Author Archives: Svigel

About Svigel

Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, author, husband, father.

Sufficiency of the Five Senses: An Epistemological Problem for Non-Theistic Evolution?

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If you had access to the external world only through the sense of smell, how would you perceive reality? Your entire universe would be nothing but a series of weak and strong odors; some pleasant, others putrid. If you encountered other beings in the universe, you would distinguish them only by their unique scents—if, that is, they had any discernible scent at all. A person with only the sense of smell may not have enough data to establish his or her own spatial or perhaps even temporal location; certainly they would have no concept of corporeality. In short, the sense of smell alone is insufficient for a being to construct a complete, accurate, or functional picture of the external world—or even one that is at least sufficiently close to complete, accurate, or functional.

Now what if a person only had the sense of hearing? The situation for such a person would only be slightly better than for the person granted the sense of smell alone. Instead of a series of odors, the hearing being would experience a string of loud and soft sounds, some pleasant to the ear, others harsh. Communication might be possible only if he or she could get control of the tongue and vocal chords without the sense of touch, and thus respond to sounds from others with his or her own sounds. Certainly, the hearing person would still have an incomplete, inaccurate, and poorly functional experience of the external universe.

The same thing can be said about all of the five senses—sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing. If any of these senses is missing, a person’s perception of the world would change. He or she may be able to function and communicate in the world, but the subjective experience of the external world would differ drastically from a person with all five senses.

Now, if I were a person with only the sense of hearing and I encountered another being who told me about his own sense of seeing, which I lacked, I would have no category within which to understand a concept like “sight.” Nor would I be able to understand ideas like bright, dark, red, or blue. A seeing being would have no way of explaining what my missing sensations were like, nor would I be able to imagine the kind of world such a person experiences. Though I could be made intellectually aware that I am deficient, I would have no way of knowing what that actually meant. Not really. I would, in fact, continue in my current state of perception as I always have.

If a person with, say, only three senses—the senses of touch, smell, and taste—endured for a lifetime without any knowledge that there were other senses available, that person would have no reason to think there were such things as sight and sound. A person with only these three senses may believe that three and only three senses are sufficient to grant him or her complete, accurate, and functional access to the external world. Such a person would, of course, be wrong, but left alone he or she would be unaware of the error.

Granted, modern humans have used technology to expand their ability to acquire data about the universe. Though hidden to our sight, we can detect infrared and ultraviolet light, radio waves, and radiation. We can examine tiny organisms as well as remote bodies through the use of microscopes and telescopes. But all of these forms of technology work within the existing five senses—enhancing and improving, not supplementing or adding to, the senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. These means of measuring otherwise invisible or inaudible things in our world have, indeed, altered the perception of reality for modern humans, but these means themselves depend entirely on our five senses. In a similar vein, theoretical physicists can hypothesize about the existence of numerous dimensions beyond those of our limited perspective, but in that case they have no way of imagining or experiencing such theoretical dimensions. They are aware of such possible dimensions through mathematical calculations and “picture” them through analogies and illustrations bound by experiences of their five senses. It is, in short, impossible to conceptually break from the constraints of the five scent perception of the external world.

This brings me to my point.

How can humans have any confidence that additional senses beyond our five would not radically alter our perception and experience of reality? If three senses are better than two, and four better than three, and five better than four, why wouldn’t six, seven, or eight be better than five? We cannot simply respond to such a question by saying, “I can’t imagine what those additional senses would be,” because a person who has only one could not imagine a second, and person with only two could not imagine a third.

So the question remains.

Could there be additional senses, which, if we had them, would radically alter the way we perceive and experience the external world? Would the hypothetical extra senses grant us access to a world similar to ours but more complete, fuller, deeper? As rational beings, we must acknowledge this possibility. But what about its probability?

