In Praise of the Ordinary

Thoughtful/edifying article by Michael Horton, an Ode to the "ordinary". 

Even Calvinism seems to have gotten back its groove.  According to TIME, the “New Calvinism” is one of the top ten trends changing the world today.  Collin Hansen’s description—and title of a book explaining the phenomenon—says it pretty well: “Young, Restless, and Reformed.”[2]  While it’s exciting to see many younger folks digging into the doctrines of grace, the “restless” part works against the “Reformed” bit.  Like all movements, the “New Calvinists” often display a greater interest in making it up as they go rather than wrestling with the actual confessions, concerns, and convictions of churches that have forged their consensus through a long conversation.  There is more to being Reformed than “five points.”  

In many ways, it’s more fun to be part of movements than churches.  We can express our own individuality, pick our favorite leaders, and be swept off our feet at conferences.  We can be anonymous.  Although encouraged by like-minded believers, we are not bound up with them so that we should feel compelled to bear their burdens or suffer their rebukes. Yet this movement-mentality keeps us restless and makes ordinary life in and submission to an actual church seem intolerably confining.

Justification and Sanctification, Again

"Though clearly distinguished, sanctification is not separated from the new birth and justification but utterly dependent on both. Too often, we assume that the gospel of free salvation in Jesus Christ, apart from our own efforts, is good news for unbelievers but that believers no longer need it. They "got saved," after all, and now what they need are exhortations to live for Jesus. Sanctification, then, becomes unhinged from justification and the new birth, so that we easily confuse our performance in the Christian life with the gospel. Instead, sanctification must be seen as the outworking of our justification and union with Christ. Obedience is often difficult and demanding - it doesn't just happen to us but is something that we work out with fear and trembling. As essential as this new obedience is to Christian identity, if our acceptance before God were founded on it there could be absolutely no hope" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 71).

Preaching Law and Gospel

"Through the preaching of the law, the Holy Spirit slays us, leaving us utterly destitute and helpless to save ourselves, and through the preaching of the gospel, he raises us up and seats us with Christ in heavenly places" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 66).

Efficacious Preaching

On the efficacy of preaching, Michael Horton insists "It is effective because God has promised to dispense his saving grace then and there by the Spirit, and it grows organically out of the logic of the message itself because it is an announcement of something that has been accomplished by God, rather than an incentive to get sinners to save themselves by sheer force of will or effort. It is good news, not good advice, good production value, or good ideas."

Horton elaborates on this good news: ". . . we can always count on God being where he has promised to meet us . . . . The power of the Spirit is linked to a promise; namely, a promise that faith comes by hearing the gospel preached (Rom. 10:8, 17)" (A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 64-65).

Put on Christ

"[W]e are repeatedly told to "put on Christ" or to "clothe" ourselves with Christ. This is the costume of our new character. Instead of the fig leaves that, as children of Adam and Eve, we used to cover up our shame, God has provided the sacrificial clothing of Jesus Christ and his perfect righteousness, foreshadowed when he clothed Adam and Eve" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 56).

A Christian's Story Begins Before the World was Created

"Notice that this passage in Ephesians [1:3-10] gives us a place in God's own heart. His intimate and eternal love for his Son means that all who are "in Christ" are therefore included in that intimate and eternal love that each person of the Godhead has for each other By being recasted in this way, our new story actually begins not simply with our conversion here and now but with a plot that began before the world was created" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 55).

Gospel Story

Michael Horton discusses Christians being "rescripted" by the story of the Gospel:

But as we proclaim the biblical script, from Genesis to Revelation, a unity emerges not only within its pages, nor only within the community of Christ, but also within us individually as we are incorporated into it. It doesn't happen all at once, at least in our experience. Gradually, we find ourselves identified, chained, and instead of prophesying we find ourselves prophesied to by God himself, addressed as sinners, enemies of God, "aliens and strangers to the promises of God." That particular, concrete drama of God and Israel becomes our story, our plot. We begin to know ourselves as we come to see how we fit into that drama" (A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 54).

Who does God tell this Gospel story to? God tells this story to, God "rescripts", "Gentiles as well as Jews."

 

The Capacity for Dissent

"What we need in this day is precisely what God has supplied his church in every age, what Stanley Hauerwas has called "the capacity for dissent." It's the capacity to resist the attractive but destructive narratives at hand because "you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God " (Col. 3:3). We know the great periods in which the Holy Spirit empowered a fresh proclamation of Christ by the people's marked capacity for dissent. At the heart of that capacity is the overwhelming power of the Christian story to transform the story of our life [emphasis CCS]. This alone renders the dominant alternatives not simply wrong but uncompelling by comparison" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 51).

Faulty Criticism

"Too often, we Christians are not as critical of ourselves as we are of the secular culture" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 50).

God Frustrating the Pagans

"It was the particularity of biblical faith that frustrated paganism: this God, this elect people, in this time and place. The typical pagan would (and still does) find such a restriction on sacred manifestation offensive. Still scandalous is the notion that God reveals himself as our Savior in the history of redemption through Jesus Christ and not just anywhere we happen to look for him" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 41).

Necessity of Preaching

"Preaching is necessary not because it's a magic but because God has ordained it for the justification and sanctification of sinners" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 39).

Preaching: God's Talk

"Preaching is not merely the minister's talk about God but God's talk -- and not just any talk. It's the kind of talk that produces new people" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 38).

The Ordinary Means of Grace

"This chapter launches the thesis that will run throughout the rest of the book. That thesis is this: God has promised to save and keep his people through the means he has appointed and through no others; the ordinary means of grace are limited to the preached Word and the administered sacraments; God's rationale for these means is made explicit in Scripture [emphasis original]. There are many other things that are essential for Christian growth: prayer, Bible study, service to others. However, these are not, properly speaking, means of grace but means of discipleship" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 29).

Dialogical Worship

"The triumphant indicative concerning God's action in Christ establishes a safe foundation on which to stand as we seek to obey the divine imperatives. That's why worship is dialogical: God speaks and we respond" (Michael A. Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 26).

Covenant Renewal and Worship: Foretaste of Everlasting Sabbath at Marriage Supper of the Lamb

"We gather each Lord's Day not merely out of habit, social custom, or felt needs but because God has chosen this weekly festival as a foretaste of the everlasting Sabbath day that will be enjoyed fully at the marriage supper of the Lamb. God has called us out of the world and into his marvelous: That is why we gather" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 24).

Drama: Pentecost

From A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship: commenting on on the portion of Peter's sermon recorded in Acts 2:37-39, Michael Horton exclaims,

Now that's drama! At Pentecost the Holy Spirit descends to empower the proclamation of his Word and to bring about the acceptance of it by sinners who were otherwise hostile to it. Then he sweeps them into that pentecostal reality through baptism into Christ and the plot that connects us to those who played their parts before us and who now cheer us on from the stands (14-15).

Worship: Biblical, Not Pragmatic

"[A] ministry based on pragmatism is built on sand regardless of whether it is more traditional or contemporary" (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 13).