Some errors never die.

I am telling you today that something’s never die. Something’s just hang around and continue to morph and take other forms, but the core, their center is still the same. One of those things is theological error. Irenaeus of Lyons sums up error very succinctly with this definition---- “Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced more true than truth itself.”

One such error that has been able to wear a myriad of dresses is that old evil theological error of Marcionism. You are thinking what? Never heard of such a thing...well, that is most likely because it is so old and took place in the middle of the second century.

Back in the early church there was this bishop named Marcion who was extremely influential in that he succeeded in establishing churches of his own to rival the Catholic Church for the next two centuries. He was labeled a heretic and was excommunicated from the Roman church around 144 AD.

What was so dangerous about this man? Well, Marcion concluded that many of the teachings of Jesus were incompatible with the actions of the God of the Old Testament.  Marcion responded by developing a dualist system of belief around the year 144 AD. This dual-god notion allowed Marcion to reconcile supposed contradictions between Old Covenant theology and the Gospel message proclaimed by Jesus.

The main premise of Marcion's teachings were that the God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament can not be reconciled. So Marcion set out to edit his own versions of the biblical books. Marcion's edited version of the Scriptures were known by The Gospel of the Lord.

Marcion did not like the picture of how the Old Testament presented God. The God of the Old Testament was wrathful and angry, and Marcion could not reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the Jesus of the New Testament, so he simply dismissed the God of the Old Testament as a Demiurge.

It seems that in some ways Marcion lives on today...maybe in another dress, but error nonetheless. How does his teaching live on today? Our modern liberal religious climate gives his error great soil to grow and take root.

The notion that God is only love, the notion that Jesus only came to show love, the notion that the primary mission and message of Jesus was to feed the poor and physically heal those who needed medical help. The notion of God punishing sin, judging sin, being angry at sin and the sinner is dismissed as some ancient tribal myth.

The next step that our modern liberal religious elite take is to edit the parts of the New Testament that does not fit in with their narrative of what God is supposed to look like. In the end we have idols that have been concocted in the depraved minds of those who reject the revelation of God throughout the whole sixty-six books of the Canon.

The liberal religious thinking of today has created a God that does not reconcile with the God that is presented in the whole of the Canon of Scripture. Their God is only love, sin never will be punished, in fact the notion of sin is dismissed as some old fashioned guilt tool used to manipulate the masses.

Let us heed the words of our old friend, Pastor J.C. Ryle:

Let us read our Bibles in private more, and with more pains and diligence. Ignorance of Scripture is the root of all error, and makes a person helpless in the hand of the devil. There is less private Bible reading, I suspect, than there was fifty years ago. I never can believe that so many men and women would have been “tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine,” some falling into skepticism, some rushing into the wildest and narrowest fanaticism, and some going over to Rome, if there had not grown up a habit of lazy, superficial, careless, perfunctory reading of God’s Word. “You do err not knowing the Scriptures” (Matt. 22:29). The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home

Truth Divides

Truth has a way of drawing a line in the sand; a unique way of calling the class to separate sides of the room. Truth can divide the best of friends, separate churches, split bible colleges and seminaries, and in the end it calls each man to take a stand.

So what is this thing called truth? Here is a simple definition given by John MacArthur in his book Truth Wars, "truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God." Do you see a thread here? A common link as to what truth is? Truth is the self-expression of God. The Old Testament shows us that God is the God of truth (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 31:5; Isaiah 65:16).

Jesus claimed to be the truth along with claiming to be the way and the life (John 14:6). In Jesus claiming to be the truth, He was making the claim of deity for himself. This was the reason that on more than one occasion the religious elite tried to kill him (John 8:58-59; 10:30-33).

We have a choice to make when the truth is presented to us...do we submit to God's standards of truth or do we deny God's truth and create our own truth? When the human soul denies God's absolute truth he/she is by default turning to the prince of lies, to the one who in the beginning turned God's creation against Him.

