We continue today with our effort to read through William Wilberforce’s Real Christianity. As you know, this book seeks to help the reader discern true faith from false beliefs. This week we come to the third chapter, “Inadequate Conceptions of God and of Christian Behavior.”

Incidentally, if you are interested in hearing a bit about “Reading the Classics” you can listen to the latest Boundless Show podcast. I was a guest on the show to talk about these books we are reading.

Discussion

Wilberforce begins this chapter by laying out some of the very basic beliefs of the Christian faith and says that few churchgoers are so attentive as to be entirely ignorant of them. His concern, though, is that people can hear such great truths about human sin and God’s redemption and remain unmoved and unaffected. “Let the most superficial observer compare the sentiments and views of the bulk of the Christian world with the articles of faith that still appear in their creed. An amazing discrepancy must strike him! Thus, in the minds of the crowd, religion appears to be wholly excluded from the business world and the vanities of life.” In other words, the creed people profess seems to have no bearing on their lives. Says Wilberforce, “Vainly you strive to bring them around to speak on this topic. One would expect the subject of God to be uppermost in the hearts of redeemed sinners. But they elude all your endeavors. If you make mention of it yourself, they do not give it a cordial welcome; indeed they greet it with unequivocal disgust. At best the discussion remains forced and formal.”

Wilberforce uses this chapter to write about four topics, all of which fit under the heading of “Inadequate Conceptions of God and of Christian Behavior.” He says that people have an inadequate conception of Christianity as a faith. This is shown in an inadequate appreciation of Christ, an inadequate appreciation of the Holy Spirit and inadequate conception of Christian behavior. He then looks to the validity of emotions within religion, carefully defending his view that, though professed Christians have long turned to emotional fanaticism instead of true belief, it is presumptuous “to propose excluding from the Christian religion such a large part of the composition of man.” “Surely our all-wise Creator had just as valuable a purpose in giving us the elemental qualities and original passions of the mind as He did in giving us the organs of the body.” Our emotions must be subject to our reason, but they must still be exercised. And how do we know if these emotions are being used properly? We can simply ask this: “Do they motivate the love that keeps His commandments?”

He turns in the third place to inadequate conceptions of the Holy Spirit’s operations, saying “the tendency prevalent among the bulk of nominal Christians is to form a religious system for themselves, instead of taking it from the Word of God.” We see this in the neglect of the doctrine of the influence of the Holy Spirit. People prefer to follow their own religious systems instead of relying on the Spirit to point us to God’s religious system. And finally, Wilberforce looks at mistaken conceptions of the terms of acceptance with God. Such theology is, of course, absolutely foundational the Christian faith. “If anything is unsound and hollow here, the superstructure cannot be safe. That is why it is important to ask the nominal Christian about the means of a sinner’s acceptance by God.” Here we will find that many people rely wholly or substantially on their own efforts, not believing or understanding that the Christian must depend entirely on Christ.

I enjoyed these closing remarks:

The title of Christian is a reproach to us if we turn ourselves away from Him after whom we are named. The name of Jesus is not to be like Allah of the Muhammadans, or like a talisman or amulet, worn on the arm as an external badge and symbol of a profession, thought to preserve one from evil by some mysterious and unintelligible potency.

Instead, we should allow the name of Jesus to be engraved deeply on the heart, written there by the finger of God Himself in everlasting characters. It is our sure and undoubted title to present peace and future glory. The assurance that this title conveys of a bright turning toward heaven will lighten the burdens and alleviate the sorrows of life.

As I read this book, written centuries ago, I continue to be amazed at its relevance to our day. As the French say, plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same).

Next Week

We’ll continue next Thursday with Chapter 4, “Inadequate Conceptions Concerning the Nature and the Discipline of Practical Christianity.” Do note that this is the longest chapter in the book. You will not want to leave it all until Wednesday evening or Thursday morning!

Your Turn

Reading the Classics Together is, at its heart, an interactive effort. If you have read the chapter and have comments or questions, please feel free to post a comment. If you have a blog of your own and have written about the book there, please feel free to leave us a link to your article.

For Christmas Aileen and I each received a little bit of money and found that, when we combined it, we had just enough to buy a GPS for our car. This is something Aileen has wanted for some time now, so we decided to go ahead and buy one (a Garmin Nuvi if you must know). There is something just a little bit comforting about having the GPS stuck to the windshield of the car, telling us where we are, where we’re going and how long it will take to get there. At least, we lived under the illusion that it was comforting until the GPS led us astray. For the first couple of months it performed flawlessly. But then it began to show that maybe we couldn’t trust it implicitly.

Last week when we were in the Chattanooga area, my daughter started to show the symptoms of some kind of an illness so we decided to take her to a doctor (who is a friend of the family). It was a bit of a drive, so we set the GPS and let it take us there. It got us close, I suppose, but not close enough. “Turn left” it said, and I did. And as I did that it said, “Arriving at destination.” I scratched my head as I looked around and saw that we were in the parking lot of a giant movie theater. There was no doctor’s office nearby. In fact, the road we were supposed to arrive at was nowhere in sight. Yet the GPS stubbornly insisted that we were where we were supposed to be. Its job accomplished, I suppose it decided it was time for a nap. We eventually drove around and found a local who could direct us to the doctor’s office, a couple of blocks away.

