Today we celebrate Reformation Day, but is the Reformation over? One might think so. After all, that was nearly 500 years ago and it appears that the earth has ceased to quake from Luther’s hammer along with the aftershocks from the Reformers who followed him. The Protestant Reformation is viewed merely as an important event in history that brought freedom along with what we now see as various Christian traditions. But I would argue that the Reformation was about more than that. It was about more than religious freedom, it was about recovering the true but hidden Gospel. It was about the glory of God.

So is it over? Our question can be answered with the cry of the Reformers: semper reformanda, a latin phrase that means always reforming. This cry can be heard again and again by every generation of reformers as they enter and exit the world. The answer is no, the Reformation is not over, not until we are reformed to the desire of God for His church given to us in Holy Scripture. Semper Reformanda.

* The phrase is from the subtitile of Stephen Nichols’ book The Reformation: how a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (Crossway 2007).

Jesse Pickett

Genesis

I Thessalonians – George Anderson

Exodus – George Anderson

II Corinthians – George Anderson

9 Marks of a Healthy Church (from the book title by Mark Dever) – George Anderson

Worship – George Anderson, Chris Bogosh, Josh Hinson

What it Means to be Protestant/Tulip – Chris Bogosh

Galatians – Josh Hinson

Shane Waters

Jim Handyside

Link to Original Post

“Having experienced – and generally appreciated – worship across the whole evangelical spectrum, from Charismatic to Reformed – I am myself less concerned here with the form of worship than I am with its content. Thus, I would like to make just one observation: the psalms, the Bible’s own hymnbook, have almost entirely dropped from view in the contemporary Western evangelical scene. I am not certain about why this should be, but I have an instinctive feel that it has more than a little to do with the fact that a high proportion of the psalter is taken up with lamentation, with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented, and broken.

In modern Western culture, these are simply not emotions which have much credibility: sure, people still feel these things, but to admit that they are a normal part of one’s everyday life is tantamount to admitting that one has failed in today’s health, wealth, and happiness society. And, of course, if one does admit to them, one must neither accept them nor take any personal responsibility for them: one must blame one’s parents, sue one’s employer, pop a pill, or check into a clinic in order to have such dysfunctional emotions soothed and one’s self-image restored.

Now, one would not expect the world to have much time for the weakness of the psalmists’ cries. It is very disturbing, however, when these cries of lamentation disappear from the language and worship of the church. Perhaps the Western church feels no need to lament – but then it is sadly deluded about how healthy it really is in terms of numbers, influence and spiritual maturity. Perhaps – and this is more likely – it has drunk so deeply at the well of modern Western materialism that it simply does not know what to do with such cries and regards them as little short of embarrassing. Yet the human condition is a poor one – and Christians who are aware of the deceitfulness of the human heart and are looking for a better country should know this.

A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party – a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is – or at least should be – all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship? Few Christians in areas where the church has been strongest over recent decades – China, Africa, Eastern Europe – would regard uninterrupted emotional highs as normal Christian experience.

Indeed, the biblical portraits of believers give no room to such a notion. Look at Abraham, Joseph, David, Jeremiah, and the detailed account of the psalmists’ experiences. Much agony, much lamentation, occasional despair – and joy, when it manifests itself – is very different from the frothy triumphalism that has infected so much of our modern Western Christianity. In the psalms, God has given the church a language which allows it to express even the deepest agonies of the human soul in the context of worship. Does our contemporary language of worship reflect the horizon of expectation regarding the believer’s experience which the psalter proposes as normative? If not, why not? Is it because the comfortable values of Western middle-class consumerism have silently infiltrated the church and made us consider such cries irrelevant, embarrassing, and signs of abject failure?

I did once suggest at a church meeting that the psalms should take a higher priority in evangelical worship than they generally do – and was told in no uncertain terms by one indignant person that such a view betrayed a heart that had no interest in evangelism. On the contrary, I believe it is the exclusion of the experiences and expectations of the psalmists from our worship – and thus from our horizons of expectation – which has in a large part crippled the evangelistic efforts of the church in the West and turned us all into spiritual pixies.

By excluding the cries of loneliness, dispossession, and desolation from its worship, the church has effectively silenced and excluded the voices of those who are themselves lonely, dispossessed, and desolate, both inside and outside the church. By so doing, it has implicitly endorsed the banal aspirations of consumerism, generated an insipid, trivial and unrealistically triumphalist Christianity, and confirmed its impeccable credentials as a club for the complacent. In the last year, I have asked three very different evangelical audiences what miserable Christians can sing in church. On each occasion my question has elicited uproarious laughter, as if the idea of a broken-hearted, lonely, or despairing Christian was so absurd as to be comical – and yet I posed the question in all seriousness. Is it any wonder that British evangelicalism, from the Reformed to the Charismatic, is almost entirely a comfortable, middle-class phenomenon?”

