on the walk

We cannot underestimate the central authority of the Bible.

I often find myself out of step in many conversations about difficult decisions.   Other people seem much more impressed with the wisdom that can be found in experience or in experts.  Or they are very confident in the wisdom they will gain from the subjective experience they will have as a result of prayer. I am not.  They may be right and I may be wrong, but for me the only authority that carries much weight is the Bible.

This is why I devote so much of my energy to learning how to wisely and faithfully interpret the Bible and apply it to our lives.  As the old line goes, it is our only rule for faith and practice.  That doesn’t merely mean that it is the best one, it means what it says, it is the only one.

Consequently although I am not a biblicist, the Bible is where I will start for any major investigation of what the church is called to believe and how the church is called to live.  So long before I consider what we can know about God through the post-biblical language of the trinity, I am going to consider what we can learn about God from scripture. And long before I consider what I can learn from the traditions of church worship and programming that I have inherited in my life of faith, I want to return to scripture, to ask, “What is the church doing?”

So I am not a biblicist.  I know that God has continued to guide the church and we must learn from the wisdom of all of church history.

But as my rule for faith and practice there is one source.  The Bible.

So that is where we will turn for our foundation of the core events of the church.

on the walk

-Ethan

Consequently I believe that while the Bible is the sufficient rule for faith and practice it is not exhaustive.  The Spirit still speaks.  Christians have had lots of good ideas since the Bible was written and I am please to benefit from those ideas.

There are some Christian circles in which this is not a radical suggestion, but I grew up in a tradition and I minister in a tradition in which biblicism is easy to find.  In fact a major family of this movement of churches goes by the name acapella Churches of Christ.  They will not use instruments in worship.  This is because in the new Testament there is no record of instruments being used in a worship service.  Some other Christians insist that women where head coverings. This is biblicism.  This view holds that every post-biblical innovation is an innapropriate Christian practice.

If this view had a motto it would be “If it is not in the Bible, I won’t do it.”

You may be thinking to yourself, “that sounds like a great motto.”  I agree.  It does sound like a great motto, but believe me, it isn’t.   It turns out that Christians have thought of lots of good things that aren’t in the Bible.  Now of course because they are not in the Bible that means that we can’t pretend they are essential, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good things.

Here are a few things that are not in the bible,(or at least not in the same way we have them today.)

• Church Buildings
• Offering Trays
• Projectors
• Christmas
• Easter
• Sunday School
• Seminaries
• Heated Baptisteries
• “Quiet Time”
• Church Calendar
• Daily Office
• The Trinity
• Alter calls
• and lots of other stuff why don’t you help me add to my list.

See that is all good stuff.  I wish that it was as easy as being a biblicist.  INstead we have to ask the much more difficult question.  Is this practice or teaching that is not in scripture still faithful to scripture.  Does it exprtess what scripture teaches without going further than scritpure does?

That takes discernment and the wisdom of the whole church guided by the Spirit and that is why I am not a biblicist.

(tune in to my next post for the big BUT…)

And this matters for our conversation about church events.  It won’t be as simple as asking what are the 3 or ten or fifty types of events that the church in Acts had.  Just because they had an event doesn’t mean that we must and just because they didn’t doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.  As we ponder the core evens of the church we will need submit fully to the authority of scripture but to do that we must do more than just copy the church in Jerusalem or Phillipi or Corinth (please don’t copy the church in Corinth).
on the walk

-Ethan

I got to hear two great sermons today. The first was at our main service. I hope to post on it in a couple of days. The second was at Fuel which is the Sunday evening youth service at Mountain. Seth Harkins was the speaker and he spoke on Jesus walking on water. Continue Reading »

This post continues from signs 4a In that post we were reflecting on Luke 8:40-56 and the sermon based on that topic. We are noticing that this is miracle that happens in a context of access issues. (We did not get to the biggest access issue of all which is also dealt with in this passage: death.)

The flip side of these access issues is the issue of faith. Jesus credit the women’s faith as instrumental in her healing. Then when the bad news comes for Jairus, he challenges, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.” Just believe. Just do faith. This is the new access card. Trust Jesus. Faith in Jesus is all that a leprous woman needs. Faith in Jesus is all that a desperate father needs. Continue Reading »

Our final sermon in our series on Luke was this week. You can find the whole series here. This week we encountered two miracles wrapped up into one story. Our text was Luke 8:40-56. It is a wonderful story with two great miracles wrapped into one story. I hope to reflect on the sermon itself in a following post, but first a reflection on the miracle. Continue Reading »

I was talking with my friend Kevin Bobrow about the encounter with the woman and Nain and he reminded me of one of my favorite treatments of this text. Instead of focusing on the miracle as we did in the last post, instead we focus on the actions of Jesus that created the context for the miracle. Let’s take a look. Continue Reading »

Today we encountered Jesus on his way, followed by disciples and crowds, when he meets a funeral procession. This is the third sermon in a series from Luke. It is called Grace Anatomy and it is looking the nuts and bolts of grace through the eyes of Luke.

The text today was taken from Luke seven, and describes the encounter that Jesus has with a widow from Nain. In that encounter Jesus raises her son from the dead. There is a lot to learn from this text. I hope to have a follow up post to talk about how we can learn to live in this way. But first, whenever we encounter Continue Reading »

Our current sermon series at Mountain is on the character of Christ as great healer and is based on various accounts from Luke chapters 5-8. This last Sunday Ben talked about Jesus’ encounter with the paralytic. You can check out the text and the sermon online.

This is a perfect story to examine as we try to understand the signifying nature of miracles. Continue Reading »

I got to speak last night at Mountain’s student ministry, FUEL. It was great fun. I love to preach and I love to be with students. One of the special blessings of last night was that I got to lose a game of ping-pong. I love ping-pong and have not played in many years. It was great to play again. (Shout out to Wesley Barnes for being willing to play with the old guy and for letting me score 17 points. I am aware that the last five were just out of mercy.)

Continue Reading »

I am on a metaphor hunt.

I posted about gun barrels a few days back. I can’t stop thinking about this issue but the metaphor doesn’t sing for me.

First a few more thoughts on the issue. I easily can get drawn into an institution growth mindset. I love the church. I love Bible studies, and pot lucks. I love softball games and theological debates. I love weddings, and choirs. I love cantatas and seminaries. But in that love there is a great danger. I might be so excited to be in the church that I lose sight of God’s purpose for me. Continue Reading »