http://sjchurch.org/ en webmaster@sjchurch.org Copyright 2012 2012-01-08T17:30:29+00:00 http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-sacraments-part-8 http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-sacraments-part-8#When:14:53:43Z Sorry for no post on Thursday. Last week was my study week. I was up in New Hampshire suffering in a cozy cabin with a warm fire all week as I read theology, prayed, and did research and writing on the Didache. It was an intense week of discovery. I want to jump right back into the Christian IQ and start dealing with the sacraments. Please review the following statements from the quiz real quick: 2.  Baptism is symbolic, it is a sign of my inward spiritual belief in Jesus (Agree/Disagree) D 10.  The Lord’s supper is a symbol to remind me of Jesus’ love for me. His body and blood are in no way associated with the bread and wine except as a metaphor and picture of his suffering. (Agree/Disagree) D 14.  Baptism is my personal declaration of faith in Jesus and has nothing to do with my salvation or being a true Christian. (Agree/Disagree) D 18.  The sacraments have nothing to do with our salvation. They are only symbols and to treat them as anything more than that is heresy. (Agree/Disagree) D 21.   God does not minister through things like water, bread, wine. These are only symbols that point to inward realities in dispositions of the heart. (Agree/Disagree) D 23. True spirituality is inward and personal. It has nothing to do with this world which is passing away. (Agree/Disagree) D Now to start, how does that word “sacrament” itself strike you? Does it sound stuffy, stiff, religious, and spooky? For a lot of us who are reared in the evangelical sector, we have been trained to not use the word “sacrament” because it sounds like its sister “catholic.” For that reason most evangelicals have been taught to use the term “ordinance” instead. What almost all Protestants agree on since the Reformation (whether you call them sacraments or ordinances) is that there are only two of them, namely baptism and the Lord’s table. I will offer however, you need to start getting yourself in the habit of saying “sacrament” and not ordinance, because they are not really the same thing. Lets try saying it: All together now: Sahhhhh, crahhhh, meeeent... Sacrament! Painful? Nah that really wasn’t so bad was it? It is just like how many today substitute the word “universal” for “catholic” but they are not the same thing. While universe does communicate totality, it really communicates a collection of parts into a whole. The word “catholic” on the other hand conveys an ethos, an attitude of submission and a mode of operation. It literally means “according to the whole.” This means it is not about pieces collected into one, but much more than that. Catholicity is the attitude of mutuality, interdependence and mutual submission to the the whole. This is radically more unified thinking that what is conveyed by the flat, arid, and clinical term “universal.” In the same way, sacrament comes from the typical latin translation of the Greek New Testament term musterion from which we get the term mystery. What is a sacrament? It is a visual and spiritual mystery. You will hear the great minds of the Church refer to them as “means of grace.” What does that mean? A means of grace is anything that God has established for the Church to communicate spiritual grace toward the Church. Acts 2:42 is the standard means of grace according to Luke. There the earliest disciples engaged in the apostles doctrine, the life in community, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. The sacraments are then a special class of means of grace. They are also referred to as the “visible word.” This means that they are visual proclamations of the Gospel to us. What happens when we proclaim the the Gospel? We call sinners to repentance and faith. What is the world full of? Sinner. And what do sinners need? The Gospel. And what is the Church full of? Sinners! And what do sinners need? The Gospel! Unfortunately today we have individualized the sacraments. Even though there is not one shred of indication that baptism is my “personal declaration of faith” in Jesus within the New Testament, somehow this theological myth has become the prevailing opinion in Evangelicalism today. But the signs of the covenant or sacraments have never worked this way in the Bible. Consider circumcision: When a child was circumcised on the 8th day after birth, was this a personal declaration of his personal faith? No the for two reasons. (1) it was only an infant and (2) it was only boys. If it was a personal declaration of faith then the females were just out of luck weren’t they? No I am not saying that the sacraments are not declarations of faith, because they are. They are a visible declaration of the Gospel. They are just not personal ones! That is us forcing our modern individualistic culture onto the Gospel and the sacraments. It is not all about you, especially not in the Church. No it is always about the body; it is about the whole, according to the whole. Thus the sacraments are not what the individual says to God, it is what God says to the Church through the Church. The proper use of the sacraments is then an active form of discipleship, of the Church calling the church corporately back to the promises of God. So the sacraments are never about individuals. They are always about the Church. When the OT saints circumcised a male child, it was a declaration of the community’s corporate faith. The fact that females were not circumcised proves that it was never about the individual male child. It was a “visible word” to proclaim the promises of God to the community and their descendants again. So when OT Israel circumcised a child, it was a communal event. It was the community declaring the faith of the fathers, and the circumcision called the community to believe the promises again. So in a very real sense, as a visible word, the community was being re-circumcised again together in the one child. That child’s circumcision operated “vicariously” for the whole. Wow does that sound a bit familiar? Perhaps as in how Jesus’ one death on the cross operated vicariously for the whole? So with baptism. When we baptize a Christian, child or adult, God is re-proclaiming the promises of the Gospel vicariously to the whole. The baptism of one visibly says to the whole, “repent and believe the gospel.” Part of the big problem with us is in thinking that the Gospel is only for the lost, and then ethics for the Christian. But look as what Paul says in the opening words of his epistle to the Romans (1:15): “So I am eager to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome.” They are already Christians! Why does he need to preach the Gospel to them? have we missed something? The preaching of the Gospel is for the Church! It is because what saves us is also what sanctifies us. The same Gospel that redeems us is the same Gospel that carries us. We never graduate from the gospel. It is like a spring. We must always return to the source of life. The sacraments are meant to be visual but Holy Spirit empowered re-proclamations of the Gospel to our weak and sinful hearts that are prone to stray. We need constant reaffirmation of the promises of the Gospel. Therefore through the sacraments, God continually condescends to the weakness of our flesh. Because we are flesh, God meets us in equally physical ways, with water, bread, and wine so we are assured that as sure was we can feel water on our flesh, or taste the bread and wine in our mouth, so Christ’s spirit is ministering to us both body and soul. The reason we call them mysteries or sacraments then is that they are incarnational. They are physical things like Jesus’ flesh that God spiritually minister’s to us through his spirit. This is why the name ordinance is unbiblical and must be discarded. The term was invented as a rationalist ploy to deny that God spiritually ministers to us through it. But if you give a quick read of 1 Cor 11, you will see that Paul sees God as quite present when the Supper is partaken, so much so, that just like Leviticus 10, people are becoming sick and dying for blaspheming the real presence of Christ. So here is a big question: Do the sacraments have anything to do with our salvation? The standard evangelical reaction is to say no. I understand this because when we say things like that, we are trying to prevent thinking in stereo types that we have swallowed of Roman Catholicism. I will note that most of these are not based in fact either. While as a Protestant minister, I have my quibbles with Rome (as I do on other issues with Baptists, Pentecostals, etc.) it does not mean that they do not have much that is right. Most knee-jerk reactions to RC are not based in fact. Their theology on the whole, as well as on the sacraments, it quite nuanced and well thought out. It is far from the blockish stereotypes that they are often unfairly portrayed by within evangelical circles. So let me ask another question then: Does the nurture of a parent have anything to do with a child’s life and development? The answer to that is absolutely yes. We always like to put things into nice tidy black and white categories, just like a Sith in the Star Wars epic. In other words it is much easier to either say on the one hand that salvation is reduced to participating in the sacraments which is ritualism or on the other saying that the sacraments have absolutely no connection to our salvation at all, but are mere empty symbols (ordinances) which is rationalism. What we have a harder time with is realizing that they are visible words that preach the Gospel to us with Holy Spirit empowerment and that continually contribute to our spiritual growth and salvation. In other words, it is harder for us to realize that the sacraments play a big and dynamic role in our salvation, even though they do not by themselves save us. So what I am saying is that the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist contribute to our salvation and spiritual nurture in the Gospel. What are the implications of this? It then again means that there is really no assurance of salvation outside the Church. Where do you find the all of the means of grace? You find them in the church. And what are they there fore? They are to nurture and edify the Church into our one holy, catholic, and apostolic faith that was once delivered to the saints. So to be absolutely clear, we inherit salvation through faith in the finished work of Christ alone. Christ is the source of our salvation, not the Church. But the Church is the ordained instrument by which that faith is nurtured to full maturity. And that was God’s choice. While our salvation is in christ, Christ has ordained that he be known through his Church and its means of grace. So those of us who are called to salvation are equally called to do it God’s way which is through his means of grace within the comforting arms of the Church. This is where we encounter the living Christ in the preached word, and the sacraments, the mystery of the the faith. 2012-05-15T14:53:43+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/trained-by-grace http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/trained-by-grace#When:16:14:10Z Special, Titus, 2012-05-13T16:14:10+00:00 Guest Speaker http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/rough-draft-personal-bible-study-prayer-and-community-part-ii.-rough-draft http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/rough-draft-personal-bible-study-prayer-and-community-part-ii.