Category Archives: 6. Ecclesiology: The Church

i’m Distracted by me

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It has somehow become trendy to do away with the capital “I” for the first person pronoun in praise and worship songs, especially if the lyrics are projected on a screen. The goal, I suppose, is to reflect (or promote) personal humility. Apparently if we use a lowercase “i” we will be (or appear to be) more humble. But for me this practice produces the opposite effect. When projected song lyrics use a lowercase “i” my attention is actually drawn to the pronoun rather than turned away from it. It distracts me, and the thing that attracts my thoughts is the very thing the lowercase “i” is supposed to be deflecting!

ironic.

Look, nobody sees a capital “I” and thinks, “How self-centered! That person sure must think highly about himself to be capitalizing the first person singular pronoun!” No, the capitalization of “I” is simply a convention of the English language. To put things in perspective, the German language actually capitalizes all nouns in a sentence, but Germans aren’t thereby saying every person, place, thing, or idea deserves to be worshipped or honored.

I struggle to understand the motive behind using a lowercase “i,” wondering if it may, in fact, actually promote a prideful humility—“Look at how humble i am!” or “You people who use a capital ‘I’ sure are egocentric (unlike us, who use a lowercase ‘i’)!” On the other hand, a desire to be less self-absorbed and me-focused is a noble and needed corrective in contemporary worship. But songwriters and worship leaders who want to pursue this goal can do so in far more effective ways. Let me suggest two.

First, we could use less I and me and more Him and He. How about more song lyrics that just don’t mention “I” or “me” all that often? Instead, let’s tell the story about the Triune God, singing praises to the Father, confessing faith in Jesus Christ, and proclaiming the work of the Spirit. Keeping the focus on Him in our lyrics will remove the necessity to constantly sing about how I feel about God, what I gain from salvation, how I can personally benefit from my relationship with God. Songs that obsess with a lowercase “i” could avoid the problem by ejecting the pronoun entirely.

Second, we could use less I and Me and more us and we. Far too many of our contemporary worship songs are individualistic, emphasizing personal faith, personal problems, personal salvation, personal growth, personal eschatology. How difficult would it be to change some of the lyrics of these songs to a plural pronoun? Often the lyrics of worship songs communicate to the worshippers that they are simply a large mob of individuals engaged in private, personal communion with God. Let’s leave individual worship at home in our prayer closets and come to church to worship in community.

I must clarify, though, that nothing in the Bible suggests that using “I” and “we” in corporate worship is wrong. Many psalms are written in the first person singular. Many of our great hymns and worship choruses have endured as individual poems of devotion. The Christian faith clearly involves both individual and corporate aspects of prayer, study, and worship. To emphasize one over the other would create an unbiblical and unhealthy imbalance. But in a culture like ours, driven by thoroughgoing metheism, it might not hurt to rethink how and what we sing.

Whatchama-Called

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“I feel called to serve in the youth ministry” . . . “My wife and I feel called to a different church” . . . “I felt called into ministry at an early age” . . . “I feel called to talk to you about this.”

This kind of language about feeling called, feeling led, feeling drawn by God to a particular ministry, task, or direction is quite common among Christians. You probably hear it often. You probably say it yourself from time to time. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself whether such an idea of an internal subjective feeling of being called to some place, thing, or task is biblical? Have you ever wondered whether your feelings about God calling you may, in fact, be your own personal desires, wishes, longings, ambitions, or pursuits?

It may startle you to learn that nowhere in the Bible do we find an example of a person “feeling called” by God without an external, verifiable call. Most often when the Bible talks about God’s calling, it refers to the call to repentance, salvation, or covenant faithfulness—a general call to all, though it is often coupled with God’s sovereign call of election, or choosing (Isaiah 48:12; Jer 7:13; Matt 22:14; Rom 8:28–30; 9:24; and many more). Thus, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:14, “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Another kind of calling in the Bible came in the form of an audible (and sometimes even visible) calling from God to a particular task or ministry. Abraham’s calling to the land of Canaan was audible, visible, and repeated (Heb 11:8). Moses’s call came audibly from a burning bush (Exod 3:4). The calling of Bezalel to the task of crafting the tabernacle in the wilderness came by an audible call from God through Moses (Exod 31:1–6). And who could forget Samuel’s repeated call by God in 1 Samuel 3:2–11, where the voice was so clear that he thought it was that of his master, Eli, nearby. Similarly, Paul’s call to be an apostle (Rom 1:1) was no inner conviction or nagging desire to serve, but a brilliant encounter with the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ Himself on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–18).

