Exclusive? Is it that bad?

For a moment picture the response of any father who hears a large bang coming from the family room late in the evening. As he rushes toward the room he hears someone tearing down the blinds and the crackling of the broken glass being walked upon. When he enters the room he's startled to find a woman sitting comfortably on the couch as if waiting for someone to welcome her. And before he can even say, "who are you?” she begins a list of demands that go something like this:

"I want to reside in your home and for you to treat me as your daughter in every way, as if I were married to your only son. But with the stipulation that I don't have anything to do with your son! I really don't like him . . . I want to live my life here."

I don't know about you, but I doubt any of us would be surprised to hear a wrathful response full of jealousy for his son.   The audacity to demand the rewards of being his son's wife without any real connection to him, even blatant hostility against him, would deserve her immediate removal. Even by force if necessary!

Another reason that we'd expect a response like this is that we understand there's only a few ways to enter into a family. We don't question that the way into a family is either by birth, adoption, invitation, or by marriage. To say it doesn't offend any of our sensibilities. Family by definition is exclusive. Some are part of your family and others are not. That's the way it goes.

With that in mind, have you ever been asked, or have you ever asked, a set of questions like this:

"How can you believe that God is good when he offers only one way to heaven? Don't you think it’s cruel to keep so many good people from entering into heaven?"

Either as the questioner, or as the one asked the question, I'm sure that the answer included Jesus' words "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and that apart from him no one can get into heaven. While these words are absolutely true, it doesn't seem to reflect the tone or the nature of Jesus' last words to his disciples in John 14.

Now in our post-modern western culture it's apocryphal to claim any views on the nature of truth and goodness that may be exclusive in anyway. The logic goes, "Truth is relative, your truth can be your truth and my truth can be mine. And as long as nobody gets hurt, goodness is relative too." Although the irony isn't lost on me - the intolerance of perceived intolerance - the context of John 14:6 may allow for a more effective method for engaging objections to the exclusivity of the Christian faith (as well as honoring the intention of Jesus' words and the nature of God).

Jesus, to comfort the hearts of his disciples, tells them that they shouldn't be troubled by his coming departure (14:1-3).   Instead, they should believe that he's going away for their benefit that he may prepare a place for them in his Father's house. All the disciples would have noticed the obvious betrothal imagery. At this time in a Jewish culture, a man would propose to a woman (which would be treated just as legally binding as marriage) and return to his father's house to build an addition to the home for the new couple. After his father approved the addition he would then go and retrieve his bride.

And Jesus tells his disciples that they should feel about the news of his departure just as a new bride would respond to her betrothal (14:28). Think about the thrill that the bride would feel as her bridegroom left to prepare a home for their new life and the all-consuming anticipation of his return. This would not have been lost on Jesus’ disciples. They should rejoice and be excited that he's leaving to go to his Father!

It's easy to see why Jesus says to his disciples that they know where he's going (14:4). As they have seen Jesus, they have seen the Father, because he and his Father are one (14:10ff). And to believe the words of Jesus, to follow his way (13:34-5), and to believe on him for life, are the very fruit of abiding in Christ. To love Jesus is to love and know the Father. Therefore, just as the Father has loved the Son, so too the Father loves Jesus' disciples, his "bride" (14:18-31).

Jesus' words then, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," make perfect sense. There's no way to enter into the relationship with the Father and Son apart from being united to the Son because the Father and Son are one. To know the Father is know Jesus. To love the Father is to love the Son. This is heaven!

Heaven is to participate, to join the family of the Trinity by the Spirit who has been in the business of communicating the depths of the Father and Son's love for each other for all eternity (1 Cor. 2).

There's no other way to reside in the Father's house apart from his Son, because they are one. Anything else, any other way, is no different than a random woman breaking through the window and demanding all the benefits of the house without any love for the members of the family that live there. Even in our post-modern western culture the exclusivity of the family remains the same. Forcing one's way into the family apart from accepted modes only leads to removal and maybe even restraining orders.

Loving God at Christmas

Christmas is just a day away. It's hard to believe that! Yet it's impossible to ignore the bright lights and familiar melodies of Christmas that are everywhere. For me this time of year generates mixed feelings.

