Morality: Paul Tripp

I’ve really come to appreciate Paul Trip’s work over the years. Recently I came across something that I’ve found incredibly worthwhile from a series he was doing on Psalm 15, looking at the standard of holiness that God calls his people to. In the previous article on Psalm 15, he wrote about how the Psalmist considered a God-honoring way to live with our friends and neighbors. Then he moved on to looking at how the Psalmist continues to list the Lord's standard of righteousness, looking at Psalm 15:4, "Who shall dwell on your holy hill ... [the person] in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord."  Please read this, and be challenged. 

Trip writes: 

 

This verse reveals an unshakable moral commitment to what is right. The person described has such a deep allegiance to God that he or she is revolted by sin as much as the Lord is. 

I don't know about you, but there are times when my heart is seduced by evil. It may only be for a moment, but I catch myself chasing after - not despising - vile things.  

I don't want to come across as legalistic, but I think it's my job to draw an uncomfortable line: what do you need to give up that has the potential to make evil look beautiful? 

There are television shows that you might need to turn off. There are books and magazines that you may need to put down. There are movies and websites that you may need to stay away from. I'm concerned that the body of Christ is losing its edge. I've found that we're too willing to expose ourselves - in a fairly consistent manner - to things that are dangerous and polluted, that dull our moral sensitivity, and that present evil in a seductive manner.  

You see, here's what you need to admit: as long as you're still breathing, you have the capacity to find vile things beautiful. Even as a child of God, you're not free from corrupted desires. Are you willing to admit the depth of your spiritual need? And are you willing to sacrifice some of your entertainment and leisure preferences for the health of your soul? Maybe it's time we fight a little harder for our morality. 

I would encourage you to reconsider your lifestyle, but know that your hope for change won't be found there. Your hope is in the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. He gives you the power to say "No!" to vile things and gives you the ability to see beauty where God sees beauty. 

God bless, 

Paul David Tripp

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. What are some forms of entertainment - TV, books, magazines, websites, social media - that are consistently promoting vile things?
2. How does entertainment mask those vile things in "beautiful" ways?
3. Why does your heart buy into those masking lies?
4. Why won't turning off the TV and disconnecting from Internet solve your ultimate problem?
5. How can you commune with the Holy Spirit and find the power to say "No!" to vile things?

I Asked The Lord that I Might Grow: By John Newton

I asked the Lord that I might grow, In faith, and love, and every grace; Might more of His salvation know, And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray, And He, I trust, has answered prayer! But it has been in such a way, As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour, At once He’d an­swer my request; And by His love’s constraining pow’r, Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel, The hidden evils of my heart; And let the angry pow’rs of hell, Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed, Intent to aggravate my woe; Crossed all the fair designs I schemed, Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried, Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death? “’Tis in this way, the Lord replied, I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ, From self, and pride, to set thee free; And break thy schemes of earthly joy, That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

Beat it into their heads continually by Martin Luther

Something to chew on from Martin Luther, the great reformer, speaking of our tendency to default to works righteousness. His words are genius.

“The law is divine and holy. Let the law have his glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in chastity, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me, how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell.

Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me : to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth.

Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

Martin Luther, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co., 1860), 206.

From the Newsletter: Sovereign

God is on the throne. We need to remind ourselves of this often. I need to remind myself of this often. At times, we can look around and feel frustrated, and say “do you remember when?” Do you remember when work was going better. Do you remember when the family was doing better, do you remember when the community was more together, when we didn’t feel like we where harried and frustrated, and living a life marked by struggle and tension. Do you remember when the church was full? When it didn’t seem like culture was against Christianity. Do you remember when it seemed like God was on the move? Its easy to feel discouraged during certain seasons of life. It feels like the bottom is dropping out, things are going nowhere God, and yet, the fact is, God is on the throne and at work no matter what.

A few weeks back, I was reminded of this in a wonderful way. Teen challenge came and lead us in worship, and shared about their ministry, and the church was rather empty that Sun-day. And all through the worship service I was feeling particularly discouraged. I try not to look at numbers. I try not to count faces. I try to remember that there is hope at all times, and that counting faces shows that in the back of our minds we equate size and health, big with blessedness, and that this is not the case. I try to remind myself of the fact that far true signs of health are found in the depth of disciples, and their love of the gospel, and in their desire to live on mission for the glory of God.

