Newness is no virtue, and oldness is no vice

John Piper's book, Don't Waste Your Life, has many fine things to say. I especially enjoyed this paragraph in the first chapter, where Piper shows the utterly futility of postmodern and existential thinking. He says of C. S. Lewis:

He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he
showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth
and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist.
Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for
being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and
opened for me the wisdom of the ages. To this day I get most of
my soul-food from centuries ago. I thank God for Lewis’s compelling
demonstration of the obvious. (19)

So much of the postmodern quest for freedom smacks of this chronological snobbery. The elitists are smug in their self-satisfaction and so ready to see the faults of our restoration leaders who have gone before us; yet they remain blind to their own dilemmas. The very people who hate logic make arguments and reason. The very people who find the Scriptures errant still rely upon it for their arguments. They cite proof-texts against proof-texting. The very certainty on which some have grasped that there are no prohibitions in musical worship is the very certainty they also reject that one must not add or subtract from the instructions of God. With great swelling pride they infer and bind from Scripture that we should not infer and bind from Scripture. They settle for convenient truth. They manufacture it to suit their own agendas.

With Piper, we realize that absolute, objective Truth is outside of us. It is there whether people acknowledge it or not, whether people agree with it or not, and whether people like it or not. We can be sure of truth. Jesus promised that we could know it. The agnostic elitists who feel we must suspend judgment about our worship and our obedience to the gospel, because we cannot know the Truth or know enough of the Truth to have any confidence in the Message we preach are in the end disbelievers. It is easier to claim blindness than to make unpopular stands and so demonstrate faith.

The mature person does not shrink from discerning; the immature person does (Proverbs 22:3; 27:12; Hebrews 5:12-14). Those who hold fast to a cappella music are not the weaker brothers; they are the discerning brothers. And there is a difference. God has not been silent, and we must not fail to listen and heed. There is a virtue to rightly handling the word of Truth and to live pleasingly before God (2 Timothy 2:15; John 8:29). We should not think that God would expect us to handle rightly His Word and then make it so muddy that we must throw up our hands and suspend judgment about what the will of the Lord is (Eph. 5:15-17). It is not that God has failed to give us enough light on whether or not instrumental music is justified; it is just easier for some to claim blindness so they can do what they wish.

Phil Sanders

Preachers are the happiest

According to this article by Barbara Rose in the Chicago Tribune:

"The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching and protecting others and creative pursuits," said Tom W. Smith, director of NORC's General Social Survey, a poll supported by the National Science Foundation.

The worker satisfaction study, set for release Tuesday, is based on data collected since 1988 on more than 27,500 randomly selected people.

For the most satisfied workers, intrinsic rewards are key, the study suggests.

"They're doing work they're very proud of, helping people," Smith said.

Clergy ranked by far the most satisfied and the most generally happy of 198 occupations.

Eighty-seven percent of clergy said they were "very satisfied" with their work, compared with an average 47 percent for all workers. Sixty-seven percent reported being "very happy," compared with an average 33 percent for all workers.

Jackson Carroll, Williams professor emeritus of religion and society at Duke Divinity School, found similarly high satisfaction when he studied Protestant and Catholic clergy, despite relatively modest salaries and long hours.

"They look at their occupation as a calling," Carroll said. "A pastor does get called on to enter into some of the deepest moments of a person's life, celebrating a birth and sitting with people at times of illness or death. There's a lot of fulfillment."

Makes me glad I am a preacher!

Phil

Morning Line Program

Last Monday I appeared on Morning Line, a television program of NewsChannel5.com, discussing the charges made against the church as it relates to the Winkler trial. If you would like to see an 11-minute clip of the program, you can see it at:

www.newschannel5.com

Go to Morning Line. You may have to download a flash player to view the clip.

The whole tragedy of this shooting has left no winners. Certainly there is much in this matter we all wish were different, but our hearts and prayers go out to Dan and Dianne and to those precious children. We can only pray for God's love and blessing for them.