I love the days leading up to Christmas, the anticipation of fun & tasty family traditions and restful moments of being home with family. I love the numerous ways we celebrate the great promises we have in Christ. From the carol services to the incredible smells you experience as you walk through a Christmas market. And what make these celebratory moments great are the people we get to share them with!

But these very same moments and people can be the source of Christmas pain. When we share Christmas with friends and family it can't help but make us feel nostalgic of the joys we've had before and with whom we shared those joys. Inevitably thoughts of those missing this year will come to mind. For me, it's talking with grandma in her kitchen as she makes all kinds of pies for after Christmas dinner. I wasn't much help in the kitchen, I just watched and drooled over the pies already made, while she cooked and told stories of yesteryear. I miss her pies, and I miss her even more!

The friends and family members who are no longer with us aren't necessarily the only source of pain and sorrow at Christmas. The holidays can be a great source of stress and tension because of the very people we love being with. Especially when members of your family don't see eye to eye on things like religion and politics. These differences aren't just abstract concepts but through time shape the texture of our individual lives when we are apart. When these different textures are in the same room, friction can occur.

But let's face it, we can agree with people about the most fundamental things in life and still have conflict. Especially at this time of year where stress to make Christmas special and/or personality differences create tension. Familiarity and history with those we are celebrating the holidays may even cause us to come to conflict sooner.

So what do we do about the mixed feelings of Christmas, especially those feelings that may lead to conflict? Please don't think I want you to avoid people in order to avoid tension in the holidays. Relationships are what make us who are; they are the joy of life.

These moments, like all moments in life, are an opportunity to love others as God has loved us.

I've heard and learned some great tactics to have love grow for people around us. One is to pray for God to give eyes to see others they way he sees them. They are clearly special to him; so special in fact that the Father sent his Son to save the world. Everyone around us are wonderfully made and are special, we just need God to help to see this. This is a powerful way to engage God and others. You're asking God because you can't do this on your own and you're asking to have your heart align with his, prayers I'm confident he wants us to pray! Prayers I'm certain will change your life.

Recently I came across another perspective on loving others in relationship, which I think will be beneficial for Christmas and in everyday moments. Augustine's (354-430 AD) ultimate goal in his preaching was to have his congregation make God their greatest affection. He understood that the battle in this life lies in the heart, that in our fallen nature our priorities are all wrong and we must find joy in Jesus above all else.

Even in our relationships Augustine taught that our love for God was the source of love for others. When speaking of friendship Augustine said, "For you truly love that friend, by loving God in your friend. Either because he is in him, or that he might be in him" (Confessions, 4.7 in Sanlon, Augustine's Theology of Preaching, 163).

Did you catch that? Augustine believed that God resided or could reside in those around him. He knew this from Romans 5:5, the Holy Spirit is the gift of grace who unites us to Christ. Therefore, to love others in our lives is to love God that's in them. God must be so prior to any other affection that he is even the motivation to love those we love. Even those we are to cherish we do so because God is in them or possibly in them. And the same Spirit who unites us to Christ is the Spirit and love that we are united to one another.

Even in moments of conflict, if we have this perspective the Spirit may produce his fruit because we'll have the mind of the Spirit. Our Christmases will have the Spirit of giving, patience, and humility, things that can often be missing even thought we're surrounded by other gifts.

In many ways it's an abstract thought, but here's the important bit. As we spend time with those we love over Christmas, the celebration of our God's humility and love, ask God to show us himself in those we love. Could you imagine what Christmas would be like for us if we loved God like this? We may still feel the pain of those missing this Christmas but we'll enjoy those God has given us this Christmas far more than we could imagine.

Longing for Home

Have you ever felt homesick? You know that feeling that something is missing, as if a part of you is no longer there. With these feelings you may become easily distracted, little things remind of you what or who is missing in your life, you start to think about the next time you'll get be whole again, and or figure out ways to get back there sooner than planned.

Homesickness crept into my life for the first time in awhile. Two weeks ago, I with my family, returned to our "home" in the UK after spending a few weeks in the US, our "home" country.   Our time there was rich with ministry, reconnections with friends and family, and mixed emotions when saying goodbye.

