Family Room= Theology Class

For the next seven weeks, we will be studying the biblical pattern of the family. God has a very specific plan for men, women and children in Scripture and he calls us to obedience and ultimately to joy as we discover his plans are far better than ours.

It is clear by now that we aren’t a flashy dashy, new and improved, marketing savvy kind of church. So you might be wondering why we would go the way of the topical series instead of the typical, systematic, verse by verse style by which we normally proclaim the Scriptures. The answer is simple and has two parts: First, we wanted to focus on the importance of families because of the year of doctrine. If our focus this year truly is doctrinal clarity and depth, the family should be the first place where that doctrinal clarity is established. As go the family rooms of the membership, so goes the church itself. The church is not an institution, meant to “fix” everything. The church is indeed a hospital where we all come to find the teaching, reproof, correction and training of Scripture and the fellowship of God’s people to equip, encourage and edify our souls, but it is not a place for parents to drop their kids off and hope they “get better”, or a place where teenagers can go so the youth pastor can make up for 17 years of bad parenting. The church is a place of training where families can be equipped to be what God intended them to be: the primary gospel-teaching, doctrine learning, God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, sin killing, holiness practicing center of the Christian life.

Secondly, every “topical” message will be an exegetical message. We will not toss our commitment to sound hermeneutics in order to have a “cool series.” In upcoming posts I will be addressing the issue of churchy coolness as well as McChurch, or the seemingly ever-present desire for the church to have just the right menu lest the customers bolt. Buckle up.

When my wife and I were first married, I decided to cook for her one evening. I made a garlic stir-fry that she said was very good, but when we cooked it again later, she said it wasn’t nearly as potent in terms of the garlic flavor. I had misread the recipe and put 2 tablespoons of garlic salt in the dish rather than 2 teaspoons. While the dish wasn’t necessarily bad, the difference between the intended amount and actual amount of one ingredient dramatically altered the dish. Ingredients matter.

I do see a parallel in the theology of Christianity, however. We who think precision in matters of food is important might look at our understanding of the gospel or of theology in general and think that precision doesn’t matter. As long as you love Jesus sincerely, you don’t need to know all that nerdy theology stuff. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it ignores the precision with which Jesus himself spoke. After all, the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 showed considerable interest in Jesus and had even kept the commandments! What a great guy! Churches today would put that guy in leadership immediately. When Jesus told him that he must sell everything he had in order to follow him, the man went away sad, because he had lots of stuff (19:22).  It was the precise words of Christ that caused the rich young ruler to leave, but it was the same precise command, “follow me and I will make you fishers of men” that caused Peter, James and John to drop their nets on the beach to follow Jesus. We must not be afraid to be clear. We don’t want to get the gospel wrong in an effort to make people like it.