I can't find, is a statistic that compares the teens of evangelical reformed families versus those of evangelical non-reformed families. But from what I've seen personally, I'm pretty sure it's the non-reformed that are responsible for most of the 80% who fall away. The reason is simple, reformed families teach their children that they are chosen by God and have no choice about whether or not they want to follow Christ. Only God gets to choose and His choice is binding on the rest of us. The non-reformed, on the other hand, are hoping their children will see the benefits of being a Christian and choose to be saved, and then, hopefully, choose to obey God in order to get all the goodies that go to the obedient. Since when does a teen or young adult choose what is best for himself? Mostly they choose whatever is fun right now. These parents would never be so lax with the running of their households as they teach that God is about running His Kingdom! "Ok now Susie, it might be dangerous for you to be out all night, plus you'll feel so much better after a good night's sleep, but you just choose for yourself." I don't think so. And yet these same people believe and teach their children that God would REALLY, REALLY appreciate it if they would choose to serve Him, but if not, hey, that's their choice?

What kind of a God builds a Kingdom only with those having nothing better to do? The sovereign God of the universe chooses each one to add to the bride for His Son, He doesn't limit Himself to those who want to come. And once a person is chosen, obedience is required, it isn't an option. To disobey is to be chastened, as we know the Bible says that God chastens those whom He loves.

Let's teach this truth to our children and see if they don't fare better when we stop telling them they have a choice and instead start teaching them the commands of God. Stop telling them that Jesus is softly and gently begging them to come to Him. Stop telling them that God will be so grateful if they would grace the Kingdom with their souls. Stop telling them that they can choose to reject God now and change their minds at any time, God will never reject them. Nonsense!

Be like the parents who brought their children to Jesus so He could bless them. They didn't ask the children if they wanted to go to Jesus, they just took them. You say, "Here is the King. Love Him. Obey Him. Serve Him."

Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

Before I was converted I never heard the word "witness" being used other than in a legal sense, as in a witness giving testimony at a trial. After my conversion, as I became immersed in the Christian culture and church-speak, I was introduced to another use of the word. Here is an example of its usage in a sentence, "Hey, are you going out witnessing on Thursday night?"

Loosely it means to share the gospel with people. Specifically it meant going "soul winning" or "knocking on doors" as it was called amongst my new brothers and sisters. One night (at least) every week the members of our local church were supposed to spend a couple of hours visiting the homes of people who were not believers and try to get them to convert. Sometimes this involved cold calls, where homes were chosen at random, and sometimes we worked from lists of people who had visited the church or were friends or relatives of church members who were concerned about their eternal souls.

In true dispensationalist fashion, we were taught that the souls of these people depended upon our harassing them into the Kingdom. If they never put their faith and trust in Jesus, it would be our fault for not going soul winning and witnessing to them. It was like being an encyclopedia salesman for Jesus. Not pleasant.

Now, years later, I have come to understand that the word "witness" when used in Scripture doesn't take on some special, different meaning just because it is in the Bible. The words in the Bible are just words and they are used because of their meanings, rather than having their meanings changed because they are biblical.

So, what is a witness and what did Jesus mean when He said we would be witnesses of Him?

Acts 1:8
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Somehow, it doesn't seem like He was saying that after He sends the Holy Ghost our task will be to knock on every door in the world and blast them with the gospel. After all, a witness is one who tells what he saw and heard. But he doesn't just go blabbing everywhere, there is an appropriate place to witness and an appropriate audience for the witness.

In the Old Testament, witnesses were used to verify the truth of something. Not only crimes, but also land sales and the works of God. Witnesses of a murder were to be the first to cast stones in the execution. No one else could toss a rock until the witnesses tossed theirs. Witnesses appeared before the one sitting in judgment. For the most part, a witness testifies when called upon to do so.

While we should be ready to give an answer to anyone that asks about the hope that lies within us, it doesn't seem that we need to be demanding an audience with those who don't want to hear. That is like casting pearls before swine.

