Regular Episode
https://youtu.be/pSrLBTeJC_g
Semper Reformanda Transcripts
Jon Moffitt: First of all, I want to say thank you. Stay tuned. Check your email. It's coming soon. By now, there should be a Facebook group for Semper Reformanda. If you're not in that, go join it because that's where all the roll-outs and the new data are happening. Stay tuned to that.
We probably just need to do like a five-week series on the local church one day, just talking about what is the purpose of the church, but this is a good appetite. This is a good way to get the conversation going. Sometimes you can't drop a bucket of water on people. It's better to hand them a glass of water and say, "Let's start sipping on this."
I would argue that probably the greatest chapter that Paul has written explaining the function of the local church is Ephesians 4. I just can't think of anything other than that.
We reference it a lot. The reason why we have to reference it is that Paul really starts from beginning to end on how the gospel is not for the unbeliever, how the gospel is for the believer and the church, and he uses that for how the church should function.
Justin Perdue: He grounds the Christian in what God has done for him. He grounds the Christian in the eternal plan of God to save us, and what Christ has accomplished and how this has always been something that the Father and Son have agreed to do. He paints a picture of how terrible our position and our lot was, what we've been rescued from, and how God has done it. That's where he starts.
Jon Moffitt: Walking through the chapter, one of the things that I would say Justin and I will highlight quickly, and we probably just need to do a whole entire episode on this, but I would encourage every single listener right now... I need you to go and read Ephesians 4 today and I want you to ask these questions: what is Paul after? What is he very concerned with when it comes to the believer now that they are safe in Christ? In the first three verses, Paul does not hide his mission and what he's doing. He says if you're going to walk in a manner that reflects what you have in Christ, he says, "Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called." He doesn't point to personal discipline. He doesn't point to what you do by yourself. He doesn't point to your dedication. He says if you're going to walk in a way that reflects this glorious Christ, it's with gentleness, meekness, and patience, with this in mind: eager to maintain the bond of peace in unity.
Everything else from that point on, Justin, talk to us about this. From that point on, he's talking about the unity and peace that we have. How is it that we build upon that instruction? Where does he go and take us?
Justin Perdue: I said this recently: I'm preaching through Ephesians in my local church right now. This is family time. We're talking to our team here, our people, those who are with us. I asked our people, when I was preaching the first sermon on Ephesians 4, based upon everything that you've ever heard, based on everything you've ever read, based on everything you've ever been taught, if you were asked to write a letter to a local church about what their life together should look like, how would you start? Based on everything we've ever heard, read, or been taught, I don't think we would start how Paul starts. He begins, like you said, with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to pursue unity in the Spirit in the bond of peace. Then he grounds us with the source of our unity. The ground of our unity is the fact that there's one body, there's one Spirit, there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism; we've all been united to Christ. There's one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all. We are all one. This is where our unity comes from, so we live accordingly.
Then he goes on to say now we've all been united to Christ, we've all been united to one another. That's true. At the same time, we each have been given grace, we each have been given gifts, and we need each other. Then he talks about gifts that have been given, particularly by Christ to the church, in the form of teachers, preachers, leaders, and shepherds. He says that all of those gifts serve to equip the saints for the work of ministry, and then we all are involved in building one another up in love unto maturity in Christ. That's basically a summary of the first 16 verses of Ephesians 4. I remember joking with our people, verses 15 and 16 of Ephesians 4, if there are refrigerator worthy verses, those are two of them. Put them up there, highlight them, mark them up in your Bible, do something with them. It is critical that we speak the truth in love, that we grow into maturity in Christ. As this happens, the corporate language is all over the place: "from whom the whole body," talking about Jesus, "joined and held together by every joint with which it's equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." It's so clear that we meet each other, and that this is Christ's design for the church.
I would contend that even as he goes on, Paul does in verses 17 through 32 of chapter four to talk about the new life in Christ, it's all corporate in nature. He reminds us of who you were and who you are now; don't live like you once did. But then, the things that characterize our new life in Christ are corporate. Even the exhortations to not be angry, even exhortations to not pursue sensuality, exhortations to not be talking in ways that tear other people to pieces, exhortations to love and forgive each other—it's all corporate.
Jon Moffitt: People struggle here because they're saying, "Wait a minute, Jon. How do I know in case the elders are leading me in the wrong direction, or I'm in a bad church, or all these kinds of things?" First of all, you should've done your homework before you got married to a church. You don't want to marry somebody blindly. When you're submitting yourself to an elder, make sure you do homework, which is why I think the confessions and confessional churches are so important. Go to a congregation and find out what confession they are holding to and do they actually hold to it? Because that's how you're going to know. The doctrinal statements on most websites are barely orthodox. There's enough wiggle room in there for them to teach all kinds of stuff that they want to teach.
