The Place of Theology in Ministerial Education

~ fundyreformed ~ 3 Comments

Excellent thoughts on the vital role of theology in ministry preparation, from Dr. Kevin Bauder (Central Baptist Seminary, Minneapolis, MN).

First, the problems that Christian churches and Christian people are facing today are fundamentally theological. The answers cannot be found in social sciences, philosophies, or methodologies. The problems will continue to grow until we address the false theologies””the wrong ways of thinking about God and His world””that lie at their root.

Second, if the foregoing is true, then the best preparation for ministry is theological preparation. Seminaries in particular must be careful to prepare Christian leaders who have the tools to evaluate bad theologies and to correct the bad ways of living that arise from bad ways of perceiving God. Schools that overload the curriculum with “methods” courses and that fail to prepare their graduates to think through new issues are dooming the next generation to shallow leadership.

Third, within the seminaries, even the most academic subjects must be taught with an eye to real-world ministry. Ideally, every professor of Greek, Hebrew, hermeneutics, history, or theology will bring substantial pastoral or missionary experience to his task. He will be able to show his students how their studies will matter when they reach their first full-time ministry. In other words, pastoral theology should not be something that is added on. It ought to be taught in every course in the curriculum.

Let me be clear. The best preparation for ministry is rigorously theological. Greek, Hebrew, hermeneutics, and theology are right at the heart of how a Christian leader does his work. I say this, not as an ivory-tower intellectual, but as somebody who’s got his nose bloody in the real world of pastoring and church planting. There is no substitute for the training that you get in a good theological seminary.

These thoughts apply across the board, from strict fundamentalists to the evangelical left. All can tend toward an emphasis on methodology to a diminishing of theology. Be sure to read the entire post!

Facebook For Bloggers

~ fundyreformed ~ 6 Comments

Bob Hayton's Facebook profileI’ve taken the plunge! I’ve joined Facebook.

If you are a Facebook user already, you can add me as a friend by clicking on my mug shot to the left. If you are unfamiliar with Facebook, let me try to convince you to join!

Facebook

Facebook is like instant messaging (IM), email, photo/video sharing, and blogging software all rolled into one application. You can have as much content or as little as you want. And best of all, it is extremely safe. You have the option to allow or disallow people to become your friends. And you can share all, some, or none of your information with various friends.

Facebook is also designed for people who already have friends. Sure you can meet new friends through Facebook, but it works best if you already have networks/community and friendships to begin with. For those you know, it makes it easier and more fun to stay in touch. And you can get in touch with old friends (I have already spoken to people I hadn’t seen/written to in over 10 years.)

Facebook is totally unique. Rather than multiple pages or posts, it is one simple home page–your profile. And you can add boxes, which have content to your heart’s content. You can easily edit the layout and remove anything you don’t want. And it is very user-intuitive (i.e. its easy to learn).

Facebook is also growing by leaps and bounds. It is up to over 100,000 new users a day! Yet the policies of Facebook are very careful to disallow any false identities. They don’t let you post pictures or videos you have not created, and are very protective of privacy. So for most of these users, Facebook is a legitimate safe way to connect with real live people they know.

For more insight into the idea that is Facebook, you may be interested in reading the company founders first interview with Time magazine.

Facebook For Bloggers

I’m sure a lot of you might care less about Facebook. Then again, if you are blogging and reading my blog, you are already internet savvy and so you might be interested.

But for you fellow bloggers, there is no reason to avoid Facebook. WordPress.com has a very nice application that brings your latest posts right into Facebook. Each time you create a new post, Facebook also posts a note about it with a link. I’ve already seen some friends view my blog which had not previously, just because I set up Facebook.

For other blogging platforms, there are a variety of blog applications you can add to Facebook. I use Flog, to input my mission blog posts. And through Facebook directly I import all my photo blog posts as notes.

Once you set it up, Facebook can work on auto-pilot, promoting your blog. And periodically you can search for people you know, to see if they’ve joined Facebook. Then again, they might be searching for you too!

And if you focus on Facebook a bit more closely, you can join causes and network with others around common interests. I’m promoting Mike Huckabee through Facebook. And I’ve joined other groups. Already I’ve had someone become a friend through one of my groups, and that might lead them to my blog.

Now granted, Facebook could steal more time away from family and other concerns. Josh Harris has an excellent post on prioritizing family time in relation to Facebook. But it doesn’t have to. I view it as basically an additional email program, with a few extras I can tinker with now and again. Interestingly, Josh also encourages those who are single to get busy and use Facebook as a tool to find a potential mate!

So now you can head on over and sign up, if only to check out my profile. You can always abandon ship if you think its not for you!

Note: the picture above is from the online version of “The Future of Facebook” by Time (Paul Sakuma / AP).

On a completely unrelated note, I’m still looking for a few more guys to join a Fantasy Football league. We probably have another week or two before we cannot do this, without more people.

More on Church Membership

~ fundyreformed ~ 11 Comments

Recently I asked the question, “Is Membership in 1 Local Church Biblical?” That raised some interesting discussion in the comments.

