Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

• Romans 9:1-2

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

• 1 Corinthians 12:1-3

“Theology is relative to the word of God. This relativity is decisive for the method and significance of theology. It means that theology is occupied in continuous attentive and obedient listening to the word of God. And since listening, unlike remembering, is always a thing of the present moment, theological questions must have relevance and timeliness. Theology is not a complex system constructed for their own entertainment by scholars in the quiet retreat of ivory towers.  It must have significance for the unquiet times, but it can achieve its proper relevance only in obedient attentiveness, not to the times first of all, but to the word. (Faith and Justification, Chapter 1)”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

G. C. (Gerrit Cornelius) Berkouwer (1903-1996) was a Reformed Churches of the Netherlands theologian.  He taught systematic theology influencing many of the noted systematic theologians in various denominations.  He lived his life in the Netherlands, including the years under Nazi occupation.

It is said that he backed away from the ultra-strict biblical interpretations of B. B. Warfield, but as the quote ends, the Scripture is the primary source.  We cannot adopt any worldly view that disagrees with Scripture.

But how do we become enlightened in this present fallen world versus what the Bible says?  The Bible was mostly written well over 2,000 years ago.  The New Testament almost 2,000 years ago.  But the Scriptures are still relevant today due to the Holy Spirit speaking to us.

My wife interrupted me a few years ago with a strange question.  “Did you know that Charles H. Spurgeon died over a hundred years ago?  I mean, every word in the last two or three books of his that I have read makes it sound like he was preaching directly to me and the problems we have today!”  The point was that when you preach true biblical doctrine, it fits into anyone’s life when they are following God in this fallen world.

Other voices may get in our head, and those voices may make sense.  Those voices may look like a means to bridge between a Christian worldview and the secular worldview, but once you compare with Scripture, we find that voice not of God.

As with many denominations these days, there are splits in the church over polity or specific points of theology.  One such split is between the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands and the Dutch Reformed Church.  I am unaware of the differences in their tenets, but G. C. Berkouwer and Hendrickus Berkhof of the Dutch Reformed Church had numerous meetings and became friends.  They found some areas upon which they could agree.  They called this realm “Middle Orthodoxy.”

When we make that interpretation of Scripture relative to today’s society, we may not get everything perfectly right, but when we agree on some factors of the faith, we can go away friends in the “Middle Orthodoxy.”  It is not an agreement to disagree.  I have heard many people say that agreeing to disagree is sheer foolishness.  You not only go away thinking the other person is wrong, you go away angry.  But when we can agree that Jesus Christ is 100% God, 100% man, and that He came to earth to pay the price for our sins, a payment that we in our power would never be able to achieve.  Thus, salvation is a gift by Grace, and not by works of any kind.  The series that I had on Chuck Colson’s book, Faith, had several more foundational things.  But if we can find some “Middle Orthodoxy” in which to build upon, then we can let the Holy Spirit guide us to the Scriptures that can build upon what we can agree.  And instead of agreeing to disagree and going away angry, we can go away in love, knowing that the friend we have made is willing to look at even more things that we can add to that “Middle Orthodoxy.”

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.