"Disobeying Christ out of faithfulness to Christ! The irony is exquisite." This is a quote from Os Guinness. Why am I sharing this quote. Well let me give you some background for this quote.
You see Os Guinness said this about how many evangelicals live out their faith in today's world. He was specifically talking about family and divorce within Christendom in which people say they must divorce or leave their spouse because they want to be closer to God under the guise of "love."
I think that this is actually a far more reaching problem than just divorce within Christendom. It is often how we as evangelicals view all of life. We say that we are being faithful to Christ while at the same time we are being disobedient to Christ. And I am not simply talking about knowing not to commit a certain sin and then doing it anyway, though that is part of it. We have in effect divorced our practice of faith from the truth of Scripture or to put in in another way we have changed the way we view Scripture whether intentional or unintentional. We have made it less than the inerrant word that God has given us. We have a tendency to look at the Scriptures through the lens of our world when in actuality we need to view our world through the lens of the Scriptures.
Let me also say that is very easy to put our world on the Scriptures to reshape Who God is and what He has said in His word because it is a very hard thing to let go of comfort. Whether it be personal, corporate, or ecclesiastical comfort. I am guilty of this false faith practice as I am sure many of us are if we are truly willing to look at our lives.
We must sacrifice this practice at the feet of Christ. This is part of what Christ meant when when He said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me (Luke 9:23)." We must replace our worldview with a world that is viewed through the truth of the Scriptures. Listen to Romans 12:2. It says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." God truth in His Word, the bible is how this is done.
Remember what Christ said in John 14:15. He said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And also in Matthew 5:17 He said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." What an awesome promise from Christ. The truth of the Bible does not go away because Christ came. It is fulfilled through the person of Christ. Christ embodies everything we see in the Scriptures. He is our ultimate model and guide. After all He is God. What better model to have than God, Himself. That is grace in that the God of the universe came to our level of existence to so that He could model and teach what it means to be His follower.
This is why God gave us the Bible so that we would know what He wants and expects. He has not left us to wonder Who He is and how we are to do to be obedient to our Creator. This is why we must not read the Bible through our world lens but read the world through the lens of the Bible. This is how real life transformation occurs.
We are all guilty of reading into the Bible what we want it to say. I am learning more and more that the Bible is very black and white, after all it is truth. I am not afraid to say it is absolute truth. For this reason as Francis Schaeffer puts it, "The Bible is a strong and down-to-earth book." It can and does address all areas of life not just the spiritual ones. God and His Word cannot be compartmentalized to just one sphere of society. Instead it has been given graciously by God to all of humanity to address every sphere of society.
Therefore we must be extremely careful not to read our own presuppositions into the Scriptures. We must instead understand them in the context in which God had it penned. This will take work and many do not want to do the work, but let me tell you if you are truly seeking God and His truth He will guide you through the Holy Spirit. Come to His Word humbly, through prayer. Not just seeking head knowledge, but seeking to be transformed into the image of Christ.
Understanding our presuppositions is crucial in keeping us from minimizing the Word of God in our lives and the world around us. It is crucial in keeping us from having an accommodating spirit in an age where truth is relative and in which, with great heart break and heartache, we must acknowledge that the church has given into this relative truth.
Let me close with with this thought from Francis Schaeffer from his book "The Great Evangelical Disaster."
"Accommodation, accommodation. How the mindset of accommodation grows and expands. The last sixty years have given birth to a moral disaster, and what have we done? Sadly we must say that the evangelical world has been part of the disaster. Where is the clear voice speaking to the crucial issues of the day with distinctively biblical, Christian answers? With tears we must say largely that it is not there an that a large segment of the evangelical world has become seduced by the world spirit of this age. And more than this, we can expect the future to be a further disaster if the evangelical world does not take a stand for biblical truth and morality in the full spectrum of life. For the evangelical accommodation to the world of our age represents the removal of the last barrier against the breakdown of our culture."
Seeking His supremacy in my life.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
All this has happened before and will happen again...So say we all!!!