Satan is presented to us in Scripture as the antithesis of truth. He is called the prince of the power of the air... Ephesians 2:2. The Living Bible puts it like this: "You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil--the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God."

The reality of life is that there is a spiritual battle raging. The forces of darkness do not want man to ponder the reality of absolute truth...MacArthur notes in Truth Wars, " The moment you begin to ponder the essence of truth, you are brought face-to-face with the requirement of a universal absolute---the eternal reality of God."

We are living in a culture and time that says that truth can not be known, and if it can be known, it can't ever be known perfectly. The postmodern thinker disdains absolute truth. Absolute truth to the unconverted postmodern mind is anathema. The postmodern lives in the gray areas of life, they have blurred the line between certainty and uncertainty. They presume that truth resides in all of us. But the follower of Christ knows that truth is found outside of himself, and that is in the sacred Scriptures.

But for the orthodox Bible believing Christian we reject the notion that truth resides within us. We reject the notion that if we just dig deep enough we can find truth inside of us.

The true regenerated believer has been given the Spirit of truth as 1 John 2:19-21 tells us:

"But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth."

Fit Bodies, Fat Minds!

         

      

I'm just taken with the idea of the "thinking process," or the "life of the mind." My last post dealt with the importance of being critical thinkers and developing the ability to think deeper so that we become the owners of the truth or concepts that we are trying to understand. It bothers me to see so many in the Christian community just parroting their pastor or their favorite Christian author. It truly is the bane of the Church...we have become in many respects mere lemmings.

I love the title of Os Guinness's book, "FIT BODIES FAT MINDS." Guinness puts forth the argument that one of the leading problems in American evangelicalism is...anti-intellectualism. "Anti-intellectualism is a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind," says Guinness. He continues this thought, “Living in a sensuous culture and an increasingly emotional democracy, American evangelicals in the last generation have simultaneously toned up their bodies and dumbed down their minds."

We live in a Joel Osteen culture... where feeling good, and having your best life now has become the Christian manifesto. Osteen's positive thinking messages appeal to many who love to feel emotionally satiated. Our culture prizes feeling good, experiencing emotional peace, and where the idea of feeling secure far out weighs the concept of  seeking absolute truth. Positive thinking has become prized above reflection and hard critical thinking about the eternal truths of God's word.

The Christian community has suffered tremendously from this lack of thinking and love of feeling good. Guinness tells us:

" Evangelical anti-intellectualism bears on many of the problems of evangelicalism...superficial or bad theology, the lack of serious apology for the faith, the lack of constructive public philosophy, and the continued defections of thinking evangelicals in the direction of Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy."

Let me provide a snap shot of the love of the mind from the origins of Harvard Divinity School. The study of theology at Harvard can be traced back to the very beginning of Harvard College, when an initial fund of 400 pounds from the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony established the College in 1636. The founders of Harvard recorded their reasons for establishing this center of learning:


"After God had carried us safe to New England and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government: One of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust."

When the believer develops a Christian worldview...which takes time, hard work, and much reading... then he can go out and apologize for the "faith that was once delivered unto the saints." The body of Christ must be able to speak to all aspects of life: education, science, government, and all things that make up society.

Where do I start, always with an open Bible?

The Life of the Mind

To think or not to think, that is the question! Research shows that the amount of time that someone spends making a choice affects what kind of information they use to make that choice. What implications does this have for the Christian life? How much time do we spend making our decisions? Where do you go to get your information when you are making life's decisions?

A driving goal for educators is to cultivate a natural level of inquiry. So for the child of God, do we have the desire to go to the source book for our information? The process of gathering information is one step in the process, but the next step is the process of thinking.

I'd like to look at the process of thinking assuming that you already went to God's inspired and inerrant word to get your information. Let me also add that  there are many other sources of spiritual advice that the believer can make available to himself: commentaries, topical books, Christian seminars, advice from other Christians etc.

It is not enough just to read our Bibles. We must think and think hard. We must ask penetrating questions and allow the Bible to answer those questions for us. The cultivation of the mind is hard work. The Apostle Paul urges Timothy to "think carefully, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything" (2 Tim. 2:7).

