Considering Rhythms of Grace

Our worship has come a long way. Those who plan and play work hard and do well. I want to make sure I’m thinking and making good improvements as needed. I want our worship to be faithful and meaningful, not stale or divergent. As a result I still read books on worship from time to time. This might be my emphasis for the year since I’ve got one in my queue for vacation.

Recently I saw Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel on sale and picked up a few copies. One for me, and one for our music director. Seeing a liturgy that reflects the history of redemption is a good thing.

The book is by Michael Cosper who is worship pastor for Sojourn, which produces some music for churches. I don’t know much about the church aside from what he says about it but he comes across as a new Calvinist (baptistic, non-confessional, NCT & non-denominational) that has invested time to learn more about worship from church history. He’s read some of the books I have: particularly Bryan Chapell and Reggie Kidd. He’s also has spent time at the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Some of this may explain the inconsistency of the book.

In some ways it was like I was reading two different authors. The first sounded young, hip and trying to be cool (like I used to be, trying, that is). It had a Mark Driscoll-esque feel to it which I now find less appealing. The second half sounded like a mature guy, at ease with himself and how his church worships. But maybe that is just me.

The book has a forward by Bob Kauflin, and blurbs by Matt Chandler, Sandra McCracken, Al Mohler, Scotty Smith, Joe Thorn and Kevin Twit. That is a good cross section of people who are either “new Calvinists” or old school Calvinists connected with the PCA. I wonder if they felt the same thing as me. Did they overlook it in love? Am I being picky? I don’t know.

His goal is good. He’s writing because of concerns he has about church culture pertaining to worship. Many of our worship leaders have no formal training. This book is written, in part, to help them form a better theology of worship that helps the congregation grow towards maturity.

“You know,” I thought, “if the gospel is supposed to be central to the Christian life, we should craft our worship services in such a way that they rehearse that story.”

He also states that his book is not a debate about the regulative principle and normative principle. He was not going to delve into that so people interested in such a discussion should just move on. He also briefly stated what he means by worship:

“I go to some effort here to make clear that worship is both an all-of-life, “scattered” reality and a uniquely communal, “gathered” reality. I also want to make a significant effort to clarify that Jesus is our one true worship leader.”

So, with those caveats in mind, let’s press on to look at this book.

The first part of the book focuses on explaining the Story of Redemption. There is only one place to begin a book on worship that is patterned after redemptive-history: the Garden. That’s where he starts, with creation. He spends time talking about the Trinity and Adam’s role as worship leader among creation. Borrowing from G.K. Beale he writes about Adam as expanding the Garden, which is intended to be a temple for the worship of the triune God. On the next page he quotes N.T. Wright. He uses a diversity of sources reflecting his influences. There is nothing wrong with the Wright quote he uses. But the fact he favorably quotes him may put off some people. But since he’s not arguing for the Regulative Principle of Worship many of those people will be off put anyway. But his bottom line in this chapter is that we were made to worship.

When Adam sinned he continued to worship, but he worshiped the wrong things. We are incurably religious, but as a result of our fallen nature we are idolators.

“Worship is essentially about ascribing worth. … The broken worship they share with the serpent leaves them naked and humiliated.”

It is the next chapter, Worship in the Wilderness, where I begin to feel like I was reading a Driscoll book. He makes a number of good points in this chapter, particularly concerning idolatry and entertainment. My issues start with his discussion of Cain and Abel, and why one’s worship was accepted and the other’s wasn’t. While I’d just jump to Hebrews 11 and say “faith” in addition to the lack of the blood of a substitute, he seems to make it a bit more complicated. He does quote Bruce Waltke in his longer than it need be explanation. Abel, he says, recognizes God’s lordship over creation, and gives God the best. Cain, he says, “is just showing up.” Eventually Cosper gets to Abel offering the sacrifice by faith, but the problem still seems to be Cain’s “rote obligation” instead of unbelief resulting in no sacrifice for sin. He, interestingly, characterizes this as “the first of history’s many worship wars.” I thought that was a chapter earlier, in Genesis 3, but I get the point. People were fighting for the first time, even though one didn’t know there was a fight.

