Brooks Szewczyk

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5 Reasons Why Online Church Isn’t Good Enough – And Never Was

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Let me show my hand – I really want you to be in a local church on Sunday.

I know it’s a controversial topic at the moment, but I think there’s a BIG problem underlying all of the online church…

We’ve started to view the gathering of the local church as a convenience at best. It’s more than that. It’s a necessity for the Christian.

I want to give you 5 solid reasons your butt should be in a pew on Sunday.

1. The Bible Commands Gathering

The reason why we have church at all is that the Bible commands us to gather together.

You’ve probably heard this verse before, but I’d encourage you to consider the authority of God’s word as you read this.

And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

Hebrews 10:24-25

Neglecting to gather together is not a trivial matter – it’s a sinful act.

2. Your Soul Needs Corporate Worship

If God commands us to gather together, it’s because God knows best.

We often don’t realize every way that God works in our souls through corporate worship. Humans were always dependent creatures. And the Christian life is dangerous to live alone.

Notice in the Hebrews passage quoted above that rather than neglecting to gather, we should encourage one another.

We need the encouragement of the local church, the leadership that God has placed in the local church, and the fellowship in the local church

We need to have our sins called out.

We need to see one another worship God.

In essence, corporate worship is necessary because it reminds our souls of who God is and what he is done.

Apart from it, we are very prone to forget.

3. You Need the Preaching of the Word of God

The Word of God is powerful.

The Bible establishes the strong precedent of reading and expositing the Bible in the gathering of the local church.

It’s true that our spiritual health is heavily dependent on our ability to read, apply, and love scripture on our own.

But the preaching of the Word in the gathering is where we learn to do that.

It’s the feast our souls need, and it sets the congregation up to be praying and studying together.

4. You Need the Sacraments

In the gathering of the local church, we see at least three sacraments we absolutely need that I want to highlight.

First, we need communion.

Taking the bread and wine together is not a suggestion. Jesus commanded it.

It is in this act that we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. It is a necessary means of celebrating the Passion of Christ. And we can not forsake it.

Second, we need baptism.

Baptism is where Christians publicly proclaim their repentance and faith in Christ. Our new life is symbolized in this sacrament.

And it is also a command. It’s non-optional for the believer.

When we are not meeting, the opportunity doesn’t exist very well to publicly and faithfully baptize those that God has saved.

Third, we need the gifts of the Spirit.

God gives gifts to his people for the good of the church.

I think we can so often miss that point. If you’ve been given a gift from the Holy Spirit, it is likely not for you.

The local church needs the gifts of one another, whether it is teaching or tongues or anything in between. We have all been gifted for the good of the church.

When we neglect to gather, we lose most of the opportunities to use the gifts that God has given his people.

5. The Church Needs You

Not only do you need the church, but the church needs you.

All people have been gifted by the Spirit for the good of the church, even you.

I’m afraid we have resigned to being passive observers of the celebration rather than being active participants.

The saints of your church need your encouragement.

They need you to use your gifts that God has given you. After all, God has given them to you for a reason.

Loving Your Neighbor

I have also heard some saying that gathering together is unloving.

Their idea is that our primary responsibility is to love one another and our secondary responsibility is to gather together.

I have two large issues with this.

First, it is unloving to neglect the gathering. I believe that many who say this have it backward.

It is a common sinful proclivity for us to think that we know what is loving better than God.

Those who say that it is unloving to gather together are greatly underestimating the importance of the local church on the health of a person’s soul.

Second, we can’t set God’s commands against each other.

It’s not as if God gives contradictory commands. In fact, all of God’s commands fit within the command to love our neighbor.

Therefore, it doesn’t make logical or biblical sense to call it unloving when Christians gather together. The word of God tells you that you need the church a lot more than you think you do.

Only One Caveat

There is only one caveat that I will offer to this post.

If you have been actively participating in a local church that is not currently meeting, I would recommend that you not leave that local church.

I’m not trying to advise you to leave your church for one that is meeting. I’m trying to encourage you to attend church if it’s possible.

Faithfulness to a local church is also important. Submission to godly leadership in your local church is a biblical command.

But if you’re a Christian reading this and your church is meeting, please be there on Sunday.

Do Calvinists Believe in Miracles? Explanation and Examples

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In every movement within Christianity, rumors and false information start to spread. So we have to question some of the possible misinformation before we accept it. That’s why I’m digging into this topic.

Not all Calvinists agree on the extent of miracles in the current church, but they all believe that God acts in supernatural ways. Some Calvinists believe that the Holy Spirit no longer gives any revelatory gifts, but others believe in the continual and necessary use of the revelatory gifts.

I’ll dig deeper into exactly what this means, what Calvin himself taught, and what some popular Calvinists believe in the rest of this article.

