The importance of primary sources seems to be lost on people looking for hype. Readers would do well to be more critical in their acceptance of information from hyped-up sources. It would save a lot of us from being labeled skeptics when really we’re just not as gullible.
Today I was doing a little tangential searching on the subject of bullying in school. I’ve seen several people quote a statement to the effect of:
At least 160,000 kids stay home each day because of the threat of bullying at school.
Since I’ve seen the same phrase quoted with different qualifiers (e.g., “As many as 160,000…, ” or, “An estimated 160,000 kids…,” etc.), I decided to do a little investigation.
A person on Facebook quoted this statement from a blog entry. The blog said it was from the “National Association of School Psychologists”.
On the National Association for School Psychologists website, the phrase is found in a PowerPoint presentation, and cites a written piece by Kathleen Vail called “Words That Wound”.
In “Words That Wound”, an essay by Kathleen Vail, Ms. Vail cites the National Association of School Psychologists.
So that path was a dead-end from what can be gleaned via the Internet.
I decided to look for other places that cite this particular statement—and found that it’s used almost ubiquitously, and that numerous authors are given credit for it.
One site cited a book by Fried and Fried written in 1996 called “Bullies and Victims”. In this book, Fried and Fried cite the “National Education Association”.
Assuming that this site refers to a 1995 Survey by the NEA, I’m still at a loss for where this number (160,000) comes from. The closest Survey I can find is this one, completed by the CDC, which addresses physical violence among other things. This, I believe, is where the assessment was garnered.
In the supporting document, the question that can best approach relevance on this topic is question number 15: “During the past 30 days, on how many days did you not go to school because you felt you would be unsafe at school or on your way to or from school?”
Out of the 10904 surveys received, 10212 answered “0 days”, 291 said “1 day”, 206 said “2 or 3 days”, 59 said “4 or 5 days”, and 115 said “6 days”. Out of 10904 surveys, 21 students did not answer.
The summary of the survey indicates nothing about students staying home every day for threat of bullying. Not even close, as far as I can read the data. Granted, I’m not a statistician, but this seems like blatant misinformation.
I am still researching, but it’s interesting so far. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
If you’d like to know my thoughts on the subject, tune in to this video by Steven Crowder…
Christ and the Apostles – rabbinical teaching: Christ walked, his disciples followed and committed to memory what he spoke. The disciples relied upon verbal tradition and communication, as well as miraculous gifts in prophecy to speak forth and write God’s inspired word.
The Apostles into early Christendom – the Apostles spoke, their traditions were committed to memory, and wrote in Greek to communicate their message. Common people relied wholly upon verbal tradition and the letters of the Apostles (which few could read for themselves).
Early Christendom – devout Christian followers who had the advantage of a noble education would begin to write regarding what they had heard or read. Common people relied almost wholly upon verbal tradition.
Early Medieval Christendom – Monasteries began to take converts who would be willing to devote all of their time to religious study (and, in many cases, contemplation) for the purpose of spreading Christianity. Common people relied upon verbal tradition mixed with educated biblical exegetes (monks).
Mid-to-Late Medieval Christendom – Monasteries saw that many would attend who merely wanted an education in liberal arts in order to give them a better understanding of language, logic, philosophy, etc. Common people relied upon verbal tradition mixed with educated biblical exegetes (monks).
Late Medieval (Western) Christendom – Universities began to arise (or amalgamate from combined religious monasteries) which would provide a broader education in liberal arts for many doctoral goals (law, theology, philosophy, etc.). Common people relied upon verbal tradition mixed with educated biblical theologians, who began to separate into theologians and biblical exegetes.
Late Medieval into (Western) Reformation Christendom – The Roman Catholic Church provided all guidance on scripture, as it was only available, primarily, in Latin (and some in Greek and Hebrew), and common people still did not know these languages.
Reformation Christendom – Universities thrive, and teach broadly. The bible begins to make its way to common languages, and splinters of different traditions became strong due—in part—to the availability of written resources (Lutheranism, early Presbyterianism, early Baptist, etc.).
Post-Reformation Christendom – Universities thrive, but stay within a philosophical and religious bent due to the demand (people want to better understand the bible now in their language). Local, smaller schools spring up to begin teaching the common people academically where possible, in order to understand what the bible says and what it means. Undergraduate schools are focused almost entirely upon teaching language for the purpose of knowledge of the bible.
European Christendom – Having interpreted many, deep, theological truths from the bible, several groups combine their resources and settle on the lot of confessions that we know even today. These confessions helped to show the differences in how biblical truth was understood and applied to the common man between different denominations of Christendom, and were very carefully crafted by numerous people over many years to reflect as accurately what the biblical text teaches as possible. Grammar schools spring up in more locations to help teach Christianity to the youngest of our generations.
18th—19th Century Christendom – Universities start to depart from religious focuses and become increasingly more liberal, especially aiding in the introduction of modernism. Anglicans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and the like spring up churches all over the West (even into America), helping to establish a strong educational system in numerous regions as well as a strong, Christian foundations in local schools.
Modern Day Christendom – In an incredibly short period of time, the massive education system and Christian foundation established over the previous 500+ years begins to be taken for granted as postmodernism enters the scene. Technology provides both (positively) an almost-infinite variety of educational methods and access to primary sources as well as (negatively) the most popular distractions and pastimes ever known. In a society where knowledge is literally at our fingertips—where we can accumulate massive amounts of data without leaving our homes, look up nearly any bit of information, and interact with scholars from almost anywhere in the world—we neglect our education more than ever in the history of Western civilization. In tandem, churches begin to depend not on education, theology, or biblical exegesis, but, instead, on entertainment and ways in which they can amass followings.
What was once the primary, motivating factor for *gaining* an education becomes the primary, motivating factor for the rise of education’s kitsch step-cousin: anti-intellectualism.
Churches have stopped helping the common man rise to an education at which point he can discern biblical truth and gain his own theological understanding of God’s Word, and have started to pander to his mostly-distracted apathy by finding ways of entertaining him enough to assent his allegiance to a particular brand so that the brand can claim a (most-likely false) conversion.
Open trashcan. Insert brain. Boot up computer. Surf Internet for entertainment. God who?
I have been attempting to distill, from my studies, where we, as the invisible church in our visible churches, have gone astray. Surely, we may profess Christianity, yet, in the process, we defile the very object of our worship by directly contradicting or failing to execute his written Word.
The following items, in no particular order, I believe to be far too common in our churches today. Except in some of the most conservative denominations, or, in other cases, the most conservative within broader denominations, we have committed many of the following errors. Yes, these errors may have been incidental at times, but, on the whole, these are now habits and practices adopted even by some who like to coin the “five solas” within their church’s mission statements or beliefs.
My hope is that this list convicts us to return to the most holy, ordained practices of our Lord, as prescribed in Scripture. Most importantly, if it does nothing else, I hope that it serves as a list of items about each of which we are not afraid to ask ourselves, “Have I failed to do this thing? Am I guilty of this mistake?”
Your comments and questions, even if they are to the contrary, are always welcome.
- We have failed to preach Christ and Him crucified.
- We have failed to make clear the exclusivity of Christ.
- We have failed to separate false doctrine from sound doctrine.
- We have either directly or indirectly supported false conversions in the use of the emotionally-charged altar call and/or decisional salvation.
- We have dishonored the traditions of the spiritual fathers in our faith by making a public mockery of either the traditions, the men and their followers, or both.
- We have lied by claiming inerrancy and authority of scripture without acting on this precious tenet.
- We have used scripture out of context, ambiguously, or by adapting it to inappropriate and unscriptural presuppositions.