The next chapter, The Song of Israel, focuses on Abraham, Moses and David as key figures in the worship of Israel. On the first page of this chapter I wrote “Trying to be too hip?”. He states that both Abram and Sarai were sterile (not the word I use) but since Abram actually had quite a few kids this seems to miss the point. But in light of that in correctly pointing out that Abram was a broken man, talks about him “willing to prostitute his wife, and all too eager to jump into bed with one of his slave girls”. That he did, but I’m not sure how eager he was. He’s sinful enough, we don’t need to make him out as more sinful.

In speaking about his descendants this continues: “They are a family of lushes and adulterers, liars and lunatics, chasing voices in the wilderness,…” I missed all the drunkenness, except for his nephew Lot who was seduced by his daughters after they got him drunk. I’m not sure who the lunatics are either. He overplays it. The Bible isn’t hagiography but we don’t need to add sins and problems to their ledger.

Yet, he continues, “they are broken ne’er-do wells whose significance goes to highlight that God is the one who remains faithful.” Yes, they have faults, but again I think this is an overstatement. And on the next page, “The song of the patriarchs is a song born of weeping, of too much drink …”. Why does he keep finding drunks where I find none? Is this some Baptist thing? Additionally, “It sounds far more like drunken sailors, wailing a hazy lament in a land far from home…”. Is there some apocryphal book in there I haven’t read?

He shifts to the worship of Israel after the Exodus. It was a bloody mess, and he does well to communicate this. Sin’s cost is revealed. We generally view life as cheap. We regularly see people die in movies or TV. We play all kinds of shooter games. But as Covid-19 has revealed we have a real problem with real death. We live in a fantasy world where people don’t actually die. We, who let the butcher do our dirty work, would really struggle with worship according to the Mosaic Covenant.

This chapter does have a good section on worship, wrath and holiness. “We misunderstand the wrath of God if we think it’s only emotional rage, like an angry, frustrated parent.” We worship a God who has wrath because He’s holy. He rightly notes we underestimate both God’s holiness and our sinfulness. Proper worship has to grapple with these realities. We can’t avoid sin and wrath as if they didn’t exist. When we ignore them we distort the gospel and turn worship into superficial sentimentality.

After Creation and Fall comes Redemption, or The Song of Jesus. In the midst of this otherwise good chapter there is this: “The Lord of the Sabbath breaks the Sabbath laws.” Has he been listening to Steven Furtick? Jesus did not break the Sabbath laws. He didn’t celebrate the Sabbath according to the tradition of the Pharisees, that isn’t the law. This is a huge difference and this statement is problematic to say the least. He then talks about the crazy things we do for love, sounding a bit like Francis Chan. But it does get better as he writes about Jesus as the Temple, our Priest and Worship Leader. He discusses worship as participation in the life of the Trinity.

“That’s the story of worship: God creates, sin corrupts, but Christ redeems.”

Okay, he left out the hope of the consummation. But from here he focuses on worship, and the guy trying to be hip disappears. What leads up to this is essential, but the rest is the best of the book. He briefly discusses the worship wars. People argue about instrumentation, and depth vs. contextualization. Part of the struggle is between the attractional church and the missional church. Cosper reminds us of his definition of worship and then suggests a framework for thinking through these issues: Worship One, Two, Three.

• One object and author (God)
• Two contexts (scattered and gathered)
• Three audiences (God, congregation and the rest of the world)

“The gathered body teaches the Word and proclaims it together: we speak the truth in love as we sing, read the Scriptures, and remember the gospel together.”

A few words about the third. God is part of our audience. Our worship is pleasing to God due to the finished work of Christ. This doesn’t mean we can do anything in worship. We still strive to please Him with our worship. The rest of the congregation is also our audience. We remind one another of the gospel as we sing. We are there not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the rest of the congregation (and they are there for yours). We also worship before the world as we proclaim the gospel to them, too. I generally put this as exaltation, edification and evangelism. But Cosper has a good framework.