-rough-draft#When:18:06:25Z   If you would, please go back and examine the photo. Give it another glance. It's chaos! This is your life! ;) I wrote the first part of this blog nearly two years ago. How time flies! Since writing that blog I have learned many things. I have matured, reflected, grown in the love of Christ and realized my sin nature even more. I look back at that original blog and reminisce about the person I was when I wrote it and recognize the transformation that Christ has done in my life since then. I hope to look back in another two years and see more change and marvel at the mystery of our Eternal Creator again and again 1000x. Since that original blog my life has been one of a “spiritual roller coaster”. I’ve experienced death of friends, valleys of unmentionable lows, soaring on eagle’s wings, to family disintegrating, marital challenges, etc… There have been constants in my life that have held me afloat during those trying times. I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t personal Bible study. Prayer (personally and corporately) has helped me realize my inadequacies and forced me to make serious changes in my life. I will reiterate from the last blog to all the “holy hand grenade throwers”, yes you should read your Bible. I’m not saying that it’s not important. Community has been the “life raft” in the past two years for me. The very same question I posed two years ago I am still clinging to today. Which one is going to challenge you? Community has been what has challenged me, loved me, built me up and taught me to serve others regardless of their life circumstances. I can step into my “alone” place, pray and read. But, who is going to challenge me with my sin if I’ve locked myself in a closet reading and praying alone? Did Christ model a life of solidarity? Community models all three forms of sanctification. It is an all encompassing trilogy. In community we experience the study of God's word, prayer and people up in our face reminding us of our sin. In the past three years I have witnessed the “roster” of the community I am part of change drastically. Many (a dozen) of the people that used to attend Sunday gatherings and community groups regularly no longer have any fellowship with other believers. The constant denominator in every single one of these relationships is this: They've distanced themselves from Gospel centered community. None of them attend Sunday mornings anymore. A lot of these folks I considered solid mature Christians. I look up to a lot of them. I still respect and love those people; however I have had to challenge many of them on issues since then. I've had to bring up those uncomfortable challenges that no one wants to deal with. Why? Because conflict stinks but its necessary if you love people. If we love someone and they are in blatant error that is harmful what good does it do for them if we say nothing? We all see each others sin much clearer than we do our own. My wife sees my sin far clearer than I do! Example: If I am eating a bagel with cream cheese and I have cream cheese smeared all over my face there is a very good chance I don’t know it, but, if you’re sitting across the table from me you will see it. That cream cheese is my sin. My whole point of writing both blogs is to emphasize the importance of gathering with believers regularly. If not daily. Didache 14:1-3 instructs this: And on the Lord's own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. And let no man, having his dispute with his fellow; join your assembly until they have been reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be defiled. For this sacrifice it is that was spoken of by the Lord; In everyplace and at every time offer me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great king, saith the Lord, and My name is wonderful among the nations. Didache 4:2 Seek daily the fellowship of the saints in order that you may persevere through their words. Seems as though the Apostles put strong emphasis on gathering with other believers. Didache 4:2 also seems to give believers authority "through their words". Have you every considered your words to be authoritative? You're more influential than you think. Have you ever considered that your attending community group is to build others up as much as you are being shaped? Let all things be done for the edification of the Body. Have you ever considered that your presence is missed if your not there? People count on you, and you may not even know it. Are you gathering with other broken people and practicing a lifestyle of repentance?   It’s actually freeing! Pastor Todd has an excellent analogy of the preached Word and Community done well. It’s the “bucket theory”.  It’s analogous to pouring water into a bucket. A bucket holds water: however if you have a bunch of holes in your bucket it no longer holds water as effectively as it once did. But, it if you inundate that bucket riddled with holes with water it will eventually hold water and in fact overflow. Imagine putting multiple hoses into a broken bucket, it will fill if given enough water. You are that bucket full of holes. The hoses feeding that bucket are the preached Word and community (the Church). I have come up with my own analogy of the preached Word and community. I equate it to an airplane. An airplane requires two things to fly. They are lift and propulsion. Take one of those two factors away and you will crash. And airplane needs propulsion to fly. Imagine propulsion as the preached Word. Airplanes also need lift to keep them in flight. Imagine lift as the Church. Take away propulsion and you go nowhere, take away lift and you crash and burn. Both are necessary to live and fly. Jesus welcomes all people who have ejected from their pilot seat. Paratroopers welcome!   Death no longer holds you. Make that leap of Faith, His ground is easy to land on.   Grace Brothers and Sisters. Church Practices, Community, 2012-05-11T18:06:25+00:00 Evan Whitman http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/the-offense-of-the-woonsocket-cross http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/the-offense-of-the-woonsocket-cross#When:10:59:48Z   Picture people walking around with little guillotines hung around their necks, or perhaps electric-chair earrings. What if this Mother’s Day, you decided to buy your mom a beautiful ruby-embellished set of tombstone earrings? Do you think she would like them?  If you or I saw any of these things, we would find them very odd; instruments of death do not usually make for good fashion ware. When forged out of silver or gold, adorned with diamonds and other precious stones, it is easy to forget that the cross is very much at home among the worst of mankind’s killing machines. Nailed through wrists and feet to rough, imperfect wood, suspended naked and bleeding before a crowd of accusers and mockers, the criminal would receive spit and scorn and die slowly. He wouldn’t die from blood loss. Unable to push his body upward after hours or days of excruciating, exhausting pain the criminal would die from suffocation. It was considered merciful to break their legs and expedite the process.  The cross was an instrument of torture and pain unrivaled in that day or ours. To the Christian, it simultaneously says the best and worst things about man: through the cross, God displayed both His wrath towards sin and His love for us. To the non-Christian, this idea is utter foolishness and Jesus was at best a martyr to be pitied, or at worst, a fool who got what he deserved. This death machine has now become a revered symbol that means many things to many people. But its fame began on one hill, on one day with one man. Move forward a couple millennia and the cross is still causing a stir. You may have heard that atheists—feisty, meddlesome ones!—have penned a strongly worded letter to the mayor of Woonsocket demanding the removal of a cross that stands on public land in remembrance of war veterans. This controversy recently drew 1500 people to rally in defense of the monument and disdain of those pesky letter-writing God deniers. In all of this, I have a challenge. My challenge is not toward veterans and their supporters who defend this memorial. I support them in their efforts. Personally, I think it an incredibly foolish waste of time to attempt to sanitize society of all religious symbols, especially when they are part of a monument that honors war veterans. Apparently these atheists aren’t so feisty after all, just incredibly bored. I think they may be searching for something to believe in, even if it’s a fight. My challenge is for Christians who have been duped into believing that something is being taken from them. Talk radio, newspapers, TV shows and even pastors will get caught up in this: “This is our culture and our tradition and our beliefs and our rights. How dare they! We best react with equal or greater indignation! We best be stirred to a greater level of offense lest they win the hearts and minds of our children!” Here's the thing, though: if you are a Christian, everything you have has already been taken from you. Jesus has taken your sin, rebellion and pain and given you mercy and grace beyond measure. So they're tearing down your prayer banners, threatening your tradition and banishing your symbols? This surprises you? Some of those responsible for the murder of Jesus were His closest friends, not feisty letter-writing, public-transit-decorating atheists. At the Last Supper, before He would make the cross the famous icon of redemption and forgiveness that you can now wear around your neck as a beautiful adornment, the Son of the Almighty, Creator of all things, washed His betrayer’s feet. There Judas sat, waiting for Christ to come with the basin full of water. This is the one who would kiss the face of Love incarnate and sell Him off to be butchered. Jesus knew this would happen, and He washed Judas's feet anyway. Christian, the King of your Kingdom has given you absolutely zero ambiguity about His position on service, humility, submission and love for your enemies — for those that hate your beliefs and traditions. All that’s well and good, you say, but we can’t just let these people overrun the world with their feisty letters and clever bus placards! You may be right. And I will always support sanity over foolishness. But here’s a reality check: the Founder of your faith, the Savior of your soul and the King of your Kingdom was put to death on a tree. Many were offended by Him. Appalled. But He served us. Loved us. He laid down on our instrument of death and let us drive nails through His body. We do not mirror that mission in protest, anger or outrage towards those who hate us, but by serving them.  Jesus did actually start a petition once. While they were hammering nine-inch nails into His hands and feet, He cried out, praying for their forgiveness. Arts & Culture, Gospel Living, 2012-05-09T10:59:48+00:00 Michael Howarth http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-its-authority-iii-part-7 http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-its-authority-iii-part-7#When:18:00:05Z Ok so in the last post, it was brought to my attention that I really just completely failed to deal with statement 16. Yes that is correct and I repent in sack-cloth and ashes. I am quite glad that some of you pointed it out. This blog series has become bigger than I imagined, but this is a subject I do not want to skip. Before we jump into it, let me offer a little caveat. It may seem at times that I am just trying to stir the pot or be pugnacious. But I want to assure you that is not my intention. My Christian life has been a pilgrimage and as I have grown and experienced the ups and downs of modern Church life, it has forced me to make sense of it---so seek some answers. This has again and again sent me back to not just the Scriptures but the writings of the early Church. In them I have been perpetually challenged. I have been particularly challenged by what a deep sense of commitment and interdependence the early Church had compared to the independent spirit of the Church at large today. The early Church was by no means pristine or perfect. We see dysfunction already in the New Testament. Church problems were the reason behind, Galatians, Corinthians, etc. There is no perfect church, and SJC is certainly far from it. In fact myself and some of my team leaders recently spent a week out in Portland at Soma training. There we learned a great deal about how to make disciples better, which started with the realization that we do not have it  together and needed some help. Having a healthy Church is about striving in a direction, not about being at one place or another. Needless to say, this does not leave us in a place of ecclesiastical relativism where we cannot look at Scripture and say that some ways of doing church, or making disciples are more biblical than others. And so as long as we see ourselves as part of a whole and as subject to scrutiny as anyone else, then we are in a good place. Now back to statement 16. 16.  