This is where things get quite messy. Is it probable that we human beings have evolved the precise number of senses to completely and accurately perceive the world around us? Or is it probable that our sensory organs provide us with enough data to at least approximate reality? We know of small, primitive beings that do not possess the five senses we have, and people typically place such life forms into a category of less-evolved beings. But on what basis do we conclude that natural selection would develop five senses with a quality to provide an accurate perception of reality when their data are synthesized by the mind into a coherent whole?

The answer? From a purely naturalistic perspective, humans have no reasonable basis to have confidence that our five senses are sufficient. In fact, it seems more probable that naturalistic evolutionary processes would take the easiest route, as survival of the individual and propagation of the species—not epistemological accuracy—is the result of unguided evolution. Of course, we rational beings would naturally hope that our five senses were not merely all that was necessary for survival (functional sufficiency), but that they were adequate for providing a complete or nearly-complete experience of the external world (epistemological accuracy). While our five senses may provide a functional experience of reality sufficient for the purpose of survival, within a naturalistic view of evolution, our five senses cannot be trusted to provide an accurate (i.e., dependable) experience of reality.

However, I can posit an alternative understanding of the sufficiency of our five senses to provide an accurate or near-accurate experience of the external world. But for such a presupposition to be accepted, one must believe that human beings were designed for the purpose of accurately perceiving the external world, not merely evolved toward the function of survival and propagaion. If humans were designed to live in this particular universe, it is possible to believe that the designer equipped humans with no more and no less senses than are necessary to accurately perceive the external world. And depending on the character of that designer (good, powerful, truthful), one might conclude that such a presupposition about the ability of human beings to accurately experience the external world through their five senses is probable. Of course, a theist must acknowledge that there may be things in the world that go beyond what the designer intended for its creatures to perceive, but in any case the five senses would be sufficient to provide an accurate or nearly-accurate experience of the external world.

This brings me to my closing point. Any human being who believes that he or she possesses enough senses to draw confident conclusions about the external world on a daily basis is inherently drawing on the presupposition of intelligent design (whether evolutionary or non-evolutionary), not of naturalistic evolution. The former presupposition makes the sufficiency of the five senses a probable hypothesis; the latter presupposition does not. Apart from the hypothesis of an intelligent designer who equipped humans with the appropriate number and variety of sensory organs, the question of the sufficiency of the five senses for accurately experiencing the external world becomes, in my mind, an insurmountable problem. An atheist who appeals to evolution necessarily can have no epistemological confidence in his or her ability to adequately gather and to accurately analyze data about the world as it really is. The empirical sciences that form the foundation of their worldview seem to require a presupposition about the nature of sense perception that argues against their methods and conclusions. Only by appealing to an intelligent designer who equipped humans with sufficient senses for accurately experiencing the external world can a person reasonably engage in the empirical sciences.

[NOTE: Originally posts on July 9, 2008, at www.retrochristianity.com. For a more technical treatment of a similar argument as mine, see Alvin Plantinga, “Is Naturalism Irrational?” in The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, ed. James F. Sennett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 72-96. I readily admit that my own popular expression of this argument differs from Plantinga’s in its expression, scope, and quality.]

“By This Time You Ought to Be Teachers”: A Critique of Typical Adult Sunday School

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A couple of years ago, as I was reading through the book of Hebrews, I stumbled over a verse that forced me to reevaluate some key assumptions I had unquestionably inherited from my Bible church tradition: both the necessity and validity of adult Sunday school classes. The verse? Hebrews 5:12—“ For though by this time you ought to be teachers…” At that point I stopped. I thought about the audience to whom the author was writing. The book of Hebrews was written sometime around A.D. 65. The Jewish church—the probable audience of the book—was founded at about A.D. 35. So the believers addressed in Hebrews had been part of the faith for a maximum of thirty years (many of them less).

