When A Whole City Celebrates Bizarre Sin

Jeff Iorg, President of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and resident of the San Francisco Bay Area writes recently in his blog on an event which happens within San Francisco where participants march through the community completely nude!  The fear of the Lord surely is not before them.

Systematic Landscapes – Maya Lin

Artist Maya Lin’s awesome exhibition at the Corcoran Art Gallery located at 500 Seventeenth Street NW, Washington DC until July 12th, 2009.  It’s entitled Systematic Landscapes, “a dramatic installation of major new works by this renowned contemporary artist and architect.  The exhibition addresses contemporary ideas about landscape and geologic phenomena.  Lin’s second nationally-traveling exhibition in 10 years, Systematic Landscapes explores how people perceive and experience the landscape in a time of heightened technological influence and environmental awareness.

Systematic Landscapes is centered on a trio of large-scale sculptural installations: 2×4 Landscape (2006), Water Line (2006) and Blue Lake Pass (2006).  Each sculpture offers a different means for viewers to engage with and comprehend a schematic representation of landscape forms.  In these projects, Lin examines how people’s modern relationships to the land are extended, condensed, distorted and interpreted through new computer technologies.  She translates a series of dramatic landscape environments selected for their inspiring beauty and connection to life-supporting habitats into spatial environments where viewers can engage with them in an art gallery setting.”

Finding God’s Will For Your Life.

I’ve recently read a short book by Kevin DeYoung entitled, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will (Or: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc). DeYoung, Senior Pastor of University Reformed Church and author of “Why We’re Not Emergent, by two guys who should be” , makes a strong and biblical case as to why the contemporary notion of trying to find God’s will in every aspect of every little detail in life (i.e. John Eldredge’s Walking With God) is ultimately a flawed view of God. The book was great and I heartily suggest it to all Christians to read, there seems today to be such a huge misconception on what finding and doing the will of God means.  Since I seem to have the swine flu (not really, but I am crazy sick right now) I’m going to post a sermon by Pastor John MacArthur in which he masterfully deals with the exact same subject. I will only post part one of his sermon, there are five parts all together each being about nine minutes long, so you will have to click the next video on youtube to go through the whole sermon. Please do, it’s really good.  Be sure to pick up Kevin DeYoungs book as well.

The Image of God in Man: What the heck is it?

The Image of God in man, found primarily in Genesis 1:26-27, is a passage which demands the attention of bible readers for a number of reasons.  Firstly, the bible mentions it, so a careful reader of scripture should put their minds to understanding the Lord’s reason for giving this information.  Secondly, as worshipers of God, Christians need to be knowledgeable on who they are as created beings as well as born again beings, thus rightly knowing themselves to rightly know and worship the creator. And thirdly, no where else in the Genesis account of creation does Moses say that God made any other creature, or any other thing for that matter, in His own Image, thus showing the particular importance this phrase has early on in scripture.

The first requirement, and really the only direction this blog post will go, is to take a look at the immediate context of the passage and see what the bible can say concerning this issue of the Image of God.  We must begin with scripture because that is where this idea really comes from in the first place. If God didn’t reveal this to us, would we even be discussing such an issue? Probably not. Also, it’s foolish to attempt to look at ourselves and then conclude that that is what God must look like, imposing the image of God on us from that perspective is defunct and not good methodology. The revelation of God Himself must be our source alone; sola scriptura!

When reading the actual account of God’s creating the heavens and the earth, and all that lives and is on the earth, one should notice that when Moses gets to the creation of man, that is both man and woman, that God has done something special and has changed His language while creating.  Instead of Him saying “Let the earth bring forth living creatures,” or “Let the waters,” or “Let there be lights,” He declares something more personal and says “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  This is important because it is denoting a real sense of importance to the reader that man is separate, is different, is unique in all of creation in that He is made in the image of God and he alone has this privilege over and against all other creation.  The attention of the reader should be perked to what this image is. Why does God do this now?  The account does not seem to be silent on why.  [i]

