BREAD & WINE
JUNE 2006
BREAD & WINE
BREAD & WINE is a monthly publication by Bethel Community Church of
Sarasota, Florida, USA.
Address: 5632 Gantt Road
Sarasota, FL 34232
Tel: 941 922 6007
Email: bw@bethelcomchurch.org
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Address all correspondence to the Editor, Bread & Wine, 5632 Gantt Road,
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Copyright © 2006 by Bethel Community Church.
Editor: Russ Atmore
Associate Editor - Web: Jim White
Editorial Assistant: Kaitlin Atmore
The Editor welcomes any submitted articles for publication subject to
editorial approval.
Additional Resources:
Website: http://bethelcomchurch.org
Pastoral Blog: http://bethelcomchurch.org/blog/
Cover Picture: Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle in London today
June 2006 ● Vol. 1. No. 4
EDITORIAL – Russ Atmore
Church Butterflies…….………………….……….… 4
THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Emerging from the Cocoon……………………….. 6
CHURCH IMPACT
The Sadness of Decline………………….……........ 8
BIOGRAPHY
Martyn Lloyd- Jones……………………………….. 12
CHRISTIAN GROWTH
Which Evangelicalism?.................………………. 16
BIBLE COMMENTARY
The Temptation Of Jesus in Mark 1:12,13…..... 19
FAMILY CORNER
Bible Quiz ..……………………………………........ 22
EDITORIAL
By Russ Atmore
Church Butterflies
Church butterflies are not that species of Christians who move from
church to church for a variety of reasons. Butterflies come from
caterpillars in that creative brilliance designed by God. We call this
metamorphosis, which is defined as a changed form, a change of form, a
change of character (like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), or a transformation
between an immature form and an adult form. The immature form is often
viewed as incomplete or ugly while the mature form is both complete and
beautiful. Caterpillars generally repulse, but butterflies amaze us with
their spectacular beauty. We recognize the transformation and whenever
we see a cocoon we know that it represents the transforming process.
The Christian Church is supposedly undergoing or should be undergoing
(according to some) this transformation process. It all depends on what
is meant by transformation. In this issue of Bread & Wine, we try to
understand what is being referred to as the ‘emerging church’ or
‘emergent church’. The bottom-line argument by those who advocate the
emerging church as viable and authentic is that it is about change
simply because our modern or post-modern culture is changing or has
changed. In other words, we must change or else we die. Is this new
approach biblical?
If we recognize that the Gospel does not change or the Bible does not
change, then what is it that we are being called upon to change? Every
Christian would acknowledge that on a personal level, we always want to
change and we are in the process of being changed by God. If there is
any desire for a change it surely must be for something better. Does the
emerging church movement offer something better? All new movements (good
and bad) claim that their new way is better or biblical. All such claims
must be measured against Scripture.
We trace also the path of evangelicalism from its earlier position to
its current malaise probing the demise of heritage. In addition, we look
at the impact of decline in the Christian Church asking for a call back
to the Word of God as our standard. This ties in with our brief
introduction into the ‘emerging church’.
There is an introduction to the life of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the
great Welsh preacher, his impact on the Christian Church and his life of
faithfulness to God. As usual we examine briefly Mark’s Gospel and the
portion dealing with our Lord’s temptation. And for the fainthearted
after wading through all this heavy stuff, our ‘Family Corner’ section
offers deep insights as you unravel its intricate and hidden words.
Soli Deo Gloria
“Earnest Christians are not so much afraid of trials as of
temptations. The great horror of a Christian is sin.”
C. H. Spurgeon
THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Emerging from the Cocoon
At the center of the ‘emerging’ church movement is the conviction that
because our culture is changing, therefore this signals the emerging of
a new church. If you fail to take note of this and join the ride you
must be blind to our culture. What this means, is that we have failed to
take into account the changes in our culture and because we have failed
in this, we therefore have not adapted the Gospel to the changed or
changing conditions. There is a ring of truth to this, and any movement
which throws light on our deficiencies is to be welcomed.