- We have added to scripture whilst claiming a closed canon and whilst misrepresenting the concept of new, special revelation.
- We have adjusted the biblical definition of spiritual gifts to fit man-made counterfeits, casting doubt and disillusionment onto the existence (past or present) of the gifts at all.
- We have used piety and tiered systems to elevate one brother over another.
- We have cast aspersions on the practice prescribed by our Lord Jesus of laboring in the study of God’s Word, and, in a manner most “passive-aggressive”, created a class of false converts who do not even know the God they claim to worship except by “personal relationship” devoid of biblical knowledge.
- We have not held to the perspicuity of scripture on so-called “secondary” issues and, in efforts toward false peace and false unity, have opened the door (or sometimes blatantly given invitation) to the denial of essential Christian doctrines.
- We have claimed “Christian liberty” in order to entertain the desires of the flesh in corporate worship on the Lord’s Day, turning it into a fun-house of entertainment and worldly attractions.
- We have failed to remain even infinitesimally more righteous than the worst of the worldly—disparaging our Christian witness.
- In handling our public sins, we have failed to repent and show any contrition whatsoever, and, in an effort to permit our actions, we have misused biblical concepts of grace and forgiveness.
- In handling our public sins, we have failed to repent and show any contrition whatsoever, making a display of our sin as an example of the victim of this present age, turning the true state of man’s depravity on its head: devaluing the sovereignty of God and the efficacy of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
- We have used emotional manipulation to illicit a parody of faith and repentance from our congregations, making true conversion almost totally indistinguishable from false conversion.
- We have failed to edify the bride of Christ with the full teaching of scriptures, thereby allowing, among many other things, the false conversions to remain utterly unaware of their lack of holiness and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
- We have made a mockery of God’s third person, the Holy Spirit, by the use of subjective emotionalism identical to pagan practices as the proof of His presence instead of the recognition of sin, the abhorrence of sin, and the desire for God’s Word (the true marks of the Holy Spirit).
- We have marred the beauty and simplicity of God’s Word through extreme contextualization, wherein our ministers have added to or subtracted from not only the content of the Word of God but also the prescribed practice of presenting and teaching the Word of God.
- We have failed to mark and warn of ministers whose practices cause great harm to the body and message of Christ.
- We have catered to worldly activism by mixing discipleship with works to the point where the latter is used to prove the former rather than the former begetting the latter.
- We have confused the world and the church to the point that the world now sees the church as fertile soil for monetary gain, power, and fame.
- We have created idols in persons and programs, and/or allowed them to gain significant status without objection or warning.
- We have failed to recognize that the departure from Rome was done in order to prevent a group of divines from having a tyrannical, final authority on the interpretation of scripture; instead we have viewed this departure as the seed of postmodernism, wherein each person who interprets scripture is encouraged to determine his own definition apart from an education on languages, culture, or basic hermeneutics, and allow such private interpretations to go unchallenged in the name of relative truth.
- We have failed to uphold the biblical requirements of elders (pastors) and allowed unqualified men to go unpunished in the church’s pulpits, passively or actively teaching that repentance, humility and church discipline are not to be taken seriously.
- We have not only ignored the dangers shown by reformers in the use of adiaphora, but we have idolized adiaphora to a point where it represents everything that the reformers feared it could become and we have therein changed it from adiaphora to idolatry.
- We have misapplied the Old Testament as an anthology of fables and allegories wherein pithy moral lessons are to be distilled, rather than reasoning through all scripture to teach how it points to Christ and the attributes of God.
- We have allowed the ever-changing grid of human sciences to limit the static grid of God’s Word.
- We have exchanged the abominable practice of indulgences as a means to gain justification with God for the teaching of pietistic legalism and servitude as a means to gain alleged intimacy with God: each exchanges material human action (works) for Godly service (justification or sanctification)—a practice explicitly denied by scripture.
- We have pitted a counterfeit evangelism (wherein regeneration is evidenced simply by an emotionally-charged, peer-pressured profession) against real discipleship (wherein the congregation is grown into the more solid foods of doctrine by teaching), when Christ’s command to make disciples (teaching them all He has taught us) would satisfy true evangelism and true discipleship.
- We have allowed modalism and its ilk to gain traction because we now have a malnourished understanding of Trinitarian theology: our teachings are so emaciated that our own parishioners oftentimes commit the sin that modalists would point out (that of tritheism), or are simply crypto-modalists themselves.
- We have reduced soteriology so much that the gospel is all but lost and its purveyors are merely men who sell a product that—if well-marketed—may seem a little bit more attractive than the competition.
- We have denied the sufficiency and efficacy of God’s Word. First, by believing that more than just the Word must be preached in order to interest convince the unbeliever. Second, by forgetting that the gospel is used to both save and to condemn—that men who hear it and reject it are just as much under the sovereign power of God as men who hear it and are transformed by it.
- We have exchanged the concept of a pastor being the shepherd of his flock for the concept of a pastor being a celebrity: an unattainable untouchable in an unquestionable, unaccountable position.
- We have forgotten the narrow path for the remnant and embraced the wide path for as many men as can be wooed by the artificial light of a worldly church.
- We have lost holiness and reverence towards the almighty, Triune God.
- We have reduced the numerous apprehensible attributes of our Triune God to one (love) and redefined it to meet the cultural ideal: that of tolerance and uncritical, unconditional non-judgment; and we have done so to the point where this new god violates the very clear and immutable attributes of the Triune God by lacking the need to satisfy holy judgment, by having no problem with unrighteousness, and by believing that all human beings are inherently good.
- We have allowed branding and association define our theology whilst avoiding theology proper at all costs, yet, when we are confronted about our branding and associations, we claim the fallacy of “guilt by association” or “judging a book by its cover”. Do we not see that this is precisely what we are promoting in our disdain towards comprehensive confessions of faith?
- We have over-emphasized the need for aesthetic appeal during our worship services while allowing the doctrinal content to be malnourished (at best) or devoid (at worst): it is now easier to get a delicious latte at a church than to get an expositional sermon.
- We have sent our children to church programs that teach them how to play games, remain constantly stimulated by all forms of entertainment, avoid discipline and learning, and profess no understanding of scripture, and yet scratch our heads when 30-year-olds are doing the same things when they get home from their non-advancing, non-career jobs: they play video games, watch endless television programs, avoid any positive, disciplined habits, and have no understanding of their nominalistic faith.
- We have capitulated that God really doesn’t mind excessive alcohol consumption, gambling, raves, partying, tattoos, smoking, coarse joking, and the like, not because we have pored over scripture and found a lackadaisical, cavalier God who is not concerned with the holiness of His people (for such a God is not the God of the bible), but because we conveniently avoid the portions of scripture that we do not want to obey.
- We have replaced faith in the historic event of Christ’s resurrection providing an imputation of righteousness to all future believers with a more palatable assent that He was somehow an excellent, moral example whose sacrifice showed a “better way”—a way for our own moralistic improvements: that we can somehow “be” the gospel rather than “proclaim” the gospel.
- We have not recognized the error of antinomianism, and instead have perpetuated it by railing against fundamentalism as “religion” and having a complete disregard for the law as “relationship”, when, in fact, a truly regenerative relationship with Christ would cause us to aspire to obedience of the same law, to a brokenness when we realize we cannot, and to rejoicing in Christ that He has prevailed in satisfying what we could not.
On Friendship
What defines friendship today?
If you’ve watched R-rated crass guy movies like, I Love You Man, or Hangover, or even the less-crass and incredibly innocent sequel in Pixar’s Cars franchise, you’ll quickly ascertain the American definition. If I may paraphrase…
American friendship can be defined as the relationship between two people where one can act however one wants without fear of criticism and without fear of rejection.
