Today is October 31.  It is a day which many years ago, changed history forever.  From that day forward, life as we knew it would never be the same again.  While most people in society recognize this day as “Halloween”, many Reformed evangelicals remember today as Reformation Day.  If you are a Christian but not a Jew or a Roman Catholic, you should recognize this day, October 31, 1517 as the beginning of what we know now as Protestantism.

Martin Luther is said to have nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31st, 1517.  The 95 Theses challenged the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the nature of penance, the authority of the pope and the usefulness of indulgences, and sparked a theological debate that would result in what we know today as the Reformation.  While Luther himself didn’t bring any reform to the church, his Theses triggered the Protestant Reformation by rediscovering the Gospel–the good news of salvation by grace alone through faith alone through Jesus Christ the Lord.  It was in that time that many Christians split from the Roman Catholic Church in protest, and formed protestant churches that believed in the sole authority of Scripture, justification by faith alone, and the priesthood of every believer.

If you are a Christian and know very little about the Reformation, I encourage you to read up on this pivotal moment in church history.  The very church you attend every week exists now all because of what the fore-fathers of our faith did back then.  By the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment, they saw and understood the apostasy that was Roman Catholicism, and initiated a return to adherence and obedience to God’s Word alone.

2I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. 6But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Revelation 2:2-7

Let us in this day remember the the height from which we have fallen; to sincerely repent of our sins, and do what we did at first.  Let us no longer forsake our first love, Jesus Christ our LORD and Savior, but let us love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength in obedience and surrender as an act of worship, in response to what God has done for us.

There are generally 3 views of original sin; 3 very different beliefs about how far we have fallen from grace; how Adam’s sin affects us.  The Pelagian, Federal, and Augustinian view; a more recent view proposed by Clark Pinnock has not been widely accepted.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… (Romans 5:12)

In Pelagianism, original sin affected Adam alone and no one is affected by Adam’s sin.  People incur death when they sin after Adam’s example.

Pelagianism views humanity as basically good and morally unaffected by the Fall. It denies the imputation of Adam’s sin, original sin, total depravity, and substitutionary atonement. It simultaneously views man as fundamentally good and in possession of libertarian free will. With regards to salvation, it teaches that man has the ability in and of himself apart from divine aid to obey God and earn eternal salvation.  In and of itself, Pelagianism is overwhelmingly incompatible with Scripture and condemned by all protestant churches.

In Clark Pinnock’s view, no one was affected by Adam’s original sin, and mankind inherited neither the corrupt nature or guilt of original sin, but only inherited a cultural depravity.

Pinnock is known to be the primary proponent of the controversial “Open Theism” theology, the belief that God does not exercise meticulous control of the universe but leaves it “open” for humans to make significant choices (free will) that impact their relationships with God and others.  This movement is denied by most Reformed evangelicals today as a view of harmartiology that is also incompatible with historic biblical Christian orthodoxy.

On a side note, the classic Arminian view of the imputation of Adam’s sin was popular in the Methodist movement and still is somewhat popular in many western Christians.  Arminianism understands that original sin imputes to us the corrupt nature of Adam only, and not his guilt.  As John Wesley stated more forcefully, humans were in fact totally corrupted by original sin, but God’s prevenient grace allowed free will to operate.

I understand all these above views to be incompatible with the totality of Scripture and the whole counsel of God.  All of which are in stark contrast to the Augustinian/Calvinist view of total depravity which denies Jacob Arminius’ universal prevenient grace and any moral ability in mankind to turn to Christ.   Because of Adam’s sin, all of humanity is imputed by it, and thus all of humanity sinned in Adam.  Since we participated actually in Adam’s sin and were seminally there, depravity is total and both the corrupt nature and guilt are inherited.

On the other hand, the Federal view which is known as a Calvinistic interpretation, understands Adam only as a representative headship.  That is we participated in Adam’s sin in representative (not actual) way, where he was our proxy.

