Amazingly enough, I’ve been invited to speak at Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration, which is what they call their lectureship nowadays. It’ll be good to visit my alma mater and share a few ideas on grace. The topic is “What Really Is a Test of Fellowship?” I’ll be teaching a class on July 5, 2007, which is the first full day of the program. Class is at 9:45 in Room 110 of the Swang Building.
The PowerPoint outline used for the presentation is here: PowerPoint version.
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Well, I’m back. Had a good time. Much to my surprise, they put me in a lecture hall that sat maybe 75 and it was nearly full.
Even more to my surprise, the message was well received. I wouldn’t pretend that everyone was convinced, but at least the reception was polite! Some were clearly thrilled that the lesson was taught. Others seemed puzzled by the lesson. I understand. It would have puzzled me not that many years ago.
I regret I didn’t have more time to cover the material and respond to objections. The full argument may be found here. This is a link to my book The Holy Spirit and Revolutionary Grace. It’s still available at a few locations on the internet (cheap!) or for free by clicking on the link.
I was only able to cover the first half of the outline, and not the “hidden” slides. If you are familiar with PowerPoint, you can “unhide” several slides that provide additional support for the arguments made. I had to exclude these from the presentation to leave time for questions.
Question time is always fun. People were curious about my views on baptism. Those may be found here. Others asked about instrumental music. Click on the “Instrumental music” category to the right of this page and you’ll get a pretty full explanation of what I think.
Hopefully they’ll invite me back. Lipscomb has dramatically changed since I graduated in 1978! It’s really quite dramatic, and I wish I’d had more time to explore the new campus.
This is a question I should have asked in your class, but I'm thankful for your blog and the opportunity to ask now. I guess it is one of those "where do you draw the line" types of questions. Is there a New Testament pattern for acceptable worship? If so, is there any deviation from that pattern that should result in disfellowship of a brother who sincerely believes that Jesus is the son of God? For example, do we accept baptized believers who "speak in tongues"?
Is there a NT pattern for acceptable worship? Of course. A short explanation of the purpose of the assembly is posted at http://jayguin.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/15-act….
Jesus told the Samaritan women that, in the Kingdom, we'd worship in "spirit and in truth." "Truth" means the truth about Jesus, the gospel. /2007/01/25/understanding-2… explains.
"Spirit" is a reference to the Holy Spirit, not merely human attitudes, as the context is all about divine spirit. "Living water" is the Holy Spirit. John 7:37-39. Jesus has just said that God is spirit, and so he must be talking about the Spirit.
Thus, true worship is worship built on faith in Jesus and empowered by the Spirit. /the-holy-spirit-and-revolu… explains my understanding of the Spirit.
This hardly provides us with a bunch of do's and don't's, but the new covenant is about Spirit and freedom, not a written code.
(Rom 7:6) But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
And so, can we so violate the pattern given for worship that we lose our souls? Yes. If we surrender our faith, we can't worship in Spirit and in truth. We are lost. Just so, if we rebel against the Lordship of Jesus, we will quench the Spirit and so can no longer worship in Spirit.
But if we worship incorrectly in innocence, simply misunderstanding God's will, we are saved by grace. God will make us stand.
I have friends who speak in tongues. Or at least they think they do. I'm really not qualified to make that judgment. But they worship "to the Lord" and so God accepts their worship, whether I do or not. They are not in rebellion. They have faith that is often much stronger than mine. (By the way, I find the whole idea of speaking in tongues distasteful–but that's how I grew up, you know.)
By the way, my thoughts on tongues and such may be found in the Index under "That Which Is Perfect." You may find it an interesting study.