When Then Should A Pastor/Teacher speak?

There’s been a lot of discussion about Hillsong and it pastor Brian Houston’s comments about gay marriage. I’ve written about the subject here and here at First Things.

Comment: I have posted a video of a preacher talking about issues:

I’d like to very briefly spell out my thoughts on why I believe pastors are obligated—in all settings and contexts—to speak unequivocally when asked about biblical issues—even ones that have the potential to spark controversy.

It’s quite true that the church does not have a binding authority over non-Christians. The church cannot bind the consciences of those it does not claim as its own or those who do not claim it for themselves. Judgment begins within the household of God, according to Peter (1 Pet. 4:17); and Paul is insistent that his rebukes of the Corinthian church’s sexual practices are intended for those inside the church, not those outside (1 Cor. 5).

But.

If Christian morality is universally true, then all persons are accountable to it. This is ethics 101. Biblical morality is human morality. God encoded the universe with moral order and moral obligation. Notice I didn’t say that persons are accountable to the church or the church’s morality. Everyone is accountable to God’s moral law. That law isn’t vague or just “natural,” it is ultimately Christic (Rom. 10:4; Col. 1:15-17).

Related: A Clear and Present Danger: Religious Liberty, Marriage, and the Family in the Late Modern Age — An Address at Brigham Young University — R. Albert Mohler Jr.

Situations where we’re often hesitant to speak are often conditioned by the cultural moment. When culture chastises such things as sex trafficking, which it is right to do so, it isn’t controversial for Christians to join in also condemning such atrocities.

The nature of morality and the prophetic witness of the church, though, doesn’t allow for culture to determine what is or isn’t off-limits as far as what’s morally wrong or where the church is called to speak. Sometimes the church finds itself with a view that is both biblical and unpopular. What do we do? Do we refrain from answering what the Christian view is on a given issue when asked by others? No.

Let’s imagine you’re an influential pastor in the deep South in the 1950s. Racism is institutionalized. Segregation is systemically practiced. Now imagine that a pastor — whether in his office or before an editorial board — is questioned about his views on racism. At that moment, a biblical view of racial reconciliation is in the minority. Societal confusion seeks to implement laws that degrade fellow image bearers. In opposing the “racist agenda,” this pastor is putting himself at odds with the influential sectors of culture. Does he say that racism is an abominable moral evil, or does he bow down before the altar of obfuscation, insisting that an answer of such complexity can’t be reduced to a simple yes or no? What he should do, is speak, and he should speak a word of clarity with biblical conviction that racism thwarts God’s purposes for humanity. The pastor here doesn’t have to give a long-winded answer. But he does need to give an answer. He needs to be kind, but he also needs to be convictional. Were he to chafe at the question and triangulate about the intricacies of culture’s view on racism, he is, I believe, engaging in pastoral malpractice (1 Peter 3:15; 2 Timothy 4:1–2; Titus 2:15; Acts 20:27). At a moment where a pastor can provide honest biblical reflection — whether publicly or pastorally — he’s obligated to do so.

My biggest concern for the argument that justifies evasiveness is that it quarantines prophetic witness and blunts moral reasoning within the public square. It, in short, denies what Abraham Kuyper held to be true; “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

So, when should pastors speak? Always — with prudence, winsomeness, and clarity.

_________

Andrew T. Walker serves as the Director of Policy Studies for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is an M.Div graduate of Southern Seminary and is currently a doctoral student in Ethics and Public Policy at Southern. This article was originally published on his website at AndrewTWalker.com. Follow Andrew on Twitter at: @andrewtwalk.  http://www.sbts.edu/blogs/2014/11/14/when-should-pastors-speak/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=When+should+pastors+speak%3F&utm_campaign=Ready

Do Christians Accept Same Sex Marriage and Homosextual lifestyle?

I heard today from a TV person,  “There was a time that the NFL did not accept blacks into the league. There was a time that a quarterback was not though of as a black persons position.  Now he said why should we not accept a gay person into the league?”

For a Christian who is a believer, so accepts the Word of God as God’s word on morality and moral behavior then the issue is not can a person play sports and be homosexual.  The question we should ask: Does the Word of God address the lifestyle of a person?   Can we show that what God said about marriage and a persons  sex life,( if I might be so blunt, ) is not an acceptable Christian lifestyle?