Having been believers for twenty to thirty years, the Hebrews ought to have been teachers, not students; experts, not novices; doers, not hearers; mature, not children (Heb. 5:13–14). The decades-old believers were expected to be training the younger believers in the “basic principles of the oracles of God”—the foundational doctrines of the faith contained in Holy Scripture (Heb. 5:12). They were expected to be skilled “in the word of righteousness,” passing on this skill to those who were yet unskilled (5:13). They were to be examples of discernment, able to lead the younger, less mature believers to “distinguish good from evil” (5:14). In short, they were to be the disciple-makers of the church, primarily engaged in teaching, not in learning.

After meditating on that passage, I thought about many Bible-adoring evangelical churches I had attended or visited over the years. Then it hit me. There are classes at my own church in which some of the members literally double the thirty-year mark of the book of Hebrews. Many more have been learners for fifty years, more for forty, plenty for thirty or twenty years. In such Bible-believing churches the function of those older saints is to show up Sunday mornings, plug into an adult Sunday school class, and build on their thirty years of Bible training. The goal of the adult education program is more Bible study with practical application for the believers’ lives—“The Bible as it is for people as they are.” The goal is not to equip those saints to teach younger believers in the church the elementary principles of the faith.

I wonder what the author of Hebrews would say if he were to critically evaluate the Sunday morning program of many of our churches. I wonder if he would say to half our adult classes, “By this time you ought to be teachers. Most of you have been believers for 25-plus years. What’s wrong with you? Will you ever step out of the role of unskilled novice and into the role of mentoring disciple-maker?” The model of church ministry defined in Ephesians 4 is pretty clear: The pastors and teachers of the church (those engaged in teaching and preaching) are to “equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Yet in many of our churches the teaching leads to knowledge and practical application—good things, but not quite ministry work specifically designed for “building up of the body of Christ.” Paul’s instructions to the pastor-teacher, Timothy, was to entrust the beliefs and practices of the church “to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). Yet in many of our churches the teachers entrust the things of God to men and women who are not always themselves involved in any intentional disciple-making instruction. This isn’t true of everybody, of course. Some believers who grow in the faith do move into disciple-making ministries. But far too many get stuck in the rut of the eternal student, growing fat and sedentary in more and more biblical and doctrinal knowledge used only to enrich their own lives or the lives of their families.

So, what can we do to realign our adult Sunday school classes with a more biblical model of discipleship?

First, consider harmonizing Sunday school classes with the rest of the Sunday morning ministry of the church. Too often adult Sunday school classes become “mini-churches,” mirroring at a smaller scale what goes on in “big church.” They sometimes have mini-worship, mini-offerings, mini-sermons, and mini-prayer time. Then those same mini-church members shuffle on to big church where they get a more generalized version of the same activities. This is called redundancy. We need to rethink the role of the Sunday school in the overall vision and program of the church. If there are things that aren’t being done during Sunday worship, they should be done during Sunday school, and vice versa. The normal Sunday morning worship should include Scripture reading, teaching, and preaching from the pulpit that substantially nourishes the faith of growing believers in the church. This pulpit ministry should be the primary biblical exposition and practical exhortation for all members of the church. If the pulpit is functioning this way, then Sunday school should strive to do something that complements this pulpit ministry, not competes with it.

Second, consider grouping adult Sunday school classes by spiritual maturity, not physical age. The New Testament distinguishes the spiritually mature in Christ from “infants” or “children” in Christ (Eph. 4:14, 15; 1 Cor. 3:1; 13:11; 14:20; Heb. 5:12–14). The young in the faith are to be engaged in “basic training,” learning the fundamentals of the faith, the story of Scripture, and the basics of Christian living. Some of this initial training should occur prior to baptism and admission into membership in a local church; some should occur in the first several years of a believer’s new-found faith. Yet this training should be deliberately geared for the spiritually young, regardless of physical age. After passing through spiritual grade school and graduating from spiritual high school, believers should be headed toward honing their spiritual gifts to engage in a body-building ministry of the church. In other words, after a certain period of time, believers should transition from a mentee role in the church to a mentor role, from student to teacher. Of course, believers will always need intimate fellowship, accountability, and additional training. But at some point early in the Christian life, the maturing believer should be weaned from their dependency on constant instruction, and they should get their spiritual nourishment from the church’s pulpit ministry and from personal Bible reading. In a discipleship model, sixty-year-old Christians have no business being in a “senior adult class” taught by expository teachers unless they are still “children” in the faith who need to learn for the first time Scripture, doctrine, and Christian living.

