Godhiker's Xanga

Not Like Paul

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:29:03 GMT

Today while I was driving back from Kenwood with Michael Clary, we were discussing missiology and I made a shocking discovery. I am now willing to say that we cannot derive our full missiology from the life of the apostle Paul. To some this may sound mildly heretical but it seems as I entertain a more covenantal ecclesiology, I must confront a new missiology with an optimistic trajectory in mind. All this is to say that the epistles do not tell us everything about missions explicitly. There are implications of Paul’s behavior that lead me to believe in a particular trajectory, as in the christocentic nature of his preaching but do not insist on a methodology. We are in a different context amid different people, and living in different cities.

My shocking discovery was that a missiology that takes as its paradigm the New Testament era is not the missiology we must employ today. In a post-evangelical landscape we have seen the rise and fall of Christendom, and this worldwide phenomenon has affected the secular world in such a way that it will never be the same again. We must employ new missiological concepts that derive their meaning from scripture, but do not attempt to mimic or copy those of St. Paul. Paul’s missiology was specifically meant for Philippi, Rome, and Ephesus. To use a pre-Christendom missiology in post-evangelical North America is error. This is yet again another nail in the coffin of those who would seek to dogmatically return to the practices of the New Testament era.

Using the entire scope of the Old and New Testaments, it is a congregation’s imperative to develop a new particular missiology for their individual context in terms of geography, history, race, etc.

Skip church and Be The Church

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:15:08 GMT

Skip church and Be The Church

“In a clever experiment published in 1973, John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson found that seminary students on their way to take part in an experiment often walked right past a man slumped over and groaning in a doorway. Some of the subjects, ironically, had been asked to give a talk on the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, but they were no more likely to stop and help than others if they thought they were late. And no particular style of religiosity was related to the likelihood of helping the victim.”

This research should sicken us as Christians. Do I care more about my precious education than I do about the souls of the homeless? Do I care more about appointments and my job security than I do about the biblical imperative to care for the poor? Do I care so much about stability, church membership, and ascent to creed that my time would be lost on an ignorant drunkard? Be very careful how you walk. We should be more afraid of passing by our savior unaware than we are of the devil who roams about the city. The wicked one may destroy our body but The Father can destroy our souls in Hell’s heat. My faith is borne of the curiosity that one day if Christ wills it I will peer into a drunkards eyes and commune with my savior. He commanded us to wash feet. Skip church if it forces you to spend Sunday morning actively being The Church. What man can sit under the unfettered preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments and not be gripped by conviction? What man can go about Sunday after Sunday sitting in our houses of worship and not weep for his unrepentant heart? What man can hear the Bible preached and not dance for joy as a prodigal that has now returned home? A Christian may spend days or even years this way but the will of the Father is never to remain in this unhealthy lethargy. Quit going to church and start living as a Christian! The worst sound in all the earth is a hymn sung by dead unrepentant sinners. Rise up men of God! Repent and serve the King of Kings by living as if you were dead. When we smell of cheap bourbon, hookers and death maybe then Sunday morning worship will mean something as we praise our Savior.

Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and mind and soul and strength
To serve the King of kings.

Rise up, O men of God!
The kingdom tarries long.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
And end the night of wrong.

Rise up, O men of God!
The church for you doth wait,
Her strength unequal to her task;
Rise up and make her great!

Lift high the cross of Christ!
Tread where His feet have trod.
As brothers of the Son of Man,
Rise up, O men of God!

Fountain Square Leonard

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:54:07 GMT

Tonight Michael Clary and I went out for coffee on fountain square. We parked next to the Vine Street Starbucks and (like two seriously white guys) walked to fountain square to sit, watch the baseball game, chat theology, and drink coffee in 90+ degree weather. Both of us were discussing our take on the need for African American elders in a city-church. We were lamenting the fact that our spheres of influence did not include any theologically astute African Americans who could plant a church. Michael saw a man he had met earlier across the square and ran to get him. We struck up a conversation with a homeless man named Leonard who happened to be a sober, clean cut, articulate, homeless man. He was wearing a clean button down dress shirt with a pack of cigarettes stuffed in the front pocket and apart from his dazed look; he seemed to be all together. We talked for about an hour and then got him some food and housing at our newly undisclosed housing for homeless people we have a good feeling about. We call it the Cincinnati NUHFHPWHAGFA (catchy isn’t it). We both have reservations about this guy, but it seems to me that God answered a prayer for both of us tonight. Please pray us as we venture out into the city to share our faith. Please also thank God that he has brought a new friend to Cincinnati!