What has been viewed as morally wrong for 1000’s of years, has those  morals now in 2014 been understood as now its okay to have an homosexual lifestyle?  The answer to that would be has God changed His mind?

I heard someone say on Fox sports radio, “How could any progressive person today not accept gay marriage and a gay lifestyle.”  He went on to say, “Why should we not encourage our children to express their real sexual feeling about themselves even in they are five years old.”

The mindset of the world, the unbelievers, those who do not agree that the Bible is really needed to be our guide in matters of morals are those who will push for the progressive thinking that we see today in our society.

 

        Texas state Senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis (D) backed gay marriage in a Thursday interview with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board, according to the AP.“It’s my strong belief that when people love each other and are desirous of creating a committed relationship with each other that they should be allowed to marry, regardless of their sexual orientation,” Davis said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Davis called on her gubernatorial opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, to stop defending Texas’ ban on gay marriage

“As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe.” Those are the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, drawn from his dissent in the case United States v. Windsor, handed down last year. In that case, the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, ruling that the United States government could not refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. The Court struck down a law passed by massive majorities in both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. While the Court did not rule that all fifty states must immediately legalize same-sex marriage, it set the stage for this eventual result. Justice Scalia made that point clear in his dissent.

Christians who affirm the biblical understanding of marriage as the union of a man and woman must now recognize that we can no longer count upon the government and its laws to reflect that understanding. Even the proponents of same-sex marriage must surely recognize the radical legal and moral shift in Western civilization and human history this change implies. Christians understand that marriage is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity and that marriage, as defined by the Creator, is fundamental to human flourishing.

 

John Calvin and His Concept of Culture

I have been reading today a book by Henry R. Van Till: Called The Calvinistic Concept of Culture

Reading a book by Henery R. Van Til on by Kindle Fire: “THE CALVINISTIC CONCEPT OF CULTURE” It is very interesting for sure.  The book  was written in 2001 I think not sure.

Verse they used at the start of this book

1. Genesis 1:28
2. Matthew 10:34
3. Colossians 2:2-3
4. 2 Corinthians 10:5
5. Philippians 2:9-10
6. Revelation 4:11
7. Revelation 21:1-4

The concept of Culture:

1. Some look at cuture as people who have refinement of manners, social courtesty, etc. But its more than that.  This book states that the whole man must be involved and all the aspects of human life have a bearing on the issue.
2. William T. Heridge says this: “A cultured person is one who is thorougly matured in every part of his life, so that he is able to fulfill the pupose of his creation.”
3. There seens to be this idea that culture is more than religon, and inward, but the development of all the powers which make for the beauty and worth of human nature.  Good grief I say to this.
4. But the able statement is refusted.
5. Emil brunner says: ” Culture as such cannot save us.  Culture as such does not humanize a man. (as so forht)
6. Here is the stateemnt that gets me:  “There is no appreciation in it of man’s calling to subdue the universe and to rule over it for God’s sake.”  Where did that come from I wonder?
7. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS, now there is an occupation for sure.   Every primitive people has its own peculiar culture. They learn to solve there on problems by producing a secondary environment and transmitting thisto the following generation, he has a culture.
8. Every culture has some kind of economic organizaiton.
9. Man is a cultural creature, and civilization is merely the external side of culture.
10. Culture is no something neutral, without ethical or religious connotation.
11. Human achievement is not purposeless but seeks to achieve certain ends, which are either good or bad.
12. Since man is a moral being, his culture can not be a-moral.
13. Because man is a religious being, his culture too, must be religiously oriented.
14. There is no pure culture in the sense of being neutral religiously, or without positive or negative value ethically.
15. Although the realization of values in a culture may seem on the surface to be concerned merely with the temporal only….
16. this is appearance only, for man is a spiritual being destined for eternity, exhaustively accountable to his Creator-Lord.
17. All that he does is involved in the whole of his nature as a man.
18. It certainly appears as if the search for value is dominated by man’s ego-centricity, that it is purely anthropocentiric (which is how most of us live)  adj.  “regarding humankind as the contral or most important element of existence, as opposed to God. ” (Definiton found)
19. Is whether culture is not, the incarnation of a people’s relgion? To which “Culture, however, does not include religion! They say, those that are naturalistic and cultural anthropoligist say: “religion is simply a projection of the  human spirit, an attempt to manipulate the unseen by magic, or , in any case, that man creates the gods in his own image, thus making it a cultural achievement. (Good thought, man does try to manikpulate his own god.)
20. While others have tried to use religion as a mere means to a higher end.
21. It is true a given cluture does form the individual man, nevertheless man as cultural being precedes his culture and is the creator of culture.
22. But religous faith is necessary to understand human destiny.
23. And man in his faith is covenantally related to a Being that is transcendent, and, becasue of this covenental relationship, which constitutes true religon, man has an eternal destiny, which transscends culture.

