Many say you must be immersed to have a valid baptism. Many say sprinkling, or pouring a bit of water over the head is al
l that is needed.
Are there good biblical arguments to be made
on both sides?
Filed under: Baptism | 7 Comments »
Immersion or Sprinkling ? Does it Matter?
Posted on April 24, 2008 by theoldadam
“Don’t Judge Others!”
Posted on April 23, 2008 by theoldadam
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this in response to the critiqing of some other churches on the way they handle the message of the gospel…
“You shouldn’t judge others! Who are you to say if they are 
Christians or not?”
Well, I want to make this pefectly clear to those of you that feel this way whenever I might be critical of the another church’s doctrine or church practices. I cannot possibly know (therefore I would not attempt to know) the eternal disposition of that person, or persons, with respect to God. Jesus said, “don’t judge” (another’s salvation), so we don’t judge…”lest we be judged.” I do not judge them.
I do, however, have a perfect right to criticize persons or churches that are mishandling the gospel and teaching things that are not in scripture with respect to Christianity. In fact, if I didn’t take the time to try and correct or point out their errors I would be part of the problem.
For example, there are certain churches (and loads of individuals) that believe that becoming a Christian (having faith in Jesus) is a choice. It is a decision that we make. Scripture tells us the opposite is true. So why why would we want to let them get away with teaching people the wrong doctrine without letting them know the truth?
Basic dishonesty is another problem that plagues many churches that claim to be “non-denominational”. They have no point of view? That’s ridiculous! Of course they do. In fact, their point of view is Baptist. Their theology is basically Southern Baptist and almost all of their churches started out as Baptist churches (if you trace back their origins). They became “non-denominational” as part of a marketing strategy to bring more people in. Is there anything wrong with that? Well, that is debatable, but my point is that they should at least be honest about it. They are ‘anti-traditional’ churches with a Baptist theology.
“Non-denominational” churches are a denomination. But they say they are not. Not only is it dishonest but it shows a real ignorance of the meaning of the word, ‘denomination’.
The mishandling of the gospel message itself is another area that deserves harsh criticism. To lead people on a path of performance with respect to their Christian lives just places them back under the law and relegates ‘the gospel’ to a meaningless, religious term. All over the place in this day and age people are being fed the law and are being told it’s the gospel. That is flat out wrong, and dangerous! If you think I am overstating the problem than read the book of Galatians. St. paul uses his strongest language to warn those that are engaged in such teachings and practice.
The mainline churches don’t get a pass here either.
What the mainline churches have done to the Church over the last few decades is enough to make a grown man cry. They have turned strong Christian churches with real traditions of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ and His forgiveness of sins into social clubs and do-gooder organizations where the name of Jesus Christ to an outside world is something to be ashamed of and kept quiet. The greater church body that my own congregation is a part of (the ELCA) is engaged in this stuff as well. It makes me sick.
The Roman and Eastern churches are also guilty to a large extent as well with their stubborness to see that it is Christ and His work alone for us that makes us worthy to enter the kingdom of God.
The message is in “earthen vessels”. We will make mistakes. I know I make more than my share of them. I am not a better Christian than anyone I criticize.
Let’s use our criticisims as an opportunity to examine scripture that we might all be better informed about, and grounded to the One who makes His Church and holds it together.
– Steve Martin
Filed under: Judgment vs. Criticism | 8 Comments »
Know any Searchers?
Posted on April 21, 2008 by theoldadam
Do you know anyone searching for meaning? It’s got to be out there..somewhere in the universe.
Do you know anyone that is trying to figure all this
stuff out?
Do you know anyone that is trying to find the true God?
Have them listen to this message… Searching?
If they don’t have time to hear the whole thing, have them at least listen to the last half. Their search may just end right then and there.
Filed under: Who is God? | Leave a comment »
Don’t be like this guy!
Posted on April 20, 2008 by theoldadam
My hope and prayer for all of you this 5th Sunday in Easter, is that you get Christ handed over to you, fully and freely. The crucified and risen Christ. The One who forgives real sinners… not those half-righteous, half-sinful type s
inners…but the full blown variety of mega sinner. The kind we know we are.
If you get something other than what you have a right to expect, (a full and lethal dose of the law and a full and complete absolution for Jesus’ sake) than grab your pastor, priest, or preacher, by the collar ( or for you So. Cal. non-denoms…by the puka beads) and ask, “what gives?” “Where was Jesus today?” “Did Jesus miss His connection in Cleveland, and Moses took His place today?”
