If you are not learning to get along with other Christians, then you are not learning to be a Christian at all.
Author: Matt Powell
The Values that Shape Us
The Atlantic has published a really valuable article for understanding ISIS.
One thing that makes Protestantism superior to Catholicism is the burning of heretics. Now of course the Protestants burned heretics along with the Catholics, but a Protestant can denounce the action, while a Catholic can’t. Heretics were burned by order of popes and councils, for example the Council of Constance which burned John Huss to death. And in Roman Catholic theology, councils of the church are infallible. I can say that the Genevan church was wrong to burn Servetus. But the Roman Catholic can say no such thing about the Council of Constance.
Muslims have a similar problem. No matter how modern and moderate a Muslim becomes, he cannot escape the example of Allah’s true prophet, who held slaves, who married a nine year old, who practiced all sorts of barbarities. The Islamic State says that anyone who rejects crucifixions and slavery rejects Islam, because it is to reject the practice of Muhammad and the teachings of the Koran, and they have a point. As Christians, however, we can never go wrong by returning to the example of our founder, Jesus, whose values and teachings have shaped the modern world, values by which the members of that modern world judge people like ISIS even if they do not acknowledge the source of those values.
The Christian church at its very best attempts to emulates the true principles and practices of its founder. Muslims at their best ignore the values of Islam’s founder and adopt the values of the founder of Christianity instead.
The New Testament Sabbath
The purpose of the Sabbath Day was never intended to teach people to rest in God one day of the week and to trust their own hard work the other six. That day was a token, a sign teaching them to trust God every day. It is to me so sad to see that just like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, some of the most careful and scrupulous observers of Sabbath days today think that by their effort to scrupulously keep the Sabbath they are earning God’s blessings, and their legalistic attitudes are seen the rest of the week in their frantic activity trying to do everything perfectly.
The New Testament Sabbath is the reality of which the Old Testament Sabbath was just a sign. The New Testament Sabbath is the resting in Christ and His salvation every day, and doing it whether one is at church, at work, at play, or wherever. It is not the observance of a day- those ceremonies passed away with Christ. It is the observance of a mindset, one of faith and trust with God, every day.
Peace with God is the Key to Everything Else
Most of what people spend their lives doing is trying to overcome the effects of the curse without ever actually dealing with the curse itself. The reason we are separated from one another, why people are hateful and envious of one another, why people are at war with themselves, engage in destructive behaviors of substance abuse, drunkenness, promiscuity and the like, why nations go to war, why people wreck the planet, wreck their families, wreck their own bodies- all of it is because they are alienated with God. The rest of that is God’s curse on us for rebelling against Him. So it is absolutely futile to try to solve any of those other problems without solving the one big problem. We’re not stronger than God, and we will never defy His curse against us. So people work hard, or chase pleasure, or get educations, or lose themselves in entertainment, all to try to feel peace and happiness in their lives, or at least avoid pain. But they will fail, because God is God and He will execute His judgment. If we accept reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ, though, the rest of it will all fall in line.
Political Correctness Built-in Self-Justification
The great thing about political correctness is, that as long as your social experimentation continues to produce bad results and therefore produces people who sensibly point out the failures of your social experimentation, you can continue to blame the failures of your social experimentation on the bigotry of the people with the temerity to point it out.
Bet on the Proven Winner
Two thousand years ago, when Christianity first came into the world, all the smartest, most educated, most powerful, richest and most admired men around believed it to be ridiculous nonsense, and said so loudly. With long tradition, majority opinion and all the latest thinking behind them, they argued that men ought to worship the gods of the Roman pantheon as these had obviously led to the success of the Roman Empire, and that all the world believed in either the Roman gods or something very similar, and that this new religion was suitable only for the most ignorant and weakest in society, that it was a religion for slaves and women.
Now, two thousand years later, those arguing against Christianity are often the most educated, most powerful and most successful. They have the wealth and prestige of the universities and governments of the world behind them. Most of the most famous artists and musicians and scholars agree. And they argue that Christianity is a religion for the ignorant and hateful, that it is absurd and cannot be taken seriously. Yet their views of ethics and reality are far closer to Christianity than were those of Christianity’s opponents from two thousand years ago. Christianity’s opponents have conceded much ground to Christianity, while Christianity continues as it always has. Christianity has drastically altered the intellectual landscape of the world, and continues to do so. People will continue to mock, but historically it has been the worldview of those who mock and ridicule Christianity which ends up on the dung-heap of history.
Christianity, this religion of women and slaves, is pretty much the same as it was two thousand years ago, and continues to cast down all opposition, continues to spread into all the world, not because of the prestige and status of those that champion it, but because it is true. Jesus said that His kingdom would prevail and the gates of hell would not stand against it. We have a two thousand year track record of victory, from 120 believers representing less than a millionth part of the world’s population to two billion believers representing a third of that population, to confirm the truth of what He said. Remember that the next time some rich, famous or prestigious person calls Christianity ridiculous and predicts its imminent demise.
What Are You Looking Forward To?
Forget your New Years’ resolutions; they come from you. These wonderful events mentioned by Peter are no resolutions—they are the promises of God.
Confession
“Show your wounds to the Lord, the most excellent physician, and seek remedy from Him. Show them to Him, who does not reproach but most gently heals.” John Chrysostom, on the value and importance of confession of sin to God.
Irony
It’s kind of funny when atheists post amazing pictures of the natural universe on Facebook or their websites and think that’s supposed to detract somehow from the glory of the One who made the universe. The more incredible we realize the universe to be, the less likely it is that it just accidentally happened.
A Desperate Counter-attack
From the Aquila Report, here’s a great example of the dishonest tactics so often used to attack Christianity. I think it should be taken as an unintended compliment, a tribute to the importance of Christianity. If Christianity were irrelevant and dying, there’d be no need to go to all this effort. That someone is willing to throw away their own intellectual credibility to make attacks like this just shows that it really does matter, and that the author of such attacks has very personal, non-intellectual reasons for being so desperate to find reasons not to submit to Jesus Christ. Why not just ignore Jesus? Because they can’t. This article feels to me like Hitler’s last desperate attempts to defend Germany when his own generals all knew they were defeated.
At any rate, Michael Kruger does a great job of dismantling arguments that anyone with even a passing familiarity with church history would know were nonsense. This is one really important reason to study church history, as we are doing at Christ Reformed- to recognize the foolishness of these kinds of slanders.
