Millennial Views in a Statement of Faith: Sin.

Justin Taylor quotes Mark Dever saying that having a millennial view written into a church's statement of faith is sin. Having experienced this sort of thing first hand, I find Dever's quote refreshing. I agree with Dever and believe that a long-term consequence of this sin is a severe danger to the health of the church, since it breeds an "us vs. them" mentality. It certainly divides more than it unifies.

I think that millennial views need not be among those doctrines that divide us. . . . I am suggesting that what you believe about the millennium—how you interpret these thousand years—is not something that it is necessary for us to agree upon in order to have a congregation together. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed in John 17:21 that we Christians might be one. Of course all true Christians are one in that we have his Spirit, we share his Spirit, we desire to live out that unity. But that unity is supposed to be evident as a testimony to the world around us. Therefore, I conclude that we should end our cooperations together with other Christians (whether near-ly in a congregation, or more at length in working together in missions and church planting and evangelism and building up the ministry) only with the greatest of care, lest we rend the body of Christ for whose unity he’s prayed and given himself. Therefore, I conclude that it is sin to divide the body of Christ—to divide the body that he prayed would be united. Therefore for us to conclude that we must agree upon a certain view of alcohol, or a certain view of schooling, or a certain view of meat sacrificed to idols, or a certain view of the millennium in order to have fellowship together is, I think, not only unnecessary for the body of Christ, but it is therefore both unwarranted and therefore condemned by scripture. So if you’re a pastor and you’re listening to me, you understand me correctly if you think I’m saying you are in sin if you lead your congregation to have a statement of faith that requires a particular millennial view. I do not understand why that has to be a matter of uniformity in order to have Christian unity in a local congregation.

Read Justin's entire post to find links to sermons by Mark Dever and Tom Schreiner, as well as an article by Sam Storms on the problems with the Premillennial view.

I'm Supposed to do Something in Worship?

"Most denominations have done studies in worship and may even review it frequently; they have also produced books that set forth their worship and their hymns. This is as it should be, of course. But all worshippers need to discover for themselves what worship is all about and how to improve it, and this must come from the Bible itself. After all, our worship of God must continue to develop throughout life" (Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, p. 63n2, emphasis mine).

Emerging or Emergent?

This is the best and shortest description of what it means to be emerging vs. emergent that I know of. If you care about the church, and recognize that there is a rift between traditional church and many so-called post-moderns, then this is a helpful read.

Would the Real Emerger Please Stand Up?

(HT: Reclaiming the Mind Ministries)

Maundy Thursday

It is amazing to me how quickly time flies. I wanted to write about this last Thursday, and am just now getting to it.

As part of the Easter season at Bethlehem Baptist, we have a service on the Thursday before Easter. It is called the Maundy Thursday service. Maundy Thursday is sometimes called Holy Thursday and is meant to commemorate the last supper of Jesus.

Bethlehem makes the service very solemn and dark. We have a fifteen foot wooden cross at the center of the stage area lit with somber lights. Then two readers read the Passion story. The readings are intermixed with hymns about Christ's death.

After the reading and singing, a communion meditation is given and the congregation takes communion. Finally, everyone leaves the sanctuary (and out to their cars) in complete silence with all the lights turned out.

It is a deep way to commemorate the Last Supper and to begin to prepare for Easter Sunday.

The Lord has risen!
The Lord has risen, indeed!

Playing Chauffeur to Grudem

Nine times in two years our church holds TBI seminars that are open to the whole church and required for the TBI Track 2 guys. These seminars include topics like, Desiring God, TULIP, Future Grace, Why We Believe the Bible, etc.

Last night and this morning was the seminar on Gender Complimentarianism. This is the idea that the genders complement each other. In other words, men and women are equal before God, yet have different roles.

Because Pastor Piper is on sabbatical in Europe, he did not teach the seminar. Instead, his good friend, Dr. Wayne Grudem, taught the seminar. Since coming to BBC, this is the fourth time that I have seen Dr. Grudem live.

Dr. Grudem has had a big impact on my spiritual development as I found his major book, Systematic Theology, back in the late nineties. It has been very influential in my learning.

In getting to the point, Wendy and I had the honor of driving Dr. Grudem to and from his hotel to the seminar today. It was a joy to ride with him and talk to him about his children and family and his career.

Anyway, it was a small joy for us, and another of those neat things that have happened to us since we came to Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Friends are Coming! Friends are Coming!

We have exciting news. Our bestest friends are going to fly their family out from good ol' Vancouver, WA to visit us next week. Trevis and Rebecca and the kids will be here next Wednesday. It should be a great time to catch up and share life together.

Also, in case you are interested, Pastor Piper had his prostate removed on Tuesday of this week. The surgery went "beautifully." He is home now and recuperating. Please continue to pray for him, if you think of it. You can read the update here.

The kids are having a blast watching the Olympics. We normally don't watch any TV anymore, but we all enjoy the Olympics, so we have had the TV on a lot lately. Chase really enjoyed the snow boarding. Shawn White is now a household name around here. The girls are enjoying the figure skating.

It is amazing to see their imagination: the games around the house now revolve around the Olympics. They fight over who gets to be Michelle Kwan or Emily Hughes or whoever. I don't even know all their names. Well, Chase gets to be Shawn White. He is not fighting over girl names. I guess it is better than role playing Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi.

Yesterday: A Great Day

Yesterday was a great day. It was one of those days where everything went right. First off, Pastor Piper recently announced that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and when he preached on Sunday morning, he discussed this in light of the the Christian life and the Word of God. He was in great form and his preaching was superb. Check www.desiringgod.org for this sermon. I will provide a link as soon as it is posted. While Pastor Piper's disease is not a good thing, the word that was preached was fantastic. I wish you all could sit under this kind of teaching.

After church, we went to McDonalds and then traded in last years ice skates for this years ice skates. Play It Again Sports sells used skates, and we were able to trade in last years skates to offset the cost. Then we went to the park a block from our house and skated for an hour or two. All the while is was gently snowing. It was a wonderful time.

After the kids were in bed, Wendy and I finished reading the first section of a book on Pauline Theology.

What a great day!

You may think we are nuts, but such is life in Minnesota.

Here We Are

Here is a picture for those of you who want to see a current image of us. We hope that the first week of your year is going well.

All of last semester, I have been the teacher's assistant for Pastor Tom Steller's two classes on Wednesday nights. Wendy has been taking the classes. Because we have been in these classes, Wendy and I have not been able to attend the regular Wednesday night service. Last night we attended the first Wednesday service of the new year, and our first service in over five months. The Wednesday night services are a lot different than Sunday morning, but they are still wonderful. They are more homey, and we worship, and have some teaching time, and usually, get to watch a few baptisms.

Last night there were two baptisms. It was obvious that both of these people truly understood the magnitude of their sin and the magnitude of the covering afforded to them by Christ's death and resurrection. It was an honor and a joy to hear their testimonies and see them take the step of faith in being baptized.

Next week Wendy and I will be back in classes. That is good, but also sad, because we realized how much we missed the worship services on Wednesday night.