My 2015 Reading Plan

What follows is my plan for reading in 2015.  The key word here is plan.  With our first child due in June and my current job ending around the same time with no idea what’s next, we’ll see how things go.  

For most of the last 4.5 years I’ve been working, taking seminary courses, and teaching regularly in our young adults groups in Beijing and Jakarta.  For six months in the middle I was a full-time seminary student.  That hasn’t left much time or mental energy for non-required/non-teaching prep reading.  Now that I’m done with seminary and taking an indefinite break from weekly teaching I’m looking forward to doing some personal reading again.

I’m planning to follow a schedule of daily reading and weekly reading that should amount to about an hour a day.  The plan is as follows.

Daily Reading

I’ll follow Denny Burk’s daily Bible reading plan.  This plan goes straight through the Bible, reading three or four chapters a day.  He schedules catch up days throughout the year, so if you miss a day or two you’ll have some opportunities to make up the missed days without doubling or tripling one day's reading.  

I’m also going to try to follow Burk’s Greek New Testament reading plan.  My Greek is not nearly proficient enough to read without major help, but fortunately Logos Bible software can help me with the time consuming task of identifying words.  The plan involves reading one chapter a day in Greek and also leaves a number of catch-up days throughout the year.  

I also plan to read one chapter of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion every day.  I’ve been a “Calvinist” (soteriologically) for several years now, but this will be the first time I’ve read Institutes.  Earlier this year I wrote a short biography of Calvin for a Church History class, but like most Calvinists, I became one not by reading Calvin, but simply by reading the Bible.

Weekly Reading

Monday - On Mondays I plan to read one or two chapters of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.  I read Grudem for my seminary courses 3-4 years ago, so this will be a refresher.

Tuesday - Most Tuesdays I will read the chapter of Gregg Allison’s Historical Theology that corresponds with the chapter of Grudem I read the day before.  Allison’s book examines the history of the doctrines covered by Grudem rather than being a chronological history of the church.  The book is only 33 chapters, so some Tuesdays I will read something from the Wednesday-Thursday list.  

Wednesday and Thursday - Wednesdays and Thursdays I will plan to read 20-30 minutes of a scholarly work on issues or Bible passages that are of interest to me.  The list so far, in no particular order:

• From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective by Various Authors
• Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books by Michael J. Kruger
• The End of the Law: Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology by Jason C. Meyer
• The Lord’s Supper: Remembering and Proclaiming Christ Until He Comes by Thomas R. Schreiner & Matthew R. Crawford
• The Messianic Hope: Is the Hebrew Bible Really Messianic? by Michael Rydelnik
• Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church by Charles L. Quarles

Friday - On Fridays I plan to spend 20-30 minutes reading the writings of the church fathers.  I'll start with Volume One of the Ante-Nicene Fathers which includes the writings of Clement of Rome, Mathetes, Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus.  The church fathers didn't get everything right, but understanding the history of the church is of great importance.  The church has been working through theological and cultural issues for 2,000 years.  It would be foolish to ignore that history.

I'll leave Saturday and Sunday open in case I miss a day or two during the week.

So, that’s the plan.  I hope to share some of the things I’m learning here on the blog.  

What’s your plan for the coming year?

What Makes a Gathering of Christians a Church? What is the Difference Between a True Church and False Church?

In a post last week I set out to establish that the church is defined as the community of all true believers for all time, but that the New Testament also refers to local bodies of believers as churches.  So the church is both universal and local, invisible and visible.  Today I want to explore what makes a local church a true church, and how to identify a false church.

In the early centuries there was only one visible church, comprised of many local congregations around the world.  There was later a split between the church in the west and the church in the east, with the two eventually becoming the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.  During the Reformation an important question arose: what is a true church and what is a false church?

The Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran statement of faith, defines the church as "the congregation of saints in which the gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered."

In Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin wrote, "Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ's institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists."

The definitions are similar, and I think Luther and Calvin have it right.  A true church is a gathering of believers where the gospel and whole counsel of the word of God are rightly taught and the sacraments (or ordinances for some protestants) of baptism and the Lord's supper are administered.  

