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I’ll Take My Chances
By Bill Marsh | January 29, 2008
Mary Chapin Carpenter had a song in the early 90’s titled “I’ll Take My Chances.” I found myself humming that song to myself on Sunday morning as we worshipped in a very different tradition from our own while away on vacation. There are not a lot of options on Sunday mornings at the beach, particular in the middle of January. Unless you’re up for a 20-35 mile drive to a church in an orthodox and reformed denomination, the choices are pretty much liberal Episcopalian, squishy PCUSA, or a semi-fundamentalist Baptist congregation. Given the choice, I’ll take the Baptists every time. Let me explain.
Though their views of worship, music, culture, the covenants, Revelation 20, and polity are very different from my own, they actually believe that God has spoken in Scripture and applies that through His Spirit. And that we can know that truth. And that we are obliged to obey it. See, the other ecclesiastical options on the island have music more to my liking, probably have a millennial position closer to mine, and have a view of Christian liberty more consistent with my own. But what they don’t have is the Gospel. The virgin birth of Jesus as fully man yet still fully God, sinless life, propitiatory death, bodily resurrection, and physical ascension of Jesus, all in obedience to His Father’s plan to redeem a people for His own glory is a bit passe in those other places. It is cherished among my Baptist friends. So, though it may not be a church I could join if I lived here all the time, it is a faithful outpost of believers who love Christ and treasure His word. ”I’ll take my chances” — with them, every time.
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