Why do we vote on Tuesdays? Why not Monday, Saturday and/or Sunday? Yahoo gives us the answer. First, there is a reason we vote in November:
The short answer: We used to be a nation of farmers.
The long answer: Congress chose November because the harvest was over and the weather wouldn’t be bad enough to prevent people from traveling.
Second, there is a good reason why we vote on Tuesday. It has everything to do with Church and the Lord’s Day:
As for Tuesday, people used to have to travel overnight to their polling location. (In 1845, horse was the preferred method of transport.) In an effort to avoid religious days of rest, Congress chose Tuesday, leaving Monday and Wednesday as travel days. Tuesday was voting (and horse-resting) day.
It seems we have moved a long way from where we started, as a society and as the western evangelical church. Not only did the church used have great respect for the Christian Sabbath 150 years ago, but so did the government!
This is not a political blog and I have no intent on it becoming one. My intent is not to set one party against the other, but to put forth some helpful article that will cause us as Christians to think biblically about what is going on and what is at stake.
As Americans politics play into our lives and religion. We have rights and responsibilities. John Piper wrote a helpful article that I believe will challenge us to exercise our right to vote and help us as Christians to keep this upcoming election in perspective with God’s Word.
Voting is like marrying and crying and laughing and buying. We should do it, but only as if we were not doing it. That’s because “the present form of this world is passing away” and, in God’s eyes, “the time has grown very short.” Here’s the way Paul puts it:
The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)
It is important that we, as Christians, do not forget about the moral issues at stake in the upcoming election. Randy Alcorn has a thought provoking article on whether or not Abortion should still be an issue Christians keep as a priority when voting.
Every Christian should take these teachings seriously. Is the unborn an innocent human being? If you claim to be prolife in the historical meaning of the word, then your answer is yes. Is abortion the shedding of innocent blood, the taking of human life created in the image of God? If you say you are prolife, your answer must be yes. (Please do not redefine the meaning of the word prolife and say “I’m prolife” if you’re really not.)
So, is the candidate’s stand on the issue of shedding innocent blood important enough to disqualify him as a candidate? Yes. While a single issue can’t qualify a candidate, it can disqualify him.
He also links a video that is graphic but is helpful in understanding how much life is in an unborn baby and how many are being destroyed/killed.
JUDE, “the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,” speaks to us in the tone of an ancient prophet. His voice is that of Elijah or John the Baptist. It is “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” He speaks to the declining churches of his day. He speaks to the Church of the last days. It is against the evils within the Church that he specially warns. What a picture does he draw of error, licentiousness, worldliness, spiritual decay, and ecclesiastical apostasy! Who could recognize the image of the primitive Church in the description he gives of prevailing iniquity? The world had absorbed the Church, and the Church was content that it should be so…
It is a picture for the Church in our day to study, for we are rapidly becoming part of the world and falling into the snares of “the god of this world” (2Co 4:4). Nay, and we glory in this as “progress,” “culture,” and
“enlightenment,” as freedom from the bigotry of other centuries and the narrowness of our half-enlightened
ancestors, who did not know how to reconcile contraries and to join what God has put asunder; how to believe everything alike; how to combine earth’s pleasures and gaieties with the joy of God; how both to pray and to dance; how to revel and to weep for sin; how to wear both the “white raiment” and the jeweled ball dress; how to maintain friendship both with God and with His enemies; how both to pamper and to starve the flesh; how to lay up treasure both on earth and heaven; how to drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; how to be partaker of the Lord’s Table and the table of devils.
From “Light and Truth: Bible Thoughts and Themes” in The Life and Works of Horatius Bonar.
Pulpit Magazine has two (part 1)(part 2)wonderful response articles by John MacArthur on why he loves the church. Here is a brief snippet from article 1.
Evangelicals are far too prone to indifference about the church. Some evangelicals live on the periphery of the church, attending and observing without ever really becoming an integral part of the body. Many who profess faith in Christ remain totally impassive about the church. As author Michael Griffiths noted,
A high proportion of people who “go to church” have forgotten what it is all for. Week by week they attend services in a special building and go through their particular, time-honored routine, but give little thought to the purpose of what they are doing. The Bible talks about the “the bride of Christ” but the church today seems like a ragged Cinderella. It needs to reaffirm the nonnegotiable, essential elements that God designed for it to be committed to. [God’s forgetful Pilgrims (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978)]
He’s right. Worse yet, I know of people in full-time Christian service, employed by evangelical parachurch organizations, who have no involvement whatsoever with any local church. This is to the shame of the whole evangelical movement.
From a sermon under the theme of “Fix Our Eyes on Jesus”, dealing with things that hinder us from running the race.