Pulpit Magazine, a magazine-turned-blog run by Grace Community Church (John MacArthur’s church, just completed a 2 part series on “Why Membership Matters” [see part 1 & part 2]. The posts comb through the New Testament data on the Church and provide several arguments for a visible formal membership (of the roll-call variety).

I thought it would be good to follow up on my previous post by highlighting the Biblical reasons provided in Pulpit’s articles. And while I wholeheartedly agree in principle with the claim that membership does matter, I disagree that membership must be strictly formal (as if to a political body). [Along these lines, a recent post by Jeff Voegtlin highlights a Biblical evidence of a more loose form of church membership.]

Let me share the following response which I left in the comment section of the 2nd post over there.

Personally, I am not convinced by these posts. Everything said is good. Believers should submit to church leadership and should commit to the church.

I think though that we are coming at these texts with our history of American-style democratic, congregational membership. We assume there must be a written record and a tally of noses.

Over and over again, the articles say “this assumes formal membership” , or something like that. These verses and teachings could just as easily assume that everyone attending is a member. The elders are appointed and entrusted by God to oversee the flock, since when do the sheep pick their shepherds?

By requiring attenders to jump through another hoop, the hoop of formally requesting membership, we allow for a 2 tiered system of membership. The members, and the attenders. Members are shepherded and attenders are allowed to just exist. Wouldn’t it be better to just teach that everyone who attends is treated like a member, is shepherded, and is expected to contribute to the body and submit to leadership?

Another issue this discussion brings up is the whole multiple churches in one city. In Reformation days, not to mention NT days, there was usually 1 church in 1 city. The Ephesian church, while extremely large was still considered just 1 church. Today its okay for there to be 20 or 30 evangelical churches in a given city. And its also okay to ignore all the other churches except the one you are a member of. People may rub shoulders with and live next to evangelicals who attend other churches. Don’t we have a responsibility as part of Christ’s body to help those believers too?

I raise some of these questions here, and a friend who contributes to Reformation Theology, ponders this problem in this post: “Shopping for the Right Church“.

All of this is not to diminish the importance of joining an assembly. And ultimately the responsibility lies in the members to do that. But even in a family, there are varying ages of children and various stages of discernment and independence. We, the church, should allow for the weak, helping them and enfolding them into ourselves. And we should be on the look out for those struggling around us.

Blessings in Christ,

Bob Hayton

One more thing here. I don’t have all the answers and I am not beyond critique! Any thoughts from you guys? I’m all ears.

Man-Centered Christianity (part 4)

~ fundyreformed ~ 6 Comments

previously in this series–part 1, part 2, “The Sinner’s Prayer Problem” (part 3)

In the posts above, I have introduced the problem of Man- centered Christianity, and begun exploring how the problem became so widespread in the American evangelical Church today. Part 3 was an aside, focusing on the problem of the “sinner’s prayer”–a method which has contributed in part to the problem of man-centeredness in Christianity. Before I continue, it might be good to review what it is I’m addressing in these posts.

Much like the problem of going to church for ourselves, man-centeredness results in a blurring of the distinction between the church and the world. God is important, church is my thing, but my life is, well my life.

I read the following quote in John Piper’s book The Legacy of Sovereign Joy (pg. 118):

“I suddenly saw that someone could use all the language of evangelical Christianity, and yet the center was fundamentally the self, my need of salvation. And God is auxiliary to that….I also saw that quite a lot of evangelical Christianity can easily slip, can become centered in me and my need of salvation, and not in the glory of God.” “” quoted in Tim Stafford, “God’s Missionary to Us” , Christianity Today, Dec. 9, 1996.

When church is all about us, that’s a problem. And today, the Bible has become a guidebook on how we can have a great life. Church is important, but not particularly vital. It’s sort of an optional extra which adds benefit to your life, but sometimes the cost can be a pain.

Theologically, God loves us, because we are so important and special to Him. That’s why Jesus died for all, He had to do what he could for us, you know.

How did we get here?

In part, the sinner’s prayer and other techniques for getting people to receive Christ are to blame. Of course many have legitimately been saved using these methods, but the methods subtly shift the focus from God to man. Whereas in the past evangelists majored on declaring the gospel faithfully, and letting the Holy Spirit work, today we encourage people to do something: pray a prayer, walk an aisle, etc. Then we pronounce them saved.

This leads me to today’s post: the common understanding of eternal security has contributed to this problem. Once saved, always saved–this idea has helped further the inordinate focus on man in today’s Church.

Here’s how it goes. A preacher attracts someone into the church by highlighting how Jesus can add purpose to their life. He gets the convert to settle his guilt problem and his anxiety over a possible eternity in Hell by promising the convert full salvation if he only prays the sinner’s prayer. After jumping through that hoop, the convert is then told he can never lose salvation. It’s free, and God’s not a liar.

