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This month Pope Francis announced his decision to consider married men for ordination as a type of pseudo-priest for service to the Roman Catholic faithful. The Reason? The Roman Church suffers a lack of single men applying for ordination. In the US there are 2,500 Catholics per priest. In Brazil, the country of greatest need, there are 8,000 Catholics per priest.

So, to solve the problem Francis opened this topic for discussion in the upper echelons of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. He seems to be using the same method, as when he discussed the possibility of female deacons, saying, the Catholic faithful must ask, “What does this mean at that time [of the Bible]? What does it mean today?” He continued by encouraging the faithful to search the Scriptures, saying, “Don’t be afraid! That makes us free.”

Today, in the 500th year of the reformation, we will ask the same question: “What is a Priest?”

Interestingly enough, this call to search the Scriptures for the divine answers is identical to the call of Christ (John 5:39) and served to rally the Reformation, as many in the 15th and 16th century humanist movement cried “ad fontes” or back to the sources- a plea to return to the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts composing our modern Bible. This is something we must remember: the Church did not decide the Scriptures, they were written long before, circulated among believers for hundreds of years before the church collected these known documents and placed them into the canon.

If you desire to know more about the Bible, go to our past podcast- “What is the Bible?”

So, let’s go back to the Scriptures- the fountainhead of meaning- and discover the purpose of the priesthood. Then, we may understand how such an institution fits into the modern church.

The priesthood is first explicitly defined in the time of Moses. Men have offered sacrifices since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden, but God first instituted the priesthood in relation to His covenant with Israel. In Leviticus 10:8-11, we read of the first ordination and the duty of the priests.

The Lord then spoke to Aaron, saying, “Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you will not die—it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations—and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean, and so as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them through Moses.”

Priests have two primary roles: they are called to offer sacrifices and teach the people. The sacrifice serves as the object lesson to the Scriptural teaching.

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True Christianity is not one New Year’s Resolution away- it’s not based on your decision. Instead, the Christian life begins with God’s choice. The evangelist John writes, “Children of God are born, not of blood nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:13) God bears you into His kingdom according to His will, not because of your birth certificate, your church membership, how “good” you try to be, or what resolutions you make this year.

Such a concept drastically shakes the foundation of common human understanding. “Wait a minute, are you saying I cannot decide?” Yes, the Bible speaks clearly on this matter. Faith in Jesus Christ and a relationship with God depends entirely on the work of God, not your own.

He initiates, maintains, and completes this relationship with men and women. Jesus illustrates the new birth through nature, saying, “Do not be amazed that I said you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:7-8) God’s spirit brings new life into one’s heart. He gives us a new birth by His spirit.

Two Critical Elements

So, what happens in us to begin this new and dynamic relationship? The new birth depends upon two inseparable components. First, the word of Jesus Christ must be faithfully preached- “for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17). Then, in conjunction with the word of Christ, the Holy Spirit convicts the listener to the truth of Christ and the magnitude of their sin (John 16:8).

Both these elements combine to pierce one to the heart (Acts 2:37), causing the afflicted to cry out, “What must I do to be saved?” Such is the response as the Gospel takes root in one’s heart and God begins a relationship with them by the power of His Holy Spirit.

The Big Question

But, what actually takes place in us? Sure the Spirit “works” (whatever that means), but how do I know if God has actually worked in me? Great question! The convicting power of the Holy Spirit is not a far off and distant spiritual pinprick, but a real and tangible felt need of repentance or turning away from one’s sin.

The spirit reveals your true disobedience to God and causes a type of self-disgust and personal loathing. This exceeds a guilty conscience and indicates that we have undergone an important and life altering procedure by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The prophet Ezekiel says this about the new birth defining it in terms of a spiritual operation, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26). God takes out our old heart unfeeling to the things of God and intent on perpetuating our sinful desires, and gives us a new heart.

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Today, on the So What Series, we ask, “What is Thanksgiving?” Millions of Americans have just returned from gathering around the tables of friends and family to celebrate this national holiday and literal “feast day.” But, instead of recalling the size of the Turkey. Stop, and consider the real reason for this holiday for the concept of Thanksgiving reaches far beyond 1623, and finds its genesis in the man's relationship with God. Thanksgiving literally means to praise God for His grace and, whether you are a Christian or not, we all have plenty to be thankful for. Without grounding our thankfulness in God, we will find ourselves void of a natural outpouring of thanks and praise for God’s bountiful blessings and many graces, but only filled with an empty pride and unsatisfying self-conceit. Thank you for joining us as we attempt to kindle the true meaning of the holiday and the warmth never far from a heart pressed closed to the hand of God.