Don't get me wrong, we loved every minute we spent with people who are precious to us, but after a couple weeks of being "home" we were desperate to get "home" to our beds, to our house, to our ministry and normal routine.   But everyone in our family hated having to say good-bye again to people we love. It was hard to repeatedly to stay as someone's home, get use to be living there with them, and then just when you started to feel at "home" it was time to leave. A situation especially hard for our youngest son who, for him, it was the first time he got to know much of his family.

So we are homesick, but excited to be home. Confused? Don't worry we are a little too!

As my wife and I have processed our conflicting affections, we've started to realize how few Christians live in this tension enough. I'm not saying you need to drop everything and move to another country in order feel the tension of being "home" but not being "home." But shouldn't homesickness be the reality for all of us who love Jesus?

It's common christianese to say that this place is not our home, but our true home is a place we've never been--heaven. As a biblical truth I'd wholeheartedly affirm this yet there's a rub. How many of us on a regular basis feel homesick for heaven? How many of us get distracted with wondering thoughts of being with Christ in heaven? Have that gut ache from missing home so much? Daydreaming about whether Jesus returns to be with us that day and what the reunion would be like? Or wondering when the Lord will take us to be with him?

That last question may have drawn a cringed objection in your heart, "I don't want to die, I may love Jesus but I don't want to die now."   It's strange to think that part of missing Jesus could be looking forward to a time where he'd take us to be with him. Yet maybe we should a whole lot more.

Here's what I mean. As a kid who's parent's divorced and who moved more than I can count, I think I become conditioned to homesickness. Not until I fell in love with my wife did I start to feel homesickness again. In the beginning our relationship we spent 9 months out of the year 3,000 miles apart. We hated those days (no mobile phones with unlimited minutes, or Skype, etc.) and we went days, sometimes months without hearing each other’s voices. Yet we functioned, we were able to live our lives without the other. Today we can barely function just a few days away from one another. A few months would be disastrous! When we are forced to be away from one another, we plan, dream, and get ready to see each other again.

Why aren't we homesick for Jesus? Why is it we can be like this with people around us, but the one we are to love above everyone else we can function without? Some may easily go a whole day, a week, maybe even months without talking to him?

There's lot's of reasons for this. It's hard to miss someone we've never seen, touched, or heard his voice. Eschatology can be a heated and confusing discussion, so we just avoid talking about Jesus' return. It could also be that we just love being "home" and don't really miss our home.   I don't think anything could get in the way of me wanting to be or see my wife after days of being apart. Shouldn't we look forward to and prepare for our Bridegroom to return to get his bride?

The tension of being "home" but not being home should be a feeling Christian's walk with all the time. But it's also not feelings you can force yourself to have either. I can't imagine forcing myself to miss my wife. It's nonsensical. But as my love for her has grown over the years my need to be with her has increased. What we need is a greater heart for Christ, and as our love for him increases we'll desire to be with him even more.

Thankfully we can't do this on our own. We need God, who's more than happy to give us love for him if we want it, so ask! I warn you though, you may become homesick for Jesus, our home.

The Legacy of Everyday Moments

Jesus is impressive. I know this is obvious to many of us and maybe you're thinking (with a hint of sarcasm), "Of course he is, Jesus is God!"   I could use the space of this blog to list all the ways he elicits the response "Awesome!" However, there's one particular aspect of his character that has drawn much of my attention lately: his leadership. Particularly, how by the mere use of his authority he draws people to trust him with their greatest treasures: their hearts.

Now, I suspect for most of us, when we hear the word "authority" it’s not a heart inspiring experience. History is littered with examples of the misuse, I should say, abuse of authority. From the most powerful position in the world to the authority of an everyday father, leadership has caused pain, suffering, and death.

But when you see Jesus' leadership in the little things, you see someone trustworthy to have authority over the greatest treasures of our lives.

Let me step back and give one reason why I'm interested in Jesus' leadership in the everyday small things. As a father, I want to lead in such a way that my family happily places themselves under my care, my love, and my authority. Even in the most difficult times, even when my children are being disciplined, I desire that they would have a trust that I'm leading on account of my love for them. That somehow I'm meeting their needs in that particular situation because I've established in everyday moments a clear pattern that I'm all about meeting their needs because I love them.