I didn't do a count on how many times the bible uses the words thinking or mind, but from a quick glance it seems that there are many  passages that deal with our minds and how we think. One of the most well known texts of Scripures is Philippians 4:8... Paul urges his listeners to "think about certain things..." this is how the Christian mind is cultivated...through hard and intentional thinking.

Paul then urges his readers in Romans 12:2  to be transformed by the "renewing of their minds;" and the results would be that they could  then discern what is the will of God, and what is good and acceptable and perfect. This process of thinking and having our thinking influenced by the wisdom and mind of God is the most richest treasure that we have as believers...John Piper tells us that "thinking is indispensable on the path to passion for God."

So believers, we are to love God with all our minds. We must be intentional in allowing God's truths to go deep inside of us and make us alive. We are to be "set on fire" by the pure truth of God's word.

My concern is that for too long the church has been ambivalent about the life of the mind. I personally lament the lack of thinkers in our evangelical culture. We need deep thinkers. We need Christians who can articulate a Christian worldview with passion and integrity.


Application: Start a plan where you do more than just read and parrot information. Write out thoughts. Write out your understanding of a text or biblical idea as if you had to convince a class of non-believers. Keep a journal of important truths that hit home or where God was speaking to you through a particular text. Cultivate your mind for the Glory of the King.

The Sleeping Church.

The Sleeping Church.

As I observe what is happening around us socially and politically, I see a culture that has abandoned God and has drifted into the high seas of moral relativism. My take on our culture is that we have lost our moorings, and our moral foundation has crumbled. It is a scary thing to be adrift without a sail. We as a society are drifting along the dark seas without a sail or compass.

How did we get here? And what are the consequences? As I read the first chapter of the book of Romans, three times the Apostle Paul uses the term "God gave them up." For any society or kingdom the road to destruction is always the same; ruin comes slowly and gradually. When society moves away from the rule of law, when society moves away from God as the sovereign King, that society starts a downward spiral and drift into the black hole of corruption.

From a theological perspective when God gives an individual or society over to their own ways it is an indictment of God's ultimate wrath...it is the surest sign that God has turned His back and removed His restraining grace which allows for evil and depravity to run rampant.

How did we get to where we are at? That question can't be answered with one answer, but I’ll provide at least one answer that I believe is undeniable. The Church of Jesus Christ went to sleep, and as she was sleeping the Prince of the power of the air was busy doing his work.




While the Church was asleep, the ungodly, the secularist, the depraved mind of man was busy implementing his poisonous world view that has permeated all of our society. Whenever the Church of Jesus Christ pulls out of society and ceases to be light and salt there is left a moral vacuum which will always be filled with secular,  humanistic, and Godless thought.

It would be an interesting study to look at all of the reasons why the Church withdrew and became non-reactive to societal issues and ideologies. It would be an interesting study to look at how and why the church became in some respects relativistic and accommodating to the culture...to the point that there was not much difference between the church and the secular culture.

But I think that we can all agree to some extant that the church did withdraw from society in the early part of the twentieth-century, and the results have been devastating.

Whenever the Church starts to be  a voice again, and  starts to proclaim absolute truth again, she can then expect to be derided and told to go back inside the walls of her buildings...the culture says, "you can be a church just keep your religious stuff private...don't bring it out in the public square.

The answer must be that the  church wakes out of her slumber. The church must start to become what she was called to be: light, salt, ambassadors for Christ, healers, ministers of grace, and boldly proclaim the gospel to a dark and sinful culture.

Wherefore `he' saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee Ephesians 5:14.

Performance based Christianity.

Do you think Christians avoid Jesus? What I'm getting at is that rule keeping and legalism is not only practiced before salvation, but also after salvation. We know that our salvation is a work of God and most of us know Ephesians 2:8-9 by heart. We grew up hearing that text of Scripture from our Sunday School days and of course our Awana days.