Third, consider restoring a simple structure of beginners’ classes for new or young believers, ministry training for growing believers, and leadership training for mature believers. Regardless of whether Sunday school classes are divided into age groups, each one should be dedicated to one of these three body-building tasks of the church. 1) Beginners’ classes should be designed for those who have been believers for a short time or who have never formally experienced a “Christianity 101” kind of instruction. The emphasis of such classes should be rudimentary biblical content, essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and basic Christian living. Members of this class should typically be in the process of preparation for baptism or church membership. 2) New believers or newly-initiated members of the church should graduate to ministry training courses, regardless of their physical age. These classes should equip church members for evangelism, discipleship of believers younger than them in the faith (i.e., assisting in the classes under category 1), or participation in outreach or other ministries of the church. This training should involve not only biblical and theological truth, but also practical ministry experience—hearing and doing. 3) After many years of demonstrating faithful service in the ministry of the church, mature believers should be selected for leadership training—first as deacons, then as elders. Such training may involve formal education at an accessible Bible college or seminary, but it can also involve a specialized training program in the local church itself. Such preparation should include broad and deep biblical knowledge, systematic theology, church history, leadership skills, and training in teaching and preaching. Those in the early phases of this process would serve the church in the office of “deacon.” This process may take five to ten years, and only after such leadership training and service should believers submit to an ordination examination and appointment as pastors or “elders” of a local church.

Fourth, consider including short-term “elective” classes to meet special needs in the congregation. The changes suggested above in no way hinder a church from periodically or regularly offering special classes, conferences, or seminars dealing with biblical, doctrinal, historical, or practical issues. In fact, one should expect that such supplementary programs should be part of the normal teaching of the church. Marriage conferences, financial seminars, “refresher” courses on Bible doctrine, a series on church history, parenting classes, divorce recovery groups, a young married class—all of these can be offered on a short-term basis and taught or facilitated by members of the church involved in ministry training described above (category 2).

The author of Hebrews castigated his readers who had been believers for twenty-plus years because by that time they should have been teachers (Heb. 5:12). I’m concerned that many of our Bible-believing churches have failed to graduate their long-time believers from the status of student to that of teacher. Instead, they have institutionalized a model of adult Sunday school designed to perpetuate a nursery of needy spiritual children without transitioning them into responsible, mature, and productive spiritual adults. If we consider the four suggestions above, our churches will begin to reflect the biblical emphasis on discipleship rather than the cultural emphasis on personal enrichment.

[Originally posted at www.retrochristianity.com March 24, 2012.]

 

Peanut Butter Christianity: Is Yours a Cheap Imitation . . . or the Real Thing?

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One day my wife sent me to the store to buy peanut butter—specifically, natural peanut butter. In other words, no fake stuff. This seemed simple enough . . . until I arrived in what looked like the peanut butter department of the grocery store. I suppose managing that aisle alone must be a full-time job. The options overwhelmed me—creamy, chunky, extra chunky, honey-flavored, jelly-filled, low fat, organic—and countless sizes, shapes, brands, and prices! My head spun.

There I stood, paralyzed with indecision, wanting nothing more than to snatch the cheapest jar of peanut butter and dash for the checkout. Instead, showing due diligence, I searched for “natural peanut butter” amidst the flashy brand names that virtually called out from the shelves like brochure pushers on the Vegas Strip: “Pick me! Pick me! Don’t you remember all those commercials you saw as a kid? All those smiling faces? Those cool special effects showing golden roasted peanutsmagically spread into smooth, creamy peanut butter?”