Phil

Parents Faith Matters to Kids

This is a very interesting story on Foxnews about the effects of religion on children. For those of us who have noticed children for many years, however, it is not a surprise. Faith in Christ makes a difference.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268081,00.html

phil

Anonymous post to me

I received this anonymous post over the weekend:

Christ actually exists outside our little world of the Church of Christ. Do you believe that? We must make a decision as Christ Himself did that a sign on the door means nothing as it relates to our salvation.I would ask you to search your soul over this matter. The mere fact that in your "Interests" section of your bio you list "Church of Christ" is amazing to me. That is your interest? What about Christ, or the Church. But, to put your brand of church as your interest tells me that you desperately need to look outward.Please, let's prove Barna
wrong. Let's take actions that will ensure the Church of Christ will exist after the next 30 years. If we continue to be so inward focused, I too agree with Barna that the Church of Christ will be extinct after that time.

Anonymous comments are usually omitted; but this one needed a response.

I am a member of the "church of Christ," the church that belongs to Jesus and for which He shed His precious blood. I proudly note that it belongs to Him, since there are so many man-made churches and "designer" churches in our culture today. I do not regard the name "church of Christ" as denominational or a title. I regard it as descriptive of who we are as members of the body of Christ.

I do not find any Scriptural promise of blessing or salvation for those who are outside the body of Christ. They are strangers to the covenant (Eph. 2:11-12). The body of Christ as it appeared in the New Testament always manifested itself in discernible, organized, local congregations. The church Jesus built had one Lord, one gospel, one faith, and one baptism. It was pre-denominational and knew nothing of the human divisions created by denominationalism.

There is nothing outside the New Testament church, which holds any promise of salvation or the approval of God (Matt. 15:13).

As for Barna, I do not know what study you are citing where he predicts the extinction of the church of Christ. I, for one, don't buy his conclusion, if he indeed did say such a thing. The Lord's church is not going to be extinct, thank you very much.

As for what we are doing, please let me be a little foolish (as Paul was in 2 Corinthians). While there are struggles among us, I can point to numerous congregations of churches of Christ in several states that are faithful to the Lord and growing quite well. Programs such as World Bible School, Fishers of Men, Disaster Relief, DigitalBibleStudy.com, In Search of the Lord's Way (which is one of the top 3 religious programs on television in America), Focus Press, Apologetics Press, and many others, assure me that we aren't going to dry up and blow away (even though some wish we would).

As for me personally, I teach at Nashville School of preaching and at Regions University, because I believe in training preachers. I preach on television to a potential audience of 2.5. million twice weekly because I believe in evangelism. Our website at Concord Rd (http://www.God-answers.org ) had over 1.4 million hits from nearly 100 countries in the last year. Many of them downloaded the Evangelism Handbook of New Testament Christianity and many other free materials available there. Each month I write for Think magazine (http://focuspress.org) a magazine professionally done and reaching out to members of the church and beyond. I enjoy the privilege of writing for the Spiritual Sword quite often.

Concord Rd., the congregation where I serve, supports several missionaries in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. We are heavily involved in training preachers and students in three countries. It might interest folks to know that there are now as many churches of Christ in Sub-Sahara Africa as there are in the USA; and Rick Shur of WBS, who is a dear friend, tells me that India now has about as many churches of Christ as there are in the USA.

Just a month ago, I was with Augustine Tawiah and Gabriel Oppong in the Western Region of Ghana, where we visited several congregations of the Lord's church--most of which have not been in existence even ten years! We did not have time in three days to get around to all the churches. The congregations ranged in size from 30-120. Extinct? Nonsense!

Anyone who thinks I don't love the Lord Jesus doesn't know me. I love the church, because it is the bride of Christ, my Lord.

Phil

Besides the Point

I said on Monday, "There is not now, nor has there ever been in the last 2,000 years, one shred of evidence to support the use of instruments in the musical worship of the church." Apparently a brother has found exception to that in Revelation 15:2.

"And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands." (NASB)

This verse tells of a sea of glass mingled with fire, a beast with a number (666), and harps. Now this verse found in a highly figurative, apocalyptic context full of signs. We are supposed to ignore that context and suppose this is New Testament evidence that the early church worshiped with instruments of music.

To do this he must prove that the harps are literal not figurative.

To do this he must prove that what is done in heaven in worship should be a norm for church activity.

The argument about harps in heaven is both old and bad. We are supposed to believe the harps are literal and normative while the incense, the four beasts, the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, and the sea of glass mingled with fire are figurative.

