By Terry Stauffer

Words have power. They can be used for good or evil. They are useful tools for building up, but can be destructive weapons for tearing down. Gospel partnership requires that we cultivate wisdom in our use of words.

This observation applies to all Christians, not just leaders. We need words to help believers and unbelievers around us make gospel connections. This is true as we communicate with family, friends, co-workers and people we meet in church. The Apostle Paul describes this responsibility to think about our words far better than I could, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6); “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

Cultivating helpful speech is a life-long pursuit. We can all improve the way we use words, so I will suggest – in no particular order - a few ways to sharpen our word-working skills.

-- Ask questions and listen more than you talk. I have had experiences when I have walked away from conversations with a sense of regret because I didn't learn much about the person that I was talking with. Sometimes this was because the other person was persistent in asking questions of me, but, more often than not, it was because of my pride and desire to be heard.

-- Read. I know that not everyone is a reader, but if you want to influence others and increase your skill with words, devote time to reading (if you want to be convinced of this point, read John Piper's book Think). If you don't know what to read, go back to the first tip. Ask people for recommendations. Start small if you are not a reader, chip away at a few pages a day.

-- When you read your Bible, pay attention to figures of speech, satire, humour and word pictures. There are many illustrations, of course, but as an example, consider what Jesus said in Matthew 5 about tearing out our eye or cutting off our hand to avoid sins that will send us to Hell. It is literally true that going to heaven disfigured is better than going whole to Hell, but this a figure of speech that is designed to drive us to the truth of our sin. It certainly makes the point that our sin is worse than we think it is!

-- Pay attention to people who are gifted communicators. Seek out models who are effective at one-to-one communication and learn from them. Take note of how godly leaders function in different circumstances and tailor their words “as fits the occasion.”

-- Be real and be careful. We all have different gifts and various opportunities for applying wise words, but all Christians have the wisdom of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Yes, words can be dangerous (James 3), but we all have a responsibility to use our words wisely for building up other believers and pointing unbelievers to Christ.

I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone this week and see if you can't prayerfully stretch a conversation a little farther than you might normally so that you can be an agent of God's grace to someone in your circle of influence. 

Terry Stauffer, formerly pastor of Edson Baptist Church, moved to Calgary this past fall with his family and joined our congregation. Two weeks ago, after having had a chance to experience the gifts for ministry that God has given him, Calvary Grace Church welcomed Terry as an elder over the congregation. Watch for more from Terry in this space in the future!   -- Jeff

You Can’t Have an Evangelical Without the Gospel

This past week, I stumbled across a misleading and saddening headline relating to one of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in the United States. The editorial was titled: “Is Rick Santorum Catholic or Evangelical? Yes.” Now, we live in a culture that has little time for history and which, under the influence of postmodern thinkers, does not have much care for the meaning of words. So it’s not surprising to find those that think one can be both Catholic and evangelical; in fact, even among bona fide evangelical Christians there is a disturbing amount of confusion on this important point.

The article actually does a good job explaining why many evangelicals are willing to see Santorum, a devout Catholic, as an example of a “Catholic evangelical.” What makes Santorum seem evangelical? The article says: “What’s really important is that Santorum espouses their values, because in a multi-front culture war, an ‘ecumenism of the trenches’ prevails over Reformation-era disputes about doctrine.” 

First, brothers and sisters: beware those who appeal to a so-called “ecumenism of the trenches.” In fact, while evangelicals and Catholics may be (temporarily) fighting the same enemy, our worldviews and faith commitments and values and authorities remain fundamentally incompatible. The evangelical “alliance” with Catholics in the culture wars has far more in common with the alliance between the West and the Soviets in World War II than, say, the enduring alliance between Canada and the United States. And like that World War II alliance, even if we win this culture war, such “ecumenism” is ultimately doomed.

Why the attraction of this alliance? Because, as the article points out, to many evangelicals “shared [social] values” are more important criteria of “evangelical” faith than “doctrine.” So, the fact that both Catholics and evangelicals uphold marriage as being properly between a man and a woman, plus the fact that both bitterly oppose abortion, is blurring the distinction between Catholicism and evangelicalism in the eyes of many.

The article goes on to name three other factors: “‘an evangelical style’… which can be seen in his references to home-schooling his children, his support for teaching creationism in public schools, and his regular testimony about his personal relationship with Jesus.” 

