"The mark of the true Church is the preaching of Word of God in which the Lord is made manifest to us, as the books of the Prophets and Apostles declare Him. And, consequently, we join to the Word the Sacraments and the administration of ecclesiastical discipline, such as God has ordained."
"Moreover, since apart from the act of Baptism, the water is no Sacrament, but plain water, and apart from the administration of the Supper, the bread and wine are no signs of the body and blood of the Lord, but only bread and wine, it follows that superstitious devotees of these things, do not worship even the Sacraments, but only and simply the creations of God. If these could speak, they would doubtless rebuke those who worshipped them for such horrible blasphemy."
-Theodore Beza (1519-1605), The Christian Faith, 52.
Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 2:18-22.
“And
Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the
bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they
cannot fast” (Mark 2:19).
In
Christ’s early ministry he attracted both disciples and critics.
In
Mark 2:18 the critics ask, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples
fast not?” They were essentially accusing him of not teaching orthopraxy, right
conduct.
We have Christ’s response in v. 19 with his own question: “Can
the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?”
He poses here a parable or an analogy. Christ is like a
Bridegroom who has come. In a first century Jewish wedding, the bride and the
wedding party would wait for the coming of the Bridegroom (see Christ’s parable
of the wise and foolish virgins regarding his second coming in Matt 25:1-13). When the Bridegroom arrived the wedding
celebration began.
Here in Mark 2:19 Christ speaks about his first advent or first coming. Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, came into this world to claim his Bride, the people of God, the
Church. Those who are his disciples are “the children of
the bridechamber.” They are part of the wedding party. The coming of the long-expected
Bridegroom (the Messiah) is a time of joy and celebration and gladness. It is
not a time of “affliction” of the soul and fasting.
This
is Christ’s response to these critics. There are times for feasting and times
for fasting. Weddings are not funerals. The Bridegroom has come. Joy and
gladness are in order. This was the proper response of his disciples.
Christ then adds in v. 20 what is
essentially a prophecy of both the cross and his ascension: “But the days will
come, when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they shall
fast in those days.” The disciples will be filled with great sorrow over all
these things.
An underlying point is being made. Christ is taking to himself the
title of being the Bridegroom. If you look at the Old
Testament, you will find a rich treasury of references to the one true God of
the Bible as being the Husband or Bridegroom of his elect people, his Bride.
Consider just one example:
Isaiah 54: 5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy
Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
6 For the Lord hath
called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth,
when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great
mercies will I gather thee.
When Christ declares himself to be the Bridegroom, he is declaring
himself to be God. His first disciples thus confessed, “Jesus is Lord.” They were
filled with joy at his first advent, and his disciples on earth will be filled
with joy again at his second coming when we are called to “the marriage supper
of the Lamb” (Rev 19:9). Christ is the Bridegroom!
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
"As the seed, however good it may be, does not produce its fruit at the moment which it is sown, but must necessarily remain in the ground, so it is not proper to restrict fruit and efficacy of the Word to the same hour in which it is sown, nor that of the Sacraments to the moment in which they are administered. For the fruit manifests itself in the hearts of the elect at the time determined by God."
-Theodore Beza (1519-1605), The Christian Faith, 48.
Note: Devotional article based on last Sunday's sermon on Mark 2:13-17.
“And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him” (Mark 2:14).
The early
ministry of Christ on earth involved the calling of his disciples. In Mark
1:16-20 we have the call of two sets of fisherman brothers: Simon and Andrew,
James and John. In Mark
2:14 there is the call of Levi (also known as Matthew), the publican (tax
collector). The description is minimal. No doubt Christ knew this latter man
and had spoken previously with him. The Evangelist Mark describes the moment in
which action was demanded, a command given, a response required. A call goes
forth. This is the effectual call to faith and the call to apostleship.
To Simon and Andrew Christ said, “Come ye after me, and I
will make you to become fishers of men” (1:17).
