I think its this mentality (at least in part) which feeds into the current multisite practice. The preaching pastor is the guy who shows up on screen each week. But we need someone to run the show, make things happen, and pray with someone who comes under conviction at the local church. So, we have the local administrative pastor. He gets up at the beginning of the service, sits down for the sermon, and joins the congregation for the praise time. He will get up again after the service, make a connection to the people and then send them on their way, perhaps with a benediction. So, you have the local administrative pastor who prays and meets with people (in the flesh) and then you have the preaching pastor (via satellite).

Now, I’m not such a curmudgeon that this rubs me the wrong way simply because its not how we’ve done it in the past. So, here are my questions about this approach: in Scripture, is there such a thing as a pastor who counsels but does not also preach? Is there such a thing as a pastor who teaches but does not also do administrative work? Is there such a thing as a pastor who sets the vision but does not also disciple Christians?

In response to these questions, I think that Titus provides an example of how not to fragment the office of pastor. What is Titus? Is he an administrative pastor, a preaching pastor, a visiting pastor, a youth pastor, or a counseling pastor?

Yes.

Paul placed Titus in charge of organizing the churches in Crete (v. 5). Titus was the man to do the administrative work of putting what remained in order. But he was also to teach and preach sound doctrine (2:1). Titus was also a pastor of youth and discipleship (2:6). He is also to rule the household of God well, counseling the sheep by exhorting and even rebuking them when necessary (2:15).

Is it possible for one pastor to do all those things? I venture to guess that Paul knew what he was saying when he charged Titus in this way. Though, to be sure, Titus was not alone in his work. He had others to help him. Like Moses, he would have had elders “in each town” to help him, and we can assume there were deacons as well if Paul’s letters to Timothy and Philippians are any indication. Dare we believe that these three offices alone are sufficient for the advancement of the church of Jesus Christ? But, I digress.

It is true that different ministers have different gifts and callings in the church. Not all ministers are pastors; some are evangelists and some are teachers (Ephesians 4:11). Paul was an evangelist, he went preaching from town to town, not even baptizing many of his converts (1 Corinthians 1:17). But Titus was pastor, or overseer, and as such he had to be the preacher, visionary, administrator, youth worker, and visitor of the sick. To put it bluntly, a man who preaches to his people but does not counsel/visit/disciple those same people is not a pastor in the biblical sense of the word.

When these tasks become fragmented, then things like multi-site churches become permissible. The ministry of the church has been divvied up and compartmentalized like a factory. You have one person doing quality control, another screwing in the bolts, someone else applying the labels, and so forth.

But, over against the multisite church (though not just the multisite church), the Bible seems to teach that the pastor is one man, with many tasks. God intended it that way. The individual tasks ought not to be abstracted from one another. When they are, there will be consequences. Titus not only preached to these people, but he also discipled them. After preaching to them on Sunday, he counseled them during the week. He ordained elders and deacons who were also trained and pastored by him.

I’ll close by giving an example. If I have someone in my congregation struggling with assurance, that will affect the way I preach my sermon on Sunday. If I counsel him on Tuesday, and he shares with me his doubts, on Sunday that will be in my mind as I stare in his eyes and proclaim to him the glorious and comforting truths of God’s gracious and enduring love in Jesus Christ. I can’t do that staring into a camera and being broadcasted on a screen. In fact, I would say that if we refuse to fracture the pastor by placing his various tasks in abstraction, then it would be impossible for us to engage in a multi-site model.

You see, I’ve always gone to bed early and gotten up relatively early. I’ve had few hobbies. I was neither a mountain climber nor a photographer, nor did I lead an intense social life. So if you spend your days in a certain eremetical way of life, then you don’t need to get up very early or work late at night, and if God gives you the opportunity, you can work calm and undisturbed, and very easily do the work that I did. This has not been so tragic.¹

1. Rahner, Karl. I Remember: An Autobiographical Interview with Meinold Krauss. New York: Crossroad, 1985, p. 61.

For Paul here in Eph. 5, Christ is clearly the analogue for the husband, and the church is clearly the analogue for the wife. Not only is this relationship analogous, the relationship of Christ and the church is to be seen as the example and model for how spouses are to relate to each other in their respective roles (v. 24-30). In v. 29-30, Paul argues that Christ nourishes and cherishes his church as a husband does for his wife, because we are members of Christ’s body. Paul then quotes Gen 2:24:

24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Verse 32 is where I want to focus:

32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

To which mystery is Paul referring? Whichever mystery it is, that mystery refers to Christ and the church, and Paul informs us of one of its qualitative attributes – “profound” or “great.” Now, Paul has just described what he means by “mystery” back in chapter 3:

3:1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

Paul has established what this mystery is; that is, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs with the Jews in the same body of believers (v. 6), and he has established how that will be revealed, which is through the church (v. 10), and this plan was established by God’s eternal purpose and now realized in Christ (v. 11).

