On the very first resurrection Sunday two Jews walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus and talked with each other about all the things that had happened over the previous days. While they conversed, the risen Jesus joined them and started asking them questions. They didn’t know it was Jesus, and were surprised that this stranger seemed not to know about all the events concerning “Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” They went on for a while explaining to Jesus about His death and reports of His tomb being empty. But they themselves hadn’t come to any conclusions.

At some point “[Jesus] said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” All these things were in the Bible.

They got to Emmaus and Jesus sat down to dinner with them. “When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed it and broke it and give it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.” We imagine them saying, “Wait! Now we have more questions!” They hadn’t had a problem with their physical sight, but now they could finally see.

Not only could they see who they had been talking with, they could see how what He had said made sense. “They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” Jesus had been clearing brush away from the signs and then showing how all the signs pointed in one direction.

Both because the Bible is a more-than-human book, and because sin is a blinding force, not seeing what is right in front of us, especially on the pages of Scripture, is a typical problem. We can be obtuse on a sentence level, we can be oblivious on the story level. But we are about to embark on a a new series, a sign-clearing effort to see a way of explaining God’s plan, from beginning to end, that has been in the Bible all along but for whatever reason we haven’t recognized.

This is a Bible reading project, “beginning with Moses” and including “all the Prophets,” as well as the Gospels and the epistles of Christ’s apostles. This is a project to read and believe that “‘everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’” This is a project to describe the things that make our hearts burn within us.

Where It All Started

This series has been brewing for quite a while but the coffee hasn’t turned into sludge, not yet at least. There have been a few stages, starting with a gnawing discontent with epistolary exclusivity. I’ll have more to say about the eye-opening effect of Ecclesiastes, Genesis, and the Psalms in the next couple of weeks, but there is more to the Old Testament than just historical background to or illustrations for the New Testament. The New Testament is great, inspired even (!), but the whole thing was written in one long generation. Sometimes in the Old Testament, you can skip a couple hundred years between chapter breaks. The revelation in the first 39 books of the Bible has a breadth to it, and a breath in it, as it points to Israel’s Messiah, Jesus, the Savior of the Nations. I started longing to answer some questions I didn’t even know I needed to ask.

Then I got asked a question for which there was no good answer. I was meeting with Mitch Rothenberger for coffee one Saturday morning, probably about a year after TEC started. He asked me what book he could read that would explain what TEC was all about. I think I laughed, and I would still laugh today, because there isn’t one (except the Bible, of course, though almost everyone says that).

TEC is not a purebred anything. In terms of our theology and philosophy of ministry, we are not a mix, we are a mutt. Some mighty actually call us a mess. We love the truth, but we also think that relationships and fellowship in love is the point of the truth. We love the fundamentals, we even love the Fundamentalists, and we’d tell them that if they hadn’t isolated themselves away from everyone. We believe that the greatest commandment is to love God, not be right about Him, but we also think that affections are supposed to be driven and directed by doctrine. We do not fall into the Bible-study-at-all-costs camp, nor would we pitch our tent in the doctrine-divides camp.

We have a high view of the pastoral office, so much so that we let everyone have a look at it. We invited all our men to read a book on eldership and talk through it together before we officially affirmed the first board. We are an elder-rule church, and we expect every elder to remember that he is also a sheep and to participate alongside, like, you know, even talk with, others in the flock.

We believe in the sovereignty of God, the solas of the Reformation, and the Five Points of Calvinism, so much so we have a heart hernia; our Reformed organ is so large that it tries to push out everywhere. We also think that the Reformers didn’t go far enough, perhaps because many of them were just trying to not get themselves dead. We are Reformed and still reforming.

We believe something uniquely supernatural happens when the church assembles for worship, and that the whole assembly is worshipping the whole time we’re together. We believe that good liturgy should be more than singing a couple songs to get ready for the sermon, listening to the sermon, then singing a song to respond to the sermon. We also think that liturgy connects us to previous generations of saints, and yet we don’t parrot their words, we want to define what we mean by “saints,” and we would never include an icon to help us worship.

We usually have verse-by-verse preaching, but we don’t do verse-by-verse small groups. We use air war and ground war tactics.

We think the rapture could happen at any moment and also that adultolescent men should get off their mom’s wifi and out of her basement and start families, businesses, and do stuff because of the rapture. We think kids can love the Lord when they are still quite young, yet we won’t baptize them until they can profess it.

