Below you will find an excerpt from Tim Keller’s excellent book, The Prodigal God. The emphasis is all mine, which is the specific statement that concerns this post:

“Jesus’ teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of His day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on the people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.“

At first glance, I found this to be a very compelling and convicting statement. Jesus did tend to offend the self-righteous religious people of His day, while in our day these people are seen as valuable tithers. The majority of churches in my community do tend to attract and even seek after white, middle class (again, tithers are seen as vital for church growth), outwardly moralistic people, rather than inner city runaways, drug addicts, and homosexuals.

However, I part ways with Keller at one point: his presuppositions seems to be that the preaching of God’s word in the context of corporate worship is entirely evangelistic, and that the ministry of the church is to create an atmosphere/message that make unbelievers feel comfortable. Furthermore, I’d also disagree with his inference that Jesus’ preaching (which was obviously evangelistic) should be exactly modeled in the corporate gathering of His church.

Instead, the corporate gathering of the church should be to feed and equip God’s people to then go out and evangelize to the ends of the earth, even to the licentious, liberated, and broken. Sure, our preaching in church should offend the outwardly religious, but it should make the licentious squirm as well. God’s people are holy, sanctified, and have gathered with hopeful expectation of being fed with Christ’s gifts. That is not an atmosphere that should make an unbeliever of any sort feel very comfortable.

Thus, I’d like to propose a slight adjustment to Keller’s words: Instead of saying that if we do not attract the outcasts then the ministers are not declaring the same message as Jesus did, I think it would be more accurate to say that if we are not consistently around, friends with, or ministering to the licentious, liberated, broken, and outcasts, then we are not living the same gospel the Jesus preached.

Certainly, the church is not to be a place with high walls and cultural or spiritual pre-qualifications necessary for entry, but neither should it look like the mission work of evangelism. We are to be in the midst of God’s people on His Day, feeding of Christ’s gifts, while the rest of the week we are to instead look outward, to the spiritual needs of others, and seek to be around the wicked (in order to bear witness to the gospel) as much as possible. That’s the ministry of Jesus: going outside the camp to make friends with sinners.

As he goes on to explain, it was John Calvin who insisted that there were two elements that constituted “the whole substance of Christianity“. These two elements are “a knowledge first, of the right way to worship God; and secondly of the source from which salvation is to be sought.”

Robert Godfrey comments that “Remarkably Calvin put worship ahead of salvation in his list of the most important elements of Christianity.” In other words, worship, and a right worship at that, “is not some peripheral matter, but ‘the whole substance’ of the Christian faith.” (P19)

Wow! That caught my attention!

Pertaining to Evangelism

As I contemplated Calvin’s comments and his emphasis on idolatry, it struck me just how ‘Lutheran’ we tend to be in our evangelism and teaching now days. That is, Luther was chiefly concerned with justification by faith alone in distinction to justification by good works or any sort of personal merit. And don’t get me wrong, this is a very good thing, for legalism and self-righteousness are everywhere in the world and church today.

However, it got me wondering whether we’re leaving a very important aspect of Christianity out of our evangelistic messages. Not to say that specific evangelism against legalism doesn’t already exclude any notion of idolatry, but how often do we explicitly mention it? How often do we preach against it? In our churches, where any faithful minister should repeatedly warn against legalism, works-righteousness, and holding onto any supposed personal ‘merit’ in their profession of faith, do we likewise warn people of idolatry and the mortal dangers of holding onto idolatry in their acts of worship?

The Apostle Paul to the Galatians certainly emphasized faith alone and the absolute worthlessness of any human merit in regards to our justification, but what about his presentation on Mars Hill in Acts 17? There we read of a decided emphasis on their idolatry in verses 22-29, with a call to abandon idolatry and worship in truth in verse 29:

“Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.”

Paul was talking with a very religious culture, but a culture which had very distorted worship. He doesn’t start by going to the Law, convincing them of their sin, or warning them about trusting in their own righteousness (though these are very necessary things and were probably emphasized shortly thereafter); he starts with their idolatry, and he calls them on it. It was from this spring of idolatry that he opens up the way of faith and repentance in Christ.

What about in our day?
I fear that, because we (particularly my generation) have grown up around legalism, that all we do is watch out for and speak out against legalism in the world (evangelism), and legalism in the church (warning to those who profess). But there is certainly another aspect to the culture in which we live in. And yes, this includes the church culture. We are surrounded by idolatry, both professing Christians and pagan alike. And we need to rightly combat this thinking with the true worship of God as is revealed in His word.