Even leaving out the fact that many evangelicals don’t homeschool, it’s a pretty good description of the current state of evangelicalism, I think—a movement that, over the last few decades, has minimized the importance of rightly understanding and teaching the Bible (in other words, doctrine and theology) in favour of other elements of Christian faith. A movement that has forgotten the depth and meaning of its heritage and imitated the world in its obsession with “style.”

Yet if we define “evangelical” by these four criteria (traditional marriage, pro-life, creationism, and personal relationship—again, leaving aside homeschooling) it would (if consistently applied) force Christians to accept many Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, as evangelicals – despite the fact that they believe in a different Jesus altogether! Similarly, many Mormons might claim to fit under this definition, as long as they follow the mainstream LDS church and disavow polygamy. Various quasi-Christian cult groups would probably qualify as well. Conceivably, so could many in the Orthodox churches.

The fact that these factors are so broad that they would leave room for all these groups should be an alarm bell for those who care about the truth. Indeed, they point to the real heart of the problem: they fail to define the term “evangelical” by either its historical usage or its actual, literal meaning.

The root word in the term “evangelical” is evangel, or “Gospel” or “good news.” What does that mean? It can be summed up in five “alones.” The “evangel” or Gospel message, according to the Bible, and as taught by evangelicals, is simple. God gives us an incredible and undeserved gift: while we were sinners, rebelling against him, Christ died for us. We didn’t do anything to earn or deserve it. Grace alone! Christ did it all. He paid the whole price for our salvation, taking all the punishment we deserved. We don’t have to finish it ourselves. Christ alone! And we receive this salvation, not by our own feeble works—as if we could ever be good enough!—but simply by trusting in Christ, who did it all, to be enough to save us. Faith alone! All this is according to God’s own words, as found in the Bible – our final and ultimate authority is Scripture alone! So who gets the credit and the glory? God alone. This is the “evangel” that gives the term “evangelical” its meaning.

See, as important as traditional marriage, the life of the unborn, and the doctrine of creation are, they are not the Gospel. 

The Catholic church, by contrast, denies all five of those “alones.” It teaches a different “evangel,” a different way of salvation. Salvation is not the work of Christ alone; the church and its priests, through its sacraments, offer Christ repeatedly in the Mass (Calvary was not sufficient) and demand the addition of the merit and good works of men to qualify the sinner for salvation. It is not received by faith alone; all the sacraments of the Catholic church need to be observed and added to faith, and the cleansing of purgatory even then remains necessary for most. It is not by grace (that is, God’s free and undeserved gift) alone, because the sinner must make himself worthy by accessing the sacraments and accumulating merit. As the Roman Mass in its traditional form, the doctrine of transubstantiation, the priesthood, the “treasury of Merit,” the Immaculate Conception and sinlessness of Mary, prayer to the saints, the papacy, and other key elements of Catholic doctrine are not supported by the Bible, the Catholic church asserts “Sacred Tradition” and the teaching authority of the Catholic Magisterium as fellow supports for its “three-legged stool” of authority alongside the Bible. Consequently, the institution of the church and the office of the priest, as well as the efforts of the sinner, share the “glory” and credit for salvation alongside God’s own work.

Again: the Catholic church teaches an entirely different gospel than do evangelicals. To say otherwise is “false advertising.” If their “evangel” is different, it is impossible in any meaningful sense to call Catholics “evangelical,” regardless of their (commendable) social work. They may be nice people; many of them do great work. But they follow a false Gospel. Their faith opposes what evangelicals believe the “evangel” is.

We in the evangelical church really need to take stock of what we believe. Is this Good News we believed for our salvation really important? If so, if it is as vital as the Bible teaches and our fathers believed, we dare not empty it of its meaning by applying the title “evangelical” to those whose tradition is actively working to destroy it. No matter how bitterly they oppose the evils of abortion, or fight for traditional marriage, or display a committed family life. The Gospel is even more vital, and without it, even those good things have no lasting value.

Proverbs 22:6 Isn’t A Promise!

Train up a child in the way he should go; 

   even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6 is a well-known passage relating to child-rearing. It is, unfortunately, an oft-misunderstood one, as well. It’s fairly easy to find Christians who read or even teach this passage as a promise: if you train your child with all the correct methods and influences, God has promised that he or she will turn out a good and believing child. A darker twist on the same error can be seen in those whose first inclination, when hearing of the destructive path of a young man or woman, to blame the parents for doing a bad job.

