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Ten Propositions on Feasting

This has been a weekend of abundance among friends. I have savored so much of it, from homemade pizza to superb soups, meats, flavorful desserts, and a treasury of drinks and the ever-restful pipe tobacco. Add to these assortments the smiles and stories and we have the definition of feasting in its highest expression. Yet many don’t see or cherish this life or even may desire it but fail to see the need to absorb it as a highlight of the Christian experience. They try not; therefore, they feast not.

In what follows, I wish to lay out ten propositions on feasting to guide us through this intense season of expectation and celebration coming in the weeks ahead:

First, we eat without thanksgiving. Gluttony exists because thanksgiving does not. Eating is not a neutral exercise. Christians eat as acts of triumph over the world. God eats us in his love, and we eat the body and blood of our risen Savior by faith and love.

Second, the ritual of eating is undervalued in America. In this country, food is consumption. We eat because we want to or because it is entertainment; therefore, we eat without intentionality. When rites become trite, our experiences become trivial, and the doors for abuse open wider.

Third, corporate eating is devalued because we allow the immature to rule over the table. Parents must re-assert their authority over the table and keep food at the table and not on laps in front of laptops. This should be done at least in one meal a day.

Fourth, feasting suffers when worship looks like a funeral. If every head is bowed and eyes are closed, we cannot see the feast or hear the feasters. Feasting is diminished when worship is feast-less in character. Feasting must be jubilant in worship and overflowing with worshipful acts.

Fifth, feasting is best formalized and appointed. When it is that way, it can be adorned with fancy napkins and plates and silverware and glasses. It allows family members to long for something better. We are gnostics to think that immediacy is best. Christians understand that better feasts mean preparing more to enjoy better.

Sixth, feasts are more meaningful when we incorporate singing. Feasts in the Bible are celebrations of our freedom from bondage. Singing to Yahweh a new song is declaring Pharaoh will never rule over our appetites again.

Seventh, there is no friendship without Christ. There are shared experiences and stories, but friendship is rooted in a shared Christ. Feasts are accentuated when brothers dwell together.

Eighth, relationships change and are re-directed. Someone who was a friend in eighth grade may not be a friend now. God gives us a rotation of friends through life because He knows that our changes will require new people to speak into our particular phases of life. Feasts restore friendships and renew friendships and are the genesis of new friendships.

Ninth, many of us are worse friends than we think, but we have better friends than we deserve. Feasts create the environment for friendship rituals to be exercised in service and communion.

Tenth, all rituals require meaning. All good things require work. Therefore, all feasting is meaningful work. It provides true health for the Christian.

Real health is grounded in a proper relationship with God, and since this relationship is in part sacramental, it involves physical things. The purpose of these physical aspects is not, however, to provide mechanical health to the “human biological machine.” Instead, the goal of these physical aspects is to communicate to us, in a mystery, the grace of God.

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The Lord’s Supper is Calvinistic and Celebratory

The Lord’s Supper is Christ given for his Church. It’s the way we bless one another (I Cor. 10:16), it’s our New Covenant reality (I Cor. 11:25), it’s the context of unity (Acts 2:42), it’s the sacrament of discernment where we know who is in and who is out (I Cor. 11:21) and it’s the promise of eternity (Rev. 19:9).

As we work through our worship at Providence, I wish to mention two features that characterize our Lord’s Supper:

First, it is Calvinistic. That’s a short way of saying it’s not Roman Catholic or Anabaptist. During the Reformation, our Reformed brothers affirmed that the Lord’s Supper was not the transformed substance of the body of Christ. Jesus did not come down from heaven in a physical body in the priest’s consecration, as the Roman Catholics affirmed.

But neither are we simply partaking of an empty sign, as the Anabaptists affirmed. To eat and drink is not simply a way of speaking of belief. The elements of bread and wine are truly the body of Christ, not because of the priest, but because of the Spirit who takes us to heaven to commune with Jesus. Christ’s human body is locally present in heaven, and we partake of it because the Spirit of God effects communion.

