Partiality is a sin

After James 2:1-13 

Partiality: the tendency

we share to judge

and arrange people

in hierarchies for reasons

of which are legion.

Partiality: A sin.

Heaven’s cafeteria 

contains no reserved 

tables; so, too, should

the church. So, too,

should each of us.

Anything short

of impartiality is

a sin, our sin. 

The widow and

the orphan are 

just as vital 

to God’s kingdom 

as the rich merchant.

A neighbor is

a neighbor. Love him.

We are each and all

made in the image

of God, and he has

no partiality.

 

Photograph by Clay Banks via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Trial of Daily Bread – Greg Morse at Desiring God.

 

Preaching the Gospel to All – Barry York at Tabletalk Magazine.

 

Progressive Christianity’s Metamodern Posture – Jeffrey Beaupre at Modern Reformation.

 

The Sacred Christian Art of Martin Earle – Robert Lazu Kmita at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Radical inclusion

After James 2:1-13

 

We are the body

of Christ, equal

in his eyes, equal

in our own eyes,

the CEO no different

from the plumber,

the driver of the Mercedes

no different from

the driver of the rent-a-wreck.

 

Because he died for each

of us, because he died

for all of us, he leveled

the distinctions we love

to make. He destroyed

human hierarchies. He

erased the boundaries

we make for ourselves.

He removed partiality

from the church dictionary. 

Photograph by Alicia Quan via Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Some Friday Readings

 

“Thou Who Dost Write Thy Name,” poem by Emma Latham – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Ordering the Church for Ordinary Growth – Jake Wright at For the Church.

 

The God of the Astronauts – Spencer Klavan at The New Jerusalem. 

When I Feared Who God Might Be – Lara d’Entremont at A Mother Held.

We are the same

After James 2:1-13 

We are poor,

we are rich,

we are noble,

we are common,

we are black,

we are white,

we are the church.

 

We are educated,

we are illiterate,

we are titled,

we are born low,

we are uptown,

we are ghetto,

we are the church.

 

Within the church,

we are the same,

Within †he church,

we are equal.

Within the church,

we are equal before God.

We are the church.

 

Photograph by Sincerely Media via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Shooting Up by Jonathan Tepper – review by Tim Challies.

 

Surrender All, Not Some – Jessica B. at Desiring God.

 

Do I choose an old or a new church? – Murray Campbell at Murray’s Substack.

How to resist

After Ephesians 4:11-16 

To resist the deceit,

the forces arrayed

against us, the strategy

is simple: we speak

truth, the truth in love;

we grow up and into

the One who died for us;

we hold together as one,

one body, a unit working

as one, because we have

been equipped to function

as one, this body of many

working together to hold

itself up into love.

 

Photograph by svklimkin via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Hollow Men – poem by T.S. Eliot at Academy of American Poets.

 

The Truth of Beauty: Educating the Moral Imagination – Benjamin Lockerd at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Hobbits and Third-Culture Kids – Seth Porch at Desiring God.

 

Where Loss Leads: Why Grieving People Need a Theology of Giving – Pierce Taylor Hibbs at The Gospel Coalition. 

 

Prayer (1) – poem by George Herbert at Rabbit Room Poetry.

The forces against

After Ephesians 4:11-16 

We are surrounded and

targeted, nurtured by

those raised up for

that purpose, strengthened,

fed, encouraged, taught

so that we resist the forces

arrayed against us daily:

every kind of doctrine,

slyness and cunning,

craftiness and schemes

of deceit and falsehood.

We are strengthened 

against them all

taught to discern,

reinforced to resist,

to see these forces

for what they are.

 

Photograph by Joseph Sharp via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

From “Showings or Revelations of Divine Love” – poem by Julian of Norwich at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Every Idle Word – poem by Malcolm Guite.

 

The Consolation of Silence – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

The support team

After Ephesians 4:11-16 

We’re not thrown

onto barren ground,

left to fend for ourselves,

no more than a newborn

is placed outside the door

and wished good luck.

Instead, there’s a team,

a support team, people

raised up for the purpose

of raising us to the unity

of faith. There they are:

apostles, prophets, shepherds,

evangelists, teachers, each one

inspired to pour knowledge,

maturity, fullness into you.

They nurture the newborn,

turning children into adults.

 

Photograph by Tobias Mrzyk via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Wild of God in Waterloo Township, Michigan – Steven Knepper at Front Porch Republic.

 

How to Stay Married – poem by Jody Collins at Poetry & Made Things.