Keep asking him, or her, those questions until they do hand Him over. And if they refuse to hand Him over you might think twice about staying there, unless of course you like poison. Anything else short of the gospel, is another gospel, and that’s poison….it’s just that simple.
Filed under: Law and Gospel | Leave a comment »
Falling in Love
Posted on April 18, 2008 by theoldadam
Have you ever fallen in love with someone, but they didn’t love you?
You tried everything possible to get that person to fall in love with you. Yo
u told funny jokes, you gave them gifts, you complimented them, you adorned yourself as much as possible. All to no avail. The love you were seeking from the other person was just not there.
Sometimes third parties try and get two people to fall in love. Those attemps often fail, and sometimes they succeed. But when it does happen, can the matchmaker take the credit for them falling in love, or rather should they take credit only for making it possible that they meet?
I have in mind those that try earnestly to make other people fall in love with the Living God.
There are some that call for us to have a real passion for Jesus. They say we ought realize how awesome and wonderful and gracious Jesus is, then we can fully have the love and passion for Jesus that He truly desires from us. Some folks rattle off long flowing lists of Heavenly adjectives describing God in such a way as to make any person with a hint of common sense realize that they too ought be feeling the same way about God. And if they don’t, well, then they ought try a little harder, pray a little harder, attend more bible studies, be with and emulate those that do. They maybe some of it will rub off on them.
This is a normal attempt by normal people to try and do what is right and good as far as God is concerned. They want to tap into all the benefits of a wonderful love affair with Jesus. They desire all the blessings and all the praise of a supreme God that ought be worshiped and glorified above all other things in their life. They really want to be all that God expects them to be.
The trouble is that we don’t want a love affair with God. Not only do we not want to fall in love with Jesus, we take just about every opprotunity we can to spit directly in His face. (every time we sin…no matter how insignificant you think it might be)
The scriptures make it quite clear where we stand with regard to wanting and loving and seeking God. We don’t.
St. Paul lays it out quite clearly in Romans 1:18 – 3:20 If you think I’ve got the wrong take on it then I’d advise you to go and read it again. And again. And again, if necessary, until that word of law does it’s job on you. That’s you and I he’s speaking about you know. When Paul says, “No one seeks for God”, well believe it or not , that includes little ol’ you.
So after getting a handle on our true condition and our true attitude concerning Jesus, we can then make an accurate assessment about our ability to whip up some kind of sticky-sweet emotional feeling for our Creator. Although, I must say, we can surely fake it when we don’t want to appear as we really are (to others that are probably faking it as well)
When He came for them 2,000 years ago…they didn’t want Him. When He comes for us today… we don’t want Him. That hurts, because I really want to believe that I do want Him. I want to believe that I was serious when I made that decision for Christ. I want to believe that somehow I’ve got something special within me that is really desirous of God. “If others can do it, then so can I !”
The trouble is others can’t do it. Only Christ can get this love affair going and then it’s pretty much a one-sided affair. His giving to us and loving us and forgiving us… and our taking from Him and rejecting Him and ignoring Him. (for the most part)
But Jesus knows this about us. Look at how He treated Peter. Look at how He treated the others. Look at how He treats you and me.
He loves us. In our broken, fallen, selfish, God hating condition…He loves us and forgives us…now ! Not when you’ve cleaned up your act. You don’t even know how to clean up your act.
And He gives us new life and forgives us… daily. He gives us His Spirit, and works repentance in us, and molds us into what He wants us to be. He gives of Himself in baptism and in His supper. Freely, with no strings attached. No expectation that we will have to add anything at all.
This is the supreme Glory of God as manifest in His Son Jesus and His Spirit. That He loved us so much that “He sent His only begotten Son to die for us, that whoever believes would have eternal life.”
Can we love Jesus at all from our side of the equation? Yes we can. But our love is tainted by sin, by self interest, by all of the distractions of a fallen creature. Our love is spotty and is not as it should be. We can and do love Him, but never on our own. “We love because He first loved us.”
So, if you can’t seem to really muster up all that much passion for Jesus, don’t worry about it so much. For “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And that includes you!
Filed under: Assurance, Motivation | 8 Comments »
The Law…
Posted on April 17, 2008 by theoldadam
“It’s not your worst that you do that should bother you…but rather your best.
For it is not good enough, either.”
– Pastor Mark Anderson
The theology of Glory takes God’s Law and works it.
It heats it and bends it, and softens it, then fashions a ring out of it , then places it in your nose so it can lead you here, and lead you there.
The theology of the Cross takes God’s Law as it is, a perfectly straight, sharp, iron rod…and drives it through your heart… in order to kill you off.
