Always Reforming

In Part 1 of this post we explored the concept of grace.  We identified grace as relationship with God despite our sin--access to His Presence.  We saw that the metanarrative of Scripture, the very Gospel itself, is the story of mankind being restored to the Presence of God that we forfeited by our first parents' rebellion.  We applied this concept to the sacraments, affirming that they are means of grace--God meets us at the Font and the Table.  Here in Part 2 I want to spend a little more time exploring how we apply this liturgically, especially to our observation of the Lord's Supper, also known as the Eucharist, Communion, or the Lord's Table. Historically, the Eucharist has been the center of Christian worship.  This may seem odd for many Protestants who are accustomed to celebrating it monthly or quarterly (if ever), but Christians from the time of the Apostles met to break bread.  The Early Church quickly developed a liturgy, complete with Scripture ...

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,  and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.   Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise,  when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. (Proverbs 17:27-28) I am a talker.  Those of you who know me personally already know that.  It is so tempting to fill the silence, to weigh in on any discussion, to voice my opinion.   I know I'm not the only one.  Sometimes we talkers just want to be a part of something.  We engage because we care and talking is how we show we want to be involved.  Other times our speech is more self-motivated.  We like to hear our own voices.  We value our own opinion too highly.  We share our opinions because we want you to know that we are learned enough to have an opinion on whatever topic happens to be under discussion.   We think to be heard is to be respected, but the opposite is quite often the truth.  Solomon t...

The Internet is a place of escape.  We interact with disembodied people we don't know, we stereotype and oversimplify, and we type things we would probably never say to a person's face.  This is neither right nor good, but this is the Age of the Internet.  It is the downside to the most powerful tool ever invented.  It is the side effect of being more connected than ever. It has been odd lately, then, to see familiar names mentioned and matters discussed to which I am privy.  It has been frustrating and sobering to see people online speaking ill about people I know "in real life."  I'm not used to being "in the know."  I have felt obliged to defend, clarify, and debunk to the best of my ability across different platforms, groups, and posts.  It is out of this place, and out of my own current state of mind and heart, that this article arises.  Here are a seven thoughts on WO and the ADGL. 1) There are good people on both sides.   I have i...

Grace. God's grace.  Give me grace.  Grace alone.   We use this word so often, but what does it actually mean?  What is grace (aside from my cute, feisty 11-year-old daughter)?   How we answer that question will impact a variety of other theological topics, including soteriology, sanctification, and the sacraments.  It is the last subject that I want to highlight today.   The Reformed Tradition commonly refers to the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) as means of grace .  The Westminster Confession Faith makes it clear that they are "holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace." (27:1)  The Belgic Confession insists that "they are not empty and hollow signs to fool and deceive us," but, as the 39 Articles  says, they are "effectual signs of grace."  The Reformers rejected the Roman Catholic view of the sacraments (not simply Transubstantiation, but the sacerdotal, meritorious system as a whole), but they r...

Of late my friend and I have been trying to answer the question, "What is church?"  We've not been discussing the nature of the universal, catholic Church of Jesus Christ, but of the local church--the experience of the average Christian in and with his Christian community.  What does it mean to go to church ?  To be a part or member of a church?  It seems like such a simple question, but there are profoundly different answers, many of which remain implicit.   Here is my shotgun answer.  Church is (or should be): 1. Local .  Driving an hour and a half to gather with a group of believers is less than desirable.  Everyone's options and experiences are different, so there certainly are no hard and fast rules ("local" is, of course, relative), but the general goal for a church is that it would be a local body where you can be present and plant roots.  Sometimes this will mean dealing with practices or doctrines you don't like, which is, in f...

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor 12:27) We are the body of Christ. Wait...what?  We are the body of Christ?!   Process this with me for a second.  This is not simply a metaphor.  We who are united to Jesus Christ by faith are mystically united to Him and are His body!  I fear we've heard these words too many times and meditated on them far too rarely!  We are the body of Christ!  What a privilege!  What a blessing!  What a call to holiness, to walk in a manner worthy of our Lord (Col 1:10)! You, Paul says, are the body.  The KJV retains the plural with it's Shakespearean "ye."  You--the church in Corinth; the Church universal--are collectively one body (I believe the letter to my forefathers in West Virginia renders it "all y'all") . In a real sense, we lose ourselves in our identity with Christ.  "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me," Paul says elsewhere (Gal 2...