If you all haven't figured out I like to study history and see where man as gone before. As I study history the truth of Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 comes to fruition. It says, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, "See, this is new"? It has been already in the ages before us." Or if you prefer a more modern version look no further than Battlestar Galactica which starts out with the opening title of "All this has happened before and will happen again."
So what am I getting at. Back about 150 years ago the practice of higher criticism of the Bible began to arise in Germany which denied the inerrancy of the Scriptures, that God is the source of the Bible and every Word can be taken literally and it can be trusted for its faithfulness. I have quoted this verse in one of my other postings but I will quote it again. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." I cannot stress enough that every Word of the Bible is from God and it is for us today.
We cannot pick and choose what Scriptures we like and don't like. This is what was happening as this theological infiltration of higher criticism crept through Germany and the rest of Europe and then finally implanted itself into America. Denominations, colleges, seminaries, and local congregations gave into this teaching that you could not take the Bible literally, that it was fallible, and that it was man made.
I share that to share that a similar thing is happening within Evangelical Christianity in the west and especially in North America. We have let a cultural infiltration occur. Just like in the past when a liberal theological infiltration was teaching that the Bible cannot be taken literally, this cultural infiltration has more subtly done the same thing within the church today.
So what do I mean by this. When I think about the cultural infiltration today in the church I am talking about a lack of truly understanding what it means to live life according to the Scriptures. Just about every evangelical church that I know would say that they hold to the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and they would teach it fiercely, but the subtly as arisen in that we do not really practice this doctrine.
Let me give you an example of this that happens quite often with the book of Acts. Many times in my seminary classes and even from pastors that I have served under I would be taught that the book of Acts is an historical book of the birth and growth of the 1st century church and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but where I would struggle is with the concept of that is all that it is and we cannot learn doctrine or principles for life and church practices from it. In other words the culture has changed and therefore what we see in Acts cannot be applied to our circumstances today.
Instead where we seem to get our church practices and principles for life seem to come more from the business world. Churches are to be planted with catchy marketing and leadership strategies based more on Harvard business principles than fulfilling the simplicity of the Great Commission (Matthew 28_18-20) and the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40). In fact one of the textbooks I was required to read in seminary on having a healthy church was a book titled "Good to Great" written by the faculty of the Harvard Business school.
These principles are fine for growing large institutional churches and getting people plugged into programs so that the pastor and church buildings look really good to the community around them but the problem lies in the fact that these principles don't lead to a life transformation rooted in Jesus Christ and His Word. We have so given into this way of doing "church" that we have completely ripped the Holy Spirit out of the life of the church.
This concept denies what God has said in 2 Timothy 3:16. This concept denies the inerrancy of Scriptures. By using this cultural excuse we have begun to pick and choose the Scriptures that we like and don't like. It is a slippery slope. Instead of the church affecting the culture around it we have just modeled the culture.
So you see we are still suffering from the same thing that was attacking the church in earlier history. Satan is always trying to get us to doubt the inerrancy of Scripture. When we doubt what God has written we are more likely to doubt God.
The modern church must learn from the past. Listen to the words of Francis Schaeffer. He said, "Learning from the mistakes of the past, let us raise a testimony that may still turn both the churches and society around - for the salvation of souls, the building of God's people, and at least slowing down of the slide toward a totally humanistic society and an authoritarian suppressive state."
We must earnestly seek the Scriptures to practice them not just hear them. The modern church is all about hearing and not doing. Remember what is written in the book of James. It says, "be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25)."
We need to start praying through the Word of God. We need to change how we view the Scriptures. We need to earnestly realize and live out the fact that God has given us His Word and spend time learning it, not just to gain knowledge but to ask the questions of how can I live this out? How can a teach others what I just heard or read in the Scriptures and realize that the Bible is for all man kind and not to be kept to myself, ourselves. We need to practice the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible.
I want to challenge you with these questions to think about?
If we truly practice the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture:
What will our lives look like?
What will our church gatherings look like?