It Depends on What You Mean by ‘Calvinist’

The term Calvinist can be used in one of two ways.

First, it can refer to someone who believes in Calvin’s understanding of salvation (theologians call this sotereology).

Some people, like myself, call themselves Calvinists because they agree with the acronym TULIP. These are called the 5-Points of Calvinism.

They stand for:

  • Total Depravity
  • Unconditional Election
  • Limited Atonement
  • Irresistible Grace
  • Preservation of the Saints

If a Calvinist is in this group, they might believe in miracles and the revelatory gifts of the Spirit.

The other group of Calvinists call themselves that because they are either confessionally reformed or agree with Calvin on almost all of his views.

To be confessionally reformed might sound confusing but it is super simple. It just means that they fully agree with one of the confessions of faith that were written during the reformation.

None of these confessions are continuationists. Therefore, you can assume that those in this group do not believe in miracles in the way that you might think.

However, its very important to understand what you mean when you say miracles.

It Depends on What You Mean by ‘Miracles’

Almost every Calvinist regardless of which group they are in would believe that God can do miraculous things.

They do believe that God heals.

They do believe that God works supernaturally.

There are very few Christians, Calvinists included, which would deny supernatural acts of God.

What Calvinists might not believe in is the continual gifting of God’s people with the power to perform miracles.

While many believe that God heals, they do not believe that God grants people with the gift of healing.

Many Calvinists might also push back against a common understanding of the frequency of miracles. They believe that they are a lot less frequent than many think or believe.

Timing Matters

Calvinists who do not believe that God currently gives specific miraculous gifts do believe that God used to.

Every Calvinist would believe that the miracles that God performed in the Bible were true miracles that actually happened.

The disagreement comes because many Calvinists believe that God stopped giving those gifts at a certain point in history. Other Calvinists do believe that God still give those gifts.

Note: The most common understanding of Calvinism is compatible with continuationism. Some might disagree with this.

What Did Calvin Teach?

I searched through John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion to find exactly what he wrote regarding miracles.

The most relevant piece of information came in his response to some who were asking for miracles to verify his gospel.

He writes this to begin his response:

In demanding miracles from us, they act dishonestly; for we have not coined some new gospel, but retain the very one the truth of which is confirmed by all the miracles which Christ and the apostles ever wrought.

John Calvin

You do see from this that Calvin accepts the miracles of the Bible and early church as real miracles.

However, he said this regarding their comments:

The deception would perhaps be more specious if Scripture did not admonish us of the legitimate end and use of miracles.

John Calvin

The implication that Calvin makes here is that he believes that the Bible admonishes us that miracles came to an end.

If you continue reading through this chapter, you can come to understand Calvin’s argument. He teaches that the purpose of miracles in the early church was to verify the gospel that they were preaching.

Since the gospel has been fully verified and the Bible is complete, he believes that miracles are no longer necessary.

Note this important distinction:

  • Calvin does believe that God can perform miracles.
  • Calvin does not believe that God still performs miracles.

So, Calvin did teach that miracles had ceased and therefore can’t be performed by the church today.

Calvinists Who Believe in Miracles

I would encourage you not to think less of any believer because of their view on miracles. Personally, I believe that the Spirit still performs miracles. But many faithful, God-loving Christians disagree with me.

Here are a couple of examples of Calvinists that still believe in miracles and what they’ve said about it.

John Piper

John Piper is still one of the most influential pastors in the world, calling many to live their life in service to Jesus Christ. He jokingly even calls himself a “7-Point Calvinist” adding 2 more points to TULIP. Regarding miracles, Piper says:

If we could collect all the authentic stories all over the world — from all the missionaries and all the saints in the all the countries of the world… we would think we were living in a world of miracles, which we are.

John Piper

John Piper not only believes in miracles, he believes that we are living in a world of miracles.

Sam Storms

Sam Storms is an influential pastor in Oklahoma City, OK. He wrote a book defending Calvinism entitled Choosing Life: The Case for Divine Election. He is also a staunch defender of miracles in the current time. He writes:

So, does God work miracles among us, or do gifted individuals work miracles among us? Yes! God works miracles among us by awakening faith in his Word, in conjunction with or as a result of which he imparts a gracious divine enabling (i.e., a charisma, a gift) so that the believer can work miracles among us.

Sam Storms

Here, he defends God’s continual performing of miracles as well as God’s gifting of working miracles to his people.

Calvinists Who Don’t Believe in Current Miracles

Again, there are many God-loving people on this list who are worthy of our respect whether or not we agree on this.

Here are a couple of examples of Calvinists who do not believe in miracles and what they’ve said about it.