Lured by the flashy labels, my eyes landed on one popular brand paired with the keyword “Natural.” How convenient!

I grabbed it from the shelf.

I felt rather victorious until I got home and took a closer look at the back label. I then discovered that “natural” peanut butter isn’t necessarily a literal description. That particular brand of natural peanut butter did include roasted peanuts, of course. But it also contained sugar, palm oil, and salt. So that’s what we mean by natural? Really? All those things naturally grow on a peanut plant? I guess from one perspective these ingredients are natural as opposed to, say, “supernatural.” And at least I couldn’t find any unpronounceable ingredients like monosodiumtriglyceraticidipropylol. And to be fair to that brand, if we were to compare its ingredients to that peanut butter-like substance found in the candy aisle of a grocery store, that jar of peanut butter looked like pure gold.

But is junk food peanut butter really the standard? When I contrast that version of natural with a different, lesser-known brand’s natural peanut butter, I’m a little less forgiving. The ingredients lists for several others simply say, “Peanuts.” No salt, no oil, no emulsifier, no sweetener, no chemicals added to preserve freshness or enhance flavor. Just plain peanuts. Call me naïve, but to me, that’s natural whether we like how it tastes or not. Shouldn’t peanut butter made of just puréed peanuts serve as the standard for what constitutes natural peanut butter?

Over the next couple of weeks, as my mind periodically returned to the out-of-control peanut butter situation, something struck me. The failure of most peanut butters to actually live up to the natural standard reminds me of the out-of-control state of much of what is happening in contemporary evangelicalism. If I were to liken authentic, classic Christianity to the truly natural form of undiluted, unmixed, real peanut butter, then the multiple forms of evangelicalism that diverge more and more from this standard become, well, less and less authentic.

What I’m suggesting is this: over the last several decades, many of us evangelicals have become increasingly accustomed to a less “natural” form of Christianity. While still essentially Christian, many aspects of evangelicalism have become victims of “enrichment” by non-Christian ingredients that are meant to enhance the faith. This “enrichment” has been done to make the gospel more convenient, palatable, or marketable. Yet as these added ingredients take up more and more space, the essentials of the faith are necessarily displaced.

Take a stroll with me through the virtual aisles of our evangelical subculture—gift shops, radio stations, television programs, websites, even many of the new, trendy churches. We find ourselves surrounded by positive thinking, self-help, and behavior modification. We’re lured in by self-esteem best-sellers, do-it-yourself Christianity, and countless authors presenting the spiritual life as an ascending ladder: seven steps to this, three keys to that, the one prayer that will revolutionize your world, expand your influence, fulfill your desire for happiness. Let’s just be honest. Much of the garbage stinking up the shelves of Christian bookstores is passed off as Christian Living, but it’s mostly psychobabble or practical proverbs no better than what we find in the secular self-help or generic spirituality sections of our online bookseller.

Modern evangelical Christians who have become accustomed to this trendy, diluted form of Christianity have all but forgotten what the pure faith actually tastes like! In fact, many who are then exposed to a less adulterated faith—a form without all the unnecessary additives—find themselves actually disgusted by the original pure flavor of authentic Christianity, spitting it out and rejecting it as something foreign and inferior—or at least unpleasant to the palate.

The irony is that this purer form of Christianity is the authentic faith once for all delivered to the saints. The biblical gospel proclaimed, the sacraments rightly administered, discipline properly maintained, evangelism and discipleship emphasized, repentance and renewal preached—there is nothing really fancy about these things. In fact, they are so simple to identify and maintain that churches focusing on these fundamentals and freeing themselves from the frills appear to be washed-out has-beens or incompetent wannabes to most big-production glitz-and-glamour evangelicals.