We think wine is a gift from God but not because we demand to exercise our Christian liberty. We believe in feasting and fasting. We care about politics because we think Jesus is the King of kings. We believe in the Trinity, in the gospel of forgiveness, and that we really should get along with one another.

So we’re not close to Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. We’re not Charismatics or Lutherans. Nor are we Presbyterians or Seeker Sensitive or Emergent. We are close-ish to Baptists, and we will re-baptize, but that’s ironic since most Baptists/Anabaptists have been separatists. The very first “missionary” we supported is a lawyer. We meet in a Seventh-Day Adventist building. We are hopefully not heretics, but we are a mutt. What we believe can be pinned down, but it will take a lot of pins.

It’s not actually convenient. What are we supposed to put on the church brochure? How are you supposed to tell others what we’re about? “We’re like every other church except for the ways we’re not.”

Anyway, I told Mitch to read The Trellis and the Vine, which is still a good choice. We like a lot of what it says about how to make faithful men and give away grace-work as I described last Sunday. That said, it’s not enough.

We are a peculiar people, not by any means the only faithful assembly of Christians, but when we read the Bible our hearts burn with a hot cup of joy when we see certain things fit together. In particular, we have started to see more about God’s created world and how He considers it good. We’ve been learning about image-bearing in individual and cultural ways according to the beginning of things in Genesis 1.

Our Calvinism had to pull up the other pant leg. God’s glad sovereignty works salvation and sustains the cosmos. This is a Kuyperian viewpoint, and more needs to be said about it.

But historically, the kinds of people who have thought in a Kuyperian way, whether or not they used (or even knew) his name, have been our Presby brothers, Covenantalists, Post- or A-mil Christians. They have a heritage of appreciating creation and the work of men on earth.

We epistle-readers don’t have that rich heritage. But then we read Genesis 1 and recognize that it still applies. We were reading the Bible wrongly. It’s why we read through The Things of Earth in our men’s and women’s meetings. It’s why the ladies read The Supper of the Lamb and the men read Lectures on Calvinism and the Life to Life leaders watched For the Life of the World together. We needed to repent.

That said, we also think there is a way of looking at the end of things—eschatology, that also requires good Bible reading. We’re jealous of the cultural heritage among Covanentalists, but we’re possessive about the distinction between Israel and the Church, a distinction that is usually better held by Dispensationalists . It’s those Dispy brothers, though, who historically haven’t built much but bookshelves for study Bibles (and rapture fiction) in their bomb shelters. Actually, they are also good at building walls between themselves and others, and often between the church and the world.

Here we are, trusting God and joyfully working in the world, knowing that He says things are going to “go on from bad to worse” (2 Timothy 3:13, see also 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:1), while we also trust that the power of the gospel is and will continue making things better. We are thankful for the Christian accomplishments in missions, and in medicine, technology, education, indoor plumbing, free markets, etc. Christians have made many things better because they were here on earth rather than whisked to heaven. We are optimistic Pre-millennials. This is how we read the Bible. It’s what makes our hearts burn.

A couple summers ago, Jonathan was in Moscow, ID, with some of the teachers from ECS, and he was talking with Doug Wilson about our mutt-ness. I’ll have to have Jonathan expand on their discussion some time, but Doug, who is a died-in-the-wool Postmillennialist, had no category in which to put this juxtaposition. He told Jonathan, “You know what you ought to do? You ought to start a blog and call it The Kuyperian Dispensationalist.” He, Doug, doesn’t think the two things go together. He can’t see how one doesn’t cancel the other out.

When Jonathan told me about the idea, my heart burned. Even the name: The Kuyperian Dispensationalist, rather than -ism, is so good, because there may only be one other Kuyperian Dispensationalist in the world. We’re on a mission to find that one! Actually, all the elders would consider themselves to be such, while still trying to figure out what it means and what we should do about it. But we believe that there are more, more who think this way but don’t know how to describe it, more who are primed to join in, and some who will need a lot of time to think about it. There are, of course, others who will refuse to agree, until we’re raptured together in the air.

Why We Like Names

A typical question, or even strong objection, is: Why use names at all? Abraham was in the Bible, but not Abraham Kuyper. Dispensation is also not a word used in the Bible, even if you agree with the doctrine. Like Calvinism, isn’t this elevating a man over Scripture? Like any system, won’t we be guilty of forcing an external pattern onto the Bible?

