May 24, 2023 Show with Zac Hicks on “Worship by Faith Alone: Thomas Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer, & the Reformation of Liturgy”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this

24th day of May, 2023.

I am thrilled to have on the program a first -time guest who is

going to be discussing a great figure from church history, a hero

from church history that is tragically, frequently, in fact even most

often, overlooked even by those who are theologically reformed

in the Christian faith outside of Anglicanism.

I'm talking about one of my heroes, Thomas Cranmer, and

Cranmer became one of my heroes after discovering him

and learning more about him from Ashley Null, who is a

Cranmer scholar and perhaps the foremost expert, living expert on Thomas

Cranmer in the church, although Dr. Null is far too humble

to admit that, I think, publicly.

But we have on the program today someone who has written a new book,

Worship by Faith Alone, Thomas Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Reformation of Liturgy.

His name is Zach Hicks and Zach Hicks is pastor of Church of the Cross in

Birmingham, Alabama, a congregation in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in America.

He's an adjunct lecturer in music and worship at Samford

University, an author of The Worship Pastor, A Call to Ministry for Worship Leaders and

Teams, and Before We Gather, Devotions for Worship Leaders and Teams, and the book we are

addressing today, Worship by Faith Alone.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Zach Hicks.

Thanks so much for having me.

It's great to have you on, brother.

And tell our listeners something about Church of the Cross in Birmingham, Alabama.

Church of the Cross is a four -and -a -half -month -old church plant in

the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, as you said.

There are no EPC churches currently in Birmingham.

We have a real heart to try to reach folks who are falling through the cracks of

cultural Christianity down here.

And so a lot of our work is under the radar, relational work.

It's slow and quiet and a beautiful work of really meeting people where they're at.

And I couldn't be more thrilled with what the Lord is doing among us in a

slow and relational way.

Well, if anybody is visiting Birmingham, or you live in Birmingham or nearby,

or you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in Birmingham or nearby, the website for more information

on this congregation is crossbham .org, cross

B as in Birmingham, and ham, an abbreviation obviously, dot org,

crossbham .org.

And God willing, I will hopefully remember to repeat that later on in the broadcast.

And I hope that if you do not already know him, that you get to know

someone that I have grown to love as one of my dearest friends, Reverend Roger

Salter, who is the rector at St. Matthew's Anglican Church in

Birmingham, which is a theologically reformed congregation.

As he very proudly describes that church, Cranmerion

and adherence of the Book of Common Prayer and the

39 Articles of Religion, Roger is one of the most humble and Christ -like human beings I've ever met in my

life, and I'm sure you will absolutely love getting to know this

brother, if you indeed do.

And I will put you both in touch with each other after the show, if indeed you don't already have

contact with him.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I haven't met him, but have enough friends who have talked about him that I totally believe your endorsement.

And you can actually listen to quite a number of interviews I've done with him on the archive of irontreppanzionradio .com.

We have a tradition here, before we go into the theme of your book, we have a tradition on Iron Treppanzion Radio, whenever we have a

first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which

would include any kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which you were raised, and the kinds of

providential circumstances, our sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved

you.

So let's hear your story.

I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, raised by

Christian parents in the Southern Baptist tradition.

And I grew up from age two to age 18 in one church, and that

fact has shaped me probably more than anything, the fact that my parents didn't move around.

My parents were with one local congregation as young believers at the time,

and raising me there.

So I was raised now, in hindsight, I'd use language like I was raised in a covenant home.

There came a moment in our worship services, as is a part of the Baptist tradition, where each week we'd

have altar calls.

And right around the age of seven, after a lot of great teaching, Sunday school leadership, and

what I describe as a family of people in my life, pointing me to the Lord and teaching me his word,

where the altar call didn't feel like it was just for everybody, but it felt like it

was for me.

I was, yeah, I was about seven years old, and from my own developmental angle,

really did feel the conviction of my sin, even if I didn't quite have language for it.

I felt inadequate, and that I needed only what God could provide for me in Jesus Christ.

So I went forward that Sunday, was baptized a few weeks after that, and really

began seeing the Lord bear fruit in my life from that time

onward.

And he really paved the way for an additional kind of stage of my own vocation

as a follower of Jesus Christ into a call into pastoral ministry.

And so, yeah, in a way, there's not a time in my life where I can remember being

outside or apart from the love of Jesus Christ, and I

have journeyed throughout my life of ups and downs, of doubt and certainty, and the wrestling

of those things, with a sure sense that God loves me and has held me in his grace.

And that still continues to be my testimony, and it's really funny to have journeyed a lot

through the intellectual side of my faith, through embracing, studying the Bible deeply, studying

church history deeply, studying theology deeply, studying liturgy deeply, and then coming back

on the other side to some of the basics that I began with, which is, it doesn't get any better than

a living relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ.

It doesn't get any better than prayer, reading my Bible, worshiping with the people of God, and

fellowship with other Christians.

And in a sense, I'm coming back to that as once again the center of my faith, those

practices and faith in Jesus Christ.

So I'm blessed to be someone whom God has held in his church for those

times, and I can't think of any better way to have lived the life than the

one that he's given me.

And so I could share many moments of suffering and pain, but all those moments he's been with me

and has graciously held me in his arms and held my face fixed towards Jesus.

Amen.

And how did you come to providentially discover and embrace Reformed theology?

I had a fiery, Calvinist, annoying roommate in college who I thought

was obnoxious.

And he kept on asking me to come to his Presbyterian church, for one.

And number two, kept on wanting to debate the finer points of theology with regards to Reformed

Christianity.

And I had no interest in it.

I took a hermeneutics class, and because of that, roommate decided, I'm going to

tackle Ephesians 1 and learn how to exegete this

passage and disprove that God is sovereign and providentially

ahead, behind, and around our salvation, and hopefully show exegetically

why we contribute to our salvation through our own

volition and choice.

