Never Mind the Old Days. How Does God Work Now?

Long ago, folks really knew how to pray.  Instead of just talking to God, people expected to also hear from God.   Guys like Samuel and King David prayed for signs and instructions, and they were prepared to obey and accept what God told them.  And He was faithful to speak to these men in supernatural ways.

God hasn't changed.

A few weeks ago, our church in Raleigh, Brier Creek Fellowship, learned that Brier Creek Elementary School (BCES) would soon be available to use for our Sunday morning church services.  The church which has been meeting there was moving.

Immediately, we connected with the staff at BCES.  They were incredibly kind and welcoming. 

The benefits of moving our church to BCES were obvious.  We're growing.  We need the space.  BCES is a landmark of northwest Raleigh - possibly the best known location in Brier Creek.  It is a gorgeous, $17M facility, with great exposure on Brier Creek Parkway.  It has lots of parking and handicapped accessibility.  It's walking distance from home for half of our members.  It seemed perfect.

But we didn't want to make the move from our current home just because it seemed wise to us.  We wanted God to speak.  In fact, from the beginning, we decided we wouldn't settle for less.  If God wasn't in it - if He didn't clearly tell us to move - we were going to stay right where we've been.

BCES's Chairs

We looked at the downside of moving to BCES.  The auditorium is too big for us, and it doubles as their cafeteria, which means it is cluttered with fold-up tables and a buffet line.  The folding metal chairs the school owns are noisy and uncomfortable.  The blinds are badly tattered.

We determined that $4,000 would be needed to rectify the problems by purchasing pipe & drape and nice, large, cushioned chairs.  We prayed that God would provide the funds to purchase these items if it was his will that we make the move.

As the ancients prayed, "Lord, let it be that if..." In other words, we asked God to tell us what He wanted, using a sign we made up ourselves, just like Gideon, David's friend Jonathan and King Hezekiah had done.   Even though we couldn't be sure that God even agreed that we needed the chairs and the drapes, our method gave God a clear way to say no to us.
 

The Chairs We Asked For

I determined to make the minimal possible appeal to raise the funds.  With just a 1 week notice before were to take up an offering, I announced our intentions to the church.  I made a short presentation on the case for moving.  There was no emotionalism employed.

I explained how we intended to entrust the entire decision to God.  If we raised $4,000, we would move.  If we got $3,999, we would refund whatever donations we had received, and stay right where we were. Large donors would be asked to reduce their offerings if we went over what we absolutely needed.

Either way - whether God said to stay or to move - we committed to praise Him and rejoice, in excitement or in disappointment. 

A week later - last Sunday - at the end of our worship service, we took up the offering.  I had not intended to share the outcome during the service, but the team was eager because they immediately saw that we had crossed the bar.  They announced to everyone that God had given us $5,550.  (Late donations would bring the total to $6,000.)

God had spoken.

What I did not expect was the emotional reaction.  Even first-time visitors - who were expressly asked not to contribute - were in tears when they saw what God had done.  Of course we were just as overwhelmed.

We received many donations, but four individuals each gave the same, large amount.  Incredibly, all four refused to reduce their donations later, when they were privately invited to do so.  I was amazed.

God had tangibly shown Himself to us.  Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we all realized that while we were wrestling with this decision, God had been right there with us.  And He was pleased because we were relying on Him, and because we were committed to obeying Him and praising Him, come what may.

That's how God works nowadays.  Which is exactly how He's always worked.

Does God Want You to Spend 3 Years Preaching From the Book of Numbers?

I just ran into another Southeastern Seminary alum touting the propriety of verse-by-verse, expository preaching.  Entire books of the Bible must be taught sequentially, he believes.   

They have to beat them away.

Many Baptist and Bible churches boast on their websites that they offer this type of preaching as if it were the only proper way to teach the Word.

Where do they get this?

Verse-by-verse teaching is not directly commanded in the Bible.  However, it does have some scriptural support.  

King Josiah read “the Law” to the people (2 Kings 23) and later, Ezra would do the same (Nehemiah 8).  Ezra explained the text as he read it (Nehemiah 8:8).  