That's where there's a rub. It's in the everyday moments where I seem to fail, even sin, the most. Just for an example, after a long hard day or a week of travel and teaching, when I get home all I want to do is cease. Stop. Rest. For me that means not being available.   But what do my kids need the most? A dad who's available for them any time they need me even if I'm exhausted.  What builds that kind of trust? That I look to meet their needs above my own.  Yet I could use my authority as a father to create a distance between them and me. Or use irritability so that they wouldn't want to be around me. And the fruit of this isn’t a desire to be led but a mistrust of their father.

It was Jesus in two seemingly insignificant verses in Mark 2:1-2 that struck me square in the heart. Here Jesus comes to his home base in Capernaum after he traveled from town to town throughout Galilee teaching. He had to be exhausted after all that walking and teaching. I imagine when he got home he was ready for a break and a good meal. That's when, just as Jesus was about to take a bite of a well-deserved meal, there's a knocking at the door.

If it were any of us, we'd be thinking "Now what?" And as the door was opened to a mass of people wanting to hear from you and see you perform, you'd say "Not now, I'll teach the word and heal the sick tomorrow, right now I need ‘me time.’"

But that's not what Jesus does. Instead he puts aside whatever rest he was getting and invited them in and began preaching the word. In the midst of resting he's available for fellowship and meeting the needs of those around him. We find Jesus even before this getting away from everyone, but he spends time with the Father. In Genesis our Lord ceases but in his resting he walks in the garden with his creation. Our God leads by meeting the needs of those around him and always being available for fellowship.

Could you imagine what kind of legacy one could leave if as a parent, a spouse, a friend, or a pastor, that no matter how tired you might be that you were available for fellowship and to serve? I imagine unity and health as the major characteristics of a family, marriage, or congregation if led with this heart.

And then there's the context of this passage that caused me to want to give him my life again. In Mark 1:33, the whole city of Capernaum gathered to see and follow Jesus. But Jesus didn't come to create a cult of personality. He didn't come to have a group of people to praise him and serve him. Rather he came to reveal his Father and serve the world.   So, unlike so many leaders in the world and the church, Jesus leaves the crowd behind and goes to teach in other places.

Jesus isn't just a pattern to replicate or imitate. I hope, like me, that you are drawn to trust Jesus with all your heart, with all your time, with all your relationships because he's trustworthy to have leadership over them. As I happily place myself under his authority, in the places where I find myself in authority, my character should be like his. I want to love because I've been loved. And I want to lead selflessly because I've been led selflessly. I want to act like him, I want from the inside out to love and lead as he's loved and led me.

It's amazing how we'll never exhaust the beauty and the loveliness of Christ, even in the everyday moments!

A Time When No Mirror Was Needed

Have you ever stopped to think about the underlying motivations for looking in the mirror everyday?

Maybe you haven't, it's just a pragmatic moment in the morning to make sure your hair looks right and you don't have anything stuck in your teeth so you look appropriate for work or whatever. But even as I wrote that with the intention to walk a fine line around the motivational conundrum of a mirror, I couldn't escape the real ambition for looking in a mirror. Me.

It doesn't necessarily have to be narcissistic. But to look appropriate for a particular occasion isn't solely for other people either, really it's about being accepted in a particular occasion. Maybe at my wedding I wanted to look great for my wife-to-be as she did for me, but I can't help but think I wanted to look good for me too. That is, having other people tell me I look smart or handsome. I'm confident that this isn't just my problem; we are motivated by performance of some kind. Whether it is looks, success, job, or whatever concoction you prefer, we are all tainted by the me-motivation.

For those of my friends who might be worried where this blog might be going, I'm not going to go stop looking in the mirror in order to get ready for the day. I wouldn't want people to be tortured by the smell or the disheveled look that this would cause. I can't imagine many people wanting to learn from me or listen to what I have to say in such a state. It would be a mountainous distraction to say the least. But maybe instead of reflecting about what others may think of me, I could use that time to reflect on and look forward to the bigger picture. A time when there was or will be no need for a mirror.