Second, it is Celebratory.

Now, most traditions, ranging from Roman Catholic to the local megachurch, treat the Lord’s Supper through the lens of the death of Jesus. Christ died; therefore, we bow our heads and meditate on his death. But we affirm that the Lord’s Supper is not a summary of our sins but a celebration of our sins forgiven by the blessings of Christ’s resurrection.

In other words, the Lord’s Supper is bread and cup of blessing, not of sorrow. It is full blessing. Total blessing. Exuberant blessing. We partake in it precisely because Christ is no longer dead but risen from the dead and vindicated.

The Supper embraces the joy of the disciples who ate with Jesus after the resurrection. It’s loud, talkative, and festive. It’s a moment of glory for people rooted in the Word of God and who allow the Word to bear fruit in us. Behold, the fruit of the vine is here, offered at this table, Jesus himself. We are fruitful ones eating of the great fruitful Christ, who became the first fruits of all those who trust in him. We eat and drink together not as those who weep but as those who are blessed by the fruitful Word. Rejoice, pass the peace, and trust in the vindicated Word made flesh.

You are welcome to this table if you are baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Come by faith, and the God of all peace will give you himself.

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The Gospel Coalition’s Pursuit of Artistic Brownie Points

This now-deleted article has received an avalanche of mockery, even hitting the @Not_the_Bee status. TGC has hit the ceiling of self-fabrication. Calvin writes that man is an idol-factory, which can be broadly applied even to Christian institutions.

This attempt at grabbing readership becomes a self-fabricating reality used to connect the Gospel to things and people in a distorted attempt at harmony. It’s a pursuit of cultural relevance that provides no substance and leaves the faith in a place of despair, looking for something substantive to glue itself to in the culture and finding the lowest level of synergy with the lowest level of entertainment.

No one is disputing talent or how Christians should pursue excellence, but TGC is seeking an audience that is already inoculated with the mundane, who largely succumbed to societal pressures during COVID, and who may be ever-so-slightly sympathetic to the REVOICE agenda.

What these articles do is perpetuate the tendency to find common ground in lowly places; to connect the Gospel to the trivial and meaningless for some cultural and artistic brownie points.

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Two Categories of People to Avoid in Leadership

male employer gesticulating and explaining idea in light office

The more public a work/ministry becomes, the more careful one has to be with two categories of people:

a) Flatterers: I have often differentiated flattery from praise by stating that flattery is consistent and generic, whereas praise is timely and specific. Something similar to what the poet Anne Bradstreet noted when she wrote, “Sweet words are like honey, a little may refresh, but too much gluts the stomach.” Or some variation of the multiplication of words principle (Prov. 10:19). A leader must learn to despise flatterers by dismissing their comments and giving them little attention.

He needs to see that their intentions may not always be to find some favorability with your role, but it is often to gain something from the association. Flatterers rarely serve, but they are generally charismatic. They watch from afar and come close only when suitable and advantageous for them.

b) Anonymous Naysayers: These will pose on social media as genuine interlocutors, but ultimately, they are only here to cause distractions and function as detractors. They will find a hundred reasons to parse a jot or tittle. They will take issue with virtually everything said, hoping you will interact with their words and give them a spotlight. But they are not seeking genuine interaction. They are pursuing a monological moment where they can speak from angst, hoping you will absorb their frustration and react to their grief.

I recommend avoiding these: blocking them quickly and limiting your online interactions only to those with a disposition toward knowledge.

I have several friends in high-profile positions and often pray that God would give them a spirit of courage, which requires avoiding unnecessary entanglements and pursuing steady work ethic.

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Providing Rituals for our Young Men

There is a de-ritualization of our Christian young men in our culture. They grow up without rituals and grab onto the first sign of a ritualized culture, whether wokism or socialism. Every system of thought shares common practices and liturgies. Some are distinct, and others lack thought and intentionality, as in the vast evangelical experience.