“Total depravity (or radical corruption) is a theological term primarily associated with Calvinism, which interprets the Bible to teach that, as a consequence of the Fall of man, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin. In other words, a person is not by nature inclined to love God with his heart or mind or strength, rather all are inclined to serve their own interests over those of their neighbor. Put another way, even with all circumstances in his favor a man without God can do nothing but work for his own destruction; and even his religion and philanthropy are destructive, to the extent that these originate from his own imagination, passions and will.”  (Wikipedia) 

In the words of John Piper,

First, as a result of Adam’s sin we all enter the world with a fallen nature. This is original sin–the sinful tendencies, desires, and dispositions in our hearts with which we are all born. Thus, original sin is something inherent in us–it is a morally ruined character. The original sin that we are all born with manifests itself throughout our lives in actual sins–the actions, thoughts, and feelings we have that violate God’s moral commands. So our sinful hearts (original sin) cause us to make sinful choices, think sinful thoughts, and feel sinful feelings (actual sins). We are not sinners because we sin; rather, we sin because we are sinners. We are all born totally imprisoned in original sin. There is no island of goodness left in us.

Second, the guilt of Adam’s sin is credited not just to Adam himself, but to us all. We are regarded as having sinned in Adam, and hence as deserving of the same punishment. This is imputed sin. Thus, we not only receive polluted and sinful natures because of Adam’s sin (original sin), but we are also regarded as having sinned in Adam such that we are guilty of his act as well (imputed sin). Imputed sin is the ruin of our standing before God and is thus not an internal quality but an objective reckoning of guilt, whereas original sin is the ruin of our character and thus is a reference to internal qualities. Both original sin and imputed sin place us under the judgment of God.

O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear.
In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known;
in wrath remember mercy.

Thanks be to the Apostle Paul, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin
(among many other Reformers), and Theopedia,
for reminding us of the importance of this day
and the need for repentance and faith in Christ.

There is no such thing as Christian music, only Christian lyrics.

Over the past decade or so, I have experienced and witnessed the development of the so-called “modern worship movement”.  Worship music has become so popular that even the contemporary Christian music community has embraced “worship” music into its itinerary–Christian pop artists writing, singing and leading worship songs on cd and concert without any prior training, calling or gifting.  What I just said may be a bit extreme or generalized, but in short, those Christians who formerly only did music to make money are now making money out of worship.  I could name names and you could rebut me by saying all Christian music is basically worship in content… but what I am talking about is the congregational worship music that is used in western evangelical churches today.

There is, has been, and if we don’t stop it, there will be… a lack of theologically-informed worship music in the church.  The influx of songs that lack theological, biblical and doctrinal depth is too popular in today’s worship music sets.  A lot of songs focus on me me and me, sound like some love-song off of your local easy-rock radio station, and quite frankly, talk more about how we feel in our circumstances rather than who God IS and what He has DONE despite any circumstances that come our way.  And as inviting as these songs are to get the teens jumping and dancing, they provide little solid biblical reasons as to why you should jump, dance or say “I love you I love you I love you… you are my best friend” to God.

More recently, Charles Colson wrote an article in the April 2006 issue of Christianity Today that presented an extreme opinion that the church is “soothing ourselves to death“, a serious warning the author wrote in response to experiencing “endless repetitions of a meaningless ditty called “Draw Me Close to You,” which has zero theological content and could just as easily be sung in any nightclub.”  Colson’s article provoked numerous discussions on around the Christian blogsphere, some were positive, some negative, and others taking neither side.  Read the original article and the resulting discussions and responses, and you will see that regardless of what the different opinions about the aforementioned song are, theological/doctrinal/biblical adherence in congregational worship is the paramount issue facing our church music today.  While telling God how we feel and expressing to Him our thoughts is right and good, these feelings are only reliable and true as they are rooted in who God is, what He has done, and what He has said to us.