But I was forgetting all that, and counting faces, and feeling down. I all but apologized to the leader of the Teen Challenge team for such a low attendance Sunday. And then I went down to lunch. We had an all church lunch so that we could spend more time with the men and learn more about what God is doing in their lives, and that’s when Lucy Mbugua came and sat down next to me, and introduced me to her friend Joyce. Joyce serves at a church of 700 back home in Kenya. And she told me that she is interested in bringing Teen Challenge back to Kenya. IN that moment, I was reminded once again the God is sovereign. That God is working even in what seems like a moment of failure, and de-feat. I was reminded that He is doing His will even when we have no idea what's going on.

Even when we're think we think were blowing and He’s not there, and just feeling totally crushed. The reminder for me, and I believe for all of us, is that God is on the throne. God is in control, and we need to find our life in him I need to find my life in him, and only/ in him.

He's at work in the great and glorious, and he is at work in the mundane things like an invitation to Teen Challenge and invitation by a friend to visit the church. He’s working in the time you leave the office, and the interactions you have on the way out the door. We never know what He is doing, but we do know that we can trust Him, and hope in Him, and find our life and our rest in Him. So often we run around trying to control the details of our lives. We are constantly stresses and worried that if we don’t do something it won’t get done, and if we don’t act and speak in a certain way, we’ll ruin everything.

And yet, what we are reminded is that we don’t have to live with this sword of Damocles over our heads. He is in control, and we rest in His finished work, and then live out of it with hope and joy. In Psalm 42, the writer frets speaks about how frustrated and distressed he is. And he talks about how he frets and worries in the midst of tense times. He says his tears have been his food day and night, while men say to him all day long, "Where is your God?" And he remembers how he used to hope, and how he lost his hope, and he lays out his frustrations. But in the midst of that he says something profound. He says it twice. He says “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God”, and he rejoices, saying, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me-- a prayer to the God of my life.”

Even when we are frustrated. Individually, or corporately, even when we feel like the bottom us dropping out on us, He Is Sovereign! We can find our hope, our rest, our life in him. Trust Him. Find your life in Him. Seek to glorify Him, and then trust that He will indeed work for the glory of His name no matter what it seems like at first glance.

From the Newsletter: Thoughts: Four resources Christianity gives us for suffering

Over the last few months we’ve had 2 funerals, and many other maladies at our church. From accidents to illness to death, the church family has encountered suffering and hardship. Something I wanted to say in my recent sermon on suffering from Romans 8, but needed to cut, is that Christianity offers us rich resources to lean into when sufferings come. Often Christians don’t lean into them, but they are there inviting us to lean into them.

There are four key doctrines that make up the foundation of these resources for dealing with pain, suffering and evil. Together, these four key doctrines stand over and against the secular or deistic view that sees suffering as an interruption to be pushed away or drowned out, and show you how you can move through it with hope.

The first is the belief in a personal, wise, infinite, and therefore inscrutable God who controls the affairs of the world–and that is far more comforting than the belief that our lives are in the hands of fickle fate or random chance.

The second is that, in Jesus Christ, God came to earth and suffered with and for us sacrificially–and that is far more comforting than the idea that God is remote and uninvolved. The cross also proves that, despite all the inscrutability, God is for us, and more than that, it shows us that "Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story.

The third doctrine is that through faith in Christ’s work on the cross, we can have assurance of our salvation–that is far more comforting than karmic systems of thought. We are assured that the difficulties of life are not payment for our past sins, since Jesus has paid them. As Luther taught, suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you. Secularity cannot give you that, and religions like Buddhism and Hinduism that teach variations of karma and provide salvation through virtue and good works cannot give it either.

The fourth is the doctrines of the bodily resurrection from the dead for all who believe. This completes the spectrum of our joys and consolations. One of the deepest desires of the human heart is for love without parting. Needless to say, the prospect of resurrection is far more comforting than the beliefs that death just takes into nothingness or into an impersonal spiritual substance. The resurrection goes beyond the promise of an ethereal disembodied afterlife. We get our bodies back, in a state of beauty and power that we cannot today imagine. Jesus’ resurrection was corporeal –it could be touched and embraced, and he ate food. And yet He passed through closed doors and could disappear. This is a material existence, but one beyond the bounds of our imagination. The idea of heaven can be a consolation for suffering, a compensation for the life we have lost. But resurrection is not just consolation–it is restoration. We get it all back–the love, the loved ones, the goods, the beauties of this life–but to  new, unimaginable degrees of glory and joy and strength. It is a reversal of the seeming irreversibility of loss" I mentioned this thought during the meditation at Al’s funeral. When JJ was told that Mr. Blood had died, he said that he didn’t want him to be in heaven, and when Veronique told him that now Al’s not sick, he asked "does that mean he has two arms now that he’s in heaven?" The resounding answer is yes. That’s the promise of the resurrection.