But according to Paul, how is it that we are prevented from being tossed about by every wind of doctrine? That we are not sinking within bad theology? He says it right here in Ephesians 4 how it happens. It says the Holy Spirit has given us apostles, the prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ." To save us time, he says 'til we all reach to the knowledge of the mature manhood of Christ. Then he says this: so that we are no longer children, tossed about by every wave and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunningness, by craftiness, and deceitful schemes. He does not mention this individualism of where I need to be a Bible scholar, just my Bible and I, because that couldn't be applied to those people, and hasn't been able to be applied for 1500 years past Paul.
Yet God gives us a way. He says you can be free from bad doctrine, which the church is just pummeled with bad doctrine right now. Because what have we done? We've individualized our faith, we've separated from sound teaching, we don't hold to a proper structure of the church, the plurality of elders who are well-trained. Paul says not to put your hands on them quickly. Not many of you should be teachers because of the requirement that's put upon you. I find great comfort in that. If you want to apply the Bible, I have a hard time seeing Christians read Ephesians 4 and apply it. They just can't in a local context.
Remember when he says "grieve not the Spirit"? We'll interpret that as not doing a lot of sin or the Spirit's going to leave you.
Justin Perdue: I think verse 29 of Ephesians 4, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." In the way that that is written, not grieving the Spirit is very much connected to the burst that comes before it. No corrupting talk, let no evil talk come out of your mouth. He's not talking about crude talk here; he's talking about talk that destroys other people. In particular, he's talking about not living amongst yourselves, not talking to one another in such a way where you tear each other to pieces and you wreck the unity that God himself, that Jesus Christ himself, has instilled in the church. We take that whole "don't grieve the Holy Spirit" to be this very individual thing, that I need to go about not grieving the Spirit in the way that I live my life individually. The exhortation there is completely corporate, and it's all about the unity of the body and you not living in such a way, and in particular, speaking in such a way where you harm that unity that Christ has given his people. It's just another example of how we take things out of context. It's right to say we don't want to do things that are wrong and sinful. We don't want to dishonor God with our lives in a general way. Amen. Flee from sin, pursue righteousness. Let's talk that way. But let's be precise as well in the way we interpret passages.
Jon Moffitt: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love. I'm like, yes.
Justin Perdue: Amen. Before we recorded this, we were talking about various things, including not only just the language in general about spiritual disciplines, but why is it that people—even more in our own camp who often write about things like spiritual disciplines—end up writing about them in a way that ignores the church? Why does that happen? We were just observing that.
Jon Moffitt: There are really good books that are written about rest in Christ, imputation of Christ, Christ's righteousness, extra nos, looking outside of ourselves. We'll look to Christ, and even confessional theology; we look to the confessions to draw us near into Christ, and they're all absent of, I would say, the community of Christ. There's no way you can convince me in Scripture that the Christian is designed to do the Christian life by themselves. Christ died for the church. He gave himself up for the church. Husbands love your wife as Christ laid his life down for the church. 99.9% of all applications of the New Testament are designed to be applied in the local church. Yet when you hear people write books about the Christian life, their ecclesiology is completely absent. (For those who don't know what that word means, that means the study of the church.) It's so weak because, as we have argued before, revivalism, the emergent church—it's all been completely shifted out. Satan doesn't have to get you to believe a blatant lie that black is white and brown is green. He just needs you to believe something that's a little off. 99% true and 1% off can destroy something.
Justin Perdue: As JI Packer is famous for saying, a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth, and I think he's right.
One last comment on this whole spiritual disciplines and ordinary means conversation. We are convinced that Christians in the church would be so helped if we would just speak like the Bible does. Instead of using the language of personal spiritual disciplines, let's talk about the ordinary means of grace, let's talk about the corporate realities of the Word, the table, baptism, prayer, and the like. But then, when it comes to our own individual lives, let's just use language of obedience, the pursuit of righteousness, and fleeing from sin, because that's how the Scriptures talk. Instead of turning everything into a discipline, we just exhort people as the Scripture does. Looking here at Ephesians 4, the first verse my eyes fell on is, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Let's just encourage people that way.
Don't turn forgiveness into a discipline. Just say no, forgive each other, because consider how God in Christ has forgiven you.
Jon Moffitt: We need to do a Dazed and Confused on what it means to discipline yourself for the sake of godliness. That's not singular, it's plural. We'll get into that. Stay tuned. We're excited about it. We're going to be making some shifts.
Thank you guys so much. We are a little bit short on time today, but we are so excited about the future. We have so much more we want to say.
There are new videos on YouTube—go and check them out. We're doing some shorter stuff if you want to go look at that. We've got something on what Reformed theology is, about reading your Bible, about assurance of salvation. Go check that out.
Thanks for listening.
