“I sometimes find, especially among my peers, that authenticity is not a…means of growing in holiness, but a convenient cover for endless introspection, doubt, uncertainty, anger, and worldliness. So that if other Christians seem pure, assured, and happy we despise them for being inauthentic.

Granted, the church shouldn’t be happy-clappy naive about life’s struggles. Plenty of psalms show us godly ways to be real with our negative emotions. But the church should not apologize for preaching a confident Christ and exorting us to trust Him in all things. Church is not meant to foster an existential crisis of faith every week”

Kevin DeYoung in Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion, p.89

If your ethical criteria is “which way the wind blows”, then you are out of luck, respected people are landing on both sides of this.  I think you are on pretty flimsy ground if you are willing ot sign something merely on the basis that someone else you respect has signed it.

Signatories include Albert Mohler, J.I. Packer, Brian Chapell, William Edgar, Martin Olavsky, etc.

John MacArthur, James White, Alistair Begg, Frank Turk, Tim Challies, etc. have gone on record stating why they have refused to sign.

Here are a few scattered comments that come to my mind (they are generic, not specifically tailored for this particular declaration):

1. As a general rule, as of late, I try to be as skeptical I can. I think an appropriate posture is to start assuming no positive obligation to sign and then wait to see if one is presented. We should then refuse to feel pressured to sign. And then if we discover a negative obligation we shouldn’t even give consideration to signing. Emotionalism likes to rally people to causes and often it overstates the necessity.  The world is full of causes trying to make you believe you have some positive obligation to join.  This sort of “group think” can potentially be very scary.

2. Agreeing with a declaration 100% does not imply a positive obligation to sign it. Signing goes beyond mere agreement. Also, it is possible that we could fully agree with the “what” (the declarations bare statements  but could refuse to sign it for reasons pertaining to “why”, “who”, or “when”. We should not be pressured into thinking that  support for the “what” necessitates our supporting the “why”, “who”, or “when”.

3. When signing something, beyond the bare question of whether we agree with its terms, we should also consider what it will accomplish. Though it might be easy, we should never see signing something as a trivial matter (whether it be a declaration, a cheque, or a contract). Signing is a serious thing and we should always consider it that, even if it technically takes very little time.

4. This reminds me of how activism is often so much more complicated than we conservative Christians like to make it out to be. The what vs. why, who, how distinction outlines this.

5. The company we keep matters. A reputable name signing a declaration NEVER creates a positive obligation to sign, but a disreputable name signing a declaration COULD create a negative obligation in some circumstances. While signing a declaration is mainly a matter of agreeing with its propositions, I would argue that is not the only consideration.

I will not be signing this declaration for a few reasons that I do not feel compelled to explain in detail  here.  Suffice it to say, I see no positive obligation and I see cases being made for a negative obligation. In light of that, signing, to me, would at best be a matter of indifference (if there is no negative obligation) and at worst it would be wrong-headed to sign it (in the case that there is a negative obligation).

I believe in the sanctity of human life, the dignity of Christian marriage, and the rights of conscience and religion liberty. I do not feel compelled to sign the Manhattan Declaration in order to affirm that. The creators of the declaration have no particular reason to be concerned about my non-signing. Nobody is going to follow in my footsteps for the sake of following in my foot steps. At least I hope not.

“In my ethics lectures, I indicate that biblical eschatology is much misused today. Although in Scripture, it functions mainly as an ethically purifying doctrine, in evangelical theology and preaching, it often serves mainly as a pretext for speculations about the order of events in the end-times, so that the ethical focus gets lost.”

John Frame in Ethics and the Millenium

When God created, He also rested, and thus He instituted the Sabbath. Humans was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made to be a blessing to humans. This Sabbath was right at the core of how we count time, it became a reminder of the cycle of weeks.  It was a regular rest for our good and for God’s glory. It wasn’t ever intended to be a burden or a restrictions, it was intended to be a delight.  Do you have a delightful rest to look forward to every week?