But we also know that God can't stand a lying witness. Here's a familiar verse:

Exodus 20:16
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

So, if one is called to testify, he must testify truthfully.

I said all of that to say this: Why does going to weddings get me so irritated? Well, I know why, but why can't I just go along and get along like everyone else? Why can't I fawn and oooo and ahhhh and talk about how beautiful the bride was? Why must I find fault with nearly every aspect of the wedding ceremony? One reason, really. Truth. We should be truth tellers. We should not be false witnesses when called to testify. My personal opinion about most weddings, and I mean Christian weddings, is that they are blasphemous. I don't even know why I say "most", because I haven't been to one yet where the truth was spoken.

Marriage was instituted by God. But wedding ceremonies, filled with their lies, must come straight from the father of lies.

Wedding ceremonies are not essential for marriage. They are not even mentioned in the Bible. (Wedding feasts, yes, wedding ceremonies, no.) Therefore, if we must insist on performing them, shouldn't we be using them as a vehicle for delivering truth? Not every aspect of a wedding needs to be infused with sacred meaning, and for heavens sake please don't invent stuff to make you feel more holy for doing this or that during your wedding!

What is with the Unity Candle? From what in Scripture do people get the notion that lighting two candles then using them to light a third candle symbolizes a man and woman coming together as one flesh? It makes about as much sense as having the bride and groom each bring in a pint of ice cream and then mix them together. Or each bring in some mud from their parents' yards and mix that. The TRUTH is... God designed sex as the symbol and the means whereby two become one. But we are too squeamish for that, so we make up our own symbols and the truth be damned!

By the way, marriage is NOT a covenant. If it was, I'm pretty sure that the Bible would have mentioned it or alluded to it at least once, somewhere in those 66 books. It isn't there. Obviously, if I'm wrong on this, it will be easy enough to debunk my position.

But guess what? Betrothal IS a covenant. It is a covenant to marry! That's right, the groom promises, makes a covenant to return and take the bride to wife. When the groom comes and takes his bride, the covenant is fulfilled. It is complete. It is done.

It is wrong, and spreads untruth, to take the covenantal aspects of betrothal and apply them to marriage as if God meant to do it all along, but just forgot.

But the vows, those are from the Bible, right? Well, when Christ betrothed you to himself, what were your vows? When he comes for his bride, does she take vows? Does he? What is the consequence for breaking marriage vows? Are all of the vows the same? I've heard of people refer to a person who was unfaithful in marriage as having "broken the marriage vows." (I assume they refer to the vow to keep all affection only for the spouse) But if a wife fails to honor or obey her husband, I have NEVER heard someone say she has "broken the marriage vows." Why is that? I've even heard someone say that "breaking the marriage vows" is cause for divorce, but only in relation to one of the vows.

If the man and woman don't make vows, will they still be married? If so, then obviously the vows are not necessary, they are just one more added element to the ceremony to give it a more sanctified atmosphere. Unfortunately, God doesn't take the act of vowing vows lightly, so it really puts a burden on a couple that God does not require.

Numbers 30:2
If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.

Ecclesiastes 5:4-5
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

Additionally, it seems to me that vows in Scripture are to perform or not perform certain acts, so the vow can be fulfilled. They are not open-ended. The acts are specific, not general like "honor" and "obey". Our modern marriage vows don't coincide with anything seen in the Bible nor are they recommended or required by God.

Rings? Rings can be a token of anything of which we want to make them a token. They aren't necessary to marriage and aren't sacred. Marriage isn't a covenant, so they aren't tokens of the covenant.

Here we are, Christians, with a captive audience at a wedding. Tell the gospel! If the ceremony deviates from the gospel, then either change the ceremony or announce "This part of the ceremony has nothing to do with biblical marriage, we are just doing it because it makes us feel sanctimonious or gives us the warm fuzzies."