After God declares that He will make man in His image He immediately says that man should “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” This is still verse 26 and seems to be a direct result of God making man in His image.  Let it quickly be noted that God says, “Let them have dominion,” which Calvin seems to rightly distinguish as being ascribed to all the posterity of Adam, all mankind, which, though he did not place the primary seat of the image in man’s dominion, would still be in sync with his view that the fall just marred the image of God in man rather than completely lost it[ii].  None the less, God ascribes an inherent facet to man by declaring they will have “dominion” over all the earth.  This facet is substantiated with an actual command in vs. 28, where as, after God had created man, noted in the poetic chiasm of verse 27, He then commands Him to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.”  This repetitive account of God first saying He will create them, man, with the inherent quality to have dominion over all the earth and then the actual verbal command to go and subdue and be in dominion over the rest of creation can not go unnoticed by the reader.  This is a clear example of a purposely placed parallelism with the intention of grabbing the attention of the Hebrew reader and making him aware that man’s being created is not separate from man’s having dominion, but in fact is intimately related.

As the reader moves on into chapter two of Genesis and get’s a more detailed account of the sixth day we see that, again, God makes man and the first thing He does is to put him in a garden.  The purpose, it seems, for man to be in the garden is given in verse 15 where it is said that “God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  Every account the reader has of man so far has been within the context of him working, keeping, ruling, or subduing nature.  Biblically, this is very strong support for understanding God’s image in man as man being a ruler of God’s creation.

If allowed to ponder this thought for a moment, one should find an interesting relationship between God and man.  God in six days creates the heavens and the earth in a wonderful and powerful way and at the end of His creating, He ends with the creation of man, a being who holds His image and who rules over His creation.  The act of man ruling over His creation, of working in the garden, seems to denote a close tie between the creator-ruler God and that of His sole image bearer, man.  Gen. 2:19-20 shows this relationship in God creating all the animals but then bringing them to Adam to see what he would name them.[iii] Adam is given a unique task to creatively name and title every living creature God makes.  Just as God names parts of His creation (Gen.1:5) so God allows man to creatively express dominion in naming parts of His creation. (2:19-20) Later in Genesis, and let it be noted that this is after the fall, God continues to express this dominion idea when God blesses Noah and his sons[iv] and repeats the familiar phrase found in Genesis 1:28, that man should be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and then He tells Noah that every living creature, on earth, sky, and sea, shall be delivered “into your hand.”  Man’s dominion is still an important factor to God and His will and purpose for mankind.  Looking Biblically at what God seems to be doing with man at the beginning of creation and reaffirming throughout[v] the narrative of divine scripture it comes as no surprise that Jesus’ revelation to John gives hope to those who are found in Christ that in the final state man will be restored to his rightful place before the fall, not just having a inherent quality of authority but having the intended functionality and ability to practice the authority in dominion, as it says “reigning forever and eve.” (Rev. 22:5)

This biblical line of thought, though not as clear as other doctrines in scripture, does seem to be apparent enough to conclude that the Image of God in man his God given nature to rule over the earth.