I realize that’s a lot of fairly obvious points to establish before I get to my main point, but I think we’ll need that groundwork. My question is, Can we say that Adam and Eve’s marriage at the time they were united was analogous to Christ and the church?

Part of my reason for asking the question is because I have seen and heard some argue that because Paul quotes Gen. 2:24 in the context of Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve’s marriage was at the time of their union a picture of Christ and his church. I don’t think that’s a necessary conclusion, and I’m not sure if it’s an exegetically valid one.

Before the Fall, we do not have redemptive history, we have pre-redemptive history, because at that point in Eden there was nothing to redeem. Sin had not yet come into the world. So picture the implications if God was to tell Adam and Eve that their marriage union was analogous to the union of the coming Redeemer and his people. Imagine the host of questions that would come up – What needs to be redeemed? And redeemed from what? How and why would this be accomplished? If pre-redemptive marriage was analogous to Christ (Redeemer) and the church (the redeemed), it would seem that a host of complex problems would arise.

But we do know that in one sense Adam and Eve’s marriage union was in fact analogous to Christ and the church, because marriage itself as an institution is analogous to the relationship between Christ and his church. This sense, I believe, is from the perspective of “God’s eternal purpose” or his eternal decree. But this is not saying more than whatever happens in history happens because God eternally decreed it to be so, and this includes post-Fall marriage.

Taking a cue from Francis Turretin, we read

Would it have been necessary for the Son of God to become incarnate, even if man had not sinned?…As the Son of God became incarnate only on account of sin, so it would not have been necessary for him to become incarnate if man had not sinned. (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 2, p. 299)

The Reformed tradition wants to affirm that it was not necessary that Christ became incarnate; that the necessity of the incarnation was a consequent necessity based on the Fall. So if we uphold this truth, I would think that within human history at the time point of Adam and Eve’s marriage-union we would not want to say that their union was analogous to Christ and his church from the perspective of human history (but affirming that analogy from the perspective of the eternal decree, like all events in human history). We may need to say that Adam and Eve’s marriage union was analogous to God’s pre-redemptive relationship to his people (Adam and Eve), and the Fall adds a redemptive component to the relationship and its analogue.

Cornelius Van Til:

If we are to defend Christian theism as a unit it must be shown that its parts are really related to one another… The whole curriculum of an orthodox seminary is built upon the conception of Christian theism as a unit. The Bible is at the center not only of every course, but at the center of the curriculum as a whole. The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication. It tells us not only of the Christ and his work, but it also tells us who God is and where the universe about us has come from. It tells us about theism as well as about Christianity. It gives us a philosophy of history as well as history. Moreover, the information on these subjects is woven into an inextricable whole. It is only if you reject the Bible as the word of God that you can separate the so-called religious and moral instruction of the Bible from what it says, e.g., about the physical universe. This view of Scripture, therefore, involves the idea that there is nothing in this universe on which human beings can have full and true information unless they take the Bible into account. We do not mean, of course, that one must go to the Bible rather than to the laboratory if one wishes to study the anatomy of the snake. But if one goes only to the laboratory and not also to the Bible one will not have a full or even true interpretation of the snake. Apologetics must therefore take a definitely assigned place in the curriculum of an orthodox seminary. (Christian Apologetics, p. 19-20, my emphasis)

Richard Muller:

It is, thus, entirely anachronistic to view the sola Scriptura of Luther and his contemporaries as a declaration that all of theology ought to be constructed anew, without reference to the church’s tradition and interpretation, by the lonely exegete confronting the naked text. It is equally anachronistic to assume that Scripture functioned for the Reformers like a set of numbered facts or propositions suitable for use as ready-made solutions to any and all questions capable of arising in the course of human history. (Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2, p. 63)

I’m frequently baffled by the charge of “biblicism” that gets thrown about by evangelical and sometimes even Reformed thinkers. Anecdotally, that charge is typically thrown when a historical quote from within the Reformed tradition has been called upon to settle a dispute, the assumption behind it being that if one disagrees with the quote in question, one finds oneself outside the Reformed tradition on the matter. “Biblicism”, from the perspective of the accuser, is understood to contrast historically-informed thinking, but it is sometimes used when there is simply an appeal to Scripture within a theological discussion.

If Scripture is the norming norm and it does speak to everything either directly or by implication, it seems that this truth should shape how we discuss theology in practice. And if “me and my Bible” errs by ignoring our rich, deep tradition, is there a balance we can strike between historical quote-piling and proof-texting tunnel vision?

