Honoring the Father’s Call

by Russell Young

According to the parable of the two sons (Mt 21:18) a father needed work done in his vineyard and asked each to help. The first retorted that he would not, but later did. The second said that he would but didn’t. The question posed was: Which of the sons did what his father had wanted?

Since the Father had wanted help, the son who had originally denied his request but later complied is the one who did what the father had wanted. He had relented, repented, and obeyed.

The Lord was making a point. It is more important to obey than to utter an empty promise. He addressed this elsewhere: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Lk 6:46) Obedience to the Lord is serious; it is through it that the believer gains eternal salvation. Disobedience, defiance, or rebellion will bring his wrath. “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.” (Eph 5:6)

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command,” (Jn 14:15) and Paul has written that “everyone who loves God is known by God.” (1 Cor 8:3) God knows those who love him because they obey his commands; they go beyond promising to the point of obedience through their ‘doing’. A walk of obedience is a walk of humility before the Lord. It recognizes his sovereignty and right as master.

The confession (pledge, promise, or covenant) of the Lord’s sovereignty results in the confessor’s deliverance from the Law and from his or her past sins. (Heb 9:15; 2 Pet 1:9) Paul wrote, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom 10:9) There are many who make the profession that “Christ is Lord” but who do not honor their pledge. His sovereign right to the life of the believer is proclaimed many times in the Scriptures and must be honored. Those who deny “the sovereign Lord” through the introduction of destructive heresies will bring swift destruction on themselves. (2 Pet 2:1; See also Jude 1:4)

God’s kingdom will not be entered through profession, but through exercised obedience. “Christ is the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb 5:9) The righteous life of Christ is accomplished through submission to his leadership as Spirit. The promise of commitment made to the Lord is to be lived.

Some might respond that such teaching makes eternal salvation a matter of “works” however, obedience is the practice of faith. All believers have heard of Paul’s teaching, “For it is by grace you are saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph 2:8−9) Both “grace” and “faith” need to be understood from a biblical perspective, however the essence of Paul’s thought is in the verse that follows, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10) God’s grace is revealed as the product that the Lord is making of the believer, his “workmanship”, so that he or she might do good works (deeds, labor). The “product” is conformation to Christ’s own likeness (Rom 8:29) Only those who have been cleansed from “ignoble” practices will be used for noble purposes (2 Tim 2:21) or for the “works which God had prepared in advance for them to do.” Only the righteous will be used for “noble” purposes.

Those called to work in the Father’s vineyard are called “to do good works” which had been prepared in advance. The Lord has referred to these as hearing his words and putting them into practice. (Mt 7:24−27; Lk 6:46−49) His words must be put into practice both for righteousness’ sake, and for kingdom building with each bringing their just rewards.

Those seeking God’s heavenly kingdom are not to be passive in their commitment but have been called to put forth effort. When asked if only a few people were going to be saved, the Lord responded, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many I tell you will try to enter and will not be able to.” (Lk 13:24) They will plead that they ate and drank with him and that he had taught in their streets, but he will reply, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me you evildoers.” (Lk 13:27) In the end it will not be their profession to work in his vineyard that matters, but their actual work; not their promise of commitment, but their practice of obedience. Entrance rests in “effort” not fruitless “confession”. Matthew has recorded the Lord’s prophesy, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 2:21) His complaint was that he had never known them. Entrance will be based on a person’s doing.

A promise made must be kept; God will not be mocked. (Gal 6:7) Those, like the son who have promised to work and don’t, are hypocrites. They want to appear submissive and God-honoring through their proclamations, but do not live according to their words. The unfaithful servant will be cut into pieces and assigned a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Mt 24:51) Faith is more than a possession; it is revealed through a person’s practices and is demonstrated, not through what a person says, but by what he or she does. Faith is revealed in the lives of the vineyard workers, those who work when the Father calls, who are obedient to his will, not in those who utter empty promises.

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Russell Young’s column appears here on alternate Tuesdays. His book, Eternal Salvation: “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” Really? is available in print and eBook in the U.S. through Westbow Publishing, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble; in Canada through Chapters/Indigo.

To read all of Russell’s contributions here at C201, click this link. There is also a feature-length article at this link.

Cheapening Spiritual Progress with Gifts

Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
  Matthew 7:6

Earlier today at Thinking Out Loud, I wrote about the trend toward feeling obligated to purchase a gift for someone who is being baptized as a teen or adult, an obligation perhaps borrowed from our Catholic (Confirmation) or Jewish (Bar Mitzvah) friends.  In that context, today’s opening scripture verse may seem a little extreme, but I believe the verse applies to anything which might trivialize or reduce someone’s sincere (hopefully) spiritual steps with gift-ware.

