What Does "Unworthily" Mean?

Chris Anderson and friends recently launched a new blog at ChurchWorksMedia.com. Starting today, the blog will appear in our SI Blogroll. To mark the occasion, we commend the article below as a sample of what you’ll find there.—Editor

 

Gathering with the Lord’s church to remember Christ and His work is a vital part of Christian worship and an edifying exercise for both the corporate body and the individual Christian. Yet, Scripture protects the Lord’s Table in 1 Corinthians 11:27, where we are warned not to partake “unworthily” (KJV) or “in an unworthy manner” (ESV). That’s important—so important that people can suffer illness or even death for doing it (v. 30). But what does it mean?

For many, it means bondage. Countless believers have spent their entire lives afraid to partake of the Lord’s Table because they doubt their own worthiness. Communion has become a time when they remember themselves rather than (or at least more than) Christ. They’ve been trained (in part due to the KJV’s translation, in part due to careless teaching) to focus on their relative obedience or disobedience in the days preceding the Table. The result is pride, or despair, or fear—but not worship! Gordon Fee explains:

Unfortunately, this adverb was translated “unworthily” in the KJV. Since that particular English adverb seems more applicable to the person doing the eating than to the manner in which it is being done, this word became a dire threat for generations of English-speaking Christians. (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 560)

Many of you can say “Amen.” You’re there. I’ve been there. Let’s make sure we’re clear on this. This requirement doesn’t mean that you must be “worthy” to participate based on your performance as a Christian. You’re not ready to partake because you’ve “been good.”

• First, regardless of what you may think, you’ve never been good. The fact that you think you have just demonstrates that your standard of “good” is far different than God’s.    Continue at Chris Anderson

Does Grace Produce Disobedience?

There seems to be a fear out there that the preaching of grace produces serial killers. Or, to put it in more theological terms, too much emphasis on the indicatives of the gospel leads to antinomianism (a heretical version of Christianity that believes there is no place for God’s law in the life of a Christian). My problem with this fear is that I’ve never actually met anyone who has been truly gripped by God’s amazing grace in the gospel who then doesn’t care about obeying him. When our hearts are genuinely grasped by God’s unconditional love, the last thing we want to ask is, “What can I get away with?” Those who conclude, “Goody, I can now continue in sin til my heart’s content” prove that they don’t get grace. As I’ve said before: antinomianism happens not when we think too much of grace. 

Just the opposite, actually. Antinomianism happens when we think too little of grace. 

Wondering whether this common fear is valid, my dear friend Elyse Fitzpatrick (in C.S. Lewis fashion) writes an open letter to Mr. Grace-Loving Antinomian-a person she’s heard about for years but never met-asking him to please step forward and identify himself.

I posted this a while back but I just read it again myself and want to share it with those who may not have seen it the first time. It’s that good.

Enjoy…  Read it HERE

Perspective: What Impact Did Adam's Sin Have on the Rest of Humankind?

Why am I writing this post? See Theology (is) for Girls. And you can read another perspective via the link at the end of this post.

Before answering the title question, let me emphasize: Adam and Eve were actual, historical individuals, specially created by God in His image at the beginning of the world. I don’t have space to defend it here, but Adam’s actual existence is assumed in my answer.

Adam’s sin, eating fruit from the tree that God commanded him not to eat, is briefly described (Genesis 3:5b), but his one act had implications for every person throughout the rest of human history. In the same way that children of alcoholic parents may suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, poverty, and emotional scarring, the children of Adam suffer the consequences of his sin.

First, we now live in a sin-bruised world. As I tell my kids: It’s a fallen world; stuff breaks. We see the consequence appearing almost immediately after the sin. The previously pleasant callings of subduing the earth and multiplying (Genesis 1:28) now result in thorns (3:18) and heartache (3:16). We get the flu, our pets run away from home. Stuff breaks.

Second, we are sin-filled people. This consequence rears its head pretty quickly, too, “the wickedness of man was great on the earth. . .every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). And our native sinfulness is emphasized throughout Scripture: “I was brought forth in iniquity” (Psalm 51:5), “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9) and “none is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). We tell lies, we fight with our spouses. We love to sin.     Keep Reading...