In the Greek New Testament, thanksgiving literally translates to eucharistia, and means an outpouring of gratitude and thanks for God’s undeserved mercy and grace. While the Roman Catholic Church, has attempted to give the word new meaning within the practice of Eucharist. We can recognize thanksgiving not as what enter one’s mouth, but what proceeds forth (Matthew 15:11). So, thanksgiving is our response to God for what He has done for us. We can experience God's grace in two ways: the first involves His general grace, and the second His special grace.

The general grace of God is administered to everyone independent of any behavior. In Matthew 5:45, Jesus tells his disciples that God brings the sun and the rain on good and evil. Both are a underserved blessing and God gives both to good and bad. Likewise, Psalm 127:3, shows us children are a gift from God. Regardless of your relationship with God, all men and women experience the common blessing of family and children, hearth and home. God designs all these blessings to turn humanity to Him, for in them we realize we are powerless to bring such goodness into our dark, confused, and lonely lives. Only this undeserved gifts serve as a glimmer of the full hope and light resting in God. Yet, more often than not, we reject God's providence in these blessings, choosing to chalk such things up to good genetics, a little luck, and hard work (Romans 1:21). The Gospel writer John, says "the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it." (John 1:5).

But, in God's special grace, the light is on full display in Jesus Christ. Despite our hostility to the things of God, He draws us into a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ (Col 1:21-22). In Colossians 1:15, we find Jesus Christ as the image of the invisible God. This special grace of God elicits praise in the Christian heart. The entire Christian relationship is built upon God's grace or getting something we do not deserve.

The best biblical verse to sum up this uniquely Christian thought is found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:8-9) Thanksgiving comes from the realization that you do not deserve a relationship with God- its not your right! But, God, in Jesus Christ, extends us His grace and mercy to exist in a relationship with Him, if we turn from our sins and repent, trusting in Christ and Christ alone. We cannot work for this relationship, we cannot sacrifice for this honor, we cannot ascribe to the strictest tradition and duties to realize our faith. Faith comes by God alone.

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We’ve all had the experience; someone is trying to tell you something important! Meanwhile, you are creeping to the door. Whew! You escaped…. then you recall: "I just felt like they wouldn’t stop preaching at me!” As humans, we do not like to be “preached at” or really for that matter to be preached nearby. We do not like to be told “what to do” or “how to do it”. We can figure it out on our own, thank you very much. But, the Bible mandates preaching (Mark 16:15-16), Jesus himself modeled it (Mark 1:14-15), and throughout the history of God’s people He has delivered His message through the voice of the prophets. So, how can we reconcile our dislike for preaching with God’s call to preach? Shall we swallow the vinegar with the honey or shall we retire preaching and agree to have more “conversations”.

We must preface this episode with an understanding: not all preaching is good, God-honoring preaching. Some is horrendous, hateful, and embittered; other preaching is passive, disorganized, and subjective. Our focus is, “What is God-honoring, Biblical mandated preaching look like?”

First, let’s look at the Biblical mandate to preach. The last chapter of Mark records the direct command of Jesus- “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15). This is straight forward enough. The last chapter of Matthew presents a more nuanced view of the disciples’ ministry- “Go therefore a make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” (Matt 28:19-20) This is perhaps a fuller picture of the preaching ministry. The disciples are called to always have a focus, not to just make converts, but raise up disciples. They are called not only to plant the seeds, but also to harvest the crop. And, the primary means to ensure the fruit of the spirit in the heart of believer is teaching. Preaching without teaching is like talking without words- the two always go together.

But, teaching is only a component of preaching and is not inherently connected to its nature. Martin Lloyd Jones compared teaching to preaching by saying that a lecture could be given at anytime, but a sermon must be delivered now. Preaching has a sense of urgency. Again, Martin Lloyd Jones writes, in his book, On Preachers and Preaching,

What is preaching? Logic on fire! Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this. I say again that a man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one.