And once I was using the rules of hermeneutics that I was taught in that class of

studying the scriptures, I actually kind of came to the opposite conclusion.

I'm like, well, Ephesians 1 says what it says.

It says some pretty powerful things about God's predestination, his love for us before

we ever loved him, and that seems to be the crux of Paul's theology of the gospel anyway.

And that was the big watershed moment for me, was a kind of exegetical paper on Ephesians 1

that cracked open an inquiry into Reformation

theology and Reformed Christianity.

I read a book that really impacted me called Chosen by God by R .C. Sproul.

And for me, it was accessible, and it answered a lot of the looming questions that one would have when

one is first encountering the difficult and thorny issues of

God's providence in our salvation.

Now, when did you come to realize, and how did God make known to you

that he had placed a call to pastoral ministry upon your life?

That came on a youth ministry or a youth retreat when I was in the 10th

grade, and it was pretty supernatural for me.

I was reading Christ's call to the disciples in the Gospels, where

he asked them to leave their nets and follow him, and pretty

supernaturally for me, God was saying, your nets, Zach, are who you thought you would be.

I'd wanted to be an architect since I was about four years old, just because I liked drawing, I liked

building, I liked math, I like angles, I like the precision of it.

And God said, I want you to leave that behind and pursue a path of vocational

pastoral ministry and following me.

And I met with my pastor the next week, asked him a silly question,

tell me in an hour everything you know about pastoral ministry so I can make this decision.

And instead of laughing at me, he spent the next hour looking me in the eye and giving me the

time of day, and by the end of that conversation, I said, I think that's for me.

And so in good Baptist fashion, I went before my congregation the next Sunday during the altar call and

committed my life to pastoral ministry, and in a sense haven't looked back since then.

And God is very faithful to confirm that call and utilize the Church to affirm that call and to

say, you have these gifts, and we affirm that you have these gifts, and we want to see you use these gifts in our

midst.

Well, praise God.

And now we come to the book that you have written.

And an obvious question would be, how on earth did a Presbyterian

pastor come to fall in love with an Anglican named Thomas Cramer and

be so enamored with him and so highly revere him that he wrote a book about

his involvement in the Book of Common Prayer and the Reformation of Liturgy?

Yeah, I imagine that's an obvious question to you and me.

I'm not sure it is to everybody else, but historically, Presbyterians with a

broad brush were the ones that really advocated for no fixed forms of liturgy

and were the ones, in a sense, this is a bit exaggerated to say,

but were the ones who in England actually sought the banning and executed the

banning of the Book of Common Prayer for a little over a decade during the Commonwealth.

And so yeah, it's historically odd that someone like me would take an interest in the Book of Common

Prayer and its architect, Thomas Cramer.

Part of my own journey as a Presbyterian minister, but also as a planner and leader

of worship services in the evangelical tradition has been a recognition that

a lot of modern evangelicalism, of which I'm a part, has ignored history and has

ignored the worship traditions of the past.

And as a result of having not grown up in that traditions, but having been someone who's

studied the Bible, cares about theology, recognizing that something's missing from our worship,

and I began to explore liturgies, explore church history, explore the history of

hymnody and those sorts of things, and found answers and solace and comfort

and peace, and even the missing pieces of evangelical worship filled out by our

liturgical tradition.

And that began a 15 -year investigation into those sorts of things.

Around the same time, kind of like a second conversion for me in my early 20s,

I began to see how the gospel, the good news of Jesus, wasn't just something for non -Christians.

It's actually something for Christians.

It's something for me.

It's the fuel for my faith.

And so I began to ask the question as a worship planner and leader, what does it mean for this gospel that has relevance to me as a

Christian daily and repentance that is something I should be living in and enacting daily?

What does it mean for a worship service to be governed and guided by that?

And so I began a quest of what does, quote, gospel -centered worship look like?

Somewhere along that line of questioning and my line of questioning about liturgies and

appreciation for liturgies, I drilled down deep enough into my own history as a

Presbyterian, as an Evangelical, and as a Protestant.

And I found Thomas Cranmer, or rather others helped me find Thomas Cranmer.

And I began to realize that this man was asking and answering that very question that I was

trying to answer with far more depth, far more acumen, far more exposure to things that I cared

about, like the scriptures, exegesis, the church fathers, the liturgical tradition

of the church, everything.

And I said, man, I need to spend time listening to this guy.

And Presbyterians, I think, can rightfully view Thomas Cranmer as within our ancestry because Thomas

Cranmer wouldn't have consciously been an, quote, Anglican.

Anglican's a title that comes later.

He just would have viewed himself as a small -c Catholic Christian

trying to be faithful to the scriptures and recognizing the centrality of the gospel in the scriptures,

and therefore finding himself in this burgeoning expression of Catholic Christianity called

Protestantism.

And therefore, as someone who is trying to understand my own roots, both

doxologically and theologically, Thomas Cranmer is right in my genealogy, there for the taking, there for the

exploring.

And that's how I got wind of him, and that's why I began pursuing him and studying the Book of Common Prayer in

earnest.

It has to do with liturgy, and it has to do with the quest for gospel -centered worship.

And I'm going to read a quote from The Forward written by the aforementioned Ashley Null,

who I'm sure you would agree is likely the foremost living expert on

Thomas Cranmer.

I do.

Cranmer scholar that I have had the privilege of interviewing several times on this program.

Dr. Null says in his Forward, Zach Hicks is to be commended for his close reading

of Cranmer's writings.

In the midst of all the other influences and sources for Cranmer's liturgical work,

Hicks marshals much evidence to show that the Reformation's recovery of Paul's

message, not I, but Christ, was Cranmer's plumb line in shaping

his liturgical legacy for the Anglican Communion.

Hicks confirms the fact so often overlooked that Cranmer designed the Book of Homilies, the

Book of Common Prayer, and the Articles of Religion to be a three -stringed cord

which strongly proclaims the gospel message.

