May 4
To R. Scott clark whose blogpost questioned whether it is time for the Church to challenge the authorities just as the Church did in Acts when it was told not to preach the Gospel. This appeared in Heidelblog.
I don't think it is even time to write an article like the one above, let alone ask the above question. The comparisons with the civil rights days or with the persecution of the early church are totally illegitimate. Perhaps if Church was the only organization targeted, then the article would have a point. But other religions, such as Islam, Judaism, and professional supports are under the the same restrictions as the Church. In the civil rights days, blacks were targeted in order to marginalize them. In 1st century Rome, the Church was targeted so that it could marginalized. No group is being marginalized right now.
As for whether the health threat is being hyped, officials are put in between a rock and a hard place. For if they put in restrictions so their areas can avoid the horrors that some other areas, such as NYC, Italy, Spain, and the UK have experienced they will be criticized for overreacting. If they do too little or respond to tool late, then they will be held responsible for the death and devastation that their area will suffer. As for whether the health threat is being hyped, just ask the health care professionals who worked constant 12-hour shifts, called in retired health care professionals to help, had a field hospital set up, had a Navy ship sent in to help with non Covid-19 patients, and saw one of their top ER doctors commit suicide because of the stress and strain of working with Covid-19 victims.
Meanwhile, churches meeting on the internet has been strongly encouraged and supported by the state. Doesn't that show that the state is targeting the disease rather than the Church?
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May 19
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that criticizes John Piper for challenging the belief that gratefulness is our motivation for good works. This appeared in Heidelblog.
The real issue here is whether one believes that they are saved by Grace alone. The question is whether gratitude is the necessary motivation for good works for those who believe that they are saved only by God's grace. The concern that we do good works not to earn God's favor is used to imply that is the case.
Unlike Piper, I believe that gratitude is both stated and implied as a motivation for good works. But the next question is whether gratitude is the only motivation that moves us to good works. If we believe in Paul's statements about love and joy, then we would have to say 'no.'
Yes, we love God because He first loved us. And certainly gratitude can be involved there. But Paul's contrasting of the fruits of the Spirit with the works of the flesh indicates that we are changing because of the work of the Spirit in our lives. Bearing the fruit of the spirit is more than just reluctantly doing the hard things out of gratefulness that we may or may not feel at the time. And saying that we act out of love because God is changing us doesn't imply that we are trying to earn God's favors. Rather it means God's grace changes us so that we BEGIN to imitate how He has treated us in how we treat others.
Just as the Bible uses how fathers discipline us to teach us about how God disciplines us, we should understand that how others have loved us often becomes a model for we love others. If that is true with people, is it not even more true with God because His Spirit comes with His saving us. We start to imitate God's love because His love is changing us. God's love for us is both a model for how we are love each other and a transforming power. Paul was specific in stating one way in which we are to imitate God's love. That way is that we are to forgive others as God has forgiven us in Christ.
One problem with making gratitude the only motivation for our good works or the motivation for all of our works is that it doesn't due full justice to the transforming work God does in our lives. It minimizes the love we should have in our hearts for others. For as long as we feel grateful, we can be comfortable with not loving others as we should. Another problem is that the emphasis put on gratefulness by the Reformers, though made with good intentions of avoiding the belief that we receive anything outside of God's grace, is that the New Testament puts a far greater emphasis on love than gratefulness.
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