He argues that many of our disputes in worship have to do with confusing categories. For instance, if we think we sing for an audience of one our worship doesn’t need to be comprehensible. But we also have 2 other audiences who need to understand our songs, prayers, litanies and sermons. Keeping the world in mind we keep our language simple and understandable. We can over-emphasize one context over the other instead of realizing that each reinforces and facilitates the other. He notes we can also overemphasize particular audiences. Ingrown churches emphasize edification. Churches that emphasize evangelism quickly become too superficial for growing Christians.

He then moves into Worship as Spiritual Formation. In the live CD from the Ryman, Kevin Twit notes that “worship is formative.” Cosper gets this. We are formed by the habits of worship. They should reflect and communicate the gospel to us so we learn how to pray, confess our sins and faith as Christians. He begins to explain worship as forming the spiritual community through story-telling and covenant renewal. Here he develops the difference between worship as concert hall and worship as banquet hall. The concert hall is a performance, though some in the audience sing along. But it becomes about the “show”. In a banquet hall there is community around a table, so to speak, as we tell stories and the Story so we are nourished and encouraged to face the realities of life after we leave.

He also sees worship as spiritual warfare. We turn from our idols to the living God each week. We declare that Christ is supreme and sufficient, while they are empty and worthless.

From there, he spends some time discussing the shifts in Christian worship over time. His focus is on the Western church. This is overly brief and at times seems a bit reductionistic. I’d say his grasp of English church history is a bit lacking. For instance, Presbyterianism existed long before Independency. Just saying.

After the Reformation he talks about revivalism. From this revivalistic emphasis on emotions, John Wimber developed the Temple Model of worship where the goal is not the gospel but “moving into the presence of God”. Yes, the goal of the gospel is to bring us into the presence of God, but through the gospel sung, preached, read and prayed. The Temple Model focuses more on mood and style to create the feeling or experience of personal encounter with God. He compares it to Roman Catholicism with the worship leader as a new priest paving the way into the holy of holies.

Cosper then talks about liturgy. This subtly gets us back to spiritual formation. Liturgy is the habits of worship that form our community. He argues for a gospel-shaped liturgy similar to Bryan Chapell. This is Bryan Chapell for non-Presbyterians. He structures the worship by redemptive history (Creation, Curse, Cross, Consummation). In light of the Curse we should sing laments, and pray them too. Worship isn’t about being happy. It is about seeing life from God’s perspective and being honest about where we are. As he works through the liturgy he provides some practical suggestions.

He then moves the discussion to singing. This is a common command in the Scriptures. He gets into the issues of what to sing; preference and deference. He spends time unpacking Colossians 3. We are wise to sing songs for a variety of time periods in church history.

“Our faith is a sung faith.”

The body of the book finishes with The Pastoral Worship Leader. He moves from the liturgy to the leader. This is an important chapter. He mines the life of Isaac Watts to discuss healthy contextualization in songs. We want the songs to be understandable, to clearly convey gospel themes to people utilizing metaphors they understand. In this he discusses the Psalms and some criticisms of exclusive Psalmody.

In thinking about contextualization he asks: Who’s here? Who was here before us? and Who’s not here but we’d like to see here? You have to minister to the people you have because they’ve been entrusted to you. You also need to consider who you’d like to see there. He’s not advocating faking it. He wants you to identify your stylistic center, the place you gravitate toward naturally. But you can’t stay there all the time. At times you sing songs outside of the center to address the smaller demographic groups in your congregation.

The appendices have some helpful information with sample liturgies, resources and some technical advice regarding sound.

Overall this was a helpful book. In my opinion there were some factual errors, mis-statements and attempts to be hip that just distracted me. Those shouldn’t keep you from benefiting from the book. You could possibly have benefited more, but there is much that is helpful here.

