Finding Our Story

Welcome to fall! How nice it is to put summer heat behind us and to enjoy cooler temperatures and brilliant colors! As this new season begins, we are back with a new edition of the Worldview Church eReport. In this segment of our eReport, we have several features that we hope you enjoy. Our faithful contributor T. M. Moore continues his reflections on wisdom in his Issachareans column. This time he offers some helpful thoughts about how God’s wisdom can be found in creation, if and only if we apply several disciplines to discover what God has deposited for our delight in this very good world he has made. What T. M. has written here reminds me of things I constantly urge upon my students in their quest for a well-rounded liberal arts education.

T. M. also provides a helpful review of Alister McGrath’s newest book on the eclipse of atheism worldwide—The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World (New York: Doubleday, 2004). McGrath shows how interest in faith is growing, especially in third world settings, and how atheism is losing steam in the presence of a virtually universal interest in spirituality. Pastors and church leaders need to be aware of these important trends and to capitalize on the openness to spiritual things that this book documents so clearly.

In this edition of the eReport, I also continue my study of a Christian worldview as we take a look at what Jesus and Paul have to say about the fallen human condition and its effects on the universe. Here we slip from our last study on the spread and escalation of sin in Genesis 4-11 to the New Testament, to get as complete a picture as possible on humanity’s desperate, fallen condition. This study highlights our need for a Savior who deals with our sin problem and its comprehensive effects.

I also include the first part to a talk that I gave on September 20, 2004, to a group of about 250 church leaders in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on the importance of incorporating a Christian worldview in the ministry of the local church. It is titled, “How the Church Lost Her Story and What She Can Do To Get It Back.” In this talk, I mention how para-church ministries are pretty efficient these days in worldview thinking and implementation, but local churches themselves have a long way to go in this area. I hope you find it challenging and helpful.

Every blessing in Christ,
David Naugle

David Naugle is professor of Philosophy at Dallas Baptist University where he has served for 14 years. In addition to teaching and working with students, he maintains an active schedule of writing and speaking.

What is an Evangelical?

A review of One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus, by J. I. Packer and Thomas C. Oden, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004).

In this sturdy volume, J.I. Packer and Thomas Oden, two of the deans of evangelical theology, provide a stiff antidote to those who declare the dissolution and end of evangelicalism. The evangelical faith has drifted into something of an identity crisis, catalyzed by the emergence of a postmodern consensus and our reluctant awareness of the marginalized state of the Church in American society. This, it seems to me, is undeniable. The room is shifting shape before our very eyes, causing our heads to swim and our eyes to go out of focus. But though our identity may be disrupted, it is hardly dissolved. Packer and Oden show that a lively and broad-based evangelical consensus exists throughout the world, and that it is strong and growing stronger, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

One Faith amounts to an evangelical credo. Drawing from a wide range of evangelical documents, statements, and professions of faith, from a variety of settings and sources, this book is a kind of enchiridion of evangelical beliefs. Following a classic Trinitarian arrangement, Packer and Oden have constructed a kind of systematic theology or catechesis of evangelicalism, drawing on sections of such evangelical position papers as The Lausanne Covenant (1974), The Gospel of Jesus Christ (1999), and The Amsterdam Declaration (2000 – these three documents are reproduced in full in three appendices). Altogether the editors employed sections of some 70 separate documents to prepare their “consensus” of evangelical beliefs. They have succeeded in preparing a statement of faith that is heavy and emphatic on such essential evangelical convictions as the nature and authority of Scripture, the centrality of Christ and conversion, the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of faith, the mission of the Church (both in evangelism and social justice), and the age to come. Every pastor and lay teacher, of whatever conviction, should own a copy of this excellent work.

The editors provide a helpful introduction explaining the importance of their work and defining what they mean by an “evangelical consensus”, together with a summary of the text elaborating ten facets of that consensus. The text proceeds like a Reformation confession, doctrinal head by doctrinal head, from prolegomenon to eschatology. The body of the material is conveniently divided into sub-headings and the text provided by excerpts from the above-mentioned evangelical documents. While neither a complete summary of the system of doctrine nor a full treatment of the life of faith, One Faith provides a compelling case for an evangelical consensus among world Christians, a consensus that is simply waiting to reify itself. This is a book for pastors to study, teach, and use as a touchstone for their preaching as they lead their churches to take a more self-conscious place in the evangelical consensus struggling to emerge.