Regulative Necessities In Our Worship

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:32:35 GMT

A crisis of faith turns from crisis to research. Research often times retreats from the actual to the mystical and from the magnanimous to the maniacal. Our difficulty reckoning the mystical nature of the Triune God with the pragmatic necessities of the everyday becomes greater than an average saint can bear. How can man contemplate the depths of God’s immutable attributes when there are babies screaming in the background, taxes to be paid, and a wife that needs attention? Is it possible to both engage the culture with relevant and practical material yet remain honest to the orthodox and mystical moorings of historic Christianity?

It seems that this is the preoccupation of many if not all of my friends seeking to find their way in this ambient culture. It is for this reason that I found myself this morning in an Eastern Orthodox Church as a spectator and fellow saint. In recent years I have stumbled upon friends (and at times ventured this way myself) who jaunt off in search of the Historical Church. You might have read or remember Albert Schweitzer running this way and that to no avail on pilgrimage to find the Historical Jesus. It seems that my generation has been enticed by German theology to abandon the quest for the Historical Jesus and embark on another quest; one to find the historical Church. I met up with just one of these friends this morning who (for a time) it seems has been drawn in by the beauty, historicity and mystery of Eastern Orthodoxy. Who wouldn’t be? I will forego the description of what happened there and let it suffice to say that what I witnessed was more biblical and Christ centered than most of our cities Mega churches. This is the crisis of our day. When protestant churches failed to subscribe to the regulative principle of worship issued in the 17^th century we were left vulnerable to the same Roman error we fought to correct. For the last two centuries we have been continuing to allow the entropy of sin to undo the great work of revival our reformers paid for in blood. This is why the emerging generations having never been trained in ecclesiology are running after anything that feels and looks authentic and old.

The Eastern Orthodox Church is arguably the oldest Christian expression being practiced today. The liturgy used in many of their churches is from 200AD penned and implemented by St. John of Chrysostom. In no way can we take these facts lightly. Many of their adherents and priests are pious and humble saints who seek to worship Christ. In contrast at a number of the local Mega churches in our city (and for that fact at many of the new contemporary churches) the liturgy was penned 5 years ago by a church consultant , and the name of Jesus, the sign of the cross, sacred architecture, the Lord’s supper, creeds, the Bible, and precise theological distinctives have been abandoned. If this is the logical outcome of Protestantism abandoning the extra biblical modes of worship advocated by the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox, then we will pay grievously for our error on the Day of Judgment. I contend however that this is not the logical outcome of Protestantism, but rather this new watered down religion is of the same man made ilk that brought us fourteenth century Roman Catholicism. Why do men run after the Historical Church? Why are men researching and pining after these traditions that have been forsaken? Within the heart of the believer there is a groaning too deep for human words that the Holy Spirit births out of a need to worship God the right way. Perhaps this parable will suffice to explain our condition.

A thirsty woman comes to the well of the contemporary church and drinks a Coca Cola Christianity; she drinks and drinks and drinks only to find herself dehydrated by their caffeine and nervous from the high-fructose-corn-syrup. She is still thirsty. In a last ditch effort she sees a menu that offers the coffee and tea of sophisticated Orthodoxy or maybe the beer of Roman Catholicism, and she begins to drink and become filled. Over time the name Jesus, the image of Mary, and the pride of History intoxicate her to the point of illness. What this woman needs in not cola, tea, or beer but the bread of life and the wine that bubbles up to living water.

The Reformers and Puritans knew that Rome would never be that Living water as long as it was cut or diluted by the traditions of men. They knew that the Anabaptists could never create new traditions apart from scripture. They knew that if we are to truly be spiritual it will not be found in the trappings of mannish pomp and ritual but in the essential nature of scriptural disciplined worship. In this way we will avoid both errors that of popery, and that of pragmatism. In this way we can with grace and mercy love our friends into the truth, and help them avoid the trappings of error. The regulative principle of worship is a much forsaken dogma that can and will lead Christ’s true church out of the maze of American revivalism, and prevent us from repeating the errors of Eastern Orthodoxy. As our friends abandon the seeker churches, in search of something mystical and old let us have faith that worship advocated in the scriptures alone will yield to them the Way the Truth and The Life.

