Why Lie to Your Kids about Santa?

I’m no Scrooge. I lodge no objections to celebrating Christmas or singing inane jingles, like Jingle Bells. My family understands that, pagan roots aside, the plastic conifer in our living room is not a subtle mark of our allegiance to the forces of darkness. It’s a tree (model).

We do, however, prefer singing “Hark the Herald Angel Sings” over the misdirected praise of “Oh Christmas Tree,” though I’m not even fanatic about enforcing that.

We tolerate the poetic inaccuracy of “We three kings of Orient are” because it rolls off the tongue better than “We indeterminable number of Gentile scholars of Persia are.”

But… I am nervous about the potential confusion which may cloud a 4 year old’s faith in my honesty. 

Angels on high, a pregnant virgin, God in a manger, a guiding star… are impossibilities. Yet, “all things are possible with God.” [Yes, you need to believe in the virgin birth to be a Christian] We ask our children to trust us on these claims with their lives. Then we add a fictitious, omniscient fat guy with a red-nosed reindeer to the mix. At a certain age we matter-of-factly disclose that we were just kidding about the chimney intrusion, the Elven workshop, and the works-based naughty-or-nice judgment. “Those parts are make-believe, the rest is gospel truth. Trust me, son.”

Misinformation has a way of taking root in our memories. Do you picture the stable with oxen lowing on a silent night? Were the angels actually singing? Was there a villainous inn keeper? These details are not found in Scripture.  Keep Reading >>>

Can we trust the New Testament?

Several years ago I was walking in a park and met a man who identified himself as a pantheist. As I shared the Gospel with him, he raised a series of objections, the first of which concerned the reliability of Scripture. “The Bible was going along fine,” he explained, “until King James came along and changed it all. Now we have no idea what the original Bible actually said.”

The man’s objection was obviously more than a bit misinformed, but it does raise a significant question: If we do not possess the original manuscripts of the Bible, if the existing manuscripts do not completely agree with each other, and if there is no absolutely sure method of determining the original reading where these differences exist, then how can we have confidence in the Bible we possess today?

The points of difference between existing manuscripts are known as textual variants, and the process of determining the original wording where variants exist is known as textual criticism. Because this process is at least partly subjective in nature, it is not infallible and therefore we cannot know with absolute certainty what the original manuscripts said in a given place. For this reason, the question is indeed a significant one: Can we really trust the Bible as it has been handed down to us?    Keep Reading...

Protect the Flock by Excluding Visitors

Elders are called to protect the church from people who would do them spiritual harm (wolves among the sheep). One of the ways we try to do that in our church is by not allowing people to get very involved in the life of the congregation until they are members. 

So in our church, non-members are welcome to attend and participate in the public services of the church.  We are happy to have them in our Sunday morning gathering, our Sunday evening gathering, and our fellowship meals.

But we don't let people attend small groups or serve among the children or lead music until they are members.  In order to join the church, a person must be examined by the elders and approved by the congregation.  Once a person has been through that process, we feel reasonably comfortable that they are safe (that is to say, not a wolf). 

But until the point, we don't want to encourage people in the church to look to that person as a leader by putting them up in front of the congregation to lead singing.  We don't want them teaching the children of the church.  We don't want people to completely let their guard down and trust them in the way we ask members to trust each other in small groups.

People who are "regular attenders" but who haven't joined the church sometimes feel like our policy is exclusive.  But ultimately my responsibility is to the flock over which the Spirit has made me an overseer.  And besides, they are welcome to pursue church membership at any time.

And if you're looking for an awesome sermon on church membership, Jonathan Leeman preached one at my favorite church yesterday.

HT: 9marks

Pay Your Taxes But Trust in Christ

While Dever may serve a church on Capitol Hill, he does not commonly address issues of Christianity and government so directly. But as an expository preacher working his way through the Gospel of Mark, Dever obligated himself to address Jesus’ teaching in Mark 12:13-17. In these days of overheated rhetoric and protest rallies, I pray that evangelicals will set aside 70 minutes to listen to Dever’s sermon. Much of the wisdom expressed here echoes the forthcoming book City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era, written by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, with a foreword by Tim Keller. We need to hear from the best evangelical thinkers about a faithful, biblical approach to politics. Perhaps I can help the cause by summarizing four pages of notes I scribbled from Dever’s sermon. Read it all HERE

Teaching Our Children to Trust God