T. M. Moore is a Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum. He serves as Pastor of Teaching Ministries and Director of the Center for Christian Studies at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tenn. He is the editor of the series, Jonathan Edwards for Today’s Reader (P & R), the latest volume of which is Praying Together for True Revival. His book, Consider the Lilies: A Plea for Creational Theology, will be released in May, 2005, by P & R. Audio messages and lectures by T. M. can be secured from WordMp.3.com. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in Concord, Tenn.  He can be reached at nacurragh@aol.com. All Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version (Crossway).

How the Church Lost Her Story, Part 2

When I speak of a worldview driven church, I am not speaking in theoretical or academic terms. I am not suggesting that as a cure-all the church today ought to embrace a set of abstract doctrines about God or philosophical beliefs about reality in some kind of arid, cognitive manner. Far from it.

Instead, I refer to the establishment of the church’s life and ministry on the basis of a clear and substantial vision centered in the human heart that is derived from the complete canon of Scripture and grounded in the Trinitarian God and His comprehensive works of creation, fall, and redemption. These great works of God carry with them all their attendant, holistic implications and are centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ and His gospel as the beginning, middle, and end of all things. This gospel of God in Christ is promoted throughout the world in all its power and glory by the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit. Churches, I propose, ought to be driven, that is, informed and guided by the coherent theology of the total biblical metanarrative with its cosmic scope and matching emphasis on the totality of life under the authority and blessing of the triune God. In short, I am striving for a way to emphasize the wholeness of genuine biblical religion in order to recover what has at least, in part, been known classically as the “catholicity” of Christian church.

So far, this proposal consists of three essential papers, soon to be a book, Lord willing. The first paper consists of a charitable yet firm critique of Rick Warren’s wildly popular purpose driven church and purpose driven life books. I am grateful for Warren’s talents and influence in multiple ways. I also recognize that we are all subject to deficiencies in our thinking and systems. Otherwise, God couldn’t use any of us. At the same time, it seems to me that Warren’s two volumes come up short hermeneutically and theologically, and in many ways foster the three problems of bits and pieces, the breakdown between the testaments, and the dualism itemized earlier.

As an alternative, I propose a worldview driven church in which I reflect on its theological foundations (part two) and ministerial functions (part three) in the context of a holistic biblical vision framed by creation and new creation and illuminated by historic Christian perspectives on God, humanity, and the world. In this modest attempt to revitalize evangelical ecclesiology, I capitalize on a theology of the imagination, concurring in many ways with Walter Brueggemann who argues that “People are not changed by moral exhortation, but by transformed imagination.” Beyond the uninspiring cliché that Christianity and the gospel consist of going to heaven when you die and taking as many people there with you as you can (do we really think the Roman empire put Christians to death just because they preached a message like this?), I suggest that what we need is an expanded perception. God’s grandeur and His larger creative and redemptive purposes for the world and His people must captivate our imaginations and our hearts. After all, life proceeds “kardioptically,” out of a vision of our hearts. A fresh grasp of these grand theological and cosmic realities will purge our spiritual vision of the “film of familiarity” and provide new ways of living.

THEOLOGICAL CONCERNS
Theologically, and first of all, my proposal begins with an attempt to recover the Church’s central purpose as the glory, worship, and love of God in order to insure that the means of the ministry are not substituted for the Church’s final end. Joining the praises of creation already in progress, the Church offers praise and commitment to God as its chief reason for its existence.

Second, I summarize the whole story of the Church as creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, making sure that we understand the Church’s theological identity and role in the world in the context of the whole counsel of God. Grasping the nature of God’s enduring purposes in creation, their corruption due to sin, and their progressive restoration through a covenantally-structured redemptive history promised to Israel in the Old Testament and fulfilled and consummated by Christ for the church in the New Testament is the absolute prerequisite. The whole counsel of God from creation to consummation, in other words, must provide the framework for any sound ecclesiology.

Third, I present the person and work of Jesus as the Cosmic Christ in an effort to counter act the effects of reduced, pietistic interpretations of Christology. Without sacrificing the importance of our personal bond with the Savior and the meaning of our pilgrimage in life with Him, a more complete perspective will showcase His cosmic identity and roles as the Creator and Redeemer of all things. After all, God's method for dealing with the whole creation, with all the nations, with Israel, and with the church are focused in Him.