It absolutely could be any of those things, and worse things. But when Adam named the animals God created it didn’t change what they were, and it was part of Adam’s calling by God to label and classify things. That was part of his image-bearing glory. Recognizing patterns is not making the patterns, like the golden ratio in nautilus shells or planetary orbits in astronomy, or theology. Doctrine about the Trinity is helpfully summarized by the one word that isn’t in the Bible.

Names help diagnose and then treat diseases. Names help plan and assemble buildings. Names can be misused, they can also help to communicate, to share the meaning of something in common. It doesn’t matter if someone says he is a Trinitarian as long as he believes the truth of it. It doesn’t matter if someone hates the word dualism as long as he actually hates dualism. The Kuyperian Dispensationalist is shorthand, a nickname, a quirky code for convenience (and some provocation) in order to share an understanding about how things connect.

A Different Sort of Series

I an not sure exactly how long this series will go, perhaps 6-10 weeks. It will be different because it won’t be sequential through a book of the Bible, which we’ll do after this is over, and which, ironically, will probably be an epistle. Even today’s message has not been an exposition but a testimony of repentance and making progress in the 1 Timothy 4:15 way.

I’ve already said that this is what all four pastors believe. This is the defining trajectory for our interests and efforts. We think there are more for whom these truths will resonate, whether or not they use the name.

That said, I’m not going to underestimate the threat some people feel when introduced to something they feel is “new,” even if all that’s new is a name. I still remember going through and explaining our liturgy after we’d already been doing it for a year, and it caused concern for more than a few people. It’s like finding out about a surprise ingredient in your favorite dish. You thought you liked it, but knowing changed your taste.

And this will be a first time for everyone to hear about Kuyperian Dispensationalism (it will be my first time teaching about it!). Some pieces you will have heard before, on both sides, and some pieces need to be said again. You may already be more Kuyperian, you may be more Dispensational, but there isn’t anyone else we’ve found trying to talk about them together.

Usually “new” things are dangerous things. Neither Kuyperian thought or Dispensational thought are new for this series, what’s new is seeing how they necessarily fit together. The trellis and the vine image emphasizes life over structure. Peanut butter and chocolate taste great together but also taste fine apart, just as a sword and a trowel could both be hooked on your belt but you’d probably only use one at a time. Oil and water do not mix at all. We think Kuyperianism and Dispensationalism are like the tongue-in-groove that keep the worldview floor from sliding around under you. Kuyperianism and Dispensationalism are like a door knob bolt and the latch in the frame that just “click” into place. Kuyperianism and Dispensationalism are like the chain and the teeth on a gear that “catch” and crank the wheel forward. Kuyperianism lets the clutch out of Dispensationalism. Kuyperianism is the ink to Dispensationalism’s pen. Kuyperianism takes the lens off of Dispensationalism’s binoculars. Kuyperianism is the bow to Dispensationalism’s arrow.

Some might say, “Oh, yeah! That’s exactly what I believe but never had a name for it!” Others might say, “Oh, no! I’ve been wrong! I need to repent!” Still others might say, “Oh, no! You guys are crazy and I don’t want anything to do with you!”

But this is no less than an attempt to fuse a Weltanschauung (German from Welt = world + Anschauung = perception), a new way to perceive the world. This is no less than an attempt to read the Bible from beginning to end, to account for every promise given and fulfilled and yet to be fulfilled. This is no less than an attempt to obey every command and commission given to humanity and to Christians, all together in Jesus. He is Lord. He claims it as His own, from before the foundation of the world through the last days. It is an explanation of history and an expectation for the future. This is not a worldview so that we can interpret the world and escape to complain about it, it is a worldview with marching orders for today. Kuyper himself called for:

“a central motive in the mental and emotional life of a people, which shall dominate the whole existence from within, and which consequently carries its effect from this spiritual center to its outermost circumference.” (Lectures, 150)

More than an abstract cause, it is a comfort and a catalyst centered on the Triune God.

Conclusion

The Kuyperian Dispensationalist: it’s not a new brand, but a way of reading the Bible and seeking to obey all of it. Of course, I need to define the terms, and then show how things fit. Romans 9 will be included; no series is complete without it! Can Kuyperianism and Dispensationalism commingle (blend, per Kuyper), or must they contradict?

With the disciples on the road to Emmaus Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” His Word created a new world of thought and connections. He “said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’” On the map, we are here.

Be patient. Be Bereans. Be Kuyperians. Be brothers and sisters. Be humble. Be ready; this is just the start.