To Levi he said, “Follow me” (2:14). This is the call to
discipleship, to enroll in the school of the Lord Jesus Christ, to become his
apprentice, to learn from him.
Paul said to the Corinthians, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).
Peter
called upon men to follow in Christ’s steps (1 Peter 2:21).
Christ
himself said in Luke 9:23, “If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
To follow Christ means you can’t follow the crowd. You can’t
follow anyone but the Lord Jesus Christ. Our God is a jealous God. And Christ
is a jealous Christ. Christ himself said, “No man can serve two masters” (Matt
6:24).
If you follow Christ, you have to deny yourself. You have to
leave some things behind.
I spent a summer after college leading young men on weeklong
backpacking trips in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. The night before we
left for the trip, we had the boys lay out the things they wanted to take, and
then we usually had to cut that into at least half. We had to get the weight lower
to avoid blisters, fatigue, and dragging behind.
As Christians, we have a race to
run, and we cannot get bogged down with needless burdens that will hold us back
from following Christ. We must certainly never turn back. Christ said, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking
back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).
The response of Levi is also simply
and minimally recorded: “And he arose and followed him.” Christ is honored when
our obedience to his call is similarly prompt and sincere.
Let us deny ourselves, take up our
cross daily, and follow him.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jeff Riddle
"In that our regeneration is never completed here below, -- there is always the battling of the flesh against the Spirit (Gal 5:17), there is yet, I say, deep darkness in our understanding (1 Cor 13:9-12), and great rebellions in us against God (Rom 7:15-24), -- it follows that the best work which can come from the best man in the world, if he were examined with rigour, would be found to be nothing other than a polluting of the graces of God. It is thus that we see a clear pure stream is polluted when it passes through a dirty vile place."
-Theodore Beza (1519-1605), The Christian Faith, 30.
How many *sons* of Alpheus were apostles?
Note: Devotional taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 1:21-34.
“for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22).
“for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him” (Mark 1:27).
Even secular unbelieving historians agree that the Lord Jesus Christ was a man who possessed a personal power, warmth, and winsomeness that affected those who encountered him, heard him, and observed his ministry. He drew men to himself in the way that a magnet draws metal. He was a man who demanded followers.
That personal, “magnetic” personality is noted in our passage today at several points. The term that is used to distinguish the uniqueness of Christ is “authority [Greek: exousia].”
In Mark 1, Christ conducts his threefold ministry: preaching, teaching, and healing (cf. Matt 4:23; 9:35). First, he was preaching in Galilee the gospel of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14-15). Second, he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum (Mark 1:21: “and [he] taught”). Third, he was healing. He healed (exorcised) a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue (Mark 1:23-26). He healed Simon’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-31). He healed many who gathered in the evening at his door (Mark 1:32-34: “And he healed many that were sick of diverse diseases, and cast out many devils,” v. 34).
His unique authority shines through. Mark the Evangelist describes the response of those who heard him in the synagogue, “And they were astonished at his doctrine [didache]: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22).
Mark also unveils the amazed questioning pondered by those who saw him exorcise the man with the unclean spirit: “What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him” (Mark 1:27).
Behold the authority of Christ.
He preached Himself.
He taught with authority as God in the flesh. He did not teach about God; he taught as God. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, he will say: You have heard it said…, but I say unto you….
He healed the souls and bodies of men, showing his authority over both the unseen spiritual and the visible natural worlds.
He will lay down his life on the cross and take it up again the third day as his greatest sign or miracle.
The final question: How will we respond to Christ? Will we recognize his authority? Will we bend the knee of our hearts before his throne?
Grace and peace, Pastor
Jeff Riddle
The motto of Protestant father Theodore Beza (1519-1605):
Note: Devotional taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 1:16-20.
“And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).
Christ’s public ministry began with his preaching (see Mark 1:15). It continued with his calling men to come after him and become his disciples or followers.
In Mark 1:16-20 we have the account of our Lord calling two sets of brothers to be among his first disciples: Simon (Peter) and Andrew (vv. 16-18), then James and John (vv. 19-20). Two sets of brothers by nature became brothers in Christ.