Let’s return to the peanut butter aisle once again. We have to admit that all those peanut butter products do contain peanuts, and so they can genuinely be called “peanut butter.” Similarly, to varying degrees the marks of authentic Christianity are found in most of the products that fill the shelves of the evangelical church market. And to the degree that they retain those essential marks they are, in fact, Christian. Yet many forms of evangelical Christianity have been so colored with dyes, so mixed with artificial ingredients, or so drenched in candy coating that they are in danger of becoming cheap imitations that serve merely to distract from—not point to—the essential ingredients of the historical faith.

Just like additive-rich peanut butters that appeal to flavor rather than to nutrition, far too many evangelicals shop for me-centered feel-good church experiences rather than Christ-centered worship, discipleship, and authentic community. In fact, like sour-faced kids who reject all natural peanut butter, many evangelicals turn their noses away from authentic expressions of church and spirituality. They would rather keep dabbling in the artificial than adjust their tastes to the real thing.

In my book, RetroChristianity: Reclaiming the Forgotten Faith, I attempt to draw renewed attention to the original fount and purer streams of orthodox, protestant tradition that once fed evangelicalism’s spiritual reservoirs. And I’m not alone. Numerous evangelical leaders who have been submerged in biblical, theological, and historical reflection have sounded similar alarms and called for similar renewal. But most of these attempts at reorienting the evangelical masses—pastors, teachers, lay leaders, and church members—have been either ignored or unheeded by the masses.

It seems we’ve reached a point in the evangelical church market where it’s no longer enough to read just the front label. Now we have to focus on the fine print and see what place is given to the true marks of classic Christianity. The problem is, too few evangelicals are familiar enough with the original and enduring faith to sort the real from the fake. But it’s not too late! Every person who has reached this point in this essay has the opportunity—and the responsibility—to make a trip back to the shelves of competing flavors of Christianity, to return the poor product that has been pushed by ill-informed dealers, and to reclaim the forgotten faith for the future.

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Thinking About Leaving Your Local Church? Think Again…

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In our fast-food culture of leased cars and changing telephone companies, many local churches have not fared well. Church shopping, hopping, and dropping have become normal—so normal that many people reading this probably haven’t thought very much about it. Certainly, this cavalier attitude toward local church membership is common among evangelicals today. But have we paused to consider whether it’s biblical?

Some get bored and wander off to a more exciting church. Some get angry and stomp off, taking several members with them. Some change their minds about a particular doctrinal issue and realign themselves with a church that seems purer. Some people are just in a rut of discontent, staying for a few months or years then straying on to something, well, new. But when we contrast this modern epidemic of forsaking our membership in a local church with the two positive and two negative biblical examples of leaving church and the long history of church commitment, we probably ought to re-think this issue.

First, on the positive side, Christians in the Bible changed churches because of physical relocation. In Acts 18 Aquila and Priscilla changed from one local church to another when they moved to a new city. Second, people left churches for ministry opportunities. Ministers and missionaries departed local churches to serve elsewhere—always with the blessing of the sending churches (Acts 10:23; 15:40; 2 Cor. 8:16–18). On the negative side, the New Testament presents examples of people leaving the church because of discipline (Matt. 18:15–17; 1 Cor. 5:11–13), always with the hope that the disciplined believer would repent and return to fellowship. Also, false teachers and heretics left in apostasy, departing in willful rebellion and often taking followers with them (1 John 2:18–19). [Some have pointed to the surprising skirmish between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:37–40 as an example of separation due to differing ministry strategies. But this incident had nothing to do with leaving a local church—both departed from Antioch with the church’s blessing. And besides, this text described an unfortunate event; it did not prescribe how to handle conflict.]

Relocation . . . ministry . . . discipline . . . apostasy.

These four biblical examples—two positive, two negative—are legitimate departures from local congregations and serve not to weaken, but to strengthen, both the local church and the universal body of Christ. And these examples make one thing clear: the common reasons Christians give for forsaking their covenant with a local church just don’t measure up. If believers take the Bible as the guide and love as the rule, they should never simply stomp out of their churches in anger or slip quietly out the back door.