Attempts at Puritanism in my reading of John Owen book 6

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:17:05 GMT

Whereupon reading these words in John Owen book six “there is a certain infallible connection and coherence between true mortification and eternal life”, I was struck by the truest sense of joy. I have found that the truest sense of joy finds its wellspring from the depths of assurance, and this assurance is that of Christ’s mark upon my life. Fear of failure and the uneasy melancholy of self pity flee when confronted by the power of assurance. They will know we are Christians by our love, and we will know we are Christians by the mark that mortification leaves upon our shallow and sin sick lives. With each passing day I am more certain and more hopeless apart from the cross of Christ. I find the pervasiveness of sin to be second only to the outworking of His grace and His mercy driving evil from their various encampments in my heart. Pain and duress are the truest works of joy and life. If I am being persecuted, if I am in anguish over sin, if I am being chastened, if I am tempted, and if my flesh is thoroughly being mortified I can be assured that my salvation has been purchased on Calvary’s tree, and His blood has been spilt on my behalf. If my world collapses around me, if the sky falls, and if not unlike Job I am the object of Satan’s scorn, I must be filled with delight unspeakable because these are sure signs of mortification.

I have come to realize that I am a deplorable Christian. I am simply not holy enough, intelligent enough, spiritual enough, simple enough, loving enough, green enough, liberal enough, conservative enough, gentle enough, biblical enough or quiet enough. My stability is questionable. There is no room to boast save in the cross of Christ for my life is a pitiful testimony to the grandeur present in the sacrificial work of Calvary. This is also further cause for joy. In my failings I find joy because it is in them that the most unashamed and blatant testimony to the authenticity of the παράκλητος is evident. The Comforter, The One who consoles, or The Advocate, comes to plead my case and give assurance. The Holy Spirit reminds my weakened will that He is faithful to all generations. He is ever faithful even to the back-slider. Yes even to one such as me. In this way He chastens those whom He loves to such a severe degree that we can know with epistemic certainty that He is near. I can give no room to doubt for my life is testimony to the corrective and disciplinary reality interwoven in the providential tides of my faith.

Sources and reasons for anxiety are directly correlated to the amplitude of our faith insofar as God portions each to those in relation to their maturity. When we are in pursuit of maturity or when we are facing the precipice of human limit and are forced beyond our current maturity the amplitude of duress mounts accordingly. Christ either disciplines us directly or hands us over to Satan to be purified. This is truly the pilgrim’s progress toward the face of God. Once a particular thread of Christian development has been explored to its fullest degree we are again pressed by the weightiness of world affairs and our own limitedness. In the early watches of the morning those of us left un-plagued by slothfulness are oftentimes riddled with false ponderings. They creep in as The Evil One whispers depravity back into our cleansed minds. When the morning has turned into noontime we have entered The Kingdom of Darkness and our flesh wanes beneath the heaviness of interaction. The toil of work has left us fettered to the impressions and whims of a sinful world system. In the darkness of night all manner of sinful predilection and deleterious defect of man come out to question “Who is this king of Glory”? We must in this flood of wickedness not retreat into the thoughts and intentions of man but leap into the under girding promises of God to His people. Assurance is the wellspring of joy unspeakable. In this way we shall be anxious for nothing because He will sustain us through His chastening. What is more, we should not begrudgingly endure this duress out of simple duty but in thankfulness of heart pray our supplications so as to learn the joy of trusting The Author and Sustainer of our faith.

Let us pray in the time of trial for assurance in the testing, and in the testing, endurance, and in the endurance hope, and in that hope may we be glad in Jesus.

A Comment On Russels Recent Blog Post

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:26:37 GMT

(Recently I was on Russellsmusings.blogspot.com the blog of my pastor and close friend where he commented on some reading about president Eisenhower) this is a posting answering a comment left on his blog.

To respond to what seems to be the rising hostility between the emerging-church to anything nationalistic I must comment in light of the great theologian Carl F.H. Henry. His aim was in the words of Dr. Russell D. Moore “to triangulate between the Kingdom eschatologies of the Social Gospel left and the fundamentalist right”. After WWII there was a growing hostility between the optimism of the liberal theologian’s call to The Kingdom now and the Fundamentalist call to a Kingdom then. Today we live once again in a similar tension where the term Kingdom has been maligned by numerous theologians and scholars. I am more than saddened that we have lost the notion that God is sovereign over nations and that God deals with people based on their nationality. I am equally saddened by my own countries hostility to the origins of her great freedom. I am saddened by the anti-supernatural utopian eschatology of the left, and by the dystopian horror novel of dispensational pre-millennialists. These are reactionary views of Americans whose experience has led them to drink from poisoned streams.