If one were to make a serious argument justifying the instrument in the worship of the church, one would show a passage where the church was using it here on earth. One might also show a command or an inference that the church was actually to use it. He cannot point to it in Acts or one of the epistles. He must go to a figurative, apocalyptic text, which speaks of heaven and not what is happening in the church of that day. If one could have found the passage that approves the instrument in the worship of the church on earth, this issue would have been settled long ago. As it is, we are all still waiting. We have been for over a hundred years. All our brother can do is bring up old and bad arguments.

Now this brother has said there is not one shred of evidence in Scripture that the use of instruments of music in worship is sinful. This old, fallacious argument is merely a subterfuge. I am reminded of Jeremiah 7:31, which condemns some sinful acts of idolatry.

“They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind."

Our brother seems to think that unless a specific prohibition is found, that we cannot discern whether something is right or wrong. It didn't come into God's mind that men would burn their sons and daughters in the fire.

The absence of a prohibition is not a license. The reason there was no prohibition is because God told us what He wanted specifically. He wanted us to sing and make melody in our hearts, teach and admonish, and to offer up the fruit of our lips that praise his name. We know that. We know nothing of instruments commanded or used in the church. There is still no evidence. Had God wanted instruments, He would have told us. After all, He told David and Israel that he wanted them in the old covenant. But God is silent in the New. It was not in His mind to use instruments in Christian worship. He did not command it. Just as they presumptuously burned their kids at the high places in the valley of Hinnom, so people presumptuously worship today, doing things which God never commanded.

The absence of a prohibition is the New Testament is to be expected, when you think about it. There is no prohibition, because it was not happening.

In the end our brother, like Atchley, can only give us his opinion. An opinion is a guess in the absence of evidence. They want us to trust their presumptuous guess over the clear testimony of hundreds of years of early church history.

Their retort that we are not to judge when something is wrong is likewise flimsy and inconsistent. There is no specific prohibition of sprinkling, infant baptism, papal primacy, holy water, incense, gambling, or polygamy either. We judge these things wrong by taking heed of what God has positively told us. Mature Christians discern right from wrong from the study of the Word (Heb. 5:12-14); naive folks swallow anything (Prov. 14:15; 22:3; 27:12).

I choose to build my house on the rock of what I know (singing) not on the sand of someone else's guess (instrumental music). Jesus told the outcome of the rock theology and sand theology. I plan to listen.

kindly,
phil

Scholars take it back on Jesus family tomb

An interesting article about the feeling of scholars now on the Cameron/Jacobovici documentary. Thanks to my friend, Paul Goddard, of Memphis for sharing this link!

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152766396&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

The puddin didn't prove out.

Phil

Tampering with the Word of God

"But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God" (2 Cor. 4:2, ESV).

The word tamper (doloo) occurs only twice in the Greek New Testament (2 Cor. 4:2 and in 1 Cor. 5:6, ms D). BDAG says it generally means "to beguile by craft, then: to make false through deception or distortion, falsify, adulterate" (256). The goal of tampering is to leave the impression the Word says something that it does not actually say. The person who uses God's word cunningly to advance his agenda is in Paul's eyes disgraceful and underhanded. We must not be ignorant of the devices Satan uses (2 Cor. 2:11).

John MacArthur provides this wonderful insight into Satan's devices in his book, The Truth War (40). I have adapted this from him.

One of Satan's devices follows a common pattern. Satan, first, loves to ask questions that create doubt in the Word of God. “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:2) Satan knew what God had said; he didn't want information but wanted Adam and Eve to change. Doubt is always the first step to apostasy.

Satan, second, contradicts what God says. "You shall surely not die" (3:4). Satan always wants people to know how much he knows. He knows things others don't know. He has the inside tract to what is really true. The desire to know His secrets, to be one of the elite, to buy into his arrogance, has led many unfortunate souls down the path to perdition. He is a liar and the father of lies (Jn 8:44). He will tell you what he thinks you want to hear. Eve was deceived by this lie; Adam was not. Adam knew that eating the fruit was wrong.

Satan, third, produces an alternate version of "truth." He said, "God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (3:5) The devil's alternate always has a mix of truth in with the error. There is enough truth to sound persuasive, but his message is full of misrepresentations and distortions. MacArthur says, "Add it all up and the bottom line is a big lie." The father of lies was a murderer from the beginning, and he is costing souls today with his half-truths and alternatives.