End Notes

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[i] I think that there is something to be noted here in the fact that in the creation account, and through the rest of scripture, God seems to engage in a rational, emotional, and moral relationship with only two of His creatures, that being the angels and mankind.  And that, again, the scriptures say only that man was created in His image giving priority to mankind for bearing His image alone.  It is Adam that walked with God in the Garden, and more over the whole narrative of salvation is directed towards mankind alone, that is, that God did not become flesh to die for and save any other creature but man. I bring this up because I think there is some credence to the relational theory of the Image of God, especially Brunner’s “I – Thou” interpretation.  I don’t think he is fully correct in his interpretation because he seems to make it more of a philosophical treatise on the image of God rather than a strictly biblical one, but none the less, there are valid points he makes.  Erickson does not want to acquiesce to Brunner because a) his theory is based on existential philosophy and b) it seems to fall into a functional view of the image in his inability to clarify between the “formal” or “structural” and the “material” sense of the Imago Dei. But these criticisms of Brunner are not entirely fair in my view.  Firstly, just because someone is existential, this is hardly grounds to deny his view, and it seems that Erickson doesn’t want to accept the view because existentialism carries with it a bad name. He makes the statement that “Reality is more than an entity that is simply there and that one accepts; rather it is something one creates.”(Erickson, Christian Theology, 527)  This categorical statement seems somewhat unfounded and needs to be defended more before he uses it to dismiss Brunner’s thought.  He uses this statement to say that Brunner has misunderstood the Image of God as not being an “entity” because it is based on the relationship between God and man rather than inherent to man alone.  But if this is true wouldn’t his statement then produce problems for him in understanding sin and the fall?  Why can’t a reality be the effect of a certain relationship?  Secondly, if the Image of God is based on the existential relationship one has with God, bestowed by God, it would seem that according to Brunner, man is in and of himself a sole holder of this image because God always is.  That is, the image is of God, and as such, man’s purpose is to bare this image, somewhat like a mirror.  As long as God exists (and God referring to Himself as “I Am” could probably be important here.) than man will reflect the image of God, whether man is, according to Brunner, in a “right, harmonious relationship” or a “wrong” one.  The focal point then for what man is, is not found in man himself per se, but in God.  It is God who holds the Image, we just reflect it.  “The Imago Dei in the New Testament, in the “material” sense of the word, is identical with “being-in-the-Word” of God.  Thus it is not a fact which can be discovered in humanity, something which can be found through introspection.  It is not the “Thou” of Idealistic philosophy, but it is the “I” derived from the “Thou.”  Hence it can not be understood by looking at humanity, but only by looking at God, or, more exactly, by looking at the Word of God…..Humanity is only truly human when it is in God.  Then, and then only, is humanity truly itself.” (Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics Vol. 1. London: Lutterworth Press, 1949, 346-351.)  This though is not a problem which the functional view of the Image tends to fall into, because as long as God is, and as long as the doctrine of God is upheld, namely that God is eternal, than man is always, in and of himself, an image bearer of God.  There will always be a relationship between the “I” and the “Thou” of every human being and graciously that relationship is upheld by God just being.

[ii] Of course Genesis 9:6, where God states that “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image,” is clear evidence that man, even after the fall, has not lost his inherent characteristic of being an image bearer.  Moreover, James 3:9 gives this evidence as well when James writes that with the tongue we “bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.”  The on going nature of the image of God in man is a distinguishable characteristic of protestant, namely reformed, theology which separates it from the Lutheran and Catholic understanding.

[iii] It is important to note, that the fall came about through Adam not adhering to his God given decree to rule over creation.  The reader does not know that the serpent is Satan but should be aware that at this point in the narrative, chapter 3, man is a ruler over creation.  His inability to cast out the serpent and then follow the instructions of the serpent to disobey God is a complete reversal of God’s intended plan, yet it is in keeping with this idea that God has placed man as ruler over the animals.  In Adam’s disobedience, because of sin, he becomes marred as an image bearer, no longer following as God had intended.  Moreover, when God curses Adam, there seems to be a point of connection when God states that “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19) The Reformation Study Bible points out on page 14 that the whole relationship between man and the ground, creation, is reversed.  It no longer submits to man but fights back with thorns and thistles, eventually swallowing him up.  Romans 8:20-22 gives evidence that all of creation then longs for a final restoration.

[iv] There is still here the idea that Dominion as the Image of God in man is never lost but carried on through the posterity of man in God blessing both Noah and His sons.

[v] Psalm 8 really is an important note in this discussion because David affirms the role of man by alluding to, really word for word, the Genesis 1:28 account.  It seems here that David is making mans dominion over God’s earth the make up of what is described as their crown of glory and honor.

I’ve been reading through the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin

I’ve been reading through the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin the past two weeks and greatly surprised at the lack of “deadness” so many profess to see in Calvin. (of course I hear this from a lot of anti-theology type people and those who “don’t want to be boxed into a certain demographic”, whatever that means.) Reading through Calvin is like listening to Max Roach, it’s alive, it’s full of color and vibrant and is clearly coming from his heart and bent on penetrating yours.  It is good stuff.  And what’s even more surprising is how much Calvin has to say on enjoying God, enjoying His love and being in love with such a God. I guess I just wanted to clear some things up.

