Thanksgiving Thoughts

This upcoming Thursday, countless Americans across the country will be gathering with friends and family to partake in the traditions of the Thanksgiving holiday. Typically, homes are filled with the aroma of turkey and all the fixings, and living rooms are packed with people watching the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys play football. Personally, it is my favorite holiday of the year because, in addition to the aforementioned family, food, and football aspects, we are invited to do something each fourth Thursday in November that we should do every day but oftentimes fail to do: give thanks for God's many blessings.

Throughout the Word of God, we are implored to be known for our thankfulness. The psalmist commands us to "[g]ive thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 136:1). Isaiah writes, "Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted" (Isaiah 12:4). In the New Testament, the apostle Paul instructs the church to "do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17). He even goes on to highlight in a subsequent letter that Christians are to "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

The fact of the matter is that followers of Christ should be the most thankful people on the planet whenever you stop to consider everything God has done for us through Jesus. In Christ, hopeless sinners have been granted access to the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. God's only Son died for the sins of the whole world and has made salvation available to everyone from everywhere, and by believing in Christ crucified and resurrected, we become new creations (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). This is the good news of the gospel, and this good news changes everything. Thus, for the Christian, giving thanks is not just reserved for a single holiday but is to be a way of life.

How can we express our thanks to God? There are three main ways we can and should express our thanks on a daily basis. First of all, we can thank God through prayer. Paul commands, "[D]o not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6, emphasis added). In our prayer life, we need to prioritize the continual offering of our thanks to the God who has changed everything for us in and through Christ. Before we proceed to making those requests known, we need to begin our prayers by praising and thanking God for who He is and what He has done. Through this moment of thankful reflection, we humble our hearts before Almighty God and therefore rightly approach the throne of grace.

Secondly, we can thank God through our worship, both on a personal level as well as on a corporate level. Oftentimes, we tend to associate worship with singing and music, and while worshipping God through song is encouraged in Scripture, we need to realize that worship is not limited to whenever instruments are being played. For instance, going back to the previous point, we can worship God through our prayers by magnifying His holy name. Furthermore, we can worship God by studying and submitting to His Word. Whenever we worship God, we are essentially responding, with thanksgiving, to the life-changing power of the gospel, which is why God's Word invites us to "[e]nter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!" (Psalm 100:4).

Finally, on a related note to the prior two points, we can thank God through our personal devotion to Him. Romans 12:1 states, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (emphasis added). Our lives are to be surrendered totally to Him, and when we surrender to the Lord, we are, in turn, worshipping Him through our personal devotion to Him. How does this relate to thanksgiving? Because a surrendered life should also be a thankful life. As you walk with the Lord and as you grow closer to Him, you bask more and more in His majesty and realize on a deeper level just how lost you would be without Him. By living completely sold-out to God, you recognize more consistently how thankful you are for the opportunity to even know God in the first place.

I write all this to encourage my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ this Thanksgiving week, but I am also writing this for my own personal edification too. I need to be reminded, from time to time, that my entire existence is owed exclusively to God, and even though I know that, I still fail to thank God for everything He has done for me on a regular basis. I beseech you, beloved, to not only thank God for being God annually one afternoon over a meal; instead, cultivate a holistic life that is defined by a thankful heart, for "[g]reat is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable" (Psalm 145:3). May the cry of our hearts continually be this: "Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15).

For His glory,

Cody Fleenor

Why Christians Should Study Church History

During my time studying at Southwestern Seminary, I had the privilege of learning church history from the incomparable Stephen Presley. In two courses for two straight semesters, I was immersed in the fascinating history of Christ's body, from Pentecost to the present, and looking back, I can confidently state that these two courses were my favorite in all of my time at seminary. Presley was so skilled at taking the history of the church and applying various principles to our modern ministry context, and when he was able to do that each and every day, this history came alive for me like never before. Christians everywhere need to recognize the importance of studying church history, not only for the sake of their own spiritual edification but for the sake of the overall health of the modern-day Church.