Christ is the horse which pulls the cart of our Christian salvation and discipleship.

May he enable us to recover this abiding truth in our era as well.

Quite a powerful excerpt from The Forward by Ashley Null.

And just to give our audience to whet their appetites

so that they mentally remain with us because sometimes when you're bringing up

historical figures, people may wrongly start to presume, oh, this is going to be

a dry, dull topic.

But just to give you an idea of who Cranmer was, I'm just going to give a very abbreviated

description of one of the most pivotal events in his life.

Thomas Cranmer was the Archbishop of Kent the Bury under King Henry VIII, and

he was a theologically reformed Christian.

And as we already said, drafted the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of

Religion.

And he was very committed to the Protestant

faith.

In fact, from what I have heard from Dr. Null, he did not believe that his friend King Henry VIII

was truly born again because King Henry VIII was really retaining

the false understanding of the gospel that was promoted by the Church of Rome,

even though he was an instrument in the English Reformation and

some have even called him the first Protestant.

He was still Roman Catholic in his understanding of the gospel.

And when King Henry VIII was on his deathbed, as far as Dr. Null has

informed me, Cranmer was concerned about where King Henry VIII would

spend eternity.

And he asked him, do you believe in justification by faith alone?

And if you do, squeeze my hand.

And King Henry VIII squeezed his hand, and that was a comfort to Cranmer that King

Henry VIII had truly been converted.

And then when King Henry VIII died and the pendulum swung back

in the Church of England to Romanism, and those that were Protestants

in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Church were being threatened with

execution and being executed in torturous ways.

In fear of this, Thomas Cranmer recanted his

Protestant faith, but then, thanks be to God, the guilt of that

overwhelmed him, and he eventually recanted his recantation.

And when he was being marched to be burned alive, he actually,

according to Dr. Null, walked at a much quicker pace than

those who were leading him to his execution, where he was actually in front of them,

perhaps even trotting quickly to his death.

And he thrust his hand that signed his recantation of Protestantism

into the flames first, that it might be burned before the rest of his body.

Am I accurately remembering, Dr. Null, on that summary?

Yes, he said, this is the hand that doth offend.

And so that's how the story goes, reported in Fox's Book of Martyrs, that Cranmer indeed

put his hand in there first before the rest of his body.

And so I don't know why this figure—I've seen him portrayed in

other movies about Church history, about the Church of England, as a minor

figure, a background figure, but I've never heard of—and maybe you can correct me, maybe there is one—but I've never heard

of a movie that was specifically on Thomas Cranmer as the primary figure, because

if there hasn't been one made, there should be.

I mean, fascinating story.

Yeah, I have not heard of one either.

He really is someone that never sought the spotlight, which is why when you study him in his

true character, he's just not a flashy figure.

He's a bookish introvert who was always reluctantly thrust into public

places.

Just like John Calvin.

Yeah, and yeah, his death was—it was mixed.

It was human, and it was heroic, and it stood for a lot that

many have been inspired by in subsequent generations.

Amen.

Well, please explain the primary title, Worship

by Faith Alone.

That may seem a bit puzzling to people, even thoroughly

committed Reformed Protestants who believe in sola fide, that

salvation is through faith alone, that justification

is by faith alone.

But how does worship by.

Faith alone work into that?

Yeah, I imagine that it would be.

The way we come into the faith is the way that we are carried through the faith, that we

never go past the gospel.

But in a sense, our faith walk, our journey with the Lord, our sanctification, if you

will, is in a sense only being thrust more deeply into recognition of how

magnanimous God's grace is, how deep my sin is, how much I need repentance and God's

love and provision more.

And so how we are saved is how we worship.

And the gospel that shapes Christians is that same good news that in a sense should

govern, guide, and architect the way that we approach God in our public worship services

together.

And so the idea of worshiping by faith alone is maybe a different way of

saying worship centered on and surrounded by and informed by and governed by

the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we're looking for formation, which is a big buzzword now, if we're looking for spiritual formation

and life formation to happen in a worship service, if we're looking for us to be formed and shaped into the image and likeness of

Jesus, it's only going to happen for Christians through the power of the gospel,

the power unto salvation as Paul describes it.

So it's a way of saying what Cranmer's vision for what

we might call now gospel -centered worship was dramatically shaped by and

in a sense governed by the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

So Lafitte to him stood as a kind of a grammar, a way that he understood the

structure of worship to properly speak, proclaim, and give the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well we're going to our first commercial.

Break.

If you have a question for Zach Hicks on his book that we are

discussing, Worship by Faith Alone, Thomas Cranmer, The Book of Common Prayer and the Reformation of

Liturgy, send in your emails to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n

-z -e -n at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say for instance you have grown to become

an increasingly severe disagreement with your own congregation

over worship, over liturgy, or perhaps you're even the pastor

and you disagree with your elders over crucial issues involving worship and the liturgy and so

on.

You don't want to identify yourself at this point.

Those would be obvious reasons that would compel you to remain anonymous.

But if you're just asking general questions about church history, about the scripture, about Thomas

Cranmer, about liturgy, about worship, please just

at least give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Zach Hicks right after these messages from.

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We are now back with our guest Zach Hicks, pastor of Church of the Cross in Birmingham, Alabama, and author of

Worship by Faith Alone, Thomas Cranmer, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Reformation of Liturgy.

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

If you have a question for Zach Hicks, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence.

Zach, you have written at least two books before this one on worship.

The Worship Pastor, A Call to Ministry for Worship Leaders and Teams, Before We Gather, Devotions for

Worship Leaders and Teams.

There is likely something within modern evangelical

worship that you find lacking, that you find less than biblical,

that you find less than accommodating to worship and spirit and truth to its fullness,

and I'm assuming that is the reason why you began an investigation and an

exploration of Thomas Cranmer and the Book of Common Prayer and the Reformation of

Liturgy, etc.