As a result of this book I’m hoping to:

• Make our implicit redemptive-historical pattern explicit.
• Regularly explain elements of our worship.
• Talk with our music director about our stylistic center. We struggled with this but in the last year I think we’ve gotten there. Now we can venture out for songs. Before it seemed we were struggling between two centers.

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Considering Holy Sexuality and the Gospel

I became familiar with Christopher Yuan’s story when my wife gave me a copy of Out of a Far Country written by Christopher and his mother Angela. It is the story of his coming out of the closet, dropping out of dental school and pursuing a gay lifestyle, his parents’ initial rejection, their conversion and subsequent pursuit of Christopher and his conversion after being imprisoned as a drug dealer.

In the course of that story he mentioned the concept he called ‘holy sexuality’. At the time, I hoped he’d develop that further. Over the years I was disappointed that he didn’t. His name would arise periodically as a wave of controversies regarding how the church is to interact with people experiencing same-sex attraction arose.

The Revoice controversy was perhaps the worst of the lot. In many ways it seemed to be an exercise in talking past one another. At least that was my experience of many of those discussions and debates. These controversies reveal that the Church still needs to talk about how to faithfully and effectively serve those who experience same-sex attractions.

Recently I discovered that he’d released Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story in the fall of 2018. I bought a copy for myself, and by faith one for the church library. It was my hope that this could be helpful in helping us work through these issues.

He tackles a number of the issues that lay at the heart of the various controversies. It is not a big book, so it sticks to the point and does not overwhelm with information. At times he interacts (briefly) with opposing views. That can be too brief at times, for instance his discussion of Matthew Vines on the issue of ‘bad fruit’.

He begins with the reality of God’s Story which is intended to help us to understand and shape our story. This refers to the history of redemption (creation ==> fall ==> redemption ==> consummation) found in Scripture intended to help us to understand life and the world. He moves into questions about identity, the image of God, and the reality of sin. He then introduces holy sexuality and dives into the issues of temptation, desire, orientation and then marriage and singleness. The book concludes with how to assist those who struggle with sexual sin in terms of sanctification, discipleship, and outreach. As you can see, the breadth of material covered is impressive.

The book begins with a forward by his ‘big sister’ Rosaria Butterfield. There is some irony there. She was a lesbian professor/academic who became a Christian in the process of writing a book critical of the Religious Right due to the friendship that developed with a Presbyterian pastor and his wife. She left academia and ended up marrying a pastor. She regrets the work she did in laying the groundwork for the changes in our culture we’ve seen in the last 15 years regarding marriage and benefits.

He is a man who was gay, dropping out of dental school to basically live the party life. To support himself he became a drug dealer and ended up in prison. He saw a Bible in the trash and grabbed it because he was bored. He became a Christian and after getting out of prison went back to school and entered academia. He remains single, experiencing same-sex desires but seeking to live out a holy sexuality.

Rosaria’s forward covers some ground he will as well: union in Christ, the development of sexual orientation in the 19th century, that the real issue is not homosexuality but unbelief (which keeps us in Adam).

“The idol of our historical epoch is this: your sexual desires define you, determine you, and should always delight you.” Rosaria Butterfield

Yuan begins with discussing paradigms. Our identity shouldn’t be based on sinful practices, or what we can’t do (anymore). He expresses his frustration with the dynamics of the discussions, particularly the heterosexual-homosexual paradigm. I share his frustration. Between Christians as least, we should try to use biblical language. Too often I find people, both conservative and liberal, using cultural language for a very theological discussion.

He shares the story of Andy who was a classmate of his who was married. Eventually Andy left his wife because despite his prayers, God didn’t take those same-sex desires away. We’ve all known a guy like Andy. I know a few. Some left the faith without getting married. Others left their wives and their faith, leaving a trail of wreckage because they had to be “true to themselves”.