As a generalization, that’s probably true—especially for guys. I would attempt to surmise what a girl friendship would be, but I’d end up writing volumes and volumes and I’d still be utterly wrong and clueless—such complexities are beyond my discipline and paygrade. Nonetheless, I don’t think this definition, since it is a simplification, is gender-specific.
What is the value of this type of friendship?
Well, certainly, it allows for my most base actions, reactions, and unfiltered mind vomit to have acceptance within a group of trusted secret-keepers. In other words, I can act out (whether maturely or immaturely), I can go totally unrestrained (“be myself”), I can do things that perhaps I am not allowed to do in mixed company, at the office, or in church, and I can tell my friends how I really feel—the unabridged version.
It sounds incredibly liberating. Almost like the quintessential summary scenes in almost all of Owen Wilson’s movies, where he’s convinced everyone to get along and they all end up having some sort of fantasy evening together (I apologize for the graphic suggestion, but I feel it’s relevant—stay with me).
But what if it’s not helpful at all?
What if, somewhere in the deeper recesses of my depraved mind, there’s something amiss?
Well, wait a moment—that might be what’s amiss. It’s a depraved mind, isn’t it?
Let’s review this again, but let’s put a more comprehensive, and (historic) Christian spin on it.
We can act however we want around each other.
As liberating as that may sound, when my kids get to “do whatever they really want”, they don’t exactly choose what’s best for themselves. If I allowed my 5-year-old, for instance, to choose his own meals, I’m not sure he’d last for more than 3 days before he’d be in the emergency room. Similarly, if I allowed my flesh to run a-muck with its base desires, I’d quit my job, play games or watch movies all day, and treat everyone around me as though they were simply in my way of “having a good time”. I dare not continue to dwell on what I would truly do to my family because, in my current frame of mind, it makes me sick to my stomach.
Really? Thinking about acting however I want would make me sick to my stomach? Clearly some will think that I’m nuts or that my thoughts are darker and more sinister or lascivious than the run-of-the-mill “good” person! But that’s just it: no one does good. Not one. Not me, not the sweet grandmother you might know—not one of us (Romans 3:10-12).
So while I’m acting like this, as we review, we notice that American friendship defines our friend’s role as one who does not criticize and does not reject. You may hear this in your own head as “don’t judge” or “don’t be holier-than-thou”, but it’s all the same. We, as the friends, are charged in this definition, with the responsibility of NOT confronting the companion on principle, because to do so would be to criticize and, at its logical end, possibly reject.
No one wants to be rejected by a friend. No one wants to be judged—well, at least judged to be in the wrong!
First, how does this line up with the historic Christian understanding of our waging a constant war against our flesh (Romans 8:13)? If we are putting to death the deeds of the body (according to flesh), shouldn’t we be striving—daily—to do good? Shouldn’t we be striving to understand more of God’s truth and to see the Holy Spirit sanctifying us? If, indeed, we are Christians, and yet we walk in darkness—in acts of our old selves or acts of our flesh—do we not betray that we are not practicing the truth (1 John 1:6)?
Suddenly, I look back to the example of Owen Wilson movies that I cited and I feel a twinge of pain. Was this really an appropriate movie? Was it really something that, by watching it and enjoying it, that I was using to satisfy my flesh? Alas, I cannot reconcile the two as coexistent; I cannot serve two masters. If I am truly to walk in the light, I cannot continue to do this in good conscience.
So as to the first point, it appears that acting however we want is, in almost all cases, not the best idea at all, but the opposite of the best idea—it goes against the very truths we seek to affirm in our lives for the assurance of our salvation: that I am daily being sanctified—not to perfection, but certainly, after a fashion, “trending upward”.
Secondly, I worry that the responsibilities of a true, Christian friend have been abrogated in this particular American definition. All Christians have a responsibility, first and foremost, to obey God. So what does He have to say about friendship?
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” – Proverbs 27:6
Hmph. Seems like maybe the writer got this backwards when compared to the discussed definition of friendship. In our definition, it’s the friends who are giving kisses and the enemies who are wounding us. But wait—the author here is one of those folks who was inspired by God, so, really, it’s essentially an authorship belonging to The Word (a.k.a. Jesus).
Further, we see some other good examples of Christian friendship: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love” (Proverbs 27:5—just a verse before our above example); “It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:5); “Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him” (Luke 17:3).
Now this changes things dramatically. We have inspired wisdom literature demonstrating that friendship includes rebuke. We have Jesus telling his disciples to rebuke one another in order that they may come to repentance.
So now we’re beginning to see that friendship—as defined by God—is a lot more difficult than the friendship purported by the world. God’s version of friendship includes the trust and ability between two friends to speak plainly to one another about sin in the others’ life. And, as a recipient of such a rebuke, we are to welcome it as a route to repentance and a better temporal life.
But, unfortunately, the complications don’t stop there.
You see, we have a funny way of “turning the tables” when we’re attacked. We don’t want people to judge us as wrong, remember? We may seem to accept these conditions, but, when push comes to shove, the rebuke is not really welcomed—it’s considered a sin in and of itself.
In our definition, even when partially repaired to include “rebuke”, the standard of conduct hasn’t really changed—just some of the terms of the game. See, the standard still says, “You aren’t really allowed to judge me,” and that doesn’t allow the new terms to work correctly. They flop on first try.
What do I mean? Do I have an example? Surely—I have had my own experiences on both sides. I have been rebuked—rightfully so, for biblical disobedience in one thing or another—and I have pulled the TONE card. “I don’t like your tone, therefore what you have said to me is not admissible in the Court of Frank.”
Hmph. It may not be tone for you. Perhaps it’s, “You’re not being loving,” or perhaps it’s, “You are pious and holier-than-thou.”
But wait… Doesn’t that put us back at square one again? Aren’t we just looking for ways out of the rebuke now? Surely—our flesh is shrewd like that. And this is exactly why we must crucify it daily. It is exactly why Paul described his own struggle in Romans 7 and is critical of himself for “doing what he does not want to do” because he knows it is wrong.
We are guilty as charged, regardless of how the evidence was acquired, how it was presented, or how much love is or is not in the delivery.
Might I suggest a different approach to friendship? Might I suggest something that defies our flesh and requires diligence, discipline, and vigilance? Might I suggest that we are perhaps too lazy for our own good, in that we will seek out complex and time-consuming work within our own minds just to determine an apt excuse for our sin or to discredit the accuser—when what is said is true anyway?
True friendship should be based upon the common bond between believers: the truth of the Word of God and the faith derived therein. Without this basis, friendship ceases to have long-term meaning. It ceases to be a means to benefit either party as at least one party is always at the mercy of another master—not truth. If that truth isn’t really the basis, there will be a moment when one or both parties must concede or compromise and it leaves the soul of the person torn in two—one half serving the idyllic definition of friendship, the other attempting to serve truth.
If we can start with truth, we can move forward—aiding one another in hope in the thoroughly persecuted job of sanctification, rather than pulling one another back down in strides of frivolity. We will—in time—become quite a bit better at our delivery of truth, because the true, Holy Spirit-driven increase in truth is truth-in-love—the love that would want to wound a friend for his own good, but to be precise and self-cauterizing enough to do so for his benefit.
Finally, as Christians, it is our duty to speak the truth to those that begin to wander into error.
“My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” - James 5:19-20
A true friend wants to fulfill that duty. Alas, he may be met with resistance or rejection, but God forbid he avoids it for the sake of satisfying the definition of an American friend.