R.C. Sproul

Sproul was a faithful pastor and theologian who championed the glory and majesty of God in a time when many are focused on man. He wrote this:

I get this question all the time, “R.C., do you believe that miracles happen today?” If you want me to give the simple answer, the answer is no.

R.C. Sproul

He believed in the ultimate power of God, but he did not believe that God still performs miracles.

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon was one of the most influential pastors and teachers in the last few hundred years of church history. He made the gospel accessible and preached nothing but Jesus Christ. Regarding miracles, he wrote:

When the Holy Spirit was given in the earliest ages, He showed His presence by certain miraculous signs.

Charles Spurgeon

What Spurgeon clearly believed is that miracles were for the earlier ages when the authority of the gospel was not clearly established.

Brooks Szewczyk

Brooks is pursuing an MDiv with an emphasis in Biblical Counseling from Midwestern Seminary. He has a certificate in Bible and Missions and is the Marketing Manager at Bethany Global University, a college dedicated to training missionaries to reach the unreached.

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    What Ephesians Says about Your Depression

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    Depression is universally recognized as a monumental issue in our society. People are plagued by not only constant discouragement but also constant disappointment. They feel sadness even through the happiest times in their life.

    While there is no shortage of people who want to help, there are very few answers to depression that address the problems that exist in the soul. The book of Ephesians provides a great foundation for a counseling plan with someone presenting depression in the counseling room. As a foundation, the approach to biblical counseling should be God-centered even in cases of depression… actually, especially in cases of depression. God must be seen as sovereign, as near, and as the answer to our problems.

    This is why the first act in the counseling room should be to establish reliance on prayer. We see that Paul often prays for the Ephesian church because he believes that God can do “above and beyond” what we can even think to ask of him (Eph. 3:20). We struggle to understand our own hearts, but God knows our hearts. We struggle to change ourselves, but God is sovereign even over us. Therefore, it is necessary to be in constant prayer while seeking healing from our heart issues. Paul even encourages the church to pray at all times with every request (Eph. 6:18).

    We struggle to understand our own hearts, but God knows our hearts. We struggle to change ourselves, but God is sovereign even over us.

    Moreover, we should recognize that God is truly able to help us. Ephesians places an overarching emphasis on the sovereignty of God in all things (Eph. 1:9, 1:22, 3:13). Pray knowing that God hears, cares, and is powerful to answer.

    We also see the importance of the body of Christ in our lives, especially in our struggles. Every person in Christ has been gifted for the good of the church (Eph. 4:16). We were not created nor intended to live alone.

    In fact, isolation is an enemy to healing. We need each other. The counselee should be encouraged to seek out Christian community to help them bear the burden of depression. Their gifts are essential to the body, but the body is essential to the individual. The counselee must be willing to be transparent with themselves, their community, and with God about their struggle.

    The counselee should also seek to be identified in the way that the Bible would identify them. Does their depression bear on their identity? No, they are first and foremost inheritors of the gospel of peace (Eph. 2:17). They are in Christ.

    It is easy to be defeated before the battle begins, but the counselee should be encouraged to let go of the idea that their presented depression is beyond cure. The overarching identity of the believer in Ephesians is that they are in Christ. They are a part of the body of the Lord, and the Lord is the bringer of peace. They are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, who is elsewhere called the comforter.

    Finally, they should be encouraged to continually thank God. Even when they do not see a reason to, there is always a reason to give thanks (Eph. 5:20). The counselee should be encouraged toward optimism, which is a more Christian position. While trials may come and go, our God remains forever. Our struggling is purposeful and God is still in control.

    In summary, Ephesians urges those struggling with depression to:

    • Establish a reliance on prayer.
    • Trust in the loving care of God.
    • Pursue Christian community.
    • Identify yourself biblically.
    • And always search for reasons to thank God.

    God has been infinitely gracious to each of us. We have reason to be hopeful even in the midst of hardship. We have reason to be thankful in every circumstance. The counselee should be encouraged to seek out reasons to constantly thank God and glorify him.

    Brooks Szewczyk

    Brooks is currently pursuing an M.Div. with an emphasis in Biblical Counseling from Midwestern Seminary. He is a Pastoral Intern at Redemption Hill Church and the Marketing Manager at Bethany Global University.

    Why the Four Gospels are Canon

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    Our Bible is composed of 66 books which we consider canon. This means that these 66 books are what God intended to be included in his complete, sufficient word to his people. Among these are the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

    In the 4th century, the church officially codified the canon. Of course, the books were already typically thought of as being scripture. Being led by the Holy Spirit, the job of the church was to distinguish between what God truly intended to be in his word and what should not be included.