The Prophet Jeremiah expressed the same urge to preach as a “fire in his bones.” (Jer 20:9) So, preaching possesses many qualities of teaching, the former exceeds the latter in passion, urgency, and conviction, while never sacrificing content or clarity.

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We may understand the Holy Spirit as an emotion, a feeling, or sense. Maybe we perceive the Spirit as a type of built-in moral barometer. Perhaps, we think God’s Spirit exists within all men and allows us, after proper reflection or meditation, to speak on God’s behalf. While all of these perceptions may retain a degree of truth, they largely reveal a flawed understanding of the Holy Spirit and a low working knowledge of the Spirit’s actual mechanics. Instead of asking, “What is the Holy Spirit?” We should ask, “Who is the Holy Spirit?”

In our society's march towards ever-greater “personhood", or the ability to define one own's identity despite cultural, societal, gender, or moral norms, we have seemingly gained rights for every people group; yet, despite our unceasing quest for personal autonomy, we continue to misunderstand, misuse, and malign the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a force, not an emotion, not an ecstatic hyper-spiritual sense. The Holy Spirit is a person of the Godhead (2 Cor 3:17) with a unique character. He testifies to the truth of Jesus Christ (1 John 5:6-10). He is grieves over Christian’s sins (Eph 4:30). He speaks truth (John 16:13). And, He achieves His will throughout the church (1 Cor 12:11). Lastly, the person of Holy Spirit is God. He possesses the very mind of God and knows all the riches of divine knowledge; nothing is hidden from His comprehension (1 Cor 2:10-11).

So, the Holy Spirit is His own person. And, as God He has His own agenda. He is not our errand boy or mystique force. He is the very person of God. In His divine sovereignty, He serves as the representative or vicar of Christ on earth. In Christ’s absence, the Holy Spirit administers God’s will (John 14:26). In short, for us to know Christ or have a relationship with God, we must only look to the Holy Spirit- not to any priest, pastor, or any other individual. The Holy Spirit is the designated advocate and ambassador of Jesus Christ. Anyone claiming the role as Vicar, Paraclete, or Mediator infringes on the very personhood of the Holy Spirit. He alone represents Christ, and oversees the will of God in Christ’s absence.

The Holy Spirit administers His unique two-fold ministry on earth, serving both believers and non-believers in different ways. His primary role for the non-believing world depends upon his conjoined and interdependent ministry with the Word of God. Upon the reading and proclamation of God’s word, the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of all mankind to convict them of their sin and prove the righteousness of God (John 16:8). The spirit is the strong arm behind the word of God, enabling the word to penetrate deeper than any sword, “dividing soul and spirit.” (Heb 4:12). The Spirit plants the first fruits of faith and evokes the response, “What shall I do to be saved?” (Acts 2:37).

The Spirit of God works in the believer’s heart in a variety of special ways. First, in conjunction with the word of God....

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We all know the saying, “the most convincing lies are almost true.” Yet, rarely does such a commonly used colloquialism serve to perpetuate a Biblical tenet. Error, untruths, and lies surround us everyday. While we are able to determine the gross falsehoods from the truth, we have been convinced time and again by lies nearly true. Everyday finds us facing a new ‘gotcha’- one so near the truth we didn’t see it coming. Besides growing into an old and bitter curmudgeon, Biblical truth provides the only anecdote for fighting error.

The study of error serves to benefit both Christian and non-Christian for in it we discover error’s modus operandi- how error works- and uncover the very means which lead to our deception. In his letter to the Church at Colossae, Paul warns the church, writing, “I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument (Col 2:4).” Paul pinpoints the nature of error. The word he uses for delude is literally translated as paralogic. The prefix para- means to come alongside of or work in conjunction with. The base word logic connotes truth or reason. This is how a persuasive argument works. The argument comes alongside the truth. We note Paul doesn’t say contralogic. The persuasive argument is not completely contrary to the truth. Instead the argument comes alongside the truth. Perhaps, the argument looks identical to the truth or even serves to enhance its appearance.

The purple flower bloom of the wisteria vine beautifies any house or garden. Yet, as the plant winds up your favorite oak or along your cottage exterior the vines can eventually strangle your beloved tree, and displace the bricks you wished remain in your walls. Persuasive arguments work in the same way. They wind alongside biblical teachings, merely enhancing or seemingly embellishing the truth, but instead they serve to displace the brick-and-mortar doctrines of the Christian faith.