The Church has the power to retain and remit people’s sins. (Agree/Disagree) A This statement is actually directly based upon Scripture. It is from the Gospel of John when Jesus appears to the disciples after the resurrection: John 20: 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.” Ok this is one of those wicked-scary verses of the bible, especially for those of us who are not Roman Catholic. We know how the RC Church interprets this. They have in the most literal sense an “hierarchy” meaning “rule of priests.” This is known as the papacy. Protestants of course have a a considerable problem with this, which is what lead to the Reformation. In the first generation of Reformers (Luther, Calvin, etc...) it was not really “catholicism” they had the problem with. The “anti-catholic” rhetoric of Protestantism came later, more in the English Reformation. In fact Luther and Calvin considered the Reformation a return to true orthodox catholicity. What they had the bigger problem with was the practical dictatorship of the Medieval Papacy that had no accountability of its own. So in regard to the RCC, this verse can only be seen through the eyes of the Papacy. In their understanding, the Church though being much more than the rule of priests becomes practically reduced to it. It becomes an institution of professionals with internal accountability and yet no answerability to the flock itself. So the way the integrity and authority of the Church is maintained is through this professional guild. Thus remitting and retaining sin is purely at the whim of those in ordained office. It comes down to the choice of whoever holds the highest office in the the room at the time, the priest, the bishop, the Pope.  Now don’t get me wrong, though I do not totally agree with this interpretation of Church authority, it is still Church authority and it must be respected. Abuse does not negate proper use. Authority does not lose its authority simply by reason of its imperfection. In fact, I will say that I think the Papacy, for all its imperfections, still probably bears more resemblance to early Christianity than most Evangelical Churches today because it is still somewhat patriarchal. The only difference is that in biblical times, both Church and synagogue still had a plurality at the local level that kept things in check, Further more, the “bishop/overseer” of the Church or the “president” of the synagogue was local, not regionalized as in the Papacy and answered to a counsel of elders locally. This means the local synagogue or Church was modeled after the extended family clan culture of the ancient near east, not actually the OT priesthood. But that is for another time. All I am saying is we have biblical precedent to question that authority. And here is the crux. History has shown a lot of abuses of this structure because their is no other accountability. This lead to the Reformation. The Reformers saw ungodly politically motivated men buying bishoprics and then having the power to “excommunicate” folks that did not submit to their ungodly rule. That is evil. And that is our problem with it. We all cringe at the idea that some other sinner who happens to hold office can just by a stroke of fiat condemn another believer to hell. To begin with, no member of the Church has the power to speak an efficacious verdict on any person’s eternal condition. What Jesus is talking about here in John 20:23 is about the corporate witness of the Church, that is its catholicity, or doing things in unity according to the whole. The first thing we need to notice here is that the disciples are a plurality. He is speaking to a whole bunch of them, and those given the primary authority numbered 12. The verb here is a 2nd person plural. This means Jesus is speaking to the whole, according to the whole. Another way to say it is that he is speaking to the church as a body and community, not as a collection of individuals. This body does have real officers with real authority, but the authority is in the whole. So here is the question: If it does not mean that leaders actually dictate the retention or forgiveness of peoples sins, then what does it mean? What it means is that God ministers to the Church through it and its ordained leaders. This requires a solid understanding of God’s providence in creation and history. If you want some more teaching on providence, I suggest you see the following sermon podcast from my current series (Providence: The God of Our Circumstances). This power to retain and remit sins means that the Church, when walking in unity and in the scripture, speaks for God. In other words, when an individual is challenged in sin and the Church body and/or its official leadership challenges it, it speaks for God. The church is a prophetic community. What do prophets do? They call the unrepentant to repentance. So the testimony of the church to “retain” sin does not mean the Church as a body or its leaders have the ability to damn people. What it means is that they speak for God and if you reject their counsel, you are in a bad place. What it means is that the Church has the power to tell the unrepentant that that they have no assurance of salvation and are risking damnation if they do not repent. Church discipline is the power to challenge and warn in the name of God, not make decisions for him. So what are the implications of this? First as far as those who are called to account for their sin by the Church and its leaders, you better take it real seriously, be that RCC, Eastern Orthodox, Reformed, Lutheran, Baptist, and even Non-denominational. God will judge you not according to the type of government you are under, but how you submitted to the authorities he put over you. If you are challenged about a sin by the Church, you better take it real seriously and even err on the side of submission. Second it means that the Church should be walking in unity with an overall submissive posture toward God, the Scriptures, and the Gospel. The Church’s authority is rooted in its unity in community. A spirit of independence is destructive, which is a major reason why there is so little credibility in Church authority today. People scoff at it and call it “controlling” simply because they have bought the modern cultural lie that we are not our brothers keeper and are not accountable to anyone else. Third it means that the officers of the Church need to, as Paul said, “rule well.” They need to be guided by the Scriptures primarily by being men of the word. This means that they are not to adapt to the cultural lie that what people do on their own time is their own business. If a Christian is erring in sin or judgement, elder’s job is to gently asks questions and challenge behavior that is not in keeping with the Gospel. However they must do this with patience, and long-suffering. Nobody changes over night. The job of the elder is not to change people by our own power, but to gently challenge our sheep through shepherding to be changed by Gospel power. This means we both offer a lot of latitude, but also a consistent and at times rather uncomfortable fatherly hand. Now let we offer a small example to make this last point and show its practical outworking. Today we make the error of thinking Church discipline is only for the really big sins like lying, stealing, porn addiction, drug addiction, and forms of sexual immorality. Yes it does apply to these as well, but that is still a myopic view. What does it mean to be a disciple? Well it is the very same root word from which we get the word “discipline.” Unfortunately  “church discipline” has taken on a mostly negative connotation. But if you are a disciple, then you are always in some sense under church discipline, not as a punishment, but as a way of life. I like to think of spiritual discipline as nurture. A disciple learns the disciplines of his master. What is the Church teaching? It is teaching disciples the discipline of repentance. So for my example. Lets imagine a guy who has been a long time Christian but he has a subtle but sarcastic side to how he jokes around with others and speaks to his wife. One day his friend calls him out on it and asks him why he thinks that is appropriate? He laughs it off and moves on. But after some time, several people have said it and he has shrugged it off every time. What you have to understand is that those gentle questions from the body of Christ are a simple, natural, and gentle form of church discipline. It is a way of calling a disciple’s behavior in line with the Gospel tradition. Time passes and his wife come to one of the elders for counsel and tells them how hurtful her husbands tone and choice of words are with her. So finally the elder sits down with him and asks him what’s up and how he can help him? Again, in his pride, he brushes it off and says she is just oversensitive. What should the officer do now? Should the elder say, “well he did not listen to me so its none of my business?” No actually that would be sin on the elder’s part. It is unrepentant and unconfessed sin in Christ’s Church. He needs to press it. We need to understand that such subtle sins are as destructive to the body of Christ as adultery. In fact, I think many Christian women have fallen to affairs seeking positive reinforcement because of weak Church eldership that would not stand up to subtlety abusive husbands. My point here is to show several things. First Church discipline is synonymous with life in the church. It is not something reducible to extreme cases and sins. Second, Church discipline cannot and should not be reduced to excommunication. If that is what you think Church discipline is, you are way off the mark. Third, even our subtle sins need to be challenged, because in them the deceitfulness of our heart is equally exposed. My point... to be a Christian is to be under church discipline as a way of life. The Gospel is a call to encounter an endure the ugly realities about ourselves so we can be shaped into Christ’s image and through faith inherit a kingdom. In conclusion, whose job is it to retain and remit sin? It is the whole church. Not only the Church officer, but also every other priestly person who is baptized. That is what we are called to do, to live as Gospel driven communities who are constantly calling one another to Gospel shaped living. Retaining an remitting sin is the basic Christian life. And we must above all understand this. The ministry of discipleship always has the remission of sin as its goal. Even the toughest challenge against our sin, is meant to offer us life by being freed from the sin that has us in chains. 2012-05-08T18:00:05+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/the-voice-of-god-through-our-authorities http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/the-voice-of-god-through-our-authorities#When:16:32:19Z Divination or Discernment: Discovering God's Will for Your Life, Romans, 2012-05-06T16:32:19+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/what-is-truth http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/what-is-truth#When:21:52:34Z   What is truth? Pontius Pilate uttered to Christ. Truth. a statement that is generally believed to be true There is Truth in many things. That does not make that an absolute truth. There is some truth in all religions and belief systems. The sky is blue. Some days it appears to be blue, other days it does not. I doubt many would object to someone saying the sky is blue. We have truths that we adhere too. Are they absolute? Should they be? The truth that I believe may differ from the truth that you believe. Here is a stumbling block: We can both be wrong, but both cannot be right. Who decides who is right? Who decides who is wrong? Is my truth absolute?           