Posted on 01/05/2010 8:25:32 AM PST by Alex Murphy
I wasn't born and raised in the Reformed church. In other words, I am a Reformed immigrant. Like many people in the Reformed church today, I migrated out of broad based evangelicalism and non-denominationalism. Many of my friends, both ministers and laypeople, have had similar immigration experiences.
Recently, at the funeral of my father-in-law, I had the opportunity to get reacquainted with many of my Reformed immigrant friends. Much to my surprise, I found myself having a very similar conversation with this group. They shared with me that they felt like something was missing in their Reformed experience. While they were all satisfied with the doctrine, worship and government of the church they spoke of a missing intangible element. They had trouble articulating the exact nature of this missing element. I suggested a variety of terms to give it a name and the one that seemed to come closest was "joy." These immigrants perceived the Reformed church to be suffering from a deficiency of spiritual joy.
These conversations got me thinking. I did my own assessment of my Reformed experience and, I must admit, I had to agree that "joyful" was not one of the first adjectives that came to my mind to describe it. Then I began to contemplate why the Reformed church seems to be lacking in the joy department. My contemplation yielded two main reasons.
The Reasons
First, I think the Reformed church is joyfully deficient because of the immigration wave of which I am part. Over the past twenty years the Reformed church, particularly through the efforts of men like R.C. Sproul, has been very successful in drawing people out of evangelicalism and assimilating them into the ranks of the Reformed. What attracted these immigrants were the things that they perceived as woefully deficient in evangelicalism. These included things such as irreverent worship, imprecise doctrine and sloppy to non-existent church government. In other words, most of the immigrants to the Reformed world made their migration because they were dissatisfied with evangelicalism. They were evangelical malcontents. This means that many people in the Reformed church today fought their way into it. They entered into the Reformed church with strong convictions and bearing the bruises of their evangelical exodus. This type of soil is not naturally enriched with joy. This type of soil requires joy to be cultivated and we've not been doing a great job at it.
Second, I think we are joyfully deficient in the Reformed church because we are perpetually circling the theological wagons. The Reformed church seems continually occupied with the task of theological preservation, a struggle that resembles Tolkien's battle at Helm's Deep. We are simply forever consumed with survival and we don't have time to focus on neglected, but seemingly less vital, topics like joy. For example, when it comes to the topic of worship we don't spend our time pontificating on the joy of worship, but rather we exhaust ourselves, appropriately so, with topics like the regulative principle. When it comes to the topic of justification, we expend our resources, again appropriately so, in defending its forensic nature rather than on the joy which flows from it. The end result is often joyfully deficient theological precision.
The Remedy
So how do we remedy this deficiency of joy in our ranks? We do what the Reformed have always done-we turn to God's holy Word. There is no doubt that the Scripture emphasizes joy in the life of the believer. This is not the namby-pamby joy of the world, but real spiritual joy that can only be experienced by those who are in Christ. The great Dutch Puritan, Wilhelmus a Brakel, defined this spiritual joy as follows:
This spiritual joy consists in a delightful motion of the soul, generated by the Holy Spirit in the heart of believers, whereby He convinces them of the felicity of their state, causes them to enjoy the benefits of the covenant of grace, and assures them of their future felicity.
Note that Brakel's definition directly links this joy to the "benefits of the covenant of grace." Exposure to God's covenant Word and covenant deeds should yield joy in God's people.
This is exactly what happened in the days of Nehemiah.
In Nehemiah 8 we are given the privilege of witnessing an ancient worship service which was celebrated after the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt. The people begged for God's Word and they listened to it attentively. The congregation of God's people felt the piercing power of his Word and they also felt the weight of their sins. This led them to mourn and grieve.
But then something quite extraordinary happened, Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites commanded the people to stop their mourning. Nehemiah told them why they must do this, "Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10, emphasis mine). With these words the worship service ended and the Scripture records what the congregation did next, "Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them" (Nehemiah 8:12, emphasis mine).