What is the emerging church all about? Is it biblical or not? How can we
identify it? These questions we will have to face, but this article will
only introduce and draw attention to some of the issues at large. The
movement is characterized by those who have come from traditional,
conservative churches, but also by those who have a Roman Catholic,
Feminist and other backgrounds. This amalgamation of different
individuals is generally arrived at by way of protest. They are
protesting against something. In fact, all movements generally have this
characteristic. They are unhappy with the typical church and want
change. As I have said, this is not something that at first glance we
discard. Every Christian wants to improve and every church no doubt
wants the same. It’s just whether the direction is right and whether the
improvement is really that.
One of the immediate things that strikes a person about the emerging
church phenomenon is the lack of formal structure. Brian McLaren is the
leading proponent and most prolific writer on the emerging church, and
according to Phil Johnson, who is John MacArthur’s Communications
Director and an Elder at Grace Community Church, he (McLaren) has said
that he even thinks that the word church really doesn’t fit the movement
very well.
The lack of formal structure to the movement indicates a resistance to
boundaries by which the movement can be described or evaluated.
Evaluation of the movement is difficult. It is hard to pin down a
structure to examine because there are many different kinds of practices
that occur within the movement. I should point out though that you will
find among the leadership (identified by those who write and contribute)
a form of structure. There are such things as “cohorts’ (I always
thought a cohort was Roman military unit) in the ‘emergent village’.
Dan Kimball, who is a proponent of the emerging church sees traditional
preaching serving up the sermon as the central feature of the service .
The sermon gives an explanation of what truth is. In the emerging
(postmodern – is also used to describe the emerging church) church, the
sermon is only a part of the worship experience, and the preacher is
seen as a motivator of others, pointing them to seek for themselves the
application of truth. The emerging church is all about relationships and
community life. It involves such things as journaling, candles, praying,
tithing and meditation. There may be the conspicuous absence of Bibles
and hymnals.
Post-modern terminology focuses on values such as diversity, relativism,
inclusiveness, tolerance, pragmatism and discounts terms like,
authority, absolutism, assurance, and dogmatism. Emergents prefer
‘narrative theology’ to ‘systematic theology’ – the story is more
important than the theology. The story, however, is always dependent on
the didactic. Charles Colson has recently written an article in
“Christianity Today” magazine called “Emerging Confusion” , where he
points out that the real issue ultimately is the question of “what is
truth?” Pilate asked the same question. No Christian should ask “what is
truth?” We know ‘The Truth’. We are also to know truth and truths. The
Scripture is truth, therefore Scripture is very important.
It is this issue that we must come back to. The Bible is the Christian’s
authority, because it is authoritative. It is authoritative because God
inspired it. If we cannot fall back on Scripture as our final arbiter
then we are awash at sea. The emerging church movement is in this camp.
We can never and must never exchange the truth for our experience. Our
experience(s) must be grounded in the truth.
D.A Carson has put it this way in the final showdown regarding the
truth. Our confidence in the truth is stabilized by constant review, our
confidence in the truth is established on historical witness, and our
confidence in the truth is grounded in biblical revelation.
All new movements tend to be reactionary. That does not mean they are
wrong. The only means we have is to measure all practice by Scripture.
If we ignore what the Bible either directs or prohibits we do so to our
peril. In some ways the life of the emerging church reminds me of the
‘commune’ type life that so many sought n the 60’s. Where is that today?
Most communal activities are fraught with danger and eventually theses
types of ‘villages’ disintegrate inwardly as they tend to sectarianism
and cultic practice. I fear this for the emerging church movement.
CHURCH IMPACT
The Sadness of Decline
One of the saddest statements that can ever be made is to declare that
the Church of Christ is on the decline. From the divine perspective we
believe that God supremely reigns, and that God’s program for the church
is working out perfectly. It is not God’s side that we are concerned
about, but rather it is man’s perspective. There can be no doubt that
the Christian church is weak. A simple, yet accurate answer is that our
view of God has lessened and our view of man has increased.