This misunderstanding of Proverbs 22:6 stems from two errors. 

The first is an error in interpretation—specifically, an erroneous view of how biblical proverbs are to be read and interpreted. The book of Proverbs contains practical wisdom, designed to teach God’s people how to live skillfully in light of the fear of the Lord. Each proverb is meant to provide a pearl of godly wisdom that relates to some kind of life situation, and depending on the circumstances, the application of a proverb may vary. 

Proverbs is not, however, a set of ironclad promises. Nor is it a set of divine laws. A great illustration would be this seemingly contradictory passage:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, 

   lest you be like him yourself. 

Answer a fool according to his folly, 

   lest he be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5)

Is this a contradiction? In the first proverb, Solomon tells the reader not to answer a fool according to his folly. Yet in the very next line, he tells the reader to, yes, answer the fool according to his folly!

If one persists in reading proverbs like laws or unbreakable promises, this is an irreconcilable contradiction. But that’s not what it is. Solomon is providing two different, contrasting, yet ultimately complementary viewpoints on the folly of a fool. Two angles from which the wise child of God, faced with a fool’s folly, can evaluate the situation and decide how to respond. In some cases, the risk of being like the fool will outweigh the risk of the fool being wise in his own eyes, and the Christian should then be silent. In other cases, there may be little risk of becoming like the fool but great risk in allowing the fool to go unchallenged. Then, an answer is warranted.

So when interpreting proverbs, remember that many proverbs will admit exceptions by their very nature as generalized wisdom. That’s important.

The nature of proverbs as wisdom, as sage commentary on life as lived either in the fear of the Lord or as a rebellious fool, thus shows us how to read a proverb like 22:6. The “when he is old he will not depart from it” is not a promise. Proverbs generally don’t deal with promises. They always, however, provide wise commentary in the light of experience. And so the second line of the proverb is not God’s end of some biblical bargain, but rather the Holy Spirit-inspired Solomon’s informed and experienced opinion about what usually results from what is done in the first line.

Usually, because there can be, and are, exceptions to the rule described here.

The second reason this proverb is often misinterpreted is because it is so often mistranslated. Many English translations have followed the sense of the King James here rather than a literal rendering of the text, which would read something like the following:

Train a child according to his way; even when he is old, he will not turn aside from it.

“His way”, NOT the “way he should go.” Sounds a bit different, doesn’t it? Following the King James, Bible translators have “read in” the idea of this “way” being the way the child “ought” to go, but that’s wrong. There is no mention in the Hebrew of this being the way the child “ought to” or “should” go. Rather, it is a statement that the “child’s way,” that is, the path on which his parents have set him, will have a powerful impact on the rest of his life. Again, there is no explicit comment in the text about whether the “way” being discussed is good or bad.

So, rather than being a promise, Proverbs 22:6 is an objective observation about the power of parenting in influencing a child’s life. Its meaning is not explicitly an exhortation to good parenting (though that is the proper application of the proverb), but rather a double-edged sword, a statement of both encouragement and warning. Encouragement, because it reminds godly parents that their efforts in setting a child on the right path will exercise a powerful influence on that child, even into his old age. Even when he or she seems to be ignoring it, or living as if you said or did nothing, the efforts of a godly parent will affect that child nonetheless.

But it is also a chilling warning. Train a child in the wrong way, and he will bear that burden for the rest of his life. The warning here could also be taken as a warning against allowing the child to determine the direction of the parenting (“his way,” remember?). Children cannot be allowed to raise themselves or discipline themselves! Otherwise, the selfish and immature patterns set in childhood will haunt the child’s behavior and attitude even into old age.

Our efforts as parents are vitally important, then. Solomon reminds us that what we say and do with our kids will leave a deep and enduring mark on them, one that will remain even into old age. Take that opportunity! Use this powerful role for the good of your child and the glory of God!

But also remember that, as a proverb, this is not a promise or a law. And in that is both humility and hope. Humility, because at the end of the day, we have no power to bring about true faith in a child’s heart. Only God himself can do that. We dare not presume power we do not have, or take credit we do not deserve. Hope, because even if we mess this up—or have already messed this up in the distant past—God has the power to change our children’s direction for good.

Raise them well. But look to God, first and foremost, and trust in him and not your skill in child-rearing.