Another type of call—a bit more subtle, but genuine—came from the Holy Spirit through the official leaders of the Christian community. This official call by the Church was accompanied by an official appointment, usually marked by the laying on of hands. Acts 13:2–4 gives a good example of this kind of authentic call to ministry. As the official leaders of the church were gathered together, praying and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). In response to this word from the Lord, the leaders of the church appointed Barnabas and Saul to their ministries, laying hands on them and praying for them, which was a common means of ordination to ministry in the ancient world.

Whether or not Saul and Barnabas “felt” called to this ministry was irrelevant. Certainly, Paul had earlier experienced a dramatic conversion and received a general call directly from the mouth of Christ, but the specific “where” and “when” of the call were still being discovered. Perhaps Paul and Barnabas had inner yearnings to pursue that particular ministry from Antioch; or maybe they had been resisting the idea. But their personal feelings really weren’t decisive. Instead, the Holy Spirit called these men and revealed His will through the patient, prayerful, and wise discernment of the leadership and community in which they were ministering day to day. Whether the Holy Spirit spoke audibly, we can not know for sure. But we do know that the Holy Spirit spoke through the leadership and the community, that is, through the Church.

So, how does a person discern a calling into ministry, a call by God to a particular task? This is not an easy question to answer, but I can trace the contours of what this should look like. First and foremost, a Christian should be aware of his or her general call to holy living and Christian testimony, the call all believers have by virtue of being called to salvation through Jesus Christ (1 Cor 7:15; Gal 5:13; 2 Thess 2:14). This includes a call to walk in newness of life, to love the brethren, and to proclaim Christ near and far. It implies a committed relationship to the Church universal and local, to build up the body of Christ through humble service, to give and live sacrificially. These things constitute the clear calling to which all Christians are to respond daily. They require no special recommendation or invitation, but they do, of course, require constant reminders and repeated exhortations. We too quickly forget the calling to which we are all called!

Second, the biblical pattern of calling to specific ministries or tasks involved either an audible (and often repeated) call from God, or an official invitation by legitimate spiritual leadership confirmed by the Church community. In the Old Testament this kind of call came through the God-appointed prophets, priests, and kings. In the New Testament it came through the pastors, elders, teachers, and leadership within the worshiping and praying community of the Church or even through the counsel of wise, mature, and trusted brothers and sisters in Christ.

For the last decade or so I have generally lived by a maxim that was advocated by an old professor of mine, who is now, remarkably, a colleague. He probably doesn’t even remember saying it, but it made a great impression on me. In the context of questions about God’s leading and calling, he said, “I don’t do anything I’m not asked to do.” At that moment I believed those words. I ran through the instances of callings and commands in the Bible and realized it fit quite nicely. So I abandoned the typical approach of “I feel called” and decided that my personal feelings on the matter would be the last and least of my criteria for determining God’s will for me. If God wants me to do something, He will call me as He called those in the Bible—through the wise, prayerful guidance and shepherding of His ordained leaders and through the Spirit-filled community. When I finally accepted this biblical approach to calling, I felt liberated. No longer would I have to worry about missing God’s call, misunderstanding His call, aggressively pursuing opportunities, sending out resumes, competing for positions. God would call in His timing and by His own means. This doesn’t mean we remain passive. The general calling of the Christian to loving, serving, and living the Christian life will keep us all busy as we await His various specific calls to particular tasks. But this perspective does mean we aren’t constantly on the hunt for bigger and better opportunities, as if ministry were a competitive career field in which our primary goal is to get ahead. Nor does this mean that we say “yes” to every leader’s whim or friend’s request. Nobody can do everything, but all of us are called to do something.

The idea of “feeling called” to the ministry, “feeling called” to a task, “feeling called” to a particular place—this idea of feeling called to anything has become far too common in Christian parlance. It must stop. It is not biblical. And it can be absolutely disastrous. How many people have gone into ministry or into the mission field because they felt called. How many leaders and church communities have accepted such people because they felt they could not counter a personal calling from God? Don’t misunderstand me. A person may feel compelled, gifted, even “called” to ministry, but unless that urge and desire is confirmed by God’s chosen means of calling and sending from His community through the Holy Spirit, the feelings should never be the sole—nor even the primary—basis for action. In many cases (perhaps in most), our personal feelings on the matter are completely irrelevant.

True Community

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Community groups . . . community centers . . . building community . . . promoting community . . . community life . . . community churches . . . faith communities . . . the Christian community . . .