 

In this life, we will all face hardship, and the question we will face is, "How can you be to-tally sure when you look at all the horrible stuff that has happened in your life and out in the world that someday God is going to make it all right? How can you not just hope so, but be absolutely sure that in spite of your own failures, God loves you and will never let you go? How can you know that when you face death it is not the end? Only if you know that Jesus rose from the dead and there-fore so will you. You know what else this means? You can have incredible hope in suffering. Tim Keller, whose incredible book Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering supplied most of these thoughts, points out that what this knowledge means for us is that "While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy". Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you, but the more you dive into your resources, the more you are able to face it.

Use Your Time Well

Since Bonnie called me to tell me that her husband Bruce had passed away, I’ve found myself thinking about how finite and fleeting life is, and that you never know what a day or a week may bring. One day, he’s home and looks like he’s headed back towards healthy, and just five days later, he’s gone.

And it’s made me think about how fragile this life really is. We live in a comfortable western world where we are usually insulated from swift and tragic deaths, and for those that know him, this was a stark reminder that we are much less insulate than we think, and we have far less time than we think we do. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; says Psalm 90, yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom (90:10-12). Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath, says Psalm 62 (62:9).

This all leaves me with a question for those who know Christ: How are we using our time? All too often, we waste it. We live in a celebrity, entertainment culture, which sucks us in without us even knowing it, unless we actively fight it. I don’t know if there has ever been a culture more given over to seeking to be entertained than this one. The Romans famously had their bread and circus, but that wasn’t every day. The average American watches 5 hours a day of TV, which works out to around 35 hours a week, or 9 years of your life. And as you get older, apparently TV viewing increases. We all bemoan the fact that the average American youth watches 1200 hours of TV in a year, while they only go to school for about 900 hours, but what we don’t says is that apparently, as you get older, apparently TV viewing goes up. The average youth watches 24 hours of TV, but after that it rises steadily until people over 65 average 48 hours a week, or nearly seven hours a day. 

 

But it’s not just TV, at any time; we have a constant stream of entertainment running by us. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, this update on my phone calling for my attention. And I haven’t even gotten to video games and the internet. We live in a culture that says, in the words of Nirvana “here I am now, entertain me”.

And it’s so corrosive. Pastor and Theologian John Piper once said that “The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.” He’s right. It deadens our mind and softens our heart for God, giving us a love for the world, and a desire for comfort.

The result is that we sit around and spend our time on the trivial and unimportant, and then moan that we don’t have time to read our Bible and pray, and pursue the things of God. Piper commented that “One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time”, ouch.

Beyond that, there is our general pursuit of leisure. Moments of leisure are not bad in of and of themselves. But, our culture has made leisure one of the great goals of life. Work, so then you can then do nothing. It’s the great end of life. But the bible says that we where created to work. Work is good. We were created to work for the glory of God, leisure and rest is never the end, the glory of God is. 

And then there’s our pursuit of stuff. The great ability of advertisers is to create an ever in-creasing hole of desire that can never be filled, and so we chase this trinket and that thing, because we’ve been told that if we have that, everything will be complete. And so we run and run on the treadmill chasing things that do not matter. Bubbles and status symbols, things that we think we have to have to fit in, but will one day populate a landfill, because they have been replaced by a newer version. 

We have 168 hours in a week. That's it. What are you doing with them? If we truly believe the gospel, we should reprioritize how we spend our time. Is prayer and scripture near the top of our agenda? Do we prioritize sharing the gospel? Are we prioritizing reading things that build our mind and give us a distinctively Christian worldview and approach to life, or are we taking in drivel? Are we actively dreaming and scheming about how to spread the gospel, or dreaming and scheming about the next movie we’re going to watch? Are you building relationships that you allow for the spread of the gospel, or building your Candy Crush score (if you don’t know what Candy Crush is, that’s a good thing). Don’t waste your life. Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Don’t coast through life without a passion, being entertained along the way. 