At some point people started to confuse their desires with their identity. Some conservatives further this despite their intentions in how they shape the gospel differently for people who practice homosexual sex. What many people with same-sex attractions hear is “If I am my desires, then who I am, not just my actions, are condemned. As I continue to feel these desires, I must still be condemned.” People like Andy are tempted to change their convictions because they confuse those desires with identity.

He notes that until the mid-1800’s, sexuality was about behavior, not orientation or identity. Carl Westphal was one of the earliest to use homosexuality to describe a person’s nature rather than behavior. Yuan does some philosophizing about the rise of identity through Romanticism and nihilism.

“Sola experientia (‘experience alone’) won over sola Scripture (‘Scripture alone’).”

We do need to have a biblical anthropology, and speak consistently with that. I agree with Yuan and Butterfield that due to our union in Christ our identity is Christ. Where I ‘depart’ from them is in mandating that people speak the same way. Part of the Revoice controversy was about using the term “gay” or “homosexual Christian”. They were following Wesley Hill who says in his book Washed and Waiting that Christian refers to his identity and gay/homosexual his struggle (page 22). I don’t get bent out of shape when I understand that. Not the preferred terminology, but he’s often communicating with people who aren’t Christians and don’t typically speak about same-sex desire (they use the language of identity and orientation).

This is a practical difference, not a theological difference. In her book Openness Unhindered she has a chapter, Conflict: When Sisters Disagree, about this capacity to love people who speak differently. But her comments about the PCA and Revoice appear to have a very different approach. I’m a little frustrated with my sister. It’s okay- she’s still my sister!

Yuan brings us back to Genesis for the imago dei and the reality of sin. These are foundational concepts that need to be addressed in these discussions. He speaks covenantally about our fall in Adam. We are guilty of our covenant head’s disobedience. We now have a fallen nature. This moves us into the reality of indwelling sin or a sinful nature. If we are off here, then the rest of the discussion will really miss the mark. If we make the wrong diagnosis, we’ll apply the wrong cure. This cuts both ways, for the culture war conservative and the progressive accommodationist.

To a sinner, sin feels natural and normal. This is because we have a darkened understanding and our thinking is futile (Rom. 1). ALL sinners have sinful distortions of our sexuality. We all want to live beyond the boundaries God has established for our sexual behavior in one way or another. Our problem is sin (the condition or state), not simply a particular sin. The person engaging in same-sex activity also sins in other ways. The issue is not simply same-sex desires and activity but sin (Adam’s and their own). Salvation is about sin, not simply sexuality. The goal is not heterosexuality but living in obedience to God through the grace of God.

Here is part of where things get murky in many debates I’ve had with people. I think Yuan is helpful. Here is some of what he says within this biblical framework:

“I’m not saying the capacity to have same-sex attractions or temptations is actual sin. However, the concept of original and indwelling sin fits every description of same-sex sexual orientation. Original sin is an unchosen condition, and indwelling sin is a persistent pattern of sinful desires or behaviors.”

He will later draw an important distinction between temptation and desire. Here is the distinction between a temptation to commit a sinful act and committing a sin. Some see the temptation itself as sin. Butterfield has a few confusing paragraphs in Openness Unhindered; confusing because they seem contradictory (first she says temptation isn’t sin but homosexual lust is- she could be using those terms to refer to temptation and inordinate desire respectively and then we’d be in agreement- see below). I wish Yuan spent time parsing John Owens seeming distinction between temptation and falling into temptation (which I think is that same distinction).

“Again: temptation is not a sin. But what you do with it may be.” Rosaria Butterfield, Openness Unhindered, pp. 83

“In addition, temptation is not a sin, but temptations to sin are never good. They are never from God. Therefore, patterns of temptation can never be sanctified.” Rosaria, pp. 123.

“Moving up the scale, homosexual or heterosexual lust is a sin- even the unintentional and persistent kind that springs up like a hiccup or a reflex.” Rosaria, pp. 123

This doesn’t make same-sex temptation okay or neutral. Nor is it ‘sanctifiable’. If acting upon such temptation is sin (it is!), then we should mortify those desires of the flesh as Paul tells us to do (Rom. 6 & 8). We are to make no provision for them because we’ve put on Christ (Rom. 13).

