Night, Night

Sleep More, and Trust the Lord

Improving your worship and witness by sleeping—sleeping more, and soundly. How?

1. You’re a man, a creature. God is Creator. Sleep. Show God and the world that you know your limitations. You’re a finite creature; He, the Infinite One, never tires.

2. Demonstrate full trust and confidence in Jesus Christ. You cannot watch over your body, soul, home, wife, husband, children, horse, cow, gold fish and emails, but He can and does. Although you sleep, He remains steadfast never taking His eyes off of you. Close your eyes, and snore. He’s there beside your household, your neighborhood, your office, your field and your church.

3. Tell the gospel by sleeping. The gospel addresses us body and soul. Tell the world that your body is weak, but He is strong. Tell the world that your body is growing tired, which reminds us of disease and degeneration. Tell the gospel by showing your spouse and children that you’re anticipating the day when you will get a new body that will never die. Tell of the coming translation from this life to the next. The Spirit will soon revive flesh and blood to be like His glorious body. Sleep, for resurrection is coming!

4. Mimic God’s delight about His Son’s incarnation—that is, the physical body, our Lord’s and ours, remains a good gift. Though our God is the One who never slumbers, nor sleeps, He has experienced sleep. It is not His character to sleep, but He did experience it! Jesus came, and flat-out hit physically exhausting walls! He, like us, knew the ups and downs of full-fledged embodiment. In this way, His own incarnation speaks of how He entered into every area of life for us, and yet, without sin. Sleep telegraphs to the world we live and move in this world, and He came after our pattern, in the very likeness of human flesh. God's rescue provides for our bodies. The incarnation of Jesus tells of the renewing work for the whole world.

5. God rested on the seventh day. He bestows on us the good gift of cocking the head back, even mouth wide open catching flies, to Z-z-z-z-z the afternoon or night away.

Conk out for Christ. Amen?

G. Mark Sumpter

Announcing Bible Bee of Southern Oregon

Is it in you?

I went to Multnomah Bible College (MBC) in the late ‘70s. The professors drilled you, and then drilled you again. And then guess what? They drilled you again. It was English Bible upside down, with a reverse lay-out, in full-tuck position, barrel roll and a combination triple lutz, triple axel and triple toe loop.

One of the things I really appreciated about MBC is that you came out knowing your way around the chapters of the Books of the Bible.

OK. Drum roll.

The Sumpters are the host family for the first-annual Bible Bee for Southern Oregon!

Here are the basic facts:

What is the Bible Bee? The National Bible Bee Competition is a series of events designed to help parents encourage diligence in Bible study, Scripture memorization, and prayer in their families. There are two focal points: 1) Bible memorization and Bible knowledge competition held at Local Bible Bees organized by volunteer Hosts and Local Event Teams in various locations throughout the United States, and 2) The National Bible Bee competition for the 300 top-scoring contestants from the Local Bible Bees. Family discipleship is reinforced during the time leading up to these events through planned voluntary social interactions around the Word, memory verse games, and Christian fellowship.

Where are the Bible Bee Contests held? Local Bible Bees will be held in churches, schools, universities, and community centers across the United States on Saturday, August 28th, 2010. The National Bible Bee Contest will take place at the Renaissance Hotel and Conference Center in Schaumburg, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, on November 11-13, 2010.

Who can participate in the Bible Bee? On May 1, 2010, families may begin to register their children and youth who will be 7 to 18 years of age as of November 13, 2010. Contestants will compete in one of three age divisions: Primary (ages 7-10), Junior (11-14) or Senior (15-18).

We're pumped.

G. Mark Sumpter

Why Was Jesus Baptized?

At the Jordan River, John baptized Jesus—It seems a little odd at first

Some reasons why Jesus was baptized:

1. He showed His humanity and humility. He is One, who like us, took part in life under God. He’s truly man, fully flesh. He wore the sandals, and perspired as He walked north and south on the dusty pathways of Old Palestine. He would enter in and be a part of the work of God on earth. What is to be man’s life-shaping, fundamental identity? It’s to be a man, woman or child under God, as servant. It’s life given to God—100%! In this respect, at baptism, His humanity, along with His servant hood, is being emphasized. He’s like us; when we're baptized, we receive the sign of being identified as a God-follower, a disciple, a member of the covenant, a part of God’s program. Jesus entered into the same way of discipleship. He humbled Himself to be under God's authority, under God [the Father's] appointed mission for Him. Are you a baptized member of Christ’s fold? Are you submissive to Him? Are you delighting in God’s mission, direction and service? Men, women and children are baptized to be included in God's plan, to belong to God and His way and mission. We are to give the whole of life over to Him for life-long faith and faithfulness.

