Here’s my problem with this classic debate: time.

I readily admit that I haven’t read all the literature on this subject, but from the books I have read, the Calvinists believe that those who are predestined to salvation are elected in eternity past.  He then empowers them by His Spirit to have faith and believe.  Arminians believe that God sees into the future, through his foreknowledge, those who will believe on His name and elects them based on their faith.

Both of these ideas require God to exist in time.  Granted, this concept of God can travel through time, or at least see into the future like a wizard with a crystal ball, but He deals inside a concept of time nonetheless.  If God exists outside of time, if time was created with space in Genesis 1:1 (that’s an Einsteinian thing) then it is possible that God elected those predestined for salvation in His foreknowledge while simultaneously knowing that the elect are those that respond to Him in faith without any need for a “what happened first” discussion.

Doesn’t that solve the problem?

So, on Monday at Kroc Church Membership Class we talked about the concept of doctrine and looked at Salvation Army doctrines 1-3.

We looked at how doctrines have different levels of importance.  I shared Mark Driscoll’s levels of doctrinal importance that correspond to national and state borders.  I also used an example that I stole from Dr. Gerry Breshears.  Dr. Breshears says that there are Die For issues, Divide For issues, Debate For issues and Decide for issues.  The important thing is that we have the Die For issues (salvation by grace through faith, the trinity, the exclusivity of the gospel, one God) in the right place.  There are scads of other things that fall into the other categories.  There are some legitimate things that we may need to divide for as Christians that don’t reflect upon our salvation.  There are also some things that we should believe and commit to living with each other in our differences.  We get in trouble when we move the Debate Fors and the Decide Fors into the Die For category or, conversely, when we put the Die Fors into a lower category.

After that we looked at Salvation Army doctrine #1:

We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God and that they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.

We looked at the issue of inspiration and we discussed inerrancy (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21).  We looked at different ways to gain information (our experiences, the teaching of others, and the Word of God) and saw how the first two, while useful, can fail us.  Because of this, scripture is our highest authority.  The Salvation Army’s doctrine on scripture is very old (the doctrines were developed in 1878)

Doctrine #2 is:

We believe that there is only one God who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is the only proper object of religious worship.

We checked out the idea of monotheism, the scriptural evidence for it (Deuteronomy 6:4), and why it is important.  That’s one thing that I want to keep in the forefront of any discussion on doctrine.  If doctrine is a subject that we learn and then set up on a shelf to get dusty, we missed the point.  Doctrine is a systematic explanation of the truth we find in scripture.  It needs to be the basis for how we live our lives.  If these doctrines don’t shape our understanding of the world, they are worthless.  Monotheism is important because if there is a single being that created the universe, our world, and ultimately each of us, we are accountable to him.  In a polytheistic or atheistic universe we are ultimately accountable to no one.  It’s a big deal.

Doctrine #3:

We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.

The trinity is probably one of the hardest to understand doctrines on this list.  How does it work, and why does it matter are big questions here.  Really, no one knows how it works.  The word trinity isn’t in the Bible.  However, it is a word that was coined by a church leader named Tertullian in ~200ad.  It is a compound word (tri and unity) that means three in one.  The concept of the trinity was not invented, but discovered as God interacted with his people over the centuries.  It is all over the Bible (Genesis 1, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Matthew 3:16-17, Matthew 28:19, and many others).  God exists and has existed eternally as three distinct persons.

The tricky thing with the trinity is the “who cares” question.  There may be a myriad of reasons why understanding the trinity is important.  We looked at 2 of them.

1. Love is absolute. – For God to be love, as the Bible tells us (1 John 4:8), love needs to be eternal.  If God is a singularity, God is incapable of love prior to creating something to love.  Therefore, love is not eternal.  However, if God is a trinity, as we see Him in scripture, He has eternally been the giver, receiver, and spirit of love in the relationship of Himself.
2. We need people. – We are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26).  The first thing that God says is not good after He creates the world is that man is alone (Genesis 2:18).  Man has God, but that’s not enough.  In order to image God well, man needs an equal partner to give and receive love and community with.  That’s the basis of marriage, but I think it’s much more than that.  I think God’s eternal community is the basis of our need for one another.  Human beings need each other, and I believe that’s because we are created in the image of God, who Himself is in community.

It is my great privilege to be able to teach new member classes at Kroc Church.  Tonight I started the second set of the year.  They run for six weeks and cover TSA history, doctrine and distinctives about Kroc Church.  At the end of the class participants (hopefully) have learned a bunch about their church and have the opportunity to become members.  It’s a lot of fun.  Over the next six weeks I’ve decided to post brief synopses of the classes for you who happen to view this blog.