On such theological accommodation in today’s worship, Albert Mohler shares this:

What is the result of this accommodated Christianity? I quote Tozer again: We have simplified until Christianity amounts to this: God is love; Jesus died for you; believe, accept, be jolly, have fun and tell others. And away we go–that is the Christianity of our day. I would not give a plug nickel for the whole business of it. Once in a while God has a poor bleeding sheep that manages to live on that kind of thing and we wonder how.

True worship begins with a vision of the God of the Bible–the true and living God.

Maybe I am wrong in my analysis, and maybe you’ve seen better in the churches you’ve been to… I’m just saying that I see this stuff happening in this side of evangelicalism–and it scares me!  Such man-centered worship music that lack in biblical truth will only get us further and further away from God and make everything (even the Gospel) about us.  More and more songs coming from a certain overseas church and song publisher frightens me as to the mindset that it gives the rest of the church that such music is OK and acceptable, when it is not and unacceptable.  In this I see that there is an great wealth of worship music being lost amidst a sea of over-simplified contemporary praise choruses; we need to have modern worship songs that are full of powerful, rich, biblical truth.  Whereas hymns have long been a rich source of deep lyrics, it should be our goal in this postmodern culture to combine these classic, truth-full hymnal texts with contemporary tunes so that believers can be helped to feel the truth of what they are singing.  Most young people today do not like hymns because they sound like those old, boring songs that their parents sing… but if we could wed they lyrics of these hymns with attractive, modern arrangements, I am sure we can have a truly powerful worship experience that enables God’s truth to settle deep into our minds and hearts.

In general, I am thankful that in most cases and times, the songs that have been sung at my church have been God-centered and do contain enough historic evangelical doctrine to keep us worshipping in spirit and in truth.  However, as of late, there has been a lack of songs that are explicitly about the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the penal substitutionary atonement that the Father provided for us through Christ our Lord.  I have pondered these past months–is it necessary to explicitly sing about the sacrifice that Christ paid on the Cross for our sins that we may have life and be forgiven?  (And to this extent, I have wondered also if it is necessary to have it mentioned explicitly in preaching every week)  I do not know of any rulebook or Bible passage that says that we must sing the Gospel every week… but I have concluded that we should sing (and preach) about it every week.  I cannot think of any reasons why we shouldn’t sing about THE reason we are still breathing and are allowed to entire into His presence; singing about how Christ died and defeated sin and death to make us a new creation will only give us a clearer understanding of God–the greatest reason to sing and praise in the first place.

Often when I myself am led in musical worship by a worship team, I ask myself silently: what am I doing?  In these songs I have just sung, what have I actually been doing?

You might say, like many others I have heard, that you have been glorifying God.  Other synonyms may be used… like praising, lifting up, magnifying His name, etc.  While this ultimate purpose is true, can we be specific about what we are doing from week to week as we sing?  How are we actually glorifying God in our songs?  If the songs that we sing are different from week to week, is not what we do in the singing different also?  To put it in a different way, with the few references to instrumental worship (Psalm 33:2-3; 150) that are far outweighed by the number of Scriptures inviting us to sing God’s praises, why do we sing?  The question that every experienced lead worship should be able to answer–for what purpose do we sing?

A year ago, I don’t think I have ever thought about this simple yet fundamental question to the worship ministry.  But recently, Bob Kauflin reminded me that there are at least 3 specific reasons why we sing:

1. to remember God’s Word,
2. to respond to God’s grace, and
3. to reflect God’s glory.

These are 3 things we are doing while we sing every (Sun)day, 3 reasons/purposes to why we shout God’s praise.  Even still, while this may be true of our songs each week, we must also meditate and be certain as to the very thing that we do in song.

As a lead worshipper (aka worship leader), I’ve found it also very necessary to be clear about my role.  What does a worship leader do?

An effective corporate worship leader,
aided and led by the Holy Spirit,
skillfully combines biblical truth with music
to magnify the worth of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ,
thereby motivating the gathered church
to join him in proclaiming and cherishing the truth about God
and seeking to live all of life for the glory of God.