I hope this helps. More than that, I hope that I can fulfill the tenets of the friendship as described by my Lord, whose ways are far greater than my own, and whose wisdom I must trust even when it contradicts that which I have known for so long.
(As an aside, my wife gets kudos for pointing out that I should add this next [and very vulnerable] section… Be kind.)
While I may sound like one who is an authority, I would be amiss in leading you, the reader, to believe such is the case on this topic. It is immensely close to my heart because I have many people in whose lives I have been privileged to share an investment, some of whom have summarily rejected me (and my family) or resisted my rebukes.
Perhaps my tone is amiss, perhaps my timing is poor, perhaps my statements are crude and my method of engagement is seemingly cold and callous. I have, by NO means, mastered eloquence. However, I do not believe that my cause for concern is purely out of self-righteousness. I suppose I could sit and point fingers, making accusations about my impressions of people’s lives, but the minute-by-minute frequency with which I produce and then rebuke my own depraved prejudices has already earned me the death penalty (for which Christ has paid the awful price).
Rather, I attempt to resist the urge to personally admonish until I am utterly compelled by something that I would consider a Scriptural mandate. If, in such a case, I am wrong, I would hope that a Christian friend would be willing to address and defend the content of my concern, rather than the method of its delivery—yet, so far, this has not been my experience.
So I wrote this post because of a question in my mind after these experiences: Do we, as modern American Christians, really even know what friendship is supposed to look like?
As I gain the experience to speak more about it, I shall. Until then, the above (which is my fallible distillation of biblical truth), is what I know.
As always, feel free to comment. Perhaps you can offer further distillation?
On The Temptation of Man
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15 ESV)
We struggle against something that we cannot understand apart from Scripture: sin.
If there were no Scripture, and we were simply to live as we desired, only the common grace of God would prevent us from utterly destroying one another for our own selfish desires. Of course, this would happen outside of our own direct knowledge. Perhaps some would have an inkling that something was “not right”, but it would not be a useful and practical knowledge gained by the special revelation of Scripture if such Scripture did not exist. Instead, such men would, acting in the Sovereignty of God, establish laws and systems to prevent the very extinction of our own race by our own hand.
If there were no Scripture, we would not be able to accurately identify the source of our problems. Not only would the source remain active and cancerous, but our counterfeit prescriptions would only prove to aggravate the real problem, bearing it out in other forms. Who can raise a dead man? The man himself? Certainly not; he is dead and has no power of his own. Without Scripture, he cannot even identify what is and is not of help to him. Moreover, he would not be able to act on anything with any measure of success because he is dead.
Now think on this: since Scripture does exist, would the same not apply if we chose not to read it? Even more subtly so, would the same problem apply if we chose only to read some of the Scripture, rather than the whole?
Yet we ignore the above realities. Instead, in our ignorance, we believe the cultural presuppositions that man is inherently good. Perhaps we believe some subtle version of it: where we are under the impression that the “renewing of the mind” spoken of in Scripture is a license to excuse our behavior as “inherently good” now that such a mind has been renewed. But this, again, is faulty—we are still susceptible to sin even though our hope lies in what Christ has done on the cross to pay for that sin.
Our exposure to culture’s misdiagnosis perhaps confuses us. In one sense, we learn that we were indeed wrong to assume that we had a problem that needed man-made prescription: in truth, we were slaves to sin before Christ. Unfortunately, our tendency to reduce salvation to the lowest-possible-requirements also stripped our understanding of Christian living to mimic carnality, excused by the man-made desire to “redeem culture” or aspects therein. We determined the smallest possible commitment level or simplest understanding of justification, and delivered this “elevator speech” in our evangelistic actions, such that the recipient might be quickened to regeneration in the most consumer-driven and user-friendly way. We have industrialized the gospel; we have moved from teaching the whole counsel of Scripture to teaching the absolute minimum amount required for an economical delivery to the masses.
We wash this down with a heavy dose of an anesthetic that believes the Word will not return void and that its efficacy is not dependent on dosage, and ignore the immense disobedience of Scripture, the carnality so pervasive within the walls of the church, and the rebellion of the flesh that quickly overtakes what we now question as false conversions.
Do we believe that the efficacy of the good news is immune to truncation? There is much room for a straw-man fallacy, of course, because one would be pitting a caricature of a formula (“easy-believism”) against another (full doctrinal dissertations).
But I would press us to consider the consequences of every teaching and of every evangelistic encounter. If faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of God, then what amount of that Word is sufficient? What paraphrase articulates the necessary passage of words? Of course the good news is no magic incantation—far from it. It is also imperative to understand that God’s grace will cover a multitude of mistakes by any of his missionaries. Nonetheless, it is something we must take more seriously!
With emaciated teaching, emaciated doctrine, and an emaciated gospel comes an emaciated church: a church whose believers are easily swept from one belief to another, having no root system on which to rely when winds come. I would go so far as to say that many of those shallow roots are ripped from shallow soil and cast away—leaving a person without a saving knowledge of Christ.
In a sense, the problem comes down to our ability to be tempted—as do most problems, because pride is a primary sin of the creature. We are tempted in a number of ways, perhaps more subtly than we would care to admit:
We are tempted by success.
It may not look like money and fame for all—perhaps it looks like the success of retaining a membership at one’s church, or the success of gaining a new demographic. Perhaps the success looks like claps from the congregation, or a parishioner who normally complains about content keeping silent for a week or two. It doesn’t matter what form in which it comes—it is success nonetheless. Of course, success is not evil in and of itself: it is merely “when a plan comes together” or when we see the expected outcome of our actions. These are “successes” and are not, in and of themselves, an indication of good or bad methodology, but they are surely part of what weighs in on our unvoiced desires to do one thing over another.
We are tempted by ease.
Quite simply, it is much easier for us to choose one thing over another because it is less work; its requirements are so significantly less than another option that, regardless of its rank in methodological appropriateness, it wins the day. These choices are often made outside of counsel from the Word of God or even from Godly men who demonstrate a vigilance against “taking the easy way out”.
We are tempted by conformity or non-conformity.
We rally to things that others are doing without regarding the consequences, or we purposely do something opposite in an effort to seem unique. What matters to us starts to be identified in its conformity or lack of conformity to others rather than to Scripture itself.
We are tempted by culture’s push for tolerance.
In many cases, we fall victim to a desire to be pleasing to those around us—even when we know they disagree. In today’s culture, “pleasing those around us” is to exercise a perverted form of tolerance that is really a passive approval more than it is a tolerance. This happens within the church for heteropraxy, heterodoxy, and even, in too many cases, for heresy.
We are tempted by culture’s push for unity.
Our desire for peace with those around us sometimes trumps our biblical convictions. Not to say that we should not unify with those who would see the most infinitesimal point and non-essentials differently than ourselves, but that even when major points of doctrine are at stake that can affect the eternal lives of our flocks, we are inclined to forego the difference for the sake of unity. Once again, the culture provides a perverted form of the word unity that is more akin to yoking with non-believers and false teachers. Don’t misunderstand: in all things with those that would claim to believe in Christ, we should seek to understand, accept, and/or correct their differences, but, when the doctrines that would impact eternal salvation (those that form the basis for things like the Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed) are at stake, we must not stand down and call the opposer “brother”, for this is confusion to the flock, poison to the ministry, and cancer to the church.
Undoubtedly, more temptations would seek to destabilize us from our perch in biblical teaching. But allow me, for a moment, to suggest to us a proven remedy: teach sound doctrine. It is through sound doctrine—biblical exposition—that we find absolute truth so as to distinguish it from error.