Fourth, I highlight the centrality of the kingdom/reign of God and its redemptive significance both present and future for the whole of life, to offset the confusion and neglect surrounding this crucial theme. The New Testament affirms that through the words and works of Jesus, the kingdom of  God broke into history and is now present, arriving in a mysterious way as a serving and suffering Lamb of God. This same kingdom, which by the Spirit is presently affecting the salvation and sanctification of those who believe, will be manifested in its fullness when Christ returns. This kind of royal theology implies that real, historical life is to be redeemed now as it is lived out by the people of God, resulting personal salvation and cultural transformation.

Fifth, I make the case that the people are not simply souls temporarily inhabiting bodies, but that people are whole persons as God’s image and likeness. To be such constitutes their genuine humanity and is the source of their dignity and worth. This unifying perspective of the total human person as the imago Dei is confirmed by the incarnation of Jesus Christ who was fully human as well as fully God. It is also affirmed by His subsequent resurrection from the dead in whose train all believers follow as they too are being restored to their complete humanity in Him.

Sixth, I argue that the Church is the new Israel in substantial continuity with the people of God in the Old Testament from Adam to Abraham to David to Jesus. The election of Abraham in Genesis 12 began the process of forming the covenant people of God, and whose own call was the divine response to the advent, spread, and escalation of sin in the world (Genesis 3-11). From Abraham’s race came the Christ who is also the new Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45; Romans 5:12-21) and who has fulfilled the OT redemptive promise, restored fellowship with God, and renewed His purposes for the world in the body of Christ. The church as the worshipping community based on the ministries of the Word and sacrament is best identified as the people of God standing in continuity with the Old Testament covenant community of Israel.

Finally in this theological category, I describe the eschatological character of the Church in redemptive history, demonstrating that present kingdom redemption will culminate in the new, redeemed heavens and earth where God will abide with His saints forever. The presence of the God’s rule, the order of the resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the fact of justification, the reality of glorification are all presented in the New Testament as eschatological magnitudes that have leapt from the future into the present. Within this eschatological framework and identity, the church enjoys her life in Christ and carries out her ministry in the present as the “already but not yet” people of God.

MINISTRY ENCOURAGEMENTS
Ministerially, I begin with the area of worship, calling for a reconsideration of the historic liturgies of the Church, and recommending the incorporation of such classic traditions such as the Christian calendar into evangelical congregations with biblical fidelity as an ancient and yet fresh way of worshipping God and edifying believers.

Second, I encourage preachers and teachers in the Church to recover the Christ-centered character of Scripture and the theological framework provided by creation, fall and redemption as the guiding hermeneutical principles for proclaiming God’s Word.

Third, I emphasize the importance of cultivating authentic Christian community as a central biblical mandate and solution to the contemporary problem of radical individualism.

Fourth, I recommend the vision of Christian humanism as the goal of spiritual formation and Christian discipleship, thwarting unbiblical interpretations of the Christian life that tend toward dehumanization.

Fifth, I urge congregations to promote the classic doctrine of giftedness and calling as the basis for service inside and outside the Church, valuing the roles and vocations of all believers who are making a difference where they worship and work.

Finally, as the outgrowth of the preceding theological and ministerial components, I advocate a view of evangelism and mission that emphasizes the whole gospel for the whole person for the whole world in the whole of life.

Just imagine, then, a plethora of evangelical churches informed and guided by these thirteen total theological and ministerial components as an expression of a complete, worldview, grounded in the Scriptures, from creation to new creation with all of its attendant ecclesiastical, cultural, and practical implications. This just may be enough to transform some bad news into good news in more and more local evangelical congregations.

RECOMMENDATIONS
I have some recommendations for my recommendation for a worldview driven church that I would like to present before I conclude. First, I recommend a prudent use of the word “worldview” in a church context. Its academic tone may be a turn off to some. Its overuse may cause other congregants to grow weary of it. I would advise compiling a good list of synonyms to use in its place (e.g., outlook, vision, perspective, frame of reference, vantage point, etc.). Today the terms “story,” “narrative,” or even “meta-narrative” are the most popular, and I use them frequently.