Someday you will stand be-fore God, and give an account of how you used your time, and so I say again, don’t waste it. It is better to lose your life than to waste it. Young, old, especially those of you that are retired, may you use your time well, because life is too short, precarious, and painful to waste it on entertainment or chasing baubles that will fill landfills. Heaven is to great, in the words of piper, hell is too horrible; eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity. It is better to lose your life than to waste it. May you use your time wisely, may it count for eternity, and may you be able to say with great joy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (2Tim. 4:7)”, rather than, I have no idea where the time went.

TV Stats came from: Staticbrain, and the NY daily News.

From the Newsletter: Holiness and Resolutions

For a long time, I have been a fan of the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. At a young age, he committed himself to live for God. He starts his list of resolutions with the words, “Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of man-kind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever. The list includes 70 resolutions that he makes, and taken as a whole, it’s a commitment to personal holiness, to living for God and the furthering of God’s kingdom with his face turned away from sin.

 

Time and again, scripture calls us to holiness. Paul writes, “Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:3-4). Peter says, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil de-sires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy (1Peter 1:14-16)”. Most importantly, all the way back at the exodus, God declares, 'Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. (Leviticus 19:2).

 

From start to finish, the holy creator of the universe says, “I am holy, and you are to reflect My holiness”. This goes way beyond clean television and keeping our noses clean. It goes beyond being nice and kind. It is those things, but it’s way more. It’s a call to live lives that are turned away from sin, and to God. Its living lives that are marked by a deep de-sire to reflect the goodness and perfection, the rightness of the heart of our creator. This is the call that lays before us. This realization led Jonathan Edwards to write “As God delights in His own beauty, He must necessarily delight in the creature’s holiness which is a conformity to and participation of it”

 

Unfortunately, our lives are not marked by this kind of commitment to the things of God. I found myself thinking about the contrast between Edwards’s resolutions to live as one holy and commit-ted to God with a heart saturated in the gospel, and the observation that writer and theologian Os Guinness made in passing during his recent trip to Med-way. He commented that one of the main problems that the American church has is that “we are worldly”. We should be holy. But we are worldly. It’s a hard and true word. Unfortunately, there’s all kinds of evidence to back that up. That’s another article.

 

But why is that the case? I think in part, it’s because we often expect that things of faith, and the life of faith will come easy, and holiness is hard. We tend to like the path of least resistance, and the comfortable path. But you don’t just end up holy. Theologian D.A. Carson observes in his book, “The God of Promise and the Life of Faith” that “People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” (D.A. Carson. The God of Promise and the Life of Faith. Crossway Books, 2001, p. 99.)

 

So what does this mean for us? As people who seek to live for the glory of God in this world, and to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us (Matthew 28:20). It means that the resolution of our hearts must be to delight in God’s beauty, and seek to conform our nature to the nature of the God we love and serve, remembering the words of 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit”. It means that we must seek to continue the struggle for holiness, looking to the cross, and remembering that our deepest motivation for holiness come from seeing what God has done for us in Christ. And, it means that as we gaze upon the cross, we must continue to see the invitation of the cross to live holy before the Lord. “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, the writer of Hebrews says, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Holiness requires great effort. You don’t drift into holiness; you don’t drift into living for God. You drift into worldliness. We must be resolute in our commitment to being people who are holy to the Lord.

 

Every year, millions of Americans make resolutions. “I will do this, or that. Lose weight, read that book, accomplish that mission. Be a better parent, husband, wife, employee… this is the year I will…” As you face the coming year, and think about what you hope to see happen, and make your own resolutions, my invitation to you is, take stock of your life and resolve to live a life committed to living a life of holiness, a life that seeks first the kingdom of God and the things of God, and runs from the things that don’t honor God. Look at your life, look at scripture, and say, how, in 2014, can my life reflect a heart for the things that God loves, and an abhorrence for the things he hates? How can I be seeking His kingdom and His righteousness, and living for His glory? How can I be furthering the kingdom of God, and not living for the fading pleasures of this world, but for “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:4)”? How can I be living such a good life here in this post-Christian culture that they may see my “good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12)? How can my life be marked by a commitment to live holy to the Lord? Be pondering these and many other questions.