No my truth is not absolute. I am constantly challenged, evolving and open to correction. Where there is an element of Truth, it is God's Truth. None of us have it all right. Buried deep inside our inner core is the desire for absolute Truth. Can one obtain absolute Truth? I do not believe so. Why? We are flawed. Would we handle it the way we should? Could we handle it? Does God need to reveal to us His absolute Truth? Is God's Word and ordinary means of grace sufficient for you? If you had absolute Truth what would you do with it? Would you steward this appropriately or would your faith go on auto-pilot? If you had absolute truth, would faith be necessary? Where would the element of stepping out vulnerable and dependent come from? Should we take God at His Word? {yes}   Every time we sit on a chair we believe that it will support our weight. It does. There is an element of faith there. There is a possibility that chair may break. But we still sit on that chair. Why don't we approach God with that same bold faith? If you had absolute certainty would you abuse it? Does God keep certain absolutes from us for a reason? Perhaps it's better that we don't know all that we think we should. Faith? {yes}   Gospel Living, 2012-05-04T21:52:34+00:00 Evan Whitman http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-its-authority-ii-part-6 http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-its-authority-ii-part-6#When:18:46:02Z     Ok today we are gonna finish up our discussion of Church authority here from our Christian IQ test. Lets just jump into statements 6, 7, and 16 which are all closely related. 6.  If you have a problem with what your church teaches, just go find one that is more in line with your thinking (Agree/Disagree) D 7.  Freedom of conscience is more important than submission to established Church dogma and tradition. (Agree/Disagree) D 16.  The Church has the power to retain and remit people’s sins. (Agree/Disagree) A We can take statement 6. and 7. together. Basically they both boil down, in one way or another, to saying that the independence and freedom of the individual is more important that the unity of the body of Christ. One only needs to take a simple and close read on Jesus’ prayer for the Church in John 17 to see how fundamentally unbiblical these statements are. In our culture, free-thinking and a free conscience is considered one of the highest virtues. I think it would be if we were not a fallen race that was in bondage to sin. But when we are about independent thinking we are usually equally about serving self. Statement 6. was chosen because it is so rampant among the evangelical sector today. How do I know this? Look at how many denominations there are! Every denomination is rooted in breaking ranks with someone else in a self-righteous posture that “we are going to do it better than the last Church.” One of the funniest responses to this is the so called “non-denominational” movement. Ironically as much as non-denominationalism has claimed to reject division and “denominationalism” it has in fact fractured the Church more than anything else before it. But first lets ask what a denomination is? In its most literal sense, it is a unit or discrete part. So what is a Christian denomination made up of? It has three aspects: (1) It is a group of people; (2) they have an agreed upon set of beliefs; and finally, (3) they give themselves a name. Now most denominations at least self-aware on this point. They use a name that at least describes them, Baptist, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Quaker, Mennonite, etc. But not the non-denominationals. No they picked the best name of all for their denomination... “non-denominational.” They are the denomination of thousands of denominations. Every time there is 1, the gathering of a small group of Christians, who 2, agree upon a certain set of beliefs, and then 3, give themselves the title “non-denominational church” they just created a new “denomination!” Now don’t get me wrong, this does not mean they are not the body of Christ and true Christians. It is just contributing to confusion and disunity in the body. I have many brothers who have found themselves in this camp, and I love them, and don’t doubt their love for Jesus at all. But biblical love calls out and calls division for what it is. That is all I am doing here. It is rooted in a spirit of independence that is not submissive to historic Christianity. There is real authority within the Church and that is located within the unity of the body. The authority of the body is weakened by division. This is why the early Church passionately maintained its authority and catholicity and equally opposed sectarian division. The bottom line is that we do not have the right to just go make up our own doctrine or church tradition. We will talk about tradition in another post. Recently a close friend returned to us after a short break. I saw him at a Christmas party. As he was struggling over a traditional point of doctrine. So I asked him a pointed question and told him to not answer me, but to just go think about it. The question was this: “What makes you think you have the right to pick what doctrine is right for you?” That is not how the Church and the gospel works. It is certainly not how good parents raise their children. In the Gospel, God invites us into is will, his doctrine, his program. His doctrine and program is the historic Christian faith. That program is the Church. God also knows she will never have it all together. He is far more concerned with the humility to submit to the Church in its imperfection than to have all our doctrinal ducks in a row. 20.  The leaders of a Church (pastor, bishop, elder, deacon) get their authority from the congregation. (Agree/Disagree) D Ok the above statement is like saying that parents get their authority from the children. That is not how things work, unless you are a good congregationalist. Question, is there such thing as a “good congregationalist?” I vote for Jonathan Edwards if there every was one. Ok I am just poking fun and kidding. There are tones of good and godly folks within independent and congregationalist Churches. Congregationalism however (or the independent church movement) is about that... independence, and that runs exactly in the opposite direction of the Gospel. The Gospel calls us to service and submission, to a risen Lord. And yet the medium he gave us for expressing that submission is participation in the Church. To have an independent Church is dangerous to discipleship. It is a place where the leadership are calling people only to nominal submission. The people have the ability to vote in the leader they like and vote out the ones they don’t like. In other words, the congregation has the ability to vote out the leader who really calls them out on their sin. Furthermore once installed, leaders in this environment know they are vulnerable and exposed, and so they normally (through fear) result to all kinds of unhealthy, manipulative, and at times abusive tactics to maintain control. This is compounded by the problem that there is no lateral accountability. Independent (congregational) church leaders usually end up accountable to nobody outside of the Church. But I do know of some very good ones who do seek it out anyway, because they are godly leaders. They have sober assessment of their own sin nature. And that is a great example. Are you hurt by the Church? Are you carrying around wounds of manipulation and abuse? Chances are it happened in an environment like the above. Where there is not real authority that is also under authority, people get hurt. One of the key marks of a cult group is that it does not have external authority. It all comes back to one which opens the door for authoritarianism, the kind that says, “how dare you challenge me?” As I said in the previous post, fearful Church leaders cannot stomach challenge. So without real authority structures, the church suffers. If the pastor is not a man vested with real authority, and he is not a man under real authority, abuse is much more likely to arise. To be a pastor who functions without being under external Church authority takes a better man than I am. I get a great deal of peace by knowing that I have men both within and without that have can call me on the carpet and snatch me from the fires of sin. Spiritual authority is for our good. 2012-05-03T18:46:02+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/why-are-you-walking http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/why-are-you-walking#When:08:00:37Z   All of a sudden, walking in the woods and staring at trees is very appealing to me. I climbed a mountain with some friends recently. I have been on long walks before, even long walks in the woods, but this was clearly different. Both the ascent and descent were more difficult than I thought they would be. It turns out mountains are high and it takes a lot of upward and downward walking/scrambling/panting/twitching to hike them. Hiking a mountain is not like walking on the street; it requires you to focus intently on the steps ahead of you. Watch out for that rock! that stump! that loose ground! and that agitated mountain lion. Isn’t this great!!?  It’s so beautiful outside. Just take it all in! Once you catch your breath and stop dry heaving, of course. We were in a group. This group was rather large and, because this particular mountain is so popular, there were quite a few other hikers as well. Initially the pace was pretty fast. Go! The summit waits! There is a natural tendency in all of us to keep up with the pace that is set. Have you noticed this? We don’t think about it, we just do it. After a while, though, I found myself hanging back, wanting to move slower. We spent about half an hour at the summit, eating lunch and recounting our narrow escape from the mountain lion. And then we began our descent. Again, everyone was moving too fast for me. (I prefer to think it’s because I’m a reflective person and not because I'm an out-of-shape person.) At one point, shunning the fear of the predatory beast that was surely at that very moment hunting me, closing in and about to pounce...   I just stopped. And I looked up. And there before me was the reason I was walking/scrambling/panting/twitching/hiking. Beauty. Perhaps it had eluded me because I have similar screen savers on my computer. But this was reality — rivers and clouds and mountains for miles and miles. There they sat in tranquil, confident peace as I hobbled from ledge to ledge. It's why I was walking. Gospel Living, 2012-05-01T08:00:37+00:00 Michael Howarth http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-its-authority-i-part-5 http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-its-authority-i-part-5#When:15:57:20Z In the previous post we dealt with those statements that had primarily to do with the relationship of salvation to the church. I will not review that here, but ask you to refer back to it. At this point I want to dig down a little deeper on the subject of the Church, particularly its authority in the next two posts. I think there is a natural aversion to authority today. We do not like it. I suppose it is part and parcel to our modern free-formed and independent spirit. Perhaps is it worst for those of us who are citizens of the United States by birth. Independence is to us a birthright, and so authority is not something we take well too. Nobody is gonna tell us what to do, not King George, not our parents, and certainly not the Church! However we need to first distinguish between true spiritual authority and authoritarianism. I think these get mixed up a lot. Jesus criticized the Gentile rulers for “lording” over people. Real authority according to Romans 13 has the power to command as long as it is walking in lockstep with God’s natural order and not contradicting true justice in any way. Authoritarianism on the other hand is completely unaccountable and believes it is right just because it says so. Modern versions of authoritarianism are clearly seen in the Third Reich and the Communist regime of the former Soviet Union. Authoritarianism rules and is ruled by fear. It is feeble and tenuous and for that reason the only way it can keep control is through intimidation and violence. Fearful little men like Hitler, Napoleon, and Stalin know they really have no credibility, so they must rule by fear and insulating themselves from criticism. Sadly, quite a bit of this goes on in the Church to one degree or another. We could call it “soft-core” authoritarianism. No it is not usually physically violent, but it does at times use intimidation and manipulation to maintain order than real gospel service. How do you know if your Church leadership is quasi-authoritarian? It is simple. If you gently and humbly challenge them and they get frustrated or upset, they are authoritarian. Why? Fear. Fearful church leadership cannot stomach being contradicted and challenged. Being in relationship implies the power to contradict, while still obeying. Scripture calls us to be submissive to authority as much as is possible within the boundaries of Scripture and natural revelation. It applies to parents, governments, and the Church. But that does not mean you do not have a voice. You do, but you need to remain in a humble and teachable posture at the same time. So what kind of authority does God give to the Church? Jesus is pretty specific in Matthew 18:15-20. This is the passage on church discipline within the community of disciples. What Jesus says in vs. 18 is: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Jesus gives real authority to the Church. But it assumes a lot of things here. First it assumes that there is a general unity around the Gospel and mutual brotherly submission. Second it assumes agreement through prayer. It is the behavior of a gathering community. While I could write a book on this passage, the point I want to make here is that the authority is real. Jesus is saying that there is a direct link between him in heaven and the Church on earth; what is taking place in one is taking place in the other. What is that link? Obviously it is the Holy Spirit that makes the Godhead present in the now. And so God is providentially working in the world through the Church in spite of her obvious shortcomings, sins and imperfections. In spite of the imperfection of the Church and its leaders, to resist its authority is to resist God, because it is the ordinance and arm of God in the world. Lets then look at the following statements in light of this. 4.  