To my friends from the church the media calls “emerging” I would call into question your view of government. If scripture alone (a novel idea) were our only source for developing an understanding of law what would it look like? Please get your eyes off of social justice utopianism, and off of dystopian Jesus is coming back tomorrow-ism, and get them back on Jesus in the already and the not yet.

To those who are supporting the US government for sinful reasons including avarice, sloth, gluttony and the like, please repent, align the earthly kingdom with the one yet to come, and foster the Church of Jesus Christ here on earth. You cannot and will not bring peace on earth without the Gospel of our Lord. He would destroy the United States of America with fire and brimstone before He would be mocked. Many (if not a majority) of the founders of the country believed that.

Now that I have that off my chest I must answer the question:

Q.) Has Jesus imparted truth that necessitates national dominance and military superiority for implementation?

Jesus has not given me a manual for open heart surgery, carpentry (though that would be stimulating I’m sure), labor negotiations, sales, farming, or e-trade. This is a brief point about sola scriptura not solo scriptura. The scriptures are explicitly silent about these things while clearly implying a trajectory of the Kingdom in these spheres.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

dom·i·nant /ˈdɒm ə nənt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[dom-uh-nuh nt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–adjective

1.	ruling, governing, or controlling; having or exerting authority or influence: dominant in the chain of command.

2.	occupying or being in a commanding or elevated position.

I believe that God will give favor to a nation built on Him, much like God favored Israel long after they had strayed from Him. He still shows us favor, and dominance on a global scale as we fight to bring people civil rights, and freedoms like our own even when we are flawed and broken in this pursuit.

I believe that just as we need civil authorities on a local level, we also need them on a global level to fight against evil regimes committing mass genocide like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein. If you still really think we are the ethical- evil-one here, ask a Sudanese citizen if their military officials give a rip about water-boarding and maybe you will see the degree of difference between the American conscience and the rest of the world. Jesus may have said little about military dominance but he said just as little about military submissiveness.

I believe the truth of Christ leads to free people who set up prosperous countries that flourish economically, and take the gospel to the majority of the world. This is what happened in early Rome, Great Britain, and The USA. I do not believe His truth is contingent upon nations, but I do believe that a nation once captivated by Him, will prosper unto dominance.

Q.)Which of the teachings of Jesus--the Christ, and Him Crucified--post a guide that leads to nationalism, war and dominance?

A.) Thankfully once again the scriptures do not give pad answers to specific questions about the economy, politics, and philosophy. They do give a trajectory of moral justification in light of the inherent dignity of men. This means that the loss of my life on behalf of others is a noble act (Jesus did this) “Greater love hath not a man than He lay his life down for a friend”. It also means that the act of me killing a combatant for the preservation of innocent people is a noble act. It also means that there are innate, just, and noble truths which all men have known from creation. (Romans 1:20) God blesses followers of such truth and gives them favor with men. The byproduct of such favor is dominance. The byproduct of dominance is resistance and persecution leading to war and strife. This is the picture of an already and not yet Kingdom.

My question is this: What is your solution?

I'm coming out of the closet!

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:31:00 GMT

So I have this crazy idea. What if water baptism in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, is the baptism in the Holy Spirit? Let me explain that I may have just taken a flying leap into Presbyterianism but if this holds up biblically I have developed a sound systematic theology of baptism that leaves me no choice but to baptize children. If it was good enough for Jonathan Edwards … dare I argue?