In one of Presley's introductory classes, he outlined for us where our understanding of theology is derived from nowadays. First and foremost, Scripture obviously plays a key foundational role in this process, for every other contributor ultimately bows to God's Word and is merely an interpretation of biblical teaching. Additionally, though, he argued that logical reasoning helps us develop our theological framework, while life experience itself shapes our worldview as well as the teachings of Scripture collide with the culture we live in on a daily basis. Scripture, reason, and experience all come together to assist us in comprehending the wide breadth of theology, but a fundamental fourth contributor is found in tradition, or church history.

For better or for worse, our history as believers heavily influences our theological education. The past still lives in our corporate communities, and without understanding that past, we are inherently unable to understand ourselves and our belief system as a result. We did not arrive here today with our holistic understanding of theology on our own, for even the Bible teaches that "there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9). While, in theory, Scripture should be the chief guiding force behind how a Christian and a church operates, it would be foolish to suggest that church history has not shaped us into the kinds of Christians and churches we are and have today in some way, shape, or form. Church historian Justo Gonzalez once wrote, "The notion that we read the New Testament exactly as the early Christians did, without any weight of tradition coloring our interpretation, is an illusion."

Now, this is not to say that church history has perfectly shaped us into the kinds of Christians and churches we are and have today. In many ways, the history of the church has led us down dangerous roads that compromise Scripture in favor of human opinion, and that is why it is imperative for Christians to study church history: to understand how Christians in the past have interpreted Scripture in an effort to fine-tune our own understanding of Scripture. Since there is nothing new under the sun, it stands to reason that every theological issue we are currently dealing with has been dealt with, in some capacity, in the past. It would be unwise and, frankly, arrogant of us to think that we can figure things out for ourselves without any assistance from the past. The study of church history is a treasure trove of information that is readily accessible to every knowledge-hungry believer, and it is in this study of church history that we can become more well-rounded followers of Christ.

This post was inspired by a thrilling conversation our church engaged a couple of Wednesday nights ago as we studied roughly a third of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. Church history will rightly tell you that Luther ignited the spark of the Reformation fire whenever he nailed these theses to the castle church door, and church history will further tell you that Luther was specifically speaking out against the Catholic sale of indulgences, a way for the Pope to supposedly ensure your deceased loved ones could escape purgatory if you were to give generously to the Church. What was striking in our church's discussion is when a member of our church, who left the Catholic Church a number of years ago, stated in a somber tone that unbiblical teaching like this still persists in the Catholic Church today. Luther was dealing with it in the 1500s, and yet, even in 2021, this erroneous doctrine endures. It would be prudent for Protestants today, for example, to consult Luther's work (in addition to Scripture, obviously) if they ever find themselves engaged in a conversation with a modern Catholic about indulgences. Why try to figure things out independently whenever the history of the church is ready and able to help at a moment's notice?

If you are a church leader, I implore you to find ways to teach your congregation about church history. If you are a layperson, encourage your pastor to initiate a study on a Wednesday night, perhaps, taking the church through an overview of church history. We must learn at the feet of the church fathers and mothers so that our faith, in turn, would be refined. Furthermore, as we study this way, we must acknowledge that church history is littered with imperfect people who were far from infallible. Instead of ignoring our history, though, we must understand it so we can learn from it because, for as the old adage state, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. No one from church history is perfect, just like no one in the church today is perfect, but there is divine beauty in God nevertheless using imperfect people to propagate the gospel to the ends of the Earth. 

That is ultimately what church history teaches us above all: people are flawed, but our God is flawless, and that has been the case since before time even began. As we trace church history from Pentecost to the present, our endgame is not to marvel at the lives of individuals like Augustine, Calvin, or Spurgeon, but rather, our endgame is to marvel at the greatness of God. Throughout church history, in the good times and in the bad, God has been sovereign and faithful, and outside of studying Scripture itself, there is no better study a Christian can engage in that will prove His sovereignty and faithfulness more than by studying church history. Church, let us grown in our desire to understand our history so that we can better grow in our understanding of God Himself!