Just imagine what life was like for Adam and Eve in the Garden. They were naked and unashamed. They had no reason to look at self; they were completely satisfied with the other. They had the Life of God in them. They enjoyed walking with their God together, the One who generously gave them everything they could possibly ever need or want. They were content.

At this moment, a mirror wouldn't make any sense. There was no need to look to self for anything with a me-motivation. Adam had the eyes of his heart fixed on God and Eve, and in return Eve had the eyes of her heart captured by Adam and God. As Augustine would say, this reality was the "substance of God" in them. The unifying presence of the Spirit directed their hearts to the other. Therefore they didn't want to look at self and were happy with that! They were naked and unashamed!

So what went wrong?

A simple skeptical look!

In Genesis 3, just after the climatic conclusion to the creation account we find the "crafty" serpent approached Eve with a skeptical question about God and his provision. "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" Now for Eve this was a no brainer kind of a question. She knew that God hadn't been holding back, she had been given everything she would ever need or want. Not even for a nanosecond had she thought that something was missing. God had given her and Adam the fruit of every tree to eat from . . . except one.

I think this was the point the serpent was getting at. He needed Eve to quickly fix the blatant mistake of the serpent's question while hiding the subtle one. Eve responded by correcting him, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden . . ." and then looking to the one tree Adam had told Eve God didn't want them to eat from, she followed up, "God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' " Prior to this, Adam and Eve had no desire to focus on the one tree they couldn't eat from. They were satisfied in everything else God had given them and they had no reason or desire to distrust God. No to mention, the word "death" was merely a word with no meaning for them. They were happily naked and unashamed.

When the serpent got Eve to look at the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he returned to his skepticism of God's character.   The serpent enticed Eve with the idea that God was holding out, there was something that she needed that God hadn't provided. God didn't want her to be like God (even though she with Adam was the "image of God"). I think when she ignored the prompting of the Holy Spirit, saw the fruit of the tree as good for food and a delight to the eyes, the Spirit was grieved and left her. The fall took place with a simple skeptical look! And Adam gladly joined in.

Here the age of the mirror began. As the substance of God left them, their vacuous hearts curved in on themselves. The Spirit of God was replaced with concupiscence; the lustful desire for self and to violate any prohibition.

Now living in the age of the mirror we can't fully get away from wanting to make sure our fig leaf is covering our physical and spiritual nakedness. Even with the Spirit living in our hearts, we still live in the time of a broken world and the flesh of Adam.

And there's the battle, even at the mirror in the morning brushing your teeth. Are you looking forward to the time where a mirror will no longer be needed or do you still want to cover your nakedness?

I can't wait to live for Christ and others without the gravity of flesh fighting against the Spirit of God who resides in my heart and unites me to Christ.   Where everything is new, where there are no tears, and Christ is there walking with us. Except this time our naiveté will be gone. We will know what death is. What it's like not to trust God. What it's like living in the age of a mirror. Praise God, we'll never want to go back!

A Burden-less Holiness

When I have the opportunity to talk about holiness I find myself using the language of delight, love, joy, and freedom.  Inevitably this will rub someone the wrong way and they will ask a good question, "How can you say we have freedom to live how we want when we are given clear imperatives that are not suggestions but obligations that we must meet?"

There are lots of ways to go about answering this question.  Let me offer an answer by going back to the fifth century.  In the streets of Rome and Milan a man named Caelestius sounded the clarion call to live righteously.  As a devoted ascetic, he and his colleagues found the affluent Christian society offensive.  In their minds, there was a gap between God's demands for holiness and the people's dutiful fulfillment of those demands--the whole point of life and the Christian faith.

What was even more offensive, however, was that the teaching of prominent Christian leaders only perpetuated this lack of “holy living”.  They were hearing bishops teaching, "Love God and do what you want," or praying, "Grant what you command, and command what you will."  Actually, this last one nearly led to a physical altercation.

But why would a prayer seeking God's involvement in keeping his commands enrage this group of ascetics?

This very prayer for them undermined the whole Christian endeavor and the created order.   To clean up the streets of the capital they were calling people to keep the commands of God and to stop sinning, "by the help of the grace of God."  Now to many evangelical ears, this sounds great!  Don't we want people to take up the task of living holy lives? By which we mean that they must stop sinning and start to obey the commandments. Don't we want people to pursue righteousness?