Which would you prefer? (neither sounds good)
Filed under: Theology of the Cross | 5 Comments »
Tired of Christ-less sermons?
Posted on April 16, 2008 by theoldadam
Tired of Jesus showing up dressed like Moses? Tired of having to ‘kick in’ something of yourself to make all this stuff work out ? Wouldn’t you like to just hear that “your sins are forgiven” once in awhile, and just leave it at that?
Me too.
Here’s a sermon with plenty of Christ. The Savior Christ, handed over freely…no charge to you…
click on “I came that they may have life “
Filed under: Sermons | Leave a comment »
‘Which Jesus?’
Posted on April 13, 2008 by theoldadam
In case you haven’t noticed lately, there seems to be quite the assortment of Jesuses offered up to us in the culture, in churches, and in our own minds.
There is Jesus the great teacher. Jesus teache
s us all about life, ourselves, and God. He fills in all the blanks so that there will be absolutely nothing keeping us from knowing all that we have to know in order to fulfill our humanity.
There is Jesus the great example. Jesus shows us (by example) exactly how we should act (WWJD), so we will always be in the will of God, pleasing Him, and serving others.
There is Jesus our master. Holding all power over us, commanding us to do tasks, to live a certain way, to give up our possesions, to withhold nothing, to serve and obey Him at all times and in all things.
There is Jesus the great comforter. Jesus soothes our aching souls, and calms us in times of trial. Jesus encourages us to hang in there and not to give up. He lets us know that He will always be with us, through thick and thin.
There is Jesus the judge. Jesus will sort everything out. He will make sure that there is real justice and punish the evil doers. The liars, the cheats, the fornicators, the drunkards, the murderers…they will all get their just deserts. On that last Day Jesus will kick some you know what.
All of these Jesuses are real. He was and is all of these things. We may want, or not want Jesus in some or all of these aspects of His being.
But there is one aspect of Jesus that for us should rise far above all the others and that should eclipse all the others in import, not only in our churches and in our hearts and minds, but also in the culture, insomuch as we have any say in the matter, and that is that Jesus came to save us from eternal death.
He didn’t come to be a teacher. He didn’t come to be an example. He didn’t come to bring the law to bear on us. He didn’t come to be our therapist. He came to be our Savior. He came to die…for us. That we might live someday with Him, in eternal glory. That’s why He came. To save us from sin, death and the devil. This version of Jesus, the Savior Jesus, is, in the end, the only one we must have.
‘ We preach Christ crucified” – St. Paul
– Steve M.
Filed under: Theology of the Cross | 2 Comments »
Prioritizing Scripture…
Posted on April 12, 2008 by theoldadam
When we read the Holy Scriptures, do we read them as though every single line has huge theological importance?
Do we assign the same level of value to each verse because they are all in the Bible, therefore they must all be weighed the same?
Isaiah 37:36 “And the angel of the Lord went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.”
Romans 10:4 “For Christ is the end of the law, that everyone who has faith may be justified.”
Should the two verses above be regarded equally as to their impact on the reader, or hearer?
I certainly don’t think so. And I have a feeling that you don’t either, even if there is some fundamentalist nerve inside you that becomes raw at the thought of viewing scripture in this manner.
I think the verse from Romans has a much greater value for us and I believe that we need to also think this way about the books of the Bible. Some are of greater import than others.
Luther thought that the most important books of the Bible were the Gospel of John, 1st Peter, and Paul’s letters, with Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, coming first.
Conversely, Luther didn’t think too highly of the Book of James. James didn’t focus so much on Christ and His work for us, but rather put a focus on us, and what we might be doing…therefore Luther called it “the epistle of straw”.
Does this make sense to you, or does something about what I’ve written here make you uneasy, and if so, why?
Filed under: The Bible | 2 Comments »
Why must we insist on doing it (wrong)?
Posted on April 11, 2008 by theoldadam
“Joe Blow and Mary Googlanivich got saved yesterday.”
No foolin’?
And just how did that happen?
“Well, the same way it always happens…they decided to.”
Hey that sounds pretty easy…why didn’t I think of that!?
Now, since they’ve done the deed, they can just tool along on their merry way. I’m sure there won’t be any dying going on from here on out. It’s a done deal.
“Not so. Now they’ve got a lot work to do. The spiritual project has just begun!”
Right.
It never ceases to amaze me how folks that elevate the Bible to the status of a paper pope, can totally ignore all the verses that say, without a doubt, that becoming a Christian has nothing to do…with you.
Filed under: Doing, The Sovereignty of God | 4 Comments »
The Old Adam Lives! 