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Which Question Is It?

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)

The Basket Case Chronicles #159

“Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Cor. 13:8-10).

Love is never going to go out of style. There will never be a circumstance when love, when being like God, is inappropriate or unhelpful. Gifts can be put to a bad use, but fruit is what it is. The gifts that Paul has in mind here are the gifts of prophesying, the gift of tongues, and the gift of supernatural knowledge.

Even prior to the point where prophesy, tongues and knowledge “fail,” they are partial gifts, even in their prime. That which is partial is going to come to the place where it is entirely supplanted.

There are two main views concerning that which is “perfect.” Is this speaking of the time when the perfect revelation of Scripture is complete, and the canon is closed? Is that what Paul means by perfect here? Or is it an eschatological statement, saying that prophesy, tongues, and the gift of knowledge will “fail” when the resurrection occurs? I would tell you which one it is except for the fact that I, like the apostle here, know in part.

But in a remarkable display of even-handedness, I will simply point out that v. 12 (face to face, even as I am known) sounds eschatological, and that the discussion of failing gifts in v. 8 sounds like they are already starting to fail, and a statement in v. 10 that prophecy will be done away with in Heaven seems odd. Who ever thought that the spiritual gifts would be operative in the resurrection? “Will we need prophets after the Bible is complete?” seems like a reasonable and pertinent question. Whether we will need prophets in the throne room of God seems like an absurdity.

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The Mystery is a Fact

“If a person goes to Heaven when he dies, this means, necessarily, that God intervened at some point in his life — the time stamp of which is usually unknown to us, but which is always known to the God who did the intervening” (Against the Church, p.158).

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When Preaching Slides

“We can now easily understand why some preachers care too much for embellishment. They take a wrong view of their office, or at any rate are influenced by a wrong motive. They aim too much at entertaining, at gratifying the audience. They do not feel the seriousness of their work, the solemnity of their position. While perhaps really desiring to do good, they dwell too much on the necessity of pleasing the people in order to profit them” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery, p. 384).

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The Politics of the Tithe

I think it was Luther who said that a man required two conversions, the first of his heart and the second of his wallet. Have you ever noticed how some people are preeminently quotable, such that all sorts of pithy sayings get attributed to them whether or not they said it? So Luther, or maybe Chesterton, or Churchill, or maybe Oscar Wilde. It fits best with Luther though, so let’s run with that.

I want to begin by summarizing in a paragraph what I understand our obligations with regard to tithing to be, and then to briefly expand on each one of those points.

The tithe is a continuing moral obligation for the people of God (1 Cor. 9:13-14). The lawful recipients of the tithe are those who labor in the ministry (1 Cor. 9:14), the poor (Dt. 14:29), and the merchants who supply the goods for your thanksgiving feasts (Dt. 14:23-29). The tithe is owed on the increase of wealth (Dt. 14:22), not on the wealth itself. The tithe is to be paid on the increase that is brought into your barns, and not on the part of the crop that the locusts ate, which has ramifications for the old net/gross question. And last, the church is to teach authoritatively on the obligation to tithe, but is not to do so in any way that could reasonably be interpreted as a self-serving merchandizing of the gospel (Phil. 4:17).

So let’s work through these. First, there is no dispute that the Levites of the Old Testament were supported by the tithe. They had no inheritance like the other tribes; the Lord was their inheritance. This meant that their needs were supplied by the tithe that the other tribes paid on their increase. Paul says in 1 Cor. 9:14 that ministers of the gospel in the new covenant were to be supported in exactly the same way (even so, just the same way, kai houtos). The tithe predated Moses (Heb. 7:2), and the tithe has survived him.

The tithe is not limited to what goes into the offering at church. A portion of it should go there (Gal. 6:6), of course, but it may also go to your cousin with Wycliffe, the homeless guy at the bus station, Add it all up, and it should come to at least ten percent of your increase.

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Trudeau and the Left Overs

One of the life lessons that should be learned early on is the one which teaches us not to get into arguments with the funny papers. This is a very good rule of thumb, but I bring it up because I am planing on dispensing with that sound advice today . . . but just for a day. Tomorrow I am back on the old regimen, and the cartoonists can say whatever they want.

Off to the right you may click on the image in order to read yesterday’s Doonesbury.

So a cartoonist walks into a redneck bar . . .

So a cartoonist walks into a redneck bar . . .

Now Garry Trudeau really does have a sense of humor, and I still read Doonesbury regularly — which means I am in a position to testify that I can still notice it from time to time. Unfortunately, as the nation has polarized, and as Trudeau has become more and more of a standard issue liberal, we have to content ourselves with glimmers of the old stuff. There was a day when he really was consistently irreverent.

But now . . . he creates a conservative comedian out of some old popsicle sticks, in order that he may interrupt that poor sap’s routine with a plodding, finger-wagging, pedantic, censorious, and prissy lecture.