Satan has always pretended to be what he is not (2 Cor. 11:13-15). He wants everyone to believe he has a better way, that God is trying to fool you, and that God is not your friend but is cheating you out of something really good. His strategy is to get people to rely upon him for real "progress."

There simply is nothing better "out there" than New Testament Christianity. The entertainment religions don't have anything better than congregational singing in worship. The church growth experts don't have a plan (from sociology) better than preaching the truth in love. You can't improve on God's way or God's will. The subterfuge will always ask questions to create doubt, contradict, and provide an alternative. Don't fall for it.

Phil

A Great Issue of Spiritual Sword

I hope you will read the April issue of the Spiritual Sword, entitled, "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing." It contains a devastating rebuke and refutation of the current movement to get instruments of music into the worship of the church. Alan Highers has masterfully refuted most of the current arguments that appear to permit the use of instruments.

I hope every elder of the Richland Hills church will read this issue. They said that they spent years studying the issue of the instrument. By the course of action they have taken, I would suggest they studied poorly. The case made by their senior minister is full of fallacies and contradictions. His arguments are weak, and only the naive are fooled by them.

I hope and pray elders and preachers all over the brotherhood will read this issue and cease arguing over the matter. There is not now, nor has there ever been in the last 2,000 years, one shred of evidence to support the use of instruments in the musical worship of the church.

If Biblical truth has any importance to those who profess New Testament Christianity and if brotherly love is to continue, then let the advocates of this innovation and self-made religion cease from reviving this terrible division. It is the human practice that caused the division a century ago, and it is the insistence on having this innovation that is causing the division today. To suggest that we ought to be together again and overlook humanly devised worship is merely to defect to error from truth.

Those who claim to be ambassadors for unity are in reality recruiters for compromise. Before there can be unity, there must first be repentance of error. We plead with our instrumental brethren, if you are so bent on unity, to give up the instrument and self-made religion and to come back to a cappella worship--where we were before you demanded change. Only then can there be unity.

kindly,
Phil

Humble ambiguity and arrogant certainty!

I am reading John MacArthur's new book, The Truth War, wherein he tells of the need to fulfill the instructions of Jude 3 to contend earnestly for the faith. I recommend this book to all, understanding that it is written from and evangelical and Calvinist perspective. He makes many good points about the need for a militant Christianity rather than a sensuous accommodation to the culture of our time.

God's Word is eternally true, eternally binding, and eternally clear.

This book does a good job of describing the postmodern, Emerging Church movement. I found this criticism of the Emerging church quite revealing:

Christ's headship in the church is likewise being challenged by those in the Emerging Church movement who have suggested that Scripture is simply not clear enough to allow us to preach its truth with any degree of clarity, certainty, or conviction. Most would never come right out and deny that the Bible is the Word of God, but they accomplish exactly the same thing when they insist that no one has any right to say for sure what the Bible means. (155)

MacArthur notes that postmodernism has transformed doubt, uncertainty, and qualms about practically every teaching of Scripture into high virtue. Strong convictions plainly stated are invariably labeled "arrogance" by those who favor postmodern dialogue.

Postmodernism casts us on a sea of uncertainty and glorifies agnosticism as supposedly a virtuous "humility." Frankly, such humility is realistically simple faithlessness. No, I'm not suggesting that we ought to be "know-it-alls." But at the same time, can we not have the saving knowledge that sets us free? Is the promise of Jesus found in John 8:31-32 true? Not if you believe the postmodern, religiously-correct crowd.

We don't have to have perfect, infinite knowledge to know some things. As for our Christianity, we know God is right when He speaks. We believe Him. He, after all, does know it all and is perfect in knowledge. If He says so, then who are we to correct Him? He doesn't need our elite help. We need His. Proverbs 3:5 is true about life and true about "doctrine."

The call of our time is not to compromise but to faith in God's word. Believe it.

kindly,
phil

Can We Know Enough?

Rick Atchley and Bob Russell in their book, Together Again, argue for their unity on the basis of what we don't know. They place the instrument in the area of "disputable matters" (65), arguing that since Christians differ on the matter and Bible-believing brethren come to different conclusions, we should not divide over such matters (64).