I suspect the logic works like this: Family and friends have been invited to the church. They will have everyone over to their house afterwards. Food and beverages will be served. There will be laughter and celebration. That constitutes a party. Therefore, I must take a gift.

I am all for celebrating spiritual occasions. When the prodigal son’s father saw his son returning in the distance his heart was filled with joy:

^{Luke 15:20}“…But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

The son begins his well-rehearsed admission of contrition and humility, but the father interrupts:

²² “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”

Sorrow and sadness
Turn into gladness.

But for many young people, a spiritual step that is marked with gifts — or even worse, cash — sends a mixed message. I know I have a very biased preference for books, but it seems like, if anything, a good time for a Bible handbook, a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia, or a copy of the scriptures in a novice-friendly translation.

Of the various youth-friendly, scripture-based things the gift-ware industry has created over the past decade, I’ve always liked the “Whatever” plaque from Abbey Press because it is a Bible quotation that is a good prescription for life for a young person.,

The text is based on Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.

If a gift is absolutely necessary, that’s a sentiment I would endorse.

How else might we trivialize the things of God?  In looking back, I’ve referred to the “dogs” verse in Matthew twice before here.

One post dealt with several things at once:

• We can pray repetitiously, reciting memorized prayers without thinking of their meaning
• We can omit to pay proper reverence to the name of God
• We can fail to regard as sacred the writings of scripture and the books that contain them
• We can substitute subjective testimonies for actual Bible teaching
• We can discount the importance of committing some of the scriptures to memory
• We can have a rather casual approach to church services, small group meetings, etc.

In another post, I wrote about how as leaders, we can trivialize the importance of special times for The Church, using Good Friday as an example. We can neglect to immerse our congregations in His humility (washing the feet of The Twelve), his pain and sadness (showing how he would be betrayed and using the cup of sorrow in the Passover meal as example), and his anguish and suffering (at his trial, scourging, crucifixion and death.) For more of my thoughts on how might we ‘miss the moment’ on this particular day of all days, read this recent essay on the other blog.  In the two paragraphs that follow, I explain how we get to this conclusion from the opening verse:

Go Deeper: I should also say that there is much more going on in the ‘giving holy things to God’ and ‘giving pearls to pigs’ verse than what I’ve touched on in the three times it has come up here. While the verse seems to speak to all the things we’ve discussed, the context has to do with judging, but even there, this proverbial saying seems somewhat of an interjection and several Bible commentators skip over it altogether. In its most literal reading, the dogs and swine represent Gentiles, or by extension, unbelievers. It could be argued here that this is stating we are to judge within the family of God and not attempt to judge the world at large.

The broader application of this verse to mean “Don’t offer spiritual ‘pearls’ or things of great value to those who lack the understanding to absorb or process the meaning of them” is really being reversed to say, “Don’t take things which possess great meaning and value and expunge or excise (or we could say, diminish, depreciate or pejorate) all or some of that richness.

In the same Prodigal Son story we read in verse 10,

In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

By all means celebrate. But don’t reduce someone’s pursuit of God and desire to live a set-apart life by offering something purchased only because you feel you had to.

We’ll close today with our opening verse as taken from The Message Bible, which seems to lean more to the way we’ve applied it here:

“Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege.

 

On the Participation of Children at The Lord’s Table

I truly wasn’t planning to post the same content at C201 today as Thinking out Loud, especially since a few of you subscribe to both; but there’s a lot of substance to the book I reviewed, and it really belongs here as well.

^{Mark 14: 25} “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” ^(NIV)

At what age should children first participate in The Lord’s Supper?

The two children sitting next to me — a boy about six and a girl of four or five — were fidgeting during the entire service. They spent most of the sermon time drawing pictures and there was a mild shoulder punch fight that took place during one of the worship songs where I thought the mom was going to split the kids up by sitting between them, but apparently opted not to. When the communion elements were passed across our row, without hesitation the kids helped themselves. The mom definitely saw the kids each take a piece of bread and the small cup of juice, and wasn’t the least concerned.

I grew up in a tradition where receiving The Lord’s Supper, partaking of Communion or Eucharist, or whatever name your faith family chooses to call it, was reserved for adults and those entering adulthood. I was eleven years old the first time. Anything younger, for me, would have been too young.

So when Christian Focus Publishing offered me a chance to review Children and the Lord’s Supper, I had hoped this book would address the question in clear and unmistakable terms. I believe this topic is important as it bears on so many issues: church, doctrine, worship, parenting, the spiritual nurture of children, the Christian education of our youth.