24. The meaning of life does not lie in culture as such, but culture derives its meaning from man’s faith in God, it is never an end in itself, but always a means of expression one’s religious faith.

25. This is not to say that there is not the influence of culture on relligion, Religion has developed its own peculiar institutions which are culturally fomred, its habits, customs, norms, manner,  dogmas, discipline and place of worship.
26. Two terms:  Culture and Civilization is often  used interchangeably.  But preferable to speak of them in two ways.

27. To speak of culture,  in distinction from civilization, which points to a degree of cultural development, as the total human effort of subduingthe earth together with its total achievement in fulfilling the creative will of God.

28. So now I Charles e Whisnant is getting to better understand this concept: Good grief for sure  Where is what I think they are saying
    

    ,  When God at the end of the creation week and he pronouced al lthings good, He had not brought them to the fulfilment of perfection. (they say this I don’t) But what God did He made man His co-laborer and God blessed them and said: Genesis 1:28. And God gave them dominion over all things. Adam was placed in the Garden to cultivate and owrk and keep the garden of Eden.  Then they say, after the Flood God made a coveannt with Noah and in him the whole huan race : Genesis 9:1 again to be frutiful .  Then there is the earliest cultural development in the family of Cain, in building the city, the invention of musical instruments, etc.

29. At the beginning the word and term “culture” meant to simply the tilling or cultivati8ng of the ground” As Adam was told to do. In so doing God would bless it and it would bring forth fruit. Which is called agriculture.
30. Today we use the term of any human labor bestowed on God’s creation in its widest sense, including man himself (voice, culture, physical culture.) by which it receives historical forms and is refined to a higher level of productivity for the enjoyment of man.,

31. Culture, then, is any and all human effort and labor expended upon the cosmos, to unearth its treasurews and its riches and bring them into the service of man for the enrichment of human existence unto the glory of God.

32. With this I will end this post and give another on later.

The Relationship of Religion and Culture

calvinism Defined

The Calvinistic Conception of Sin and Its effect on culture

Preachers and Politics?

Every movement in the entire history of the church that has regarded political activism as a legitimate facet of gospel ministry has allowed political ideology to eclipse the gospel. That’s true from Constantine to Cromwell to the Liberation theologians.
Also: It’s not that I oppose legislation that would eliminate certain expressions of the evil that rules men’s hearts. I’m all for it. But our calling as a church is to announce the remedy for the evil itself. Lets not get sidetracked in the electoral process. Let the dead bury the dead. That’s what I’m saying.

Note: I haven’t suggested that the church should be silent about social (or even governmental) evils; merely that we have a more vital way to remedy those evils than by lobbying for legislation.

Has Christ called us as pastors/teachers to address the issues of today? Are there issues? Just like in the day’s of Peter, Paul, and Mary there were a great deal of issues that the Christians faced that was deadly to them. How did Peter address them in I Peter 1:1.  I am not saying there  are not grave issues today in America, we are headed for God’s judgment for sure.   The world is going to wax worse and worse and it is.  What is the means whereby we as pastors are  going to stop the spread of worldliness, and sinfulness?. What has God called us to do as Christians?   I have preached on about every sin there is, well not really but a lot of them.  What some people call sinful is not and some are.    If the Bible calls something sinful I will preach it.  I have never danced around sinful issues. But then I don’t dance either.  Some call dancing sinful.  Some call going to a movie sinful.