The 4th Commandment, the Sabbath commandment is probably one of the most controversial of the ten commandments. Some Christians now believe the Sabbath has been canceled out in the New Covenant. Others still hold to the old Saturday Sabbath. Still others hold to a Christian Sabbath, which occurs on Sunday. I fall into the later group, I consider myself a non-grumpy Sunday Sabbatarian. There are strong Biblical reasons for this view, though of course the Christian Church is not at all unanimous on how to handle the Sabbath. To get to the heart of Biblical teaching on this subject, one has to address when exactly the Sabbath was instituted, what type of law it was, what is the role of the moral law in the New Covenant, how Christ handled the Sabbath, and whether or not there was a day change. Also, one would need to deal with a few passages in the New Testament which might suggest to some that the Sabbath was cancelled out in the New Covenant. These are matters which I may address at some other time, but are beyond the scope of this post.

In my view, the Sabbath never has been, and still isn’t a day in which we should be grumpy and look down our noses at other people. You can not keep the Sabbath well if you are grumpy while keeping it. Instead, the Sabbath or The Lord’s Day is a day of worship, joy, and delight.  If breaking the Sabbath is a sin, then so is not delighting in it! It’s a day that is to be different than the other six. God didn’t give this day so He could enslave us with restrictions, but instead He gave it so we could be spared from being enslaved to our work. We spend it worshiping, rejoicing, feasting, and resting, not sitting on our porch and staring and grumbling at our neighbors.  It is moreso a Wedding Party than a Funeral Dirge.

In observing the rest that God gave us in the Sabbath via the Christian or New Covenant Sabbath, I strive to:

A. Delight in and worship God (individually and collectively).

B. As implied in section A, make myself available for the worship services of the church.

C. Cease from things I normally do for the rest of the week. And forget my work and the hurried pace of life.

D. Enjoy food, fellowship with God’s people, and find some time to be contemplative and relax

I do not do these perfectly, but I’m increasingly aware of how this sort of a good rest impacts the very rhythm of life.  I don’t know how I would make it through the years without this sort of rest every week.

As a good political libertarian, I do not believe in using state laws to enforce the Lord’s Day or Sabbath on others in our day and age (now that those laws have been struck down, its not likely that this issue will come up again). Neither do I believe in judging others in how they keep or do not keep this law. That said, from what I understand from the Scriptures, I see a moral obligation for believers to honor the Lord’s Day based on the 4th commandment. Even those who believe the Sabbath has been canceled in the New Covenant tend to draw some lessons from the 4th Commandment, and apply it to the Lord’s Day.

The Christian Sabbath is not just an abstract item on a checklist. It’s made for your benefit by the One who knows all things and knows you better than you know yourself. He gave it to you not to enslave you, but rather to liberate you.

“…call the Sabbath a delight..” – Isaiah 58:13

“…The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath…” – Jesus in Mark 2

You are not unacquainted with the day of our Communion.

I entreat, therefore, the aid of your prayers for that great work, which is one of our feast days, wherein our well-beloved Jesus rejoiceth and is merry with his friends.

Good cause have we to wonder at his love, since the day of his death was such a sorrowful day to him, even the day when his mother, the kirk [church], crowned him with thorns, and he has many against him, and appeared his lone in the fields against them all; yet he delights with us to remember that day. Let us love him, and be glad and rejoice at his salvation. I am confident that you shall see the Son of God that day, and I dare in his name invite you to his banquet.

- Samuel Rutherford in “A Letter to Marion M’Naught”, May 7, 1631 (from Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Puritan Paperbacks, p.20-21)

A woman confronts the lead character (who is taking his delight in spreading and repeating the mantra of Jabez:

She looked directly at me and said, “Be human! You’re too ethereal and ghostly. You’re fingers aren’t even touching your briefcase, for Pete’s sake,’ she said. “Grow up. Doesn’t the Incarnation mean anything? Life is more than passing out Christian sentences. Pure religion is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Show me how to see the glory of God in the ordinary things of life, show me how to be faithful and find meaning in the quotidan; show me how to ‘eat my bread with joy and drink my wine with a merry heart’ like Solomon says. Show me how to raise children so that, from them, generations will rise up and count me blessed. Show me how to live life artfully. Show me….”