What the does the Gospel really look like?
What does community look like?
What will our response be to the world around us look like?
Anyway just something to ponder.
Seeking His supremacy in my life.
So what am I getting at. Back about 150 years ago the practice of higher criticism of the Bible began to arise in Germany which denied the inerrancy of the Scriptures, that God is the source of the Bible and every Word can be taken literally and it can be trusted for its faithfulness. I have quoted this verse in one of my other postings but I will quote it again. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." I cannot stress enough that every Word of the Bible is from God and it is for us today.
We cannot pick and choose what Scriptures we like and don't like. This is what was happening as this theological infiltration of higher criticism crept through Germany and the rest of Europe and then finally implanted itself into America. Denominations, colleges, seminaries, and local congregations gave into this teaching that you could not take the Bible literally, that it was fallible, and that it was man made.
I share that to share that a similar thing is happening within Evangelical Christianity in the west and especially in North America. We have let a cultural infiltration occur. Just like in the past when a liberal theological infiltration was teaching that the Bible cannot be taken literally, this cultural infiltration has more subtly done the same thing within the church today.
So what do I mean by this. When I think about the cultural infiltration today in the church I am talking about a lack of truly understanding what it means to live life according to the Scriptures. Just about every evangelical church that I know would say that they hold to the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and they would teach it fiercely, but the subtly as arisen in that we do not really practice this doctrine.
Let me give you an example of this that happens quite often with the book of Acts. Many times in my seminary classes and even from pastors that I have served under I would be taught that the book of Acts is an historical book of the birth and growth of the 1st century church and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but where I would struggle is with the concept of that is all that it is and we cannot learn doctrine or principles for life and church practices from it. In other words the culture has changed and therefore what we see in Acts cannot be applied to our circumstances today.
Instead where we seem to get our church practices and principles for life seem to come more from the business world. Churches are to be planted with catchy marketing and leadership strategies based more on Harvard business principles than fulfilling the simplicity of the Great Commission (Matthew 28_18-20) and the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40). In fact one of the textbooks I was required to read in seminary on having a healthy church was a book titled "Good to Great" written by the faculty of the Harvard Business school.
These principles are fine for growing large institutional churches and getting people plugged into programs so that the pastor and church buildings look really good to the community around them but the problem lies in the fact that these principles don't lead to a life transformation rooted in Jesus Christ and His Word. We have so given into this way of doing "church" that we have completely ripped the Holy Spirit out of the life of the church.
This concept denies what God has said in 2 Timothy 3:16. This concept denies the inerrancy of Scriptures. By using this cultural excuse we have begun to pick and choose the Scriptures that we like and don't like. It is a slippery slope. Instead of the church affecting the culture around it we have just modeled the culture.
So you see we are still suffering from the same thing that was attacking the church in earlier history. Satan is always trying to get us to doubt the inerrancy of Scripture. When we doubt what God has written we are more likely to doubt God.
The modern church must learn from the past. Listen to the words of Francis Schaeffer. He said, "Learning from the mistakes of the past, let us raise a testimony that may still turn both the churches and society around - for the salvation of souls, the building of God's people, and at least slowing down of the slide toward a totally humanistic society and an authoritarian suppressive state."
We must earnestly seek the Scriptures to practice them not just hear them. The modern church is all about hearing and not doing. Remember what is written in the book of James. It says, "be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25)."
We need to start praying through the Word of God. We need to change how we view the Scriptures. We need to earnestly realize and live out the fact that God has given us His Word and spend time learning it, not just to gain knowledge but to ask the questions of how can I live this out? How can a teach others what I just heard or read in the Scriptures and realize that the Bible is for all man kind and not to be kept to myself, ourselves. We need to practice the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible.
I want to challenge you with these questions to think about?
If we truly practice the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture:
What will our lives look like?
What will our church gatherings look like?
What the does the Gospel really look like?
What does community look like?
What will our response be to the world around us look like?
Anyway just something to ponder.
Seeking His supremacy in my life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)