There are some in the book of Acts who received the baptism in the Holy Spirit after conversion. Some Pentecostals, Holiness, and Wesleyan churches teach that this is an experience somewhat like a seizure, radical sanctification, speaking in tongues, or even being covered in liquid love as Charlie Carpenter described it. I do not think this is normative though I will say sometimes an experience accompanies this secondary event. So I agree that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is secondary event to conversion that is not my justification or the primary regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
I understand that the scriptures in no place (please correct me if I am wrong) teach that the regenerative act of the Holy Spirit (where He comes to dwell in the elect of God) constitutes baptism. I assume this because baptism is an outward activity whereas regeneration is an inner reality.
On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came and instituted The Church of Jesus Christ which I believe to be New Israel or True Israel. This means that the Holy Spirit abides with The Church. Perhaps this is Roman Catholic of me (please correct me if this is off) but it seems that to be baptized in the Holy Spirit would be to be baptized into where the Holy Spirit dwells. In other words what I think I’m trying to work through would be that the one baptism Paul is speaking of is into The Church.
Calvinists (myself sometimes included) speak of The Church as a covenant people much like Israel. Paul says “not all Israel are true Israel or Israel by faith” and this seems to imply that the covenant community is more of a melting pot of the reprobate and the regenerate than a holy huddle. In the same way I would draw the same belief about The Church where it is constituted of those inside and outside the primary regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. I cannot upon careful examination deny the Holy Spirits work in the unregenerate, nor can I find a scriptural precedent which would affirm that Christ’s death burial and resurrection are not broadly for the entire earth, including the reprobate lost sinner.
I do not believe man is the first cause of or the secondary synergistic mechanism of salvation. God chose the elect in Christ before the foundations of the world, and has particularly redeemed them only by His blood. This is a monergistic reality. If this is the case there is much better scriptural cohesion and mercy in the redemptive plan for those with improperly working wills such as cases of downs syndrome, brain dysfunction, aborted babies, and yes children. Children like it or not do not have properly functioning reasoning devices. They have only one properly functioning will … God’s will.
From this and the argument from silence, I can conclude that there is a case for a broad understanding of the covenant community to engage the reprobate child as member even before they are regenerate. If conversion and the baptism in the Holy Spirit are separate it only follows that some could be baptized into the Holy Spirit or become members of The Church, and then later make a profession of faith when they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. In this way the covenant community functions as a growing vineyard. Even Christ says that there will be tares in the vineyard, and this seems to imply a co-mingling of people at all stages of spiritual maturity and even evil worldliness. This includes children who will and will not be chosen by God as His elect.
Some problems still remain that I can identify as follows. I am still wrestling with the idea that the house of God is built of living stones only. I struggle with the understanding that though conversion and baptism in the Holy Spirit are distinct realities, that one conversion must precede baptism because there seems to be little biblical precedent for the other option. I do not dwell on mode of baptism, but it seems that immersion is the optimum mode that communicates what the scriptures intend by “buried”. Oh, and if anyone has a great response to the speaking I tongues questions, I would love one. Thanks…

Wearing Your Faith Well

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:42:40 GMT

Today I went to see a man prepare to die. It isn’t as though I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I timed my grandfather’s death, looked into my fathers eyes not long before he passed, and visited the brother of an older friend of mine days before he went to be with the Lord. Today I walked the floor of a hospital corridor and stood beside a poorly designed medical chair as family members tried to pry an old green Living Bible from Jack’s hands. Jack is a beautiful man. I have never sensed a more peaceful spirit about a man in all my life. He is a man’s man but not in a dirty Harry kind of way, in a Joseph the son of Jacob kind of way. This is the type of man I hope to be before I part from the body of this death. This is the reason I attend a church that has fewer twenty-something folk than it does seventy something. You see when a twenty year old man dies they call it a tragedy, but when a man like Jack passes it is the most holy thing we can witness. He asked me to explain a bible verse. The Lord has a sense of humor about Him that tends to get me all worked up. You know if he had been able to find that passage I would have given it everything I had and still come short of the understanding found in the soul of a man clutching his Living Bible days before he goes to be with Jesus. Humble is not the word I choose but mortification is. We must be abased before the wickedness that is in us will flee. These old saints seem so alive to me because they call me closer to Christ, deeper toward holiness, and abase my conceited notions of importance with little more than the grip of a Bible. My church may smell musty but there is a fire there that can not be found in the halls of a multi-purpose building with new carpet and a glass lectern. Old saints bring years of holiness, wisdom, balance, depth, and mystery that tend to more fully unite them with the awe of God than slick well marketed hipster culture can statistically account for in their growth models. Jack “wears his faith well” to quote Glen Baaten, and one day I will too.

Resources

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:39:39 GMT

So I don’t have much to say right now, but I would like to recommend some resources that are blowing my mind. I would recommend going to www.henryinstitute.org and listening to the audio messages of Dr. Moore called:

“Disposable Communion Sets and Other Signs of the End Times”

Preaching the Gospel through the Lord's Supper

“New Wine in Blue Suede Shoes?”

Christianity and Pop Culture

“Gender and the Future of a Counter-Cultural Church”

Different by Design Conference

“Confessions of a Fundamissional Dean”

Are Southern Baptists Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, or What?

“Beyond the Culture Wars?”

Differing Viewpoints Look at Post-Christian America: A Conversation with the Editors of Touchstone Magazine

“Have Baptists Changed or Has Culture?: The Baptist View of the Family”
The Family Conference

These are excellent messages. I am still working through many of the implications they have on my conceptions of church and culture. Dr. Moore is an amazing expositor of the scriptures and in person he bears a weighty authority as a man beyond his years. It is not a popular thing to like these guys, but I sense that their answers are good ones. Keep in mind that I do not subscribe to dispensationalism, or a pre-millennialism, but the Henry Institute has many great men working in this think-tank.