But Ezra didn’t exposit the whole Bible (since it wasn’t finished then) or even all 5 books of the Pentateuch.  He wouldn’t have had time to even read it all from “sunrise until noon” (Nehemiah 8:3) on a single day, let alone explain it.  

Ezra either read Leviticus or Deuteronomy, or, more likely, he read particular passages to the people.  

So while there may be an example of  verse-by-verse teaching in the Old Testament, there might not be.  We’re not really sure.  

Most importantly, a biblical example only becomes a biblical command when the Bible tells us so.  David slept with Bathsheba, but we don't preach the virtues of wife-stealing. 

So if verse-by-verse preaching isn’t really commanded in the Bible, where does it come from?  Tradition.  (Sola Scriptura means this should count for very little with Protestants.)   

A couple of the church fathers (2^nd & 3^rd Century) preached verse-by-verse, Martin Luther did so sometimes, and John Calvin did it always.

John Calvin: To blame for the 6 years you spent in Nahum.

I think we can blame Calvin for all of it (though there is no indication he wanted the church to universally adopt lexio continua, as verse-by-verse was then called).

Steven Lawson wrote of John Calvin, “As a faithful shepherd, he fed his congregation a steady diet of sequential expository messages.”[1]  Sounds responsible.

The Bible, of course, does not define a “faithful shepherd” this way.  Lawson might as well say, “As a faithful shepherd, Calvin fed his congregation a steady diet of Smarties.”  

Without scriptural support, there is nothing particularly “faithful” about verse-by-verse preaching, nor anything “unfaithful” about topical preaching (provided it comes from the Bible).

Lawson ascribes one benefit to expositional, verse-by-verse preaching, one which sounds biblical:  Verse-by-verse exposition means the pastor ends up preaching “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).  

The inconvenience of verse-by-verse exposition

That sounds biblical, but it’s not.  Jesus preached “the whole counsel of God,” but He did not go verse-by-verse through entire books of the Bible.  Neither did Paul, Peter, John or any other biblical preacher of the Old Testament or the New, to our knowledge.

In fact, if Acts 20:27 - “proclaim the whole counsel (βουλὴν) of God” - is the support for verse-by-verse preaching, the Greek word βουλὴν is being twisted badly.  It means “predetermined plan,” not "the whole Bible."

We can’t change the words of Scripture.  We might as well make Acts 20:27 read, "Proclaim the whole enchilada of God."  (This idiom actually fits the meaning of the passage better.)

 

Ironically, Lawson lists the specific books that John Calvin preached through during his ministry.

Get it?  

Calvin didn’t get to them all!  If never skipping a verse is what the Holy Spirit meant by preaching “the whole counsel of God,” it didn’t work for Calvin!  He missed a ton of verses that he never got a chance to preach.  Oh no!

Did Calvin use Nehemiah 8:8 as his biblical support for verse-by-verse preaching?  We don’t know.  He never got a chance to preach it!  That makes me laugh.

It's cool that Calvin liked to preach verse-by-verse.  But it was just his thing.  It worked for him.  That doesn't mean God wants you to do it.

How does verse-by-verse usually work today, as a practical matter?

 

Typically, it stinks.  It’s either boring, or it’s a fraud.  

He missed a verse.  We'll have to go back.

As one preacher crawled painfully through the Gospel of Mark, I realized that I would be dead before he reached Luke.  I heard another preacher read a long passage from Chronicles, then tell an endless story about his days as a rock & roll guitarist which had nothing to do with the point of the text.  Verse-by-verse, indeed.

So, if you won’t dare to darken the doors of a church that exposits the Scriptures non-sequentially (gasp!), just know that you’re being stuffy, religious and tradition-bound. There’s nothing sinful about preaching verse-by-verse, but there is nothing particularly holy about it, either.

At our church in Raleigh, we are faithful to preach the whole "plan" of God, from a specific text each week.  But we're not spending 3 years in the book of Numbers, no matter how proud Calvin would be.