Do not be fooled in thinking that deviations from the core responsibility of the church—especially those that garner the favor of man so easily—will grow a healthy body.
To Christ alone be the glory!
(normal people as opposed to those in academia)
“While the core aspects of the Trinity are clearly presented in God’s Word, some of the side issues are not as explicitly clear. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God—but there is only one God. That is the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Beyond that, the issues are, to a certain extent, debatable and non-essential.” – GotQuestions.org, “What does the bible teach about the Trinity?”
As an Evangelical Christian, most of us are familiar with the term “Trinity”. We might even all be able to recite a hymn with that word in it, or at least give an explanation of who the three Persons are. Some might even be able to recite a creed or two.
Most of us have heard about it because it was a churchy word, and most of us don’t really typically think much of it.
Now if you’re a Oneness Pentecostal, you’re probably MORE familiar with the Doctrine of the Trinity than most, average, church-going Trinitarians. Why? Because you were taught to vehemently defend your contrary position that the Trinity is not a biblical doctrine at all.
This was not a big deal to me, at one time. In essence, I viewed it as over-scrupulousness; I thought, “Sheesh, there are probably more important issues we can argue about, or, even, avoid arguing about this one in general!”
I tended to think of the Doctrine of the Trinity as a very academic attempt to explain something that no one really understood anyway. I mean, we all know that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit make appearances in the bible but are, in fact, all God. So why bother with the difficulty in trying to explain it?
But something about there being conflicting ideas as to its explanation lingered in my mind as an annoyance that needed satisfaction.
It turns out that Trinitarian theology is vitally important in its most core assertion. This will likely raise the hackles of an stalwart Oneness person, but that’s the point.
Let me state plainly that the core of the Doctrine of the Trinity is absolutely necessary in a person’s understanding in order for regeneration. This is not to be confused with the concept that an academic knowledge of the vast complexities of that Doctrine are required to be memorized before a person can safely be considered “justified”, but that even the true acceptance of the Gospel itself is a tacit acceptance of the core truth of the Trinity. This will also cause problems because, just in case you didn’t read between the lines, it means that Oneness believers are, in fact, not believers until such time as they understand and accept the Personhood of the Father, the Personhood of the Son, and the Personhood of the Holy Spirit. To believe they are merely exclusive manifestations of that one essence is to believe in a different God.
I don’t say this lightly. Believe you me that I grappled with this because I came to it *convinced* that such deep, theological waters need not be tread for the sake of salvation; they were reserved merely for those that wanted extra credit work at Sunday School. I have many friends who have clearly stated their Oneness beliefs and the proof texts behind them. I pray for them and worry for them as a result.
Why is this concept so important? I don’t want this to be an exhaustive study on the differences and proof texts for Trinitarian and other theologies; those essays and counterpoints and books have already been written by far greater scholars than I (and even on both sides of the argument!). But I do want to make some basic tenets clear.
It is my desire that the following short list will help people who (like me) admittedly take the Trinitarian Doctrine for granted. Perhaps after this, the importance of actually knowing the God we believe in will become apparent.
- The Trinity is what we believe in salvation: God loves us (John 3:16) but needs His wrath propitiated (Romans 3:23). Jesus, being God, can and does propitiate that wrath (Romans 6:23) and imputes to us His righteousness, providing justification (Romans 3:24) and atonement for our sin. The Holy Spirit indwells us (Acts 2:38, Acts 5:32), regenerating us first to understand these truths (Ephesians 1:13, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, Titus 3:5), but also to live out a life aspiring towards the attributes of Christ Himself. For a moment, try to understand this same process of salvation if God could only ever be one of these manifestations at a time. It is why the adoption of the word “Person” exists—in order to give the full set of attributes and tandem workings of a person to each part of the Triune God.
- The Trinity is present in full at the baptism of Jesus Christ (Matthew 3:13-17). Most Evangelical Christians accept this at face value. Without the presence of the Triune God, the validation of Christ as Messiah would be at stake.
- Christ now sits at the right-hand of the Father, and has poured out the Holy Spirit on His disciples (Acts 2:33). For this to be true, each aspect of the Triune God must be regarded as individual Persons—though of the same substance and always United as one God. If the only account of God that we knew today was solely the Holy Spirit, the truth of Christ at the right-hand of the Father would be at stake, and the Father still being on the throne would also be at stake.
In these three instances, you can see that most Evangelical Christians accept the Doctrine of the Trinity, and that, to attest to something else, would mean to attest to a God that could not accomplish the above.
Remember, the Doctrine of the Trinity is not a comprehensive explanation of the Triune God—it is merely an amalgamation of a number of references in Scripture that agree on certain principals. These principals comprise the Doctrine of the Trinity. In other words, there is no *one* Scripture that says, “The Triune God is a Three-Person Trinity”; such a thing would prevent so many common heresies, surely! But instead, there are passages after passages whose explanations require the conclusion of a Three Person Unity within the Godhead.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: if the God of the bible cannot match the attributes described by something outside of the bible, it is NOT the God of the bible. If it is another god, it is a god that does NOT save, since the Christian God of the bible—specifically, the Person of His Son—is the exclusive Way to salvation.
Hopefully this helps!
For further study, the purpose of the Athanasian Creed was to distinguish the Christian Triune God from heresies of that time period. You can read it here. You can also read, at the same site, an excellent explanation of the Trinity.
In Christian (and I use that term loosely) churches today, most people, I’m afraid, don’t really read their bibles. I know I didn’t until more recently. But I don’t think it’s for lack of trying. In their defense, it’s really difficult to read the bible in the “I’m just going to pick up this book off of the shelf with whatever presuppositions I may have,” sort of vein.
When I would sit down to try and do it, say, 10 years ago, I would meet utter failure. That failure would come in a number of ways:
- It was too confusing from a language perspective. Yeah, I had the NIV and The Message, but that didn’t help for some reason.
- It was too confusing from a doctrinal perspective. I mean, I went to a church 10 years ago whose leaders always “heard from God” while they were reading their bibles. Mind you, they didn’t mean that the Holy Spirit quickened their mind to understand Scripture—they meant that they literally heard from God audibly or in some sort of impressionable sense in tandem with reading the Word (a game of semantics might be played here, but I can assure you that the folks I had as leaders at the time believed they were hearing audibly from God).
- It was contradictory to what I was hearing excerpted on Sunday mornings (and at all my weekly church events).
- It did not agree with me culturally, so I found it irrelevant anyway.
These are the problems that I faced. Perhaps you did or still do face these problems. I don’t entirely blame you, but I can’t shift that blame squarely onto someone else, because it’s essentially our own faults.
Guilt-tripping people into reading God’s Word? Really? No… Read on.
The church I attended was attractive to me because it spoke to me in a culturally-relevant, age-specific way, with enough irreverence to upset conservative folks whom I thought were meaningless in my life (this opinion has change, by the way). It also quoted snippets of parts of bible verses (no joke on the twice-sliced verse description) that, when mixed with an enormous amount of charisma and leadership and application seemed to be Godly ways for me to modify my behavior and get that biblical stamp-of-approval.
Sadly, this directly affected my bible reading dramatically (though I didn’t know it at the time).
You see, when I was confused from a language perspective, it was because I was taught that down-to-Earth, American English was the way God should be speaking to you (audibly), and if it was anything else (from academic to foreign), it required massive faith to understand some esoteric truth, usually reserved for the titans of my church leadership (you know, the Senior Pastors). So as I read things like:
“And the LORD answered me: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.’” (Habakkuk 2:2-3 ESV)
…I was confused. This, at face value, seemed like Habakkuk was being told by God to write some sort of vision onto tablets for people to read. Simple enough? No. Because my pastors (and many today) look at this verse and see some extraordinary call to write a church vision statement and to run the church like a corporate machine, basing all of its endeavors on this vision statement.