The Church has no authority other than to preach the Gospel and set a good example (Disagree) This is one I have heard from time to time. Obviously this is not coming from Roman Catholic circles, and certainly not traditional Protestant circles. There is a certain piety and attraction to it, but what it results in is a Church existence that is totally unaccountable, which is never good. It is of course a reaction of authoritarianism. But as we all know, reactions that run to the opposite extreme are usually no better, and often worse than the initial problem. As we can see from the above text, God definitely gave authority to the Church. It is of course not authoritarian, and it is certainly not a dictatorship. What Matthew 18:15-20 portrays is a community of leaders in mutual accountability. It talks about more than one person being in agreement. This means that Church authority is never invested in only one, but is spread among a plurality of mutual accountability. The atrocities of authoritarianism always materialize in leaders at the top that have no lateral accountability. In Matt. 20:25-27 Jesus says the following. 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The paradox of biblical leadership is that it does not lead with imperatives and commands, but with acts of service. It is formed in the image of the suffering savior. Thus Gospel service is at the heart of it. But this does not mean that our Gospel leaders are door mats. It means they serve, and we are called to serve in return. When an erring brother or sister refuses to repent and serve in the Gospel, that leads to an exercise of loving spiritual authority. At that point the Church’s authority is of gentle admonishment. If it is rebuffed, then an action of excommunication can be enacted. What Jesus is saying in Matt. 18:15-20 is that God leads and upholds the pronouncement of the local Church regarding the erring brother. It is very serious. But here is what is important. If you look closely at Matthew 18, there is no attempt to cajole or force the person into line. There is no act of violence. There is not to be even subtle manipulations. The disciplinary work of the Church is simple, humble, loving, and straight-forward. We are not called to “lord it over them.” So even the act of excommunication is loving act of service for the sake of ultimately sparing the sinner from being lost in their unrepentance. 2012-04-30T15:57:20+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/the-father-of-all-lies http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/the-father-of-all-lies#When:11:27:10Z  I was doing some reading in the Bible and came across John 8:44b which says that satan is the father of all lies.  (Technically, when you see the word satan it’s not a proper name but a title that means “the accuser.”)  So, I read this verse and I stopped and thought about it.  I said, “father...father...hmm, the father of all lies...what does that mean?  A father can’t birth forth anything (lies)  on his own.  So if he’s the father, then who is the mother?”  Then it hit me, like a ton of bricks...WE are the mother. James 1:14-15 says, “14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”.   I was at a conference recently that ended up being an excellent conference but when it came to warning against what battles us in marriage they did I believe, in large, what many christians today do and that is blame shifting.  We have been doing this from “The Beginning”. (Gen.3:12-13) where God asked what happened as Adam blamed God and Eve and Eve blamed who?...Satan.  Whether it’s pointing a finger at God, Satan, our spouse or our rough child hood, we always want to try and act like the “white hat” victim when it comes to sin or “hardship” and we read the bible and say “shame, shame” on all the evil “black hat” people who screwed up and were rebuked in the bible.  What James is saying though is that WE are responsible for OUR sin. We are the ones with the "black hats"! People are brought up in messed up lives with deadbeat parents and that does take a negative toll and makes things difficult but ultimately we are responsible for our sin.  Satan can’t make us do anything.  He plants a seed and we give birth to it if we choose once God saves us and we’re given the power to do so.  We give Satan way too much credit and he probably loves it.  Don’t get me wrong, Satan is an enemy of ours who would want nothing more than to see us miserably sinning and going to hell with him but he is not “the” enemy.  It is true that we ultimately are our own worst enemy.  James says that we are tempted when we our lured and enticed by our own desire.  We also need to lose this faulty belief that Satan and God are equal opposites and they’re locked into some kind of battle and we need to fight the fight of Jesus.  Satan is a created being (Ezekiel 28:15, Psalm 148:2 and 5, Col.1:16) and (as seen in Job) must get permission from God to do anything.  God is sovereign and has already won.  Satan cant’ even pass gas without God’s permission.  I believe in asking God to protect us and our family from satan, his angels and his works and effects but Satan is not God’s equally powerful opposite. If satan has any opposite, it’s Michael the Archangel, other than that, satan was created BY Jesus and defeated BY Jesus and we ought not blame our wrong doings on him but start taking responsibility of our own actions and repenting by God’s grace of our own sin.   What is it that you’ve blame shifted on someone else that needs to be repented of? 2012-04-30T11:27:10+00:00 Adam Combs http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/the-spirit-god-still-speaks http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/the-spirit-god-still-speaks#When:15:13:02Z Divination or Discernment: Discovering God's Will for Your Life, John, 2012-04-29T15:13:02+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/a-eulogy-that-was-never-written http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/a-eulogy-that-was-never-written#When:12:52:56Z I am 31 years old. I have been to far more funerals in my life than I care to remember. Why? Because they hurt, not because I care any less about the person deceased. Chances are if you’re reading this you have been to your fair share as well. No one wants to think about the pain of a loved one who is no longer with us. I have lost people in my life ranging from grandparents to my father to friends committing suicide to friends dying in drunken driving accidents to overdoses to coworkers, etc… I suppose I have some experience in the “death department” and they never hurt any less no matter how many funerals I’ve had to go to. Death is part of life. I’ve been to Baptist funerals, Roman Catholic funerals, Episcopal funerals, Pentecostal funerals and a bunch of others. I’ve never been to an atheistic funeral. I’m sure they are out there; I’ve just never been to a funeral where the eulogist was boasting in the dead persons atheistic beliefs as a “free thinker”. I only say that because I’ve been to a multitude of funerals where there was a Cross or rosary beads hanging over the casket and the deceased person were in fact a functioning atheist or practicing one. “Everyone gets to see the great white light at the end of the tunnel and go to heaven”, right? Or, "They're in a better place". "Do those statements bother you? They should. “Everyone is a Christian when they die, right?”  Did you ever stop to think that maybe people really go to hell? This should bother you. In our culture today hell has become that nasty word that no one likes to talk about but yet people will so flippantly tell other people to "Go to hell". Do we really understand the implications of that statement? In my opinion that is the nastiest thing you can say to a person. We all want to think that only "bad" people go to hell and the "good" people go the heaven. This may come as a suprise to some, heaven is full of "bad" people. I am not a good person. By societies standard some may call me a good person but, I am not. Society does not set the "Standard". God does, and His standard is perfect. I do not meet that standard, do you? In late 2011 Christopher Hitchens died. Christopher (Hitch) as many of you may know was the forerunner for the "anti-theistic" movement. He never quite aligned himself as an "atheist" for complicated reasons. For the sake of this blog I will spare you the details. He was a brilliant thinker, and believe it or not I was saddened the day of his passing. He had a beautiful mind, though misappropriated at times, he was gifted in philosophy and writing. My point is this: Christopher devoted his whole life work to debunking the "God theory" and his disciples swallowed it bait, line and sinker. When he passed this past December there were all sorts of comments posted on his blog from his followers like "Be brave Hitch". My question is, if there is no God and nothing to "Worry about", why is there a need to be brave about anything? If there is nothing on the other side, why worry? Just a question. I wonder if it bothered him that the root word of his name was Christ? I so deeply want to believe that all of the people I have known that have passed will be in Heaven one day, I so desperately want to see my grandparents again, if I believe that I will see everyone I've ever known again I am lying to myself. It hurts to think that people we know will not one day get to share in all of God’s glory. But if we embrace the Christian faith seriously we have to face the reality of this sobering topic. People die and we aren't going to see them all again. We do not know who will be in Heaven one day (that’s God’s prerogative), this is one of the reasons why we share the Gospel. We don’t know, but we are commanded to make disciples of all the nations. I’ve been to many, many funerals where the eulogist would comment on what a remarkable person said “dead person” was, or how they were always "there when you needed them”, or “they would give you the shirt off their back”. All of the funerals I have been to have always concentrated on “how good” that person was. These things do not get us into the Kingdom of God. Sadly, I’ve been to no funeral which truly glorified God (I'm not saying they're not out there). How many funerals have you been to where the speakers have commented on how the person “Kicked drug addiction” or “Alcoholism”, or "turned their hopeless life around?" The best part is when they use Jesus name attached to it. “Jesus helped this person kick ________, “ yet the person never had any fellowship with other believers and led a life completely devoid of God. How does that glorify God? I would suppose you have been to those kinds of funerals. How many funerals have you been to where the eulogist said “This person died an unrepentant adulterer but I know that they are with Jesus?” I’m guessing none. How many funerals have you been to where the eulogist boasted about all the wrongdoing in that person’s life? They died a closet alcoholic, they had an eating disorder, they were the most prideful person I had ever met, and they neglected their spouse and kids because they were a work-a-holic and wanted to give them a “better life than they had”. They had to miss Bobby’s tee ball game because they were “working”. Yes I am mocking. How many times have you heard a speaker at a funeral say that this person was the most selfish person I have ever met, or greedy, or they had a ferocious temper, or too busy to help a friend or family member when that person just needed someone to listen to them?   