A Biblical Look at New Year’s Resolutions

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and with the dawn of the new year comes the annual making of New Year’s resolutions. Many will resolve to lose a certain number of pounds this year, or read a particular book, or save a particular amount of money, or spend more time doing this or that.

It’s a popular pastime, if not a tremendously successful one. A study done in December 2008 showed that while around 45% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions each year, only about 8% or so are consistently successful in keeping them, with another 19% managing to keep them about every other year or so. Basically, only one in 4 people actually have much sustained success with their resolutions. 

That said, there’s a lot of benefit in resolutions, even with the high failure rate. I read once that a person who makes an explicit resolution is about 10 times more likely to actually accomplish what is intended than a person who does not explicitly resolve to do so. (Perhaps it would be appropriate to resolve to make our resolutions explicit and public from now on, then!!)

More importantly, biblical history shows the value of a resolution (though not a New Year’s resolution!) in the institution of the covenant. In a covenant, an oath-bound promise is sealed between two parties, often with blood. That character of a covenant as a solemn promise – a promise to do something for or to the other party – reflects the idea of our resolutions. The value of a covenant was that it laid out, publicly and explicitly, the obligations and promises being resolved between the two parties, and it was the explicit and public nature of these promises that was intended to aid their accomplishment.

And certainly Christians in history have made use of resolutions. One need only think of Jonathan Edwards and his many resolutions, including the following:

Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

There’s much good in making resolutions, then. That’s not to say, however, that Christians are required to do so. Indeed, making rash resolutions may be unwise, for the following reasons:

1) Your life isn’t under your control.

James warns against an arrogant presumption about the future: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:14-15) It’s perfectly fine to make plans, take decisions, and resolve to do certain things, but these decisions must always be attended by a biblically-informed humility that recognizes that God has a plan of his own and may override yours. It’s not for no reason that Paul speaks the same way: “I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:19-20) I find it very interesting that Paul explicitly recognizes the authority of the Lord’s will in the same paragraph where he stresses the greater important of “power” over “talk.” Our talk means little, compared to the power of God.

Therefore, any person making a resolution needs to humbly recognize the supremacy of God, and to make them in a spirit that affirms God’s final say over the matter.

2) Resolutions – especially those taken before God – are not to be taken lightly.

It’s awfully easy to make a promise. And many New Year’s resolutions take the form of promises to oneself, to others, or to God. When you bind yourself by a promise, it is not a light or trivial thing. Jesus himself warned against foolish and rash promises when he said: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Matthew 5:37). His point, in context, was that since men often don’t possess or are unable to control the things they commonly swear by (heaven, earth, one’s head), it is therefore extraordinarily arrogant and presumptuous to attempt to use them to try to add weight to a promise (“…anything more…comes from evil”). It is more humble to simply say “yes” or “no” and strive to make one’s actions match one’s words. Similarly, the Old Testament law prescribed guilt offerings for those who made rash oaths (Leviticus 5:4ff) and gives some sobering examples of those who made foolish and unthinking promises (the offering of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11:34-40, or Saul’s promise not to eat in 1 Samuel 14:24).

Given the importance that Scripture rests upon keeping one’s word, it is wise to be careful with the manner in which one makes a resolution. If it’s being made as a promise to others or to God, make sure it’s something that you have the ability to keep!

This is not to discourage any resolutions you may be thinking of making! The New Year is as good a time as any to take inventory of what God has given you and seek ways to be more faithful to him. If you want to make a New Year’s resolution, you are free to do so. Rather, this is a reminder that we all belong, body and soul, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and his Lordship extends even over something as seemingly trivial as one’s New Year’s resolution (or lack thereof). So if you make resolutions, make them in light of God’s sovereignty and demand for integrity. Honor him with your lips, and with your life.

The True Purpose of the Incarnation

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

At Christmas, we celebrate the miracle of the Incarnation: the God of heaven and earth, the Lord of Hosts, Creator of all things, took on flesh. The Son of the Most High left behind the glories of heaven, leaving behind his exalted place with the Father, and descended to the earth to live among us.

Yet it’s easy to fix on Christmas and lose sight of the fact that Christmas was not an end in itself in God’s plan. The way it’s described sometimes, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the greatest gift of Christmas is that God decided to give life on earth a spin. Kind of like a journalist who decides to live for a week on the streets as a homeless person, I guess – many think that the Incarnation was merely God wanting to identify with us in our lives here on earth. 