To do otherwise is bearing false witness, it is giving false testimony. Please don't do it.

The Triangle - or NOT!

I converted to Christianity in 1985. I don't know the exact date, but sometime towards the end of the year, perhaps November. It was the dry season in Panama, which sort of corresponds to winter in the United States. So, I've been a believer for over 22 years.

Since 1985 I have heard countless sermons, retreat talks, women's fellowship group talks, seminar classes, etc. in which a marriage between two Christians is described or illustrated by an equilateral triangle. Do my readers immediately recall the same visual? You know what I'm talking about, don't you? For the sake of those who might not, I will explain it. That will also make it easier for me to destroy the idea once you've come to understand it. *grins*

Before I begin, as I'm turning over a new leaf today, let me just say that my purpose in sharing this pet peeve of mine is not just to be crass or snooty. I'm not trying to prove that I understand God better than others. I say this out of genuine concern for believing women. It has been my experience that an incorrect view of marriage results in marital misery for women. (And I don’t know if “misery” is a strong enough word for what their husbands must endure) In the spirit of Titus 2:3-5, I want to instruct the younger women in both how to love their husbands and how to be obedient to their husbands. This must start, I believe with a proper understanding of the husband/wife relationship.

Now, on to the triangle! Picture in your mind (or draw it out on paper) a triangle. It doesn’t matter how long the base is, but the other two sides are the same length and meet at the top, directly above center of the base. Just to the outside of the bottom, right-hand corner, we write “wife”. Then we write “husband” just to the outside of the bottom left-hand corner. At the top of the triangle, we write “God”.

Here is an example:

 

The “triangle non-sense”, as I like to call it, goes like this: As the wife draws closer to God (picture a dot starting at her corner and moving along the leg of the triangle towards the top), and her husband simultaneously draws closer to God (picture a dot starting at his corner and moving along the leg of the triangle towards the top), the husband and wife will be automatically drawing closer to each other. As you can see on your diagram, if you drew it, the dots representing the husband and wife are closer together than they were when they were at the starting points at the base of the triangle. Proof that the only way to grow closer to your husband is to grow closer to God! Or is it?

What does the Bible say?

Is the “triangle non-sense” supportable by Scripture? Does the Bible give us any notion of a geometric type configuration including husbands, wives and God? I believe it does. I will quote the Scriptures, then describe how I think it would look if it were drawn on a piece of paper. Then I will explain how that is important for women wanting a harmonious, happy marriage.

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. 1 Corinthians 11:3

So, in attempting to draw that verse, I would draw a vertical line on my paper, right down the center. Then I would write “God” at the top. Passing down the line an inch or two, I would write “Christ”. A litter farther down, I would write “Man” (or “husband”), and under that, a bit farther down the line, I would write “woman” (or “wife”).

Now we have a vertical line instead of a triangle. Please permit me to explain what I believe are the flaws of the unbiblical “triangle non-sense” and extol the virtues of the “vertical line.”

Firstly, under the “triangle non-sense”, it is absolutely impossible for the wife to draw close to her husband completely on her own without forsaking her relationship with God. If she moves toward her husband along the base line, she is never growing closer to God. If her husband remains in his corner, and she draws nigh unto God, she is moving farther away from her husband! Even if they both are drawing closer to God, unless her husband and she draw closer at the same exact rate, they remain far apart for most of their lives. And even if they draw closer to God at the same rate, the couple will not be CLOSE until they reach God. If the husband is not a Christian, the wife is doomed to a life of distance from her husband or from her God.

But what about the “vertical line” theory? Here, if the woman attempts to draw closer to Christ, she can’t help but draw closer to her husband, because her husband is on the line between the woman and Christ. If the woman attempts to grow closer to her husband, she also grows closer to Christ! Without even trying! How does that happen? Why should that be?

In the words of my husband, “Could it be that the entire duty of a woman before God is to be a joyfully submitted help meet for her husband?”