Make no mistake about it, this is an excellent book. If you want to cover this topic in great detail, I can think of no better resource, and I will be most grateful to have this paperback in my library for any time that this topic surfaces. However, for all that, there are reasons why I think this is the wrong book for the majority of readers here.

First, this is a very academic reference work that would cause most of my friends to glaze over after the first dozen or so pages. The book is a collection of eight essays an introduction by editors Guy Waters and Ligon Duncan, which defines paedocommunion as “the admittance of a covenant child to the Lord’s Supper on the basis of his (sic) descent from at least one professing Christian parent.” (p. 11) Persons looking for a simple answer to the question, ‘Daddy, may I take communion?” — which is also the title of an existing book — would find 214 pages of answer to what they perceive as a simple ‘yes or no’ question; not unlike the uncle at the Christmas gathering who recites the entire workings of the internal combustion engine, when all you asked was a simple question as to the frequency of oil changes. Mind you, there are no simple answers here.

Another awkwardness for the North American reader — and this may seem superficial — is the use of the UK construction paedocommunion rather than the American which would favor the use of pedocommunion (only occurring 195 times in a Google search as opposed to over 28,000 for the UK spelling; which suggests something right there) just as we tend not to speak of paedobaptism (46,000 on Google) preferring the spelling pedobaptism (a more balanced 17,000). This preoccupation with spelling is not a deal breaker, but is mentioned in passing here to highlight how North American readers would find this volume inaccessible at different levels. (When the absolute central focus of a book is a word that is spelled differently in both countries, perhaps it is time to consider a North American edition.)

More relevant is the Reformed perspective of the book. This book raises all the right issues, but does so in the context of a growing movement among some Reformed denominations to include younger children in the Lord’s Supper — some already do — to which there is apparently much consternation. We share the same scriptures of course, and everything presented in this volume is entirely relevant to all our churches, but one must first decide to get past the denominational perspective of the writers. In fairness, I should state that a couple of the writers do address the doctrinal understanding of the Lord’s Supper that is unique to the Roman Catholic mass, though this is done primarily for comparative purposes with the Presbyterian or Reformed view. And one writer views as inconsistent those Baptist groups which baptize children, but do not permit them access to the Communion table.

Which brings us to the meat of the book.

As it turns out, the issue of children of partaking of the communion elements is almost symptomatic to a deeper causal issue, namely our understanding of the relationship between the Lord’s Supper and Passover. This is the true focus on which many of the arguments — mentioned or alluded to — hinge. Certainly Jesus instituted this sacred meal in the context of a passover meal, but how strongly does the parallel run? Children are allowed to participate in the modern passover — though some doubts arise as to, for example, the first such meal in the years immediately following the Exodus — so why not permit children at our New Covenant equivalent? And some even argue that point, as to whether or not there is a tacit understanding that the youngest of children do not truly partake of the passover meal since they are too young to ask the questions (or you could say, be active in the liturgy) that is required of the youngest; even arguing the obvious point that the very youngest would be too young to chew food.

More than one contributor suggests that in Passover, Jesus was instituting something that fulfills or completes the entire sacrificial system (p. 32). Several of the writers point out that the Westminster Catechism (part 177) requires that the children be old enough to examine themselves, alluding to the words of institution in I Cor. 11, something I would term, if I may, the presence of “spiritual sentience,” a term which, as long as we’re quoting Google, occurs elsewhere 283 times.  This is probably another of the most compelling arguments in the discussion.

Indeed, the book’s strongest premise is that we best remember the Lord’s death and atonement through the Lord’s Supper combined with active faith. (pp. 72-73)  Having said that, my wife reminds me that Jesus talked about “the faith of a child;” and didn’t minimize or address that faith condescendingly.

The book also considers the various warnings that the apostle issues addressing the situation of those who would be receiving the communion elements in an unworthy manner.

…This is a book review, and book reviews are highly subjective. I said at the beginning that this is indeed an excellent book; while this might be of great interest to pastors and seminary students, it’s just not going to fulfill the expectations of the average browser in the average Christian book store, especially here in North America. But subjectively, my personal reward for studying this book was a deeper understanding of passover, admittedly not the book’s stated purpose. I am much richer for reading Children and the Lord’s Supper, but I am clearly not the typical Christian book consumer.

Got young kids? May I suggest that as parents of young children you err on the side of caution. The children in the example I cited at the outset certainly had no sense of reverence for what was taking place, and may I suggest that by that lack of reverence they profaned the moment or occasion as it took place in their part of the auditorium.

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35 NIV