In some discussions I’ve brought up temptations to commit adultery or engage in pre-marital sex (heterosexual lust). Some who ardently oppose homosexuality, and are critical of organizations like Revoice say those temptations are ‘normal’, or ‘not contrary to nature’ as if one gets a pass because those are heterosexual sins. Such a view is quite unbiblical. Yuan confronts that common, faulty, view. Holy sexuality is not for homosexuals alone but for all Christians. We are to be chaste outside of marriage and faithful in marriage.

“Chastity is more than simply abstention from extra-marital sex; it conveys purity and holiness. Faithfulness is more than merely maintaining chastity and avoiding illicit sex; it conveys covenantal commitment.”

Yuan then focuses on temptation. This section could use some more work. For instance:

“As God, Jesus did not sin and in fact is incapable of sinning (this is call impeccability).”

He doesn’t address Jesus as man, who specifically obeyed as man in our place for our salvation. There is a huge mystery here that Yuan pretty much ignores. It was as man, additionally, that he may be made perfect through suffering (Heb. 2:10). Jesus resisted sin “all the way” while we often give up well before that. We don’t really know how powerful temptation is.

But Yuan correctly reminds us that as fallen humans (despite being united to Christ) we will experience temptation. This includes same-sex temptation (something some others I know seem to reject based on their understanding of regeneration). The issue is not whether you will be tempted, but what you do with it no matter what the temptation is. We are to be vigilant and put it to death!

He then moves from James 1 to James 4 to discuss desire, or inordinate desire. For many, the same-sex desires are not primarily erotic. It is about romance and being together. He notes that in many lesbian relationships romance drives the relationship, not sexual desire. This means that the problem isn’t just about sex, but the inordinate desire for a person of the same sex: friendship gone wild. Here he draws more upon Augustine than Owen. People can fall prey to “co-dependency, relational idolatry, sinful fantasies” and more.

“Nonsexual romantic desires are essentially yearning to become one with and be permanently and exclusively united to someone we hold dear.”

His discussion of marriage is short but helpful. Sadly some take “it is not good for man to be alone” out of context and make marriage about companionship. Marriage is about far more than companionship. It is about fulfilling the creation mandate together. Yuan gets that and explains that (citing Christopher Ash in the process). When we make marriage about companionship, the end of loneliness, we more quickly make marriage idolatrous (or disposable when this primary ‘goal’ isn’t met). Marriage becomes about me and my feelings, not about covenantal union to fulfill God’s mission. It isn’t less than companionship, but far more. Marriage is about someone who is the same but different. The same creature but the opposite gender. Like but not like.

Yuan also upholds the dignity and goodness of singleness. All people are single for much of their lives. They are not less than whole people. Jesus was not less of a person because he was single. At times in this chapter he seems to display some characteristics of New Covenant Theology rather than Covenant Theology. Yes, we must be born again but we still have the truth that “this promise is for you and your children” (Gen. 17 ==> Acts 2). God works through generations as well as in individuals. I also disagree with some of his implications about 1 Corinthians 7 while agreeing with his main point. Singleness is not a lesser state or a death sentence.

Singles should be able to have vibrant relationships with their spiritual family. Couples and families need to do better in caring for single adults and inviting them into the web of relationships. Singles (and the infertile) can have spiritual descendants through evangelism and discipleship. God provides plenty of meaning in life for those who are not married. Being single is a calling all have at some point (sometimes more than once), a calling we can walk faithfully in because of the indwelling Spirit.

He then moves back to holy sexuality and the process of sanctification. Justified and sanctified Christians experience temptations. Some still experience same-sex temptations. We are already new creatures in Christ, but not yet completely new. We are in process, in part because God is humbling us and one way to humble us is the presence of temptations.