In other words, just as even a hint of legalism in our faith is enough to damn us, even a hint of idolatry can do the same. Wouldn’t you agree?

Here’s hoping that more and more of us will get familiar with Calvin and the dangers of idolatry that he saw all around.

But I must admit, I believe many churches are taking Sunday School to dangerous and unhealthy levels –to the point where they are detrimental to the spiritual health of the Church. Let me explain:

Because of the explosion of mega-churches in this generation (churches with more than 2000 attendees), there has been a significant push in these mega-churches to get their attendees involved in a small group, Sunday School type of program. The necessity of such small groups is quite obvious: with a church so numerically large, the pastor(s) do not have near enough time to personally teach, counsel, lead, pray with, or correct individual members –especially on a week to week, regular basis. In many cases, even life and death circumstances are not enough to garner a meeting or one-on-one time with the ‘big guy’, the senior pastor of the mega-church.

Thus, because the pastor isn’t ‘accessible’, or because it’s clear that members are not sufficiently ‘growing’ from attending the main worship service (packed with 2000+ other members), the necessity of regular, small group interaction becomes apparent.

And again, this has led to a pronounced and major emphasis on one’s involvement in a small group. In fact, many people believe that spiritual growth cannot happen without being dedicated to a small group –despite the fact that scriptures never set forth such an idea.

Nevertheless, I see a great danger in these small groups, particularly in how they are setup in our day. Let me break them down line by line and we can discuss them further in the comments in you like.

Why I believe the modern idea of Sunday School is often biblically lacking and spiritually dangerous:

• Many times, regular Sunday School involvement in small groups is stressed above the regular preaching of the Word in the context of corporate worship. The scriptures, however, clearly set forth the preaching of the Word by a qualified man to be the means for all necessary spiritual life and growth.
• Many if not the vast majority of Sunday School classes in our day are taught led by someone other than a biblically qualified elder. Don’t misunderstand me: I am *not* arguing that all small groups/bible studies should be led by a qualified elder. Instead, this concern arises when, A) there is not a plurality of elders in the church, B) there is not a sufficient number of biblically qualified elders in the church, or C) the church is too large for the elder(s)/pastor to be personally accessible to all members of the flock. Thus, what you end up with is that the leader of the Sunday School class becomes the preeminent spiritual authority to each person of the class. Since the church is too large, and/or the leadership is too insufficient/inaccessible to personally meet the needs of the congregation, the small group leader becomes the *acting elder* by default, despite not being biblically qualified to do so. Instead of having an elder on-hand to teach, instruct, counsel, guide, correct, admonish, rebuke, pray with, learn from, follow after, and even set forth profitable reading/study material for private use, a small group leader must fill this role by necessity of the fact that there are no elders available to do so.
• On top of the previous point, many times Sunday School teachers are assigned as teachers on a voluntary basis (whoever wants to do it), instead of whether or not they actually have the ability and character to lead, teach, and instruct. This unfortunately leads to false/incorrect teaching, poor examples to follow, and spiritual famine.
• Segregation by gender is often a very good thing for small groups, but segregation by age, particularly with children and teenagers, should cause concern. Children need to be taught, instructed, and corrected by their parents, the authority and guide that God has placed in children’s lives until they reach an age of maturity. This does not mean that the child cannot/should not be taught by someone other than a parent, but it should mean that the parent is always close by when a child is being instructed. Children’s church, and by extension, youth groups, often have charismatic, likable teachers heading them up –teachers that are much more concerned with being cool and connecting with the young person’s culture than they are with dispensing the Word of God. Thus, with age segregation, you again end up with a youth pastor or Children’s church leader becoming the preeminent spiritual ‘authority’ in the young person’s life, rather than an elder and/or parent like God intends. And this is much more dangerous when considering how impressionable children and teenagers are to the people/teaching they are surrounded with.
• On top of the previous point, many times age segregation causes the Sunday School hour to be the preeminent hour in the child’s/teenager’s church experience. How can we expect our children and teenagers to listen to and take serious an hour of expository preaching when the previous (or following) hour was spent hanging out with friends their age, often times playing games and/or laughing at their cool youth pastor? Age segregation and youth groups, by default, undermine the effectiveness of the preaching of God’s word because they will always be much more appealing to our flesh and attention. This is a scary thing indeed when considering that preaching is the preeminent means of spiritual growth in the life of the Christian.
• Sunday School and small groups are often more like 12 step programs that help with emotional healing or fuel personal, inward experiences. Instead, Sunday School should be a time of intense Biblical teaching with the opportunity to tackle objections and ask questions.
• And on top of the previous point, Sunday School, because of its shift to personal experience and healing, has come to supersede the effectiveness of the preaching of God’s word. Thus, many church-goers come to prefer the small group much more than the corporate service –which is the exact opposite of God’s design for the church. Personal and small group study/worship should prepare us for the corporate aspect when all ages/races/genders are gathered; not the other way around.