A lesser view of God makes for lesser Christians. It produces a weakness
in us because we focus no longer on God, but rather on ourselves. This
attention to ourselves is expressed in psychological terms – we have
turned inwards and have projected outwards our problems. We blame others
for our problems, and refuse to accept responsibility for our own
actions. This is the old problem. Adam and Eve chose the same action in
Eden. Weakness is also vastly apparent in theological terms. Christians
have become more and more ignorant of their Bibles, and this
automatically results in ignorance of God or it clouds our view of who
God truly is.
The power of the church is in the person and work of Christ. A departure
from the biblical truth of Christ results in heresy, error and schism.
It was apparent in the first century time after time as the Apostles
dealt with the problems presented to the church. The New Testament is
evidence of this. Church history is amply supplied with examples of the
same. The practice of the church is dependent on her view of the Bible,
and more specifically her view of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is
also apparent that the old adage is still true, “history repeats
itself,” yet we fail to learn from history. Why is this? Surely when we
read our Bibles we recognize that we read history, and more precisely, a
living history controlled by God.
We believe that both the Old Testament and New Testament is the inspired
Word of God, and in that Word, God has revealed Himself to us. He has
revealed Himself in the Person of Christ. Very God became very man.
Deity and humanity, perfectly in one person. Truly God and truly man. We
believe that salvation is by grace through faith alone, and that both
the grace of God and faith are the gifts of God. We cannot believe the
gospel apart from faith, yet this faith is given us by God, and further
it is described as our faith. We are responsible to believe, and God
holds us accountable to believe, yet at the same time we are unable to
believe unless God enables us. Thus we arrive at the sovereignty of God
in saving people. Yet, today the church is being told increasingly that
the power to believe rests solely with the individual. If you want to
resist God or accept God well, that’s entirely your choice. But the
biblical evidence is completely on the other side. No man can resist the
will of God. I heard a preacher say onetime, “we’re gonna take the
handcuffs off God”. How foolish. God is not shackled. A handcuffed God
is an impotent God held at bay by a devil who must now be supreme, and
by men and women who also must be supreme. What folly is this!
Is it any wonder then that the church is in tatters? How we grieve God
when we assert the right to do as we please and then affront God by
saying that it’s His will. As Christians we must return to the
fundamentals. We must take our faith seriously and most important we
must take God seriously. We need to ask God to pour out His Spirit on us
in revival, not revival in the modern sense of the word, but genuine
biblical revival where the people of God are moved to silence at the
glory of God, and worship is pervaded by solemnity and reverence.
There is great hope for the people of God. We have God on our side, we
have our Lord Jesus on our side, we have the Spirit of
God on our side, and we have the precious Word of God. With God we need
nothing else. He alone satisfies us – He must satisfy us. Discouragement
will dry us up and make us like a brittle twig – it can snap at
anything. Let us seek God in His Word, and then He might be pleased to
visit us. Let us return to the truth of the Bible. Let us believe God,
and let us live our lives for the glory of God. Only then can we expect
God to do great things for us.
“They that side
with the saints shall thrive with the saints.”
John Trapp (Puritan)
BIOGRAPHY
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899 – 1981)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones was described by Wilbur M. Smith as the “greatest
Bible expositor in the English speaking world.” These words must still
be considered true as there simply is no preacher in our present age to
match the expository skills of Dr. Lloyd-Jones. This is not to say that
there are not good and great preachers around – there are, but Martyn
Lloyd-Jones was God’s gift to the 20th century. In the same way, Charles
Spurgeon was God’s gift to the 19th century and George Whitefield was to
the 18th century.