But for some reason, I didn’t see all that. So I would stop reading.
Take my second difficulty. Doctrinally, I looked at something like:
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” (1 Timothy 2:12 ESV)
…And I would be confused. Well that’s ridiculous! One of my Senior Pastors and several of my leaders are women in authority! I must be misinterpreting Paul in this verse. Add to that the fact that throughout the same book (1 Timothy) and its nearby books (2 Timothy and Titus), there are clear descriptions of elders and what their lives should look like to qualify as elders. Yet none of this matched my elders or pastors. Quite contrary to what was in the Word were the lives of my leaders, actually. Their responses? Some (again) esoteric, we-live-in-a-covenant-of-grace statement that excused all sorts of morally reprehensible failures or lifestyles while in leadership. After all, nobody’s perfect, right? (Ugh…)
What about verses that seemed to mean something so profound on Sunday but ceased to have the same, “Wow!” factor on Monday? I would read some of the verses from a sermon on, say, Developing The Riches God Really Wants You to Have, where the supporting verse for the entire 60-minute sermon was:
“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” (3 John 1:2 KJV)
But then I’d read that verse in my daily attempts to read the bible, and my ESV, including the rest of the greeting, says this:
“The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 1:1-4 ESV)
Now it doesn’t seem to talk about money and riches at all. What was I missing? Clearly, I must lack some sort of powerful faith that my leaders had in abundance.
Finally, as I would read through the bible, I would stumble on things that didn’t really connect with me at all. Take the book of Leviticus. It spends a majority of its text describing and prescribing types and methods of sacrifice. Well, we don’t sacrifice anymore. What does this have to do with me now? There was no sermon EVER in my 10 years that dealt with this book of the bible, or its subject matter. Yet a lingering thought in my brain said, “It’s there for SOME reason, right?”
So every attempt would end with the closing of the Holy Bible—the very Word of God delivered for all Christians for all time to know what God might say, was a frustrating tome of esoteric texts to me. Yet something still seemed wrong about my failure to read it, so I never gave up.
I’m glad I didn’t.
After ten years in a church whose focus was anything BUT teaching me how to read and understand my bible, I became zealous to understand what the bible really DID say.
At first, I looked to some people in my life who had always read the bible—morning after morning—and had lots to say about what they were reading. Some even had journals and margins in their bibles FULL of notes in their own hand. Because I wanted to learn how to have a similar understanding, I asked, “How did you know it meant this?” The answers would range from, “Well, God audibly told me,” to, “The Holy Spirit spoke to me and gave me this verse in my dream,” to, “I opened my bible at random and looked down after praying desperately and sincerely to God, and it was crystal clear that He wanted me to know…”
For me, these were not satisfactory answers (and, incidentally, they are NOT satisfactory answers). I began to doubt that these people even knew what they were reading—even with their copious notes. Why? Because the sources weren’t confirmed, and the private interpretations went unchecked! In any research, if you can’t show your work, the piece you write becomes practically (academically) useless if you have no sources. Similarly, in the biblical context, if these people couldn’t show me WHY Habakkuk 2 was telling them to write a family vision, I felt no obligation to believe them any more than any other worldly philosopher.
Please note: does this mean that if you have an impression as to what a text in the bible means that you cannot ever trust it? No, I don’t believe that. Without sources and double-checking your own work, there’s always a chance that you could be right. But—especially when you have just started reading and you’ve done no external research at all—why take that chance? We are charged to test every spirit (1 John 4), and remember that our heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), so trusting our own instinct to provide insight into God’s truth without any test can be very dangerous!
Shortly into my quest to understand the bible, I purchased a book called Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul. It’s in my recommended reading list because Dr. Sproul made something incredibly clear about reading the bible. It is simply true that no matter who we are, we will all come to the bible with some sort of doctrine or presupposition in mind. We already have some idea of Who we think God is, what we think He’s like, and how we think He should act. When we read, those presuppositions either meet confusion because they are contradicted (as in my case), or they meet validation because we warp the text to mean what we presupposed.
Very often, you’ll hear people ask this question: “What does this passage of Scripture mean to you?” Because of our culture and our upbringing, we find this to be a fair and innocent question. But according to the author, it is irrelevant what a passage means to us. Our hearts are deceitful and the only way to expose that wickedness is with an honest, un-biased reading of Scripture (cf. Jeremiah 17:9 and Hebrews 4:12-13).
Faith comes by hearing… the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Our faith does not come because we prayed some special Sinner’s Prayer or because we raised our hand or because we really want to change. It comes because we hear the Word of God. This powerful tool of God’s saves men’s souls. It does so when we open it honestly and try to understand what we are reading and hear that precious Good News and understand it.
But how can we understand it? Especially in light of my four problems above? Well, I can tell you what I did, and it seems to have gone pretty well so far…
- Language Difficulties: If you want to understand the language of the bible, get a “Study Bible”. I prefer the ESV, because it is an easy-to-read translation of the original text, and the “study” part means that the scholars who did the translating included a LOT of notes to help you understand what the text means. In the ESV Study Bible, there are massive write-ups throughout to help a person like myself become educated on why, to whom, by whom and for what purpose a book was written. (Let me point something else important out: The Message is by Eugene Peterson, and is a “paraphrase”. That means it is not an authoritative translation, but that Eugene Peterson did his own interpretation and then put it in a very loose paraphrase of his own design. It is not to be used for studying—ever. Personally, I only use it for odd references made by heretics, but if you want to read it so you can hear what Eugene thinks you should do, be my guest.)
- Doctrinal Difficulties: As Sproul points out, we ALL have some sort of doctrine—simple or complex, right or wrong, and even if we say, “I have no doctrine,” we are lying to ourselves. We all believe SOMETHING about God. Thus, if you are attempting to read with clarity, my best advice is to pull from resources from writers of the Protestant Reformation through to a hundred or so years ago. These are men whose works have been read by a LOT of scholars between then and now and evaluated by a NUMBER of opinions. Why does this help? Because you are not inundated with the latest “fad” understanding of a passage—instead, there is a time-tested commentary used by a host of denominations and churches to help to guide us in the simple-to-complex understanding of core doctrines. These can be compared when you read several at a time, and you can compare them to your first-blush understanding of the passage to see how well you fared. Man is fallible, yes, but there are men whose works have been treasured by the church for centuries that are incomparable to the works put out nowadays (especially compare to those in the “best sellers” rack at a local Christian bookstore, unfortunately).
- Contradictory from your Sunday Morning: When hearing verses out-of-context, go back and read them in context, even taking sermon notes and comparing the Pastor’s results of reading that passage to what you can plainly see in the context of that set of verses, chapter, or series of chapters. More often then not, you can garner at least a basic understanding of the verse by its context. A good example is Jeremiah 29:11, which is frequently quoted to make us feel that God has promised us some amazing destiny and prosperity. But the context around that verse is one of incredibly specific (and negative) judgment presented on a specific people at a specific time in history for a specific reason. Its relevance for us today is—at best—highly suspect.