Those are just a few of my thoughts. I voice them not to shout out at the darkness, but to hopefully point out some things that others may have overlooked.

Regardless, the entire corporate church experience (every aspect of it), biblically speaking, should strive to:

• Exalt the preaching of the Word in the context of corporate worship as the chief means of grace.
• Exalt the authority of the biblically qualified elders (1 Tim 3, Titus 1) and the heads of homes (fathers) above any and all other authorities in the life of the believer. This is not to say that the elders or fathers hold absolute authority, for their authority certainly stops with scripture. But it is to say that God has specifically ordained and gifted these men to be the preeminent instructors, teachers, and spiritual authorities in the lives of His people.
• Exalt the corporate gathering of God’s people as the preeminent picture of heavenly, God-pleasing worship, and the chief environment in which we grow and please our God.

What undermines these things, my friends, should cause some serious re-evaluation. I firmly believe that it is much better to have no Sunday School at all rather than to compromise and setup a system that deflects the realities of the three points above.

I’m concerned at the direction that Sunday School has taken in our culture, just as I am likewise concerned with the direction the corporate aspect has taken as well. But with Sunday School, I find that the errors are more often overlooked and ignored because there just doesn’t seem to be a lot of biblical instruction in regards to the meeting of small groups. Hopefully, by God’s grace, we’ll keep our eyes open to some of these dangerous trends, striving to protect Christ’s church where He has set forth boundaries, while we continually examine our practices with the scriptures so as to be found well pleasing in God’s eyes

Being faithful to the Word of God and to Christ’s church not only entails a sound doctrinal statement, but it also necessitates a manner, attitude, and method of how that doctrinal statement is proclaimed (and ultimately practiced).

John MacArthur says it very succinctly below:

“The contemporary user-friendly movement…rather than arousing fear of God, attempts to portray Him as fun, jovial, easygoing, lenient, and even permissive. Haughty sinners who ought to approach God in terror are emboldened to presumed upon His grace. Sinners hear nothing of divine wrath. This is as wrong as preaching a rank heresy.” – Ashamed of the Gospel, P63

I ask a few relevant questions here: will our teens take the gospel seriously when their isolated from the rest of the body or taken to the beach on a ‘gospel retreat’? Will our kids take the gospel seriously when it’s chiefly communicated to them through Veggie Tales and coloring books?

Will our adults take the gospel seriously when our leaders live just as materialistically as other successful businessmen? Or when the music and means of the ‘worship’ service are geared specifically to meet their felt needs? What about when our leaders stand up and tell jokes and give practical tips for living? When the church is setup like the stage of the theater rather than a place avoiding anything to take the mind of the worshiper from doing just that, worshiping?

How are men going to lay their life on the line for the gospel when the message is communicated to them in such casual, culturally-saturated methods?

Oh how I agree with Arnold Dallimore, in that we need:

“Men mighty in the scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace…Men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labour and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness ’signs and wonders following’ in the transformation of multitudes of human lives.” – Arnold Dallimore, Whitfield, V1, P16

I am under the firm persuasion that the miraculous gifts we read of in the book of Acts and 1 Corinthians are *not* normative for the church today, and that these gifts slowly ceased/died out with the completion of the canon of scripture.

There are many reasons why I am convinced that my ‘cessationist’ position is both biblical as well as consistent with experience, some of which I have written about on this blog before.

But there is one chief reason why I am a cessationist; there is one argument for the cessationist position that I consider to be insurmountable: the sovereignty of God.