Two implications seem to arise from the beginning quotations:

1) Cultural engagement may not be quite as simple as lumping the entirety of secular topics like politics, history, philosophy, science, etc. into one kingdom to the exclusion of the other. If Van Til’s statement is as sweeping as it appears, and if “there is nothing in this universe on which human beings can have full and true information unless they take the Bible into account”, it appears as if segregating entire swaths of creation into the “secular” pile might be a bit simplistic. And in Van Til’s very next sentence, the implication he affirms is emphatically not an endorsement of “Biblicism” or excluding, for example, “the laboratory.” That would clearly set up a false dichotomy. But we also cannot err on the other side by banning Scripture from the laboratory based on an arbitrary hermetic seal between two “kingdoms.”

2) In understanding the truth of Scripture in practice and within theological discussion, it may be that a verse or passage settles a matter, but most theological discussions are quite complex, which is partially why there is discussion in the first place. The organic complexity of Scripture takes intense study (and I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you’re not keenly, perhaps painfully, aware of). But in practice, theological discussion may often be helped by Van Til and Muller’s recognition of the complexity of theology and its proper basis in the inerrant, organic, infinitely complex Word of God. To take an example, a theological truth such as “union with Christ” has dozens and dozens of passages that include the phrase “in Christ” in back of it. So where is the go-to Scriptural passage on union with Christ? The question is rigged with a false assumption and a broken exegetical methodology. Where is the summation verse on apologetics? Where is the verse on culture? Where is the verse on the Trinity? For many important topics, Scripture is not meant to be used as “a set of numbered facts or propositions suitable for use as ready-made solutions to any and all questions capable of arising in the course of human history.”

WCF I.6,10 is helpful here:

I.6 The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

I.10 The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.

The confession indicates that in back of the light of nature lies the general rules of the Word, and that they are not to be separated but can be distinguished. When are the general rules of the Word to be observed? Always. We don’t get a time-out on observing them, regardless of our profession or course of study.

And what has the final say in theological discourse and controversies? The Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture. If the church isn’t putting those principles into specific practice in its theological discourse, it probably isn’t keeping with its own ultimate authority, nor its own confession and tradition.

This morning, I decided to run a few simple numbers looking at the number of per capita visitors to reformedforum.org for each U.S. state. I’ve looked at the numbers by state before, but it’s hard to know if the figures simply reflect the respective populations of those areas. The adjusted data, however, yield some interesting results. Here are the per capita rankings since January 1, 2011:

1. Pennsylvania
2. Mississippi
3. Massachusetts
4. Rhode Island
5. South Carolina
6. California
7. North Carolina
8. Washington
9. Kentucky
10. Alabama
11. Virginia
12. Tennessee
13. Georgia
14. New Jersey
15. New Mexico
16. Nebraska
17. Michigan
18. Illinois
19. Missouri
20. Maryland
21. Indiana
22. Texas
23. Maine
24. Florida
25. Oklahoma
26. Oregon
27. Iowa
28. Ohio
29. Delaware
30. Colorado
31. Kansas
32. Minnesota
33. Alaska
34. Wisconsin
35. Arizona
36. South Dakota
37. Montana
38. Louisiana
39. New York
40. Idaho
41. New Hampshire
42. Vermont
43. Arkansas
44. Wyoming
45. North Dakota
46. Nevada
47. Hawaii
48. West Virginia
49. Connecticut
50. Utah

* The District of Columbia is the number one region in the U.S., but I gather much of the web traffic is generated by people that do not actually live in D.C. Hence, the figure is not representative.

1. Is it a biblical model?
2. Is it a covenantal model?
3. Is it a redemptive-historical model?
4. Is it an eschatological model?
5. Is it a Christo-centric model?

The full lecture focuses on the neglected topic of sonship and adoption and is well worth listening to here.

(Edit: Nick Batzig has helpfully pointed out a text version here of the audio lecture I’ve linked to. Thanks, Nick!)

Mr. Snyder submitted a biographical essay on the life and death of Samuel Rutherford. The end of the essay was especially moving as it recounted the final says and words of this man of God who on his death bed defied a king!

Congrats to Mr. Snyder!

One of the special features about this new edition is the introduction offered by Guy Richard. His insights and analysis of the preaching of the Scottish Commissioners are alone worth the price of the volume.

The volume has been beautifully type-set and bound by Chris Coldwell in a way that gives the appearance of enduring value and quality. The true lover of books will be drawn to pick it up even quite independent of its contents! But, to be sure, the contents add a value all their own for both historical and devotional purposes. Grab your copy today!

“The Gospel and Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics” by Lane G. Tipton in Confident of Better Things, eds. Muether and Olinger.

