Exegetical Insight for Matthew 18:18

I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Does Matthew 18:18 teach that Jesus promised to back up the decrees of the disciples and perhaps those of their successors? Not according to Craig Keener in the Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar (William D. Mounce). "The matter is not quite so simple; the actions described in heaven are future perfect passives-which could be translated 'will have already been bound in heaven...will have already been loosed in heaven.' In other words, the heavenly decree confirming the earthly one is based on a prior verdict."

The language being used here is similar to a Jewish law court where elders in the synogogues made decisons on legal issues. "Many Jewish people believed that the authority of Heaven stood behind the earthly judges when they decided cases based on a correct understanding of God's law. (This process came to be called 'binding and loosing')." By obeying God's law, the earthly court upheld what was decreed by the heavenly court (121).

This is the will of God being carried out through the church based off of what has already been done in heaven. It is a matter of the church recognizing the impenitent heart of an individual who has already been seperated from God and reflecting this in the fellowship of the church. When a person refuses to turn from their sin (even after loving confrontation), the church has the responsibility to make the reality of the sin before God clear to everyone.

What are the implications for the church's authority? Church authority must be looked at in terms of recognizing what God has already decreed and in the context of this passage, this must be done with great care! The passage does not assure us that our judgments will be infallible, but if we follow the process laid out (concerning witnesses and going to the person in private) in the will of God (see John 16 also), then the heavenly court will be reflected on earth perhaps even with supernatural action (Mtt 18:19-20 and 1 Cor 5:4-5,13) all of this was of course assuming a correct interpretation of the Scriptures (Colin Brown, Dictionary of NT Theo vol.3 p.781).

This understanding poses a challenge to those Protestant churches that deny the church has any authority. The passage is also often used by the RC and EO as part of a case for their own perspectives on church authority as well. The passage however may not be used in support of church infallibility.

Recently, I have been reading a book called Who's Tampering With The Trinity? An Assessment Of The Subordination Debate. Throughout the book, Millard Erickson seeks an answer to the question of whether Jesus is eternally subordinate to the Father and considers the relationship within the Trinity. He looks at these issues from Biblical, Historical, Philosophical, Theological and Practical angles.

After considering the gradational and equivalent views of authority within the Trinity from a historical perspective, Erickson says: "There are no hard conclusions to be drawn from this historical survey, for neither position finds unequivocal support for its position. However, if one believes that the church made progress in its ongoing reflection on this matter, then it would seem that the view of equal authority has an advantage over that of gradational authority. While one might say that it is a choice of whether one follows the Eastern or the Western tradition, it is worth noting that in recent years the differences between the two traditions have become less" (167).

In support, Erickson cited the "Agreed Statement on the Holy Trinity" from the Orthodox and Reformed dialogue from Kappel-am-Albis, Switzerland on March 1992.
http://warc.jalb.de/warcajsp/news_file/15.pdf

Do any of you think this particular gap has actually become less?

Did The Early Church Fathers Know The Gospel? (Also: Patristics For Busy Pastors)

Dr. Ligon Duncan, one of the growing number of Protestant scholars who is actually familiar with the writings of the Early Church Fathers, did a wonderful interview for Sovereign Grace Ministries titled "Patristics for Busy Pastors." This is a great introduction for those unfamiliar with the Fathers, especially those who don't have time to take seminary courses or attempt to wade through the massive body of Patristic literature on their own. If you're already familiar with the Fathers, this is still an interesting interview and well worth your time. And if you're like me, a Protestant who laments modern Protestant ignorance of the Fathers (this was not the case in the 16th century!), then you should be cheering that Dr. Duncan and others like him are attempting to cure that ignorance!

Now, on to the provocative title of this blog post! It is the title of Dr. Duncan's message from last week's Together For The Gospel Conference. The Video is below.

But, let's face it, the real reason for this blog post was an excuse to share this picture of Dr. Duncan's head on a Church Father's body (courtesy of Sovereign Grace's website).

T4G 2010 -- Session 7 -- Ligon Duncan from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

Victoria's Secret and Liturgy?

In his book Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, James Smith argues that people are not primarily cognitive or believing beings. Instead, Smith goes a more Augustinian route, claiming we are at our core desiring, loving and liturgical creatures. Our problem isn’t so much ignorance, skepticism or improper belief (though this might be part of the problem) as it is the misdirection of our desires.

In a chapter entitled Why Victoria’s In on the Secret, Smith claims that Victoria Secret gets right what many in the church miss. Its marketing “quite intentionally combines passion with transcendence, combines sex with religion…marketing taps into our erotic religious nature and seeks to shape us in such a way that this passion and desire is directed to strange gods, alternative worship, and another kingdom. And it does so by triggering and tapping into our erotic core—the heart.” Advertising sells an ideal and taps into the core of what we are and directs us away from God. Smith’s point is that often many in the church take a different and inferior approach. “…The church responds to the overwhelming cultural activation and formation of desire by trying to fill our head with ideas and beliefs” (76).

Smith suggests that the church try and redirect passion and desire rather than try to overcome it with ideas and beliefs. While Victoria’s Secret is “grabbing hold of our gut (kardia) by means of our body and senses—in stories and images, sights and sound, and commercial versions of “smells and bells”—the [Protestant] church’s response is oddly rationalistic” (126-127).