If you think this argument through, Atchley and Russell are making an argument from ignorance or an argument from agnosticism. They say that in the light of the fact there is no specific prohibition of the instrument, we should not divide over the matter. We don't know enough from Scripture, since it is silent on the instrument, to make a ruling one way or the other--so let's accept both views as equally correct.

So, in the absence of what we know, we will discuss but make no judgments.

Are we really so ignorant? We know that:

• God wants us to sing (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Heb. 13:15)
• Christ wants His true disciples to abide in His Word (Jn 8:31-32; Mt. 7:21-27)
• Neither Christ nor the Holy Spirit ever acted on their own initiative with regard to the Word of God (Jn 12:48-50; 14:31; 16:12-13).
• Adding to the word of God is condemned (Mt 15:7-9; Gal. 1:6-9; 2 John 9-11)
• The unity for which Jesus prayed was first sanctified by truth (John 17:17-23)

We can know that it is wrong to act on a guess. Nadab and Abihu acted without authority; David and Uzzah acted without authority; Saul acted without authority at Gilgal; Ahaz acted without authority in adding an altar; and the Judaizers acted without authority in adding the Law to the Gospel. These examples are in the Scriptures for a reason, and they are for our learning (Rom. 15:4) so that we might have hope and not make the same mistakes. Are the Scriptures of the Old Testament never to reprove or correct us (2 Tim. 3:16-17)?

To say "we don't know enough about what God desires about music in worship, so we feel free to do as we wish" is bad business. It presumes the right to act on a guess. It is sand theology. I might just as well ignore all the positive things the Bible says about marriage and feel free to enter into a polygamous union (since there is no specific, New Testament prohibition of polygamy; by that I mean a specific "thou shalt not!" Interestingly, the same duo argue against drawing conclusions from inferences. Does God not imply and can we not infer a prohibition of polygamy from Romans 7:3 and 1 Corinthians 7:2?).

I would rather act on what I know than presume freedom in what I don't know. There really is a difference between building our houses on rock and on sand. Jesus wanted us to build on what we know, not build upon a guess.

kindly,

Phil

"Religion Degenerating into Music"

W. K. Pendleton was twice son-in-law of Alexander Campbell, and coeditor
of the Millennial Harbinger. He also succeeded Mr. Campbell as editor of the
Harbinger and president of Bethany College. He had an article in the Millennial
Harbinger, 1868, pages 36-42, "Religion Degenerating Into Music." W. K. Pendleton wrote this rather stinging piece about the introduction of the instrument into the worship of the church:


If the people will have an idol, music is perhaps as respectable a one as the
religious development of the nineteenth century can invent. We are not arguing
the relative merit of human inventions. We are denying that the Christian religion is, in any part--jot or tittle--a human invention at all. "Development" has nothing to do with it. It came from its divine Author perfect and complete, and the great work of the church is to hold the people to it; to protest, to remonstrate, to anathematize against anything that sets itself up beside it, till every imagination of man is crushed under its feet and withered by the breath of its nostrils. "Pure religion and undefiled"--sublimated into music! The sweet charities, that fall like heavenly dew upon the arid places of human woe--expired in screaming ecstasies of sound! 'Tis too impious. Better for the people, that some stern iconoclast should rise in the holy indignation of the old prophets, and break to pieces all the senseless organs and scatter all the godless choirs that desecrate our fashionable cathedrals, than that this fatal tendency to substitute a musical sentimentalism for a living Christianity should be allowed to go unrebuked until it has fixed itself, with the power of a fatal delusion, upon the habits and the credulity of the age. (Page 40.)

Time article on the Bible

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601845-1,00.html
The above link to a Time Magazine article on using the Bible in school is well worth reading.

Phil

Key stats

http://www.christianitytoday.com/money/articles/keystatistics.html

Some really valuable insights and statistics can be found at the site above.

No impact

A March 2007 Gallup poll reported:

Our Easter research did not stop there. We werealso aware of the recent and controversial documentary by James Cameron, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.”This documentary, recently aired on the DiscoveryChannel, investigated the supposed ossuary containing the skeletal remains of Jesus. While the Bible is very clear that Jesus died, was buried, and came back to life, we wanted to see how this documentary may affect the general public’s belief in the resurrection.