“All the way my Savior leads me.”

Let’s keep going, there are several more reasons why Jesus was baptized at the Jordan. See Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-13; Luke 3: 20-21; John 1:24-34.

G. Mark Sumpter

Do You Have Your Board Shorts On?

More on the relationship between law and gospel

The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck, 1854-1921, spills a great can of beans on the how the Lutherans and the Reformed have observed matters on the use of the law in the believer's life.

This is pipeline stuff, and hang ten and cowabunga, and all that:

“Viewed concretely, law and Gospel differ not so much in that the law always meets us in the form of command and the Gospel in the form of promise, for the law too has promises and the Gospel too has warnings and obligations. But they differ especially in content: the law demands that man work out his own righteousness, while the Gospel invites him to renounce all self-righteousness and to receive the righteousness of Christ, to which end it even bestows the gift of faith.

Law and Gospel stand in that relationship not just before and at the point of conversion; but they continue standing in that relationship throughout the whole of the Christian life, all the way to the grave.

The Lutherans have an eye almost exclusively for the accusing, condemning work of the law and therefore know of no greater salvation than liberation from the law. The law is necessary only on account of sin.

According to Lutheran theology, in the state of perfection there is no law. God is free from the law; Christ was not subject to the law for Himself at all; the believer no longer stands under the law. Naturally, the Lutherans speak of a threefold use of the law, not only of a usus politicus (civilis), to restrain sin, and a usus paedagogicus, to arouse the knowledge of sin, but also of a usus didacticus, to function for the believer as a rule of living. But this last usus is nonetheless necessary simply and only because and insofar as believers are still sinners, and must still be tamed by the law, and must still be led to a continuing knowledge of sin. In itself the law ceases with the coming of faith and grace, and loses all its significance.

The Reformed, however, have thought about this in an entirely different way. The usus politicus and the usus paedagogicus of the law became necessary only accidentally because of sin; even with these uses aside, the most important usus remains, the usus didacticus or normativus. After all, the law is an expression of God’s being. As a human being Christ was subject to the law for Himself. Before the fall Adam had the law written upon his heart. With the believer it is again written upon the tablets of his heart by the Holy Spirit. And all those in heaven will walk according to the law of the Lord.

The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.

Therefore, that law must always be preached to the congregation in connection with the Gospel. Law and Gospel, the whole Word, the full counsel of God, is the content of preaching. Among Reformed people, therefore, the law occupies a much larger place than in the teaching of sin, since it is also part of the teaching of gratitude.” [Here Bavinck has a footnote providing bibliographical references relating to the views of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Zanchius, Witsius, De Moor, Vitringa, Schneckenburger, Frank, and Gottschick.]”

(from paragraph 521 of Herman Bavinck’s Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, 3rd unaltered edition, vol. 4 (Kampen, J. H. Kok, 1918), taken from this translation from the Dutch).

From Immanuel OPC’s Pastor, Marc Garcia, see his blog here, HT: John Mahaffy.

G. Mark Sumpter

Old Princeton Geerhardus Vos on Classic Lutheranism

God's saving work as a package; get Christ, you get all

“According to the Lutheran, the Holy Spirit first generates faith in the sinner who temporarily still remains outside of union with Christ; then justification follows faith and only then, in turn, does the mystical union with the Mediator take place. Everything depends on this justification, which is losable, so that the believer only gets to see a little of the glory of grace and lives for the day, so to speak. The [Reformed] covenantal outlook is the reverse. One is first united to Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, by a mystical union, which finds its conscious recognition in faith. By this union with Christ all that is in Christ is simultaneously given. Faith embraces all this too; it not only grasps the instantaneous justification, but lays hold of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, as his rich and full Messiah.”

[Princeton theologian: Geerhardus Vos, in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, a Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. publication, p. 256]

G. Mark Sumpter

Reader's Hebrew and Greek Bible

Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Zondervan Publishing Co. continues to offer helps for the Hebrew and Greek student!

Dr. Cook, from Virginia Theological Seminary, holds a spiffy leather-bound copy of the complete Reader's Hebrew and Greek Bible.

This edition fosters speed of reading helping save time with many words rendered in translation from the original.