She kept shouting after me as I wandered off. There was no helping her. She just didn’t get it. Not only did those things require time and maturity and a future (and wine!), but they didn’t involve real ministry. They would require seeing the world and life poetically, as if the heavens declared the glory of God or “day unto day uttered speech.” But God isn’t concerned with little things: “He that is faithful in the big things of ministerial work, he shall be blessed” (Luke 16:10).

Housewives and office workers and engineers and children can’t really live the Christina life. They are too encumbered by earthly things. They actually touch stuff with their fingers. An exciting life means that you will find exhilaration in big, daily miracles. If we spent our time seeing the miraculous in ordinary things–in labor and cleaning and raising children and creating, then God would have by no means by which  to get out His sentences. If ordinary Christians were truly able to delight in the divine poetry of housework, flowers, clothes, oceans, car repair, and plumbing, if they were able to see the utter glory of god in every mundane thing, then who would buy this booklet? Who would think that ministry only equals evangelisitic sesrvice? No one would want my bungee mantra.

(The Mantra of Jabeez, Jones, p.48-49)

This sarcastic narrative is a true but sad commentary on much of Christianity today. The lead character exhibits a problem with the way many Christians view their life, and the woman who challenges him brings up a lot of good points.  We need to be more human. Less ethereal and ghostly. Less shallow. And take more delight in good things that God has given us and the good callings we are called to, even if they don’t seem very “spiritual” to others.  And as this book sacrastically illustrates us, we need to stop thinking mantras, catchy cod words, and thoughtless platitudes are what pleases God.

Diligent Godliness

Throughout his second epistle, Peter speaks earnestly of the necessity of a Christ-centered diligence. We’ve received all that we need from God in Christ (1:3), but we are called to work this out into Christian virtue (1:5-8).

The listing of virtues (1:5-8) is not an abstract philosophical exercise, but has real implications not only in regard to the church’s glorious future but also its present  struggles. This theme of this moral diligence runs through the entire letter (see 1:5, 1:10, 3:14, 3:17, etc.) and it is very much related to what Peter is saying about false teachers in chapter two.

The pressure of damnable false teaching all the more necessitates strong teaching on moral excellence, since false teaching is not merely a matter of assenting to certain beliefs, but is very much at its core a moral issue. The teaching Peter was addressing involved a certain carnal way of thinking and a certain manner of life. When God’s people lack diligence, regardless of how much they know, they are susceptible to deception and even sound knowledge will not guard them from error. To Peter, advocating growth in godliness was very much a defense of the faith.

A Diligent Pastor & Apostle

However, there is another facet to diligence in II Peter. It is not limited to a general call to diligence in Christian virtue. There is also a discussion of Peter’s diligence as an apostle in reminding the recipients of certain important matters (1:12-15).

Peter had a grave responsibility to warn his people and encourage their spiritual development, particularly in light of the situation they faced.  He knew that immature and lacking believers make easy prey for false teachers, and he saw his responsibility before God for their well-being. He recognized that this responsibility extends to beyond his own life-span in the remembrance of his teachings. He would die, but through his pastoral diligence he would ensure that his influence did not stop there (1:14-15).

The Importance of Diligence

Hence, to sum this up, Peter holds up diligence as absolutely necessary both in the general Christian walk but also, through his example, diligence in the
tasks laid upon pastors.

As believers, our diligent pursuit of godliness has far-reaching implications on our usefulness to God (1:8) and our spiritual vision (1:9). It is God’s means of preserving us (1:10). And it has some surprising eschatological implications! (see 1:11 and 3:11-13)

I know that some people, having been exposed to some unbiblical or perhaps “sub-biblical” ideas surrounding church membership, have “thrown out the baby out with the bath water” and forsaken the idea completely.  But the fact that historically the concept of church membership has been abused does not give us the right to discard the thoroughly Biblical concept of church membership.  If anything, the fact that there are abuses of the concept all the more strengthens the need for a solid, Biblical appreciation of it.