Music is a very emotional thing, but without it being saturated with biblical truth, no Divine transformation can take place in people’s lives–and herein lies the very area where we need to train and develop our skills and gifts: skillfully combining Biblical truth with music.  With time and experience, we can and will through the Holy Spirit’s empowerment help others to magnify God’s worth and Christ’s work… motivating the gathered church to proclaim and cherish the truth about God will become less and less of our work and more and more of the Spirit’s working.

Since I won’t be directly influencing what’s sung at my church in the near future, I leave you with some songs that haven’t been done at my church which I hope will be sung in the near future.  Some are older than others, but all are catchy and yet theologically-informed, in my humble opinion=D

1. Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) (John Newton/Chris Tomlin; Sixsteps)
2. Everlasting God (Brenton Brown; Thankyou Music)
3. From The Inside Out (Joel Houston; Hillsong)
4. Glorious One (Steve Fee; 722)
5. Let The Praises Ring (Lincoln Brewster; Integrity)
6. Look What You’ve Done (John Ellis)
7. Made To Worship (Chris Tomlin; Sixsteps)
8. Mighty To Save (Reuben Morgan; Hillsong)
9. Precious Blood (Peter Gagnon; Sovereign Grace Worship)
10. Pure Glory (Christy & Nathan Nockels; independent)
11. You Never Let Go (Matt Redman; Sixsteps)

And for your reading pleasure, Dr. Albert Mohler wrote extensively about The Recovery of Authentic Worship in his commentary series “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory” published in early February 2006:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

In closing, from Part 3:
“We must not be satisfied with a laissez-faire, cafeteria-style worship combination at our pleasure. There is a biblical pattern that must be followed. Will styles change? Yes. But the worship must always be God directed. Will there be a diversity of styles in worship? Yes, but there must be one glorious purpose following this clear biblical pattern: to measure everything by the norm of scripture, in which God has revealed how He wishes to be worshiped. We must learn from each other in this process that as the people of God we must get this right as we stand before God and under scripture.”

What was true about liberalism yesterday is true for much of evangelicalism today…

“[Liberal Theology] is opposed to Christianity, in the first place, in its conception of God. But at this point we are met with a particularly insistent form of that objection to doctrinal matters which has already been considered. It is unnecessary, we are told, to have a “conception” of God; theology, or the knowledge of God, it is said, is the death of religion; we should not seek to know God, but should merely feel His presence… With regard to this objection, it ought to be observed that if religion consists merely in feeling the presence of God, it is devoid of any moral quality whatever. Pure feeling, if there be such a thing, is non-moral. What makes affection for a human friend, for example, such an ennobling thing is the knowledge which we possess of the character of our friend. Human affection, apparently so simple, is really just bristling with dogma. It depends upon a host of observations treasured up in the mind with regard to the character of our friends. But if human affection is thus really dependent upon knowledge, why should it be otherwise with that supreme personal relationship which is at the basis of religion? Why should we be indignant about slanders directed against a human friend, while at the same time we are patient about the basest slanders directed against our God? Certainly it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God; the knowledge of God is the very basis of religion.”

-J. Gresham Machen in Christianity & Liberalism

(HT: Mongergism.com)

Nothin’ but an empty page
Breathin’ in an open space
Captured by your moments grace again
There’s so much I left behind
Even more that waits in time
Everything’s so undefined
I’m standin’ on the edge of my fear
And I see it clear

Here’s my resolution, I’m letting go.
All I need to learn is along this road.
And I just wanted to be the best man I can be..
It’s my resolution

Livin’ life without a plan
Findin’ soul is where I stand
Learnin’ how to love again
And all I want is somethin’ real
That I can feel

A cry.
A cry lies within us in the depth of a place which we cannot touch.
Waiting to escape the enclosed gates of our expression.
Something is happening inside of us, beyond what we can articulate.
So we respond. We respond to You; we respond to You Jesus.