Many alternate terms may have an immediate appeal and they certainly fit well with Scripture a large percentage of which is obviously of the narrative genre (even though none of them is found in the Bible per se). Such terminology is quite useful as long as it is cleansed of any fictive nuance or postmodern skepticism. Still, the word worldview has philosophic strength (perhaps more so than “story” or “narrative”), and is capable of conveying rigorously the distinctive perspective of biblical religion on reality.

Second, I recommend that church leaders beware of intellectual approaches to worldview promotion in their congregations. It is rather easy for the concept itself to be construed in a dry, academic manner. However, if my own biblically based definition of the concept as a vision of the heart is legitimate, then worldview is not just a mental matter, but a fusion of mind, affection, will and spirituality residing at the center of the person. It is a deeply existential notion, one that is integral to our human identity as the image and likeness of God. There is no excuse, therefore, for a dry, scholastic approach to investigating worldviews in general or a Christian worldview in particular. They are the stuff of real life, governing the destinies of men, women and nations.

Third, I recommend that a Christian worldview be Trinitarian in character with a Christ-centered focus. People sometimes get side-tracked regarding the final goal of their actions. What counts in shaping a Christian worldview is not just the worldview itself, but God at the center of it. The two of course go together. It is easy, however, to embrace system building or cultural transformation as the chief end. It is not. The chief end is loving God, promoting His glory in everything, and finding joy and fulfillment in Him. At the end of the day, therefore, developing a Christian worldview in our churches is simply an important means to authentic spirituality and genuine holiness as these affect everything. The final goal, in other words, is true saintliness.

If there is anything that the devil and his minions don’t want, it is for our churches to recover their true story, to recover a holistic, comprehensive world and life view as the basis and framework of the churches’ ministries. What kind of demonic strategy might be in use to thwart such a vision?

To this end, in imitation of the inimitable C. S. Lewis, I have written a new Screwtape letter that I think may put the matter in perspective. Here we have Screwtape as the veteran demonic tempter admonishing his pupil Wormwood on how to make sure his pastor patient is kept in the dark regarding the relevance of a biblical worldview for local church ministry. I have put it in the context of this seminar here at GRTS and specifically with each of you and your roles as church leaders in mind.

Click here to read Part 1 of this sermon.

David Naugle is professor of Philosophy at Dallas Baptist University where he has served for 14 years. In addition to teaching and working with students, he maintains an active schedule of writing and speaking.

Facets of Ministry in a Fragmenting Consensus

Changing times can bring confusion and uncertainty. In the Western world today we find ourselves on the cusp of a cultural shift of tectonic proportions. The old modernist paradigm, with its emphasis on reason, objectivity, and a meta-narrative of progress, is being overturned by a postmodern perspective claiming feeling, individual stories, and pervasive doubt as its rallying cry. The two worldviews are competing for the prize – dominance in the moral and social consensus – with the postmoderns presently a length in the lead, and the moderns fading fast. The finish, however, is still a way off.

Meanwhile the Christian community is trying to field a horse in the race as well, and is marshalling resources to assert its own worldview claims. But trying to make ourselves heard above the din of secular media, culture, and education is a daunting task. In the process, questions have arisen concerning the role of church leaders in the evangelicalism of the twenty-first century. How should pastors and lay leaders approach the work of building the Church in this new age that is struggling to be born? What kind of leaders do we need so that we can compete in the conflict of worldviews?

Some have put forward a model of a post-evangelical, emerging church, in which the pastor serves largely as a kind of congregational facilitator, helping people to connect with their story and with one another in a community of seekers and pilgrims. Others insist that the way forward is through the past, in an ancient/future church where the pastor serves above all as liturgist and prophet, leading the people of God to anchor in the safe harbor of unchanging truth aboard the sturdy vessel of traditional worship.

Undoubtedly both these views on the Church and her leadership have something valuable to contribute to defining the shape of the ministry in a postmodern world. But each must filter its paradigm through the grid of Biblical truth. For in the end, only a ministry shaped by the clear teaching of God’s Word can expect to enjoy the blessings of His favor.

Jesus Himself is our model for leadership in the congregations of the Lord’s people. Whatever shape the paradigm of church leadership takes in the days to come, it must hew very closely to the pattern established in Christ. But what is that pattern?

THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS
This is not the place for a thorough examination of Jesus’ ministry as a model for our own. Instead, I want to look briefly at the summary of His ministry that Jesus presented in His great High Priest prayer in John 17. Here we find the Lord rehearsing before the Father those aspects of His ministry by which He commended Himself to God. We may observe six facets of Jesus’ ministry which He chose to highlight here.

First, Jesus declared that He sought the glory of God only in all He did (vv.1,4). Jesus bore witness to the true nature of God, His covenant, and the workings of His grace. He sought to clear up the confusion about God and His ways that had settled on the people during several centuries of legalistic, works-righteousness teaching. He invited them to recover the Old Testament ideas of God as loving Father, righteous Judge, only King and Lord, and Savior of the world. Christ made the point emphatic by claiming to be the very incarnation of this Deity – God in human flesh. For Jesus the driving force in all He did, the thing He sought by every means at His disposal, was the glory of God, the exaltation of His name and the advance of His Kingdom.

Second, in fulfilling this mission of bringing glory to God only, Jesus was faithful in obeying the Word of God, and in teaching and proclaiming it (vv.6,14). Jesus was not an innovator of clever new ideas.  He was not a rabbi seeking to create a new school of traditions or interpretations of the Law. Nor did He seek to preserve ancient traditions for their own sake. He claimed that everything He did and all His teaching were from God, that His words were God’s words, and that His every action, faithfully represented what the Father had sent Him to do. He invited all who heard Him to compare His works and teaching with the words of Moses and the Prophets, and He rested His authority on what had been written in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, citing them over and over in defense of His actions and words. He came as a Servant to suffer and die, and to teach His followers to put their trust in God and in Him. All this He found support for in the written Word of God.

Third, Jesus demonstrated the centrality of prayer for His brethren (v.9, and throughout this chapter).  Jesus seems to have conducted His entire life and ministry in an envelope of prayer. His disciples would often discover that He had slipped away for an extended season of prayer. Frequently He would erupt into prayer in the middle of some public setting. At such times it seems He simply brought to the hearing of those around Him a conversation that had been going on between Him and the Father at an inaudible level. He taught His disciples to pray, and He assured them that He prayed for them and would continue to intercede for them. Indeed, His ministry at present, at the Father’s right hand, includes a burden of intercession for all His brethren (Hebrews 7:25; 1 John 2:1).

Fourth, Jesus taught His disciples the importance of guarding and keeping one another in the faith by means of ongoing mutual accountability (v.12). How often do we find Jesus asking His disciples if they have understood His teaching, or chiding them because they did not? Sent on preaching missions, the disciples understood that it was necessary to come back and give an account of their work, even as they (and we) will on that great day when Christ returns. He taught His disciples to be accountable to one another as a way of being accountable to God in the present, and of preparing themselves for the day of judgment, when the works of every one of us will come before the scrutinizing eye of the Lord (1 Corinthians 3:13-15).

Fifth, Jesus showed the importance of relationships sustained by encouragement and affirmation in the joy of the Lord (v.13). Encouragement – building one another in the love and purposes of the Lord – is a great source of joy and hope. Jesus taught these simple everyday folk to believe that they would rule in His Kingdom, would bear powerful witness before kings and courts, and would be able even to bind the forces of evil in the spiritual realm. He assured them they had a significant work to do in helping to realize the Kingdomof God. He made them believe that God cared about them, had chosen and would use them, and that the fruit of their lives and labors would endure forever. And thus doing He instilled great joy and abiding hope in them.

Finally, Jesus demanded that His followers consecrate themselves unto holiness in the Lord, that they might be one together in Him (vv.17,19-21). The pursuit of holiness is more important, Jesus taught, than the articulation of every jot and tittle of right doctrine. While He would not abide distortion of His teaching, and neither should we, Jesus did not seem as concerned that His disciples should acquire a fully fleshed-out outline of the system of doctrine, or even of the content of all the books of the Bible; rather, He demanded that they focus on becoming one together in the Spirit, taking on the holiness of the Lord and laying aside the ways of the flesh. If anything was to separate the followers of Christ from one another, let it be the intimacy of their knowledge of the Lord as shown in their holy, righteous, and compassionate way of life.