The research showed that 57 percent of the population either read about, heardabout, or watched this documentary. Familiarity with the documentary had no impact on the public view of the resurrection, as about 75 percent of both those with and without knowledge of the documentary believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. It appears that belief in theresurrection neither drew them to watch the documentary nor influenced their belief.

http://www.namb.net/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=9qKILUOzEpH&b=1648583&ct=3710909

Well the proof is in the pudding, and Cameron's pudding is nothing to worry about.

Phil

Such is our folly..

In his excellent book, John Price quotes John Calvin, who is lamenting the natural progression to more and more departure once a departure from the truth has started:

Such is our folly, that when we are left at liberty, all we are able to do
is go astray. And then when once we have turned aside from the right path, there is no end to our wanderings, until we get buried under a multitude of superstition. (Necessity of Reforming the Church, 17)

Some seem all too blind to slippery slopes. They think little of the consequences of so slight an adjustment in policy. They think that just "bumping the boat" will have little affect on the direction. What's the harm in a little fun while we worship? What's the harm in a Saturday night rather than a Sunday morning? What's the harm in a little music?

I suppose the folks in Matthew 6 felt that way. What's the harm in a little paint on my face? What's the harm in praying before others? What's the harm in letting others know I give?

I can just imagine someone saying some of these things:

"If we can play the instrument, why can't we serve roast lamb on
the Lord's Table? If we can play the instrument, let us also burn incense, offer grain offerings, and dance before the Lord. Why not just become Jews? Jesus was a Jew. The apostles were Jews. What difference does it make whether we bring in God's approved worship under the Old Covenant? Perhaps we should build an altar like Ahaz and put it up front for our offerings?"

Open the door to more and more digression and departure from the simple teaching of the New Testament and we will come to be a church after our own imagination. How easily people justify their departures... How easily they justify their desires...

Phil

John Price's book on Music

John Price, Old Light on New Worship (Avinger, Texas: Simpson Publishing Co., 2005). ca $15.99.

Jeff Jenkins of Lewisburg, Texas, recommended this book; and I have been delighted to read it. There is much to commend within its pages. Price is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Rochester, NY and a graduate of Trinity Ministerial Academy. He has done a thorough job of presenting the Reformed view on music and describing the Regulative Principle (what we would call prohibitive silence). He is well-acquainted with John Girardeau's work (found in Foy E. Wallace's book and online). He has done a good job of looking into history.

I have only had a chance to glance at the book since I arrived home from Ghana and went to the office yesterday (Mon., 03/26). I ordered the book before I left. I am glad I did.

Price notes that Luther regarded IM as an indifferent matter, but his colleagues Carlstadt and Melanchthon certainly did oppose it as sinful. I had always heard Luther called IM an "ensign of Baal." The other leaders of the Reformation belileved that the truth of the gospel could only be upheld within the context of a "biblically ordered worship." (They could not see IM in Christian worship either.) The other reformation leaders believed the central issue was the restoration of pure and spiritual worship according to the New Testament." (94. See the footnote: Carlos M. N. Eire, War Against Idols [Cambride University Press, 1986], 2, 195-233).

Sounds like us. Zwingli based his arguments on Scriptural principles and said that "only what Christ has explicitly commanded in His word should be part of the worship of the church" (94). Zwingli specifically applied this to the use of musical instruments. "Everything which is added to the true institutions of Christ is an abuse." Amen and amen.

Of course, Zwingli went to far and also forbade vocal music. Fortunately his edict to Zurich did not become the norm, which was unaccompanied congregational singing.

The book has much to commend it. Since I have not read it all, I cannot give it an unqualified recommendation. Reader beware: eat the fish and throw the bones away. But by all means, eat the fish.

I am considering writing a book on the music God desires in Christian worship. Should I?

Phil

Out of Africa

Dewayne and I have come home from our 16-day trip to Kumasi, Ghana, West Africa, where we were teaching in Ghana Bible College. It was an exhausting trip with 95 degree, humid weather most days. The 60+ students we taught, however, made the trip very successful and meaningful.

Ghana celebrated its 50th Anniversary as a free country while we were there. They have made remarkable progress since my first trip there in 1999.