This account from Nehemiah demonstrates that spiritual joy flows from a proper understanding of God's covenant Word. But this text also teaches us that the ministry has an important role to play in encouraging that joy among God's people. When ministers read and preach God's holy Word, particularly God's law, we must always speak to God's people like Nehemiah. We must say to them "Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10). We must remind them of the source of their joy.
In the Reformed church we need to do a better job of emphasizing this spiritual joy in our own lives, in our congregations and in our pulpits. We must remind our people that, just like our righteousness, spiritual joy is not something we can create or produce. It is an alien joy. It comes from our communion with God and it is only made possible through the propitiation of Jesus Christ. We must remind God's people that it is God who sovereignly bestows this gift upon his children. We must tell them that this joy is so powerful that it can be experienced even during our trials (James 1:2) and at all times (Philippians 4:4). We must commit ourselves to proclaiming to God's people the "benefits of the covenant of grace." This is exactly what I plan to do in 2010. I plan on emphasizing this Reformed joy in my preaching in 2010. I hope you will consider joining me in reminding God's people that the joy of the Lord is their strength!
Anthony T. Selvaggio is presently serving as a Teaching Elder in the Rochester Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCNA), Rochester, NY. His published work includes The Prophets Speak of Him: Encountering Jesus in the Minor Prophets, (Evangelical Press, 2006), What the Bible Teaches About Marriage (Evangelical Press, 2007), A Proverbs Driven Life (Shepherd Press, 2008) and 24/7 Christian: Expository Thoughts on James (Evangelical Press, 2008). He also edited and contributed to The Faith Once Delivered (P & R Publishing, 2007).
Thanks. I always thought those people were Protestants, and basically there were 2 factions of Christians, Catholics and Protestants.
I don’t understand what is meant by ‘confessional standards’.
"In 1648, the first printing of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly were made available for distribution and sale in England and Scotland. They remain the clearest expressions of Reformed Protestantism ever formulated..."
- May 13, This Week in Religion History
Confession and Catechisms [introduction to the Westminster Confession of Faith]
The Westminster Confession of Faith
[from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church website]
Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scripture
Chapter 2: Of God, and of the Holy Trinity
Chapter 3: Of God’s Eternal Decree
Chapter 4: Of Creation
Chapter 5: Of Providence
Chapter 6: Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof
Chapter 7: Of God’s Covenant with Man
Chapter 8: Of Christ the Mediator
Chapter 9: Of Free Will
Chapter 10: Of Effectual Calling
Chapter 11: Of Justification
Chapter 12: Of Adoption
Chapter 13: Of Sanctification
Chapter 14: Of Saving Faith
Chapter 15: Of Repentance unto Life
Chapter 16: Of Good Works
Chapter 17: Of the Perseverance of the Saints
Chapter 18: Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
Chapter 19: Of the Law of God
Chapter 20: Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
Chapter 21: Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
Chapter 22: Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
Chapter 23: Of the Civil Magistrate
Chapter 24: Of Marriage and Divorce
Chapter 25: Of the Church
Chapter 26: Of the Communion of Saints
Chapter 27: Of the Sacraments
Chapter 28: Of Baptism
Chapter 29: Of the Lord’s Supper
Chapter 30: Of Church Censures
Chapter 31: Of Synods and Councils
Chapter 32: Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
Chapter 33: Of the Last Judgment
FWIW, you'll find that Catholics usually group all non-Catholic and non-Orthodox "Christian" groups into a single category - "Protestant" - and in doing so, they fail to understand the doctrinal and practical distinctives found among them. Not all Catholic-lumped "Protestant" groups are even Trinitarian in doctrine, however, and IMO some groups shouldn't even be considered Christian, let alone Protestant. But of those that are Trinitarian, I suggest breaking them down into the following categories:
"Reformed/Protestant" (16th century, Lutheran/Anglican/Presbyterian, and any others - largely paedobaptist and pro-creed/confession - that trace their denominational and creedal roots back to the Reformation),
"Evangelical" (17th century, Wesleyans/Methodists/Baptists and others - largely anabaptist and often anti-creedal - that arose after and somewhat in response to the Reformed groups);
"Restorationist" (19th century, independent "first century style" churches/anti-denominational congregations and associations, many of which can be traced back to the Stone/Campbell movement in NY's Hudson River valley);
"Charismatic" (20th century, any "Spirit-led" but anti-creedal church or denomination that followed or appeared alongside the Restorationists, especially those that originated with the "baby boomer" generation i.e. the Calvary Chapel/Vineyard churches).
