I really appreciated Driscoll's take on spiritual gifts, particularly those that seem a bit more unusual or more miraculous than others. Driscoll notes that in the early days of the church, there were at least a few occasions where he believes demons were attacking the church plant. He recounts a few close calls in church where he had to do some fast thinking and preaching on his feet to deal with people apparently sent from the enemy or possessed by one of his spirits. Likewise, Driscoll talks about a number of strangely vivid dreams that were apparently prophetic in nature, and on at least one occasion the Spirit leading him to a woman whom he had never met before who was being abused by her boyfriend.
There were several things impressive and refreshing about Driscoll's take on this stuff. First, he isn't sensational at all. He comes off as the first skeptic, and because he's skeptical of his own take on this kind of stuff, he readily gets advice, feedback and accountability from his fellow elders, pastors, and wife. Secondly, he says he grew up in the Roman Catholic church and was converted in college, and has never really been a "pentecostal" sort. He wasn't out looking for something weird or supernatural, but in the last analysis concludes that these gifts are given by God to various people at various times in His Church and they should be received and used. So obviously, as he notes, he isn't a "cessationist" although he is clear that he believes that the Bible is the final authority on everything, the canon is closed, and that these gifts should be exercised within and under the accountability of godly elders and friends.
When I was ordained and when I was interviewed for pastoral ministry at Trinity, I registered my stance on "cessationism" as strongly qualified. While I recognized that certain manifestations of miraculous gifts were unique to the first generation of apostles (writing the New Testament, for example, and perhaps some of the healing and prophetic gifts to confirm their authority to do so), I nevertheless was and continue to be uncomfortable insisting that all miraculous gifts have ceased from the Church. Church history is just too plum full of odd stories and miraculous interventions. Just read a missionary biography for instance. Lastly, this isn't a central theme of the book by any stretch, but just as it assumes a subtle but authentic role in Driscoll's story, it apparently remains a subtle but significant part of life at Mars Hill. And there's something about that subtlety that seems, again, refreshing and biblical. The error of the "pentecostals" is to make these sign gifts the center of Christian life and experience, but the error of cessationists is to reject them entirely and pretend they don't exist. We need a biblical balance between these two extremes.
People have and do abuse and misuse the gifts of the Spirit, and others lie and oppress and divide the body through gimmicks and shows. But this doesn't mean that God isn't free to do what He wants. He isn't bound by our tidy little theological boxes. But the standard is always love, and this means that love sees the dangers and potential challenges of strange and miraculous interventions and love sees how and when to receive the gifts of God for the blessing of His Church. And because the love of Christ is always manifested in love for His Bride, authentic spiritual gifts will always delight in real accountability and submission to pastors and elders and the communion of the saints. People who view miraculous gifts as a license to disregard godly elders have already proven their gifts to be a sham.
You can read parts 1 and 2 here and here.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Reformission Rev. Review Pt. 3
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Glory of Repentance
Repentance and confession of sin is hard. It hurts, it's embarrassing, it's awkward and shameful. Sometimes, people have ignored the sins, hoping they would just go away by themselves. Frequently there have been lies -- both to self and to others -- in order to cope, in order to pretend the pain wasn't there. We manufacture ways of pretending the guilt isn't there.
But it's still there. It haunts us. It hangs down on us. It colors days, nights, weeks, months, years. When the Lord's hand is heavy upon us, there's no peace.
And to live like this is to live like ordinary human beings. Normal people descended from Adam live like this, and they think it strange that we make a big deal about it. Why stress about sin and guilt? Lots of pain, lots of hurt, why not just make the best of hard circumstances? And with a bit of creativity, a few more lies, a hard heart and a stiff upper lip, people can get by. They compensate for the pain and guilt in a million ways, and they do get by.
But there's nothing exceptional about getting by. There's nothing really surprising, nothing astonishing about compensating for sin, making up for failures, coping with guilt. That's all normal, ordinary, and average. And the Christian faith is not interested in helping people cope. The gospel is not interested in helping people do ordinary human things.
Jesus died and rose again and poured out His Spirit upon all flesh in order to remake humanity, in order to raise the sons of earth, in order that a new humanity might emerge empowered by the Spirit. And this new way of being human is not satisfied with the status quo, is not content to live life coping, limping, and bracing. This new way of living is at war with all sin and guilt and evil, and the great weapon we have been granted is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God which identifies sin, locates it, and then teaches us how to eradicate it. And the Bible calls this warfare repentance.