So why don't you tell us about what you believe needs

reformation in the typical worship service of your average evangelical church in

the third millennium?

Love that.

Yeah, and that's an apt description of some of the burdens that I've felt over the course of my ministry.

I guess the thread through all my books.

The third one is Before We Gather, and that's not out yet.

So technically, Worship by Faith Alone is book two, Before We Gather is book three.

But yeah, for me, what I have discovered in the worship services that I lead,

that the tradition I've inherited, in a sense, has forgotten what

it means to allow the gospel to govern and guide every aspect of it.

And it even has sort of come up to me within my own tribes when we speak of gospel -centered

worship.

We tend to speak of, well, let's load our worship services with songs about the atonement,

or let's just sing a bunch about Jesus and not about ourselves, those kinds of things.

And while those are good and a part of it, what I've learned from Cranmer is that

formation in and through the gospel goes much deeper.

So what Cranmer has taught me to see is an insight such as this one.

We need to look at the structure of our worship services as much as the content.

So how I approach God, what I say to Him and what I sort of construct as what

He says to me through His word, and how I journey through that, in a sense, dialogue and

process of encountering Him has just as much formative impact as

the theological and verbal content of worship service.

So if I'm thinking about the gospel, I need to pay just as much attention to how God is

approached as I do to what we say in our conversations with Him.

A good example of this would be something as simple that Cranmer taught me.

If I'm starting a worship service and my prayers and songs are filled with declarations about

what I'm doing for God, how I'm living for Him, how I'm sold out to Him and surrendered to Him,

Cranmer would encourage us to say, you've gotten the cart before the horse.

If there is to be any offering of self to the Lord, it really does come in response to

how God has offered Himself to me in and through the work of Jesus Christ.

And that has, in a sense, structural implications for the way I approach God.

And what's on the hook is ways of approaching God that tend to start with me and what I

bring to the table often form and shape us in ways that are, in a sense, anti

-gospel.

And I'll even use this word, which can sound really provocative, anti -Christ.

But I mean it quite literally.

If I'm approaching God and the first thing I'm saying out of the be pleased with my worship based on

how sincere and sold out I am, I am basically saying, I don't need Jesus.

In order to approach God, I just need my own virtue, my own pedigree, my own good works.

And according to the scriptures, there can't be anything more antithetical to Christ and the gospel

than that idea and that approach.

And so it has implications.

And so when I observe evangelical worship in

the 21st century, I observe moments and structures that are filled with

this kind of way of approaching God, this kind of way of trying to

drum up God being pleased with me and a kind of transactional approach to

God will finally unleash the blessings of heaven and worship, unleash this powerful presence and the experience of his presence

as and insofar as I'm sold out, as and insofar as I display my sincerity and surrender

to him.

And Cranmer has helped me to see from the scriptures that this is actually backward

and God blesses before we're ever worthy of it.

And God offers me the blessings and the benefits of Jesus, even while I was a sinner,

to use the language of Paul, even while I was yet unrighteous, God came to me through Jesus.

And that actually, that approach of God has the power to unleash

all the benefits and blessings of the powerful, joyful presence of the spirit.

And I do think that that sits at the great reformation needed amongst reformation churches today.

We have an anonymous listener, and the anonymous listener says, I'm remaining

anonymous because I work closely in ministry with my beloved brothers

and sisters who are charismatic and Pentecostal and don't want to unnecessarily

offend them in what I am about to say.

I was wondering what your thoughts were on a common trend that perhaps was

more focused in and more dominated by

charismatics and Pentecostals where worship was an

effort to bypass the brain and focus on the heart

where we would just open up our minds and empty them to

allow an experience to fill our brains while we are worshiping and

making our worship somewhat more sensual, not in the sexual sense,

but just relying upon our feelings rather than how and who we are worshiping.

And the follow -up question about that would be, I was wondering if that

is a problem as well in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in the United States, since I know

it is one of the very few Presbyterian denominations that allows for a non -cessationist and

charismatic position.

Right.

Good question.

One of the things that I actually loved about Cranmer that I found in his

own way of talking about worship and in his own way of organizing and communicating

worship in the form of the Book of Common Prayer is that Cranmer didn't pit head against

heart.

And actually, his very Augustinian and I would say biblical theology of the way of thinking about

it is the summary that Ashley Null helpfully offers of

Reformation theology generally, maybe Philip Melanchthon, a reformer we might know less about more

specifically.

And it is this, what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

And though Cranmer didn't say that, all our study of him would indicate that he assented to that idea.

And I say all that as preface to say, I am not one of those who pits

emotionalism on the one hand and intellectualism on the other.

I've kind of come to the conclusion that the emphasis on emotions isn't bad.

What's bad is emphasis on emotions apart from or without

careful engagement with the truth of God is really

what the problem is.

And in a way, I share Jonathan Edwards' perspective in that when my

emotions are engaged in worship rightfully, in a sense, and this is his quote, I see

truth in their proper colors.

You know, it's one thing to have a worship filled with the truth of God.

But when I not only have the truth of God, but have a rightly ordered emotion tethered to it,

in a sense, I move from apprehending that truth in a two -dimensional way to apprehending it

in a three -dimensional way.

And so I think the rightful critique is not against emotions and the engagement of

emotions in a worship service.

It is against emotionalism for its own sake.

And that I do find in certain pockets of charismatic and Pentecostal theology, or

rather charismatic and Pentecostal practice, because actually, if you listen to the best thinkers

in the charismatic and Pentecostal traditions, what you find are very well thought out and informed biblical

theologies of experience in the Holy Spirit, emotions, and the human body, and all those

sorts of things.

I've spent a lot of time there precisely because I see some of these kind of proto

-ideas present in Cranmer when he writes, for instance, in his preface to the Book of Common Prayer that his purpose of

this thing is that, in his words, that the hearts of the English people might be inflamed

all the more with love of God's holy religion.