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Sin; we often correlate the word with doing “bad things”. Many things inform our perception of “bad”: our conscience, the natural world, our emotions, circumstantial knowledge, and past decisions. Naturally, we weave together our moral identity using our perceptions and the resulting quilt of our conglomerated senses forms our conscience; or, how we justify our reactions to the events composing our lives. On paper, this is fine, but we know the problem. We all possess varying emotions, different perspectives, and special tastes. As Blaise Pascal, succinctly writes, “The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not.” So, in reality, we have not come any closer to defining bad or good. Instead, we have allowed our opinions to reign, and the subjective truth of our ever-changing minds to feed our consciences. But as beauty, as goodness, as truth have a source of objective and indisputable truth, so does sin. Once, we view sin from God’s perspective, our conscience and moral understanding will find rest and assurance, we will not only be able to define what is bad, and identify the character of sin; but, embrace what is good.

In both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament, sin literally translates to “missing the mark”. The mark or the bull’s-eye rests in God. Whatever lies outside of His person, anything that “misses the mark” of His revealed will, can be defined as sin. The Greek word for sin- hamartria- is formed by two root words: “not”, and “a part of”. So, when we choose sin, we decide on an action originating in our own person and not in the person of God. In sin, we choose the course and proceed by our willpower.

Sin rests in men and women attempting to cast off the will of God (Ps 2:1-6). Yet, the will of God always prevails. While God plays no part in sin, nor is the source of evil, He continues to work all things for His good. His providential care and sovereign plan are not hindered by the will of men. In the book of Genesis, the words of Joseph best summarize God’s ability to use evil for His good. Joseph says, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive (Gen 50:20).” As we continue to discuss sin, we may take assurance in the fact that while sin may reign in our hearts, and continues to evidence its consequences throughout the world, God never removes His thumb of dominion from the back of sin. His goodness continues to conquer the sin of this world.

Ultimately, understanding sin begins with comprehending God’s nature and continues with an assurance that, despite sin's pervasiveness, God reigns over all things. For us to go against God’s will is to sin- Period! Furthermore, God reveals His will through His unchanging and inerrant word. By His Word, He directs our path and aligns our will in accordance with His purpose (Ps 119: 103-106). As we grow to understand the meaning of sin- “missing the mark” of God's will, we should begin to realize our own nature. By nature, we do not reside in the will of God; we need His word and guidance. Instead, our nature is aligned with sin. In the natural pursuit of and submission to our thoughts and desires, we continually find ourselves outside of God’s will. Apart from God, we are born in sin (Ps 51:5) and we will continue in sin our entire lives (Eph 2:1-5; Col 2:13).

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Jesus Christ has captured the world’s imagination for centuries. While most historians agree He existed, few agree on who he was. In this episode of “So What?”, we will take the tact of C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, where he writes,

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him[Jesus Christ]: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Trusting in the integrity of the Bible, we will attempt to understand the full person of Jesus using His words and the words of His apostles.

The best place to start to understand the full person of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John was written around 90 AD before John’s exile to the island of Patmos where he wrote the Book of Revelation. He intended his Gospel to serve as a supplement to the first three Gospels written around 40-60 AD and circulated around the growing church. John’s Gospel remains distinct for as the first three Gospels focus largely on the life and times of Jesus Christ, John has a different message. This message is related in John 20:30-31, where he writes,

“Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

So, John wrote, not only to believe Jesus is the Son of God, not just to come to that intellectual acknowledgement, but also to have life, eternal abiding life with God in the name of Jesus Christ.

Then, in John chapter one, verse one through eighteen, John explains how Jesus can provide a life with God. We must notice in these first eighteen verses two points, which John uses to expound the person of Jesus and reveal His complete character. First, Jesus is God and, second, Jesus is man.

In the first four verses of chapter 1, we read this,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. (John 1:1-4)

With this opening salvo, John begins to describe the divine person of Jesus. Jesus, the word made flesh (John 1:14) is God. John presents the three characteristics one must possess to be considered God. We will view these three characteristics now.