 

In this season of resolutions in the face of a new year, my call to you is be holy. Make that your resolution. Live holy to the Lord. Seek to honor him with your all. As you do, remember that you cannot do this without God’s strength. Don’t forget that Ed-wards starts the resolutions by writing, “being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help.” But as you ponder the great salvation God has provided in Christ, may you hear the words of scripture  calling you to holiness, and resolve to live holy to the Lord. And when you stumble, as we are all often prone to do, may these words by America’s greatest theologian echo in your mind. “Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.” Pastor Jonathan

Open Letter on the Interfaith Service

To the Congregation of First Baptist (and anyone else interested),

As many of you have heard, I have reached a decision that I cannot take part in the Medfield interfaith service in good conscience. As you all know, I have taken part in it since I started as your pastor. I did so because it seemed to be something that our church had been part of, and a duty of the position. However. I have always felt uneasy about taking part, and over this last year, came to this decision. I feel I owe you an explanation for discontinuing my involvement. Here are my reasons.

First, there has been increasing pressure to avoid the mention of Jesus. For example, last year, in the meeting preparing for the service, a strong objection was raised to the passage in Luke where men come and show thanksgiving to Jesus for healing them. In fact, anything specifically that mentioned about Jesus is viewed as unacceptable by some of those participating in the service, and this has led to an increasing pressure to avoid referencing Jesus and His saving work. If Jesus is all but taboo, and if there is a strong pressure to make Christ disappear, what am I doing there as a Christian pastor? If I, as a Christian, am asked not to pray in Jesus name, or preach about my Lord and savior Jesus Christ (and that is, in fact, the request), lest I offend someone, it seems clear to me that I’m at the wrong service.

Now, on one hand, it makes sense to say, “well, why don’t you, and we (first Baptist), fight to put Jesus back in it”. Here’s the problem. The whole logic of interfaith dialogue and interfaith worship flows in this direction. The idea is to highlight our commonality, and downplay the things that divide and make one distinct. But to do that, we have to give up the things that make us distinct, and that thing that makes us Christians distinct is Christ. The good news - that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all and that Jesus is the way the truth and the life - is not welcome at the interfaith service. How can I take part in that in good conscience?

Second, it’s syncretism. Syncretism is “an amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought”. Think of it this way, it’s pouring all the traditions together and calling them the same thing. But what’s left when that is done is that we (those taking part), have stripped off everything distinctive, and what we are left with is a focus on the act of giving thanks, but a deliberate avoiding of clarity about to whom thanks is being given. It’s just “Thanksgiving for the sake of Thanksgiving”, because if you can’t agree on the concept of God (and that is the case Unitarians, Christians, and Jews don’t agree on their doctrine of God), you are giving thanks to what, collectively? The point of the service is to express thanksgiving… to whom? To God? How is God defined and understood? In what meaningful sense can Christians, Jews, and Unitarians (or for that matter, Hindus and Muslims, Buddhists, or any of the other many different religions) come together for an “interfaith” service? We are unable to agree on the concept of God. We can’t agree on what we are declaring the “worth-ship” of (since that is what worship is, declaring the worth and value of something)? What is the point? We aren’t praying to the same God. We don’t even share the same conception of God, which means that at best it’s a thanksgiving to the nebulous sense of “deity”. But more accurately, it’s just “Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving sake”. It's clearly not a service of thanksgiving to the God who has done more then we can ask or imagine through the saving work of Christ. Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with warnings against idolatry. I cannot take part in that.

Third, and most importantly, I believe that I may be damaging my Christian witness, and the Christian witness of First Baptist, by sending a confusing, dangerous message to the world around. By taking part in this interfaith worship and  by standing sholder to sholder with religious leaders of other religions (not other Christians- other religions- those that do not claim Christ as Lord and savior in any way), some might fairly infer by the fact that I am there that I (or First Baptist) feel there is agreement on essential matters of faith. And why wouldn't they? When we gather and worship in this way, aren’t we saying, in essence, that we all agree in faith, and are brothers and sisters in faith. Aren’t we saying that all religious traditions and spirtualities and faiths are equally valid and that “it’s ok to believe whatever, as long as you are a person of faith”? That is the message we send when we worship together in this manner, and this clearly is not the case.