And funny enough, that line, if I were to translate it today, would sound an awful lot like the way a charismatic would speak about a

worship service.

I want my heart to be on fire for Jesus as a result from experiencing his power and presence.

And I find all the desire there in Cranmer, and in Cranmer, I find it coupled with a strong

commitment to the scriptures and commitment to the gospels as the seed.

So, I'm all about worship aiming at the heart because I think that that's where it begins.

And in fact, if we aimed worship at the head, we would be starting from the wrong spot, according to

the biblical anthropology that Cranmer subscribes to.

So, yeah, I am interested in that, which probably isn't the most satisfying answer, even

as I'd say, I share with the listener the critique of a lot of

emotionalistic or, you know, worship that's just merely gauged toward having a

haphazard feeling as opposed to, as the philosophers might say, having feelings that are tethered

to truths and that are, quote, rightly ordered and those sorts of things.

And so, yeah, in the EPC, we've got a spectrum of churches, some of whom will appear like you're

more, quote, conservative, Presbyterian churches that are cessationist and express that, and you can kind

of feel that in the way the worship happens.

And then you've got churches that definitely appear more charismatic, even to the point

of the typical sign gifts that are part of charismatic tradition.

And you have churches like mine that are attempting to kind of stand in the middle of both and not

jettison either.

Highly liturgical, highly gospel -centered, highly filled with Scripture and theological depth and truth

and a kind of experiential and emotional

willingness to put that all on the table as we.

Go about those elements.

Yeah, one of my favorite contemporary theologians is Dr. Joel Beeky, and he is seeking in his

preaching and teaching to revive an understanding and practice of

experimental and also known as experiential Calvinism.

Yeah, yeah.

And that goes right along with, I believe, what you were saying.

And we shall never forget that in order for our heads to be

changed, we first need a heart transplant by God Himself, where He removes our hearts of stone and gives us

hearts of flesh.

We have the Spirit breathed within us and begin thinking differently.

But we have to go to our midway break right now, I hope that our listeners will be patient because the

midway break is always a little longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City,

Florida, who airs this program, they need to use the middle of the show because the FCC

requires of them to localize Iron Trip and Zion Radio and all of their programming

geographically to Lake City, Florida.

And they do that with their own public service announcements and other local things that they air in the middle of our

show while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

So please use this time wisely.

We ask of you to write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can for as many of our advertisers as you

possibly can so that you can more frequently and successfully contact our advertisers.

We hope that that often means that you buy their products, use their services, support their parachurch

organizations, and visit their churches.

But when you can't do any of those things, there's one thing that every Iron Trip and Zion Radio listener can do

if you really love this show, is that you contact our advertisers and

thank them for sponsoring Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

If you are really grateful that there are people and organizations out there that love this show so much, they

share some of the wealth with which God has blessed them with us.

They're sharing their wealth with us so that we can remain on the air.

And if you love the show, you should be thankful to them.

So please thank them at the very least.

Also, obviously, send in your questions to Zach Hicks at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give his first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

Please don't go away.

We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Zach Hicks.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I

are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.

That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching,

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives

to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work

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And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes,

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our Sovereign

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always.

As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, taking a moment of your

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Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics.

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Iron.

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Before I return to my discussion with my guest today, Zach Hicks, on Worship by Faith Alone, Thomas Cranmer, the

Book of Common Prayer, and the Reformation of Liturgy, I just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

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Now, last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful,

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so send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put I Need a Church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Zach Hicks on Worship by Faith Alone, Thomas Kramner,

the Book of Common Prayer, and the Reformation of Liturgy.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

By the way, I want to remind our anonymous listener to please send me by email

your full name and your mailing address, which, of course, will be kept private, because you have won

a free copy of the book we are addressing, Worship by Faith Alone, by Zach Hicks, and you will also,

if you are a first -time questioner as well, you also receive a new American Standard Bible absolutely

free, compliments of the publishers of the new American Standard Bible, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service,

cvvbs .com.

We'll be shipping that Bible out to you, along with that book by Zach Hicks, at no charge

to you or to us.

Zach Hicks, we do have another

question from Bobby in Hartsdale, New York,

and Bobby in Hartsdale, New York says, isn't this

diligence of Kramner to be God -centered in worship rather than man -centered?

Not only a clear revelation that he was thoroughly Protestant, not some form of Anglo

-Catholic, but it also should be a great lesson learned by our modern church that all

too often tends to be man -centered and not God -centered.

My answer would be yes, I think you're right.

There's been, post Kramner, a lot of revisionist history about who he was, and

surprisingly, this is an observation, by the way, made by the great Kramner scholar and biographer,

Dermot McCulloch, that in the history of biography of Kramner, in subsequent generations,

everybody's writing about Kramner in their own image.

And certainly when Anglo -Catholicism rises to the fore after the Oxford

Tractarian movements of the late 19th centuries, Kramner becomes viewed

to a certain degree as Anglo -Catholic.

And yet, when we contend with what Kramner actually wrote, what he actually believed in the worship services

that he actually attempted to roll out, we have someone who, yes, indeed does

view worship as God -centered and view our rightful approach as through Christ alone, through

faith alone.

That said, you know, I mean, the idea that worship is

either God -centered or man -centered, Kramner might find a bit too stark

of a contrast, especially if, say, Kramner read and believed

the kind of teachings of Luther, which he did.

He really bought into a lot of what Luther had to say, and one of the ways Luther would

articulate theology is that theology starts with the sinning human and the

justifying God.

And if that paradigm is at play in worship for Kramner, that means that there

will be plenty of aspects of worship that will mention and focus on

me and my issues and humanity, and certainly might even be

described as therapeutic in the sense of providing deep healing and comfort.

You find that all over the place in Kramner's work, just as I think you find it in the Psalms.

But I think in agreement with what the listener is asking, yes, Kramner

would indeed find himself very much articulating it the way that you have.