I'm honestly not sure where I'd place groups like the "emergent churches" or even the Warren / Osteen style megachurches. They lack the strong theological distinctives (Calvinism, creedalism) that characterizes the earlier groups, and the strong cultural distinctives (display of charismatic gifts, fierce cultural isolationism) that characterizes the later groups. I tend to think that they should get their own category, but I usually lump them under the "evangelical" label because they usually associate themselves with that group socially.
To put it more plainly: they're lacking in joy because they're missing the point.
"Appropriately" exhausting one's self on "regulative principle" is the sin of the Pharisees. "Appropriately" focusing on the "forensic nature" of justification is bascially to ignore the fact that justification is simply given to us by God's grace, regardless of how wonderful our logic may be.
Of course there's no joy there: it's sterile. The problem with this article is that the author is proposing to "increase joy" by doing more of the same.
What's missing is not theology; what's missing is relationship. Where, in all those words, do we see any discussion of the fact that we are in a present and on-going relationship with God? Where, in all those words, do we see any discussion of living as part of the Body of Christ, and being in relationship with God by means of our relationships with other people? It's not there.
More importantly, where are the other two Persons of the Trinity? Where is the Holy Spirit, whom God sent to be with us once Jesus was gone? The Holy Spirit is our direct connection with God: why isn't the good pastor talking about that? And was Jesus really nothing more than a vessel for propitiation of sins? Does not Jesus also reflect God's desire to be in actualy, human relationship with us?
The author's dissatisfaction with evangelical non-denominationalism is understandable: from what I can see, it's all about relationship and tends to dismiss formalism. The end result is often a religion that plays to the emotions, and leaves the intellect hungry.
Reformed theology is obviously full of intellectual food. But (IMO) the sterility of Reformed theology stems from the fact that it lives on the opposite extreme: an essential rejection of the idea that humans have an active role in their relationship with God. There is no joy in that.
"Joy" is found in the middle: paying attention to formalism is good, so long as it's not taken too far. Emphasizing relationship is good, too -- so long as we can keep perspective about the nature of the relationship.
If this is what Mr. Selvaggio really thinks, I suspect there will still be no joy in Mudville this year....
Thanks for the explanations, although I’m having a hard time understanding the meaning of such things as; ‘Trinitarian in doctrine’, ‘paedobaptist and anti/pro-creed/confession’, ‘anabaptists’, and ‘spirit-led, anti/creedal’. Where did these definitions originate?
The snarky, but essentially correct, answer is that they're labels applied to different groups' attempts to tell God what He can and cannot do.
It means that a person's identification with/membership in a particular group is granted by subjection and adherence to a predefined formal confession or creed (i.e. the Bible, the Westminster Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, etc). The Catholic version has all members (and their Catechism, their 'confessiuonal standard') being ultimately subject to a person or office (i.e. the Pope, Archbishop, etc). Reformed Protestants are ruled by God's Word (sometimes encapsulated in a Creed or Confession for ease of dissemination). Catholics are ruled by God's Vicar.
To use a more familiar example, the United States of America was formed as a government ruled over by a ‘confessional standard’. Even the President is supposed to be subject to this standard, i.e. Witherspoon's axiom "Lex Rex" (the Law is King). This is why oaths are sworn to obey and protect the 'standard' (the Constitution), and not to obey and protect the President. The President's authority comes from the Constitution; it is not independently possessed. The President therefore does not have the authority to re-write the Constitution.
The term “Protestants”, as you can imagine, arose out of Protesting. And, yes, the Protestants were those that broadly objected to the extra baggage added by the Catholic Church to the Bible’s message. Within the group of Protestants is a smaller subset of folks that are attempting (and attempted) to restore that Bible message to the public eye. And, these Reformers hold onto the essential things they see the Bible set out as important to understand. And they want to discard things that the Bible doesn’t mention as important.