- Cultural Difficulties: Culture is probably one of the hardest obstacles when trying to read Scripture accurately. We are influenced by our present-day culture tremendously, even though it is irrelevant to what God has to say (since His Word is timeless). Add to that the fact that the writers of the Scripture, though inspired, still wrote in terminology that was specific to the culture and time of their writing. As a result, scholars pour over these original texts and even other texts of that time to discern their meaning in present-day languages. If you have the luxury of learning ancient languages and history and cultural idioms, then you will have a very rich experience in reading the original texts. I do not have that luxury, so I rely upon others who have studies copiously to inform me. Modern scholars like R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Michael Horton, and lots of others, along with historic students of the bible like Spurgeon, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Augustine, and lots more. These men, of different times and backgrounds, have given a much better picture of what Scripture’s true and specific meaning is than my pastors of 10 years. Ideally, if you attend a church where the pastor actually studies and preaches using an expository method, you will have your scholar right there!
You have probably noticed that my list of scholars are all Reformers or Reformed in thought. I have found that, by and large, the authors of commentaries and other published works who have the most reverent and high views of Scripture are the Reformed and the Reformers themselves (Luther, of course, included). Most others have contributed tremendously, but very few with the same love and respect for the Scriptures as these men.
God’s Word, at least according to a declining majority of professing, Evangelical Christians, is the one source we can (almost) all agree is God-ordained. Why, if it bares the name of our Creator and the claim that it is the source of faith, would we ever want to neglect reading it, or neglect reading from it in our churches?
I hope this helps.
In Christ,
Frank
P.S. The book of Leviticus has a special meaning to me now. Since studying a survey of the books of the bible (Dust to Glory, with Dr. R.C. Sproul), I’ve come to appreciate it as a foreshadowing for the perfect sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, and why such a sacrifice can satisfy all of the requirements of the Law. In this, the Word is truly amazing!
Several scholars of our day have pointed out the problem of subjective emotionalism, or allowing experience determine truth. Sometimes almost akin to the mysticism so prevalent in Roman Catholicism, it finds its way into books, attitudes, sermons, church culture, and even the time we spend worshiping God on a Sunday or during a mid-week service or event dedicated to such.
Below is a tweet from Pastor Steve Kelly of Wave Church in Virginia Beach, VA.
This makes me wonder: does God’s presence, or our experience thereof, depend upon Darlene? I mean, what if I don’t have a “Darlene” nearby when I worship? Will the presence of God not come? Was it missing in the first place? Can I even measure it? Maybe there’s a meter, and the meter is pegged into the red when Darlene leads, but only in the green or yellow if I’m just worshiping alone, or with a group of liturgical Presbyterians with a Psalm and just a piano… Or maybe the meter is measuring the congregation’s hearts and fervor in worship? Clearly we now have pastors who can measure this, and Steve Kelly is clear that Darlene’s ability to “bring” such a presence is beyond that of anyone else.
What have we become? Why is such an emotional response part of our measure of God’s presence? I mean, I get all broken at the end of Meet The Robinsons when Rob Thomas starts singing—does that mean he’s bringing an incredible sense of God’s presence?
But what does the bible say of such things? In your study of the bible, do you find that God’s presence evokes heart-felt warm fuzzies from people? What I read is typically that God’s presence (when defined by Scripture) causes all who truly experience it to feel utterly shameful of their own sin (unclean) and unworthy of being in the presence of pure holiness:
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5 ESV)
Is that the presence about which Steve Kelly is speaking? That is the presence of God, after all, and if he doesn’t mean that presence—well then, exactly what presence does he mean? Better yet, what god’s presence did he really experience? The measure of that experience, if not a recognition of the shameful and sinful and unclean nature of man, is what, exactly? Our deceitful hearts?
Furthermore, this whole concept of a worship leader aiding us to meet some sort of presence (whether it’s the leader bringing it to the people or the leader bringing the people to it) is a subtle, pervasive, unbiblical idea . It’s subtle because it seems so legitimate. I’ve been there and experienced worship that I really felt was extraordinary, even believing that I was somehow experiencing God in a way. Why not, right? What’s so wrong with that? It seems harmless.
But it is not.
Once you experience this feeling, you are compelled to seek it again. And again. And again. That’s why conferences need sequels, and the typical conference attendee attends not only more than one conference per year, but also strives to model their weekly worship service after the conference itself.
I’ll leave you with some Scripture that describes the primary activity of the New Testament church. You’ll note that none of the Apostles are echoing Steve Kelly’s sentiments about the worship music at their meetings. Funny: they rarely mention music in passages describing the church’s activities, let alone offer praise to the “worship leaders” as if they somehow are responsible for the greatness or lack of God’s presence in a place…
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:42 ESV)
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:1-4 ESV)
On Bitterness and Truth
Bitterness is a word I’ve heard used more commonly by pop-culture evangelicals more than anyone else. Of course, that is where I spent a great deal of my time, but compared to the corporate environment, social occasions and even more traditional, orthodox faiths, it seems to find its home more in the mainstream pop-culture version of the church.
What does it mean?
Mostly, I’ve heard it used to define a deep-rooted discontent that actively festers, causing a person to change his or her behavior to conform to the support and demonstration of that discontent. For example, if a person voted for “the other guy” in the American Presidency, it’s 3 years later, and he or she is still finding ways to make every conversation bend to the discussion of the President and how discontent he or she is with the person fulfilling the office.
Sure, I can see that. The person is bitter. He or she has bitterness about the whole election so many moons ago. Seems to be a good waste of time and energy, certainly. I can agree with that.
But you didn’t come here to read about amorphous examples of bitterness. So let’s get personal, then.
First, let’s quickly eradicate some misnomers.
Many have assumed that I have had some sort of personal offenses hurled into my life by a former church and/or its leaders. Yes, years ago (circa 2005), the pastors I knew and loved didn’t come to the hospital to visit my wife and I for the birth of our first son (Whew! There, I got it off of my chest!). They also ignored us and made us feel bad for not participating in church for about 3-4 months. This was painful, yes. However, we eventually decided to reconcile with them and return—and all was forgiven. Truly! Years later, I would leave that church, but not because anything was done to me or anyone in my immediate family by the church or its leaders. Any dissatisfaction we may have had was rooted entirely in our own blissful ignorance or our own decision to cater to our flesh, which we did for nearly a decade. More than anyone else, I blame myself, as the man responsible for my household.
Many have assumed that I have some sort of vendetta against an entire denomination. I must admit that I find some denominations completely inexplicable, though I harbor no ill-will towards any of them. I have attended Pentecostal, Baptist, non-denominational Charismatic, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches, and, by and large, have no specific malice toward any of them. Moreover, I know and know very well Pentecostals, Charismatics in several and no denominations, Lutherans, and Presbyterians—and I believe a great majority of the ones I know well are truly believers in Christ and, by the grace of God alone, we will all fall flat on our faces to worship our Lord in heaven. So believing that I have that vendetta is a bit far-fetched. I do focus on errors which tend to live in a particular denomination more-so than others, but this is merely the by-product of my experience, which has been in Pentecostal and Charismatic congregations. Again: I still have friends in these denominations who are not compromised in their salvation.
Many have assumed that I believe only a specific denomination *truly* represents biblical Christianity. I actually chuckle a bit at this assumption. No entire denomination represents “biblical Christianity” anymore than the entire human race represents Christians—each is wrought with sinful men some of whom are far from God and others of whom are certainly part of the elect (even those that prefer not to believe in “the elect”). I, for one, would enjoy worshiping God in any of *three* particular denominations, but mostly because their conclusions about Scripture match my own—so even if we’re looking at preference, I’m not so particular as to feel the need to specify more than that.