Before I answer these questions, let me say one other thing.  Their message was popular.  Many people wanted to live holy lives, and were happy to hear exactly what they had to do to be holy. We have documents that tell the story of successful people leaving their vocations to serve God on account of Caelestius' preaching. Even Pope Zosimus, for a time, supported his efforts and doctrine.

Preaching and teaching similar to this is popular today because many people are not well informed on the differing options when it comes to words like grace, holiness, righteousness, sin, etc.  You see, Caelestius and his mentor, Pelagius, believed that grace is the human nature to freely choose good and not choose evil.  For them righteousness was keeping the law by the self-sufficiency given by the creator.

The threefold definition of grace, for them, was the nature of free will, the scriptures, and the pardon of our sins.  Sin was considered an action of breaking the law that has no effect on our nature.  We're born like Adam without sin because sin isn't a substance, but just an action.  They would affirm that everyone sins and will need the grace of pardon and the Law, yet we all have the capacity by nature to not sin.

Now I hope that this paragraph has made your skin crawl a little because definitions like this leave no room for the cross.  When Augustine (354-430 AD) came across the teachings of Pelagius and Caelestius it was through two of their disciples Timasius and James.  They gave Augustine Pelagius' Nature to read, which then inspired him to write Nature and Grace.

In Nature and Grace, Augustine, empowered with his talent for rhetoric and an intimate knowledge of the Scriptures, picks apart Pelagius' doctrine point by point.  In this enriching and fun read, Augustine logically and biblically undermines their definitions of grace because it does away with the grace of Christ.

The grace of Christ for Augustine is "the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5)." This is the solution to he problem because Adam's rejection of God in the garden meant that the very "substance of God" in Adam was lost and therefore damages the nature of Adam's posterity.  Augustine gives this the label "death."  And this is the "heart of the matter" for we are justified by “the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord (Rom 7:25), and him crucified (1 Cor 2:3).  That faith of course, healed the righteous people of old, and it now heals us, that is, faith in the mediator between God and human beings, the man Jesus Christ, faith in his blood, faith in his cross, faith in his death and resurrection."

By the cross we were given the Holy Spirit, who we depend on to love and live for Christ, who first loved us.  This love we have for God "is, after all, the truest, most complete, most perfect righteousness." Therefore keeping commands isn't a heavy burden but only the overflow of our love for God, commands are only heavy and difficult when love is wanting.

It seems that in the story of the church we keep trying to place the responsibility of our holiness on our backs. But the good news is that Christ's burden is not a burden at all and "righteousness is the love poured out in our hearts, not by the choice of the will, but by the Holy Spirit."

Augustine finishes his Nature and Grace concerning the biblical definition of grace and righteousness, "the beginning of love is the beginning of righteousness; progress in love is progress in righteousness; great love is great righteousness; perfect love is perfect righteousness . . . For this love is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:25) who with the Father and the Holy Spirit has eternity and goodness forever and ever. Amen."

A History of Assumptions

In the last week or so I've been revisiting the primary sources of the often so-called New England Antinomian Controversy of 1636-1638. I'm repeatedly struck by the differences that were discovered among a group of people that assumed they were all on the same theological page. Yes, they knew that differing opinions were held with regards to church governance, but concerning primary doctrine, agreement was a given.   Yet, in the late 1630s a division the size of the San Andreas Fault was unwittingly unearthed.

These kinds of sleeper fault lines are repeatedly found in churches today. Naively, many assume that if people agree on the five solae, on the nature of Jesus, and affirm the inerrancy of the Bible then they're fundamentally on the same page. I would like to propose that this isn't necessarily the case.

When disagreements do come up in the church many are shocked that they're over "non-essentials." I'm not talking about worship style or church polity but more significant "non-essentials" like the proper use of the Law or the nature of faith in relationship to assurance of salvation. These doctrinal divisions stem from a more foundational disagreement about God, man, sin, and grace.

That's why at Cor Deo we repeatedly return to the most fundamental questions for ... well ... everything:

1. Which God?

2. What does it mean to be human?

3. What's gone wrong?

4. And how is the problem solved?

a. How does this affect my daily life?