Professor Cook of VTS writes: “All Hebrew words in the text occurring less than 100 times are footnoted with context-specific glosses. Proper nouns occurring less than 100 times are in gray. In the NT, all Greek words occurring less than 30 times are defined in the notes. There are lexicons included in the volume listing the Hebrew words occurring more than 100 times and the Greek words occurring more than 30 times.”

It looks like a great resource. Go to Zondervan's web site here and read their own description. It's available this month, April 2010.

G. Mark Sumpter

Justification and Union with Christ: Lutheranism, Part 4

Is sanctification to be viewed as an expression of gratitude?

In the DVD series What Did You Expect, as the teaching moves along, Tripp does a great job of encouraging the believer to practice going to Christ in order to die to self, and it’s here that grace and gratefulness become marks of discipleship and growth.

Gratefulness gets a lion share of Tripp’s concern. He develops the question and then answers: on what basis are we stirred to motivation to God’s service, for sanctification? It’s gratefulness. He who is forgiven much, loves much. We love because He first loved us. This has at least three sound aspects: 1) It uses Scriptural language: We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). 2) We’re reminded of God’s work, not ours. We serve Him not to obtain salvation, but to express thanksgiving for the gift He has bestowed on us. 3) We’re reminded of the cross—Remember Christian, this is what Christ did for you, doesn’t it only make sense and seem reasonable to offer to Him in return a life of holiness? This makes a ton of sense. This can be called the gratefulness position regarding the view of sanctification; it is Lutheranism.

A well-known Lutheran, C.W.F. Walther, quotes the Reformer Martin Luther when Luther is commenting on Romans 12:1: I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God.

“Paul does not say: I command you; for he is preaching to such as are already Christians and godly by faith, in newness of life. These must not be coerced by means of commandments, but admonished to do willingly what has to be done with the old sinful man in them…A preacher of the law comes down on men with threats and punishments; a preacher of divine grace coaxes and urges men by reminding them of the goodness and mercy which God has shown them. For he would have no unwilling workers nor cheerless service; he wants men to be glad and cheerful in the service of God. Any person who will not permit himself to be coaxed and urged with sweet and pleasant words, which remind him of the mercy of God abundantly bestowed upon him in Christ, to do good joyfully and lovingly to the honor of God and for the benefit of his fellow-men, is worthless, and all that is done for him is labor lost. If he is not melted and dissolved in the fire of heavenly love and grace, how can he be softened and made cheerful by laws and threats? It is not a man’s mercy, but the mercy of God that is bestowed on us; and this mercy Paul wants us to consider in order that we may be incited and moved by it to serve God.”

Is the apostle Paul stressing mercy as a motivating factor for obedience? Yes he is. He says, “mercies.” Which mercies? From Romans 1-11, a variety of mercies; certainly, it includes the believer’s union in Jesus’ death. Our sins have been nailed to the tree. Amen. But more, God’s mercies include Christ’s resurrection, like Romans 5:10 and Romans 6:10, and more.

This, then, helps us to see a deficiency in the Lutheran position on sanctification. What’s missing? What’s missing is the equally important reformed teaching of our union with Christ, Who is the Resurrected Lord. We stand in Him justified; we stand in Him sanctified. All of the gifts of His work for us and in us are bestowed on us! We belong to Jesus. We are in Him. He has sent His Holy Spirit into our hearts! When the apostle Paul teaches about our union with Jesus Christ, not only does he speak of union with Christ in His death, but also our union in His resurrection and ascension, and such gifts are sealed to us by His life-giving help by the Spirit.

This might be called the raised up position. An excellent text is Ephesians 2:1-10. It is likely that the apostle is linking vss. 4-6 with vss. 8-10. We’ve been raised up in Christ (verse 6), and then comes the language about obedience: for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

The illustration of the proverbial two sides of the one coin comes in here. Lutheranism stresses the law driving us to the cross, on one side; the Reformed and Calvinistic is the other—stressing the believer’s new position of resurrection and exaltation in Christ.

It seems the gratefulness position emphasizes the cross—our union with Jesus in His death.

It seems the raised up position emphasizes the resurrection—our union with the risen Son.

Consider Romans 4:25: “…who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

Sanctification includes gratitude, but much, much more. Sanctification means being in the Risen Lord Jesus Christ! We want to keep our position in Christ equally focused on justification and sanctification. As said before, if justification and sanctification are pulled apart, then we pull apart the Christian life. We wrongly think God does His part in justification; we do our part with gratitude for His work. Pulling justification and sanctification apart often brings back into the picture self, The Kingdom of Me, in the Christian life—“How’s my gratitude going today?” Do we really want to emphasize that?