Though the popular church has largely lost this doctrine in our day, God is absolutely sovereign over the affairs of men. Particularly, He is sovereign in dispensing His saving grace, and in regenerating, justifying, and sanctifying His chosen race. Within the Reformed tradition, which I myself align with, the sovereignty of God is never questioned –as scripture seems to be very clear and explicit in this area. But what baffles me is how some Calvinistic brethren (Wayne Grudem, for example) completely toss out this issue of sovereignty when it comes to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

If the miraculous gifts were still being granted by the Holy Spirit, then we would not only see them active down through church history (which they weren’t), but we’d see them active in our churches today –and this *despite* the unwillingness of some to admit the gifts continue.

Let me illustrate by giving an example:

John MacArthur pastors a very large church. The gospel is clearly and consistently preached there as it has been for 40 years now. The church is full of thousands of real, solid, Christ-centered Christians who would never grieve the Holy Spirit willingly.

And yet, the gifts of tongues/prophecy/healings are absent from that assembly, as they have been for 40years (and more). Why, in a body of believers that large, would gifts critical to the building up of the church be completely absent?

Of course, non-cessationists will point to the fact that MacArthur is and always has been a firm cessationist, and thus the Spirit doesn’t move when He is ‘quenched’ by unbelief. But I fail to see from scripture where the sin, will, or unbelief of man has ever stopped the sovereignty of God from fulfilling His purposes. And since these gifts are absent from MacArthur’s church and thousands of bible-believing churches like them, we must come to one of two conclusions:

-The church is full of unbelievers devoid of the Spirit.
-The Holy Spirit is not sovereign over the sin/intellect/will of man.

I reject both of these premises, thus I am a cessationist. The Holy Spirit is not hindered from fulfilling His purposes. He is sovereign, man is not. He bestows gifts as He wills; man does not ‘decide’ whether he likes his gift, approves of the practice, or is open to the idea.

Consider this text as I conclude my point:

1 Sam 19:19-24: “Now David fled and escaped, and he came to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and lived at Naioth. And it was told Saul, “Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah.” Then Saul sent messengers to take David, and when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as head over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied. Then he himself went to Ramah and came to the great well that is in Secu. And he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” And one said, “Behold, they are at Naioth in Ramah.” And he went there to Naioth in Ramah. And the Spirit of God came upon him also, and as he went he prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. And he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night. Thus it is said, “Is Saul also among the prophets?””

Here we have Saul, breathing threats and murders on his way to kill the Lord’s servant David, and he and all his messengers are overcome by the Holy Spirit when attempting to follow through with their evil deeds.

The the will/desires/inclinations/sin of man is no match for the sovereignty of God, chiefly, the sovereignty of God the Holy Spirit. If miraculous gifts were still active in the church today, God would be dispensing them broadly and equally throughout the church –despite the doctrinal persuasions or refusal of man to accept them.

That’s why I’m a cessationist.

I was not converted until the age of 21, but I had grow up all my life in several Baptist churches, one of them a very prominent SBC mega-church I attended 10 years. During these years I walked the aisle, I was baptized at 6, I made purity pledges, went to summer camps, served in various capacities, sang in the choir (oh yes!), faithfully tithed, even re-dedicated my life when I strayed into gross sin. But I was lost the whole time. I was a false convert.

When I was brought to Christ by a Calvinist minister of a tiny church, I began to study scripture in depth and began discovering things I had never heard before. And I still remember the shock I had when I came across Matthew chapter 18 in light of what I had just come out of.

So I became a little bitter. A little angry. Of course God is sovereign over providence and my conversion, but I was furious as to why my gross and at times blatant sin was never challenged in the 15 years I attended church as a professing believer. Maybe, just maybe, if I’d been kicked out of the church years earlier, I might have repented long ago. It took years before the bitterness and anger wore off, but needless to say I still consider church discipline to be one of the most important doctrines of a true church.

On this doctrine I found The Marrow of Theology to speak with wonderful clarity:

“Discipline is usually associated by the best theologians with the word and sacraments in the marks of the church.”

“This discipline is ordained and prescribed by Christ Himself, Matt 16:19; 18:15-17. It is, therefore, plainly of divine right and may not be taken away, diminished, or changed by men at their pleasure.”

“Indeed, he sins against Christ, the author and ordainer, who does not do all he can to establish and promote this discipline in the churches of God.”

“The true reason why the discipline of Christ is solidly constituted and exercised with doctrine in so few churches is because most of those who would seem to know Christ and to hope in Him refuse to receive the whole kingship of Christ and yield themselves completely to Him.”