Our young men are reflecting the de-ritualization of church life. As the Church goes, so goes our young men. Dru Johnson notes in his book “Human Rites,” that we need to know our rites, and to know our rites demand the exercising of meaningful rites in the community. We can belabor the point of raising godly young men but without grounding them in godly traditions, our young men may easily find themselves grounded in their expressive individualism.

The more we understand our rituals, the more meaningful they become. The more our young men remember who they are through these rites, the more they will meditate on their meaning and the more stabilized they will be in their Christian culture.

My oldest son turned 13, and I wanted him to see that turning 13 is a rite of passage, a transition to a world of manhood. But beyond that, I wanted him to know that becoming a mature man is not the task of isolation. It’s a community rite, a shared glory with others. I didn’t want this stage of his life to pass by without marking it.

I invited my Church officers to come to our house and to pray over him. I offered a sobering charge to him in the presence of many witnesses, and we sang hymns about warfare and celebration, and then we did a toast with champagne. I will never forget the evening, and I trust he will never forget that life is not a series of empty symbols but a full and rich aroma of substantive rituals that shape your existence from baptism unto life to baptism unto death.

Rituals comprise our way of being. Rituals are established to orient the kind of people we hope to be. Our children need to be bathed in rites. They must look back and see that older men were there, sharing that moment and cheering them through sacred moments. Rites mark our stages in life, and they should be meaningful enough for our young men to pass on to their boys as well. It should be meaningful enough to keep them from chasing false rites.

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In Praise of Faithful Ministers

While the world derides pastors and specific evangelical ministries target pastors, and while pointing out particular examples of pastoral malpractice alleviate the Church from its blemishes, we should be doubly invested in observing the faithfulness and perseverance of the thousands of pastors who shepherd quietly but steadily; who cherish their sheep without expecting rewards or recognition; who visit hospital beds, who comfort grieving parents, who preach and administer the sacraments, who love their families, and who refuses to lord over their people because of their title or status.

Yes, we must observe the thousands of faithful men who use their training to feed the flock in word and deed, joy and sorrow. They may be in small/medium/large churches, but they are everywhere.

Do not allow the belittling of pastors and their work to take away the honor reserved for those who fight the good fight of faith and awaken each morning with a deep sense of their calling before God and man.

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Baptism as Costly Grace

Baptism is never divorced from a life of repentance. Baptism is not cheap grace given as a guarantee of heaven but a promise of a heavenly life by faith. It is not sacerdotal, expecting the consecrated hands of priests to function ex opere operato. It is not ex nihilo (out of nothing) appearing as a magical manifestation. Instead, baptism is a costly grace. It is a gift of community that comes from the power of the Spirit through the baptized Messiah from whose sides flowed living waters. It is incorporation into the holy ones.

Baptism is not a rationale for sin to abound but for the forgiveness of sins to abound and grace to abound in a life of repentance.

Baptism is an act of God in the life of these little ones as it is an act of God to direct these little ones all their days. They are baptized this day into the very death of Christ and raised in the very resurrection of Jesus, their King.

These recipients of baptism come because these believing parents affirm the covenant promises of God. They affirm that the nurture of God begins in this baptismal act.

Baptism is an introduction to a new life–a life of faith, a life of holiness, a life of baptismal obligations from their earliest days to their last days; a life of grace upon grace.

So, far from cheap grace, baptism is a costly grace; a grace that cost our Lord his very life and a grace that is now given to these children of the holy covenant.

May their days be filled with awe at the coming of Jesus, and may they live by faith from their earliest days to the end of their lives so that grace may abound.

“For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

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The Twitter Zealots

You can conclude with some degree of certainty that men who spend most of their time consumed with internet squabbles have a low view of authority. They rarely seek knowledge from within their ecclesiastical authorities but function as independent contractors of expertise. They often come through the theme of anonymity and can opine without regard, speaking carelessly, prolifically, and unrestrained.