Of course, we can’t assume that the Bible covers every legitimate reason for leaving a church. Sometimes churches become so corrupt or doctrinally impure that the marks of a true or healthy church are lost. Other times God may want certain believers in certain places to accomplish certain things. However, we must always remember that local church commitment is necessary for spiritual growth (Heb. 10:24–25; Eph. 4:4–16). And we must recall that we entered into church membership as a covenant relationship—as serious as marriage. If we keep these facts in mind, we’ll have the right heart for considering a godly decision about whether or not to leave, and how to do it appropriately.

Some practical principles can point us in the right direction as we consider God’s mind about leaving church.

First, communicate and seek counsel. Discuss your options with the church leadership. Ask trusted Christian friends or mentors whether your reasons for leaving are legitimate. The issues leading you out of the church likely can be resolved—to the benefit of everyone. Perhaps your confidants will help you discover that the Lord is, in fact, leading you to another ministry elsewhere. However, simply stomping off in a huff is rude and immature. And keeping your real reasons for leaving a secret is usually a sign that your conscience isn’t clear.

Second, be prudent and discerning. Don’t make an emotional or quick decision. Just as in natural families, people hurt people in churches. You can count on it. But my reaction to a harsh word or other offense reveals as much about my own spiritual immaturity as it does about the immaturity of the offender. Don’t make a decision based on anger, fear, resentment, or pain, but on the principles of God’s Word. And don’t turn everything into a “doctrinal issue.” Everybody disagrees on some interpretations of Scripture, but not every doctrinal disagreement is worth rushing for the door. In fact, I can count the absolutely essential marks of orthodoxy on two hands; if your list of “fundamentals” is much longer, you may have slipped into exaggerated dogmatism. Keep your eye on the center—the gospel of Jesus Christ— and show grace in the dozens of disputable matters.

Finally, seek God’s will. Even though God wants us to be faithful to our local churches and to contribute positively to its ministry, we can’t limit God’s direction in our lives. Though my tone may sound absolute, the truth is that occasionally God may want people elsewhere for his own purposes. However, we must still make transitions cautiously—communicating with leadership, exercising prudence, and seeking counsel. To hop from church to church without earnestly (and honestly) seeking the Lord’s will in the matter shows contempt for the temple he loves and can even result in discipline from God (1 Cor. 3:16–17).

In light of God’s high view of local church commitment and the clear teaching of Scripture (Heb. 10:24–25; Eph. 4:4–16), we should prayerfully consider each decision we make regarding our local churches—from membership and attendance to our level of involvement and decisions regarding departure. If we seek to honor him and demonstrate genuine love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord will guide us in wise, prudent, and godly decisions regarding our involvement in the local church.

So, are you thinking about leaving church? Think again.

 

[This essay is excerpted from chapter 7 of RetroChristianity: Reclaiming the Forgotten Faith (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012). © Michael J. Svigel, 2012. Originally posted March 18, 2012 at www.retrochristianity.com]

Living Easter: Bringing the Resurrection to Life

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Lying in bed, fourteen-year-old Lena slipped closer to death with each strained breath. Her vexed father, Martin, paced the room, wanting desperately to hold onto her, to watch her grow into the woman he always believed God intended her to be.

But eventually that doting father had to give in to reality. Death was about to claim his sweet daughter. Folding his trembling hands, the prayer he had been fighting fell reluctantly from his quivering lips: “Dear God, you know I love her so much . . . but if you’re going to take her from me, then . . . thy will be done.”

When his Lena appeared to be drawing her last feeble breath, the great Reformer Martin Luther—whose preaching had felled Emperors and Popes—fell to his knees beside his daughter’s bed. Weeping bitterly, he cried out, “God, please save her!”

Moments later, Lena was dead.