In Your pure light I have come out of the shadows of darkness.
You alone are the one that can satisfy.
Seeping every vacant space inside of me: reality.
In You, in me in You. I try to imagine forever.
And at a certain point my brain stops, but that’s You–forever being, forever existing, forever knowing You.
Before there was anyone, anything, and You–and after everything there is no more: You.
My thoughts can’t even fully comprehend You,
so whatever praise my thoughts begin, my spirit has to complete.
And every time I take in a breath, I discover You.
That the same breath I’m breathing originated inside of You.
So I breathe You in. Because You take me in Jesus.

In Your pure light I have come out of the shadows of darkness.
You alone satisfy.
Seeping into every vacant space inside of me–try to imagine forever.
That’s You: forever being, forever existing, forever knowing You.
Before there was anyone, anything, You. After everything there was is no more: You.
And every time I take in a breath…
And every time I take in a breath, I discover You.
I breathe You in, because You take me in.
We breathe You in, because You take us in…
To be still and breathe that You are God.

–Spoken Word written by Amena Brown,
as performed live at the Facedown Songwriters Conference, a global gathering of 300 songwriters hosted by Matt Redman and Louie Giglio in January 2004 at North Point Community Church.

Rob Bell in his book “Velvet Elvis” illustrates his serious misunderstanding of the work of the true Church of our Lord currently propounded within the Emergent Church when he writes:

Return to the people we were originally created to be. The people God is making us into. God makes us in his image. We reflect the beauty and creativity and wonder of the God who made us. And Jesus calls us to return to our true selves. The pure, whole people God originally intended us to be, before we veered off course. Somewhere in you is the you whom you were made to be (150).

True spirituality then is not about escaping this world to some other place where we will live forever. A Christian is not someone who expects to spend forever in heaven there. A Christian is someone who anticipates spending forever here, in a new heaven that comes to earth. The goal isn’t escaping this world but making this world the kind of place God can come to. And God is remaking us into the kind of people who can do this kind of work.

The remaking of this world is why Jesus’ first messages began with “T’shuva, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The Hebrew word t’shuva means “to return”. Return to the people we were originally created to be. The people God is remaking us into (151, emphasis his).

For a critical examination of Bell’s gospel message (or rather, the lack of), check out this article at Apprising Ministries. “In his current book Velvet Elvis Bell gives a first hand account of the distortion and denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ currently going on within the Emergent bight on the Body of Christ. Bell’s “Christian” message is that mankind is already forgiven of their sin. As you will see he ignores the need for true repentance and the new birth as taught in Scripture because in Bell’s warped and toxic theology, and consistent many in the apostate Church of Rome, mankind just needs to rediscover his true self, the inherent goodness that God originally created him with, which was supposedly automatically restored to him when Christ died on the Cross.” (HT: Slice)

More recently in his Nooma video titled “Bullhorn Guy”, Rob Bell presents an interesting view of the work of some street preachers:

Todd Friel of Way of the Master Radio recently responded to Rob Bell’s Nooma video titled Bullhorn Guy with his own video. Think Bell was right or wrong in that video? In true WOTM style, Todd offers a biblical review and puts Rob’s method to the test. Will Rob’s methodology prove “effective” when compared with simply presenting the gospel? You be the judge:

Video: Todd Friel - Bullhorn Response
(HT: Reformed Evangelist)

Worship: Former Southern Baptist seminarian & friend Shuling Lee also shares about authentic Christian worship in today’s postmodern culture.

Scot McKnight finds Irving Bible Church in Irving, Texas to be a great example of a church that is both contemporary and traditional, missional and theologically grounded, spontaneous and liturgical.

Mark Dever was recently in Toronto speaking on Worship in the New Testament and in the Puritans at the International Baptist Conference.

Ladies: GirlTalk shares about the images of Distorted Beauty that affects today’s young women.

Books: John Piper’s new book What Jesus Demands from the World is avail free in PDF; Vern Poythress‘ new book Redeeming Science is also free on PDF.

October 31: Challies shares about Halloween, and calls for a Reformation Day.

Last but not least, Jonathan Edwards is my Homeboy t-shirts are here!