One of these in particular is that they believe the Bible deserves to describe how a Church should look. In the Catholic tradition, their organization believes they deserve to describe what the Bible says and what additional concepts should be believed. If you can notice, this sets up a conflict: Which view is correct? Does the Bible tell us about life or do the men in the Catholic Church tell us what to believe about the Bible?
This is why most Reformed folks have been told that we are “outside” of the Church, because we hold that men are subordinated to the Bible, not the other way around. We also hold that any person has a perfect right/responsibility to pick up a Bible and ask “What does this book say is going on?” The Catholic Church says this is not appropriate and we should submit ourselves to the understandings of their churchmen.
Now, just so you can get the picture accurately, the Bible includes the 5 books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Lev., Numbers, Deuteronomy), the writings and the Prophets. This is known as the Old Testament. It also includes the 27 letters written by men during the first century (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, Jude) called the New Testament. The message delivered by these men is considered the “gospel” and is plainly written for most anyone to read and understand.
This gospel is such very good news to men, women, and children who find their hearts drawn to God that it revolutionized the world. There is freedom, joy, and escape from slavery to traditions and ceremonies offered to anyone that God is pulling into His family. If you find yourself attracted to the message of God’s rescue of your life, you may very well be among those to whom He is granting an imperishable inheritance. What awaits is beyond your wildest imagination. And it doesn’t depend upon men controlling you, or you joining a certain organization. This aggravates many folks that like to control others. But, it is the pure message of the Bible.
I’ve got no problem with snarky, but I don’t understand attempting to tell God what He can or cannot do.
Got it, thanks. With all the differing ways to interpret God’s word, it seems listening to God’s vicar would be the preferred method.
Incorrect - if anything, the reverse is true. From the thread History Lesson: Positively Protestant:
What do the major historians of Protestantism say? Like almost all their colleagues, John Dillenberger and Claude Welch link the origin of the word Protestant to the ‘Protestation’ of the German evangelical estates in the second Diet of Speyer. But they see in that term “the duality of protest and affirmative witness.” That protest, they write, wasfrom the standpoint of affirmed faith. Few churches ever adopted the name “Protestant.” The most commonly adopted designations were rather “evangelical” and “reformed.” ... [W]hen the word Protestant came into currency in England (in Elizabethan times), its accepted significance was not “objection” but “avowal” or “witness” or “confession” (as the Latin protestari meant also “to profess”).That meaning lasted for another century, say Dillenberger and Welch, and it referred to the Church of England’smaking its profession of the faith in the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. Only later did the word “protest” come to have a primarily negative significance, and the term “Protestant” come to refer to non-Roman churches in general.....When Edward VI was crowned, the word still had a positive connotation. On the CultureVulture blog for the Guardian, Sean Clarke notes that it was 60 years from the introduction of Protestant in English until its first use in the extended sense of "object, dissent, or disapprove.” That (according to the Collins Etymological Dictionary) was first recorded in English in 1608. The Online Etymological Dictionary places the first use of protest to mean “statement of disapproval” in the year 1751—another century and a half. Through much of that history and well after, protest continued to mean “avow,” “affirm,” “witness,” or “solemnly proclaim.”Poor, misunderstood protest has had a history something like that of another word—apology. That word has gone from its positive, head-held-high sense of “a formal justification or defense” (as in “the essay was an apology for capitalism”) to something tinged with shame and remorse (“a statement of regret or request for pardon”).
I guess it’s all pretty much relevant to one’s beliefs.
Jesus was not referring to Peter - the Rock upon which His church was to be built was Christ himself.
How does someone counter the word of God himself? How does someone or a movement alter the bible the word of God a few centuries ago and eliminate 7 books??
Well, Protestants would say the Catholic church added in books that didn't belong. And it is the Catholic church that places tradition and ex cathedra pronouncements of popes on the same level as Scripture; I would argue that conservative Protestant churches hold Scripture in higher regard than does the Catholic church.