On the way home we decided to stop at Chick Fil-A for lunch. As part of its directions, the GPS wanted me to drive over a concrete median. I elected not to. Driving around Orlando, it told me to bear left only after I had already had to choose between right and left; I guessed wrong and had to drive 15 miles in a circuit to recover. While I will grant that the little device is right far more often than it is wrong, it has been wrong enough times now that it has us second-guessing its directions. And if a GPS can’t get us to the right place, what possible purpose does it serve (other than telling us where we are, something we usually know anyway)?

I was thinking about this on the long drive home from Chattanooga and realized that since we got the GPS, I have gotten lost more often than when I handled the directions on my own. Here’s the reason. I used to be responsible for getting myself where I wanted to go. When I went somewhere new, I would pull up Google Maps, print out a map of the area, and write out (or print off) turn-by-turn directions. I would even sometimes look at the satellite view or street view to ensure I knew just what to look for. When I did all of this research, I typically got exactly where I needed to be without any real trouble. But now my preparation is as simple as looking up the address and punching it in. I let the GPS handle the rest.

The GPS has done something else to me. It used to be that, if I drove somewhere once, I would be able to find my way home easily enough. And if I needed to go back to that place, I would remember how to get there. But as I follow the directions of the GPS, I somehow tune out to where I am going so that I can neither find my way home without its help nor can I find my way back there again. I’ve become reliant on the little gizmo. I follow directions obediently and it gets me where I need to go—most of the time, at least.

On Monday I spoke to a group of pastors on the subject of Pastor: Train Your Church to Think Biblically. And it occurred to me as I spoke that many Christians are perhaps like me when I drive—they rely on someone or something to give them the easy answers without having to do the hard work themselves. And perhaps pastors are sometimes prone to simply give out the answers without helping the men and women of their churches learn to think for themselves. After all, if a person approaches me with a question related to theology or the Christian life, I have different options available to me. I can simply respond with my understanding as if what I say is undoubtedly true, or I can help that person find the answer on his own. While I will grant that there are times when a short answer is fitting, more often, I think, we do well to teach people to think independently. It is better, I am convinced, to send people to the Bible where they can sort out the directions on their own, following turn-by-turn, so that they truly understand where they have come from and where they are going. In this way they learn to think for themselves, they learn to search the Scriptures, they learn to think biblically.

It is easy and even comforting perhaps, to rely on that simple and automatic guidance. But it is far better, I am sure, that we learn to do the work for ourselves. As for me? Well, I still use the GPS but I’m learning that I need to supplement it with my own research. Too often it has told me where to go, only to find that I don’t know where I am or where I’ve been. It’s great for what it is, but I can’t let myself trust it implicitly.

This is the year of John Calvin. In celebration of the 500th anniversary of his birth, many ministries are holding conferences to discuss his life and impact and many Christian publishers are releasing biographies of the man who did so much to form the Christian faith and the Western world. Reformation Heritage Books has taken a unique route by producing a biography targeted at children from ages 7 to 10. Written by Simonetta Carr and illustrated by Emanuele Taglietti, the book combines the story of Calvin’s life with excellent watercolor illustrations.

Last weekend I enjoyed participating in the Ligonier Ministries National Conference, both as a blogger and an observer. It was a joy to gather with almost 5,000 other Christians so we could spend three days focusing on the holiness of God. This marked my third time going to this conference and each one has proven valuable to my knowledge of God and my love for him. This one may well have been my favorite, at least when I think back to the speakers and their messages. I would encourage you to find and purchase the conference audio as I know you will be blessed.

There is one feature of this conference that always jumps out at me—interpretation services for the deaf. Of course this is not the only conference that offers this service and if you have been to a major conference you may well have seen Chuck and Nancy Snyder or another set of interpreters doing their work at the front of the auditorium. It is one of my pleasures, a guilty pleasure perhaps, to occasionally pause during singing to watch the deaf believers sing (sign) their praises to God. For some reason I always find it tremendously moving.

I don’t know exactly why it is that I am so moved and sometimes even brought to tears by watching these believers praise God in their own way. I want to be careful not to romanticize deafness, realizing, of course, that deafness, as with any physical condition or affliction, is a result of man’s Fall into sin and the kind of condition that Jesus healed while he was on this earth. It is a condition that will be fully and finally cured when we go to be in his presence.

The chapter 35 of Isaiah, the prophet writes of just such a day:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

What a day that will be.

I wonder, though, if their praise so moves me because I see them using their whole bodies to offer praise to God. And in so doing they seem to have found a kind of freedom that few of us feel. We are all accustomed to singing praises to God with our lips but as I looked around during one of the occasions that we worshiped God with music, I saw a lot of people singing joyfully, but doing so while standing stock still. But up at the front were two rows of Christians singing for joy with their hands, their lips, their whole bodies. Perhaps no sound came from their lips, but praise came from their hearts and expressed itself through their bodies. Time after time, when I’ve gone to conferences and paused to watch these brothers and sisters worshiping, I’ve seen this unique expression of praise. Every time it has been a tremendous encouragement to me.

While I was watching them praise God I began to think how much they must anticipate that great day where their ears will be unstopped and they will at last be able to enjoy the music they have been worshiping to, when they will be able to hear the voices of the ones they love, and when they will be able to hear the words of their Savior as he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But then I realized that I was standing still as I brought my gift of praise to God, worshiping with my mouth but giving little other outward evidence of my joy for all that God has done and for all that God is. And I wondered, in heaven, will they be more like us or will we be more like them? My guess is that we will probably meet somewhere in the middle.

Nancy Snyder Interpreting for the Deaf