“… because of our union with Christ, we can hate our sin without hating ourselves.”

He then deals with some bad theology by Matthew Vines. Vines interprets “bad fruit” to mean physical harm or emotional despair. Theology that produces hardship and distress is false doctrine, in his view. Therefore because so many homosexuals struggle with suicide, the teaching of the church must be wrong. Yuan takes him quickly to task. “Bad fruit” is sin or the lack of repentance. There is no true discipleship without denying oneself, which is painful. He also takes on Jen Hatmaker who blames so much suicidal ideation among gay youth for the church’s historic (biblical) stance on same-sex relationships. Yuan notes studies in secular countries, quite accepting of same-sex relationships, which also have similarly high rates of suicide among homosexuals. The problem is not the church’s teaching.

He moves into reminding us to be compassionate toward those experiencing same-sex desires, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. His parents rejected him before they were Christians and then loved and pursued him after they converted. He brings us to the parable of the Good Samaritan, reminding us that the original audience were to see themselves as the beaten man. We’ve received compassion from Jesus Christ, and compassion we should show.

He also provides some guidance for outreach. Often we need to listen and ask questions. They often believe we hate them. Like his parents, we may have to love them for a long time in tangible ways. He also provides some practical advice for when someone opens up to us.

Lastly he provides some basic instruction on discipleship. He pushes that you need a mentor, not simply a friend or counselor. This means that the local church, and ordinary means of grace, are central. Yes, we need peers but we also need older more Christians speaking into our lives, challenging us and calling us to deny ourselves and follow Jesus. We need to have the right goal in mind: holiness, not heterosexuality.

At the end of the book there is an 8-session study guide to work through the material. He wants this book to be helpful to people and churches. I think it will be helpful for the Church to sort through ministry to people with same-sex desires. I hope it will help us to sit and listen to one another, understand what people mean, identify the common ground (rather than assume it or the areas of disagreement) so we can move forward helpfully. Our desire should be to see people caught in this sin come to saving faith in Christ, and then to walk faithfully in holy sexuality for their good and His glory. This is a book worth reading.

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Considering a Wesleyan View of Sanctification

The 3rd view of sanctification presented in Christian Spirituality is a Wesleyan view by Laurence Wood. There are aspects of the Wesleyan view that he clarifies so common misunderstandings no longer remain misunderstanding. The main positive I found was that of expectation- the expectation that God will work in you to sanctify you. Forde, in his Lutheran response did not share my view of this as positive.

“In this regard, it should be kept in mind that a Wesleyan hermeneutic, though it gives priority to the Scriptures as the basis of all beliefs, assumes that all truth is existentially perceived and appropriated. …. For the Bible is always interpreted through experience, tradition and reason. This is not a subjectivizing of the biblical revelation, but a frank acknowledgement that all truth is mediated in a larger context, rather than merely through a logical and rationalistic framework.”

He begins by talking about the Wesleyan hermeneutic. It is very good that he does this because it reveals some of his presuppositions for us to examine as well. Too often the method of interpretation used to arrive at a conclusion is not mentioned. So he unpacks, briefly, the “personal-relational dimension” of the way Wesleyans tend to “do theology.” Certainly our personal and corporate histories shape our understanding of Scripture. Sometimes for good, and sometimes not so good. His main point is that “the crucible of life is the laboratory for testing our interpretation of Scripture.” The key phrase is “our interpretation.” They are not testing the Scripture, but their interpretation. Our theology should work: making sense of life, our experience and shaping our life in positive ways. The gospel produces good things in our lives, though often thru difficult experiences.

The Misunderstanding

Many people stumble over the phrase Christian Perfectionism. Wesley was not speaking about absolute perfection. Entire sanctification, another confusing term for non-Wesleyans, refers to a “second blessing” (yet another confusing term for non-Wesleyans and non-Pentacostals) or subsequent blessing that gives us perfect love for God. This perfect love for God results in “perfect obedience.” This does not mean we are sinless, but that we no longer willfully sin. There may be unintentional sins, and there are “psychologically repressed complexes” that result in disordered behavior. But our intentions are good and pure even if our behavior is not (I wonder how much Neil T. Anderson’s material connects with the Wesleyan view).