There is a lot of truth in that view, of course. The author to the Hebrews writes: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15) Part of Christ’s mission on earth, as a man, was to experience and identify with our sufferings – particularly our temptation by sin. As the Second Adam, as humanity’s “second chance,” the life of Christ was in a very important sense a recapitulation of Adam’s temptation in the garden. The fact that Jesus carried out that task surrounded by sin, by the allurements and seeming benefits and attractions of sin, makes his accomplishment of a blameless life an even greater feat than it would have been had Adam succeeded—after all, Adam, in the perfect Garden of Eden, never having been exposed to the deceptive delights of sin, was tempted far less than Jesus ever was. 

So this sharing of our human experience is a vital part of Christ’s mission. And yet, it was not the entirety of that mission. There is so much more to Jesus’ Incarnation than merely his experience and sharing of our life on earth. Indeed, the ultimate purpose, the primary point, of the Incarnation is at risk of being lost if we start thinking that the Son of God merely wanted to go on a walking tour of the earth or “put on our shoes” for a change.

The ultimate reason for the Incarnation, the primary purpose for the divine Son of God to join a human nature to himself, is this: God’s justice demanded that a man die for the sins of man. 

The writer to the Hebrews is clear: “under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). The sins of the human race, the rebellion of the Creation against the Creator, are so serious that they call for capital punishment. As creatures that owe every breath and everything we have to God, when we disobey him and try to live our lives as if we don’t need him, that ungratefulness and rebellion is an act of cosmic treason. It’s not as if there was no warning, for God told Adam in the Garden: eat the fruit and die. Disobey, and your life is forfeit. And so your sin, and my sin, has brought a sentence of death upon us all. So for God’s justice to be satisfied, something had to die. 

So: what about a sacrifice? What about all those sheep and goats and cattle slaughtered under the Old Testament? No, that won’t help you either: “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Those sacrifices were never intended to actually remove sin, but rather to be a reminder of the seriousness of sin (Hebrews 10:3) and to point to the need for a better sacrifice that could actually do the job (Hebrews 10:10, 12).

That is why the Incarnation happened. That is why Christmas is such Good News—just as God provided Abraham a ram to sacrifice in the place of his only son, so, too, God has now provided his only Son to sacrifice in the place of his people. Christmas, then, is ultimately a means to an end. An end celebrated and fulfilled in Good Friday.

It is so heartbreaking when families fight, when parents or children or brothers or sisters hurt one another through selfishness or bitterness during the holiday season. How many of us have seen that happen, or experienced it ourselves? But because Christmas is not ultimately about itself, but points to Good Friday, those who hope in Christ have hope. In Christ, the child of Bethlehem, who suffered at the hands of his own people, there is found the hope of forgiveness. In Christ, who was punished by his Father for the sins of men, the penalty is paid and forgiveness is made possible.

So Christmas is not about itself, but about Good Friday. But it never ends there. It’s about Easter Sunday, as well. Christmas is a beautiful picture of God’s creative power: a virgin conceives, life is created apart from any human intervention. God gives life in a way man never could. And so the Incarnation anticipates the Resurrection of Christ as well. After all, if God has the power to conceive a child in the womb of a virgin, what is death as an obstacle? So Christ’s resurrection, as a demonstration that God has accepted his sacrifice, is our hope that one day we, too, will be accepted and raised from the dead.

It is so heartbreaking when a loved one passes away near Christmas, isn’t it? It is devastating that at a time of celebration and giving, one could wind up mourning someone being taken away. But for those who remember what Christmas is really about, who remember that Christ took on flesh so that he could die and rise again, hope still shines even in the midst of grief. In Christ, in that child of Bethlehem, is found the hope of resurrection.

Because Christmas is about Good Friday and Easter Sunday, it cannot be spoiled or ruined by sin or death. Because it is about Good Friday and Easter Sunday, it is about forgiveness, and about the hope of new life.

This hope, this reassurance, can be yours as well this season. And all that is required is that you believe. That you recognize who and what you are, a rebel sinner, and just trust in this Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to be enough for your acceptance by the Father.

So Christmas is a joyous time, but not because it is an end in itself. Rather, because it was a means to a most glorious end: the salvation of sinners through faith in Jesus Christ, to the glory of the Father who planned our salvation and sent our Saviour to us.

Merry Christmas, and praise the Lord!