Remember, not long ago (last winter), a local Unitarian “church” (Milford), was hosting a "medium connection"? For $25 you could attempt to chat with the dearly departed. Great. Another word for that is séance. It’s witchcraft, pure and simple. Now, to be fair, that has not happened here in Medfield. But to even allow someone to think that we are of “like faith” with those who might call the actions of this Unitarian church acceptable, and call those in that “church” “brothers and sisters in faith” is to create a confusing witness. Christians are not brothers and sisters in “like faith” with Unitarians (or Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or whatever other faith might get added in). “What harmony is there between Christ and Belial (2 Corinthians 6:15)?” None. There is only one name in which salvation is found, and to take part and possibly confuse the watching world around is a failure to be salt and light. It sends a dangersous message, and it damages my witness, and the witness of First Baptist. The more I think about it, the more I believe it. Some who take part in the service are brothers and sisters in Christ. But other “churches” and religions are not, and we send a confusing message that “it’s ok to believe whatever, as long as you are a person of faith”, when we worship together in this manner.

Now, I know that some of you have some objections forming in your mind. 

First, didn’t you work with the Episcopal church and the UCC on the VBS? Yes. I worked with Christian churches on a Christian VBS. Churches that at the very least, could agree on the top level issues without which you cannot be a Christian. And furthermore, I insisted that it be a Christian VBS right from the start (and may I say, we were all in agreement- lest anyone take this to mean that we had any disagreement on this- To my knowledge we were all on the same page from the start). So it was not interfaith work, it was ecumenical work- all were Christians, partaking in a Christian VBS that pointed kids to faith in Christ.

Second, so what about ecumenical worship? Christians worshiping together as Christians of a variety of Christian traditions. I have no problem with that, in fact, I think it’s absolutely acceptable and honorable to worship alongside other Christians traditions. In that, we are expressing that we are brothers and sisters “in Christ” (This is probably a watered down litmus test but the question I ask is, could they recite the creed’s of Christianity in good faith. Could they say, with you and I, “I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our lord? Could they confess the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and that someday he will come to judge the living and the dead?). But this is not ecumenical worship, this is interfaith. And that’s where the rub lies.

Third, for a church trying to reach the community with the hope of the gospel, doesn’t this cost us influence? Maybe, but I don’t think so. In fact, I think it will actually heighten our influence. When we say, we are Christians, we worship as Christians, and we do so, because salvation is found in no other name, it will push some people to consider the claims of Christ in a new and fresh way. To think through the message that we proclaim to the world: To consider the message of Christianity. God made the world. He made it perfectly, with us ruling under His authority, and living in relationship with Him. But then something terrible happened. Our first parents, Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying and rebelling against God. They wanted to run things their way, and sought to be their own Lord and God. The result was that they brought God’s judement on themselves and all humanity. Everyone was marred by their sin, so that all follow their steps, sinfully rebel against God and bring God’s just judgment on themselves. That’s the bad news. But in his love, God sent Jesus Christ, the second member of the trinity, God in the flesh, to live perfectly and sinlessly, to die as an atoning sacrifice paying the price that God’s justice demanded for this act of cosmic rebellion, and reconciling us to God if we place our faith in Chirst. Christ rose again on the third day, proving he accomplished all that he claimed he would do. He now sits on the throne of heaven, and someday He will judge the world. We are called to repent and believe the good news, and worship the triune God who has provided this great salvation.

If that message is banned at the interfaith service, if we are not going before our saving God with thanks, I think that it is far more preferable, to not take part and find venues that allow for the message of the gospel to be stated clearly. 

Fourth, does this mean that I feel that I am above the fray, and that we Christians at First Baptist are better than others? Do I think Christians are superior people to those that do not believe that salvation is found in Christ. No and No. I am not saying that Christians are superior or better people than those that are not Christians. It may be that a Unitarian, or Jew, or Hindu, or Muslim is in fact a kinder, nicer, more compassionate, just person than many Christians. Being a Christian does not mean that you are proud because you are a better person than someone else, in fact, the logic of the gospel strikes at the very root of that attitude. It calls us to recognize that we are sinful people in need of salvation because of our deeply flawed, sinful nature. That’s the entrance fee to Christianity, if you will. So we aren’t saying that we are better than others in any way. 