“For Our Sakes Also: Christ in the Old Testament in the New Testament” by Richard B. Gaffin, in The Hope Fulfilled.

And of course, many parts of Beale’s new volume, A New Testament Biblical Theology.

These should prove quite a nice tonic for all that nonsense that is out there wanting to advocate the idea that Christ is in the OT only retroactively in the mind of the community of faith.

“In case any Reformed confessionalists actually wondered, Justin Taylor has made it official that he is a credo-baptist and by implication that credo-baptism is the default position of the Gospel Co-Allies (despite the presence of Presbyterians in the Coalition). Have any of the Reformed Co-Allies actually raised a finger and applied it to a keyboard to protest?”

Whether the author knows it or not, he is making a couple of arguments. The first is something like

• By posting an interview that advocates for a credo-baptist view, Justin Taylor has “made it official” that he is a credo-baptist.

It’s not exactly clear how or why a blog post makes a view on baptism official or why it wasn’t “officially” his position prior to the blog post (despite a link directly under his name in every blog post to the church where Justin is an elder; you can find the church’s constitution here).

The second argument goes something like

• Because Justin Taylor is a credo-baptist, the default position of the Gospel Coalition (here referred to as “the Gospel Co-Allies”) is also credo-baptist.

Again, it’s not clear why it is the case that Justin’s position is the default position of TGC, especially in light of the blog author’s own recognition that there are Presbyterians (paedo-baptists) in the coalition. What, specifically, makes Justin’s view of baptism the default position for TGC, and why does it override the other differing views represented at TGC? Justin never makes this claim, nor does anyone else at TGC. There must be other factors or missing evidence we’re not aware of that would warrant such a claim, but we’re not told what they are. The position is just stated.

The third argument is a little hazy, but we can see what is at least implied.

• “Reformed Co-Allies” (the term here referring to confessional paedo-baptists who are part of TGC) are expected to write a post that protests Justin’s post/interview.

It isn’t exactly clear why a TGC blogger should write a protest post to Justin, the position is just assumed (or to be fair, asked in a pointed way). I’m not saying there wouldn’t be good reasons, but either way those specific, potentially articulated reasons are taken for granted.

Let’s take a look at a section from a second post:

“In my ongoing search for historical evidence to prove that union with Christ is crucial to Reformed Protestantism and distinguishes the Reformed tradition from Lutheranism, I did a word search in the Canons of Dort. Lo and behold, I discovered that the patriarchs of the Dutch Reformed tradition (from whence Gerheerdus Vos cometh) did not use the word “union” once (or at least their translators found no reason to use the term).

This is fairly remarkable since the Third and Fourth headings in Dort address specifically the nature of conversion, regeneration, and the role of faith. If union were going to be an important piece of Reformed orthodoxy in understanding the ordo salutis, Dort would be the place to find it since the Synod took place at a time when Reformed scholastics were beginning to engage in high level polemics. And yet, we can’t find Waldo in Dort.”

We see that the author has been searching for historical evidence for why the concept of union with Christ is crucial to the Reformed tradition and how it distinguishes that tradition from Lutheranism. The recent effort in that search for historical effort uses a specific strategy: a word search. The argument here reads like

• If union with Christ is crucial to the Reformed tradition, the Canons of Dort should include the word “union” along with other important words like conversion, regeneration, and faith.

(As an aside, the word “role” isn’t in the Canons of Dort, so you also won’t find any results if you do a word search for “role of faith”, which is mentioned by the author as something that Dort specifically addresses.) What a word search accomplishes in every case is, obviously, whether a word is found in a document. However, it does not determine whether a concept is found within a document. One of the most used examples to illustrate this is the concept of the Trinity in the Bible. If you do a word search for “Trinity” in the Bible, you come up with zero results, but the concept of the Trinity is foundational, integral, and crucial to Christian orthodoxy. To be clear, this example here isn’t meant to equate the value of Scripture to confessions, nor is it meant to equate the value of union with Christ to the Trinity, but it is meant to serve as an example of the word/concept distinction. In short, simply because the word “union” isn’t in the Canons of Dort doesn’t mean the concept isn’t there. Something of an argument is needed to show that both the word and the concept is absent in Dort, but the reader was only given the results of the word search with the implications of both a word search and a conceptual analysis.

Readers expect specific, careful arguments when discussing these issues. Doing so in a way that retains the style and voice of the author is, I believe, still very possible with a little effort. It matters whether we agree with an author’s conclusion, but it also matters whether we agree with how he or she came to the conclusions. Method and argument can be just as important as content. Those who have a voice in the church owe readers their expression of clear thinking, precise details, and cogent arguments.