We are commanded to meet.

“… not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:25)

A church by definition gathers.

The Christian church is a dignified, governed, regularly gathered assembly.

Zoom is a shadow, not the substance of this.

Churches are singular units.

Churches are singular units and have a responsibility to substantially meet as singular units. Meeting only as small groups of less than 10, for example, does not fulfill the gathering responsibilities of a larger church.

We need to get close enough for the “one anothers”.

Various commands in the New Testament that are impossible to obey without gathering, e.g. practicing the Lord’s Supper and exchanging affectionate greetings of touch.

Every believer has a responsibility to relationally connect such that the “one another” commands of the New Testament are obeyed, including extending forgiveness and forbearance. If you’re not close enough to need to forgive people in your church, you’re not close enough to people in your church.

Earnest, up-front obedience was appropriate.

“The magistrate has genuine authority in times of emergency to command the church to do certain things, or refrain from certain things (as with a quarantine in a time of plague). When the church complies, it is obedience, not happenstance agreement.” (Douglas Wilson)

“As a general law of neutral applicability, a quarantine at times interferes incidentally with the worship of God. This incidental interference in itself does not necessarily exceed the civil sphere’s authority as long as it is understood to be temporary and localized, lasting no longer and extending no farther than the conditions that gave rise to it… It is hoped that [church leadership] exercised submission to the civil authority, modeling it for the sheep, when the crisis was in its early stages and no one knew the degree to which a clear and present danger existed.” (Evangelical Presbytery)

Corrupt government exceeds its God-given authority.

“At the same time, because no human authority is absolute, and because every form of human authority can be corrupted, those under authority, including the church (and especially the church), have the authority to identify when the genuine authority of the magistrate is being abused or mishandled to the point where it is now legitimate to disregard what they are saying.” (Douglas Wilson)

“Yet, through a protracted, extensive, and comprehensive quarantine whose sway over the lives of the people is nearly absolute, the civil sphere does exceed its authority. When a sphere exceeds its authority and acts ultra vires, its acts are void. Even for acts that are void from the beginning or become void over time, familial and ecclesiastical spheres must approach the proper response thereto through prayer, wisdom, humility, and honor, if not exact obedience, to the civil sphere.” (Evangelical Presbytery)

Churches have authority to govern their domain.

Like fathers over families, elders over churches have final administrative say over the domain and regular life of a church fellowship. While there may be temporary, incidental overlap or interference between the domain of civil government and the domain of church, it is to be treated as short-lived, limited, quickly expiring, and dangerously open to abuse. Elders have a responsibility to decide when such inordinate or prolonged interference has occurred. And they have the authority to decide what is best for the spiritual health of their gathered people.

Elders must practice wisdom.

Elders have a responsibility to take everything into account when deciding when they must practice peaceful civil obedience in meeting as a church:

• Whether they are being prohibited, even incidentally, from obeying what God commands.
• Local infection and fatality rate.
• The point at which the gathering is being sinfully and treacherously neglected.
• Whether the laws are genuinely held and neutrally applied by leadership.
• Whether the government is overreaching its God-ordained limits of responsibility.

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Is going to church selfish during a pandemic?

An excellent article summarized:

1. Everyone is morally obligated to worship the living God at church:

“Going to church is not a private, personal habit that some people enjoy, but others don’t. It is a moral duty binding on everyone. Everyone in Britain is morally obligated to worship the living God at church, just as they are obligated not to steal from shops, and to tell the truth… We understand how going to church in a pandemic could look selfish to a secular society, which sees religion as a bunch of private, personal beliefs.”

2. Churches are essential services:

“The closest equivalent to church is not education, or politics, or the economy, but the supermarkets, and the hospitals, which we were all quite clear were “essential services”. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Deut 8:3).

3. The risk of not worshipping is greater than COVID:

“The Christian church believes that the risks to our nation of not worshipping the living God through his Son Jesus Christ far outweigh the risks presented by COVID…”

4. It is especially appropriate to go to church in a time of crisis:

“This is precisely the time to explain that Jesus Christ isn’t just an invisible friend or buddy, or “life-force”. He is God the Son, who has entered history, become man, was crucified, buried, and has risen. He is the Lord of all and he is coming back to hold us all to account. So, in a challenging time, with serious public health risks, getting along to church isn’t a self-indulgent habit that sacrifices my neighbour’s safety. It is an act of love for God, and love for neighbour, of the highest importance.”

“If you see a generality and immediately think of exceptions, you’ve absorbed the spirit of the age.” (Michael Foster)

Consider the Book of Proverbs. It packs a punch with pithy one-liners. It doesn’t entertain exceptions. It doesn’t let sophistication get in the way of making a point. It traffics in proverbial truisms.

This is the typical language of Biblical wisdom: Simplified summaries of creational norms. Redemptive patterns are expressed, not in a tome of nuance, but in the terse equivalent of a tweet.

But the heart has its way of rebelling against wisdom:

“What about… ?”

Whataboutery is suffocating. It prevents us from breathing in the proverbial language of wisdom.

Whataboutism dulls our receptivity to straightforward wisdom. Claiming to be wise, we become fools as we stiff-arm proverbial wisdom with:

• Nitpicking, persnickety, fussy pedantry
• Love for the praise of man; cringing over what others think
• Fretting over excess or misuse of truth
• Missing the “moment” or spirit of the age
• Inability to appreciate appropriate cultural expressions of creational norms
• Inability to appreciate courage or boldness; cowardice
• Using abuse or trauma as an excuse

What modern wisdom teachers on adolescence, parenting, finance, work ethic, fitness, manhood, womanhood, marriage, church, and evangelism are we disregarding because we have no esteemed place for the language of bold proverbial wisdom?