Community has become a buzzword in twenty-first century evangelicalism. Today’s churches have reacted decisively against the unhealthy and unbiblical obsession with the personal preference, private spirituality, and individualistic Christianity of the twentieth century. In its stead, many have been drawn to a community-oriented Christianity that more accurately reflects the koinonia emphasis of the New Testament—the corporate disciplines and worship, fellowship of the saints, and ministry that involves the whole Body of Christ.

But what does true community look like?

Two Types of Community

Imagine this kind of community: an uncomfortable hodgepodge of people we barely know, or, what’s worse, maybe we know some of them far too well and wish we didn’t. They come from different backgrounds, different walks of life, different pay grades, different generations. They’re just plain different. But we’ve been artificially mashed together in some kind of church activity—a Bible study, a Sunday school class, a small group, a ministry team. We grudgingly do our duties but keep our guards up and our masks on. We just can’t wait until this excruciating, “forced” community is over so we can get back to the people we’re comfortable with, the people we know, the people we love.

But then there’s our preferred model of community: comfort . . . familiarity . . . friends whose names we know and whose faces we’re actually happy to see. People we spend time with outside the church, people we’d actually invite for dinner. That kind of community usually means developing warm relationships with those of our own age group, our own stage of life. We love that kind of community. It feels natural. It feels more Christian. Surely, this is the kind of community we should be striving for. Clearly, the uncomfortable and awkward community can’t possibly result in a healthy church. Obviously, spiritual growth is much more likely in a community of comfort and ease rather than personality conflict and politics.

Or is it?

True Community

Not long ago a student wandered into my office to chat. After a few minutes, the conversation moved to the pervasive politics and personality conflicts involved in Christian communities. Our brief exchange went something like this:

“It’s everywhere,” I said. “Every church or ministry deals with this.”

“But we’re Christians. It’s not supposed to be that way. Doesn’t it bother you?”

At that moment I grabbed a thick book from one end of my desk and tossed it in front of him. Pointing at the volume on the history of Christianity, I said, “This is how it’s always been. This is how it will always be.” Then I placed my Bible on top of the history book. “And if you look in here, it’s exactly the same. Until Christ returns, this is the best we can hope for. But God’s Spirit works out His perfect plan in spite of us.”

It’s normal for Christians to be disappointed in Christians. We can be downright mean to each other sometimes. And if we can avoid outright conflict, there will still be frustration, inconvenience, discomfort . . . all the necessary ingredients and effects of true community.

I suggest that the more comfortable you feel in your Christian community, the less authentic the community. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul writes, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” Sometimes we read a passage like that and fail to think through its practical ramifications. Jews and Greeks didn’t get along in the ancient world. They came from completely different religious and cultural backgrounds, lived in separate communities, had different customs and languages. Slaves and free were from opposite social and economic communities. They didn’t mix well together. Division was the order of the day.

When these groups of men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and Greeks, were placed into one community, awkward discomfort—even outright conflict—ensued (read 1 Corinthians to see for yourself). That’s the natural result of mixing these diverse mini-communities into one meta-community. It was like mixing oil and water. Common sense tells us not to try. Church growth experts opt for affinity groups. Our emotions tell us to run in the other direction.

But shouldn’t Christian community transcend the natural? Shouldn’t it defy common sense? Shouldn’t it seek to overcome what “feels” good.

Confusion . . . discomfort . . . frustration . . . uneasiness . . . conflict. These are things of true community. These are the conditions that promote real spiritual growth. It’s easy to fake the fruit of the Spirit among people we pick as fellowship partners. It’s far more difficult to pretend love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control among those who irritate us. And putting our natural human inclinations to the test of real life gives God an opportunity to work among us in supernatural ways.

Living in True Community

Perhaps you’re feeling uncomfortable in your church, Bible study, Sunday school class, or fellowship group. Maybe it’s just a lingering sense that you’d fit in somewhere else. You’re probably right! But fitting in isn’t the goal of Christian community. The Spirit of God has been sent to create unity out of diversity, peace out of conflict, and healing out of wounded hearts. The greatest spiritual growth will come from overcoming differences, and the greatest testimony of God’s supernatural work in a Christian community will be the love and unity that results from taking the long, hard road of true community.

Don’t try to get out from under the sometimes excruciating conflict that comes through true community. Don’t try to seek out only those who share your opinions, your lifestyles, your careers. Rather, living in true community means caring for and fellowshipping with those who share nothing with us but the common bond of Christ. It may take time. It will certainly take faith, hope, and love. But the end result will be authentic relationships with real people based not on worldly reason or on fleeting feelings, but on the unifying work of the Spirit of God.

