Chapter Four of the Westminster Confession discusses creation. The first point tells us that God created everything, and that it was good: "It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and
goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the
world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the
space of six days; and all very good." The second point discusses the sixth day of creation in more depth, specifically the creation of man and woman and their duties and obligations to their Creator. [1] While all of what the Confession says in Chapter Four—brief as it is—is indeed true, a very crucial is point is overlooked by this historic document of Reformed theology.
In Matthew 16, Jesus asks His disciples who they thought He was. Peter, as usual, is ready with an answer when he proclaims: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus, in confirming Peter's answer tells him that "flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Jesus continues His point by saying: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it" (Mt. 16:16-18). Although much has been made of this verse by both Catholics and Protestants, neither Peter nor his confession of Jesus as the Christ will be our focus here. I only want to make the reader aware of a simple pronoun: "My." Jesus referred to the church as "My church." The church belongs to Jesus, not to us.
One of the problems with most church history books is that they tend to overwhelm rather than inform. This is largely due to the fact that church history is taught like every other type of history: a long and boring series of names, dates, and events. While this approach is a defeating way to teach any kind of history, it is especially detrimental to church history. Why? Because church history is not primarily the story of individuals, it is the story of Christ building His church on earth. Although individuals are certainly a key (and necessary) component to the church-building effort, they are not the end of the story, they are merely the beginning. A book on church history that fails to ask the question "What was God doing here?" will also fail to teach its readers anything of lasting value. It matters little if modern Christians can rattle off the fact that the East and West divide between the Greek and Latin churches happened in 1054, if they are unaware of why this "great schism" happened in the first place. The "happening" is mostly meaningless without the context of what led up to it.
François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, is credited with the famous saying about man creating God in his own image. He worded it this way: "If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor." Many variations of this quotation have been used by various authors over the years to communicate the idea that man has a natural predisposition—the Bible calls it sin—to think of himself as the center of the universe. It was pointed out to me in a sermon I heard in my early days of becoming a Christian that man employs two methods of making more of himself than he ought. The first is fairly obvious: man makes much of himself. But the second is less obvious and more difficult to deal with: man makes little of God.
There are few writers from the 20th century that come close to either the amount or the influence owned by Clive Staples Lewis. Although primarily known today for his religious writings, Lewis seemingly wrote something about nearly every topic under the sun during his 50-year writing career. And like G.K. Chesterton before him, Lewis shined most brightly as an essayist. Although he certainly wrote his share of long-form books and novels, his brilliance and eloquence were most readily on display when he limited his writing to fewer than ten pages. God in the Dock, an eclectic collection of some of his essays and articles, is a great introduction to his polemical and apologetic writings, in addition to being a magnificent example of how Christianity should be thought about and lived out in the world around us.
The fourth question that is "transforming the faith," according to author and speaker Brian McLaren, is the question of who Jesus is. This may seem to be something of an odd question because Christianity itself is dependent on the Person of Jesus. If we don't know who Jesus is then we probably don't know what Christianity is either. In fact, this is precisely the point McLaren is trying to make in this section of his book. He writes, "just saying the name 'Jesus' doesn't mean much until we make clear which Jesus we are talking about. We must face the fact that many different saviors can be smuggled in under the name 'Jesus,' just as many different deities can be disguised under the term 'God' and vastly different ways of living can be promoted under the name 'Christianity'" (p. 119). He is, of course, absolutely right about this, but simply making the observation that many different interpretations exist of who Jesus is doesn't automatically make your interpretation the right one. We must now take a closer look at what McLaren claims the "real" Jesus
is like.
Guest review by Linsay Morgan, Customer Service Rep at American Vision
When Mel Gibson's controversial film, The Passion of the Christ was released in 2004, millions of people were exposed to the brutality of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ—many for the very first time. While most reviewers criticized the movie for its explicit violence and graphic depictions of Christ's last few horrific hours before his execution, these same reviewers completely missed the significance of what they were witnessing. The death of Christ is the single most important event in world history, short of the resurrection. The beating, scorn, and scandal that Jesus Christ received was meant for us. Our sin sent Him to the cross. Our sin requires blood atonement. Our sin requires human sacrifice. Our sin requires death. And our sin has been paid for; Jesus Christ died that we may live.
As we continue through Brian McLaren's new book, A New Kind of Christianity, we now come to his third question that is "transforming the faith." This question concerns the seeming contradiction between the God that we read about in the Old Testament (OT) and the Jesus that we find in the New Testament (NT). It is often pointed out (usually by skeptics) that the "OT god" seems to be terribly bloodthirsty and sadistic, seeking to subjugate His people under laws and rules that they could never keep, while the Jesus of the NT seems to be one of forgiveness and love, seeking to spread grace as liberally as the OT god spread vengeance. This antimony between the testaments often causes problems for many Christians—McLaren among them—and often results in Christians being thoroughly unread and unfamiliar with the Old Testament, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the entire Bible.
We live in a time of tremendous abundance as far as sound theological literature is concerned, and for that we ought to be grateful. It was not always so. The church almost lost several centuries of the most helpful theological works imaginable. As the only minister in the family, I have inherited my Grandmother’s theological library, such as it was. When I look at what she had available to her in the 1940s and 1950s, I am dismayed. About the best she could do was the Barclay’s Commentaries and the Abingdon Bible Dictionary. But Barclay was a theological liberal who didn’t believe in the Resurrection or in miracles, and the Abingdon Bible Dictionary represented the dominance of theological liberalism in the mainline churches of the day. Good theology was far harder to come by. For instance, Martyn Lloyd Jones was instrumental in pulling together a theological lending library in the 1930’s and 1940’s in order to preserve old copies of Puritan works so that they could be rediscovered by pastors and scholars. Many of these volumes were well over 100 years old then. One had to travel to London to read some of them, as they were not allowed to leave the building. He also helped found the Banner of Truth Trust in 1957, in order to make modern reprints of these books available.
Two words that almost never go together are "concise" and "theology." Many authors have tried to write short summaries of Christian theology that appeal to the average Christian sitting in the pew, and most of them have failed. The difficulty is not so much with the subject, but with the writers themselves. This is not because the writers aren't knowledgeable; in fact the opposite is most often the case—they are too knowledgeable. Publishers will often recruit a seasoned pastor or a seminary professor thinking that these men are the most qualified to write a summary work for layman. The theory is sound, but the reality is seldom pretty. These knowledgeable pastors and professors are generally not accustomed to the constraint of the 15-second sound-bite attention span of the average reader. They have more than a bit of difficulty being brief and concise in print, because they seldom need to be brief in their sermons and classroom lectures.
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