“As discipline is part of the kingship of Christ, so it is also part of the gospel. For it is the holy manner of promoting the gospel ordained by the gospel itself. Therefore, those who reject discipline accept neither the whole kingship of Christ nor the whole gospel.“

Means of Grace: instruments that God uses to convert and bless people, like the reading and preaching of the word, prayer, singing (psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; Acts 16:25; Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16)…baptism, and the Lord’s supper.

During a discussion on the ‘means of grace’, a man once told me that the only true ‘means of grace’ was faith. That is, according to his view, with faith he could worship God mowing his grass to the same (or more) profit to this soul as participating in corporate worship, and without faith he could do nothing pleasing to God or worthy of drawing God to be pleased with him.

Now on one hand this is an excellent point. Faith is of course absolutely necessary for any worship, grace, or even good deed in the site of God. Without faith, we can participate in any and all ‘means’ of grace and only heap condemnation and divine judgment upon our heads.

However, I do not believe we have the liberty to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and I do not believe that this position can be sustained biblically. Faith is necessary for any ‘means’ to truly be instruments of grace, but there are very specific things that are given by God to convey His goodness to our hearts.

Consider for example, Matthew chapter 18. In the context of talking about ‘the church’, V17, Jesus says,

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Now, this passage has for some time been ripped out of its context and made to mean all sorts of mystical things in modern evangelicalism, but the clear implication of Christ’s words is that there is a special presence of Christ when the church is gathered, specifically in His agreement with the decisions of the elders He has raised up.

This presence/agreement of Christ cannot be said to take place when we’re alone, or when just any two or three believers are gathered. He is giving special significance to the gathering of the local church.

Secondly, consider Paul’s words in 1 Cor 11 when he rebukes the Corinthians for abusing the Lord’s Table:

“...in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse…When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?”

Notice a few things: the coming together was a corporate context of celebrating the Lord’s Table, and Paul implies that their behavior, though shameful in this context, would be permissible (or at least more permissible) in their own ‘houses’. But their conduct was certainly not at all permissible in ‘the church of God’.

Notice also a few verses later, Paul concludes by saying:

“For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

Does God’s word ever threaten and/or indicate judgment upon the one who profaned His name by not ‘discerning the body’ while mowing his grass? Doesn’t common sense (and a proper interpretation of this chapter) teach us that the Lord’s Table is a more important, holy, and indeed, means of grace to us than just normal everyday duties?

So the conclusion of this matter is this:

Just as faith comes by hearing God’s word preached, according to Romans 10:17, God has chosen specific instruments to channel grace/faith/edification/sanctification to His people. These ‘means’ of grace are not just anything; there is a special presence of Christ in them when His people gather in His name. This calls for our great attention, sincerity, care, and reverence, as we like Moses walk here on holy ground. Paul all throughout 1 Cor 11-14 teaches/corrects the Corinthians on ‘proper conduct’ in the household of God (corporate gathering), and we too, less we displease God and bring His divine judgment upon us, had better regulate our corporate worship by the instructions/traditions given to us in Holy Scripture.

From my 20+ years in Baptist churches, I can always remember special services (usually on a Sunday night, or a revival/evangelistic service) when the preacher would invite people to come down to the ‘altar’ to pray. There, at the foot of the pulpit, in front of the whole church, people would get on their knees and pray, cry, lift their hands up, etc. Not to mention that the ‘altar’ was where the ‘decisions’ for Christ took place, and people were always invited down ‘to the altar’ to make these decisions.

From my understanding, the ‘altar’ has been brought over from Roman Catholicism, and that it was introduced into protestantism through the Pelagian heretic Charles Finney and the Revivalists of the 19th century (this along with other fanatical and manipulative techniques aimed at heightening emotion and inducing ‘decisions’ for Christ.)

Thus, I wonder if evangelical churches now days ever consider the ramifications of calling some special place an ‘altar’. The Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs had some thoughts on it, so I read:

“In God’s worship, there must be nothing tendered up to God but what He has commanded…

“…all things in God’s worship must have a warrant out of God’s word. It must be commanded; it is not enough that it is not forbidden…

“if I account one place more holy than another, or think that God should accept worship in one place rather than another…if I do not have Scripture to warrant me, I am therein superstitious…it is a superstition.” – P11, Gospel Worship

What are your thoughts? Is it just a term of convenience, or is there a special significance given to the ‘altar’ thus making it a humanistic (and Roman Catholic) superstition, as well as an unbiblical element of public worship?