So often our picture of the disciples come from medieval artists that depict the Lord Jesus and the disciples as frail, pale, and sickly. They hardly seem to have had strength enough to pick up a heavy net! But the picture here in Mark 1 is of strong, sun-darkened, solid, working men. Simon and Andrew were busy at their trade, casting a net into the sea, “for” Mark says, “for they were fishers” (v. 16).
The occupation of fisherman must have been a common livelihood in this area. Many have noted that when the Lord Jesus went looking for followers, he did not go to the royal court, or to the religious schools, but to the shipyard. He chose sturdy, common, ordinary men. The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry observed:
The instruments Christ chose to employ in setting up his kingdom, were the weak and foolish things of the world; not called from the great Sanhedrin, or the schools of the [rabbis], but picked up from among the [tarps] by the seaside, that the excellency of the power might be wholly of God, and not at all of them.
Do you get it? Why did Jesus choose men like these? Because if he had chosen princes and scholars we might have been tempted to give them glory. In this way, to God alone through Christ alone be all the glory.
Note the language used by Christ. He does not say to these men, “I see within you the inner fishers of men.” His hopes for them did not rest on any inherent potential that they held within themselves. When we see an exquisite vase that has been beautifully shaped and crafted and decorated by a master artisan, we do not say, “Wow, that was some great clay!” The focus is not on the raw material but on the artist.
Nor does the Lord Jesus say, “Come after me and become whatever you want to be.” He has a very definite end in mind, and he is not leaving this up to these men. He says he will make them to become fishers of men.
There is great significance in this, is there not? They had been spending their lives casting out nets to gather in fish and the Lord Jesus says instead, that he will make them cast their nets to gather in the souls of men. These rough fishermen will later, of course, become apostles. They will be the foundational heralds of the gospel. Here the Lord Jesus is giving the church its central apostolic commission. We are about fishing for the souls of men. Our fundamental calling as a church is evangelism, endearing the gospel of God to the hardened hearts of men.
In 1773 the Puritan Thomas Boston at the tender age of 22 published a little book titled, “The Art of Man-Fishing” in which he meditated on these words of Christ. Boston applied these words to the preacher who, through the nets of his public preaching and teaching ministry and his one-on-one private ministry appointments, was constantly striving to see men drawn to a place of settled commitment to Christ.
Note also that the Lord Jesus does not say, Follow Me and I will make you to become social workers, or Red Cross volunteers, or school teachers, or political revolutionaries. Now there is a place for acts of Christian charity and mercy, for education and Christian citizenship, but our primary calling is evangelism, endearing the gospel of God to the hardened hearts of men. Let us not drift from this calling.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff
Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Mark 1:9-15.
Mark
1:14 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into
Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
The beginning
of our Lord’s public ministry followed his baptism (Mark 1:9-11) and his
wilderness temptation (1:12-13).
It was initiated or triggered by the arrest of
John the forerunner: “Now after that John was put in prison….” (v. 14a; cf.
6:14-29). It was an act of manly courage for our Lord to begin his public
ministry at this time.
Mark
continued, “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching [proclaiming] the gospel of the kingdom of God” (v. 14b).
Christ’s public ministry did not begin with miracles, feeding the
masses, opening blinded eyes, raising the dead, or telling parables, but Christ
came first as a Preacher.
The apostle Paul would later write, in 1 Corinthians 1:21, “it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”
The premier practitioner of this means of grace was Christ
himself. Christ is the Prototypical Preacher. We merely human and very fallible
preachers stumble and stammer and preach imperfectly. Christ is the Perfect
Preacher.
What did he proclaim? The gospel [good news] of victory. Mark
began by noting this book records, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). It will
end in Mark 16:15 with the risen Lord telling his disciples, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel
to every creature.”
In v.