Highly recommended.

[Theophilus] is probably a new convert to Christianity. So there is a wealthy, prominent, affluent, significant man who becomes a Christian. And what he’s wondering is, is it really true? Is Jesus really God? Did He do what I’ve heard he’s done?…he has a lot to lose in declaring himself to be a Christian because in that day Caesar was lord, and as a Christian he would declare: “not anymore. JESUS IS LORD”. And in that day he would say “my highest allegience is my nation” and upon meeting Jesus he would have to say, “no, my highest allegience  is to His kingdom”. And as a governer he would need to say “All religions are welcome, the worship of all gods is equal” and as a Christian, he would have to say “no, Jesus alone is God and savior”. This would get him in great trouble with his boss, Caesar. This could get him fired…maybe even in prison. This could cost him his income, his job, his prominence…

And so he is this man wrestling…with his faith…There’s a lot at stake. And so he contracts out, hires, funds, supports Luke. Fellow gentile, not a Jew, not looking for Messiah. Not predisposed. Educated, articulate man. Has access to apostles and the eyewitnesses and the disciples. And he says, “Luke, I need you to go find the truth. Go get the facts”…

Now, here’s what’s amazing: That was very expensive. This is a classic ancient way that someone who had been funded would acknowledge their benefactor. They would dedicate their play, their poetry, their book to their donor…So here’s what you’re supposed to understand. Theophilus paid for two books of the Bible to get written. He would have allowed Luke to take years off of work, I’m sure Luke kicked in his money as well, and to go do all the eyewitness investigation. Now think about this, 2,000 years later, had it not been for Theopholis’ generosity, we would be lacking the largest contribution to the entire New Testament.

I’ll tell you, one of the weaknesses at Mars Hill, actually one of the sins of Mars Hill is that this is a church that has not excelled in generosity. Now God’s been very generous to us, that’s for sure. But we’ve not been very generous, and in saying that some of you will be like “Oh, this is where he wants to take my money”. It’s not your money, it’s His, you’re a steward, and if it bothers you you’re an idolater. Let’s keep it simple, because you either worship your money, your status and possessions and wealth, or you worship with your money, your status, possesions, and wealth. It’s very simple. Theopholis was a man who gave generously for Luke to do his ministry

…a lot of libertarion theologians and the real hardcore liberals they’ll read Luke and say, “Well, that Gospel talks about the poor more than any other Gospel. It shows that Jesus was poor, Jesus loved the poor, and Jesus includes the poor, and Jesus is all about the poor.” And they forget that the only reason we know that is because the rich guy paid for the book that tells them that Jesus loves the poor.

You see, Christianity is not like the class warfare that you have been brainwashed in since infancy over here on the left coast. Rich people can love Jesus and they are supposed to give generously and poor people can love Jesus and they’re suppoesd to give generously, and sometimes it is rich people who pay for things so that poor people can know that Jesus loves them. That’s good. And Theophilus is that guy. I hope some of you earn a lot of money and are very very very generous…See, its not how much you make, it’s about what you do with it.

Now what Theopholis didn’t decide to do was to get a new camel with rims and get another vacation home…what he decided was: I need to find the facts about Jesus and I need to find and educated, objective, scholarly, academic historian and I need to just make an enormous financial sacrifice and let him go out and give me the facts. And we got two books of the Bible out of it. That’s wonderful, isn’t it? That 2,000 years later, a few billion of us on the earth claim to worship Jesus Christ as God, and so much of what we know about him, and how we function as a church comes from the books of Acts about the church and Luke about Jesus. Amazing. I want you to share in Theophilus’ joy. I want us to be, I want you to be, generous.

“Encourage others each and every day–nothing’s more important than our words.

Did you know that, on average, each of us speaks about twenty-five thousand words daily? My last book didn’t have that many words. A lot of language is flowing out of our mouths every day and havin gan impact on those around us. But how much of that flow is fulfilling God’s intended purpose for our speech? How much of it reflects pride, rather than a gospel-motivated humility?”

(from Humility: True Greatness by C.J. Mahaney, p.111)