I doubt any of us have ever been to a funeral and heard those words uttered. Why? Because that would be extremely offensive to the dead, right? Is the truth offensive? Yes! Jesus died for those offenses too! Just because someone died struggling with an “issue” no matter how severe doesn’t mean they are any less Christ’s. But, just because you have over come an issue or substance addiction doesn’t make you Christ’s. Self righteousness is dangerous, a nasty venom that the church consumes by the ton. We get high on our accomplishments or victories and fail to realize the only reason we were permitted to draw a breath this morning when we awoke is because God willed it. Yes my faith is that simple. There is more to it than that but essentially it boils down to I am where I am because…..God! The sovereignty of God is most neglected today both in the Church and outside of it. He is in control; we must stop fighting Him and submit. Our lives as Christian’s are one of continual war against our own will and submitting to His. Is the person that eulogizes you at your funeral going to be honest? Or is that person going to go on reciting a liturgy of embellishments in your life? Were you really as good as the person eulogized about? I doubt it? I know I will not be. My point is continue fighting your flesh, but be transparent with others about your flaws and weaknesses. Chances are if you confess your weakness and sin to others you will find that they share those very same weaknesses. You are not alone in your life walk, you have people all around you to help and advise you, and you to help and advise them. You are far more influential than you think. Don’t die wondering what you are, or what you could have been. You are what you are, not what you think you could have been. Chances are if we actually became what we thought we should be (or wanted to be), we would have ruined our lives. God is in control. Give Him His glory. Turn to Him. If I had been given what I wanted I would have flushed my life down the toilet. My father died when I was 22. It was a blow we never expected. It was sudden. It was horrible. I still think about it all the time. I was not a Christian at age 22. My father was a Christian when he died. My father’s funeral was full of all those fluffy things I mentioned above, he was a drunk, he was a drug addict, he was a womanizer, and he was a lot of things before he received Christ in 1982. When he died in 2003 God never received the credit for all that He had done in my father’s life. Instead there was a plethora of grand things that my father had done for other people in his short stay on this earth. God did not get the credit. My father was all of those things people eulogized about, they did not lie. My father was a remarkable human being. However, God was not given His glory. The only reason why my father was even able to care for others the way that he did is because his life was marked by Christ. The love of Christ abided in my Dad. My father left to his own devices would have been another sad story we see on television everyday, as I would be too apart from Christ. I do believe that I will see my father again but it is not because of his works on this side of eternity, it is because of Jesus and His unending saving grace, and my father’s life had the mark on it. My fathers passing gave God some of His glory, if it were not for my fathers passing I would not be a Christian. That is another story for another time. I promise I will tell it some day. I am not saying that just because your grandma or grandpa lived a pagan or atheistic life and died professing Christ in their dying breath is not going to be with God (My Grandfather did). I am saying don’t waste your life putting off your faith to the end. I am speaking to you. To you! The dead are dead and we cannot change that. However you have the opportunity to seek God by His graces. Take His call seriously. He welcomes you, “all you who are heavy laden and burdened, come to me and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy”. (Matthew 11:28 - 30) I don't claim to have all the answers because I know that I don't and I understand that this blog may create more questions than it answers. I am encouraging you to seek God. He loves you.  I’ve asked my wife not to lie about me at my funeral if she outlives me. She has promised not too. I believe her :) The love of God is stronger than the power of death   Gospel Identity, 2012-04-27T12:52:56+00:00 Evan Whitman http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/the-others http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/the-others#When:02:10:35Z Your life is busy. You have bills, and school, and work, and kids, and cars, and car repairs and books to read and things to get done. My life is busy, too. I often get tunnel vision trying to focus on getting more done in less time. If I let this tunnel vision persist for too long, I start to think that the sum of living is doing, when in reality, the true point of living is loving. Everyday we are surrounded by the others. They are going through struggle, pain and confusion. Some are lost in pride and self-delusion. Many need friendship. Many need challenge. Many need simply to be known, to have their words find rest in the listening heart of another other — you see, to the others, you are the other. More on that in a moment. True friendship is based in love. It challenges, pursues, forgives, loves, serves, gives space, confesses its faults and shows up. And then it does it again.   Familiar |fəˈmilyər|: to be well known from long or close association I find myself lost sometimes in a sort of false familiarity. This happens when I encounter a person often and even talk to them often, but do not truly know them. I know of them and about them, but not them. There’s a difference. Actually knowing someone requires a heart-level shift from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. Who are they really? What is their story? How was this person's soul uniquely fashioned by God? Other-centeredness is marked by a phenomenon known as ”being present.” One of the most damaging things to yourself and others around you is when you are physically present but not really there. Facebook makes you think the others are in your phone when the others are actually sitting right next to you. Don't laugh at the fake others in your phone; laugh with the real others next to you. Be present. My wife experiences this virtual kidnapping when I write. I’m 20 feet away from her right now but actually somewhere else. I'm with you. In order for her soul to truly be enriched, I need to make a habit of looking into her eyes, talking to her, asking her questions and listening. Does this mean that I should stop writing? No. But it does mean that I need to consistently and intentionally pry my attention off of myself, my cares and my worries and focus on her, my most important other. Assuming that you are a Christian, you have two kinds of people to interact with in your life: Christians who need you to love and serve them, and non-Christians who need you to love and serve them. How you love and serve Christians and non-Christians will be different. And it will get even more customized as you think about how to serve that Christian brother or sister in particular or that non-Christian neighbor or coworker in particular. But the root of both these missions is the same. The root is inside of you. It is love. Not a program. Not a schedule. Not an ambush-from-the-bushes-style "friendship evangelism." Love. Love for the others.  This love calls you to forget about your busyness and problems for the sake the others. It’s not that your problems and work cease to exist, just that you are called to step into the world of the others on a regular basis. Perhaps you will enter that world for 15 minutes over coffee. Perhaps you will enter for an hour at breakfast. Perhaps you will enter twice a month for dinner. Perhaps you will enter for 33 years, serving, teaching, and loving the others so much that you give your life for them. The point is that you are called to enter their lives and leave it better. Maybe that comes through asking their forgiveness. Maybe that comes by challenging them. Maybe that comes by listening to them. Maybe it comes by telling them about the One who was and is and is to come. It’s not up to you. It’s up to the others. Where are they? What do they need you to be? How can you serve them?  In this rhythm you will be changed because in this rhythm you are the other of many others.  But this doesn't work if you think about that. So for now, forget yourself. The others need you.   Community, Mission, 2012-04-27T02:10:35+00:00 Michael Howarth http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-part-4 http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-the-church-part-4#When:12:57:47Z     This morning I am continuing my explanation of of the answers to the Christian IQ test that I posted a couple weeks ago on April 9th. You can see the original by clicking here. We will do this by clustering a handful of similar questions and taking them on together. That will be essentially the modus operandi for the next few posts until I feel I have satisfactorily covered the subject matter. However if any of you want more explanation on certain points, then please do comment, and I will, and if need be, assign a new post to it. Bottom line; If you want to discuss this more, then be the gad-fly and interact.     In this episode I am going to take on the question of the the Church and its role in our salvation. We are going to focus in on the subject matter that is taken up in statements 1, 3, 8, 11 & 22. I have also listed statements 16 & 18, not because we will deal with them directly here, but to demonstrate for us the implications of our doctrine of the Church on such things as church authority and the sacraments. 1.  I do not have to go to Church to be a Christian, all I need is a personal relationship with Jesus (Agree/Disagree) 3.  You cannot have God as your father if you do not have the Church as our mother” (Agree/Disagree) 8.  The only true church is catholic (Agree/Disagree) 11.  There is no salvation outside the Church (Agree/Disagree) 22. The word “catholic” is not in the bible and therefore is a corruption of biblical Christianity (Agree/Disagree) ____________________________________________________________________________ 16.  The Church has the power to retain and remit people’s sins. (Agree/Disagree) 18.  The sacraments have nothing to do with our salvation. They are only symbols and to treat them as anything more than that is heresy. (Agree/Disagree)     Lets start with questions 8 and 22 since they are seemingly polar opposites. The first treats the idea of being “catholic” as the epitome of orthodoxy, and the second as if it were heresy. We could look at these as two poles between which the Church’s sentiment swings like a pendulum, at least on the surface. We could call it the poles of institutionalism and individualism. Statement 22 represents a common sentiment within the Protestant, especially evangelical sector. It is true that the word “catholic” is not in the Bible, but the word “Trinity” is not either. If we are going to make the sourcing of words from Scripture the basis of our theological language, we are going to run into error real quick. The Trinity is there. All three persons of the Godhead are all over the face of Scripture. The coining of theological language in the early Church was for two main reasons: First to simplify. It is much easier to say “Trinity” than “triune godhead” or “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” every time we need to refer to it. Second it was for the combatting of heresy.     