It’s sexy among young people — my generation — to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church. Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It’s immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it’s the institution of marriage that preserves the romance. Without the God-given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul.

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

Read full article here: The Glory of Plodding.

HT: John Barach

See also Viva la Reformacion.

The Sin of the Revolutionary Mind

by Tim Nichols

We worship in heaven, and we are unified with those who join us there in worship—including those believers in other nations, and those who died long before us. This unity surpasses any earthly tie, including ties of where you were born—or when.

The saints of every age and place are Our People, and we should hear the voices of those who have gone before us. They are sinners, and they can be wrong. But so can we, and so we listen to their wise counsel, and—as always—measure everything by Scripture. We cannot be revolutionaries, because we belong to a long line of people from whom we cannot separate, even though we may want to.

“Behold, I make all things new” is not something that we are allowed to say—and it doesn’t work anyhow. If we cannot remake our church, or our society, or our world at a stroke, through revolution, then what are we to do?

In Eden, the river that flows from the sanctuary waters the world. In the New Jerusalem, the water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and the leaves of the trees beside it are for the healing of the nations. In between, Jesus says “He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”

The life of the world flows from God through the sanctuary, through our worship; this is our first and most powerful agent of cultural change. Worship is a weapon by which we may battle God’s enemies and serve the people of the World at the same time. When we resort to carnal weapons, there is always collateral damage, but worship harms no one except those who insist on remaining enemies of God.

The charge therefore is this: Every change in your life, every difficulty, every new situation, should come first into your worship. Praise God, thank Him, ask for what you need. Situate your life in God-honoring heavenly worship before the throne of Grace. Then, having done that, pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven—and watch as God answers your prayers.

John commented:

Why do you think Jesus was executed with the connivance of the then in power ecclesiastical establishment in Palestine 2000 years ago?

Because his (then) revolutionary ideas were completely unacceptable, and a threat to the worldly power and privileges of the then ecclesiastical establishment.

Would you even recognize Jesus if he happened to appear unannounced at your local church? He most probably would not be dressed in a buttoned down Sunday suit (with tie in place).

Tim replied:

John,

Jesus was not a revolutionary. He was a reformer, calling God’s people back to what God’s Word had always taught, so they would be ready for the next step. There’s a difference.

It’s true that genuine reformers are often a threat to established power and privilege. But one can also be a threat to established power and privilege by being an anarchist, a thief, or a well-placed nincompoop. Some people are fools for the sake of Christ, but many more are just fools.

If Jesus showed up in my local church, I would recognize Him for the same reason that Nathaniel did — I already know Him. The suit and tie wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other. I’d ask you the same question a little differently — suppose Jesus did show up in your church, dressed up like a banker. Would you say to yourself, “That can’t be Jesus! Lookit what he’s wearing!”

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On revolution versus reformation, see also Charity, Not Revolution and A True Culture War.

“…Powers don’t enjoy being exposed as frauds, and so the Church, like Jesus, has often provoked vicious opposition. But the effort of the powers to shore up their position is hopeless. The worst they can do is kill Christians, but that just means the cross gets repeated over and over, repeatedly revealing the iron fist beneath the velvet glove. Against a cruciform Church, the powers are helpless as babes.

Theologians like John Howard Yoder and Walter Wink who highlight Paul’s teaching on the powers often see Paul’s teaching as almost exclusively a matter of critique and unmasking. The powers are demonic, and the Church’s job is to keep subverting the powers, whatever form those powers take. Paul comes off as the apostle of continuous revolution.

As G. B. Caird pointed out in his little book on the powers, however, it’s important to see that Paul not only talks here about defeated powers, but also talks about “reconciled” and “pacified” powers (Col. 1:20). Through the cross, what rules the world is not only exposed as not-god; and also, through the blood of the same cross, powers begin to be reconciled to Jesus. Convinced though he was of human sin, Paul was not a pessimistic. He believed that powers can be turned to become instruments of the reign of Jesus. Through the cross, we know that nations are not divine, but through the cross nations can (and have) become Christian.”

Read the full article by Peter Leithart here.