For His glory,

Cody Fleenor

• If you are interested in independently studying church history, I would recommend volumes one and two of Justo L. Gonzalez's The Story of Christianity as well as Gerald Bray's The Church. I would also recommend listening to the This Week in Church History podcast, produced by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Celebrating Christmas

Halloween is over, Thanksgiving is approaching, and Christmas is just around the corner. Whenever the first week of November arrives every year, yuletide zealots come out in abundance as the changing of months indicates it is time to haul out the holly and fill up the stocking because Christmas season is here. While others decry their propensity to celebrate Christmas this early, these passionate individuals plow forward with their plans to deck the halls in order to maximize their holiday cheer. Even though I am not one of these people, I want to affirm something in this week's post that I am sure will make my Christmas-loving wife extremely happy...

We should celebrate Christmas all year long, not just for the year's last two months.

In America, Christmas has indeed become commercialized with so many companies vying for our business this time of year, and the presents under the tree have, sadly, become the highlight of many Christmas Days. When I make my aforementioned statement, I am not referencing this reason for celebrating Christmas; rather, I am advocating for celebrating the true reason for the season year-round, and we do not need any decorations or special music to do that. I may not want to celebrate a commercialized Christmas all year, but you better believe I want to celebrate Jesus all year, and I hope and pray that is your desire as well.

It has become a cliche, of sorts, in the modern era, but Jesus really is the reason for the season. You may lament the fact that Christmas season in the United States seems to push Him out of the way in favor of everything else associated with this time of year, but at the end of the day, there is no Christmas without Jesus. While it is unlikely Jesus was actually born on December 25 over 2,000 years ago, we should never forget this world-changing reality that Jesus was born so that we may have life. The one and only Son of God humbled Himself, added humanity to His deity, and took on flesh to dwell among us. He was born so that He may die a perfect, sacrificial death on our behalf over thirty years later, and that is wonderful news that should not and must not be contained to two months a year!

I am ecstatic that Christians set aside an entire season to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, but this message of hope that was laid in a Bethlehem manger by two peasant Israelites needs to be preached from January to December and beyond, for without the miraculous birth of Jesus, our world would still be wandering in darkness. A baby named Jesus truly changes everything, and that is something to celebrate each and every day of our lives. The enemy would love nothing more than for Christ's followers to only thank God for sending Jesus a few weeks out of the year, and we must guard against the temptation to relegate the Christmas message only to Christmas season. Just like we should celebrate Christ's death and resurrection year-round, we should likewise celebrate Christ's birth year-round.

The good news of Christmas is that God has not left us hopeless, deep in the muck and mire of our sinfulness. Due to our rebellion against God and His Law, we all find ourselves born eternally separated from Him with no chance of earning our way back to Him in our own strength. We did not deserve the grace and mercy of our Creator; moreover, we deserved to die for our sin. However, because of His great love for us when there was no way for us to get back into communion with Him, God made a way by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to born as a gentle and lowly baby boy. Jesus was born this way in order that He may identify with us as human, but the difference between us and Him is that He lived a perfectly sinless life. He did so in order to be uniquely qualified to pay the price for sin we could not pay.

God's holiness demanded that sin be dealt with accordingly. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, and since we deserved to die for our sin, Jesus took our place and died the death reserved for us. Yes, Jesus was born to die, and He died so that, through Him, we might live. We celebrate Christmas because we know what happened on Good Friday and Easter. If Jesus was just born, died after living a full life, and then stayed dead forevermore, we would still be hopeless, but during the Christmas season, we rejoice because He was born, He died, and now He lives again! Ultimately, this is the message God has tasked us with proclaiming to the nations: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Galatians 4:4-5).

Therefore, if the beginning of November signifies for you the start of Christmas season, let your days be merry and bright! In fact, I think you have actually started celebrating too late in the year. And if you are like me and prefer to wait until the Thanksgiving turkey is carved before the tree goes up in the living room, well, let your days be merry and bright too because Jesus has come into the world not to condemn the world but that the world, through Him, might be saved. No matter how you celebrate Christmas and when you start doing so, let us always ensure that the message of Christmas penetrates our hearts and lives for twelve months out of every year.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Cody Fleenor