Blue Parakeet: Heaven Came Down …

Posted on April 15, 2009 by Jay F Guin

I don’t know. There’s just something about hearing a Christian family in India singing this Southern Gospel standard, to a polka beat.

The lesson follows the lyrics. Continue reading →

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The Baptists’ Evolving View of Baptism, Part 2

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Jay F Guin

BaptismThis follows up an earlier post on the same subject in which I posted an article by Stanley Fowler, a Baptist, noting the convergence of Baptist and Church of Christ views on baptism. That article has now appeared in a book, Baptist Sacramentalism 2, which is not yet available in the US. (You can buy it from UK sources. I have a review copy. It’s great. But I figure I should wait to post my comments until Amazon.com has it. The exchange rate with the UK is none too favorable.)

Anyway, one of the editors, Anthony Cross, sent me an article he’d written for the Evangelical Quarterly arguing for a revision of the Baptist view of baptism along lines that are very similar to the progressive Church of Christ view of baptism — and he got me permission to post the whole article here: “The Evangelical sacrament: baptisma semper reformandum.” The Latin means (I think) “baptism is always reforming.” This is a play on the Reformation slogan Ecclesia reformandum, semper reformanda = The Reformed church is always reforming. And if the Reformation should continue, even today, so should the church’s view of baptism. Amen. Continue reading →

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Dialogue with Robert Prater: Baptism, Circumcision, Galatians, 1 John, and GraceConversation

Posted on April 13, 2009 by Jay F Guin

dialogueThe question has been raised in private emails and comments here whether baptism might be a work. After all, circumcision, which is certainly a work in Paul’s vocabulary, is also passive. To answer this one, we need to get away from an atomistic view of the scriptures and take a broader look.

I mean, for a very long time, Baptists and Church of Christ members have debated along these lines, with the Baptists arguing that baptism is a “work” and therefore not required for salvation, as we are saved by faith, not works. Some (not all) in the Churches of Christ have argued that, yes, baptism is a work but obedience is required for salvation and hence baptism is essential. Of course, this reasoning would suggest that all works are as essential as baptism, and that teaching that has been horribly destructive to the Churches.

The fact that baptism is in the passive voice suggests the likelihood that baptism is not so much a work as a gift, but does not by itself make the case. The argument must be found in deeper analysis than that. As I argued in an earlier post, Continue reading →

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Communion Meditation: The Meal of Sulha

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Jay F Guin

CommunionA few years ago a messianic Jew named Ilan Zamir was driving through an Arab village in Israel at night. He saw a dark blur and felt his car strike something. He stopped and jumped out, only to learn that he’d killed a 13-year boy, who’d darted out in front of the car. The Israeli police investigated and learned that the boy had been deaf and so hadn’t heard the car coming. The driver was found to be without fault.

But the incident weighed on him. Ilan desperately wanted to meet the boy’s family and apologize. His fault or not, he’d killed their son. His friends told him he was out of his mind. The boy’s family lived in the West Bank. West Bank Palestinians don’t like Jews, and he couldn’t count on Israeli law to protect him there. But he felt obligated and made arrangements to meet the family at a sulha — a meal of reconciliation. Continue reading →

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GraceConversation.com

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Jay F Guin

grace7I think we’ve finally gotten to the real issue: does the conservative branch of the Churches of Christ have a scriptural rationale for declaring as apostate (damned) those who disagree on certain hot-button issues? Hopefully, as we explore this question, we can talk more meaningfully about our disagreements on grace in general.

I asked Greg Tidwell to explain why he makes some doctrinal error salvation issues and some not. He responded that my demanding a checklist is legalistic. It’s been a long time since I’ve been called a legalist!

And so I responded that I don’t want a checklist. I just want to know why the checklists that he and others have published treat certain doctrinal error — but not all doctrinal error — as damning. To make the point, I posted excerpts from two of his published articles listing of doctrinal errors that damn.

Greg will be responding late this coming week. In the meantime, I challenged the conservative readership to offer their own explanations for why certain doctrinal errors damn. And I’m quite sincere. I’d love to see the best possible arguments posted at GraceConversation. If the conservative view of apostasy is right, surely someone out there can state the argument for it.

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Dialogue with Robert Prater: What Is “Faith”? Part 4 (Baptism vs. Faith)

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Jay F Guin

Note to readers: I’m recaptioning the posts reflecting my interchange with Robert Prater, as we’ve gotten pretty far afield from the original theme.dialogue

When members of the Churches of Christ speak of the faith-only heresy, they generally aren’t referring to the idea that God doesn’t care about our obedience. Only a very few extreme Calvinists teach that. Nearly all denominations understand that God expects obedience. No, when we speak against faith-only, we almost always mean to our rejection of the idea that someone can be saved by faith without baptism — that is, we’re usually thinking about the Baptists.

Now, I’ve written a book on this very question. And so I tend to be reluctant to explain something this complex in a single post. But because the question keeps coming up, I’m going to try to give an introduction (and this is just an introduction). The key, as is so often the case, is asking the right question. Continue reading →

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Dialogue with Robert Prater: What Is “Faith”? Part 3 (Baptism)

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Jay F Guin

dialogueBaptism

Okay. Baptism is, oddly enough, where many in the Churches of Christ got things wrong in the last century. That and the Holy Spirit.

We wanted to prove that baptism is essential for salvation. We argued, therefore, that it is a work, and then we argued that works are required to be saved — based on James. The result was the certain works became essential to our salvation, because if the work of baptism is essential, then so is the work of a cappella worship or the work of weekly communion or the work of a plurality of elders and on and on.

When someone challenged this works-salvation, citing the many obvious passages that contradict this doctrine, the defenders of orthodoxy routinely responded with baptism and James: if works aren’t essential, then neither is baptism and if works aren’t essential, then you dispute the inspiration of James. And this led to a very works-based religion. Continue reading →

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Dialogue with Robert Prater: What Is “Faith”? Part 2 (James, Paul & the Spirit)

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Jay F Guin

dialogueSo what about James? Let’s take a fresh look, beginning with his thesis sentence —

(James 2:14) What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

He doesn’t say “if a man has faith,” but “if a man claims to have faith.” James isn’t speaking of real faith but claimed faith. And if we miss that point — which he makes abundantly clear at the beginning of his lesson — we get very confused indeed. Continue reading →

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The Blue Parakeet: The End, Part 2 (The New Earth)

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetParadise

Strong’s Dictionary says “paradise” derives from the Hebrew pardec, meaning an orchard or forest. It’s a reference back to Eden. This is strongly suggested by –

(Rev. 2:7b) To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

The tree of life was, of course, originally in the Garden of Eden. Continue reading →

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The Blue Parakeet: The Story’s End, Part 1 (The Resurrection)

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Jay F Guin

parakeetWe’ve covered the creation accounts, the sin of Adam and Eve, the Curse, God’s covenant with Abraham, and several strands of Old Testament thought that tie the Law of Moses tightly to Christianity, at least more tightly than we normally think. Because our classes have a pretty good sense of the Gospels and the Epistles, we’re going to skip to the End. And we generally have a very poor understanding of the End.

The Greek word for “end” is eschatos, and so we call the study of the end times eschatology. The Churches of Christ have always been weak on eschatology, which is typical of many denominations. Part of this is in reaction to those denominations that center their teaching on speculative theories of the Revelation, the Rapture, and such. I mean, it just can’t be true that every story in the morning news was prophesied in Ezekiel. That’s not what prophesy is for.

Part of what it’s for, though, is to tell what the End will be like — to encourage us. And amazingly enough, we tend to get this wrong. Let’s start with the basics. Continue reading →

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