So as I listened to Paul Tripp, I started to jot notes on what the believer’s union with Christ in His resurrection, ascension and exaltation means for daily living—sanctification—in marriage and family, indeed in all relationships.

As married folk must overcome gossip, blame-shifting, and self-centered, my-kingdom ways, and a refusal to seek forgiveness with one another, as examples, and much, much more, consider these:

1) We live and move in our union with the risen Christ who is interceding at the Father’s right hand. What incentive to pray as well. What incentive to act on those prayers. Rom. 8:34.

2) We live and move in the exalted Christ who presents His saving work to the Father. We too can make the daily effort for obedience, for our efforts are not vain. 1 Cor. 15:58.

3) We live and move in the ascended Christ; and our love and cultivation of love in marriage serves as a tool for Christ’s on-going and present missional work. Eph. 1:20-22. Have you thought about your marriage being a part of the cosmic scope of Christ’s work of redemption? Do you realize in turning from sin and serving Jesus that aligns you with His mission? Union with Him in His ascension is incentive for service. Turn to your mate and say, “Today, sweetie-pie, we’re going to further the reign of Jesus.”

4) We live and move in the ascended Christ, and yet, we are not alone in our frustrations about our weaknesses, sins, temptations and hardships. His presence is near, and He’s aware and takes note of us and all circumstances. In Acts 9, Saul is struck down on the road—and it’s the ascended Christ who feels the persecution of His own people. He is near, we can press on.

5) We live and move in the ascended and exalted Christ, and as we remember that we’re united to Christ and others in His resurrection, we put into practice the important teaching tool of the local church. In the church, as believers, we’re given an incentive to practice the reality that we together are in Christ. Therefore, our first assumption in working on our corporate sins is to treat each other as being raised up and exalted in Christ. In times of interpersonal hardship, rather than starting from a point of suspicion about another, we have a starting point of, “That’s my brother raised up in Christ.” This perspective in the local church helps to model a union-with-the-risen Christ grace-foundation for marriage and family. Phil. 2:1-11.

The ministry of Paul Tripp on the DVDs is well-worth the learning and implementation for growth. There’s a ministry in his teaching of God’s transforming power, no question. I offer this critique about this Lutheran aspect of sanctification for a help in rounding out the gospel—we need the whole of Christ’s work for us and in us: His life, death and resurrection. It’s the glorious double-whammy of biblical hope—the umbrella importance of the believer’s union with His death and His resurrection—that gives day to day advances in godliness according to faith.

G. Mark Sumpter

Justification and Union with Christ: Lutheranism, Part 3

Is our view of sanctification as robust as justification?

As mentioned, Paul Tripp is a gifted, gifted man in his teaching and ministry.

On the DVD series What Did You Expect, the thrust of his application for married couples calls for dying to self. It’s the rock-solid call to get self out of the way and bow to one King alone—Jesus of Nazareth. Tripp’s many exhortations are on the wrestling that sinners do: 1) we wrestle with God, Who is truth and grace and sovereign; 2) we wrestle with the old sinful nature, which remains in the life of the believer and may be found just ever so slightly hidden under the surface of our skin, yet easily roused; 3) we wrestle with elevating the trivial—the inconsequential material things, the surface-y issues in relationships and circumstances, and thus we’re quick to have spats as married folks.

Tripp hits his target as a Marksman; he’s locked and loaded in the tall grass, and he’s a dead-aim blasting bottle-caps at 200 yards. Our inner-motivations are his target. Watch out, believer, Paul Tripp’s teaching will nail you! His down to earth stories drive home such points. His illustrations accurately speak to the kingdom of self. They are great stories—our relational game-playing, our selfish expressions, and other sinful inclinations. Tripp can smell a rotten deceitful heart a block away. Now we move a little closer to the theology.

Why is he so good with his analysis of a rotten heart? He’s using the Bible to open to us God’s righteous ways. In short, he applies God’s law to sinners extremely well. When the purity of the law is kept in view, then it’s a very, very short step to Christ. It is Christ alone who must rid us of sin by His death. As many men have noted in recent years, “Believers are to be known as cross-eyed disciples,”—it’s keeping their eyes on the cross of Christ for moment by moment forgiveness.