Putting the Sabbath to Rest

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Lately I’ve been encountering Christians from both denominations and “home churches” who are meeting on Saturday (the Sabbath) to worship, rather than on Sunday. When asked why they do this, the responses are diverse. Some believe the regulation in the Ten Commandments requires the observance of the Sabbath day. Others claim that this was the day the New Testament believers and the ancient church assembled for worship, and they want to return to that original practice.

Obviously, if the earliest Jewish believers (that is, the apostles and their first and second-generation converts) worshipped on Saturday, somewhere along the way the Christians changed from Saturday to Sunday. In fact, in The Da Vinci Code, this was one of the charges the dreadful fictional historian laid at the feet of Emperor Constantine and the “paganizing” of Christianity. He claimed that the earliest Christians worshipped on Saturday, but that when Christianity “sold out” to the world, they started worshipping on Sunday, the day the Roman and Greek pagans worshipped the sun.

Because this question comes up all too frequently, I wanted to debunk the myths and set things straight as a historian who actually knows what really happened. And unlike many biblical and historical issues, this matter is an open-and-shut case. The historical evidence is clear.

The Bible says the earliest Christians gathered together on “the Lord’s Day.” By AD 95, the phrase “the Lord’s Day” (Greek kuriake hemera) had apparently become a common term for the day of Christian corporate worship centered on preaching and the Lord’s Supper (called the “eucharist” or “thanksgiving”). We see that the Apostle John so used it in Revelation 1:10, assuming his readers in western Asia Minor would know immediately what he meant by “the Lord’s Day.”

Prior to that, the apostles referred to Sunday as “the first of the week,” on which Christ rose from the dead (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). Jews at the time regarded Saturday (the Sabbath) as the seventh or “last” day of the week.

We see indications already in the earliest days of the church that the apostles and their disciples gathered together for worship on the “first day of the week,” that is, Sunday, in commemoration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 20:7, we read: “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight” (KJV). The practice of “breaking bread” is an early reference to the corporate worship of the believers, centered on the Lord’s Supper and fellowship around the preached Word. We also see Paul addressing the issue of the collection of money for the churches in 1 Corinthians 16:1–2, instructing the Corinthians to make the collection “upon the first day of the week” (16:2). Because this was a collection from among members of the church, it indicates that this was the day they gathered together as a corporate body.

Now, we do know that on the Sabbath the apostles would go to the Jewish synagogues and preach about Christ to the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles. This is absolutely clear (Acts 13:14; 13:42; 13:44; 16:33). But this evangelism is not the same as gathering together for the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, and prayer—characteristics of early Christian worship.

So, from the New Testament we see that there’s an early emphasis on Sunday, the “Lord’s Day,” the day the Lord rose from the dead, also called the “first of the week.” When we move forward in church history to the very next generation of Christians—to people who actually sat under the teachings of the apostles and their disciples themselves—the picture becomes even more clear.

In Didache 14.1, a church manual which, according to an emerging consensus of specialists, was probably written in Antioch in stages between AD 50 and 70, the instruction is simply, “And on the Lord’s own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks.” The “Lord’s own day” is the same phrase used in Revelation 1:10 by John.

At about the same time (around A.D. 80 or so), an anonymous but highly-respected letter later attributed to “Barnabas” makes it clear that Christians intentionally worshipped not on the “seventh day” (the Sabbath), but on the “eighth day,” as a memorial of the resurrection:

Further, He says to them, “Your new moons and your Sabbath I cannot endure.” Ye perceive how He speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, but that which I have made, namely this, when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens. (Barnabas 15.8)

This evidence is important, because it comes to us from a very early and respected Christian document that helps us understand historically when the earliest Christians worshipped. It was the “eighth day” of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead: Sunday. Clearly th

Around AD 110, Ignatius, the pastor of Antioch, wrote a letter to the church in Magnesia of Asia Minor while on his way to martyrdom in Rome. In that letter he addressed the problem of Judaizers infecting the church with divisions and false doctrine, and found himself having to explain the Christian practice of worshipping on Sunday rather than on the Sabbath:

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things [Judaism] have come to the possession of a new hope [Christianity], no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master . . . (Ignatius, To the Magnesians 9.1)

Before you dismiss this evidence as “outside the Bible” and a later corruption by the church fathers, remember that Ignatius was not just some monk from the Dark Ages. He was an old man already by AD 110, which means he was middle aged when the apostles themselves still lived and as pastor of Antioch would have known some of them. Further, history tells us that he was close friends with Polycarp, pastor of Smyrna, who was himself ordained into the pastoral office by the apostle John himself. So, the teaching about Sunday worship by Ignatius almost certainly came from the apostles and their disciples, whom Ignatius knew. Furthermore, note that Ignatius was not pushing for a new day of worship, nor was he defending it. Rather, he was simply explaining why the original Jewish disciples of Jesus switched from keeping the Sabbath to worshipping on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, the day of His resurrection.