This is pretty much the same thing with the word “catholic.” Of course this term has come to take on negative connotations for evangelicals after the break with the Medieval Roman Catholic church. So by and large, Protestants have abandoned the term. But there is an historical and positive use of the term and I think we have been unwise to abandon it. Why? Lets consider a few things. First you might be interested to know that the term was first used by St. Ignatius. He was the third bishop of Antioch. Yes that is the very same Church that sent Paul on his missionary journeys. Ignatius died in about 106/107 A.D. which is only about 50 some odd years after Paul died. But more importantly, Ignatius was a personal disciple of the Apostle John, that is the same John who lay on Jesus’ breast at the last supper and wrote a large part of the New Testament. Thus contrary to our modern ignorance on the subject, the idea of catholicity of the Church is not a late medieval Roman invention, but hails from the Apostolic age and their disciples themselves. The earliest Christians we “catholics.”     Second term just means “according to the whole.” It was developed to combat heresy in the early Church. “According to the whole” was meant to stress the unity of the Church. This means that when error or false teaching cropped up in the Church, they looked to what the Church had already always taught and practiced as a benchmark. When a teacher came along teaching something that was not “according to the whole,” it was roundly rejected. We need to understand how important this was especially until there was a fully agreed upon New Testament Canon, which took several centuries. As far as we know, Irenaeus in the late 2nd century is the first Christian writer to have a complete New Testament in front of him. Thus the principle “catholicity” is was gave rise to the selection of the NT canon, not the other way around. The Church asked, What did we receive from the apostles and their disciples? It was that question that lead to the thoughtful and Spirit lead selection of the NT canon.      According to the whole (catholicity) then meant to simultaneously contend for both right doctrine handed down by the apostles as well as the unity, peace and purity of the Church. This is something that we as evangelicals definitely need to learn from, because we have fractured into thousands of splinter groups and have strayed farther and farther from the unity John 17 calls us to. This does not mean going back to Rome. But it also does not mean persisting in our arrogant independence as we have for the last 200 or so years. No Salvation Outside the Church?     The catholic question leads us to have to deal with statements 3 and 11. Statement 3 is actually used in various forms by many of the Church fathers such as Cyril and Augustine: “You cannot have God as your father if you do not have the Church as our mother.” What did they mean by this? Did they really mean it to be taken as literally as I say in statement 11; “There is no salvation outside the Church”? To one degree or another they did. But let me unpack that a little bit.     There are really two questions functioning underneath the surface. The first is this: Can and will God save people outside of the ministry of the visible Church? This is the theoretical question and the answer is definitely YES. God is much bigger than the church. Do I believe that God will save many babies that died in infancy or in the womb? Yes, absolutely. Do I believe that he will choose some people before the foundation of the world who never hear the Gospel message as a compassionate act of his grace? Yes I do. Do I think every person who never heard the clear Gospel of Christ before the incarnation will be automatically damned? No I don’t. I believe God is gracious. The second question then is the practical one. It is this: Can a person who has heard the Gospel or be saved apart from the Church? To this question, the answer is distinctly NO. Why? Because in spite of the fact that God will save some apart from the Church by an act of his own free grace, the only means by which God has ordained for us to communicate salvation is through his Church. Does this sound contradictory? Then bear with me for a bit.     We need to understand that there is a difference between the person who has never encountered the Church and the Gospel and the one who does. As soon as a person has encountered the Church and the Gospel, they are responsible for it. God sent the Church to bring the message of salvation to the world, and thus to reject to the Church is to reject what God has ordained. This means to reject the ministry of the Church requires an open act of rebellion against God. To try to have God without his church is to say to God, “I want to be saved, but not the way you offered it to me; I want things my own way.” This does not mean that the Church is infallible. But she is no more fallible than those who reject her. Coming to God always requires the humbling of self, and there is nothing more humbling that submitting yourself to the leadership and fellowship of co-sinners. Thus when we say that there is no salvation outside the Church it is in reference to the practical question. If a person is asking “how can I be saved and have assurance of it in this life?” we point them to the Gospel ministry of the Church. It was given by Christ to nurture fallen sinners into the kingdom. The Church as the people of God serve not only as Christ’s body, but also ministers to itself, the body.     To summarize this is a simple distinction between the ordinary means of grace and extraordinary means of grace. The ordinary means of grace is the ministry of the visible Church. It is the regular way for the Church to call sinners to repentance and nurture them into the kingdom. This does not mean God will not save some by extraordinary means. But here is the key issue: The extraordinary means of grace are none of the Church’s business. In fact when the Church begins to try and use extraordinary means outside of the regular ministry of the Church, then it is in sin. This was precisely why the Protestant Reformers took issue with Medieval Rome who was selling indulgences for salvation and adding other sacraments beyond baptism and the Lord’s Supper. A Personal Relationship?     So lets look back to statement 1 now: “I do not have to go to Church to be a Christian, all I need is a personal relationship with Jesus.” Like almost every other statement here in the IQ test, there is a measure of truth within it, even though the correct answer is clearly “Disagree.” To begin with, we do not really “go to church,” but God’s people are the Church. There are many people who “go to church” week-in and week-out who will one day wake up in hell. Attending services every week are not what saves us. We are saved by faith alone. But as we pointed out above, the ordinary means of grace for nurturing us in that salvation are to be found within the body of Christ. So you still cannot have it both ways. Attending Church services will not save you by themselves. This is a form of ritualism that we pointed out in the previous post. But in the same way, if you truly have saving faith, you will obey Christ’s commandment to gather with, pray, serve, and submit to the body of Christ.     There is a lot of talk today of having a “personal relationship” with Jesus. We cannot underestimate the importance of this. For someone who attended Church for years going through the motions and never experiencing the freedom of God’s saving grace, there is no telling them otherwise. But we don’t want to overreact. Our faith is not merely personal. It is also corporate, catholic and unified with the body of Christ. We do not have an independent faith where we float about as individual automatons, but we are part of a whole. Have you every noticed how Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s prayer? He beings by praying “Our Father,” not “my Father.” That is significant.     At the beginning of this post I pointed out how the Church has often swung as pendulum between institutionalism on the one hand and individualism on the other. This corresponds to the ritualism and rationalism we discussed in the previous post. The Old denominations tend toward institutionalism and Evangelicals toward individualism. It is the classic war between the one and the many. We must never so emphasize the many that the individual becomes insignificant, nor should we emphasize the individual so that the whole is discounted. This is why the NT writers like Paul speak of the Church as a body. The Church is integrated and has integrity. Every part fits together. Here is the point; God has given the body to serve the whole. Our personal relationship with Jesus is built in relationship to his body, the Church. His spirit dwells within us and ministers to us through it. If we want to know Jesus this side of eternity, we need to get to know his bride and body the church, in all her glory, and in all her blemishes. 2012-04-26T12:57:47+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/devotion-a-constant-returning http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/devotion-a-constant-returning#When:16:07:49Z Abide: The Message of 1 John, 1 John, 2012-04-22T16:07:49+00:00 Michael Howarth http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/stumptown-the-coffee-experience http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/stumptown-the-coffee-experience#When:06:33:08Z     I am out in Portland, OR this week participating in the SOMA Communities training with Jeff Vanderstelt and the Bread & Wine community. I have a couple of my key leaders with me and we are learning a lot of great stuff and having a really good time too. I want to take a quick hiatus from the Christian IQ test series of blogs to share a quick experience.     On the way out one of the guys has been educating me of the glories of the StumpTown coffee experience. He has been discipling me on the delicacies of fine coffee in general.     For lunch today, we went to Dick’s and I had something you could only have in Portland... a Vegetarian Tempeh Ruben sandwich. It was actually pretty good, although I think you could make almost anything taste good if you put enough sauerkraut and thousand island dressing on it. Needless to say after a great lunch and some helpful conversation picking Jeff’s brain, we asked the waitress where we could find a StumpTown coffee cafe. Wouldn’t you know it, it was about five or six doors down on the same block! I suppose it was preordained.     So we waddled down the slick sidewalk in the rain and stepped into another world. I was personally taken a back by it. The decor was spartan with a simple elegance. This was not your typical micro-roaster; it certainly was not a Starbucks. There was something totally different operating as you crossed through the doorway threshold... something countercultural.     We walked up the the low-slung counter where the coffee was brewed right before you. One of our guys asked what they already had brewed. The simply dressed gentleman behind the counter politely said, “nothing” and informed us how every cup was made to suit the desire of the customer. It was a personal approach.     But it did not stop there. I struck up a conversation with this guy whose name was Glen. I asked him about what he had in decaf. With great interest and care Glen walked me through the selection arriving at the Columbian El Jordan Decaf. Glen my barista was more like a personal tour guide than food service worker. He did not brew my cup of coffee. He pampered one for me. All the while Glen took great interest in me as a person. He made great eye contact; he asked personal questions about where I was from, what brought me to Portland, and what I do for a living. I found myself almost startled by how personal and interested he was in me as a person. He took the time to tell me about their coffee selection process and what drives the ethos of StumpTown. But much more than his words, was his actions. StumpTown was an experience for me that I will not forget.     