-Carl R. Trueman, from “What Can Miserable Christians Sing?” in The Wages of Spin: Critical Writings on Historical and Contemporary Evangelicalism (Christian Focus: 2004) pp. 158-160.

Ortega Presbyterian Church was a wonderful host to us. There were many great resources on the book table, the psalms we sang were a delight, and the barbecue for lunch was “just right!”

If you didn’t quite get your Trueman fix, there are more sermons and lectures to be found HERE.

After some blues and barbecue from “Sticky Fingers,” we made it to Ortega Presbyterian Church (PCA) for the first session of their fall conference. The theme this year, like so many others, is John Calvin: His Life and Legacy. As most of you know, 2009 marks the 500th anniversary of the Genevan Reformer’s birth and much of the Reformed world is considering this man’s influence on the Protestant church and the world as we now know it.

The speakerfor the conference is Dr. Carl Trueman, professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, and our ladies seemed to love his British accent.

Last night was a delight and I’m sure the sessions today, which kick-off at 9am, will be as well.

When I wrote about the importance of membership earlier this week a few people objected that I only provided pragmatic reasons for church membership, not actual biblical reasons. I happen to think that my pragmatic reasons were rooted in biblical principles, but nevertheless, there are more explicitly chapter-and-verse arguments that can be made in support of church membership.

My good friend Jason Helopoulos, a PCA church planter in East Lansing, offers this by way of bolstering my argument:

It saddens me when I hear people make the claim that the Scriptures are not definitive on the need for church membership. It seems to me that even in just looking at the New Testament (let alone the passages in the OT that we could cite) that there is sufficient reason to not only suggest, but promote the need for church membership. 1 Corinthians 5 is a classic passage in this regard. Paul’s whole argument is based upon the idea that there is a defined church which includes membership. He writes, “Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” There is an inside and an outside. They are to “purge the evil person” from their midst. He is to be cast outside the church. What is outside and what is inside if the membership itself is not defined? Paul does the same thing in 2 Corinthians 2:6, “For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough.” How does one define a “majority” if there is no defined body? These two passages are sufficient for arguing the case, though we could also look at the list of widows in 1 Timothy 5 or even the fact that the Lord Himself keeps a list of those within the Church (Rev. 21:27). All this to say, in addition to the arguments you made in your post, there are biblical “proof texts” for church membership that I would like to suggest to those who are hesitant to embrace it.

Likewise, R. Scott Clark weighed in on his blog with biblical support for official church membership:

In the Old Covenant, God is a bookkeeper. In Exodus 32:32 we see a very interesting phrase. In a prayer, Moses pleads with God not to blot him out of “the Book you have written.” The Lord replies to Moses that He will indeed blot anyone who sins out of His “Book.”46 David declares in Psalm 9.5 that the Lord has “blotted out” the name of his enemies forever.47 In Psalm 40:7 David is assured that his righteousness is written on God’s scroll…

Because God is revealed as a book keeper His Covenant people were also (according to the commandments of God) also book keepers.

There is significant evidence that in the Old Covenant there were membership rolls with the names of all the Covenant families and the Covenant heads of households. Genesis 5:1ff. speaks of the “book of the generations.” Moses worked from existing books in compiling his (selective) genealogies. This idea of membership roll figured conspicuously in the life of the Qahal. Later after the exile when the beginnings of the Synagogue can be traced, there is archeological evidence that there were membership rolls there as well. It took at least twelve men in good standing in the community to form a synagogue.

God commanded Moses in Exodus 17:14 to write down the destruction of the Amelakites because without this record there would not be any. In turn (Deutronomy 25.19), God will “blot out” the Amelakites. In Exodus 24:7 we read of the “Book of the Covenant” which contained the laws by which God’s Covenant people were to live. God commanded Moses to take a census of the people and to make a record of them (Exodus 30:11). Psalm 87:6 speaks of a “register of the peoples” (NIV). Ezekiel 13:9 speaks of a “register of the house of Israel” (NASB). There was a written record of the descendents of Aaron (Nu 3:10). It would seem to be beyond controversy that God’s people kept written records during the Mosaic theocracy. The question remains then whether similar practices continued into the New Covenant era.

There is a great deal of unity and continuity between the Old Covenant conception of the Qahal and the New Covenant Ekklesia. Thus there is good reason to suspect that there is continuity in the practice of record keeping. Remember that in both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, one had to join the visible assembly and take the sign of the Covenant.

The bottom line is that if you are looking for a verse that talks about a membership class and certificates of transfer, you won’t find it. But if you are looking for the concepts of a defined in/out community, record-keeping, covenant making, and submission to a recognized body that exercises authority over the circumscribed group, you can find all of that in both testaments.

Oh yeah, and the word member is in the Bible too.

We sin against others in failing to treat them as image bearers of God.  We even by our repeated sinfulness bring shame upon ourselves in failing to consider who we are in your son, Jesus Christ.