And this looks crazy. The cross of Christ has always appeared foolish to the world. The cross of Christ is the way of self-denial, the way of humiliation, the way of confession, the way of forgiveness. And it looks and feels like dying, and it is a form of dying. But it is the power of God on display. When Christians repent, when they confess their sins, when they own their faults, their lies, their lust, their immorality, and confess their sins and ask for forgiveness, God forgives them and their sins are washed away.
What looks like folly and what feels awkward and painful (and it is) is simultaneously a wonderful, overflowing glory.
Normal people don't confess their sins. Ordinary human beings don't ask for forgiveness for lies and treachery that no one will ever find out about. Normal people don't do that. But the Spirit isn't for coping; the Spirit isn't a crutch. The Spirit explodes the old ways of doing life, and He empowers people to repent. The Spirit empowers new life. And this new way of being human is far more exotic than walking on water, even more dangerous than calling plagues down on a world dominating empire. This new way of being human is entrusted with the sacred task of doing battle with evil itself. And in the power of the Spirit, with the sword of the Spirit, men and women rip into their own souls, tearing out the old man, tearing out the old cancerous sin.
And that takes courage, that takes guts, and more than that, it takes the new, resurrected life of God in us. But it is glorious. When men and women confess their sins and repent down to the ground, it is like a fireworks display, like a surging army with banners, terrible and grim. Every act of repentance is another earthquake shaking down the old creation, and another ray of sun, the new creation bursting through the shadows.
And that's why God rejoices more over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Lk. 15:7-10). There is a roar of gladness and joy in the presence of God when sinners repent, and the world is a little newer every time the words, "please forgive me," are spoken in sincerity and truth.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Wright on Pentecost, Scripture Reading, and Sacrament
A few excerpts from N.T. Wright's Simply Christian:
"The fulfillment of the Torah by the Spirit is one of the main themes underlying the spectacular description in Acts 2, or the day of Pentecost itself. To this day, Pentecost is observed in Judaism as the feast of the giving of the Law. First comes Passover, the day when the Israelites leave their Egyptian slavery behind for good. Off they go through the desert, and fifty days later they reach Mount Sinai. Moses goes up the mountain and comes down with the Law, the tablets of the covenant, God's gift to his people of the way of life by which they will be able to demonstrate that they are really his people.
This is the picture we ought to have in mind as we read Acts 2. The previous Passover, Jesus had died and been raised, opening the way out of slavery, the way to forgiveness and a new start for the whole world -- especially for all those who follow him. Now, fifty days later, Jesus has been taken into 'heaven,' into God's dimension of reality; but, like Moses, he comes down again to ratify the renewed covenant and to provide the way of life, written not on stone but in human hearts, by which Jesus's followers may gratefully demonstrate that they really are his people." (132-133)
On reading Scripture in worship:
"Reading scripture in worship is, first and foremost, the central way of celebrating who God is and what he's done.
Let me put it like this. The room I am sitting in at the moment has quite small windows. If I stand at the other side of the room, I can see only a little of what is outside -- part of the house opposite, and a tiny bit of sky. But if I go up close to the window, I can see trees, fields, animals, the sea, the hills in the distance.
It sometimes feels as though two or three short biblical readings are rather like the windows seen from the other side of the room. We can't see very much through them. But as we get to know the Bible better, we get close and closer to the windows (as it were), so that, without the windows having gotten any bigger, we can glimpse the entire sweep of the biblical countryside." (150-151)
On the sacrament:
"Like the children of Israel still in the wilderness, tasting food which the spies had brought back from their secret trip to the Promised Land, in the bread-breaking we are tasting God's new creation -- the new creation whose prototype and origin is Jesus himself." (154)
"...[T]here has been endless confusion over the relationship between the bread-breaking service and the sacrifice offered by Jesus on the cross. Catholics have usually said they were one and the same, to which Protestants have replied that Catholic interpretation looks like an attempt to repeat something which was done once and once only, and can never be done again. Protestants have usually said that the bread-breaking service is a different sacrifice to the one offered by Jesus -- they see it as a "sacrifice of praise" offered by the worshippers -- to which Catholics have responded that the Protestant interpretation looks like an attempt to add something to the already complete offering of Jesus, which (they say) becomes "sacramentally" present in the bread and the wine." (156)
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