Thank you very much, Bobby, and guess what?

You have also won a free copy of Worship by Faith Alone by my guest Zach Hicks, so make

sure we have your full mailing address so we can have cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, ship

that out to you.

We also want to thank our friends at IVP Academic,

InterVarsity Press Academic, for providing with us a limited number of copies of this book that we are

giving away today.

And let's see, we have another anonymous

listener who says, the way we conduct worship in a church is one of

the most sensitive and tragically divisive areas of Christian life that

exists.

Churches are well known to have frequently split over issues involving how we worship.

How do we delicately and respectfully approach the leaders of our own churches when we think

something is amiss in regard to the way we are worshiping?

What a great and tender and sensitive question to ask.

Even the willingness to say, how do we delicately approach, shows a lot of care and love, which

I find, as someone who's been on the receiving end of a lot of complaint or a lot of

concern about XYZ aspect of worship, I appreciate the tone and the

desire to express these things through love.

I think that because of the sensitivity of these things and because the enemy himself would like

nothing more than to drive divisions into Christ's church, especially through that most

sacred and beautiful thing that we call worship, we do our best by

doing these kinds of things in the most relational way possible.

I know sometimes people feel the need to carefully, calmly, and

thoroughly and articulately send something like an email so that they say it the right way.

But I often find that because these things are so emotionally loaded and sensitive, that they're best worked out

relationally.

They're best worked out person -to -person, face -to -face, voice -to -voice.

So even if you have to process your thoughts and in a sense organize them well in a way that will be

non -anxious and non -reactive, even if you have to write them down, I'd say if

you're approaching a particular pastor whose job is to oversee the worship service, maybe

spend some time getting to know them and getting to know even with an

inquisitive heart.

Help me understand the motivation behind the

choices made about worship.

I really want to know.

I really am curious.

So approaching with curiosity is great.

Even as you say, I have these concerns, but before I just lob them, I want to

ask for your insight into why we do the things the way we do.

And opening up a dialogue like that in a way that's loving and relational is probably

about the best you can do.

But yeah, if you come on the attack with saying, worship is like this,

and the Bible says worship is to be like this, you've already kind of put yourself in a sort of us versus them

framework that immediately creates a kind of context of a fight as opposed to dialogue.

So the approach is everything, and the more relationally and lovingly and humbly one can do that, probably

first by asking questions rather than articulating accusations, the better,

honestly.

So yeah, that might be what I'd recommend without knowing about the specific situation or the specific

circumstances because these things need to be customized.

Depending on what the scenario is.

Well, thank you, Anonymous, and please email me with your full name and mailing address because you've also won a free copy

of Worship by Faith, the Lone Compliments of I .V. Press Academic,

and also of cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

We'll ship it out to you free of charge, and if you're a first -time questioner, you'll also get a new American Standard Bible, so

let us know.

We have Joseph in South Central

Pennsylvania who asks, previously I have heard a guest

on Chris Arnzen's Iron Shepherds Iron Radio program who is a fellow Presbyterian

who, although giving very high accolades to the Book of Common Prayer

and quoting from it, he actually believed that the blame could be laid at the feet

of the Book of Common Prayer for the destruction of expository preaching

in the church because a calendar takes away from the following of

sequential biblical study and exegesis and preaching

rather than topical.

If you could respond to that guest and perhaps sway his opinion.

I appreciate that.

Yes, that's been an ongoing debate whether the

lectionary is a help or a hindrance to expository preaching.

Certainly if your view about preaching is that it is superior to preach sequentially through

books and that is the best way to do it, then yeah, you will view the Book of Common Prayer and

the entire enterprise of engaging with a lectionary of readings less

than that and it will be inferior.

I don't hold that opinion.

I am okay.

I don't think expositional preaching must require moving from chapter one

of a book to its end to be truly expositional.

In fact, my theology of the scriptures is

that to be truly expository is most about digging into the

text until one comes to the bedrock of Jesus Christ.

And so what I mean by that is a truly expository sermon is one that proclaims Christ from that text just as

Christ did in Luke 24 when it says when he was on the road to Emmaus with

Cleopas and the other person unnamed.

And it said, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he began to open up the scriptures and

reveal to them all things concerning himself, meaning that Jesus opened the Old Testament and preached

Jesus there.

And so I don't think an expository sermon done well requires

sequential moving through a book.

I think it's way more about doing the proper historical grammatical exegesis that prepares for the kind of

proclamation of a text that proclaims Christ from that text, which I think is

decidedly biblical because I think the whole Bible at any given point is trying to drive you to, in

the words of Paul, Christ and him crucified.

So for me, I don't subscribe to a kind of book -by -book, verse

-by -verse way of preaching as the only way to do expository preaching.

Therefore, lectionary work doesn't, for me, appear to be an enemy

of good expository proclamation.

Well, thank you, listener.

And if you could, that's Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania.

Please give us your full mailing address because you have also won a free copy of Worship by Faith Alone,

compliments of IVP Academic, and also compliments of CVVBS .com, Cumberland

Valley Bible Book Service.

We'll ship it out to you.

We have Christopher in Western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

And Christopher asks, have you officially adopted the Book of Common Prayer

in your weekly worship at your Presbyterian church?

And if so, what would make your church Presbyterian and not.

Anglican?

Yeah, good question.

The language of officially adopted is hard because, you know, in our kind of

Presbyterian makeup, we don't officially adopt any liturgies.

We officially subscribe to not officially adopting anything of that kind of

nature of sorts, and each local church is, in a sense, within the bounds of our constitutions and things like that,

allowed certain measures of freedom.

That said, I think the question is, do we utilize a kind of form of the liturgy that is

akin to the Book of Common Prayer?

And I say, yeah, we do.