    The gospels were some of the most widely accepted canonical books. All four of them were accepted very early by the church, and they were accepted by a large majority of churches. Though other gospels were written, they were not as widely accepted as those which we have in our Bibles now.

    In one sense, all of the books included in the canon had to pass the same standards as one another. To state it more simply than it deserves, all books of the Bible must have been apostolic, veracious, powerful, and broadly accepted.

    To be apostolic means that the text was written by or attested to by an apostle. Apostles are a rough equivalence to the Prophets of the Old Testament. They were tasked with being the messengers of God. Ephesians 2:20 tells us that the church was built on their foundation.

    To be veracious means that it communicates the truth about God. We already had an established Old Testament canon which we know communicates truth. The books in our Bibles must have complemented what was already written rather than contradict it.

    The be powerful means that the book is attested to by the work of the Holy Spirit. We know that God’s word is powerful because the Spirit uses it to renew hearts and minds. A book that lacked evidence of the Spirit’s work would not be accepted as the word of God.

    Lastly, the books of the Bible must have been broadly accepted. At the point when they were officially codified, the church had already been established for over 300 years. Most of these works were already passed around and copied so that they could be studied by many churches. They were not presented out of nowhere, but they were books that were historical and already in use.

    The last point was especially true of the gospels. As early as 250, we see codexes such as P45 containing all four gospels.

    For the modern church, there are at least a few implications of this. The first implication is the unity we have with the early church in understanding the life of Jesus. They had the same accounts of Jesus’ birth, teaching, life, death, and resurrection that we do. The earliest church fathers write about all four gospels in their works, giving us even more ability to study and understand their historical context.

    Second, we can have the utmost confidence in the gospel accounts. While we should have unwavering confidence in the entire canon, the gospels specifically pass every qualification with flying colors.

    We have confidence in the canon because we have confidence in the faithfulness of God.

    While all of these criteria still apply today, there is no need to add to a closed canon. Certainly, every book is still apostolic, true, powerful, and widely accepted. What we know now is that God’s complete word is sufficient to inform and equip us for a life of godliness.

    One of the most important points here is that God is faithful. This is the canon which the church has functioned with for 2 millennia. A faithful God who promised us his word would certainly not allow the church to live without a complete canon, especially for that amount of time. We have confidence in the canon because we have confidence in the faithfulness of God. This is an important point to make for any naysayers who question the legitimacy of the closed canon of the 27 New Testament books.

    The Psalms Love the Pentateuch

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    The more I study the Bible, the clearer it is that it was meant to tell one story.

    It’s exciting to see biblical authors from different times interact with one another. For example, it’s encouraging to see Peter so frequently preach from the Old Testament in Acts. The New Testament is constantly quoting and referring back to the Old Testament.

    From a similar perspective, the Psalms are a gold mine. Not only are they the most frequently quoted book in the New Testament, but they also frequently refer back to the Pentateuch.

    The Pentateuch (aka the Torah) provides the foundation for our faith. Our religion is historical. God’s promises and faithfulness go back just a far as human history.

    There are two frequent ways I see the Psalms referring to the Torah.

    First, the Psalms frequently remind themselves of God’s faithfulness through the early events of Israel which are recorded in the Pentateuch. For example, the psalmist writes, “Come and see the wonders of God; his acts for humanity are awe-inspiring. He turned the sea into dry land, and they crossed the river on foot” (Psalm 66:5-6). He looks back on the faithfulness of God to deliver Israel from Egypt, which was recorded in Exodus 14.

    The Psalms are a book of praise, and God deserves the praise for his faithfulness since the beginning.

    Second, the Psalms frequently revel in the appreciation of the Pentateuch. We can be tempted to view the law as a bad thing, but the entire Bible testifies that it was not. By God’s grace, he has fulfilled the law, but even the New Testament authors argued that the law is good (Romans 7:12).

    Israel had even more of a reason to praise God for the law. They believed that it was their most necessary guide to righteousness. To them, life was like walking through an unknown land. And the law was their guide to help them find their way.

    Moreover, the law is special to them because it is the word of God. They believed just as we do in the inerrancy and authority of God’s word. The psalmist writes, “How sweet your word is to my taste—sweeter than honey in my mouth” (Psalm 119:103).

    The Psalms show us that the Torah can be one of the most encouraging places in the Bible.

    That the Psalms help us interpret and celebrate the Torah is very significant for our hermeneutics. As the historical Latin phrase says, Sacra Scriptura sui interpres, Sacred Scripture interprets itself.

    While reading the Torah might be discouraging at times, the Psalms show us that it should not be. The Psalms show us that the Torah can be one of the most encouraging places in the Bible. The Psalms show us that the Torah puts the faithfulness and mercy of God on clear display.

    Remember that next time you’re reading the Pentateuch.

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