The biblical and historical facts are clear: every bit of evidence we have shows that from the apostles themselves throughout the early church up until this very day, the true church met together for worship on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath, Sunday. On this day they commemorated week after week the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore, any teachers or traditions today that seek to establish Sabbath observance or corporate Christian worship on Saturday are not in keeping with the apostolic practice or the most ancient practice of the church, but are, in fact, deviating from the teachings of the apostles.

But what about Emperor Constantine in the fourth century? Didn’t he make Christianity the official Imperial religion, establish the State Church, and change Christian worship to Sunday? No! First, Constantine legalized Christianity (which had previously been outlawed). He did not make it the official state religion (that came later by future emperors). Second, his program of funding the construction of church buildings and the copying of Scripture was to replace the buildings and Bibles that had been destroyed or burned in the last great persecution. Those acts of Constantine were matters of restitution for wrongs inflicted on the church. Third, with regard to Sunday worship, Constantine simply decreed that Christians would be allowed to take Sunday mornings off for worship, making room in the laws for Christians to observe legally what they had already been observing illegally, that is, Sunday morning worship. Constantine did not, in fact, change Saturday to Sunday worship. (This myth, by the way, has been thoroughly debunked by patristic scholars, and I have recently attended meetings of patristic experts who were amazed that anybody would still allege such an indefensible version of history.)

Let’s briefly return to the reasons I’m often given for changing Christian worship to Saturday. 1) “Because the regulation in the Ten Commandments requires the observance of the Sabbath day.” If this were true, then the apostles and their original disciples themselves broke the Sabbath and set a bad precedence. This is unacceptable. 2) “The Sabbath was the day the New Testament believers and the most ancient Christian church assembled for worship.” This is simply not true and there is no evidence that it ever was. Those who maintain this claim are guilty of revisionist history.

Fact: from the days of the apostles themselves Christians have celebrated the resurrection of Jesus on Sunday. So, let’s stop this nonsense about “ancient Saturday worship” and put the Sabbath to rest.

The Church Has Emerged . . . Deal with It!

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Postmodern Christians live with an uncomfortable tension between primitivism (going backward) and progressivism (moving forward). On the one hand, they are progressing, with the postmodern culture, out of the prison-like structures and strictures of modernism and the sometimes scientific approach to dogma that stripped the Christian life of its mystery. On the other hand, postmoderns sometimes see themselves as returning to the unity and diversity of the first century church, when the earliest Christians were joining together to find the right way to express their faith, hammering out Christian doctrine and practice in unique cultural contexts, and learning and teaching theology by doing and living theology. Those must have been exciting times as the church was emerging from the explosive event of the resurrection of Christ toward the rise of the worldwide body of Christ. Indeed, the first century church probably looked a bit more like the emerging church movement than do mainline churches, which probably look more like the churches of the second and third centuries.

But is this a good thing? Do we really want to retreat back to a first century, pre-catholic, pre-canon, pre-creedal Christianity?

No!

The Spirit led the church universal out of that period of infancy. Doctrinal standards were established. Scripture was collected and defined. The church has emerged. Paul wrote:

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11–16)

In Paul’s mind, the church was going to “grow up.” As in life, we learn from our childhood years and sometimes long for the innocence, nurture the naiveté, and wish we could relive some of the memories . . . but we cannot become infants or toddlers again. We must allow the youthful ingenuity and energy to continue to revive and revitalize us, but not to the detriment of maturity and wisdom.

The emerging church is not the only primitivist movement in Christianity. It is simply the latest. Every now and then we have groups of Christians that see themselves as direct heirs of the apostles, who want to plot themselves in the New Testament and stay there. They rewind the reels of history to around AD 100, chop off 1900 years of the Spirit’s recorded work, and try to splice their own strange version of Christianity at the end, hoping nobody will notice the inconsistency. In fact, they often re-interpret the early years of Christianity to support their new ideas.

But God sent the Spirit to lead the church into all truth. The Son did not leave us as orphans. He didn’t just throw us a thick book and tell us to keep struggling with the same conflicts as the Corinthians or to build on the same foundation as Peter and Paul. God has been building the body of Christ by the work of His Spirit for nearly 2000 years. Governed by the normative theology of the Bible, let’s continue to build on what has already been worked out in the history of the church.

And while we’re at it, let’s give up that strange idea of going back to the first century.

The church has emerged . . . deal with it!