But these considerations pale in the light of the fact that all sin is ultimately against you.  We cannot begin to fathom the depths of your “holy hatred” toward our sins; sins, some of which we have grown fond of, even to the degree of elevating them to become idols of the mind and heart.

Holy Father, reveal to us today, those things within our hearts that would especially grieve your most Holy Spirit.  Cause us to confess them in your most sacred presence and grant to us genuine repentance.  At the same time we understand that there is within our bosom a great multitude of unrevealed sin that our fragile consciences could not at this time bare should you disclose them to us.  We thank you for gently and patiently uncovering to us those things that displease you.

Loving Father, your Word also promises that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. We see that abounding grace in the person and sacrificial work of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We do believe that Christ has made full atonement for the sins of His people through His bloody death. When He cried out on that dreadful day my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me He was but uttering the cry that we should justly make from the pit of Hell.

Our God how can we thank you enough? O Savior how can we show our appreciation? Eternal Spirit help us to be grateful.

We will offer unto you the sacrifice of praise. We do joyfully enter into your presence with a thankful heart.  We will not be ashamed to confess your name before the heathen.  We will testify of your goodness in the Congregation of those made righteous by the blood of God’s Son. We will delight in you.

Give us a heart to hear and obey your Word this morning and accept our worship we pray.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. ⁴ In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame (Psalm 22:1-5).

As we enter into worship this morning we, through faith, come to know and experience what you were experiencing many years ago as you suffered and hung pinned on that rough wooden cross. O Lord Jesus you were forsaken by your Father. Your Father turned his back on you, he turned a blind eye; he turned away. In those dark hours you were suspended between heaven and earth, rejected by everyone in the world, the universe and you’re your homeland of heaven itself. You were totally forsaken, forgotten, left, despised, rejected, and you were utterly repudiated by all, even by your beloved Father. To quote the hymnist: “Stricken, smitten and afflicted, see him dying on the tree! Tis the Christ by man rejected; Yes, my soul, tis he! Tis the long expected Prophet, David’s Son, yet David’s Lord; By his Son God now has spoken: Tis the true and faithful Word. Tell me, ye who hear him groaning, Was there ever grief like this? Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning, Foes insulting his distress; Many hands were raised to wound him, None would interpose to save; But the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that justice gave.”

Yet, obedient Jesus, even as you hung all alone and completely forsaken you saw it all as just, right, acceptable, good and necessary. You confess inwardly to your Father, according to the Psalmist, “Yet, you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.” As if to say: Glorious Father you must punish sin, for you are holy, and I will receive that punishment willingly for your people. “You brought me out of the womb” for this one purpose and from birth I was destined to this hour of redemptive agony. I left the world of eternal heavenly bliss, to enter a cursed world of sin, misery and death in order to die, to accept the wages of sin, so that salvation may flow freely to your chosen people.

Therefore, Father, I receive the punishment willingly. “In you,” O God, “our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them,” and anyone who cries out to you will be saved because of my death on Calvary. Heavenly Father it was worth it! I delight to do your will. O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as we enter into worship this morning we pray that you would be pleased to manifest to us more deeply the glorious Gospel of grace.

When the Reformers rejected the idea of the Lord’s Supper as a propitiatory sacrifice, the placing and use of the communion table changed. In most Protestant churches the altar was no longer viewed as an altar (a place for sacrifices) but was now viewed as a table from which a meal could be served. The offering was not to God but to the people.”

(taken from R.C. Sproul’s foreword to Keith Mathison’s book, Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper)

Tonight we have the privilege again of coming to the Lord’s table. Christian, this Supper is given for you. It is a pledge of Christ’s covenant with you. Just as sure as you hold the elements in your hands, look upon them with your eyes, and taste them in your mouth, you can be sure that Christ’s real body was broken and blood was shed for you.

Church, remember that Christ commands his supper to be observed until he returns. We have no right to dismiss ourselves from this table without reason. Come tonight and partake of this feast where Christ himself shall feed you.

God could have made man without any need for rest, but he didn’t. Man is a creature who must rest. Every day man needs sleep, and     as God’s image bearer man is to reflect the same pattern of six and one that was given in creation. Six days in a week God has given     us to work and to accomplish our tasks, but one day is to be set aside for rest, worship, and focus upon our God. The Hebrew word for Sabbath means to cease or to pause.

Israel worked six days and rested on the seventh, but the resurrection of Christ brought about a monumental change. As the Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield wrote, “Christ took the Sabbath into the grave with him and brought the Lord’s Day out.”

Christians begin the week with rest. Not only is this rest a physical rest but it is resting in what God has provided in Christ. He is our     rest, Christ is our Sabbath, and those who are in him have already entered their rest though they await the rest God will give in the age to come.

Christian, have your rest today. Rest from your sins in the sweet mercies of Jesus Christ. Today, let your mind cease from all you need to accomplish, and find rest in what Christ has accomplished for you.