Category: Theological Thoughts

Dear brother,

It is crucial to grasp that knowing good theology does not necessarily lead to godly living. I have met many men whose words were Reformational and biblical while at the same time hurtful and harsh toward wife and children.

Good theology helps create helpful categories to view the world rightly, but at times it can create unhelpful justifications to view people wrongly. The more you know the more equipped you are to use that data for good or ill. I urge good theologizing, good biblicizing, and good catechetical training. But the way forward is to produce churches with theological men who will help create environments of repentance.

If a child or wife has never heard a man repent at home, surely this man will be the kind that will bring curses to a church or will add little to no benefit to the life of the community. We need theological discourse in the context of confession and community. When you divorce theology from that, no matter how Reformational you are, you have failed to reform your soul.

So, press on your studies, but don’t forget the end goal. If your theology cannot produce doxological moments it is in vain. Don’t forget this lesson.

Yours truly,
Pastor Brito

The Ricky Gervais incident at the Golden Globes is a sign for Christians that we need to up our game and do better than Ricky.

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Dear friend,

Merry 8th Day of Christmas and a Happy New Year! Here are the five resolutions I encourage you to take seriously as members of local churches in 2020:

a) Resolved to attend corporate worship every Lord’s Day unless providentially hindered. We live in a society that treasures entertainment and personal hobbies on Sundays but God has made his commandments clear. If you compromise on this, you are placing your offspring at the altar of preference and convenience and the fruit will be disastrous.

b) Resolved to be engaged in the life of fellowship. This is, of course, an extension of the first though it does not carry the weight of the first. The solution to knowing your community is to be around it beyond Sunday morning. There are activities where it is good and right to attend and there are seasons where attending such activities/events are not profitable nor necessary. Wisdom needs to be considered often. For the life of any Christian body to grow in love and holiness, you are going to have to work extra hard to maintain good community life which demands a commitment, but is rewarding beyond measure.

c) Resolved to grow in the knowledge of God and His Word. One of the great threats of our day is apathy: Christians who sit week after week without growing in the knowledge of the Bible or who are content with the little knowledge they have. Dear friend, it is a sin to not desire to know more about God. To be indifferent as a Christian is a contradiction to the Lordship of Jesus. Jesus demands your souls and bodies. Don’t give him your crumbs.

d) Resolved to be hospitable Christians. Your home—however big or small—is meant to be a garden. I am exhorting you to take your calendars and mark one day a month where you plan to have folks over. Some families are more gifted in this area and will have people over for meals every week—and you are free to go above and beyond—but I am encouraging 12 days a year where you will intentionally invite someone over your home for a meal or dessert or some kind of fellowship. If you need help implementing any of these things, send me a note and I’d be pleased to offer some suggestions. As one who has been practicing hospitality since the beginning of our marriage, I have learned much from these years and am eager to share any lessons.

e) Resolved to live out the Church Calendar in 2020. Depending on your context in a local church, you can still practice many of these things as families and on your own. If your congregation’s leadership is adamantly opposed to the calendar, I would refrain or at the very least talk with them. But in most cases, local churches are indifferent to private practices. Remember that everyone has a calendar. We don’t allow the government or other institutions to determine our calendar. The Church has its own. It takes some practice and creativity to use the calendar wisely. For example, most evangelicals in our culture think that there is only one day of Christmas on the 25th. Anything after the 25th becomes a preparation for the new year. But the Church has set aside 12 days to celebrate Christmas. So, there are things we can do to make these seasons even more festive and meaningful.

In the end, the life of the church is the only true life there is. Live it out faithfully this new year and commit your joys and sorrows to the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ.

1. Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,

The hymn begins with longing. Like most hymns, this one offers longing and fulfillment. It’s fascinating how older hymns imitate the pattern of the psalms. “Here is my longing, and here is how that longing will be fulfilled.”

For centuries, Jesus was expected. And the way you keep expectations alive is by talking about it, singing about it, surrounding your life around this hope. This is how the Church operated before Jesus.

 
Born to set Thy people free,

The entire purpose of the incarnation was to liberate us from sin’s captivity; to unshackle us from our bondage to the first Adam. Messiah’s fundamental role was to unburden his people…from what?

From our fears and sins release us,

Messiah doesn’t come generically; he comes specifically to release us from two things: a) sins: the dominion of the flesh in our lives. Theologically, no one slept as well before Jesus as you do after Jesus. The OT saint said: “Tomorrow is just another day to offer sacrifices.” “Tomorrow is another day to long.” Imagine what it meant to sleep before Messiah? Always longing, never seeing. Think about that.

But Jesus also came to release us from our fears: from the sense that everyone is out to get you, from the religious fear that our God is waiting to crush us and send us the east wind of his wrath. Advent says, “No, our fears are given over to him.” Jesus carries our concerns and cares.

I have been reading through the psalms in preparation for our upcoming Psalm-Roar and thought I’d put Psalm 3 into a chanted form using the ESV translation.

Dear friend,

I am a better pastor than John Piper, John MacArthur, Tim Keller and any other pastor of renown. No, I am not as rhetorically gifted, nor am I widely published, nor will I ever draw the crowds, but for you, specifically, the members of my congregation, I am the best pastor you will have. I will go further and say that your local pastor, whoever he may be, is also a better pastor than all the men I mentioned above. They are uniquely called men to shepherd you, to hear your stories, to know your individual names, to baptize your children, marry your daughters, bury your fathers; yes, these men are better pastors than the prestigious men above.

You can go ahead and gain from their insights, listen to their sermons and lectures, read their books, but at the end of the day, only one man (or a couple of them) will be at the hospital when your son has a concussion or breaks his leg, or when your aging mother has a heart attack, or when the unexpected comes.

Friends, don’t lose sight of your local reality and community. Encourage your pastor to continue the hard work of ministering, bearing burdens, exhorting, comforting, and more. Don’t believe the lie that you can do church alone with these celebrities or that you don’t need a local body or that theology is a job best done in isolation or that your local pastor is only a fill-in or an add-on to the real pastors. You belong to a local body. And that weak and sometimes unsophisticated and sometimes clumsy, and sometimes corny, but always faithful man is a better pastor for you than all those super names combined.

Sincerely,
A local pastor