Most of us who are serious about running the race of the Christian life are not impeded in our journey by dramatic and stirring and prolonged sinfulness. Most of us are actually impeded by the toleration of allowable, innocent, and praise worthy things, which we have unwittingly allowed us to divert from the objective of being there at the finish. For example, family life…We go to churches and they say this is a family centered church. Then it is the wrong kind of church for the only kind of church is a God centered church. Oh, we cannot come and worship with God’s people because of our family. Oh no, I won’t be able to come and be involved with the opportunity outreach because of my family…But what did Jesus have to say? If anyone would like to follow me or be a committed disciple of mine and was not prepared to hate their father and mother and brother and sister and everyone else in that structure for sake of myself and the gospel, then they shouldn’t even begin the journey!
Other things he mentions:
diligence in business
preoccupation with knowledge of theology
reading good literature
your garden
Begg then quotes a Scottish commentator Brown
Every earthly pursuit, however innocent in itself, when it interferes with a cultivation of christian dispositions and the practice of Christian duties becomes a weight that must be laid aside.
Leaving a church is a serious thing and should be done in great caution. Mark Dever gives several suggestions on how to handle this situation in a biblical manner.
Pray
Seek your pastor’s counsel
Weigh your motives
Reconcile
Consider the work of God in the church life
Be Humble
All of these steps are to make sure you are doing something that will glorify God, but if you still must leave:
Don’t divide the body
Don’t sow discontent in your close friends and hinder their growth
Pray for and bless the congregation and its leadership
I use this blog for multiple purposes, one of which is to put information down that I want record of and can easily find and reference. This post is for that purpose.
Directly, not indirectly: Don’t imply the criticism, be direct.
Seriously, not humorously: If something is worth correcting show respect to others by taking it seriously.
As if it is important, not casually: Don’t criticize on insignificant things.
Privately, not publicly: Honor your friend, and don’t create negative views of them in other’s eyes.
Out of love to them, not to express your feelings or frustrations: “honesty” is sometimes simply frustration. Focus on their need and not your frustration.
End with Encouragment: This one was added by another after observing how Mark Dever handles situations. Don’t lose the criticism by flattery, slip it in, flattery, but deal directly and then re-enforce your love for the one you are dealing with.
This is a recent article I wrote which should appear in the Herald Bulletin on a Saturday sometime this month.
A while back a man in our church told me about a conversation in which a friend had asked him, “You are not in one of those churches that believes you have to be there every time the doors are opened, are you?”
When I first heard the question, I had a mixed response. On one hand, I hope our people don’t feel that way, just coming to church out of guilt. But on the other hand, I screamed inside, “Yes, that is part of being a church!”
Church is not a building or something one does once a week, rather it is who we are a called to be when we become Christians. I Corinthians 12:12 says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (ESV)
If you are a Christian, don’t just go to church; bethe church, for the body will not function correctly without all the parts. I doubt anyone has ever been asked, “You are not one of those people who think all the parts of your body have to be there when you go out with your wife, are you?” It is absurd to think of leaving your foot or hand at home. The Scriptures instruct us to think this way about the church. We are part of one another. Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 12:19, “If all were a single member, where would the body be?” (ESV)
This may be a question some pastors ask each week, “Where is the body? I see an arm, a foot, a neck, and a knee, but where are the rest of the parts?”
We should think of our commitment and attendance to church and ask, “If the body is there, why wouldn’t I, the hand, be there?” When we see it in this light, we should also see that we each have a God-given role within the church. Therefore when we gather, we are all to be actively functioning as one. When a member is not there or not active, it hurts the entire body, but when the church body functions together, it is a glorious sight in God’s eyes.
Andy has been serving at Edgewood Baptist in full time ministry since 2000. He is a graduate of Cedarville College and Southern Seminary. He and his wife, Heather, have been married since 1997 and they have 3 children.
against the other, but to put forth some helpful article that will cause us as Christians to think biblically about what is going on and what is at stake.
JUDE, “the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,” speaks to us in the tone of an ancient prophet. His voice is that of Elijah or John the Baptist. It is “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” He speaks to the declining churches of his day. He speaks to the Church of the last days. It is against the evils within the Church that he specially warns. What a picture does he draw of error, licentiousness, worldliness, spiritual decay, and ecclesiastical apostasy! Who could recognize the image of the primitive Church in the description he gives of prevailing iniquity? The world had absorbed the Church, and the Church was content that it should be so…
Evangelicals are far too prone to indifference about the church. Some evangelicals live on the periphery of the church, attending and observing without ever really becoming an integral part of the body. Many who profess faith in Christ remain totally impassive about the church. As author Michael Griffiths noted,
response. On one hand, I hope our people don’t feel that way, just coming to church out of guilt. But on the other hand, I screamed inside, “Yes, that is part of being a church!” 