Thus Jesus recommended His own ministry to the Father as He prepared to suffer for the world and for His chosen people. In so doing He seems to have been assured that what He had accomplished during His earthly sojourn was precisely what the Father had sent Him to do. His atoning sacrifice would be the capstone of this ministry, the embodiment of everything else He had done in drawing His people to Himself.

Jesus’ ministry thus provides a pattern by which we must measure our own ministries as the shepherds of God’s flock.

SENT LIKE JESUS
“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). Thus Jesus commended His own work and ministry to those who would be taking it up from that point on for the sake of building His Church and advancing His Kingdom. What are the implications of Jesus’ pattern of ministry for ours today?

Whether our chosen paradigm is post-evangelical, ancient/future, or some other, we all must take seriously the Lord’s word that we have been sent into the world, and sent to the Church, according to the pattern He established for us during His earthly sojourn. Let me suggest just a few implications for the work of pastoral ministry for each of the six facets summarized above.

1. Seek the glory of God in all you do. We must not become so identified with, any particular perspective, program, or paradigm that we end up exalting it above the glory of the Lord. We are called to bring heaven down to earth, as it were, and to lead the people of God into the very throne room of His grace, there to experience the glorious heaviness of the Lord. If we insist that all we do must reflect some preconceived notion about what our church, and what the Christian life, should be, we may well box ourselves out from encounters with God’s glory. If we seek the Lord and His glory, to realize His presence and radiate His love, we will lay hold on every viable vessel, every apt approach to which His Spirit may lead the Church in the world, and our churches as part of that.

2. Ground all your life, ministry, and teaching in the Word of God. We must not be concerned above all to make sure that everything about our ministries, lives, and teachings faithfully reflects either our postmodern or ancient/future convictions. Instead, let us work hard faithfully to display and declare the always-contemporary Word of the Lord in all we say and do. If we would be indicted by the world or our brethren for anything, let it not be for being too postmodern or too traditional. Let it be for our insistence that everything about us and our churches satisfy the demands of the Word of God, which alone is able to equip us for every good work.

3. Recover the centrality of prayer for the work of ministry. I continue to be dismayed at the appalling low state of prayer in the Church today. Ministers from whatever perspective seem more concerned about the outward aspects of the life of faith than the inner life of the soul.  The people in their churches reflect a similar concern. We give lip-service to prayer, but we do not labor at it with anything like the diligence and time we give to preparing a service of worship, planning our next program, or figuring out how to market our ministry. Without prayer – fervent, even ferocious prayer – we may not expect the Lord to bless any of our labors. Let us seek the wisdom of God in His Word, and commit to pray for one another, even for those with whom we disagree. Such prayer may so knit our souls together that the emerging division now threatening to derail the evangelical Church may be fused in one spirit of prayer, and a mighty outpouring of energy for revival may result.

4. Take seriously the need to be accountable to others. The growing trend of independent churches is alarming. The rise of pastors of such churches as authorities unto themselves by virtue of their “success” is even more alarming. The number of pastors falling into scandalous sin has not abated. We need to find ways of making genuine accountability more a part of our lives and ministries. The ancient Celtic idea of the anam cara or soul-friend may be the kind of meeting-place for accountability that post-evangelicals and ancient/future types can agree on as practical both within their own perspectives and across the growing divide with one another.

5. Make encouragement and love the hallmarks of your practice. We are slowly drifting into yet another season of division among those identified with the cause of Christ. It just seems to be in our genes. Early in this movement’s history fundamentalists denounced evangelicals, who looked down on them as country bumpkins and snake-handlers. Evangelicals expressed their doubts about Pentecostals, who smugly asserted their superior spirituality over their egg-headed detractors. Left evangelicals thumped right evangelicals for their lack of compassion for the poor, and right evangelicals whispered about the socialist leanings of those who criticized them. Do we have to do this yet again? Can we not find a way to let our speech be used to edify our brethren, rather than to condemn them as we aggrandize our own views? And can we not find a way to make encouragement and love more consistently the hallmarks of every aspect of our lives and ministry? How will the world know that we are truly the followers of Christ, if we cannot encourage and love one another in His name (John 13:35)?