In the Beginning/Pre-Existence

With God/Co-Existence

Is God/Self-Existence. John further emphasizes this point in Revelation 1:8, 21:6, 22:13

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The word testimony remains synonymously fixed to the Christian world. We ask for testimonies, give testimonies, read about testimonies, and hear testimonies. But, what is a testimony? While a vast array of speeches, presentations, and personal interactions may all be billed in the category of “testimony,” we desire to uncover the origin and purpose of a testimony. In Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word for testimony is martureó. The word, appearing over thirty times in the New Testament, originates not in Christianity, but in the Greek courts of law. Testimony literally means to give evidence, or bear witness, and composes the root of the English word martyr.

Indisputable evidence forms the basis of any genuine testimony. If the evidence can merely be dismissed as untrue or fails to find collaboration outside the presenting witness, then the testimony is void and discarded. But, if the evidence cannot be denied, then the jury must accept the truth of the witness. Yet, one option remains to reject a genuine testimony: the witness must recant. So, enters martyrdom.

Tertullian, a famed church father, said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Martyrdom and Christianity form an inextricable link. Yet, the prominent feature of Christian martyrdom is not how they died, but what they died for. At the heart of the Christian testimony rests the Scriptures. They are God’s irrefutable evidence given to the Christian church to prove His case.

A witness in a court of law may retain a degree of emotional tenor (they witnessed the crime!), but ultimately their testimony hinges on the truth of the evidence. The testimony of the apostles depended not on their personal experiences, but on how Christ fulfilled the Scriptures. The Scriptures formed the core of their Christian testimony. In his second letter, Peter propounds the immeasurable value of the Scriptures. He previously witnessed the transfiguration of Christ, God speaking from a cloud, and Moses and Elijah (dead men) walking and talking with Christ (Luke 9:28-37). But, he upholds the Scripture over this amazing personal experience, writing, “So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scriptures is a matter of one’s own interpretation (2 Peter 1:19-20). Peter compares his personal experience with Christ to the Scriptures and champions the Scriptures. He understands the Scriptures as the singular means to confirm, embolden, and proclaim one’s faith in Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Scriptures are not based on one’s personal opinions or subjective emotions; they remain the objective truth of God.

Finally, Jesus Christ depended on God’s objective truth to assert His person. He used the Scriptures to establish and undergird His entire testimony on earth. Certainly, He performed miracles, but they existed only as signs to fulfill the Scriptures and point to His divine person. Jesus implored the people to search the Scriptures to discover His identity, saying, “Search the Scriptures!...it is these that testify about Me (John 5:39).” The Scriptures testify to Christ. Moreover, Jesus relied upon the Scriptures to disseminate His message. In Luke 24:27, we read, “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures (Luke 24:27).” Christ could have relied upon His divine person, His supernatural works, or His direct relationship with God; instead, He used the Scriptures to open the eyes of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:45). What a powerful testimony to the evidence of the Scriptures!

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We often hear that the teachings of the Bible are good-and-well, but we must not take the writings too seriously. They tell us the Scriptures have been corrupted overtime and now we possess only a fragment of the original. So, we are inclined to cherry pick verses we like and ignore ones which cause division or confusion. Of course we want to be given the desires of our hearts (Ps 37:4), but we don’t really want to face eternal punishment (Rev 20:11-15). But, what if we held an uncorrupted and true Bible, not just true, but inerrant, infallible and all sufficient- the very word of God? Such a Bible would change our very conception of faith and our current relationship with God. We hope to briefly address the topic of biblical inerrancy using both biblical and extra-biblical evidence to disprove the conception of a corrupted biblical text and show the truth of the Scriptures.

First, we must turn to the sixty-six books composing Bible. If the Bible does not itself claim inerrancy, infallibility, and sufficiency, then we begin a pointless conversation. Fortunately, the Scriptures come with assembly and operation instructions. Let us start in the Old Testament, the Jewish Torah, composing the first 39 books of our modern Bible. In Joshua 1:8, we read, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.” God speaks directly to Joshua and confirms the necessity of His book of the law. The “book of the Law” refers to the writings of Moses, also know as the Pentateuch, which compose the first five books of our Old Testament. We note two things from this admonition: first, God does not mention any textual corruption; second, the book of the law is all-sufficient and should be a constant source of reflection and thought. Moses also asserts the all-sufficient nature of the Scriptures instructing all the people to “diligently [teach the Law] to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up (Deut 6:5-7).” The word of God is true, infallible, uncorrupted, and sufficient for all teaching- day and night.....

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