In his excellent (though unlikely titled) book Hot Tub Religion,
J. I. Packer asks “What would a work of divine reformation in our
churches today look like?” Great question, and I loved the six answers
Packer—one of my all- time favorite people—offers.
First,
there would be a sense of biblical authority—that is, an awareness that
biblical teaching is divine truth and that the invitations and
admonitions, threats and warnings, promises and assurances of Scripture
still express the mind of God toward mankind. The Bible would be honored
again as the Word of God, and the perverse, pluralism of liberal
theology, which addles the brains and blinds the hearts of many, would
wither and die. The root of this pluralism is that teachers feel free to
ignore some of the things the Bible teaches and to pull others out of
context. The fruit of it is that God’s people are led astray into dry
places and the Holy Spirit of God is completely quenched. Reformation
always begins as a call from God to “come out of the wilderness” of
subjective speculation and spiritual impotence and learn again in
humility the true teaching of the written Word about grace and
godliness, knowing that the secret of power for living lies here. Thus,
unhappily, reformation always leads to controversy for some resist the
message.
Second, there would be a spirit of seriousness about eternal issues.
Heaven and hell would be preached about, thought about, and talked about
once again. Life in this world would once again be lived in the light
of the world to come, and the Philippian jailer’s question, “What must I
do to be saved?” would be seen as life’s basic question once more. For
most of this century the church, liberal and conservative, in all
denominations, has been so occupied with this world that minds turned to
eternity have been the exception rather than the rule. Sociopolitical,
cultural, sporting, and money-making interests have dominated Christian
minds rather than the laying up of treasure in heaven. A work of
reformation would change that, not by withdrawing Christians from these
fields of action, but by radically altering their perspective on what
they are doing so that God’s glory and eternal values would become the
chief concerns. Continue at Randy Alcorn
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