Ghana Bible College has doubled its number of students but is in serious financial need. It takes about $70,000 to $80,000 per year to run this wonderful school that trains preachers for that part of the world. They need your financial help. If you can do anything to help in this matter, please contact me.

God bless,
Phil

The Problems with the Lost Tomb

When Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron get together to make a blockbuster, $4 million "documentary" about an old find and act like there is a radical, new, life-changing discovery of the bones of Jesus and his family, we must object with more than a little skepticism.

This tomb on Talpiot street, found in 1980 by Amos Kloner, with ten ossuaries (bone boxes) has been featured at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem for several years. The fact that the boxes contain names similar to those in the early family of Jesus (Joseph, Mary, Jesus) is really not that odd. These were very popular names and are found on several ossuaries.

Richard Bauckman of St Andrews University released a catalog of Palestinian ossuaries in 2002. Among the top ten names for males were both Joseph and Jesus. There are a total of 45 ossuaries from this period with the name of Joseph, 22 with the name of Jesus, and 42 with the name of Mary or Mariam. When you consider that these names appear even more often in other settings, it should not surprise us to find an ossuary with "Jesus, son of Joseph" and a Mary in the collective tomb. Finding boxes with these names on it does not mean that the family of Jesus of Nazareth has been found; it means that a Jesus, a Joseph, and a Mary has been found. Whether this Joseph and this Mary were married is not certain. Whether Mariam (thought to be Mary Magdalene) is here the wife of Jesus is only speculation.

But there is DNA evidence! DNA tests were only taken of the residue found in the ossuaries of Jesus and Mariam; they found that they were not blood kin. Jacobovici presumes Jesus and Mariam were married, but how do we know that? Could she not have been the wife of one of the other men? Since we don't have any indisputable DNA from the Jesus of history, how do we know this is Jesus of Nazareth? We don't. Jacobovici is speculating. It is at best a guess, and considering the evidence, an impossible one.

Why Jerusalem? Poor Galileans had little money to buy an expensive gravesite in Jerusalem, 75 miles away. Since there is no embalming, the body of Joseph (who likely died in Nazareth) would be stinking by the time they got it there.

Joseph's family of origin came from Bethlehem not Jerusalem. He lived and worked in Nazareth. Why would he be buried in Jerusalem?

If you research the web site, you will see that the "scholars" behind this film end up denying the resurrection and the ascension. They suggest the story behind the story is that the disciples stole the body of Jesus from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and buried him again at the Talpiot family site.

How did they get the body past the guards (Mt. 27:65)?

Why did they leave the grave clothes (John 20:6)?

How did they keep it a secret from Jesus' brothers James and Jude, who died beleiving in a resurrection?

The whole idea is preposterous! It ignores the history given by eyewitnesses in the New Testament to embrace the wide-eyed, fantasy find of a bunch of filmmakers who admit they are not scholars.

This supposed find is as bogus as can be.

Phil

The Lost Tomb of Jesus???? Give me a break!

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This appeared on Tennessean.com Tuesday 2/27/07
Published: Tuesday, 02/27/07
BRENTWOOD — Phil Sanders, minister of Concord Road Church of Christ and Dewayne Bryant, an archaeologist and deacon at the church, will present a response tomorrow night to a filmmaker who claims to have discovered the tomb and bones of Jesus.
Filmmaker James Cameron and the Discovery Channel on March 4 will present “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” a documentary claiming that the Talipot tomb, opened in 1980, contained several ossuaries containing the bones of Jesus and his family.
The film calls into question the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus, suggests that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that Jesus had a son named Judah. To back up their claims the filmmaker appealed to DNA evidence and statistical analysis.
The program by Sanders and Bryan in response to the claims starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday at 7:00 PM at the church, located at 8221 Concord Road in Brentwood.
Bryant is a PhD candidate at Regions University and has more than 130 hours in graduate studies related to archaeology and the Old Testament. He currently teaches courses in archaeology and the Old Testament at Regions University in Montgomery, Ala. Bryant writes a monthly column for Think magazine, based in Brentwood and travels widely speaking to churches on topics relating to archaeology and the Bible.Sanders has an earned doctorate in Biblical studies and serves as an instructor at Nashville School of Preaching and Regions University, where he teaches courses related to the Passion of the Christ and Christian Evidences. Sanders appears weekly on a television program in the Nashville area and writes for Think magazine.