As I write these words, a memory returns to me. After all these years it is still tender. One time I was with a group of kids doing an elementary school assembly, and I think it was because I was part of the Safety Patrol. The point of our little skit was, of course, safety, and we had a kid (it might have been me, actually) ride across the stage on a bicycle, and then disappear off stage. There was then some kind of pots n’ pans racket, and then we rolled a bicycle tire back onto the stage. I think it was pretty clever for a bunch of little kids, and it of course got a big laugh from those who had assembled to be edified. Now for one of the teachers the mere fact of the laughter was dangerously close to a high state of moral disorder, and she jumped up to remind all of us that safety was a serious issue. We aren’t kidding about this, children.

Trudeau — graduate of Yale, winner of the Pulitzer Prize when in his twenties, probably as rich as Michael Moore, that other great champion of the working classes — jumps in to remind us that the point of satire is to afflict the comfortable. And of course, as we should all know, the point of conservatism is just the opposite. Everyone knows how conservatives love to comfort the comfortable and to afflict the afflicted. Got it. Everybody knows how Colorado cake bakers love to kick the downtrodden. That is why we were simply forced to haul him off to his sensitivity training. We had no choice. After that is a stint in Humor Camp. We have to teach these people how to take a joke.

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Church Discipline and Life

Introduction
A church that does not or cannot discipline errant members of the congregation is a church with AIDS. It has no means of fighting off infections—whether those infections are moral or doctrinal or both. The infections can be in the heart or the head, but the church has to be able to deal with them.

To change the image, the church is constituted by Word and sacrament. A large number in the reformation tradition have also added discipline to this, but I would prefer to think of the garden itself as growing Word and sacrament only. Discipline is the fence that keeps the deer out. Discipline is not part of the very definition of the church, but without a fence, you won’t have a garden for very long. Fences are essential to gardens, but don’t themselves grow in the garden.

Obviously, a message like this is being preached for a reason—we do have some possible discipline cases in process, and we wanted you to be prepared for this as a congregation. But know that we do not operate on a hair trigger, and we would be delighted to have this be a message that turns out to be more theological than practical.

The Text:

“I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore ‘put away from yourselves the evil person’” (1 Cor. 5:9-13).

Summary of the Text:

Christians often get this text exactly backwards. Paul says that of course we are going to have to associate with dissolute pagans—but we try hard to be prissy about that kind of thing. And he says that we must of course not associate with those inside the church who live like this. This is in fact what distinguishes Christian morality from dry rot moralism. The former guards inside, the latter guards against the other. Pay special attention to that phrase near the end—do you not judge those who are inside? But what happens if we are diligent in this? Trying to guard the church against hypocritical profession is a sure fire way to draw the charge of . . . hypocrisy. Think about it for a moment.

The Five Reasons for Discipline:

First, we are to discipline in order to glorify God, and this occurs because obedience glorifies God. We know from His Word that God intends discipline for His church (Matt. 18:15-19; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 5; 1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Thess. 3:6-15; 1 Tim. 5:20; 6:3; Tit. 1:13; 2:15; 3:10; Rev. 2:2, 14-15, 20). God tells us what to do, and because we are His people we are called to obey Him. This answers the objection, “Who do you think you are?” We do not discipline in our own name, or on our own authority.

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Little Plastic Cups

The bread and wine here represent and embody the most precious gift that has ever been given to anyone. You were redeemed, Peter says, not with gold or with silver, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:18-19). This is a precious gift indeed. What kind of vessel should this be put in then? The biblical answer is that you are that vessel.

Just as the bread and wine have a representative meaning, so do the trays and cups here. They contain the sacrament, and learn a lesson from it. They are clean, they are prepared with care beforehand, they are set apart for this use . . . and they are humble. These vessels didn’t cost very much, but nevertheless they represent us, the vessels about to receive the elements of the sacrament.

God does not mind putting His precious things into humble vessels, but He does mind putting them into foul, putrid, unclean, and proud vessels. Remember what the apostle said—we have this treasure in earthen vessels. That is fine, that is a design feature (2 Cor. 4:6-7). But a humble vessel can be clean and prepared, just as a rich, ornamented vessel can be full of blasphemies, abominations, and the filthiness of fornication (Rev. 17:4).

As you prepare yourself to be a fit vessel of the gift you are about to receive, do not think that God requires spiritual ostentation. He actually requires the opposite. He requires care, thoughtfulness, and love. That is what it means to come to Him in a worthy fashion. Don’t try to encrust your cup with diamonds—as though He needed anything decorated with self-righteousness. He doesn’t mind that you are a little plastic cup. Just be a clean one.

We have this treasure in a little plastic vessel, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. You don’t have to earn what you contain—but you do have to contain what you contain.

So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.