When I was at FBC in Altoona, KS I preached on sin a lot.  When I went to exposition preaching, our assoc pastor said “Why have you stopped preaching on sin?”  From Jack Hyles to John MacArthur.  Who would you rather be Jack or John?

If I thought I could get every married couple to stay married, if I could get every boy not to have sex with a girl before marriage,  if I could get women not to have an abortion, if I could get every person not to smoke, drink, cuss and round around with the wrong crowd I would do everything in my preaching to do that.

If I thought I could persuade every one in the churches I have been in to vote the way I believed I would. I can’t get them to read their bibles let along get them to vote the right way. What doest that say about my preaching anyway?

What does 2 Chronicles 7:14 say anyway.  “If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and heal their land.”

The world is going to Hell, most of them.  The devil and his crowd are going to corrupt the world.  Only a few are going to escape the damning influences of the devil.  Only God in His grace and Him alone are going to change hearts.

Many preach  a weak gospel,  and a weak God and we have a weak nation of moral people.  Jeremiah and Isaiah preached their hearts out and most still went to hell and would not listen.

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the Republican party and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem.  Frankly, these p;people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, Ive tried to deal with them Republican Barry Goldwater

What kind of preaching should we preach each Sunday as we stand before our people each week?   Well James Robinson said this:

I think America has been headed in the wrong direction – straight into the ditch of out-of-control debt, with government agencies enforcing rules that were never passed and had even been rejected by Congress. Much of the media and population continually mock the God of the Bible, diminishing the value of marriage, family and even innocent life itself. Blind leaders have our blind nation headed over a cliff. Thank God some representatives and preachers and priests see what is coming, as do many people, and they want to help right our ship of state.  Read the whole paper.

Do you remember the days of the Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell?.  The political power Jerry had was staggering.  He could move mountains.  50 states were involved by 50 leaders who were preachers. Trying to clean up the world.

We have trouble just trying to clean up Christians?

By Rev. Mark H. Creech, Christian Post Columnist writes in part:

Once again, I must refer to Chuck Baldwin in his recent article:

“America has had more Gospel preaching during the last 50 years than any nation in history. There are more churches, more Christian schools, more Gospel radio and television programs, more missionary endeavors, more inner-city missions and shelters, more Bible publications, and more Gospel influence in America during the last 50 years than in any country in the history of the world.

“And what has happened to America over the last 50 years? Our historic Christian culture has been turned into rank hedonism and licentiousness; legal abortion has taken the lives of over 60 million innocent unborn babies; a blatant police-state is proliferating; more babies are being born out of wedlock than at any time in history; and now we are facing the tyrannical attempt to ban and confiscate America’s premier self-defense tool: the semi-automatic rifle. And all of this happened, and is happening, while hundreds of thousands of pastors and churches across the land ‘preach the Gospel.’

“Again I say, preaching the Gospel, by itself, will not save America. Christians have to be taught how to understand; how to discern the difference between good and evil; the principles of law and justice; jurisdictional authority; and the principles of Christian resistance. As long as pastors refrain from teaching these essential and necessary truths, our nation will continue its slide into tyranny and oppression–all the Gospel preaching going forth notwithstanding.” [3]

Granted, the primary purpose of the church is to proclaim Christ. That mission undergirds all of the work of God’s people. Nevertheless, true discipleship neglects no need, it recoils at no duty. Martin Luther is reported to have summed it up, I think, in this fashion:

“If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point.”

If America is to be saved, we must both proclaim the Gospel and seek to bring its influence to bear on the body politic. Yes, politics and preaching do mix.    Read the rest of the post it is rather good.

Then John MacArthur who I have followed since 1973 and used his sermons as I have stated a number of times.

First, political involvement requires time and energy from a pastor that should be spent on shepherding the flock of God. Life is short—there are only so many weeks, days, and hours—and a pastor must make every effort to redeem the time (Ps. 90:12; Eph. 5:16). He’s a steward, charged by the Master for the administration of His truth, and he will give an account to the Lord of the church; and extensive political involvement is a distraction (1 Cor. 3:12-15; 4:1-5). He simply can’t effectively shepherd his people when he’s trying to be effective in politics. No one can serve two masters.