By 
Once upon a time, a man was invited to be the minister of a large, and orthodox church. They wanted someone with traditional reformed views, they said, who would preach and teach well.
He was very enthusiastic.
What he discovered was that by Reformed they meant, that they loved the words and ambience of the seventeenth century. They loved it so much they had bought a large seventeenth century dining table specially so that they could celebrate the Lord’s Supper as the Reformers would have done.
But the meaning of those words that they loved and the Bible they adored had never been explained to them – and when the man did that, the church resisted him until he left.
They were, theologically, just antique dealers. They loved the smell of the polish, the patina of age. But the reality of what those Reformers fought for eluded them. The history was all for effect.
And while they lovingly polished their antique table, the denomination they were part of collapsed into liberalism.
True story. Not a parable at all.
Are you an antique dealer?
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