Jeff Meyers posted a long and very good piece by the astute Anglican J. C. Ryle (while some guardians of the alleged Presbyterian “moral community” don’t often admit it, there have been many helpful Anglican teachers such as Ryle in his day and N. T. Wright in ours). This statement stood out to me.
A liturgy for unbelievers or unconverted people would be absurd and practically useless. The people for whom it was meant would care nothing for any liturgy at all, while the converted part of the congregation would find its language entirely unsuitable for them.
While there are instances where one might be able to argue for exceptions to the rule (preaching is an important part of the liturgy and I can imagine homilies that could aim at both the converted and those who are not), I think it is a good generalization.
It also applies to Christian Education programs. Paul writes,
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
And yet, how do we teach our children? Like some of them are going to be incapable of Spiritual instruction. No. The premise of Christian teaching of children is that they are able to understand what we are teaching them–that they are not “natural” persons.
Mark
There is one tiny little bit of difference between Ryle and Wright- Ryle affirmed emphatically the Reformation’s understanding of justification right down the line, imputed righteousness et. al. and Wright, well he doesn’t. You should know this.
Did I say otherwise? I’ve written on what Wright believes about these things here and elsewhere.
Wright plainly believes that 1) justification is forensic, 2) that it is based on the work of Christ as the covenant head and representative of believers, 3) that God regards what is true of Christ as what is true of believers so that they have standing before Him and can never be condemned, 4) that faith and nothing else or more is required to be identified with Christ, and 5) that faith involves trusting in Christ and not in oneself.
More could be said both pro and con. I think Ryle was vastly better than Wright in important ways. But I doubt the gap in soteriology is wide enough to notice, if it even existed. If you have an argument about the meaning of logizomai and dikaiousune theou in Paul’s letter to the Romans, I’d love to see it. At this point I find much of Wright’s work quite clear, helpful, and compelling.
Ah yes, we must find SOMETHING wrong with everything (it’s the Reformed endless polemics mindset). So, a thread about Sunday School that mentions NT Wright becomes a thread about NT Wright’s view of justification. Go figure.