It's a bit modified, and in a way, it digs back into earlier forms of the Book of Common Prayer

besides the ones that Anglicans use today, precisely because the irony is that I

find Cranmer's work a bit more close to the kind of

the Reformation theology that characterizes Presbyterian churches

that subscribe to things like the Westminster Confession of Faith and those sorts.

And what's a little bit lesser known about even the time of the formation of the Westminster

Confession and what you could say is the origins of the Presbyterian church is

that not all Presbyterians were in favor of jettisoning liturgical forms and jettisoning

even the Book of Common Prayer.

They were interested in reforming it.

Richard Baxter, for instance, had his own notes on some reforms to the

liturgy and his own version of that.

I was just actually reading it the other day.

So it's not full -blown anti -Presbyterian, at least historically speaking,

to say that using any kind of fixed form of liturgy is improper, and I

think there's a case to be made for the biblical basis of fixed forms of liturgy, even though it

tends to not have characterized the Presbyterian tradition over time.

And I would say that we are ancestors of Cranmer, and by being ancestors of

Cranmer, in a sense, we are digging into our own tradition a little bit.

And that might be a minority report.

Some historians and liturgiologists might want to challenge me on that, but that's at least my take.

And part of my reason for writing Worship by Faith Alone is to do some inquiry into what might be valuable for my own local

church.

Well, thanks,.

Christopher, and please give us your full mailing address because you've also won Worship by Faith Alone, the book we are

addressing, and cvbbs .com will ship that out to you.

Also, there is a common apprehension of

evangelicals, perhaps more specifically from

Baptist and fundamentalist backgrounds, there's an apprehension whenever the word

liturgy pops up.

They either think of Romanism or they think of robotic,

rehearsed, rigid, dry, lifeless

repetition.

And I could say that I was just recently, this past weekend, visiting the church

of a friend of mine, Bill Shishko, who for decades was the pastor of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, who is now pastoring a church plant

called The Haven, a congregation of the OPC.

And they have adopted at the church plant, Bill Shishko has adopted a

liturgy of worship that seems somewhat different from the way they worshiped at the Franklin

Square Church.

It is an interesting combination, I actually enjoyed it very much, an interesting

combination of liturgy and congregational

responsive reading that was combined with great,

wonderful, grateful, God -glorifying emotion.

It was not a dull and dry monotonous

moaning of a liturgy.

I love that, yeah.

And in fact, at the end of every responsive reading,

you did not hear the very common, amen, you heard, hallelujah,

and thanks be to God, or hallelujah, and you know, it was just, and the way that even the

congregation was reading the, responsively, very

enthusiastic, because Bill Shishko was basically

breathing that atmosphere into the liturgy.

And I just found it very refreshing.

We do, I'm a Reformed Baptist, and the Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania does some responsive reading, but it's not every

Sunday, and it's not throughout the worship service.

In the Haven, in Comack, Long Island, they were really doing that throughout the

entire service.

And the message was actually broken up, where usually you hear a sermon that

starts, continues, and ends without interruption.

They kind of broke it up into segments, which was interesting.

But any thoughts on the apprehension that liturgy,

the word even, brings into the minds of people?

Because of course, that just means an order of worship.

Everybody has a liturgy.

That's right, that's right.

Even charismatic and Pentecostal churches that are unstructured have some kind of a liturgy,

usually.

But if you could please try to put people at ease or

educate them on the fact that they should not be paralyzed in fear or

repelled in fear by this.

Yeah, I mean, I would say that the critique there is always valid, mostly because liturgical

churches have tended to demonstrate the worst, you know?

It tends to be that we as human beings can't hold things together and say

if we were part of some kind of tradition that really prized emotional and emotional

expression, and then we ping pong to something more cerebral that we somehow view

the former as something we need to avoid, and so we become complicit in the very thing that

creates the critique of the kind of dead, robotic, unengaged liturgy

that is, quote, just from the heart, you know, because we want to do things as

Presbyterians say, decently and in order.

But when I look at the scriptures and I read the Psalms, the great prayer book of the

Bible and the prayer book of Jesus, I see those things held together.

I see those things expressed physically, emotionally.

When I hear the call of God in the great commandment to love him with everything, I hear

wrapped up in strength, my emotions, and who I am.

And when I look at the global church and I see the witness of the global church across

continents, what I find is the anomaly is liturgical worship that is lifeless,

and it's rather incomplete.

So I share the critique and I say it doesn't have to be, it just tends to be that a lot of our examples that

we've seen are that way, and I want to be part of solutions like the

Haven to say it doesn't have to.

We can actually have both and it's, in worship cultures,

each style and each way of worshiping has its blessings and liabilities, and I would say one of the

liabilities of liturgical worship that good liturgical leaders need to help fight against is the

liability for it to downshift into mere ritualism and downshift into mere going through the

motions.

That's a liability of that, just like there are liabilities of other kinds.

And so it's incumbent upon the leaders of those worship services to lead in ways

that actively recognize those liabilities with eyes wide open.

So I am for the schools that train liturgical leaders to lead from their personalities and

their hearts and to engage the emotion of the texts that we're all reading, responding,

singing, praying together.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, do you think

that what has become known as the Lord's Prayer was just a blueprint

for Christ's disciples, or should we actually recite that exact

prayer that we find in the scriptures during Sunday worship, especially if it is

every Sunday, as many churches do?

And how do we do that without being guilty of vain repetition?

And by the way, I want to let our listener B .B. know that the Haven did include

the Lord's Prayer in that service.

In fact, I have heard the Lord's Prayer recited in many Presbyterian churches.

But what is your response to that?

There's a couple of things going on there.

Was it intended to just be a blueprint and not to be repeated word for word the way it's written in the scripture?

And also, to include it, how are we not guilty of vain.

Repetition if we do it every week?

Yeah, I don't know if I have a good answer to that question other than maybe to say, as far as

intention goes, you know, Christ, when you pray, pray like this.

What does it mean to pray like this?

Does it mean pray in this structure and style or pray these specific words?

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure that it has to be an either or.