Mrs. Lloyd-Jones stated that no one would ever understand her husband
until they realize that he was first of all, a man of prayer and then an
evangelist. It is this characteristic that can be applied to Spurgeon
and Whitefield. They were evangelists and men of prayer. It seems to me,
that this is what is greatly missing today in our pulpits. We need
preachers who are able to melt together the sweetness of the Gospel with
the didactic application of it. This was what set Lloyd-Jones apart from
his contemporaries. It was not his native Welsh eloquence. He refused to
employ the use of the Welsh hywl which many have confused
with unction and eloquence. Lloyd-Jones did not believe in gimmicks in
the pulpit.
His whole approach was one of entering into the awesome holy presence of
God. His comment about there being nothing more terrible for a preacher
than to be alone in the pulpit without the smile of God upon him
indicates his high view of the pulpit and preaching.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones was trained as a physician at St. Bartholemew’s Hospital
in London, and became chief clinical assistant at age 23 to the famous
Sir Thomas Horder, the physician to the King of England. At the age of
27 he believed himself called to a struggling Calvinistic Methodist
Mission Church in Aberavon, Wales. His change of career was viewed by
some as romantic, by others as folly. He states, when confronted with
what he gave up to become a preacher, “I gave up nothing. I received
everything. I count it the highest honor God can confer on any man to
call him to be a herald of the gospel.”
Dr. Lloyd-Jones received no theological training. In this he was similar
to Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon, of course, was reading the Puritans at a
very young age, and came from a line of preachers. His father and
grandfather were both preachers. Carl Henry recalls in his interview
with Dr. Lloyd-Jones, how when he asked him whether his father was a
Christian, that there was a long period of silence broken by Lloyd-Jones
weeping and saying that his father had probably never heard the Gospel,
but that he was the greatest man that he had ever known. There is great
privilege associated with the Christian family which we should never
despise, but should thank God for His rich mercy.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones was born on December 20, 1899 in Cardiff, Wales, but the
family moved in 1906 to Llangeitho, Cardiganshire. He grew up speaking
both Welsh and English and was able to preach equally in both languages.
Three sons made up the Lloyd-Jones family, these being Harold, Martyn
and Vincent. In 1918, Harold succumbed to the great flu epidemic and
died at age 20. Martyn, himself suffered from the epidemic also. Dr.
Lloyd-Jones’ mother, to whom he was very close, considered Harold the
most eloquent of her sons. It was during his time at Bart’s (St.
Bartholemew’s that Dr. Lloyd-Jones came under conviction and was brought
to see everything from a new perspective. He stated it this way, “for
many years I thought I was a Christian when in fact I was not. It was
only later that I came to see that I had never been a Christian and
became one. I was a member of a church and attended my church and its
services regularly.”
He became conscious of his sin, of his moral emptiness and spiritual
shallowness. He saw his outward life as little more than play-acting,
the real truth being that he had been seeking to escape from God. This
knowledge did not happen overnight, but took place progressively.
From 1927 (the time of his marriage to Bethan Phillips, also a medical
doctor) to 1938, Dr. Lloyd-Jones ministered in Aberavon, Wales having
given up his medical practice and career. Dr. Lloyd-Jones would preach a
sermon on Sunday morning from a teaching perspective, and in the evening
would preach more evangelistically. He continued this method all his
life. His preaching focused on the issues of man’s sinfulness and God’s
grace, on man’s complete inability to do anything for God as meritorious
and of God’s Sovereign intervention into people’s lives. His preaching
began to see fruit and many people came to know the Lord.
In 1932 Dr. Lloyd-Jones came to North America for the first time. He
preached for nine weeks in Toronto in the United Presbyterian Church.
From the time of his return to Wales, Dr. Lloyd-Jones was to find
himself invited to England to preach. He began to be involved in the
I.V. F. (Inter-Varsity Fellowship). One of his listeners was the famous
English preacher, Dr. Campbell Morgan of Westminster Chapel in London,
and after hearing Lloyd-Jones preach invited him to come and preach at
Westminster. Little did Dr. Lloyd-Jones realize, but this was to be the
place where he labored for the next 30 years until he retired in 1968.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones is recognized as the man who truly made systematic Bible
exposition what it has become today. His influence on Christians was and
is immense. He was largely responsible for a recovery of Calvinistic
doctrine to English and world pulpits, the same doctrine that Spurgeon
and Whitefield had so eloquently preached.