But when it comes to our daily Christian living, we suddenly become rule keepers or legalistic. In the matter of our personal spiritual growth and maturing into Christlikeness ---we suppose that it is all up to us. We fall into the rut of performance based Christianity. We develop the mind set that says, "I can be right with God if I keep all the rules and do all the right things." Now, you tell me how that is different than how any other religion works? Is not this truly avoiding Jesus? We take our attention off the cross and we place our performance at the center of our lives--- the Christian life then becomes all about us and less about Jesus.

We get the Christian life all messed up. We start out coming humbly to the cross. Our sin is ever before us--- our cry is the same as the Publican in the Temple when he cried out, "God be merciful to me a sinner." And somewhere along the way, the Christian life becomes all about us, our performance, how much we are doing, and how well we are doing it-----and sad to say the Evangelical Church Culture feeds this insatiable appetite of the flesh---to be self focused, instead of Christ focused.

Michael Horton tells us that, "the pinpoint setting of the human heart is the religion of self-salvation. It really is an alluring religion for it feeds the pride of the human heart. It elevates man to a place of the devils and demons. It sets man on the throne, as he can now sit in judgement upon those who have not made the grade.

But God hates pride and legalism. The law keeper maintains that his/her ongoing relationship with God is based on his/her ability to do good. The law keeper can't be free. The bondage of the performance based Christian life leads to despair and darkness.

The good news is that the believer can live in grace, move in grace, and breath grace every day of his life. Grace sets us free, and Jesus came to set His people free. The famous line from William Temple is apropos, he says, " I like to remind myself and others that the only thing you contribute to your salvation and to your sanctification is the sin that makes them necessary."|

The follower of Christ loves His Lord. Sin to the follower of Christ is detestable, for he knows for sin his Savior died. Grace is never abused by the child of God who has tasted and experienced God's loving, merciful, and great salvation.

Christian, our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness---yes, we strive to put sin out of our lives, yes we pursue holiness, but we live in the truth that our acceptance by God is in Christ and not our performance.

Deviations we all got' Em!

      

A deviation you say, what does that have to do with the price of eggs? Well, really nothing, but the other day my wife was telling me that at her place of employment which is in the pharmaceutical field a deviation in your work is a real big deal. Merriam Websters gives this definition for deviation: "an action, behavior, or condition that is different from what is usual or expected;" The Free Dictionary gives us this definition: "The act of deviating or turning aside, an abnormality; a departure."

OK, where are you going with this? It got me thinking about the Christian life, about my life, about how we humans live. Now you might be saying, man, this guy thinks too much! Hold on, let me make my point, and I promise it won't be long or philosophical.

In a very real sense before we came to Christ and before we were reconciled to God; when we were dead in our trespasses and sins our whole existence was a deviation. We were as sheep going astray (Isa. 53:6). We were constantly sinning which is the Greek word hamartia, and is rooted in the notion of missing the mark  (Rom.3:23).

God is a God of justice, perfection, and holiness. God will accept nothing other than perfection and a complete adherence to his laws and His statutes without one deviation.

I asked my wife what happens when you get a deviation and she told me that you need to do a corrective action. A corrective action is  laying out the steps as to how the deviation occurred and the steps taken so that the deviation will not be repeated again in the future.

As we look at our lives and see that we're really one big deviation, we are filled with praise that God the Father of all mercy and grace laid out a corrective action in order to deal with our messed-up lives. Now keep in mind our disobedience to God can't be remedied  by our drawing up our own corrective action: no penance, no church attendance, no sacraments will do, no, only God's provision will cover the enormity of our missing the mark.

God's corrective action is found in Isaiah 53:6

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all.


Notice the last clause of this verse, The LORD laid on Him the deviations (sins) of us all.


Oh what a savior, oh what a God who takes our sins, our missing the mark, our deviations and places them on His Son. The forgiven person is cleared of all offenses against a holy God, by what God has done in providing His corrective action plan…. The death, burial, and resurrection of  His Son Jesus Christ, the real corrective action plan for man's sin.