This, I would offer, is like a one-two punch emphasis in Paul Tripp’s DVD series. A one-two punch? Show the sinner his need, and then next, take him to the cross. In this way, it’s the law first, then grace second. That’s the one-two: first, law and then, grace. It’s effective teaching. It’s effective because it accents the sinner’s need for Jesus Christ. Who would ever want to discount or look down on that teaching?

This is where differences between Lutheran and Reformed traditions surface. Tripp casts a winsome Lutheran view that sees the key to the Christian life as keeping this law-grace principle readily in view. This law-grace principle works hard at keeping in view one’s sin—being sensitive about sin’s deceitfulness and one’s need—and going to Christ.

With this, a certain way of thinking about the Christian life may start to develop. It’s the thinking and teaching that emphasizes the chief concerns of the Christian's guilt and release from guilt. Justification by faith gets the focus and with that comes a susceptibility to see that aspect of Christ’s work for the sinner as a stand-alone, separate matter from sanctification. Then what happens? There’s a neglect of the importance of Christ’s work for sanctification for the believer. If we offer a weak view of Christ’s saving power for sanctification, we can get off track.

Note Dick Gaffin’s words on this:

“In the matter of sanctification, it seems to me, we must confront a tendency, at least practical and, my impression is, pervasive, within churches of the Reformation to view the gospel and salvation in its outcome almost exclusively in terms of justification…to the effect that the gospel is only about what Christ has done ‘for us’ and apparently does not include his work, through the Spirit, ‘in us.’ The effect of this outlook, whether or not intended, is that sanctification tends to be seen as the response of the believer to salvation, defined in terms of justification. Sanctification is viewed as an expression of gratitude from our side for our justification and the free forgiveness of our sins…The attitude we may have—at least this is the way it comes across—is something like, ‘If Jesus did that for you, died that your sins might be forgiven, shouldn’t you at least do this for him, try to please him?”

Gaffin’s thoughts should be underscored: Sanctification is viewed as an expression of gratitude…

In the next post, we’ll look at this matter of sanctification being viewed as an expression of gratitude.

For Gaffin’s comments, see his By Faith, Not By Sight, p. 76.

G. Mark Sumpter

Justification and Union with Christ: Lutheranism, Part 2

Stirred by Paul Tripp’s teaching on sanctification—one area of critique

About three-four weeks ago, our congregation was very blessed to sit under the DVD teaching ministry of Dr. Paul Tripp, a minister at Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia (of the PCA), and a teacher at Westminster Theological Seminary/PA.

He presented material on his DVD series on marriage, What Did You Expect? No question, Paul is a gifted, gifted man—witty, super funny and well-versed in Bible and theology. He’s a colorful, winsome feather in the cap of the current stream of reformed piety and mentorship.

His presentation has prompted me to reflect on the doctrine of our union with Christ for salvation and the role of the law in the believer’s life and Christian growth (i.e. sanctification). I am wondering here, pondering things, about the one area of the classic difference between Lutheranism and Calvinism on justification and sanctification.

Here’s the one area of classic, historic difference, summarized by Dick Gaffin: “sometimes…in the Reformation tradition…a tendency is observable to conceive of justification as a stand-alone imputative act, without reference to union with Christ…this is more the case in the Lutheran tradition, where, in the ordo salutis, union is regularly sequenced following justification, as a fruit or consequence of justification. The Reformed tradition has recognized better or more clearly that, as answer 69 of the Westminster Larger Catechism puts it, justification is among the realities that ‘manifest’ that union.”

What is a possible Sumpterian paraphrase of Gaffin’s note? The Bible teaches about the gifts of God that tell of the acts and works of our salvation. There is an order about these gifts and how the Lord bestows these gifts on His children.

Romans 8:29, for example, talks about the list of the gifts—whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, He also glorified.

Gaffin is urging us to see these gifts as a whole package, and not to chop them up, dividing them apart.

Therefore, what God hath joined together, let not man separate.

We have to be careful not to chop up the acts and work of God’s gifts of salvation. Gaffin says we have a tendency to pull apart the doctrine of justification by faith from the doctrine of the believer’s life being united to Jesus Christ. All the gifts—God calling the sinner, then, justifying the sinner, next, sanctifying him, and more, should be kept together as a package.

What holds them together as a package? It’s the doctrine of our union with Jesus Christ. The believer being IN CHRIST is the umbrella over all the gifts of salvation.

Like all biblical and theological points, in times of having a discussion, little words are HUGE.