“For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that He is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him – they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.”

Rebirth in Spring (a remix of Gods common grace through Springtime.)

Cool breezes that refine my skin like stone

A fresh outlook from the inner prison of winter

I missed her so and long to kiss her lips that bloom bright from clean snow

The wait is added excitement through new rains and showers

I love the warmth she brings in illuminated rays through the aroma

Of her growing, toxic-to-my-senses, pheromones that make me sick

With love.

So sick I can’t even enjoy her with a clear mind

I breathe in deeply her exhaled northern breath as her fragrance intoxicates

My will to choose, causing me through predetermined desire to select a day of

Just lying down in her pasture. I’d rather.

Her vision gives me memories of better times in Eden and glimpses of future eternities

In a new Earth and neo-Heaven

And yet the here and now I embrace her as she selflessly gives her all allowing her

Intimacy to be seen by all.

But I know her true intentions, her real motives.

She is the daughter of a Father given as a testimony to the greatness of Him. I AM.

She is a picture of the creative prowess of I AM.

And on her best day, when I walk in her beauty and look into the calm of her crystal

Eye like waters, I see the object of His love, to His glory, through her, me.

Give Her Back To Me. A Voice Calling Out from the Wilderness. A Cry for Hip Hop.

I arrange deranged voice chords to sound board samples with ample time to make symphonies out of prerecorded echoes that let go of time in eternity past, waving into the future, leaving me in the now, present, so I present presents as gifts of hope to get through today, riding on those waves into the tomorrow. Forgetting to check in their sorrow they have carry on luggage only, “excuse me, may I borrow your headphones?” trying to listen to ink scream out of paper like Abel’s blood from the earth, plugged into ancient rhymes from independent ancient times of boom bap raps that are plagued with martyrs of coke, smoke and crack. And now I’m choked from the smoke that rises from a ruined state of hip hop, burning like Rome. Babylon. And two twin towers, two lost powers, Biggie and Pac. Now we just make it rain and it feels like acid showers. And it turns me green like lady liberty where as I once stood for liberty but now just for green, a need to be seen, the state of my hip hop is a rap running towards greed, and still none of this matters except for the blood of the seed, Daweed(david). And so still I proclaim in rhythmic cadence through jaded statements. Get it? I preach to crowds of nodding heads using bass and snare to fixate in their souls a unified sole agreement that the message is true, yup the message is true! “You’ve Pushed Me So Far That I Fell Off The Edge – On My Way Down I Scream Hip Hop Is Dead!” And with arms wide open and eyes wide shut, praying hymns of hums, using one mic to mouth as an accompanying drum, and I’ve sung to Him, Please Lord forgive our sin, making your gift of music, taking your gift to use it as an Idol to be Idle! Actually falling backwards….while trying to run forward I make noises that scratch due to dirty needles injecting wax that hit grooves and soothes in one instance my moves from some distance, far off the recorded track, from the source of my high. It’s these rotations of boombastic sensations that get me through the depression of now. I am a monk of melodies after the order of Thelonious the Monk. Studying scripture of divine revelation through the constant elevation of Aly-us who call like prophets from the past singing, “Follow me, why don’t you follow me, to a place where we can be free.” Yearning with burning like dances for a rapture that takes me higher and higher, being baptized through phrases like “Yo, That’s Fiya!” making me, changing me to be funky fresh and giving me the status of a supa-fly B-boy. And false converts sneak in like D-boys giving false gospels of Dope Boy Magic, yet the Lord is Just and Light, and He can’t have it. There’s no darkness in Him, so the Dope Boys ‘ve had it. Wrath is coming, repent, believe, and begin to demand it. The radio’s not moving, it’s Babylon, Babel, tongues that Babble, building towers as idols that emit frequencies of mega-hertz of this false gospel that our women are only out for the la la la lollipop, and our men are only out for the Lola. Stop. The mula. Stop. We need to Stop. We need to have a new heart so that this can Stop. Give me back my music so that I can Stop. I can’t Stop. Nope, I won’t Stop. Give me back my music, I am Hip Hop. Yup, I am Hip Hop. I am a prophet of this movement that we’ve all forgot.…