Let's look at the final words of Jesus recorded in Matthew's and Luke's gospels.

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."

Matthew 28:18-20

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

Luke 24:44-49

These are two separate sayings, not Matthew and Luke disagreeing on what was said.  There are some differences, but the general idea is the same.  The disciples were to go and make new disciples by proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, baptize those who believe, and disciple them by teaching them from the Scriptures and to obey all that Jesus commanded.  Jesus didn't mention the Lord's supper in either of these statements, but the words of Jesus at the last supper along with Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 10-11 make it clear that the observing the Lord's supper is an ongoing expectation in the church.  Throughout the history of the church, baptism has marked an individual's entrance into the church and the Lord's supper has marked the individual's remaining in the church.  

Right teaching, baptism and the Lord's supper are the marks of a true church.  It would, therefore, not be right to call a group of people who gather together for Bible study or fellowship a church if there is no baptism and observance of the Lord's Supper.  Although the people gathering, if they are true believers, may be the church, they do not constitute a New Testament church body.

A false church would be a church that teaches falsely concerning the gospel or the person and finished work of Jesus Christ.  A church that teaches salvation by works, denies the deity or humanity of Christ, denies the physical resurrection of Christ, or perverts any of the other essential doctrines of the faith once for all delivered to the saints is a false church.  

The Church of Jesus of Latter Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses are false churches because they both teach salvation by works and deny essential teachings concerning the nature of Christ.  While it is possible that some local Roman Catholic Churches are true churches, the Roman Catholic Church officially denies justification by faith apart from works, among a number of other errors, and is therefore a false church. Churches from the Church of Christ denomination who teach that baptism in a Church of Christ church is necessary for salvation are false churches.  Seventh Day Adventists who teach that observance of a Saturday sabbath is necessary for salvation are false churches.  Denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention (my own) may contain true or false churches.  With a denomination as diverse as the SBC each church must evaluated individually.

It should be noted here that a church that holds to an orthodox statement of faith but obscures or does not regularly teach the gospel should also be considered a false church.  Many of today's megachurches have orthodox statements of faith, but you will not hear the gospel preached or the word of God rightly taught.  An endless series of sermons on practical principles for a better, more enjoyable life without the gospel makes for a false church.  Many charismatic churches with their hyper-emphasis on healing and misplaced focus on the Holy Spirit rather than the person and work of Jesus Christ should be considered false churches.  (Please note: I have not said that every megachurch is a false church or that every charismatic church is a false church.) 

Paul told the church in Corinth he “decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).  In the same letter he later told them, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”  Paul's singular message in the church was Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the Scriptures.  

In 2 Timothy Paul wrote to Timothy that the Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus; that the Scriptures are God-breathed; and that they are profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:15-17).  He then commands Timothy in the presence of God and Christ to preach the word in season and out of season.  This is immediately followed by a warning that there will be a day that people will not endure sound teaching but will accumulate teachers for themselves who will scratch their itching ears (2 Timothy 4:14).  In other words, there will be a day, and that time arrived long ago and continues today, when teachers will twist the Scriptures to make them say what people want to hear rather than what they actually say.  People will not tolerate the preaching of a crucified and risen Savior for the forgiveness of their sins, but will demand Christ-less sermons full of practical life advice or promises of health and wealth.

There is true teaching of the word and false teaching of the word.  Just because a man opens a Bible, reads a text, and proceeds to deliver a sermon in a Sunday morning gathering of professing Christians does not mean a true church exists.  The word must be rightly taught, and baptism and the Lord's supper must be administered, in order to have a true church.

Churches such as the LDS or Jehovah's Witnesses with their false doctrines concerning the person and work Jesus Christ and false gospels of works are easy to identify as false churches.  In other cases it's not as easy to identify a false church, not as black and white as we would like it to be.  

Further complicating our discernment of true and false churches is the fact that among true churches there are more pure and less pure churches.  That will be the subject of my next post on the church.   

  

What is the Church?