14 Mark the Evangelist describes Christ as preaching “the gospel of the kingdom
of God.” This means the rule or reign of God on earth. Christ did not, in his
first advent, come to establish a political kingdom. He told Pilate at his
trial, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Here is the gaping
difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and Muhammad. One conquers by the
cross, and the other attempts to conquer by the sword.
In v.
15 we have Christ’s own words recorded by the evangelist. Christ said, “The
time is fulfilled.” The word for time here is kairos. It refers to special
time, the right moment, and not mere chronological time, chronos.
Christ
recognized that in his coming and in his initiation of his public ministry he
was fulfilling the plan of God that would lead to the bloody cross and the
glorious resurrection, a shameful defeat and a stunning victory.
Christ declared, “the kingdom of God is at hand.” The rule and
reign of God is present in Christ Himself. This happens even before the end of
history. Christ comes into history and into time, and his kingdom is
established, though it is not yet fully realized till he comes again with power
and great glory.
He ends with two commands: “repent ye [experience a change of mind
and a change of heart] and believe the gospel [the good news which is centered
in the person of Christ himself].
There is a debate about the order of these two things in what is
called “the order of salvation.” Do I first repent and then believe, or do I
believe and then repent? Here, repent comes first in order, but it may well be
that they come as contemporaneous events.
Christ has come. The time is fulfilled. Let us turn from sin in
disgust and turn to Christ in faith.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
Here is Robert Preus’s description of how the seventeenth century Lutheran dogmaticians handled textual variants:
Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Mark 1:1-8.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark 1:1).
It is said that the most important part of any book,
including Biblical ones, is the way they begin and end. The opening verse to
the Gospel of Mark serves as an overall title.
It starts, “The beginning….” This echoes the start to Genesis,
the first book in the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.” It also echoes the start of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
Unlike Matthew and
Luke, Mark does not begin with an account of our Lord’s miraculous conception by
a virgin and his birth in Bethlehem. This is not to say that Mark is unaware of
Christ’s virgin birth (implied in Mark 6:3: “Is this not the carpenter, the son
Mary…?”).
He commences, however,
by noting that Christ’s coming was the beginning of the Gospel. The word “gospel,”
at root, means “good news.” When word came from the battlefield, all hoped the
messenger would bring the “gospel (good news)” of victory.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5,
Paul described the “gospel” as containing four key facts: (1) Christ died for
our sins, according to the Scriptures; (2) Christ was buried; (3) Christ rose
again on the third day according to the Scriptures; (4) Christ appeared to his
disciples (To Cephas and the twelve and others). This was the core “good news”
of his victory.
In the very last
chapter of this book, the risen Christ will tell his disciples, “Go ye into all
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Thus, it
begins and ends with reference to the good news.
The title extends in
v. 1. This is good news about “Jesus.” This is the Greek form of the Hebrew
name Joshua. It means “Jehovah saves.” The name “Jesus” tells us he came as a
true man.
He is next given two
titles:
First, he is the
Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, coming from the line of King David.
Second, he is the Son
of God. He is from all eternity the only begotten Son of God. This tells us of his true divinity. As John puts
it, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18).
The
Father is, from eternity, unbegotten. The Son is eternally begotten. The Spirit
proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son.
A lot is said in this opening verse. It provides us an orthodox doctrine of God, the Trinity. The one God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost from everlasting to everlasting. It also provides an orthodox doctrine of Christ. He is one person with two natures, true man and true God.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
From X Post:
John Owen (1616-1683) on why the affirmation of the inspiration of Scripture must also be accompanied by the affirmation of its uncorrupted preservation:
"But what, I pray, will it advantage us that God did so once deliver his word, if we are not assured also that that word so delivered hath been, by his special care and providence, preserved entire and uncorrupt unto us, or that it doth not evidence and manifest itself to be his word, being so preserved?" -Collected Works, 16:350.
J. A. Alexander on the four Gospels:
John Owen (1616-1683) articulates Confessional Bibliology:
Last Sunday completed a short expositional sermon series through Philippians (18 sermons). One of my reading companions through the series has been