History

Tonight, week 1, was Salvation Army history.  We watched an hour long documentary called Our People:

It’s a really well done look at the founding of The Salvation Army.  William and Catherine Booth are shown in a really fairly honest light (TSA often idolizes their “founder”).  The Holy Spirit really moved in this couple to do a great work of God.  They were often stubborn and autocratic, but God used them in powerful ways.  Many people owe their salvation (humanly speaking) to the Booths and the movement they started.  It’s interesting because so few people know about the history of the Army.  These are the same people that are surprised that I am a pastor at a Salvation Army church.  ”It’s a church?”  If I had a dollar for every time…

I believe that this is primarily because The Salvation Army is such a good social service organization (and it is).  Our humanitarian work often overshadows our Gospel work.  I think this is a shame and something we definitely need to work on nationally.  However, the people who deal with The Salvation Army know that we are a church and our motivation is the love of Christ.  I guess that’s what counts the most.

Membership

The other thing that we talked about tonight was the idea of membership.  Membership is hard for a lot of people in the church.  The Salvation Army requires members to sign a membership covenant.  Full members, called Soldiers, have to swear off drinking, smoking and gambling too.  It’s a big deal and many people aren’t excited about it.  In the church I grew up in, “come once you’re a visitor, come twice you’re a member.”  This worked well until the congregation was required, according to the church’s bylaws, to vote on something.  Then membership was based on tithing records.

I don’t think it matters how a church decides to keep track of members as long as the leadership acts according to their convictions.  I do think the idea of belonging is really important, and the New Testament is full of passages showing an inside vs. outside distinction.  We are called to obey our leaders (Hebrews 13:17), judge those inside the church in regards to sin (1 Corinthians 5:12), and support those in the household of faith (Galatians 6:10).  We can’t do that if we don’t know who is part of the church and who isn’t.  The way I like to say it is that The Salvation Army chooses to identify those that are part of the local expression of the body of Christ here through a formal membership process and member’s covenant.  Other churches are free to use other methods to handle the question, but a more “traditional” membership is how our church does it.  The onus is on us to make sure our methods don’t focus our effort on numbers and membership rolls just for numbers sake.  If you are a member here, we are gonna make sure you have a job to do and we are going to do our best to help you grow in Christ.  It’s the leadership’s responsibility to do that, not just count people (Ephesians 4:11-12).

Overall it was a good class.  There were 22 in attendance.  I’m hoping that many last until the end.  We start discussing doctrine next week.  That’s when it really gets fun.

This is a blog post from my phone. Carry on.

This morning Charis and I were sitting together on the couch reading our Bibles.  I had my trusty ESV and she had chosen “My First Bedtime Bible” to read.  About half way through our time together, she began to notice that her Bible went from Genesis 9 to Genesis 12 and totally skipped over chapters 10 and 11.  She then found whole sections and whole books missing  from the Bible.  We got her a full text NLT for Christmas.  I think she’s about ready.

Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.  For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. – Mark 4:24-25

So, in my Bible Reading Plan today, I read Psalm 33.  Verse 11 says:

The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.

At the church where I serve as Community Pastor, our primary discipleship method is called a “Community Group.”  It’s a gathering of people, based around relationships and missional living, that meet to hang out, eat together, study the Word, serve their city, and just BE Christians.  We think this is really important, because many of the commands of scripture are just not doable during a once-a-week Sunday service.

Sometimes we get complaints that in addition to our Community Groups, we need mens groups, womens groups, seniors groups, college-aged groups, etc.  We resist this because we feel that we best represent the body of Christ when we ignore those somewhat manufactured distinctions and gather in spite of our differences.  I heard it put recently that when people who naturally get along get together, that’s no big deal.  When Jesus brings different people, who wouldn’t normally hang out together, into relationship with each other, that’s a big deal and one of the glories of the Gospel.

So, God’s Word will last for ever, and the plans of His heart are good for all generations.  We don’t need a separate Gospel for seniors, kids, young adults, men, women, singles, marrieds, and Star Trek fans.  The counsel of the Lord stands forever, and the plans of His heart to all generations.  That also means that the “postmoderns” who need to change the content of the Gospel for people today, are just wrong.  Methods change, the truth of the Word doesn’t. Psalm 33:11.

So, I ran across a new Bible reading plan this year.  It’s put together by a guy named Professor C. Horner.  You can find it here.  Basically, It divides the Bible into 10 sections, and you read a chapter from each section a day (10 chapters a day).  It’s pretty robust, but the way it weaves different sections of scripture prevents monotony (I’m looking at you Numbers) and it’s really interesting how different passages work together.  For instance, I read today in Genesis 34 about the city of Shechem and then I read about the same area hundreds of years later in Judges 9.  Kinda neat.  anyway, the ten sections aren’t even, so you end up repeating some more often than others, which totally changes the relationships between the passages.  Pretty cool.