Personally, I found this book on the whole to be very insightful. I thought I would take a piece of it out for discussion given the implications on the emphases our churches place on different ideas and practices. I tend to agree that Protestant churches do tend to place too much emphasis on ideas and beliefs (though I think these need to be a good part of the picture). Still, I wondered about the Eastern Orthodox (among others) church’s multi-sensory approach to liturgy and how this might be something we can all learn from even if we do not accept what they do with some of it. Thoughts?

Revenge of the Mega Church (1)

I would have never believed, in the early days of February 2010 that there could be churches observing us, “the way a man with a microscope might scrutinize the creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.”They waited, eager to give consumers— just what we wanted.

It has long been an interest of mine to experience different Christian denominations, church services and liturgies. I pay close attention to the various teachings, styles of music, sacraments, how people within the church interact and even how outsiders are treated. Recently, I have transferred to a new graduate school and am now in pursuit of a church to attend. I guess you could say I’m a church shopper.

Lately, I haven’t been able to escape the memory of one church in particular. The atmosphere was pleasant, warm, friendly, and upbeat that Sunday morning. Entering through the doors of the church, I was greeted by mortals wearing business casual attire who went out of their way to get me connected with information and welcome bags. As a new person in the area, I felt welcome and sure of getting plugged in if I desired. Life was good.

Church took an odd turn once I entered the main area. Hearing the band play “Sweet Home Alabama” on a Sunday morning does that. It was like stepping into the church version of the Twilight Zone. The place reminded me of a movie theatre; there were electric guitars up front and a concentration of lighting, Persian rugs and great colored lights.

The music was moving and there was a big emphasis on personal reflection that was half spoken and half sung throughout the songs. Looking around, the people seemed very dedicated— closing their eyes and making every verse sung their personal prayer. Each person seemed to be lost in their own little world. The songs seemed very individually centered and after a while I wondered if it was just all about getting lost in the experience.

Finally, a giant screen descended from above and the pastor greeted us from the mother church. Shortly after, a family psychologist was welcomed on screen. This dragged on for a while. Initially confused, I looked at the bulletin handed out in the beginning and found it was just an announcement page. Looking at my watch several times, and not without a smidgen of guilt, I secretly hoped they would get on with the interview and into the sermon.

After a while, I settled down as I realized that this was the sermon. My disbelief turned into despair. What about that God guy we all vaguely know? He didn’t seem all that relevant to the discussion. How about His book that’s supposed to be “living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, [that] penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; [that] judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”? There were maybe one or two loose and fleeting parallels used as supplements to learning how to overcome dysfunctional family patterns when raising kids.

Futility, then boredom set in and curious, I decided to take a look around….

Holy God, We Praise Thy Name

Ho-ly God, we praise Thy Name;
Lord of all, we bow be-fore Thee!
All on earth Thy scep-ter claim,
All in heav-en a-bove a-dore Thee;
In-fin-ite Thy vast do-main,
Ev-er-last-ing is Thy reign.

Hark! the loud ce-les-tial hymn
An-gel choirs a-bove are rais-ing,
Cher-u-bim and ser-a-phim,
In un-ceas-ing chor-us prais-ing;
Fill the heav-ens with sweet ac-cord:
Ho-ly, ho-ly, ho-ly, Lord.

Lo! the a-pos-tol-ic train
Join the sa-cred Name to hal-low;
Pro-phets swell the loud re-frain,
And the white-robed mar-tyrs fol-low;
And from morn to set of sun,
Through the Church the song goes on.

Ho-ly Fa-ther, Ho-ly Son,
Ho-ly Spir-it, Three we name Thee;
While in es-sence on-ly One,
Un-di-vid-ed God we claim Thee;
And a-dor-ing bend the knee,
While we own the mys-ter-y.

--The Covenant Hymnal: A Worship #19

Justice and Worship: The Tragedy of Liturgy in Protestantism

"And now at last I come to 'the tradedy of the liturgy in Protestantism' of which the title of this chapter speaks. I submit that there is a tragedy of liturgy in Protestantism, especially, though by no means exclusively, within the Reformed/Presberterian tradition. The tragedy consists in there being so little within this tradition of the very thing that we have been discussing: worship. The tragedy consists in the fact that within this tradition there is a suppression of the central Christian actions of celebrating in memorial...

The Christian liturgy is an interchange between actions of proclamation and actions of worship...

The Roman and Orthodox traditions have historically found it difficult to give due weight to the dimmension of God addressing us in judgment and grace- in short, to proclamation. The Protestant tradition has historically found it difficult to give due weight to the dimension of us addressing God in love and devotion- in short, to worship...Yet liturgies do differ profoundly in their emphases, and the tragedy of the liturgy in Protestantism- and particularly in the Reformed tradition- is that the worship dimension is suppressed, sometimes radically so. The liturgy is no longer 'eucharistic,' and a fundamental dimension of the life of the church and of the existence of the Christian is thereby stunted."

--Until Justice and Peace Embrace: The Kuyper Lectures for 1981 delivered at The Free University of Amsterdam, Nicholas Wolterstorff, ch VII p157-158.


Thoughts?