I wonder if it can be a both and, because I do find benefit in the Lord's Prayer providing structure

and shape to how God is approached in prayer and in worship.

And I have read and found great insights in exegeting the Lord's Prayer as a

kind of theology of the structure of worship.

That's fruitful.

And insofar as it is a blueprint for prayer, it would be valuable for churches to pray

that exact prayer because one of the functions of worship is catechetical.

It is formational.

And Christ, and sometimes people tend to conflate repetition with vain repetition.

Jared.

But that's an important modifier, vain.

You know, Christ wasn't necessarily critiquing repetition.

In fact, Christ would have worshipped in the synagogue with liturgies that would have engaged repetition.

If he was chanting certain psalms, there would have been plenty of that.

So, it's not repetition per se and doing the same thing over and over again in and of itself that is wrong.

It is doing that robotically and kind of in vanity or in a way

that might be doing it to seek God's pleasure.

If you think about the context of even Jesus' accusation of the Pharisees who were engaging that, one of the things Jesus

seemed to be concerned with was they were praying just to display their righteousness

before God and others.

That's the vanity that he found there.

It wasn't so much in the repetition, it was in the Christless, gospel -less

way of approaching God, which was basically saying, God, look at how great I am.

Whereas he would contrast that with the publican who simply prayed a prayer of confession,

Lord, have mercy upon me.

And he found that praiseworthy because he said, that's actually what good praying looks like, is dependence upon the Lord and

acknowledgement that I need him.

And so, I commend the publican against the Pharisee and eschew the

vain repetitions of the Pharisees, but I wouldn't want to lump that accusation in with every instance of

repetition in liturgies and in the church.

I think a perfect example of vain repetition.

I'm a former Roman Catholic, and not only former Roman Catholic, but

everyone who is presently in the Roman Catholic Church knows that when we

are perhaps in a confessional booth or just in

different times in our daily living, trying to

live out a Roman Catholic life, the prayers, even

a good prayer that is known as the Lord's Prayer, also more

recently known as the Disciple's Prayer, that has been turned into vain

repetition because I can remember clearly as a young Catholic altar boy

and a student in a Catholic school rattling off the words of the

Our Father, as we actually called it, say the Our Father.

We would read that, or not read it, but recite it from memory with such rapid

speed to get through the number of repetitions that we were told to

say, especially in a confessional booth, that they just became sounds,

and it almost became as if it was a magical incantation or spell of some kind.

You were not even paying any attention to what you were saying.

You just learned like a parrot to repeat and regurgitate those words,

and of course, they would include even idolatrous prayers like the Hail Mary and other things.

Yeah, and in that instance you're praying words, but you're using those words, as you say,

in an incantatory fashion in order to accomplish something else, which is to gain God's favor

or maybe atone for your sin, or you wouldn't want to say it like that

if you're in the Roman Catholic tradition, but you would say, in a sense, do penance or

do the things necessary that would put you in the state of God's grace for you once again.

And that's a different, funny enough, a different use than what Jesus prescribed when he said,

when you pray, pray like this.

Well, we have to go to our final break, and if you have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of

time.

This is going to be a much shorter break, so send in your questions to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We'll be right back with Zach Hicks right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back, Zach.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, was it enough of a

problem in Thomas Cranmer's day for him to speak out

against using worship.

As a form of entertainment?

That's an interesting question.

I don't know that he would quite have said or the categories of entertainment

would have been in his mind.

Certainly there would have been overlapping spheres of him viewing worship as becoming a spectacle

where the people up front did the work of worship on behalf of the people of

God who were there.

And once we put it in that language, yes, it was enough of a problem.

And Cranmer found that deeply theologically troubling because he believed in the priesthood of all believers and

he believed in the free proclamation of the gospel being given to everyone

and he believed that Christ is the only mediator between God and humanity.

So yes, he wanted to reform and recast worship in a way where people

could have unfettered and immediate access to God through Jesus Christ apart from

anything quote up front, whether that be the priest or the spectacle of

the way that communion was celebrated, all those sorts of things to him.

Though he wouldn't have used the words entertainment, he certainly would have used words like superstition.

He would have used words that danced around the idea that the people

are sitting there as observers, not as participants.

In a worship service.

Well, Susan Margaret, you've also won a free copy of the book and I'd like you to conclude the program,

Zach, by summarizing what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of.

Our listeners about this topic.

Yeah, when I investigated Cranmer and when I got

into this, I was someone who, just like everybody else, desperately needed

to know, to remember that God loves me through Jesus Christ.

And if I were to summarize the takeaway of my investigation, it would be that God really

is as gracious as he appears to be as we look at the face of Jesus Christ

in his death, burial, and resurrection.

And that that word unleashed for people really is the powerful thing.

And the only thing that can truly change hearts, change lives, and change the world, Jesus

really is enough.

In a way, that's the burden of worship by faith alone is to observe how one man thought that Jesus

was enough and then reformed worship according to that principle.

And I find myself on the other side of that deep dive and that academic work to be freshly

inspired that Jesus still is enough and maybe that's what we're here as

Christians to do, is to simply receive that and to give that to others.

And perhaps that can be really centering amidst all the other things that it seems that Christians, quote,

should be about.

We should be about the proclamation of that word, that Jesus Christ is enough for

us.

Amen.

Well, if anybody is visiting or lives in or near Birmingham,

Alabama, visit the website for Zach Hicks congregation, crossbham .org.

Cross the letter B, ham, dot org.

And if you want to purchase the book that we have been discussing today about

Thomas Cramner and liturgy, Cramner, the actual title is Worship by Faith

Alone, Thomas Cramner, the Book of Common Prayer and the Reformation of Liturgy.

Go to cvbbs .com, cvbbs .com.

And if they don't have it in stock, they will order it for you.

I want to thank you so much, Pastor Zach, for being such an exquisite and superb guest.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you

are a sinner.