How can a man made church snub the church founded By Jesus Christ himself? other than the sin of pride how can man form his own belief system, thinking they can establish a church better than Christ himself ? altering the bible after 12/16 centuries.. it does not compute.
Patent nonsense.
www.catholic.com maybe ask your questions their! Shalom..
Gotta work on that grammar :)
Well, to be more serious, here's the situation.
Suppose a person believes in God; it's human nature to wonder about what God is actually like. There are those of us who believe (through personal experience, in many cases) that God is alive and active in our lives; and if so, what are the exact parameters of that activity? What does He want us to do? What makes Him mad? What makes Him happy? What is He trying to accomplish?
The result of these wonderings is "theology," which in a broad sense would be the study of God. Unfortunately, the available evidence doesn't clearly define what "God" is, so people try to fill in the gaps using incomplete information, and logic that is often skewed by what is generally agreed to be a "fallen" nature, i.e., we have a tendency to want to place ourselves in opposition to God. The result is usually that different people reach different conclusions, and many of those conclusions are self-serving to some degree.
And thus we have as many opinions about God as there are people thinking about Him; and we have that lamentable human tendency to cluster ourselves into tribes that are bound by general affinities, and which regard other tribes with suspicion or outright hostility.
In religion, those tribes are called "denominations," and the history of each tends to be defined by the theological points of disagreement. You can easily see that on display in this thread.
Not sure what you mean here. Clarify, if you will.
Technically, this may be correct. Just as “prevent” does not mean “inhibit or stop from occurring” in the King’s English. But, that doesn’t change the essential event that Luther began at Wittenberg. He did, in fact, vigorously protest the sale of indulgences and other abuses by the Catholic Church. This ignited a fire of objection across Europe that targeted sacerdotalism, transubstantiation, the other sacraments, mariolatry, and a pot full of other errors promulgated by the Catholic Church.
So, you believe in a god called "Free Will"? Interesting.
There was a movie back in the 90s called "Free Willy." Does that movie have anything to do with the god you worship?
Well, no. While Jesus is undoubtedly the Church's one foundation, the Church is still undeniably a human institution, and Peter was undeniably anointed by Jesus to start it.
He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter). (John 1:42)
And both Cephas and Peter mean, of course, "rock," in Aramaic and Greek, respectively. What about this rock, then?
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18)
And, finally, Jesus makes his point about the Church with the Great Commission: it's a human institution.
And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matt. 28:18-20).
And lest you still think Peter is not the rock on whom Jesus would build that earthly Church, don't forget that Jesus told him after the Resurrection: Feed my lambs... tend my sheep ... feed my sheep. (John 21).
http://jewishchristianlit.com//Topics/JewishJesus/toledoth.html
The Sages desired to separate from Israel those who continued to claim Yeshu as the Messiah, and they called upon a greatly learned man, Simeon Kepha, for help. Simeon went to Antioch, main city of the Nazarenes and proclaimed to them: “I am the disciple of Yeshu. He has sent me to show you the way. I will give you a sign as Yeshu has done.”
Simeon, having gained the secret of the Ineffable Name, healed a leper and a lame man by means of it and thus found acceptance as a true disciple.
He told them that Yeshu was in heaven, at the right hand of his Father, in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1. He added that Yeshu desired that they separate themselves from the Jews and no longer follow their practices, as Isaiah had said, “Your new moons and your feasts my soul abhorreth.”
They were now to observe the first day of the week instead of the seventh, the Resurrection instead of the Passover, the Ascension into Heaven instead of the Feast of Weeks, the finding of the Cross instead of the New Year, the Feast of the Circumcision instead of the Day of Atonement, the New Year instead of Chanukah; they were to be indifferent with regard to circumcision and the dietary laws.
Also they were to follow the teaching of turning the right if smitten on the left and the meek acceptance of suffering. All these new ordinances which Simeon Kepha (or Paul, as he was known to the Nazarenes) taught them were really meant to separate these Nazarenes from the people of Israel and to bring the internal strife to an end.
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