Eh…just forget it…

Audio Koine New Testrament Greek

I stumbled upon this simple off the beaten path website where some guy compiled in audio mp3 form New Testament Greek vocab as well as him reading in English and Greek the book of 1 John. It really is quite helpful and I’ve been trying to listen to it each night before I go to sleep. If you’re intrested in starting to learn N.T. Greek or just want to brush up on your interpretive skills go ahead and give this site a look see.

Click the link below to view:

New Testament Greek in Audio mp3 Format

Her Name is εκκλησια & She is Christs Bride – What Does She Look Like?

Local Church Government

As many churches today proudly express their allegiance to scripture alone as the sole authority for their Christian lives, it can not go unobserved that there is a seemingly blatant disregard for the authority of scripture concerning manners of church governance in many local congregations around America today. Among younger Christians especially, the concept of how to do church is championed as being recovered from the dry and monotonous church models adopted by their parents and hence put in place are a variety of different styles. Ranging from the consumer mega church, the all-doors-open emergent church, the non leadership house church, to even the weekly bible study held at a local Starbucks. In each case there may be a commitment to the orthodox teachings of Christian salvation and the understanding of God, but what seems to be missing is an allegiance to scripture on what it is a local church looks like. “The church is biblically mandated, the campus fellowship isn’t. The Lord may want you to be involved in a fellowship, but Jesus nowhere promised that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against my Campus Fellowship. But there is His promise about the church.”[i] In seeing the church as Christ sees it, how then are believers to practice the institution of church in a way honoring and glorifying to the Bridegroom? This paper will attempt to answer the question of what a biblical model of a local church government looks like.

There are three points that seem to be crucial in the biblical example of a local church. These are 1) a responsible, believing, local congregation that has an autonomous authority as a whole, 2) a group of divinely selected leaders, or elders, within the congregation that guide, teach, and protect the congregation as a whole, and 3) a commitment between both the elders and the rest of the congregation to be united and of one accord in serving God and each other to His glory.

It should not be surprising that the N.T. church, from which we should derive our example, is seen as an assembly of believing men and women gathered together in different cities and regions, meeting in local houses and other spaces. What should be taken from this though is the degree in which this collected group of believers, this assembly of called out ones, or church acted and dealt with life as group committed to reflecting Gods glory. What is clearly seen is that in times of needed discipline or in some other major decisions, the burden of action falls on the church as a whole and not a group of outside individuals or panel. In Matt 18:15-17 it can be observed that the final burden of discipline falls on the whole “assembly” so that if “he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” In Acts 6, where a notable dispute between Jewish and Gentile widows had emerged, the Apostles were said to have called all the disciples and bade them to choose seven who would serve fairly among the widows. The decision was given to all the disciples in that immediate context. Again, in Acts 11:22 it says that they, the church, sent Barnabas to go to Antioch. In 1 Cor. 5 charges that the church assemble to discipline their brother who was supposedly boasting in a perverse sin. It was the church who was to administer the discipline. 1 Cor. 16 describes instruction from Paul on matters of collections and what they are to do. The instruction is given to the church as a whole and then Paul asks that the church approve a messenger to take the offering. Paul does not command a separate committee or counsel but that the church makes the decision.[ii]