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[1] Expository Genius of John Calvin, Steven Lawson.  It’s a great, well-written book.  I’m only picking apart the verse-by-verse stuff.  Otherwise it’s a first-class read.

How 15 Private Minutes with Ergun Caner Wrecked My Career Plans

Ergun Caner has always had impact.  As the former dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and president of Brewton-Parker College, he taught thousands of students.  Millions have read his books.

In many ways, God has used Caner to make some big or small affect on people for Christ.  The impact Caner had on me personally was profound and life-altering.

The back story:  Almost 10 years ago, I enrolled at Liberty University as an undergrad in their Religion program.  I believed that God had called me into pastoral ministry, but He was still fleshing out the details.  

Ergun Caner taught a number of the classes I took, and he had written some of my textbooks.  He was the giant of Liberty University.  We all looked up to him because he was irreverent, funny and in-your-face. 

By the time I had graduated, my own ministry plans had been derailed.  I had lost my business, and along with it, my reputation.  I was sure my "calling" to enter the ministry had been a mistake.  I must have misheard God, which has happened to all of us.  I was unsure of my future.

Liberty University has an open house every summer to let prospective grad students meet the faculty of their various graduate schools.  I made plans to attend.

What was I going to do?  In my heart, I wanted to help other people who had lost everything, or were worried they might.

An MBA could help small business people survive as entrepreneurs.  On the other hand, a law degree would mean I could fight to save other business owners from the defamation we had suffered.  Maybe both degrees together would be useful.

I hoped to make my decision at the open house.  I was leaning toward starting with an MBA instead of law school, but I could be swayed either way.  I just wasn't sure where God was leading, but I was trusting Him to make the final call.

We had to travel from our home in Burlington, North Carolina, up to Lynchburg, Virginia, a 2 hour drive, to get to the open house.  We left too late to get there on time.  There was a lot of stress in the car as we drove because we would be missing part of the event. 

The open house was at Bruner Hall.  The event was already underway, but we didn't walk into the auditorium right away.  First we wanted to pray, so we ducked into a little room just off the entrance and sat down.

I said, "God, You know what I am about to do."  I was about to enroll in business school.  "If what I am about to do is not your will, please stop me.  Amen."

I jumped up, and my wife and I hurried into the auditorium.  A dean was on stage, in the middle of a speech.

Bruner Hall is poorly laid out as an auditorium.  The entrance doors are on the side of the hall, not the back, and rather close to the stage.  So as we entered, a couple hundred people turned to look as us.  This was embarrassing.

I tried to cut left, toward the back of the room, away from the stage.  Unfortunately, someone had stacked some equipment on the floor just beside the door.  I tripped over it and went flying, in full view of everyone in the room.

I would have landed on the floor, but I was caught by a stout little biker dude.  What was a guy dressed like that doing here?

I had worn a suit, but this guy was dressed to actually kill.  He was wearing studded leather wrist straps and a scraggly beard.

Suddenly I realized who it is who had caught me.

"You're Ergun Caner, aren't you?" I asked him.

What are the odds?  There were hundreds of other people I could have smashed into, but I had actually run over the dean of the seminary.

"Yes, I am," He smiled, shaking my hand.  For the next 15 minutes, we chatted while the man on stage droned on. 

Caner's wife was from Alamance County, where I lived.  He had attended services at the Lamb's Chapel, where I had been a member for 8 years.  He was a big fan of their preacher, Brian Biggers, who I also love.  We had tons in common.

Caner had a fantastic ability to carry on a conversation with me without any sense that I was a nobody.  It was impossible not to love this guy, and his outfit was a piece of it.

After all that talking, Caner asked, "So, what are you doing here?"

"I'm about to enroll in your seminary," I told him.

I was confident that God had answered my prayer.  What I was about to do, God had sent Ergun Caner to stop.

I have since finished seminary and entered full-time ministry.  Today, I pastor a sweet church in Raleigh, Brier Creek Fellowship, where we're all about connecting wrecked people to God.

I thank God that He sent Ergun Caner to wreck my plans.  I hope Caner will let me wreck his plans sometime, and accept an invite to come preach at my church plant.  He is always welcome.