From the time of his retirement until his death in 1981, Dr. Lloyd-Jones
engaged in preaching and writing. His books are his sermons in print and
are worth their weight in gold. Time and space do not permit me to give
a more fuller treatment of his life, but if you can, then read anything
by Dr. Lloyd-Jones, and you will feel that you have been invited into
the hallowed presence of God. He truly was God’s man for his time, and
his influence continues to the present day.
“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to
dying men.”
Richard Baxter (Puritan)
CHRISTIAN GROWTH
Which Evangelicalism?
The vast majority of evangelicals today are largely ignorant of their
history. The current evangelicalism promoted by evangelical churches is
not the evangelicalism of the past. Mr. Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones
in recent centuries (19th & 20th respectively) were representatives of
the old evangelicalism.
There are others around the world who enthusiastically preach the old
evangelicalism. What is the old evangelicalism and what is the new? In
this case “new” does not mean better. Today we press people for
“decisions” for Christ, and as Mr. Spurgeon remarked, “don’t confuse
“decisions” with “conversions”. One of the characteristics of the old
vs. the new is in the use of terminology. Modern preachers proclaim,
“open your heart to Jesus”; “ask Jesus to come into your heart”; let
Jesus come into your heart – he’s standing at the door knocking.” These
are just a few of the standard comments heard from pulpits today. This
is the new. The old evangelicalism used biblical phrases. Terms like
“believe”; “repent”; “confess”. The new terminology portrays a weak
Jesus, a pleading Jesus, a Christ who will change your life if you will
let Him. The old way says you cannot change your life apart from the
direct intervention of God through salvation. Christ Jesus is Lord and
Savior.
There is also a difference in methodology. The new way says, “come down
to the front and say this prayer and you will be saved”; “put your hand
up”; “make a decision today”; “stand up and be counted”. The old way did
not ask for any decision to be made apart from repentance and that to be
done in God’s way and in His time. Revival used to be an outpouring of
the Holy Spirit sovereignly given, but now we say, “let’s have a
revival”. The new way counts conversions and numbers decisions. The old
way did not count conversions, but left the determining of such to God
(remember – “by their fruits you will know them”).
One of the great dangers with the new evangelicalism is that salvation
is made out to be very easy. Jesus still asks his disciples to pick up
their cross and walk the way of death, and that certainly is not easy.
It is easy to believe that one is converted if the method is easy and if
you just have to follow some preacher’s words and walk down the aisle
and thus eternity is sealed as yours forever.
We live outside of a culture of persecution and suffering, yet these
were the issues that defined a Christian in the first century.
Persecuted believers today follow directly in the footsteps of Jesus,
the Apostles and the early church. It is true that by God’s grace we
enjoy no persecution and in one sense we should be grateful to God, but
we should not lose our attachment to the things of Christ because life
is comfortable and easy. It is therefore far more difficult to portray
authentic Christianity in a prosperous environment, but that is what we
must do.
Can we honestly say that we are striving with all our might, our
abilities, our talents, and our possessions to live the Christian life
the way God expects us to? I think if we are honest we must confess that
our lives are far short of God’s desired standard. How can we repair the
situation? We must endeavor to live with God. This will mean hard work.
It will involve being uncomfortable. It will require daily conscious
dependence on the Lord to get to where God wants us to be. You probably
will have to sacrifice in the area of time and give it to God. The
Bible, prayer, church will have to become important. Belonging to a
church in the first century was good way of determining the real
Christian from the spurious, especially when some persecution or
difficulty came along.
We need to think in terms of the old evangelicalism. God is God. He does
as He pleases for His glory. In doing this He does what is best for us,
though that would be a great shock for many of us if God told us all He
was going to do in our individual lives. That’s why you don’t know
everything, and if you did you would be terrified at the prospect. Each
day has enough evil of it’s own. Most of us are worrying about ourselves
more than about the Lord, His righteousness and His kingdom. Let us
start believing the God of the Bible and not a god of our own making and
device.