As we walked away, I reflected on my experience. I considered what kind of impact we would make as a church if we took that kind of simple interest in the non-Christian folk we talk to. What if we really took interest in people, we stopped to listen and made real eye contact.     Jeff talked about the importance of really being present and listening; he said “often the greatest gift you can give is to listen.” For a long time the Church has tried to spread the Gospel by painting with the big messy brushes strokes of talking without listening. He challenged us to start our proclamation with listening to the needs and stories of those we are present with. When we do, we allow the person to tell us first what is important to them, what their fears are, and to prepare us to serve their needs.     The point I am making in my StumpTown experiences is just how little it took for Glen to really impress me. He really took pride in what he did. He loved it and wanted to share that with me. It seemed as if coffee had changed his life and that he was a StumpTown evangelist. He wanted to share the riches of this coffee with me. It caught my attention; it left a mark on me. How much more should that be for us who have encountered the riches of the Gospel int he resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 2012-04-20T06:33:08+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/a-meadow-full-of-moments http://sjchurch.org/community-blog/details/a-meadow-full-of-moments#When:02:29:49Z Your life is a moment. Picture a vast landscape bordered only by horizons. It is enormous and grassy, scattered with trees and gentle hills. You cannot see the end of it; it just keeps going and going beyond the reach of your finite eyes. Now, in the enormity of this pastureland, turn your eyes to the ground, and stoop down. Notice the top of the grass and gaze even lower to its roots. Gaze lower still and you will find dirt. Smaller still and you will find its particles. This is your life. A particle. A moment. Small . How do you feel about that? You have been taught that dirt is bad. That small is bad. That small means insignificant. But without the billions and billions of dirt particles in that field, the field would not be at all. And without the billions and billions of other dirt particles around you, you would be part of nothing, contributing to nothing, with nothing and in nothing.  You were built to be part of something greater than yourself. You were created to contribute to this field.  — to strengthen and enliven the earth-made beings around you. It’s not about you. It’s about the field. Be small. You really have no choice. But think large; up there above your head, above the roots and above the top of the grass is the massive, truly endless sky called eternity.   As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.   Gospel Identity, 2012-04-19T02:29:49+00:00 Michael Howarth http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-an-embodied-spirituality-part-3 http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/christian-iq-an-embodied-spirituality-part-3#When:15:47:05Z We are continuing our series of posts on the Christian IQ test I posted on April 9th (see that here). In the post from the 12th I also began some of my explanation for the answers by offering a distinction between objective and subjective faith (see that here). The main point I made there was that we have a tendency to reduce the Christian faith to something inward, individual, and downplay the role of the Church, the world, and the flesh. What I am aiming at in this exercise to demonstrate the historic Christianity is embodied. This means that Christian spirituality is inseparable from our humanness because God made us in his image. So not only is the real human body spiritual, but God ministers spiritually to he whole man through concrete things such as the institutional Church, leaders, community, preaching, sacraments and prayer (Acts 2:42). Christian spirituality is incarnational. This means the Church is embodied in the image of the God-man, Jesus. He was fully human, physical, sweaty, had bad breath, and was fully divine. The Church and its ministries are formed up in the same way. It is fully physical and embodied, but equally spiritual with the presence of the holy spirit within it. The two cannot be separated. Below I want to outline the typical extremes we fall into. We could call them the two ditches of false spirituality. On the one hand is rationalist spirituality and on the other is ritualist spirituality. I will expound this below. We need to first understand the principle of the paradox in being orthodox. In other words, orthodoxy holds truths in tension and does not allow itself to spiral out of control into philosophical extremes that lead to cynicism and apathy. This means that orthodoxy always embraces mystery---mystery like fully god, fully man---like fully physical and fully spiritual. This isimportant to really understanding why historic Christianity came down where it did on most of the questions in our IQ test. Rationalist Spirituality If you got a many of the answers wrong in the IQ test, don’t panic, it does not mean you are not a Christian. It only means that your world view needs some more work because it is still partially affected the rationalism of our current age. We are all a product of our age. None of us has a perfect world view. I often like to speak of all christians as recovering pagans. We might also now call the modern Christian a recovering rationalist. What is rationalism? Rationalism is the philosophical perspective of the enlightenment that radically separates the spiritual and the physical world. In its secularist form it emphasizes the physical world and downplays the spiritual. In its Christianized form, like the gnostics, it separates the physical from spiritual and contends that the two have little do do with each other. A Christianized form of rationalism denies that God ministers to us spiritually through concrete things. What are these things? They are the physical church and its ministry. Rationalist spiritualism tends to make spirituality completely inward and the physical world unimportant. It is inner, privatized, and personal. This is precisely why most people you meet today when religious topics come up will say something like, “well I am not too religious, but I consider myself spiritual.” The reason they are doing this is that we as a culture have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the separation between physical religion and inward spirituality. What they are saying is that they think they can have inner, personal, and direct access to God without being encumbered by a real church, spiritual authority, God’s law, the sacraments, and anything else that might inconvenience them. You can see that the “I’m spiritual, but not religious” blather is simply based on a rationalist separation between the spiritual world and the physical, between the soul and the body. We must understand that Christians (especially low church traditions) make the same error when they downplay the institutional church, real authorities, the necessity of the sacraments, tradition, etc. What they are doing is making the rationalist error. It is claiming direct access to God apart from what he ordained as the regular and safe way to commune with him. This separation is a tactic of evasion. It is a self deceptive way of avoiding real responsibility and confrontation with God. The Christian then who has been taught to downplay the role of the Church, its authority, its ministry through the earthly means of preaching, gathering, and the sacraments is drinking deep of rationalist spirituality. It is a latent form of gnosticism. Ritualist Spirituality On the other hand, there is an opposite extreme. It is rooted in a form rationalism too, but manifests in an opposite way. This is what I will call ritualism. This was characteristic of paganism, shamanism and even the Medieval Church that sparked the Reformation. In this view, all that matters is a wrote form of participation in the Church. It is a mindless sort of participation that does not engage the mind. It reduces the totality of spirituality to merely participating in the program and rituals of the Church. In this error, you get a passing grade just for showing up. Partaking in the rituals by itself saves us. No real personal commitment is required. These ritual motions are counted as some sort of virtue. This form thinks God is pleased if we just mindlessly go through the motions which is akin to thinking that your wife would be pleased to know you are thinking about the football game or perhaps another woman when you have having sex with her. I see a lot of this still in the Church today. It does not matter if it is Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or Evangelical. We all have the temptation. In it salvation and spirituality are reduced to formulas. Sacramental Spirituality So we have surveyed two extremes of how we humans conceive our relationship to God. On the one hand is rationalism and on the other is ritualism. Now lets not be mistaken, both of these extremes are options because there is something partially true to both of them. The problem is that they are just both like cutting off somebody’s limb and then pointing to it and saying “that is Bob.” No that is Bob’s arm, that is not Bob! There is both a real spiritual and physical dimension within the biblical faith. But to point to the inner spirituality and say, “that is the sum total of Christianity” or to point to ritual and say the same is just like suggesting Bob’s arm equals Bob. No it is just a small part of him. Alas it is an important part. But if Bob were in a predicament where you could either save Bob, or just Bob’s arm, I think he would be pretty disappointed if you saved his arm and said, “we saved Bob!” So where does orthodox Christianity come down? It touches down in between these two extremes. This is not to suggest we just take the cliche’ “middle of the road” approach. No it is like the incarnation of Christ. Just as Jesus was not half God and half man, but fully God and fully man, fully flesh and fully spirit. The nature of the Christianity is also incarnational. We do not opt for half spiritual and half flesh. The Church and its ministry to us is both fully physical and fully spiritual. It is in the image of the God-man. We will call this the sacramental center. So we could represent it this way: Extreme                                      Center                                  Extreme Rationalist                          Sacramentalist                          Ritualist (all spiritual)                (Mystery of Spirit with Flesh)              (all physical) (inward)                                 (incanational)                            (outward) (subjectified)                           (presence)                               (objectified) (introspective)                         (embodied)                              (mechanical) Summary Orthodox Christianity does not allow for this false dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit. It embraces the Hebrew understanding that man is a whole, both body and spirit. Real spiritual ministry must be to the whole man. Thus real Christian spirituality embraces the physical and spiritual together, both mind and body. To put a sharper tip on it, historic Christianity always ministers to the inward man through the body. God always condescends to the physical nature he has put in us. The proof of this is the incarnation. Our salvation is rooted in God becoming flesh and blood. For that reason, God gave us the church, spiritual authority, sacraments, preachers, ministers, the bible, preaching and teaching, deacons, overseers, to ultimately transform us spiritually into the image of Christ. With these big paradigm issues out of the way we will move to the details. In the following posts, I will explain the 25 questions of the test in turn by clumping them into sub-groups. 2012-04-16T15:47:05+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/prayer http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/prayer#When:15:56:42Z Divination or Discernment: Discovering God's Will for Your Life, Matthew, 2012-04-15T15:56:42+00:00 Pastor Todd Murphy