The convert then is exhorted as to his obligations to love and follow God, because of all God did for him. So a dutiful following of Jesus often happens. And since worship is fun [or maybe the people are], the convert may stay around a while. Of course since, the convert’s personal value was what made the gospel important, so its natural for him to expect the other messages of the church to practically benefit his life and help him. However, the convert may eventually lose interest in church, or fall out of sorts with this or that friend. Since God wasn’t central, its easy to not look back–especially since the convert, if he knows anything, knows he has “fire insurance”.

Because security is taken for granted, the convert has no need to continue believing and trusting Jesus. He may love Jesus because of how he feels now; but with a change of feeling, the love might vanish as well. What God wants, and who God is, is sort of removed from the convert’s experience. He might learn to appreciate God’s perspective, but ultimately his own personal interests matter most.

Now I must make myself clear: the above scenario often does not happen. Often those who hold to this idea of eternal security still go on to live holy lives with genuine love for Christ. Many of these people are not man-centered at all.

Still, this understanding is wrong. The idea that just praying a prayer makes you eternally secure if very wrong. And if you’ve ever talked to backslidden converts, you will hear that they subscribe to this view. Even preachers have said that there’s nothing you can do once saved, to lose your salvation. And this can overtly encourage a very licentious lifestyle.

So, “eternal security” is wrong???

No, I’m not saying that true believers aren’t eternally secure. Don’t get me wrong, please. I am saying that the historic belief of the orthodox Church does not jive with a “once saved, always saved” (OSAS) mentality. Historically, emphasis has been on the perseverance of the saints not on their preservation. The saints are preserved, but all true saints, will persevere–they will not finally fall away.

The problem with OSAS is that it flies in the face of such clear Biblical warnings as:

  • “He has now reconciled [you]… in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard…” (Col. 1:22-23)
  • “…the gospel… which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you–unless you believed in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:1-2)
  • “…and we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” (Heb. 3:6)
  • “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God…For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” (Heb. 3:12, 14)
  • “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.” (Jn. 8:31b)
  • “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mk. 13:13b)
  • “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Rom. 8:13)
  • “…in due season we will reap [eternal life (see 6:8)], if we do not give up.” (Gal. 6:9)
  • “Strive for… the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14)
  • “faith apart from works is dead” and “can that faith save him?” (James 2:26 with 2:14)
  • “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” (Heb. 6:11-12)
  • “…they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.” (Luke 8:13b)

The last verse above coupled with 1 Thess. 3:5, teach that faith might not last. 1 Cor. 15:2 teaches that belief could be in vain. Jesus warned against those who professed to know Christ but didn’t in Matt. 7:21-23, and he testified to the need for perseverance to the end in Luke 21:34-36. This is why the Scripture encourages us to “examine [ourselves], to see whether [we] are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5a) and to “make our calling and election sure” (2 Pet. 1:10).

I have more to say on this important point, and I’ll come back to it in the next post. I will leave you with a few earlier posts of mine which will help you understand what exactly I’m saying, and why I think it is Biblical.

Also, this external link, provides some excellent reasons why God would put such warnings in Scripture, even though all of the elect will certainly persevere (John 10:27-30, 1 Pet. 1:3-5).

We Believe (#1): Scripture

~ fundyreformed ~ 5 Comments

We believe glorious Truth as Christians. The next several Sundays I plan to post sections from my church’s Elder Affirmation of Faith. I’m doing this because every few weeks our congregational reading is an excerpt from this document. Every time we all read aloud the truths we confess, my soul rejoices. I pray these posts will aid you in worshiping our Lord on His day.

Scripture, the Word of God Written

We believe that the Bible, consisting of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is the infallible Word of God, verbally inspired by God, and without error in the original manuscripts.

We believe that God’s intentions, revealed in the Bible, are the supreme and final authority in testing all claims about what is true and what is right. In matters not addressed by the Bible, what is true and right is assessed by criteria consistent with the teachings of Scripture.

We believe God’s intentions are revealed through the intentions of inspired human authors, even when the authors’ intention was to express divine meaning of which they were not fully aware, as, for example, in the case of some Old Testament prophecies. Thus the meaning of Biblical texts is a fixed historical reality, rooted in the historical, unchangeable intentions of its divine and human authors. However, while meaning does not change, the application of that meaning may change in various situations. Nevertheless it is not legitimate to infer a meaning from a Biblical text that is not demonstrably carried by the words which God inspired.

Therefore, the process of discovering the intention of God in the Bible (which is its fullest meaning) is a humble and careful effort to find in the language of Scripture what the human authors intended to communicate. Limited abilities, traditional biases, personal sin, and cultural assumptions often obscure Biblical texts. Therefore the work of the Holy Spirit is essential for right understanding of the Bible, and prayer for His assistance belongs to a proper effort to understand and apply God’s Word.

*Taken from the Bethlehem Baptist Church Elder Affirmation of Faith, paragraphs 1.1 – 1.4. You are free to download the entire affirmation [pdf] complete with Scriptural proofs for the above statements.