And how many wisdom teachers decide to stay silent because the internet smothers them with whataboutery?

Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Absorb Proverbs, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Epistle of James. Train your mind to be receptive to language of wisdom.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7)

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Added (July 11, 2022): Whataboutery admits no general maxims, and insists burdensome prerequisites for making a normative statements or generalizations. Example: “Husbands should protect their wives.” But, the critic says, “Not all husbands can. And not all husbands do.” So we shouldn’t say (so it goes), “Husbands should protect their wives.”

Whataboutery also smothers a simple celebration. It can’t simply say, “Happy Mother’s Day”, without hedging, prefacing, and nuancing.

• God will finish what he started in you: “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)
• God is faithful to repeatedly forgive and continually cleanse: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
• If Jesus tells us to forgive our brother seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:22), how much more will he forgive us?
• Counterintuitively comforting: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.” (Matthew 12:31) It’s easy to focus on the exception. But, oh, the rule! “Every sin”!
• God doesn’t accept us on the strength of our repentance or faith. Genuine faith and repentance suffice, even if it is eeked out with a mouse-squeek of a weak, “Help, God, help me.” He loves to come rushing to our aide. “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)
• Confess your sins to a brother you trust (James 5:16), ideally in a local church. He can say out loud what God’s word says: You are forgiven. God loves you. You’re not “too far gone.” You’re still believing.
• God “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5) when they look to him who justifies the ungodly.
• Feast at the Communion table with fellow believers. Gobble up the bread and wine. Both a meaningful and mysterious encouragement. I am accepted by God. The blood of Jesus is on my doorpost. I am shielded from God’s wrath. I am given a seat at the table. A reminder of the love of Jesus for us that we can taste. We are human. We need this.

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Added Oct 8, 2021

Believers invisibly serving others (including your own family), yet discouraged or mistreated or seemingly forgotten, let this wash over you:

“God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints…” (Hebrews 6:10)

Your glory and honor will come:

“To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” (Romans 2:7)

And the dawn is imminent:

“Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.” (Psalm 112:4)

Persevere! Let us have “full assurance of hope until the end”! (Hebrews 6:11)

If Donald Trump were to repent before Jesus as King, he would join a local church and submit himself under its elders.

He would gladly subject himself to their godly counsel and even church discipline if necessary.

This puts the local church in perspective. The church and state are separate institutions. Each have their “spheres” of sovereignty and their own respective responsibilities. But are both called to bend the knee under the same King.
The local church itself may not with a sword depose a nation’s ruler from his station. But it can excommunicate a king.

A godly leader does not say of Jesus and his church,

“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

Psalm 2:3

The gospel says to every ruler:

“Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.”

“Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.”

“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,”

“For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

Psalm 2:10-12

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A friend asks, “Are you saying trump can’t be a believer because he hasn’t placed himself under the authority of a church?”

The most appropriate people to affirm the credibility of anyone’s profession of faith would be their local church. Trump has yet to obviously embrace this with normal fruits we should expect of any true believer.

One hopes he has had good Christian influences these past years, and has become a genuine believer. But we’re not permitted to recognize him as such without the clear fruit and clear confession. We need to feel the weight of this: If a man repents, he will flee sin, be identifiably changed, love the brotherhood, and confess his Lord.

She sings to our youngest daughter before bed.

She wears a cute dress to church.

She takes walks with me at night, and looks up into my eyes and smiles.

She asks, “What shirt would you like ironed?”

She reviews Bible memory verses with the kids.

We bump into each other in our small bathroom as she dries her hair and I brush my teeth.

She watches Hallmark movies.

Continue reading “My Wife” →

I spent almost 15 years doing weekly street evangelism in Utah (minus Winter). It matured in two ways: 1) I became more committed to the local church. 2) Weekly evangelism became an event for the joyful gathering of believers, overflowing with the gospel and friendship.

In the following videos I aim to encourage you on the why and and how of doing “evangelistic fellowships.”

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Addendum (Oct 29, 2021). This is a video my Utah friends put together.

See also:

• To my fellow evangelists
• How to work well with stranger evangelists

Garry Shafovaloff, Outstanding Airman of the Year, 1980.

Personality is like handwriting: It’s hard to change late in life. But it’s worth improving.

If someone can’t read your handwriting, you ought not say, “That’s just how I write.” No. You slow down and work hard at writing legibly.

If you’re being inhospitable, or unwelcoming, or unkind, or rude, or too agreeable (weak), or caustic (cranky), or joyless (not thankful), or inconsiderate (thoughtless), you ought not say, “That’s just my personality.”

Personality is not exempt from correction and sanctification. God is beginning a metamorphosis of your personality. At the resurrection it will be transformed.

Decades ago! We mostly played StarCraft.

One of my LDS critics writes,

“Why should we care who would win an arm wrestling match between cosmic deities? There is no reason to compare them and pit them against each other. They are all “most high.””

Answer:

“For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” (Psalm 95:3)

“For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.” (Psalm 97:9)

Mainstream Mormonism (SLC-based sect) can’t say that about its god.

She also writes,

“If you say that there isn’t good and evil outside of God, then you are acknowledging that God is the author of evil.”

Answer: In the mainstream LDS framework none of the gods are the author of good or evil. They just re-arrange stuff from the universal sandbox.

In the classical Christian view, everything God created was good, and then it was perverted to be evil.

Evil is a perversion of goodness, and goodness is grounded in God.