HOWEVER… I do not ascribe all alleged Christians the rite-of-passage of the term “regenerate believer” just because they come to “a different conclusion” than I on certain Scriptural matters. I do have standards, and I believe that Scripture betrays certain standards from God, as well, to which I strive to conform my own. I’ll not get into specifics here, but suffice to say that I am much more comfortable in congregations that provide their beliefs in the form of confessions readable and measurable by Scripture. This shows some credibility and conviction in their research of Scripture, rather than that of a wishy-washy, ambiguous statement of faith (or lack thereof) so as “not to offend”. A lack of true, black-and-white beliefs within a specific church body is like pouring kerosene all over the ground and chain-smoking cigarettes over the puddle: eventually, things are going to get… hot.
It is my conviction that the bible means certain things, and not others. I am frank on a number of them, as well…
- The bible does not promise or hint at a life of material prosperity for Christians. It promises persecution even unto death.
- The bible does not promise or hint at a life of health and happiness for Christians. It promises persecution even unto death.
- The bible does not support a single attribute of God to the detriment of others. God is holy and just as much as He is love.
- Faith (salvation) comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. Specifically, the good news of our sin, our deserved punishment, Christ, His perfection and His atoning sacrifice in His crucifixion.
These are just the start—not a conclusive list in the least, and certainly not prioritized.
I did not come to these conclusions because someone told me. I don’t want to be like someone else and these are their beliefs. I am not a “Calvinist” because I agree with John Calvin. I am not a Puritan because I agree with Jonathan Edwards.
I have read and I have been, by the grace of God through His Holy Spirit, capable of understanding what I read in Scripture. Not because some inner voice audibly tells me what cryptic biblical passages say. Not because I read some celebrity pastor’s commentary or sermon notes or life-application book. Not because I performed some sort of meditation. Not because I gave someone a seed offering. Not because I went to a revival.
I understand Scripture because I study. I read the context of the verse, I read many commentaries (some of different theological perspectives), and I strive to understand what God intended to say, the people to whom he was speaking, and the reason for writing it in such a way. This takes work, time, effort, and—above all else—the Holy Spirit to give me the clarity and desire to know truth.
I do get upset. This is why it appears, at times, that I am bitter. But I assure you I am not. I am sometimes angered and/or saddened by the deceptions that plague our so-called Christianity. They are innumerable, pervasive, and, at times, brilliantly subtle. So if you think I am critical, divisive, and bitter, understand that my conviction is not for popularity or smiles at parties—it is a conviction stubbornly set upon finding truth amongst great and reckless error.
All the while, in myself and in others, I have seen a struggle to question existing convictions, to study with discipline, to believe that something written can and does trump something experienced. I urge myself and I urge all of you: do not give up on truth just because the lie or the experience is easier to believe.
Determine to know the truth—wherever it may lead you.
If some think you’re “bitter” along the way… Use the opportunity and take inventory: for we are all fallible and capable of going into the downward spiral of pietism and self-righteousness. Once you’ve taken inventory, remember that the truth is sometimes difficult. For you, for me, for others… “As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:5).
A Faulty Definition of Sin
So if I don’t understand sin, can I understand anything about the Gospel? Can I even understand the purpose of the Law?
As I grew up, I attended several different churches from varying traditions. In these places, sin was not an avoided topic (and yes, there are definitely some churches whose pastors purposely avoid speaking about sin). It was merely defined very specifically.
It was a “sin” to sleep with someone outside of marriage.
It was a “sin” to curse a lot (occasionally potty-mouth wasn’t really labeled “sin”).
It was a “sin” to use God’s name in vain (which meant cursing with His name in it).
It was “sin” to murder someone, steal from a store, or to lie all the time.
There were others, of course. As a matter of fact, each church sort of had a different regimen of “sins” that you would learn so that you knew what you could and could not do around the leadership.
The above statement should be a great indicator of my motivation at the time.
So, with these definitions of “sin” in mind, thinking about what Christ did on the cross had different implications for me. At the time, I recognized that Christ died for all my sins—past, present and future. I was even taught the orthodox belief that there was nothing I could do to make Him turn His back on me. But there was a severe deficiency in the value I prescribed to Christ’s crucifixion, because there was a severe deficiency in understanding how sinful I really am.
See, “sin”, to me, at that time, was something that you would commit now and again. If I cursed, that was a sin. If I happened to lie—that was a sin. If I slept with a girl outside of marriage—that was a BIG sin. Most of the time, for most of my life, I didn’t do a lot of these things, so I felt I was in pretty good shape. I mean, I knew some guys that had done much more than I and were in a lot more serious trouble, so I figured I was better off, or, at least, somehow more Christian.
Thus, to me, the value of Christ’s work on the cross was minimized. I still thought it was a great work: it took care of those occasional moments when I would “slip up” and “sin”. Those moments few and far between when I would let a four-letter word slip or when I would tell a lie.
Yeah, I had heard the line, “Have you ever lied before?” I raised my hand at those events where someone asked that question. Of course. Everyone’s sinned—even in my emaciated definition. So when I read passages like Romans 3:23: “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”
Are you getting the point? Do you happen to relate, perhaps?
The problem with this definition of sin is that it’s wrong—completely wrong. Its inadequacy is terrible: calling sin an occasional problem for man is like calling water an occasional ingredient in the ocean.
Jesus Christ said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38 ESV).
I’ve heard this verse before. But what does it mean? If we take it for its clearest reading, we must recognize that we fail to honor a command (the greatest command) of the Lord, for no one has ever loved God with all of his heart, soul and mind for every moment of every day. At some second, every one of us has violated (and will continue to do so!) this command!
Now it doesn’t matter if we don’t lie, don’t steal, or don’t kill—for truly: all have failed to do this one, seemingly simply command—every one of us, all the time.
This changes the value system quite a lot. So much so, that I think Christ recognized this disparity in thinking when he said, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Luke 7:47 ESV).
God’s Law is meant to show us our sin—to show us how we are thoroughly sinful (cf. Romans 7:7). The Gospel is there to show us that because we do not have the ability to stop sinning in ourselves, Christ’s defeat of sin and death erases the debt that we cannot, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit begins a work in us that we cannot: to be free from bondage to sin and to be a slave to righteousness!
So the question is now framed: if our definition of sin is wrong—by being inadequate or marginalized—does it make the Gospel valuable? Does God’s Law have any purpose?
Unfortunately, I can speak from experience that a bad definition of sin creates:
If you, too, know only the emaciated definition of sin, you may also have been under a faulty impression of the Gospel, and you, too, may have been taking such a beautiful thing for granted.
Fear not! The Good News is still proclaimed at churches who faithful administer the Sacraments (communion and baptism) and whose pastors faithfully preach the Word of God. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re funny, entertaining, and dynamic—though I hope they are passionate! Preaching the Word of God means that they take the time to read Scripture—typically several verses or an entire chapter—and that they then show the historic setting of that passage, the grammar of that passage, and what the author’s intent was in that passage. This is called expositional preaching, and it helps the congregation to understand the actual meaning of the text—not just the person’s opinion, or “what they think it means”. In other words, since we know God speaks to us through His Word, it would be a really good idea for us to have a pastor who takes seriously what the Word of God is actually trying to say.*
You can also check out some of the Recommended Resources on our blog.
* – As an aside, this was very difficult for my wife and I, at first. We had to search for a long time, and we also had to listen to a lot of sermons (on CD, streamed over the Internet, or downloaded MP3s) to sort of “unlearn” the way in which our former pastors would talk about life issues and occasionally throw in something from the bible as if it supported their thoughts. If you aren’t sure, take my advice and listen to Pirate Christian Radio—specifically Fighting for The Faith. Chris Rosebrough—the host—takes the listeners through a typical evangelical sermon (sometimes a good one, but most times a bad one) and points out where the speaker deviates from Scripture, as well as when the speaker is faithful to Scripture.