The anguish of death can drive a person mad with doubt and depression—especially the death of a seemingly innocent and undeserving child. But all of us who have held a loved one as their breathing slowed, their complexion waned, and their pulse ceased, can testify to the fierce indifference of that ugly monster, death.

Yet death isn’t limited to the death bed. When Adam sinned, the curse brought much more than simply the cessation of physical life. It brought shame, anxiety, frustration, disaster, and sin. Death seeks to expand its domain through physical and emotional suffering, broken relationships, and all forms of ugliness and evil. You don’t need to suffer the loss of a loved one to be pierced by the sting of death. Are you fearful about the future? Battling with sin? Struggling with a chronic disease? That’s the harsh reality of death.

But nearly two thousand years ago, in the midst of death’s darkness, the light of life began to shine. Having lived a perfect life, on Good Friday Jesus Christ suffered a brutal death for the sins of the world. But on Sunday morning the earth shook, the stone covering the tomb was rolled away, and the Son of God stepped forth victorious. This time the light of life didn’t merely shine in the darkness—He conquered it forever!

Now, although we Christians wholeheartedly believe “He is risen,” many of us have no idea what that means for us in this life. It’s one thing to confess that He conquered death. It’s quite another to live like it when the pain, suffering, and evil of this world crouch at our doors. So how do we live the truth of Easter Sunday when our lives feel more like Good Friday? To help answer this question, let me share what living Easter means to me.

First, living Easter means remembering that though we were dead, we’re now alive. Paul wrote, “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). Before God’s life-giving Spirit made us alive, we were spiritually dead. But those of us who have been born again by grace through faith in Jesus Christ have been spiritually resurrected to eternal life (1 John 5:11–13). Our spiritual resurrection, wrought solely by the grace and mercy of God, erased our sin and made us living children of God. Without this new birth—made possible solely by Christ’s death and resurrection—we would never have believed the gospel of eternal life.

Second, living Easter means we can stop dying and start living. In connection with our new birth, the Spirit of the resurrection has come to dwell within us (Romans 8:11). Yet if this is true, why do so many Christians walk around with an attitude of death and defeat in the face of temptation and sin? We’re called not to simply celebrate Easter once a year, but to live Easter every day. Dwelling in sin is dwelling in death. Are you enslaved to shameful secret sins . . . or constantly falling to temptation? Remind yourself now that not only has God forgiven all your sins, but you have died to sin . . . and by the resurrection Spirit you can conquer it (Romans 6:6–7; 8:11-13). But you may say, “I know all that, but I just keep struggling with sin!” I say—“That’s great! Keep struggling!” You see, only when you give up the struggle do you surrender to the domain of death. As wretched and desperate as the battle with sin becomes, never surrender.

Finally, living Easter means that even after we die, we’ll live again. Though our modern culture has sought to institutionalize and sterilize death, we’re all eventually forced to face it. Maybe it’s through the loss of a spouse, a parent, or a child. Perhaps it’s a terminal illness or the aches and pains of aging. With each passing day, the reflection in the mirror reminds us that we’re drawing closer to death. Yet in the midst of this reality, hope shines! Christ’s resurrection and our union with Him guarantees that our bodies will one day be resurrected and glorified (1 Thessalonians 4:13–14; 1 Corinthians 15:35–57). Are you afraid of dying? Are you mourning the loss of a loved one? Remember that one day soon, all those who died in Christ will be made alive!

As his daughter’s body lay in the wooden coffin, Martin Luther looked intently into her pale face and spoke gently, “Oh, my darling Lena, you’ll live again and shine like a star. Yes—like the sun.”

Minutes later, when the lid of the coffin was being hammered shut, Luther cried out above the deafening racket: “Hammer away! On Resurrection Day she’ll rise again!”

[Originally posted April 7, 2012 at www.retrochristianity.com. This essay was adapted from Michael J. Svigel and Suzanne Keffer, “This Should Be Me,” Insights (March 2005): 1-2. Copyright © 2005 by Insight for Living. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.]