Summary: A largely academic approach in examining the history of Puritan worship, but very thorough and informative on several critical issues surrounding worship and the Word of God. This is a much needed work in our day.

On the back cover of this book is written:

“There has, arguably, been no more pure worship since the days of the Apostles than that of the English Puritans of the 17th century. It was Christ-centered, Scripture-based, and reverential. God was the focus of all the elements of worship. He was the focus of the preaching, the praying, and the praises. This book explains the crux of Reformed worship.”

Indeed, in The Worship of the English Puritans, the foundational elements of Puritan worship –included how it was first formed and then defended– are explained in great detail, and Horton Davies gives a detailed, historical analysis of the disagreements and debates between the Puritans and the Church of England.

The first thing that struck me about this work was how academic it was. On the surface, the author doesn’t seem to have much of an agenda. And throughout the work, it is more of a recounting of history –plentiful in quotes and sources– than it is an examining of the Puritan’s claims in light of scripture. Nevertheless, it was a book that I simply couldn’t put down.

Regulative Principle of Worship
The importance of the book clearly lies in how the Puritans go back and forth with the Church of England, the Episcopalians, the Roman Catholic Church, and the separatists on the issues of public worship. Here we see the very beginnings of the Regulative Principle of Worship, where God’s word is our sole guide in determining what is and is not necessary and acceptable in the public worship of the church.

On Page 64 the author candidly says:

“…the authentic puritan note: If God does not ordain these things in His worship, how can they either please Him, or be edifying to His people?”

Ultimately, this sola scriptura logic is used by the Puritans from beginning to end. For this book discusses in detail the debates in the church over Liturgy, specifically the orders and sets of worship, such as the Book of Common Prayer, set forms of prayer versus extemporary prayer, song and praise in worship, the preaching, the sacraments, as well as ordinations, services of marriage, funerals, and church discipline.

Furthermore, I found it refreshing that the author recognized how the issue of the total depravity of man’s will played such a significant role in these debates. Clearly, he understood that the Puritans, working off of Calvin’s doctrine of sin and its effect on man, stood against the Anglicans at this very foundational level. Given this, it almost seemed impossible that they would agree on anything. Thus, it was clear that the inability of man to scheme, to invent forms of worship himself, and indeed, to decide what was appropriate for worship, that played a pivotal role in the debate just below the surface.

Regarding the Puritan’s stance:

“If they stood for the pure word of God, they stood out against all impurities which, by hypothesis, were the admixture of human traditions in doctrine and discipline. Their platform was based upon two tenets inherited from John Calvin…his doctrine of scripture…his reaffirmation of the doctrine of original sin in its most sombre colours.” (P49)

Elaborate Show in Worship/Reverence
Just a quick note here, for this subject is barely dealt with in this work, but the Puritans “objected only to elaborate church music which did not edify the congregations…” (P271).

Furthermore, regarding elaborate shows in worship, art, elaborate choirs and musical arrangements, I found this quote fitting in light of the casual, indifferent attitude that is prevalent today:

“To call on the name of God, to claim the presence of the Son of God, if men truly know and mean what they are doing, is in itself an act so tremendous and so full of comfort that any sensuous or artistic heightening of the effect is not so much painting of the lily as varnishing of sunlight.” (P270), B.L. Manning

Needed in our day
Without a doubt, we live in an age where the public worship of God is largely seen as an indifferent thing, an entertainment, or a means primarily aimed at healing our own emotional wounds. Not only have we lost the order, reverence, and devotion that the Puritans found fought so hard for, but we’ve lost the grasp on scripture that teaches us that Christ is the Head of the Church, and that God’s word is the sole guide to how we worship Him.

Consider,

“…that God’s worship hath no accidentals, that all that is in it and belonging to it, and the manner of it, is false worship, and if it have not a divine institution in particular; that all liturgies, as such, are such false worship…used to defeat Christ’s promise of gifts and God’s spirit.” (John Owen, quoted on P113)

And,

“The end wherefore God granted his word unto the church was, that thereby it might be instructed in his mind and will as to what concerns the worship and obedience that he requireth of us, and which is accepted with Him. This is the whole scripture itself everywhere declares and speaks out until all that do receive it; as 2 Tim 3:15-17;…it supposeth, it declareth, that of ourselves we are ignorant how God is, how he might be worshiped, Isa 8:20. Moreover, it manifests him to be a ‘jealous God’, exercising that holy property of his nature in an especical manner about his worship, rejecting and despising every thing that is not according to his will, that is not of his institution, Exod 20:4-6.” (John Owen, quoted on P257)

Are not reminders like these sorely needed in our churches today? Don’t we likewise need a resurgence, by God’s grace, of the firm old doctrines of Sola Scriptura, Total Depravity, and the Regulative Principle of Worship?