6. Make the pursuit of holiness – Christlikeness – the goal of all your teaching, and of every aspect of your life. Paul knew what Christ was talking about, and he called his readers, including us, to purge ourselves of every worldly way and to bring holiness “to completion in the fear of God.” This means obedience to God’s Law. This means turning away from every worldly allurement that causes us to pursue idols of prosperity, success, or fame rather than the via crucis of the Lord.

Brethren, let the pattern of Christ be the pattern of your ministry. Here’s a challenge for you. Set up a matrix with these six benchmarks across the top and all the activities of your ministry, listed one on top of the other, down the side. In the boxes created describe in specific terms, under as many headings as apply, everything that you are doing, in each area of your ministry, to fulfill the pattern set by Jesus. Then, at the bottom of the matrix, outside the box, as it were, write down everything that’s left from your ministry list that you simply could not fit into that matrix. Finally, either so transform those “outside the box” activities as to make them fit the matrix, or simply put them aside.

We have been sent like Jesus to His Church and to the world. Isn’t it about time that we stopped trying to define our ministries by things that inevitably divide us, and to take up the example of Christ with greater consistency and resolve?

T. M. Moore is a Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum. He serves as Pastor of Teaching Ministries and Director of the Center for Christian Studies at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tenn. He is the editor of the series, Jonathan Edwards for Today’s Reader (P & R), the latest volume of which is Praying Together for True Revival. His book, Consider the Lilies: A Plea for Creational Theology, will be released in May, 2005, by P & R. Audio messages and lectures by T. M. can be secured from WordMp.3.com. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in Concord, Tenn.  He can be reached at nacurragh@aol.com. All Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version (Crossway).

The Fall in the New Testament, Part 2

In our study of a biblical worldview, we must answer the probing question: What went wrong? Why such brokenness in our world? What is the explanation for death and desperate human condition? The biblical answer to this question is the fall of humanity into sin. We are now tracing out and finishing up our study of the fall in the New Testament. Here will take a final look at the teaching of the Apostle Paul on this important matter.

ROMANS 3:9-20
Paul continues his incisive analysis of sinful humanity in Romans 2-3. Chapter 2 is a bit difficult because it seems to suggest that final judgment will be based on deeds rather than on faith (vv.6-9). It is framed at the beginning by a typical Jewish evaluation of the sin of the Gentiles (1:18-32), and at the end by a protest that Jewish privilege has been undermined (3:1-8). What is perhaps most disturbing for the Jews is that they, like the Gentiles, are also without excuse and stand under God’s condemnation for their own self-righteousness and sin. The presupposition behind much of chapter 2 is the alleged Jewish distinctiveness and privilege that separated them, theoretically, from the Gentiles. Paul here seems to demolish this sense of distinction in light of the Jews own sinful behavior for which they, as much as the Gentiles, are equally accountable, if not more so.

Such unlimited criticism of those very things by which the Jews had developed their religious self-confidence and such an overt attack on Jewish self-righteousness and hypocrisy raises profound objections from the Jews themselves: Is there any advantage to being Jewish? What about their election, God’s faithfulness, and His right to judge? Paul cannot ignore these objections from his countrymen, and thus he makes a response to these matters in the first eight verses of Romans 3.

That done, Paul concludes that Jews are no better off than Gentiles, and certainly Gentiles are no better off than Jews. He then offers a summary of the main point about the universality of sin to which he has been pressing since he began this discussion in Romans 1: 18. From the Old Testament, Paul shows that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, guilty, condemned, and in need of righteousness (v.9). These texts demonstrate that the extent of sin is universal (vv.10-12; cf. Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-4), the means of sin is through both word (vv.13-14; cf. Psalm 5:9-10; 140:3; 10:7) and deed (vv.15-17; cf. Isaiah 59:7-8), and that the source of sin is the lack of the fear of God (v.18; cf. Psalm 36:1-2). He concludes by saying that the Old Testament law, which reveals sin, makes the whole world accountable to God, and that by the works of the law no one will be justified (vv.19-20). In the light of this outline, let the text speak for itself:

Romans 3:9: What then? Are we [Jews] better than they [Gentiles]? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. [Paul’s main point]

Romans 3:10-12: As it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” [Extent of sin]

Romans 3:13-14: “Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving, The poison of asps is under their lips; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” [Sin through words]

Romans 3:15-17: "Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace have they not known." [Sin through deeds]