Our intentions are to emphasize these foundational issues so that we build our lives and theology on them, or face the danger of building our lives and churches on sand.

Since the answer to the first question affects the answer of the second, and the second shapes the third, and so on, it is most likely that secondary disagreements are actually based upon un-communicated foundational clashes. A brief look at the initial days of the Antinomian Controversy over the nature of faith will, I hope, demonstrate this point.

In the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony there was a hope to create a perfect theocracy in the new world. Gone were the tyrannical days of Archbishop Laud's censorship. Now the Puritans could freely immerse themselves in and apply their ideas from the Bible.  They certainly indulged in this new opportunity. Each preacher spent 12 hours a day in study and the people gathered to listen to them, sometimes they would preach five days a week to meet the demand. With nothing else to do outside of work, listening to sermons became the pastime of the colony. One could easily fill the week going from town to town listening to various preachers. As things developed, the listeners began to choose their favorites and accentuate differences among the minsters of the colony. This was especially true for those who attended John Cotton's church in new Boston, who began to challenge the errors of Cotton’s colleagues during the Q&A sessions after their sermons.

The Bostonians accused other ministers of preaching a "Covenant of Works." They believed that teaching someone to look at their sanctification for assurance was a works-based righteousness. Therefore, the Bostonians thought that works, rather than the person of Christ, became the object of assurance. This was the very opposite of what Cotton had been teaching in Boston.

As the tensions escalated in the new colony, the ministers began to write to one another in order to ascertain whether or not the Bostonians were actually representing Cotton correctly. Much of their initial discussions centered on the nature of faith and the timing of union with Christ.

The elders of the colony argued that faith was a divinely enabled choice to believe in Christ. By meeting this one condition, "God's free grace would be revealed and received by the believer" and the benefits were union with Christ and justification. Cotton, like Calvin, taught that faith is assurance of having been united to Christ just as cup receives oil. Faith is a response and a direct work of the Spirit who testifies to our spirit that God has loved us first.

The two sides were divided as either seeing faith as passively received or actively enabled.

You might think these differences are merely semantic and pedantic. But if you peel back the onion you discover two dramatically different theological traditions. These traditions would answer the four big questions differently. For illustration purposes let's just consider third question: what is sin?

Cotton believed that sinners would never produce good works. Anyone who was bound to sin only wanted to do evil. Nothing prior to a nature-change could ever be considered good.

"Is the condition (of works or faith) found in the soul before union with Christ or after? All conditions before union with Christ are corrupt and unsavory, as the corrupt fruits of a corrupt tree; and to such no promises are made all. And all conditions after union with Christ are effects and fruits of that union . . . Indeed faith itself and our adherence to Christ by it, is a fruit of that union; or else we might be believers, i.e. good trees, and bring fourth good fruit before union with Christ which the Gospel accounts impossible." (Cotton, "Mr. Cotton's Rejoynder" in The Antinomian Controversy, ed. David Hall, pg. 92).

Cotton's reading of Matthew 7 wouldn't allow him to agree with his colleagues’ understanding of faith. Their view was essentially that sin is more of a disease than death, which was much nearer Erasmus’ view than Luther’s.

Cotton didn’t miss this when he suggested his colleagues’ theological arguments reflected the papists more than the reformers.

"Hence it is, that when Catharinus (a learned Papist) went to prove that a believer in Christ might be assured of his salvation by his good works, out of 2 Peter 1.5-10 . . . Whereto Pareus [a Protestant] replies, We acknowledge our former assurance to be before works, from the testimony of the Spirit bearing witness to our spirits that we are sound. (pg. 93)"

By insinuating they were papists, I'm not sure Cotton could draw the line in the sand any thicker or deeper. And the dividing line wasn't without basis; on the fundamental questions they were miles apart.

So what does conflict between Puritans 375 years ago have anything to do with us? A situation like this should remind us to focus on the essential questions of life. Not to assume that everyone is in agreement on how to answer them. I'd say like any good coach, practice the fundamentals and keep going back to them. Get your nose in God's story and see what he has to say about these four questions.