.
BIBLE COMMENTARY
Scripture
Mark 1:12, 13
Key Verse
"The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” -- Mark 1:12
Theme
Prepared for Ministry - The Temptation of Jesus
Exposition
Mark begins this section on the Temptation of our Lord with the striking
statement, “the Spirit immediately…”, and so our attention is drawn to
the fact that the Holy Spirit is behind the temptation of our Lord. The
Holy Spirit has already been mentioned in verse 8 in regard to a future
outpouring of the Spirit when Jesus would send the Holy Spirit. This is
referred to as the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. At Jesus’ baptism by John
the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him “like a dove” in verse
10, giving approval and authentication to the ministry of Jesus.
The submission of our Lord to his baptism indicates his assumption and
willingness to undertake the work, the Father has planned for Him. The
word ‘immediately” (a word, which Mark employs at least 40 times: Mark
also uses the words ‘at once” similarly) stresses that there was no time
for basking in the glow of the glory of His baptism, but our Lord was
driven by the Holy Spirit into the hardship of temptation and
affliction.
More complete accounts of Jesus’ temptation are found in Matthew 4:1-11
and Luke 4:1-13. What is significant about Mark’s account is that Mark
speaks of the compelling urgency with which the Holy Spirit drove Jesus
into the wilderness. This ‘driving’ should be seen rather, as a
compelling urge on the part of Jesus to go into the wilderness rather
than be seen as an external force exerting pressure on an unyielding
subject. Demons are driven out in this usage of the term (Mark 1:34, 39,
43). Mark also adds the fact that Jesus was with the wild animals or
beasts in the wilderness. It was therefore a place of hardship and
danger, but we are comforted by the fact and no doubt our Lord was also
that the angels of God ministered to him. In the midst of danger, the
angelic beings serve the Savior. It is also important to remember that
Jesus fasted for forty days during his time in the wilderness. We are
reminded of the experiences of Moses and Elijah in this respect (Exodus
34:2, 28; Deut. 9:9, 18; 1 Kings 19:8). The combination of extreme
hunger and danger demonstrates that temptation comes when we are
weakest, and it is this that must encourage us, for Jesus withstood the
evil one when he was physically weak. Physical weakness has a way of
overshadowing our spiritual reserves. Hebrews 4:15 points out to us that
Jesus is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because he was tempted
in every respect as we are, yet without sin (i.e.; without falling into
sin). Matthew make it clear that at the end of the forty days, the devil
came to Jesus to tempt Him (Matt. 4:2, 3). This is probably how the
forty day period should be viewed. Jesus fasted for forty days and at
the end of that period the devil came to Him to tempt Him.
Application
What immediately springs to mind is the fact that there is the complete
absence of human aid or help. In the background there is the
providential support and care of the Father seen through the service of
the angels. We see Jesus in the power of the Spirit encountering Satan
and resisting him. Jesus is majestic in His suffering, and for each of
us, because of what He has endured we too can face our temptations in
the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the One who succors us. Satan comes
when we are least expecting him, when we are spiritually low, when
physical and material things loom large and seem absolutely necessary to
us and our survival. Such is the time when the devil comes. We need to
recognize that the providential support of our Heavenly Father is
available to us.
Jesus will go forth from His victory over the devil here directly into
His ministry in the power of the Spirit. We can accomplish great things
for God when we go fresh from victory. Our victory may come at great and
significant cost (forty days of fasting and danger form wild animals),
but the end will be with the presence of God attending us.
“Seek Him! Seek Him! What can we do without Him”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
FAMILY CORNER
BIBLE QUIZ
Locate these books of the Bible
Genesis Ruth
Ezra Esther
Ecclesiastes Lamentations
Daniel Jonah
Haggai Malachi
Mark Acts
Philippians Colossians
James
Prepared By Kaitlin Atmore
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