Romans 3:18: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” [Source of sin]

Romans 3:19-20: Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. [Paul’s final conclusion]

THE KINGDOM OF GOD ATTACKED
At the conclusion of our study of Genesis 1-2, we learned that when God created the heavens and the earth, He established His kingdom and ruled over the world. Now at the conclusion of our study of the fall in Genesis 3 and the New Testament, we must understand that sin is an attack on God’s kingdom led by Satan and resulting in death. God had glorious plans for humanity and the earth from the very beginning. These plans are now under a fierce assault. As a result, a great conflict has arisen between God and Satan, their respective kingdoms, and their particular followers. As rival powers, they are slugging it out in a spiritual war between good and evil that affects every aspect of life and defines the character of human history. The prize is creation itself, its culture, and the lives of people worldwide.

The Bible is about this battle of the ages. From Genesis 3 onward, we learn how God responds to this attack on His creation-kingdom with His plan of redemption as it unfolds throughout history in both the Old and New Testaments. In His counter-offensive, He exercises His kingly sovereignty and power against all the evil in the world. The battle culminates in the life and ministry, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who defeats Satan, sin, and death, renews God’s purposes for humanity, and restores the whole creation back to Him. The first installment of the new creation has already arrived.

But the war is not yet over. Those who belong to God’s kingdom are enlisted in His army to fight the good fight against the world forces of darkness, though they are in fact defeated foes. Christ’s kingdom has already achieved the victory. When He returns at His second coming, He will complete His kingdom redeeming work. At that time, Satan’s kingdom and his followers will be destroyed. God will then establish a new heavens and new earth in which righteous dwells and where He reigns supreme. The creation will be regained. Hopefully this overview of the Bible’s bigger picture will help us to understand what kingdom living really means and how important it is to develop a biblical view of life.

CONCLUSION
Jesus as the smartest person who has ever lived, and His rather bright Apostle agree in their assessment of our warped human condition. Sin has driven a stake deep into the human heart and corrupted the whole person. Our depravity is total. There are no exceptions or exemptions. New Testament teaching reinforces what we have already learned about our lapse into sin in the Old Testament. Things are abnormal and no longer the way they are supposed to be. The whole creation and all human beings cry out for redemption and the coming of the kingdom of  God.

Click here to read Part 1.

David Naugle is professor of Philosophy at  Dallas  Baptist  University where he has served for 14 years. In addition to teaching and working with students, he maintains an active schedule of writing and speaking.

Developing a Wordview Driven Church

In this edition of our Worldview Church E-Report, we will be serving up four dishes of strong meat. First, we continue our study of a biblical worldview with a look at what St. Paul has to say about the fall of humanity into sin, focusing on Romans 3 and the theme of spiritual warfare. If we take the Westminster Confession of Faith (ch.6) as a trustworthy summary of Paul’s teaching, we must understand that, “By this sin they [our first parents] fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.”

T.M. Moore in his Issachareans column challenges church leaders to make sure that whatever model of ministry they are inclined to follow these days, it must conform to the pattern established by Jesus Christ Himself. That pattern and its applications for today come, T.M. suggests, from Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17. Whatever the current trend—whether it be the emergent church or the ancient-future model, and so on—the principles that  T.M. shares with us help insure that what we are seeking to do is in sync with Jesus’ own ministry vision.

Third is the final part to an address I gave to a group of church leaders in Grand Rapids,  Michigan in September with this title: “How the Church Lost Her Story and What She Can Do To Get It Back!” In this talk, as I put it there, “I am striving for a way to emphasize the wholeness of genuine biblical religion in order to recover what has at least, in part, been known classically as the “catholicity” of Christian church.”

Finally, T.M. introduces us to One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus (IVP 2004), edited by J. I. Packer and Thomas Oden. These two “deans of evangelical theology show that a lively and broad-based [evangelical] consensus exists throughout the world, and that it is strong and growing stronger, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.” One Faith amounts to a kind of evangelical creed, T.M. says, and its strength lies in its drawing on a number of classic evangelical documents of faith that have defined the evangelical movement historically.

We hope you come away from this edition of the Worldview Church E-Report well fed from this feast. At least that is our prayer. And speaking of feasting, Happy Thanksgiving!

David Naugle