These scriptures and more, coupled with the fact that the majority of the N.T. letters are written to congregations as a whole and that the charges, mandates, and commands with in them also apply to churches a whole give good evidence that congregations were committed to the life of a church, the decisions it made, the money it used, its own doctrinal integrity,(1 Cor.11:17-34,Gal 1:8-9, Thess. 5:21) even its manner of worship(1 Cor.14:39-40, Phil 4:1-3). As one searches scripture in hopes of being taught by Gods Word, it becomes evident that the congregation as a whole is responsible for its own response to scripture, that is, if any local church were to skirt the commands of scripture necessary for a healthy church the burden of responsibility falls on the church as a whole. The local church is really the first and clearest picture one sees of Christ’s body united in a body of individual believers. “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” (1Cor. 12:12)

The second evident and still just as crucial point is that throughout the N.T. there is a clear imperative to have a leader over the local congregation to act as a shepherd or to be an elder that guides and teaches. In fact, it should be argued that the precedence the bible and N.T. church gives us is that of a plurality of equally important [iii]elders acting as leaders and teachers to the congregation. What this does is now add a check and a balance to the above picture of a democratic congregational rule in that there are now key gifted individuals whom God has placed to guide and instruct their own local assembly in a manner that is glorifying to God and compatible to scripture. But why more than one elder? Because scripture teaches this.

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The O.T. and Palestinian practice with in Jesus’ day showed that a plurality of elders was usually the case. (Deut. 19:12; 21:1-9, 18-21)

“The other four New Testament authors who refer to Christian elders are James, Peter, Paul, and Luke, and each of them appears to assume a number of elders will be present in every congregation. James instructs his readers to “call the elders [plural] of the church [singular] to pray over” a sick person (James 5:14). Peter writes as an elder to the “elders [plural] among you” (1Pet. 5:1). If 1 Peter 5:5 should be translated “elders” instead of “older men,” it would again appear Peter assumes a plurality of elders in a single congregation—or at least this assumption could not be ruled out. Paul greets the bishops (plural) in the church (singular) at Philippi in his letter to the Philippians (Phil. 1:1). And he exhorts the elders of the church at Ephesus to be “bishops” (plural) to the “flock” (singular) that God had given them (Acts 20:28)…So certainly the churches established by Titus in Crete were at least supposed to have a plurality of elders in each local congregation.” [iv]

What is even more clear are the in depth qualifications given by Paul in 1 Tim. 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 as to what and who an elder should be. These qualifications by no means are much different from whom any Christian should be but the list does make a distinction in credentials thereby disallowing a number of individuals from becoming and elder. What can not be denied tough is that the office of elder is established and that the clear markings of a church is one that is led and taught by these divinely selected elders. (Heb13:17) Does the final authority then lie with the Congregation or with the Elders? This question seems to be unfair in that the elders are apart of and represent the congregation. What seems to take place is a very open conversation between the elders of a congregation and the rest of the believing body thus securing as best can be a unified and cohesive decision based upon the authority of the congregation as whole, but delegated and confirmed with the elders. This leads then to the third and final point.

That there is a difference between an elder and the rest of the congregation is clear and what relationship they should have to each other should be just as clear. Hebrews 13:17 admonishes the congregation to obey they leaders and submit to their authority. The elders are described as men who watch over the church as men accountable to God. Then the writer tells them to obey them in order that their work will be a joy and not a burden. This seems to promote an environment of humble servitude as well as cautious leadership. A healthy relationship between both parties in which open dialogue must constantly be obtained and practiced. The role then of the teacher is to teach the truths of Gods’ revealed truth, constantly pointing the church to a hope in Christ. The role of a church leader is then to lead as a representative of who the church is; this is no doubt influenced by the teaching capacity of the elder. A cyclical effect is almost seen here; clear and authoritative (more so even expository preaching) teaching guiding the congregation as a whole wherefore the congregation as a whole can make clear and wise decisions on local church matters wherefore, finally, the elders represent its own congregation in giving credence to its congregation and giving final judgment to any matter.

In conclusion, a biblical picture of what the local church government looks like is an multi-elder led church in which the congregation takes no passive role but is constantly aware and active in the discussion of how the church as a whole, fairly represented by the elders, will act and look.

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[i] Mark Dever speaking at the 2007 New Attitude Conference

[ii] Each scripture reference was derived from Perspectives on Church Government: Five Views of Church Polity. Daniel Akins essay on the single elder led church, pgs 27-32.

