one thing is necessary

Two Essentials to Christianity

James 1:27 contains a challenging message for modern day evangelicals with its heavy emphasis on personal piety and corresponding deemphasis on social justice. With an increase in introspection sadly comes a corresponding decrease in extrospection. James 1:27 keeps them in balance:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

This landed on me this past week as I was preparing to preach last Sunday. Both are necessary. Both are essentials to true religion. It seems to me much of modern Christianity affirms the second half of the equation as essential, but makes the first half optional. This is wrong.

One commentary made a reference to a journal article, 'The Emergent Need for James' in reference to this verse (I did not read it, but the title itself is telling). The Emergent Church, in emphasizing that Christians must mingle with the culture to reach it, and must get involved in meeting present needs have likewise turned a blind eye to the issue of holiness. 

James' call to keep these two in balance is a challenge indeed. The importance he gives to caring for the helpless and being a father to the fatherless is challenging in and of itself. The combining of that with personal holiness is a challenge to those who forget about the gospel in their social work, and who forget about holiness in their social work. 

And now a specific application that has been much on my heart the past couple weeks in meditating on this verse: abortion.

I remember reading that William Carey's sister testified she never heard him pray without asking God to end the cruel practice of slavery. Yet while many Christians today are indeed praying for personal purity, to avoid adultery and the immoral practices of the world that flood our minds every day, for growth in love for Christ and for greater obedience--I think surprisingly few Christians pray daily that the cruel practice of abortion would end. 

The orphans and the widows of our day--other than actual orphans and widows, and they don't count as much now as they used to due to government and and such--are soon-to-be-aborted babies. They are in the most danger. Each year 42 million babies die at the hands of their mothers, I would guess this is than men have died in all wars combined. If not, 2 or 3 years should do it.

This is a hill to die on. It is an essential to genuine Christianity to care about this and to at least pray for its demise, if not become actively involved at least on a personal level with individuals: offering care to those who have gone through it, and support to those who want to avoid it, and education about it to all so that people will turn away from it in horror.

We must not turn a blind eye any longer.

Blow the trumpet for the unborn

If you have access to Brothers, We are Not Professionals by John Piper, pick it up right now and read chapter 27, "Blow the trumpet for the unborn", p. 211-227. 

Here are some highlights:

"Since that ruling we have killed on average 1.5 million babies every year" (213)

"In Minnesota they know that the Fetal Homicide Law makes a person guilty of manslaughter, or worse, if he kills the baby in a mother's womb. There is an exception clause for abortion. . . . It means that if the mother chooses to have the baby killed it is legal. If she doesn't, it is illegal. Nothing in the essence of the unborn determines the right to life. Only the will of the mother. They know it is the essence of totalitarian rule: the will of the strong determines the rights of the weak." (214)

"But abortion is emphatically not a 'personal' decision in that limited sense. There is another person, namely, the unborn child. If you deny this, you must give an account of what that little preemie is at Abbot Northwestern. Abortion is a decision about competing human rights: the right not to be pregnant and the right not to be killed." (215)

"The issue was whether the taking of human life is warranted by the greater good of a woman's right's. I have found this position repeated in talking with other pro-choice professionals; when pressed they don't dispute that they are taking the life of human beings." (220-1)

That shocked me. I had no idea they would openly admit that they are putting humans to death, and that they are consciously elevating the right of choice over the right of human life. It is supposedly "okay" to abort a 23-week old preemie in the womb, but wrong to strangle a 23-week old preemie born and viable. 

This is a ludicrous and wicked evil. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for much less than this, and Americans and Taiwanese and others will not escape the wrath to come from God, the Father. (punctuation emphatic, cf. James 1:27)

"Will you put the trumpet to your lips, or be silent?" (227)

Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, "Behold, we did not know this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work? (Proverbs 24:11-12)

Rend your heart

My new favorite verse on repentance:

"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments." (Joel 2:12-13)

God had promised destruction in verse 11. "For the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it?" Then he says, even now, even at this last hour, return to the Lord and repent and he will relent, he will have mercy.

How different from the modern often heard call to "accept Jesus into your heart." This is a weak understanding of repentance stemming from a weak understanding of man's fallen condition and true need. Is it new understanding? A decision? Is it man that needs to accept God? 

This is a shallow understanding of the nature of conversion and has infiltrated evangelicalism, probably beginning with Finneyism (i.e. not just him) and the encroachment of an Arminian understanding of things (e.g. emphasizing man's free will, that man is not in bondage to sin and that God does not initiate in salvation) that began in the early 1800s at the Second Great Awakening. cf. Iain Murray in Revival and Revivalism. 

How different is the biblical model! Rend your heart, not your garment. Return to the Lord with your whole heart. It requires a complete change, mourning, weeping, sorrow over sin, and turning to the gracious Lord who is willing to forgive. Joel continues where God left off above:

Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. (Joel 2:13)

Biblical faith is not just a decision that does not involve deep contrition. Faith includes repentance, a heart-change that weeps over the sins that were once rejoiced in.

Rend your heart, not your garments.

Things Scholars Love to Find

There are two things scholars love to find in the biblical text, three which I cannot stand:

1. "Underlying traditions" every time two passages have the same teaching (i.e. 1Pe 1; Rom 5; Jam 1)
2. A reference to baptism whenever water is mentioned
3. An "early hymn" whenever there is something poetical or hymn-like.

Can we not allow that they taught the same thing since God revealed it to them? Can we allow the biblical writers to have some type of literary competency such that they are able to write hymns and poems?