 

Watching the Sun Go Down – poem by David Whyte.

 

Christ as King – Robb Brunansky at The Cripplegate.

 

We can’t think or live Christianly – T.M. Suffield at Nuakh. 

Walking this path

After Ephesians 4:1-16 

Walking this path, disparate people

being knitted together into one,

one garment, one body, a body

that works as an intention

of the Lord, the body of the Lord,

pierced, a body with a purpose,

a body with a presence.

 

Disparate people, walking this path,

learning the way, teaching each other

the way forward, the older serving

the younger serving the older serving

the child serving the parent serving 

the sick serving the ailing serving

the aging serving the despondent

serving the strong serving the mother

serving the father serving the child

serving the older.

 

Disparate people walking a path,

walking in humility, walking

in gentleness, walking in patience,

walking in love for others,

walking in unity, walking

in peace, walking as one body

and one spirit and one hope

with one Lord and one baptism

and one God and one Father

of all.

 

The people endure the journey

as they endure each other, loving

one another. Enduring one another

makes them one.

 

Photograph by Iswanto Arif via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Monday Readings

 

The Death of the Literary Feud – Willian Fear at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Mosaic Makers of Hackney – Spitalfields Life.

 

The Two-Parent Advantage – W. Bradford Wilcox at CityJournal. 

 

Do We Need Regime Change of a Change in Heart? – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative.

Submit and love

After Ephesians 5:21-33 

Submit to one another,

he says, the key

to our relationships.

Submit in reverence

mutual, he says, because

that’s how the One did it,

that’s the model, people,

submitting in love.

What the critics miss

is that love, as in love

your wives, is

a stronger command

than submission.

This love, this submission,

is a picture of something

far greater than itself,

fare more important,

something vital,

not matter how disguised

it becomes by rhetoric

and accusations and

anger and malpractice

and missing 

the whole point.

 

Photograph by Adam Winger via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The path to oneness

After Ephesians 4:1-16

It begins with speech,

or speaking, not merely

uttering words but

speaking truth in love,

which assumes careful

consideration of the thoughts

expressed and words spoken.

Speaking truth in love leads

to growth, growth in every way,

growth into the head, for it is

the head that makes the body

grow, the whole body, joined

and held together, each and 

every part it comes with,

and each part working

as it should, in harmony,

together as one.

 

Photograph by Lukas Vanatko via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The point is

After Ephesians 4:1-16

This walk, this oneness,

this training, all these

resources assembled,

all of this has a point:

achieve unity of faith,

achieve unity of knowledge,

become mature (i.e., grow!)

in the maturity of the ideal

of the One, leaving behind

the immaturity of childhood,

the tossing by every wind

and wave by every new thing,

passing fancy, human deceit,

human cunning, schemes

of men (and women too)

masquerading as truth

and light. That’s the point:

maturing enough to leave

all that behind as useless

and unnecessary and

downright counterproductive. 

 

Photograph by Jukan Tateisi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Support logistics

After Ephesians 4:1-16

When we were called up,

and assembled into our unit

formed for basic training,

which could be and often is

rigorous and uncomfortable,

he didn’t leave us leaderless

or without resources.

We weren’t an army

without officers or leaders

or a supply train, 

a formless mass to be

tossed about by every wind

and wave. The call included

rather extensive resources:

apostles, prophets, evangelists,

shepherds, teachers, people

gifted to come along side

and lead the troops for the work

we were called to.

 

Photograph by Diego Gonzalez via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Oneness

After Ephesians 4:1-16

One body

one spirit

each one called to

one hope

one Lord

one faith

one baptism

one God

on Father

one grace

one gift

one sacrifice

given to each

one of us.

 

Photograph by Tania Malrechauffe via Unsplash. Used with permission.

A body's walk

After Ephesians 4:1-16

If you ever wondered,

mused, or thought (aloud)

how a body works,

the prisoner has an answer:

worthy of the path

you’ve been called

to walk, which means

humbly and gently,

patiently and lovingly,

bearing with one another

in love (even if you don’t

like each other’s politics),

because you’re eager,

eager to maintain,

maintain the unity,

the unity of the spirit,

the spirit in the bond,

the bond of peace. 

 

Photograph by Andraz Lazic via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Everything in common

After Acts 4:32-37

One heart, one soul

shared by all;

ownership of all things

was seen, and known, 

to belong to the One.

And seen by and known by

not just a few, or most, 

but the full number

of the believing. The joy

and jubilation of all

was seasoned by the apostles,

teaching and testifying. And

the church, the full church,

knew together the grace

upon them all.