“In fact, the entirely sanctified are more aware of their weaknesses and sins and thus are more capable of growth in grace because of the openness of their hearts to their true situation.”

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Considering The Goodness of God

We’ve had a number of events recently that have shaken many Americans to the core. The reality of evil was pressed home in painful fashion. Sadly, most Americans aren’t prepared to face the reality of evil. If people are considered basically good, then we essentially think such things should not happen here where we are educated and prosperous. Those things only happen there, wherever there may be. But not to us, not on our shores.

There are a number of books that have tried to tackle this problem. Some good. Some bland. And some quite horrible, like the sadly popular book by Rabbi Kushner about the God who wants to help but really can’t. He also assumes there are good people.

“To come to grips with the problem of evil and suffering, you must do more than hear heart-wrenching stories about suffering people. You must hear God’s truth to help you interpret those stories.”

Randy Alcorn has released The Goodness of God: Assurance of Purpose in the Midst of Suffering for this reason. It is a shorter version (120 pages) of his book If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering. It makes a readable, meaningful book that you can hand out to people who are suffering, or struggling with the suffering of others. He covers lots of ground in succinct fashion, including illustrations and examples to help people understand his point. It is not dry and academic. He writes of his own suffering and how he had to make sense of it. He believes any faith that doesn’t prepare you for suffering is not a biblical faith, and our churches must do a better job teaching biblical theology to prepare people for suffering.

“The pain of suffering points to something deeply and unacceptably flawed about this world we inhabit.”

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Considering Jonah 3

Jonah miraculously survived 3 days in the belly of the fish/whale.  There he was humbled, submitting himself to God who then had the sea dwelling creature spit him up on the shore.

Then the Word of the Lord came to Jonah again.  He is again sent to Ninevah, the difference in wording being “the message that I give you.”  He is still to call out against it, warning the people to prompt repentance.

Some have argued that it could not have been a genuine revival.  How, they argue, could these coverted Ninevites then resume their conquering ways resulting in the defeat and exile of the Northern Kingdom?  Students of revivals will notice that often revivals last but a generation.  The effects are not permanent.  For instance, barely 100 years after the Welsh revivals, Christianity is nearly extinct there.  This shows how long their declension has lasted.

“People who experience mighty revivals may be all the more hardened against God in the generations that follow.  The presence of the Spirit of God is a far more delicate matter than we are prone to imagine.”  Sinclair Ferguson

This is illustrated in the life of Jonah, and repeatedly in the history of Israel and Judah.  So we mich take Paul’s warning against greiving the Spirit seriously.  We cannot be sure we will repent of any sin we are tempted to commit.  But such disobedience will produce spiritual declension at the least, if not be evidence that the person was spiritually dead to begin with.

God’s evangelistic sovereignty is revealed in this passage, as Ferguson notes.  God sent a messenger in Jonah.  He authorized the message Jonah would declare.  It is good to pray for revival, but we must also evangelize for revival.  The God-declared end has a God-ordained means.  He sent an evangelist AND He opened their hearts to the message.  This is the very reason He sent Jonah in the first place.

The message was simple, but the effect was profound.  Historically the Spirit works in 2 ways.  The first is in the messenger or preacher, and is called unction (anointing has also been used but this term has recently been hijacked by televangelists like Benny Hinn to mean something quite different).  The message is delivered with power and conviction.

“That word can only come with power to our hearers when it has come with power to our own hearts.”  John Owen

The Spirit also works in the hearers to illumine them.  Paul describes this in 2 Corinthians 3-4.  God sheds His light into our hearts that we might see the glory of Jesus.  Suddenly people see their need AND the sufficiency of Jesus’ work on behalf of sinners.

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