An Example of Genuine Reformation

Aug 19 2022 - Eric Buresh

In his July 14 post (Are you turning?), Pastor Raby writes about King Jeroboam in 1 Kings 13, who heard the Word of God and stubbornly refused to turn from his evil ways. Jeroboam was a negative example, i.e., don’t be like him. As we continued through this section of Scripture together on the One Story reading plan, we also saw some positive pictures of genuine reformation. For example, look at the story of King Josiah in 2 Kings 23. Before his reign, the kingdom of Judah had been led into all kinds of idolatry, pagan worship, human sacrifice, divinations, prostitution, etc. The temples had been defiled, idols were everywhere, things were a huge mess.

Josiah found a copy of the Book of the Covenant (thought to be Deuteronomy) in one of the temples, and he brought all the people together to Jerusalem to hear him read the Book. After he had read the Book, “the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.” 2 Kings 23:3 (notice the bolded reference to Deuteronomy 6:5). Then, in the next 20 versus (4-24), Josiah reforms the kingdom by destroying idols, purging the temples, removing false gods and false priests, “that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.” Josiah’s turning back to the words of the Book, his reformation of the kingdom, was so intense that the story concludes with this summary: “Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him.” (25).

I love this story! I want reformation! I want to hear the Word by the teaching of the Spirit, and I want to personally be reformed in whatever areas of my life are not in keeping with it. I want to see our body (our church) reformed in whatever areas of its collective life are not in keeping with the Word. I desire as much reformation as God will give in His timing and wisdom. We should all be passionate proponents of reformation. It’s a glorious thing. Historically throughout church history, reformation has simply referred to an act of God whereby He directs his people back to his Word and proper worship of Him. It is the same call for returning that Jeroboam rejected and that Josiah heartily embraced. You don’t have to be a 5-point Calvinist to be reformed in the historical and Biblical sense. You simply must hear the Word and be willing to reform to it in whatever ways that the Holy Spirit shows you are not in line with what you hear. Let’s follow Josiah’s lead! Let’s all be reformed together!