[iii] Perspectives on Church Government. Pg 280

[iv] Mark Dever, By Whose Authority, Elders in Baptist Life. 2006, 9Marks. Pg8-9

Also, “The Anglican scholar and pioneer missiologist Roland Allen came to this same conclusion: “… it seems to be an irresistible conclusion that the elders appointed by St. Paul were definitely appointed with power to add to their number and thus to secure to new Churches a proper order and certainty of sacramental grace. Finally, St. Paul was not content with ordaining one elder for each Church. In every place he ordained several. This ensured that all authority should not be concentrated in the hands of one man.” Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours (London: Robert Scott, 1912), 138-139”. (Mark Dever, By Whose Authority, Elders in Baptist Life. 2006, 9Marks.)

I must decrease….to a fixed gear

Can I let you in on a secret? I’ve recently fallen in love.  Her name is Ms. Pista, Bianchi Pista and she is my new bicycle. Well I’ve had her for about a month now.  My eyes have been opened to a new world of freedom, poetry and motion in traveling by bicycle, seeing my neighborhood with all my senses as I see the houses free from the cage of glass windows, as I smell the aroma of some Latin Bar-B-Q, as I feel and touch the breeze as I fly through the narrow streets on my sleek road bike, and hear the commotion of everyday life and cars approaching and children playing and squirrels squirreling.  By decreasing my mode of transportation from car to bike I have increased my awareness of life around me, taking a sabbath break, no, a fast from the clutter and fabricated comfort/ease of modern transportation.

My bike has something else up her sleeve. She is a fixed gear bike.   Now how do I explain this?  Kent Peterson states it best when he writes this;

“And how is it to ride? It doesn’t coast. You don’t coast as you start out and put your foot in the second pedal. No, you grab the pedal on the fly. The bike won’t ever let you forget — it doesn’t coast. If you want to go fast, you pedal fast. To go slow, you pedal slow. When you stop, it stops. How are the hills? Really fun to go up, really a workout coming down. I am the engine and the brakes.The big brakes are my quads and my kneecaps working to slow those big wheels down. And in one instant I have to be strong and in one instant I have to be fast and always I have to be paying attention. This is riding. This is a bicycle that teaches me something every time I ride it, that makes me more by virtue of it’s being less. It’s the bike I ride until the street lights come on and sometimes even longer. It’s the bike I put away sadly and take out joyfully. It’s the bike that never forgets why we ride.”

So as you see, the gears are fixed to the pedals. I can not coast. And my thoughts on that? It is so much fun to ride, ride for pleasure through my neighborhood, ride to school, ride to get groceries, ride for exercise, even ride to pray.  The excitement and competition that arises between me and the terrain due to me not

being able to coast, that I always have to keep peddling, is great.  I’m continually pushing my self to see how far I can go, what hill can I overcome.  My city and route to school takes on new dimensions never seen before in a car.  Experiencing the hill God made in a new light that physically burns my thighs and pushes my lungs, which in turn causes me to rejoice in the beautiful creation of an incredible creator.  My first time on the bike, testing it before my purchase, seemed retarded. Really.  It was like I didn’t know how to ride a bike.  You forget how much you coast on a free wheel bicycle, especially getting started.  And I kept forgetting I couldn’t coast while riding which almost ended up with me several times being lifted up off my seat by the pedals and flying over the handle bars.  Now, now I don’t even think about it….I just ride, continually pedaling, always going. If I want to stop, well I slow down my legs, there are no brakes because there are no need for brakes, I am the brake.  If I want to go faster do I switch gears? No there’s only one gear, its fixed, so I pedal faster.  This to me is truly riding a bike, always in tune with whats going on, always aware of whats coming ahead, always enjoying the journey because it’s actually me putting in the effort of getting to my destination.

So if you see me riding through Hyattsville, Riverdale, College Park, Greenbelt, or Lanham say in your mind, “there goes a blessed man.” (=