They treasure their independence and ability to function, whether ecclesiastically or theologically. They are practical Anabaptists in their assessment of reality and, in many cases, fall easily into various winds of doctrine. Their resumes may include multiple churches and different theological trajectories within a short period of time, all of which they treasure, depending on which season they find themselves. They become consuming fires for their new-found faith, at least for a short season. Everyone becomes an enemy, even if he just held that same idea a few months prior.

These kinds of rough edges need to be worked out among youthful zealots. They need a history of consistency before they speak as interpreters. There is a season where they should be observers before political hermeneuticians.

Jude addresses this revolutionary spirit that seeks dissension within the church by using their voices to draw innocent parishioners to their cause. They even come to our love-feasts to persuade. Even if their intentions are noble, stemming from pure motives, they must be tamed by pastoral practice and discipleship.

These young men often do not provide stability to their spouses or children. They damage the cause of Christ and his Bride. We should watch out for such voices and pray that God would grant them discernment and humility.

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The John Piper Coffee Controversy

John Piper has reached peak-based on his latest post. He has garnered over 2 million views. Here’s the latest Piperian controversy:

“Can we reassess whether Sunday coffee-sipping in the sanctuary fits?” “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.” Hebrews 12:28

That’s it! A call for reassessment with a Bible verse attached.

I only met Piper once and am trying to remember whether he was enjoying the benefits of the coffea plant or not. Still, the man is a ball of energy and one of the most productive humans who has managed to memorize a large portion of the New Testament and offer miles of literature to many on the doctrines of grace, missions, etc. In sum, Piper is a titan, and even when I don’t find him persuasive, I see him as an admirable father figure in our Reformed eco-system.

Now, back to our caffeinated discussion. I am certain there is a greater background to his comment for which he did not elaborate. Still, the reactions to his tweet were significant enough to garner attention from celebrities like Beth Moore, who encouraged Piper to join her new-found Anglican faith where there is much sitting and standing, sitting and standing, and no time for coffee-sipping.

Others chimed in, disregarding the grandfatherly Piper as legalistic, puritanesque, and scolding Calvinism for sucking all the joy away.

But I believe Piper is close to the truth. What he is addressing is not an antagonism toward coffee but the kind of worship where coffee could be sipped without interruption. He is addressing a certain passivity that allows you to see worship as an undemanding act.

Believe it or not, there are thousands of American churches discussing the virtue of church cafes. Here is a rationale for their side of the coffee aisle about why coffee is crucial to the Sunday experience

“The vast majority (82 percent) said that creating a pleasant atmosphere for parishioners was very important or critical. Additionally, encouraging young people to attend was a primary consideration for 93 percent. But — with a 100-percent response rate — the overwhelming motivation was to encourage fellowship and a sense of community.”

These congregations are highly motivated to bring people in, and the overwhelming sense of community is striking. These are good and noble things, but the idea behind it is to use coffee and all its lattes to provide a means to greater enjoyment. These flocks would all fall into some variation of Hillsong-style megachurches. That comes with a host of condemnatory espressos from me.

I am not expecting Piper to jump into sacramental concerns, but there is something deeper than the tweet itself, which he may have intended in the controversial statement. Again, two million views! People don’t want their coffees excoriated.

I suspect the idea he is fighting is an old war against the drivel of entertainment worship, a modern expression of the old seeker-sensitive model where the word and sacrament are the fellowship and that dark, black liquid.

Piper is a purist when it comes to these things, and as such, I try to read the best into such comments. It’s not that sipping coffee during a sermon is wrong, but that the culture where this is common offers a paradigm of ease and comfort where the afflicted is told to be a better version of his yesterday instead of repenting better than yesterday.

And, as I have written before, worship is hard. It’s hard to be sipping your Tall, Non-Fat Latte With Caramel Drizzle while singing “Crown him with many crowns!” and holding your squirmy two-year-old.

Again, we are assessing the drinking of coffee in the sanctuary, not the experience before or after. In my context, there is some validity to the concerns of America’s favorite Calvinist Arch-Bishop. And the fact that so many are overreacting to him is probably because they have not given him enough Calvinist credit.