Furthermore, we are not saying that we don’t want to interact with those of other faiths, or no faith at all. As a Christian, I believe that I, First Baptist, and other Christians are called to enter into our community, loving the community, serving the community, and declaring, we are here for the good of the community as Christians. We can work and serve for the good of others, Christian or not. We are not partisan in wanting the best for others. Do unto others as you would have them to you, Jesus says. “Seek the good of the city”, God says through Jeremiah. “Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7) We aren’t just here just for ourselves. But to seek the best for all humanity, and certainly Medfield. Hear me on this. I’m not trying to be mean or exclusive, or make our church mean or exclusive. I think it’s one thing to work alongside of someone, or be friends with someone. Christians can work alongside of anyone for the common good, and be friends with anyone. Anyone. And we can talk with anyone. There is no one from whom we withdraw and say, I can have nothing to do with you. But worship is different. When it comes to worship, we must not engage in syncretism and damage our witness, as one writer put it, "genuine witness in the public square can take place through discerning dialogue and engaging conversation as well as acts of human care and mercy. We witness in the public square, but we do not worship there. "

So those are my thoughts. I am not partisan in wanting good for all, and I do not want First Baptist to be some partisan “holy huddle” that looks out for its interest alone. I want First Baptist to be loving and serving the community, seeking it’s good as I and it proclaims the distinctly Christian message that there is hope in a hopeless world, the gospel. But when it comes to worship, I do not believe that I should be taking part and helping lead this service. I am not a religious leader, and Christians are not religious people, or people "of faith". I am a Christian Pastor, and First Baptist is a Christian church, and we are all about worshiping the God who has done more than we can ask or imagine in providing salvation through Christ Jesus. To pretend we’re all the same waters down or worse, eliminates our distinctively Christian message that salvation is found in Christ alone, and thanks belongs to God alone for our provision, hope, and life itself. Christians must not send any other message to a world desperately in need of the hope of the gospel. I must not send any other message. 

I have no quarrel with those of other faiths who do what they wish to do. They can worship as they wish, and we can have sincere disagreements, and live at peace with each other. I don’t begrudge them their worship or practice. But let’s not kid ourselves, we are not all in agreement in faith. A nebulous sense of the “holy” is not the God of the Christian bible, and we must not send any other message. Christians should not pretend something that is not true, is true so that everyone can hold hands and sing. 

As I say this, I’m not trying to be a mean curmudgeon, or arrogant; I’m trying instead to be logical and wise. And the more I've thought about it, the more convinced that my participation in the interfaith service sends the inadvertent message that I believe it’s ok to believe whatever - even if it's contrary to the Gospel - as long as one is a person of "faith”, and while I am not so proud as to think that I can come to the end of any subject, I’m with Luther in saying that “unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason” this is the position I will hold. I leave it to you and your conscience to do what you feel is right regarding your participation in the interfaith service.

But as you consider what to do, let me point you to the words of one of my favorite bloggers and writers, Kevin Deyoung. He captured part problem with interfaith services a few years back when looking at the inauguration of the president. He wrote “Imagine it's early in the first century, in and around Palestine. A new emperor, or local governor, has come to power. As a nod to the diverse religious traditions of the land, there is a prayer service to the gods on behalf of the new leader. In the mix we find worshipers of Asclepius, priests of the Artemis cult, believers in Hermes, leaders in the local fertility cult. Would we find any Jews there? What about Jesus? Can you imagine Jesus participating in such an event?  With the warnings of Israel's history and the seriousness of the Ten Commandments, is there any way Jesus, would possibly agree to participate in such a ceremony? We aren't talking about giving taxes to Caesar, or praying for the Emperor in synagogue worship, or living out your faith in public. We are talking about a worship service where the "God" worshipped is the "God of our many understandings", to borrow a recent phrase. and the tacit assumption is that we can all share in genuine spiritual fellowship. In Revelation, as best as we can tell the context, Jesus rebuked several of the churches for simply going along with ritual meals to various gods in the guilds of the day. What would he say about sharing a worship service? Would the Apostle Paul, who warned his churches of syncretism and idolatry so often, consider for even a moment participating in a worship service where several different gods were invoked? The same points all stand in relationships to interfaith thanksgiving services. I leave it to your consciences to make the choice about whether you participate in the interfaith service of Medfield.

Your Pastor,
Jonathan Chechile

P.S. Here are some articles that helped me clarify my thinking over the last month as it became clear this would be an issue.

Salt & Light: Syncretism? - Prof. John T. Pless 

WWJD and Interfaith Services  -Kevin Deyoung

The Problem with Interfaith - Nadeem Abdul Hamid (a Muslim take- Very interesting)

Why Interfaith Services Don’t Work - Ray Pritchard  

Interfaith Prayer Services - Dr. Albert Mohler (Audio Interview)

Are interfaith worship services appropriate for Christians - Ray Pritchard

When No One Is Wrong: A Response to the Interfaith Movement - Lynne Thompson