Rarely a day goes by that I don't see someone posting an article about the church on my Facebook timeline or Twitter feed.  Some of the articles are good, some are really bad.  It seems that everyone is talking about the church, but what is informing our thinking on the church?  Sadly, I think what's being said in most of the articles I read and the personal conversations I've had is based on feelings and personal experiences rather than an informed understanding of what God has told us about the church in Scripture.  Since much of what I hope to write in the future will relate to the church, this will be the first of a series of posts attempting to give a brief, concise introduction to a Biblical understanding of the church.  

The first and most basic question is this: what is the church?

I think most Christians would rightly say that the church is a people and not a building or organization.  But who are the people? I like Wayne Grudem's definition.

The church is the community of all true believers for all time.

What this means, and I recognize that not everyone agrees with me on this point, is that everyone from Adam and Eve until Christ's return who is brought to genuine faith in Jesus Christ is a part of the church.  The Old Testament saints didn't know Jesus' name, they didn't see God's redemptive plan unveiled as we who live on the other side of the cross and resurrection do, but we were all saved by Christ's once for all sacrifice.  Scripture clearly and repeatedly affirms that believing Jews and Gentiles have been united in one body in Christ.

So there is only one church.  Why is it then, that in my hometown alone there are hundreds of churches, and millions more spread out across the inhabited world?  This is because the church is both invisible and visible, universal and local.

The Church Universal

The invisible church is the church as God sees it.  It includes all those true believers in all times and places who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestined for adoption in Christ, redeemed by Christ's blood, and sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:3-14).  The invisible church is universal.  The true believer in an American megachurch is a member of the same church as the true believer meeting in secret in a house in North Korea.  We are one body, to use one of the Biblical metaphors for the church, or collectively we are the bride of Christ, to use another.  

The Local Church

If we are all one church, then why are there so many churches, sometimes meeting across the street from each other at the same time?  The answer is that the church is also local.  The local church is the visible church, what we see.  The visible church contains true churches and false churches, and among true churches you will find more pure and less pure churches.  When we talk about the church, most often we are talking about the visible church.  

You might then ask, “If there is one universal church, is it wrong for true believers to meet in different church buildings across the street from each other?”  The answer is no.  If those churches are in conflict with each other or competing against one another there is a problem, but from the earliest days following Christ's ascension we see people meeting together in large groups and small gatherings.  As the church spread around the world people in Antioch didn't pack up there belongings and move to Jerusalem, they stayed in Antioch and began their own church.  They were one body with the Jerusalem church, but meeting in a different location.  When Jesus spoke to the seven churches in Revelation he called each one "the church in (city name)." In Titus 1, Paul instructed Titus to appoint elders in every town.  Paul's letter to the Ephesians, which has its central theme the unity of the church in Christ, was written to a group of local congregations in and around Ephesus.  

The Importance of Distinguishing the Universal and Local Church

This distinction between the universal church and local church, the invisible and the visible, is an important distinction to make. When someone has a bad experience with “the church,” is hurt by “the church,” is frustrated with “the church,” or says they’re leaving/have left “the church,” they are referring to the visible church, a specific local church or local churches.  There are important questions for an individual who feels this way to ask, and questions that I’m afraid most people don’t ask.

Was my bad experience with the church because I was in error and the church was acting in accordance with Scripture?  Or was the church clearly in violation of Scriptural teaching?  

Is the church a true church or false church, according to Scripture?

Are my expectations of the church based on a robust Biblical understanding of the church or my personal feelings and desires?  

Was I genuinely wronged, is the local church genuinely in error, or were not yet perfected saints behaving like not yet perfected saints?  Even if I was genuinely wronged, what has God told us about how to respond when wronged?

Church history is full of examples of people responding to one error by overreacting and committing the opposite error.  A period of hyper-legalism is followed by a period of licentiousness (the current state of American evangelicalism, broadly speaking).  A period of institutional church excesses and abuses is followed by people thinking they don’t need the church and will just meet together without any kind of structure at all (a small sub-sect of American evangelicalism at the present time).  It is important when we recognize errors in the visible church that we don’t respond with an equally unbiblical error.  The opposite error of an error is still error.  We must always seek to return to Biblical faithfulness, conforming our local churches to what God has told us they should be.     

Future posts in this series will deal with what the New Testament identifies as a faithful local church and what the purpose of the church is.