Classic Lutheranism: Emphasize justification! God’s work on behalf of the believer by Jesus Christ is for us and does not include Christ’s work in us.

Classic Calvinism (Reformed): Emphasize union with Christ! God’s work on behalf of the believer by Jesus Christ is for us and does include Christ’s work in us.

What is it that’s so important on this? It’s how we teach on the practicalities of salvation and the Christian walk. Is the believer IN CHRIST for all teaching points regarding justification but not sanctification? That would seem awkward. Is the believer IN CHRIST for certain points of emphasis in sanctification, but not for all points? It’s one thing to give solid ground hope to the believer for justification, but what about sanctification? What is the best, biblical motive for stirring up Christian growth—for making Christians hungry for growth in holiness—and to have hope in pursing that godliness?

This is where Paul Tripp’s teaching on Christian growth for marriage, even for all interpersonal relationships, comes in.

If you’re interested in tracking down more of this, read Professor Dick Gaffin’s material in his book, By Faith, Not By Sight, pages 18-52. It’s heady stuff—it’s some tough sledding, but worth the read.

There’ll be another post soon on this discussion bringing our author and teacher’s, Tripp’s, material into the conversation.

G. Mark Sumpter

Did Someone Say Resurrection?

When one of your kids blasts the puck in from 20 feet out, you take notice

Resurrection for the World

Jesus did not rise from the dead in order that you could go to heaven when you die. He could have accomplished that without rising from the dead. If the point is merely going to heaven or having some kind eternal, happy existence then Jesus could have gone straight on up to heaven from His death, with no need to rise from the dead.

No, the resurrection of Jesus occurred so that we might rise from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead so that this entire world might rise from the dead. Jesus came healing, befriending, casting out demons, and exposing all evil, violence, and oppression, and this was not just a big show to prove that He was really God. He was really God, and He was really God come to bring the Life of God to the world. Healing, feeding, building a community of love and sacrifice, this is the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and Jesus rose from the dead in order to make that life fill and renew this world.

From Toby Sumpter, thanks son. You can read the whole thing here.

G. Mark Sumpter

Resurrection Life and Fellowship with Christ's Sufferings

Resurrection life in Christ includes sufferings

10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

In Philippians 3:10-11 here above, there’s an inclusio.

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection

And the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death

If, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead

Paul addresses the life of the believer raised in Christ; it’s the abundant life of the living hope (cf. 1 Peter 1:2-3).

Verse 10 speaks to the power of His resurrection, that is, to know Him in saving union with Christ as the risen One. It’s new power (cf. Ephesians 1:19-20).

But does the believer’s life in the risen Christ mean no discipline aimed at conformity to Christ?

Paul goes on with verse 10b: [and to know Christ] in the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

Therefore, according to Paul, the church in her position of being raised in Christ includes the life of God-shaping discipline.

Resurrection life includes the fellowship of His sufferings, which in turn, leads to the life of glory—attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

G. Mark Sumpter

Resurrection and Credibility--More Than a Feeling

In whom is your trust--regarding a defense of truth?

Why did the early Christians, dejected and fearful at first boldly proclaim that Jesus had risen from the dead? Because, answers the apostle Paul, the risen Christ had shown himself alive to many witnesses, such as Peter, the twelve disciples, “more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive” (to confirm this claim!), James, all the apostles, and finally Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-8 ESV). The enemies of Christ only had to produce a body from his guarded tomb, but they found it empty.

However, Prof. J.K. Elliott has another explanation: After Jesus’ death, his followers “had a vivid and personal feeling that Jesus was in some sense still with them and was guiding them….Jesus was ‘risen’ because his message, personality, power and influence continues after his death.” Especially at their communal meals, they “reminisced about his career, and felt that in some way the memory of him was so strong that they could and did say ‘he is alive’” (Questions Christian Origins, pp. 90-91).

Whom do you find credible: the apostle Paul and all the other eye witnesses, or modern-day skeptics like Prof. Elliott?

From James Scott, Managing Editor of New Horizons, the OPC monthly magazine, March 2002

G. Mark Sumpter

Is This Taking It to the Next Level?

Environmental Projection In Traditional Worship

1990s Sound Man-guy, move over; in fact, we're gonna have to let you go. We've just hired a VG man.

Visual Graphics and Worship, it's here.

VG 1



VG 2VG 3


Faith OPC is inching closer and closer to developing specific plans for her new worship facility on Scoville Road in Grants Pass. Should I send this post over to our First Phase Committee?

G. Mark Sumpter