That no one suffered want

was important;

that all experienced grace

was vital. 

Photograph by Mario Purisic via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity” by Michael Kruger

Seminary president, professor, and theologian Michael Kruger doesn’t mince words when it comes to explaining the belief system of what traditional or conservative Christians call progressive Christianity. In the short work The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity, Kruger outlines what he sees as how faith can come to terms with a secular culture, essentially by compromising the very heart of what faith is about.

The fact is, he can’t mince words, because the stakes are so high. Protestantism and Catholicism are in freefall in the United States. Protestant mainline denominations have been embracing what they see as a more humane, loving, and giving understanding of Christianity for more than a century now, and their numbers continue to drop with no end on sight. The same is true for the Church of England and the Anglican Church of Canada. Even more conservative Protestant denominations, like the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptists, have been affected to a lesser degree. Evangelical churches seem to be holding their own.

Kruger identifies 10 characteristics of progressive Christianity – Jesus as role model rather than God to be worshipped; a de-emphasis on people’s brokenness and sin; an emphasis on reconciliation; gracious behavior being more important than right belief; questions being more important than answers; encouraging personal search over group uniformity; needs always being more important than institutions; a desire for peacemaking; caring more about love and less about sex; and the importance of life in this world rather than hope for the afterlife. 

Michael Kruger

He sees a half-truth in each of the ten, but it is that half-truth that tends to become the whole truth as taught and practiced. He stakes a strong claim early in the introduction. Quoting theologian and scholar J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) in his classic Christianity and Liberalism, Kruger says “simply put, liberal Christianity is not Christianity.” He goes on to say that Christians “must be able to distinguish the true faith from those things that masquerade as the true faith.”

As noted above, he doesn’t mince words. And while he’s focused here on progressive Christianity, there’s equal danger coming from the other side – like the proponents of the prosperity gospel.

Kruger is the President and the Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, N.C. and ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America. He has written or co-written numerous works, including The Early Text of the New Testament, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate, A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament: The Gospel Realized, Christianity at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church, The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity, and Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books. He blogs at Canon Fodder.

The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity is a short but vital work and a good summary of some of the issues tearing the church apart. 

“Church Reformed” by Tim Bayly

It’s difficult to scan social media or the daily newspaper and not see evidence of the church at war with itself. The war is largely over social and political issues – the same issues that are tearing the fabric of our civil society. Some days, I can’t tell whether people on Facebook are arguing theological or political issues.  

To me, this often-nasty argument begs a question. What is the church? And with all this wrangling over social and political issues, is the church any different than any other organization? Should it be?

Church Reformed by Tim Bayly answers that question by going back to the church’s roots – the church of the New Testament. In times of great stress, the church almost always looks back to the church described in the Book of Acts. It’s the original, the model for all that came after. It’s also the guide to understand how far the church can stray. 

Bayly begins by asking who the church is, and how do we enter it. AS its Greek name suggests, he writes, “ekklesia” means “the called-out ones” – the ones called out from the world. And the ones called out are baptized into the church.

Tim Bayly

What follows is an extended discussion of one verse in the second chapter of the Book of Acts: “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42). Those four things – teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer – are what the church is about. Bayly writes clearly and succinctly about those four things and the significant threats to each, and those four chapters represent one of the best summaries of what the church is about that I’ve seen.

He follows that discussion y describing what he calls “systemic threats” to the church. “There are threats to the Church, though, that are systemic. They don’t latch onto our practice of the Lord’s Supper only, for instance, but wound the entire organism. No part of the Church’s life and ministry us safe from them; no part of the Church is beyond their corruption. He identifies these three threats as naivete, hypocrisy, and “gathering goats” (where the church focuses on “saving sinners” instead of what it’s commanded to do – make disciples). 

Bayly, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin (Madison), received his M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1983. He has served churches in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbyterian Church in America. Since 1996, he has been senior pastor at Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, Indiana.

Church Reformed is characterized by simplicity of language, so all can understand it, and Scripture-based evidence, hearkening back to New Testament roots. It’s also a refreshing look at what the church is and what it’s supposed to be and do.

Broken pieces

After Psalm 122

Take one broken piece,

join with another broken piece,

collect all the broken pieces

and place the broken pieces

together and in proximity,

all these broken pieces

assembled to create 

a body

a gathering

a church.

Photograph by Nick Herasimenka via Unsplash. Used with permission.