Friday, August 14, 2015
The Need To Reform
Justin Taylor quotes John Calvin on why the Reformation:
The problem today seems to be that the church that feels that way is winning - it's the church people are choosing. Does that mean I am wrong in what I expect the church to be, or does it mean that those of us trying to do the church genuinely are doing it wrong? Gioven history and that fact that I doubt God would change church so radically at this late date, I tend to think the latter.
Maybe the answer is to spend less tinme worrying about what they are doing and more time trying to do what we think should be done well.
church reformation
At the time when divine truth lay buried under this vast and dense cloud of darkness;Gee, I kinda feel that way now. The difference is in a world where there is a plethora of churches, somewhere there is a church that does not make me feel that way. That changes the rules of the game completely.
when religion was sullied by so many impious superstitions;
when by horrid blasphemies the worship of God was corrupted, and his glory laid prostrate;
when by a multitude of perverse opinions, the benefit of redemption was frustrated, and men, intoxicated with a fatal confidence in works, sought salvation anywhere rather than in Christ;
when the administration of the sacraments was partly maimed and torn asunder, partly adulterated by the admixture of numerous fictions, and partly profaned by traffickings for gain;
when the government of the church had degenerated into mere confusion and devastation; when those who sat in the seat of pastors first did most vital injury to the church by the dissoluteness of their lives, and, secondly, exercised a cruel and most noxious tyranny over souls, by every kind of error, leading men like sheep to the slaughter;
The problem today seems to be that the church that feels that way is winning - it's the church people are choosing. Does that mean I am wrong in what I expect the church to be, or does it mean that those of us trying to do the church genuinely are doing it wrong? Gioven history and that fact that I doubt God would change church so radically at this late date, I tend to think the latter.
Maybe the answer is to spend less tinme worrying about what they are doing and more time trying to do what we think should be done well.
church reformation
