No Enemies to the Right (NETTR)

No, he wrote them a letter about those things.

I don’t understand.

Well, when he was among them he preached Christ and Him crucified.

Are you then inferring from that that when the Apostle Paul was pastor of First Baptist Church of Corinth he only preached evangelistic or gospel-centric sermons?

Well was there content to this or just a retelling of the crucifixion account over and over again. No mention of the resurrection? Nothing about the ascension. His return. His present reign.

Or was this a syndoche for saying that Christ was central to everything which none of us deny.

I’m inferring that the Apostle Paul, when among them, determined to know nothing except Christ and Him crucified. He appears to have focused on the cross of Jesus Christ. We could write a book on the cross of Jesus Christ, on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and never get around to Christian Nationalism.

Was the letter of 1 Corinthians then a deviation from this priority?

And why is it that in every letter of the Apostle Paul including Galatians does he go into what it means to live in light of it.

They sent him a letter with some questions he didn’t get to when he was preaching Christ and Him crucified.

1 Like

I don’t know that
you would be faithful to truncate the cross of Christ in such a way that it doesn’t impact nations. Jesus died for the nations. If you were going to write a thorough book on the cross you would certainly be talking about Psalm 2, Psalm 110 and Psalm 22. You would be talking about the great commission.

And Judges? Ecclesiastes? 1 and 2 Kings? 1 and 2 Chronicles Ezra or Nehemiah? Esther? Wouldn’t be hard to get to the same orbit of ideas Christian Nationalism (remember I have no respect for Stephen Wolfe) deals with from those books? One could argue you must get to that same orbit of ideas to justice to those books.

I genuinely love this response. Not sure what to do with it, but it made me laugh. I love the consistency in what you’re arguing.

1 Like

OK, guys. You may be more biblical theologians than me and work through all the tributaries in your sermons. I know that my sermon this Sunday is about the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ (Romans 4:25–“He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification”). I am not working in anything about Christian Nationalism. I am not mentioning Psalm 2 or 1 Kings. I am not mentioning Genesis or the creation or the doctrine of sexuality. I am determined to know nothing on Sunday but Christ’s death and resurrection–and we’ll just scratch the surface. And I’m going now to work on said sermon. Bye.

2 Likes

May God speak to your flock with power tomorrow. And may he encourage your own soul in the process. God bless brother.

1 Like

You will be glad to know that I am preaching on 2 Samuel 7 and David’s humble response to the David Covenant and God’s grace. Last week we talked about the gospel going to all the nations but this week just marveling at the grace of God to foolish sinners like us. I pray that God will bless your preaching.

3 Likes

Yes, absolutely. He applies the word as we have to do. But he does not apply the word comprehensively every time. I’d be a fool to say there are not practial outworkings of the cross of Jesus Christ. Undoubtedly. But some sermons are doctrinal and lightly applicational because we want people to believe the theology as a foundation before they begin to attempt to walk in the theology without believing the foundation.

4 Likes

No disagreements with that brother.

1 Like

I think we are in agreement that we also wouldn’t want a particular application to swallow up the doctrinal truth it flows from. We don’t want someone so focused on a skinny branch that they miss the tree.

2 Likes

You’ll forgive me. I am just a simple baptist, after all. :slight_smile:

Yes, that. I don’t want a church full of people who are enthralled with talking about the lordship of Jesus Christ over the nations, and somehow miss the implications of their sin, and fall short of glory. “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God” (Heb. 12:15) is the interest of our ministry. But I do not mean to create the dichotomy that you’ve framed. I truly don’t.

Amen. And notably absent from the epistles is any outline of how to Christianize the world through any other means but the basic insistence on Jesus Christ crucified, as Pastor Dionne is insisting. The living out of the instruction given to the elect exiles via the epistles presupposes that the audience has been converted from the heart (yes, yes, mixed audience, regenerate and unregenerate, I get it). We short circuit everything when we want to extrapolate “Christian society” from these instructions, and leave behind the simple gospel call. Men. Must. Be. Born. Again.

Anyway, the exchange above made me laugh. I love you guys. :slight_smile:

Since we’re all sharing our preaching plans, you’ll appreciate this. My next task is to teach our men’s Bible study on Tuesday morning, where I’ll be picking up at Proverbs 22:11. “He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.” Isn’t that funny? All this talk about gospel, and now I have to go talk about how godly living produces good favor with the civil magistrate. :smiley:

4 Likes

And you have to determine your context: Are the men you are teaching more likely to want their authorities as friends or as enemies? What has their speech produced to this point? Likely, it’s a mixed bag–some complain bitterly, some acquiesce.

2 Likes