Conclusion:
I must also say, however, that with all that I agreed with in reading this book, I found myself challenged at times by the presentations of the Anglicans/Church of England in opposition to the Puritan’s Regulative Principle. This book certainly made me stop and think on just why it is that I believe what I believe about the instructions God has given us in the area of public worship. But what an edifying look back that this turned out to be. How refreshing it is to see God’s truth shine as pure gold through all the disagreements and debates that sometimes cloud our understanding.

This book was not exactly what I expected. It isn’t devotional or warm; rather, I found it very academic and didactic. But given the importance of the issues at stake, then as much as now, I mark this work down as a vital contribution to the reformation of today’s churches. We MUST know where Protestantism came from, and how we got to where we are today. We not only need a recovery of the precious truths the Puritans fought for, but we need bold men like them as well. Men confident in the scriptures, bold to declare what God’s word says, and not swayed by public opinion or political pressure when it comes to the truth of God’s word.

I give this book 4 stars out of 5.

As I have said before, I highly recommend Christless Christianity to you, as I consider it to be one of the most important books written in the last few years.

Today’s topic: Two Different Types of Churches: Which Do You Attend?

“Imagine two scenarios of church life. In the first, God gathers His people together in a covenantal event to judge and to justify, to kill and to make alive. The emphasis is on God’s work for us –the Father’s gracious plan, the Son’s saving life, death, and resurrection, and the Spirit’s work of bringing life to the valley of dry bones through the proclamation of Christ. The preaching focuses on God’s work in the history of redemption from Genesis through Revelation, and sinners are swept into this unfolding drama. Trained and ordained to mine the riches of Scripture for the benefit of God’s people, ministers try to push their own agendas, opinions, and personalities to the background so that God’s Word will be clearly proclaimed. In this preaching, the people…are simply receivers –recipients of grace… Having been served by God in the public assembly, the people are then servants of each other and their neighbors in the world. Pursuing their callings in the world with vigor and dedication, they win the respect of outsiders. Because they have been served well themselves…they are able to share the Good News of Christ in well-informed, natural ways. And because they have been relieved of numerous burdens to spend all of their energy on church-related ministries throughout the week, they have more time to serve their families, neighbors, and coworkers in the world.”

This church certainly sounds like a dream, huh? I’m not so sure a local assembly could ever be this perfect, so to speak. But what struck me about this section was his description of the second scenario.

“In the second scenario, the church is its own subculture, and alternative community not only for weekly dying and rising in Christ but for one’s entire circle of friends, electricians, and neighbors. In this scenario, the people assume that they come to church primarily to do something. The emphasis is on their work for God. The preaching concentrates on principles and steps to live a better life, with a constant stream of exhortations: Be more committed. Read your bible more. Pray more. Witness more. Give more. Get involved in this cause or that movement to save the world. Their calling by God to secular vocations is made secondary to finding their ministry in the church. Often malnourished because of a ministry defined by personal charisma and motivational skills rather than by knowledge and godliness, these same sheep are expected to be shepherds themselves. Always serving, they are rarely served. Ill-informed about the grand narrative of God’s work in redemptive history, they do not really know what to say to a non-Christian except to talk about their own experiences and perhaps repeat some slogans or formulas that they might be hard-pressed to explain. Furthermore, because they are expected to be so heavily involved in church-related activities (often considered more important even than the public services on Sunday), they do not have the time, energy, or opportunity to develop significant relationships outside the church.”

(All emphasis mine)

I think it is safe to say that just as there probably isn’t a perfect church that matches all the traits Horton gives in the first scenario, their likewise isn’t a good bit of churches that match all of the traits given in the second scenario. However, I think we would be mistaken if we didn’t recognize that the vast majority of churches in this day align with the characteristics of the second, as opposed to the rarity of churches now days looking like the first. This is particularly true of ‘mega-churches’ in our day.

What do you think? Do the traits described in the first scenario align with scripture? Are the negative traits given in the second scenario really that bad?