Another resource that I would recommend to you is www.marshillaudio.org where I have listened to many wonderful programs on Christianity and culture. For those of you frustrated by buzzwords like post-modern, emergent, and Gen-X, these dialogues are wonderful. They have helped me to navigate the strange spiritual climate of our day. I would recommend:

Vol. 78 - Thomas de Zengotita, on postmodern individualism and "reality" TV
Vol. 68 - Murray Milner, Jr., on how the choices of parents create the institutional framework for the lives of adolescents
Vol. 59 - Adrienne Chaplin on the place and responsibilities of Christian artists in their communities

Was Jesus a 1689 Reformed Baptist?

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:13:48 GMT

Was Jesus a 1689 Reformed Baptist?

Throughout the last 11 years my life has been on a certain theological trajectory. This trajectory has seen me through a Disciples of Christ church, a Full Gospel Assemblies church, a Southern Baptist church, a Missionary Baptist church, an Assemblies of God church, a Presbyterian Church of America church, Quakerism, a few Vineyards, a handful of independent churches, a Presbyterian Church (USA) church, a Methodist church, and I’m sure if I think long enough I will come up with even more. I have planted churches, and purposefully warmed a few pews. From laughing revivals in Toronto to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, I have been through every high and low tradition I could find. Some have chided my transient church movements as being “tossed to and fro” when I would agree with them totally. While I was trying to be tossed to and fro by the Spirit, instead I was manipulated by bad theology. Today I must appear to be a bible thumper, a fundamentalist, and a hard bible believer. I really have been there and done that. It is for this reason (as I speak with some folks from yet another denomination) that I ask myself the question “Was Jesus a 1689 Reformed Baptist” and “would he worship the Father in the church which meets in my mind”? I have read the bible more times than I can count, listened to sermons and read commentaries. I know what I believe. The question remains after all of this study, “have I arrived at Jesus or have I arrived at a theological position”? It seems odd to me that Jesus never mentioned federal headship, or penal substitution, or supra-lapsarian-predestination. He did not mention the Methodists the Moravians, or Martin Luther. He said “love the Lord with everything you have, and love your neighbor like you love yourself”. He spoke of the kingdom in parables like a father talks to a young son about war or an aunt explains where babies come from to her niece. He befriended fishermen and blinded murderous religious men.

But Jesus was baptized by immersion by a baptist! He said “you love because I first loved you” and it doesn’t get much more sotereologically reformed than that! Of course Jesus no doubt is the one who authored the drama of redemption and formed the thoughts of Paul as he developed what is now categorized as the Doctrines of Grace. Though like our politicians I waffle, I still retain a form of credo baptism, and yes I think the intent of Christ in being baptized was to eclipse the baptism of John with the true baptism of Holy Spirit. Jesus was a Baptist. The fact remains that it seems odd to categorically call Jesus a 1689 Reformed Baptist. I feel weird about that. What is even more problematic is that I identify myself theologically with a group of people that identify themselves not with who they know but with what they know.

What is all of this about? Why am I beating the same horse that the restoration movement killed along time ago? Here is why. The fallen propensity of man is to categorize ourselves based on external religion. You can worship your car, your wife, and even historic theology. When I call myself something it bears a certain gravity of identification. I am a man. I am a white man. I am a … You see every qualifier of the external flows from me. Even the seemingly internal qualifiers do this as well. For instance the statement, “I am loving” is a qualifier based on what I am and not who’s I am. This is fundamentally and categorically prideful. The same follows when I identify myself with an ideology as in “I’m an objectivist”. It is wrong to think of Jesus as a 1689 Reformed Baptist because like many things, the flow of logic is not bidirectional. The idea is that to identify the source with the destination is faulty logic. It makes sense then that I can ideologically identify with a 1689 Reformed Baptist but I should not impose this label on Christ or myself. If anything I should call myself “the possession of Christ” for in this and only this can I identify who I truly am and who Christ truly is.

He is “I AM”. All this is to say that proper praxis flows from rightly knowing who God is. Simply because we do worship biblically and confess the Westminster or the London Confession, and because we think aright, does not mean we identify properly with our maker. It does not mean that we believe and it does not mean that we have faith. Christ’s identity is now our identity, and from this will come all manner of right relationship.