The previous step, Part I, established that your desire to explore the things of God is a sign that you may be one of God’s elect, that you have “ears to hear and eyes to see” (Matthew 13:10-17. Note: I Peter 1:10-12; I Corinthians 1:18-2:16). That desire to understand is a gift from God, and everyone has the seeds of that desire (Matthew 13:18-19 Note: Romans 2:12-16; II Corinthians 3:3:1-18 key verse 3).
That appears to be part of what it means to have been made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). Just as God has a Creation, the entire universe, so each man and woman has a creation, their entire lives. Just as God has complete authority and responsibility over the entire Creation, so God has given each man and woman complete authority over their entire lives.
Listen to how Christ explains the Parable of the Sower: The man’s understanding is the operative force concerning his or her salvation (Matthew 13:19). God has given each man and woman the ability to understand the message of the kingdom of God, but when a person chooses not to understand it, that decision enables the evil one to snatch away the seed of their desire to understand. Not only does this passage suggest that each person plays a pivotal role in his or her own salvation, accepting or rejecting the message of the kingdom, but it also confirms the objective existence of our enemy, the evil one.
We first see him (Satan, the devil) in Genesis 3:1-5 along with God’s prophesy concerning Christ and the devil’s ultimate disposition (Genesis 3:14-15).
Ephesians 6:10-18 more directly explains our present circumstances: Our struggle in this life is not against physical forces. It is against “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Spiritual forces not only concern the marketplace of ideas, which ideas we accept and which ones we don’t, the moral battles now going on in our culture; but it also concerns the power of spiritual beings (angels and demons) whom the Bible says exist in those realms and can exert an influence over us.
It is difficult for those of us whose only experience is living in this physical world to have a good understanding of the spiritual realms because our experience doesn’t easily embrace them.
Think of spirit as thoughts. Like spirit, our thoughts are without physical substance. While they require the existence and operation of our brains, the minute electrical impulses that carry our thoughts are not the thoughts themselves. Those charges are driven by the thoughts that originate in our minds, at the center of our very being.
This life appears to be the battlefield for a war to capture your thoughts because everything you do proceeds first from them. The devil wants you to think like him, like the world teaches, because for the time being God allows Satan an influence here (II Corinthians 2:4; Hebrews 2:8-9; James 4:4-7). But Christ wants you to think like him (I Corinthians 2:10a-16 Note: Romans 12:1-2). He offers us the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6; John 3:16-21).
Notice how Christ combated the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). He quoted the Word (“it is written”) in response to the devil’s suggestions. This is an example of the role of the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). Notice that the devil is also familiar with God’s Word. One of his favorite ploys is to distort what it says (Genesis 3:3-5) and counterfeit what it produces.
So, here we are, living in a world of ideas, God’s ideas (truth) competing against the devil’s ideas (falsehoods) with our salvations hanging in the balance. God has endowed us with sovereignty over our day-to-day lives. He has given each of us the ability to understand and choose his ideas along with the freedom to reject them (Note: Romans 1:18-32). I suspect that that’s what this life is all about, The Choice, understanding God’s call to us and our reaction to it.
Consider the rest of Christ’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower. Notice how the results play out in the future events of the person’s life. Next time we’ll expand on the parable and discuss the nature of salvation and the womb of this life.
NOTE: Genesis 2:4-3:24 is an interesting story, but is that what actually happened? Do those two chapters actually reflect real events as historical as, say, World War II or the deaths of your great, great grandparents? I think the best way to answer that is to see how the later biblical characters saw those events. Paul refers to Christ as the first Adam and Christ deals with the devil. While the Bible roots itself in the literal events of human history, the first events in Genesis sure sound like fairytales. Whatever happened then in fact, the Bible clearly wants us to receive as literal events. Wrapped within those trappings are the fundamental truths God wants us to embrace to better comprehend what’s now going on in the world and in our lives.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Pastor Mike's response to the Elect post
PASTOR MIKE'S RESPONSE:
Good to see you...thanks for the DM on Twitter. This is probably the venue of theology I have wrestled with the most only because it demands an answer. Included in your thought process...have you considered that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Better yet when the time of Christ's return draws near that the very elect will be deceived. Now, we could be dealing with a backlash on eternal security.
Free will, predestination, the elect...How I have struggled and tried to contextualize these thougts for nearly two decades. I know I am of His elect...He chose me...I did not choose Him...and now I must bear fruit.
Keep it up this is the first I have checked in on your blog.
MY REACTION:
Good to hear from you, birds of a feather. I believe the Holy Spirit rewards honest struggle. Yeah, this is a toughie, well worth the wrestle.
If God's Word is Truth, I've concluded that a proper understanding of any issue will not be inconsistent with all the assertions of Scripture concerning it. The truth is found in how everything fits. To find the Truth, look for the fit, the consistency. And you're right; that often takes years.
God can be unwilling to let anyone perish, but I'm not sure one can necessarily conclude from that that everyone will, in fact, be saved. That flies in the face of lots of face-value assertions in Scripture. The logic for that is similar to that required in dealing with "[God] wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth" (I Timothy 2:4). God clearly wants all men to be saved -- he wouldn't be a loving God (or have sent Christ) if he didn't -- but the kingdom parables clearly suggest that all men (and women) will not be saved. Look up Matthew 7:21-23, 13:18-23 and consider where the phrase "gnashing of teeth" takes you. The whole concept of Hell mediates against the notion that everyone will be saved in the end.
The deception of the elect: That's an interesting issue, and nothing comes immediately to mind except that God seems to have given us our heads (Note: Romans 1:18-32). That passage talks about God "giving over" people to their evil desires. Clearly God is not giving them over to stuff he endorses. Thus, I conclude, God allows believers to follow their own desires; and in that state, an unwary elect easily could be deceived. God gave us smarts (and the Spirit). He wants us to benefit from them.
Eternal Security: There's no question that from God's perspective, the believers he knows (the elect) are eternally secure (Ephesians 1:4-14); but from our perspectives, living as we are, trapped in time and lacking his eternal perspective, the issue is less clear. That's where faith and trust come in. However, we do know that if we persevere, that perseverance will pay off (Hebrews 10:19-39). That's a promise.
I guess that's why I'm a TheologyFreak. I find biblical investigation fascinating beyond all else because one is always going on the greatest adventure there is, discovering the Mind of God. When you persevere in study and begin thinking beyond theological tradition (WARNING: II John 9; I Corinthians 4:6), one can find reasonable answers to even the toughest questions. That doesn't necessarily make my answers right; but the more I study, the more the good ones seem to fit. When I find my conjectures inconsistent with the face-value assertions of Scripture, I change my conjectures. I never reinterpret Scripture to make things fit. I'm always in submission to Scripture rather than to my own conclusions. My own conclusions and questions like you pose are simply springboards for further study and in our case, perhaps, further fellowship.
Peace^
Good to see you...thanks for the DM on Twitter. This is probably the venue of theology I have wrestled with the most only because it demands an answer. Included in your thought process...have you considered that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Better yet when the time of Christ's return draws near that the very elect will be deceived. Now, we could be dealing with a backlash on eternal security.
Free will, predestination, the elect...How I have struggled and tried to contextualize these thougts for nearly two decades. I know I am of His elect...He chose me...I did not choose Him...and now I must bear fruit.
Keep it up this is the first I have checked in on your blog.
MY REACTION:
Good to hear from you, birds of a feather. I believe the Holy Spirit rewards honest struggle. Yeah, this is a toughie, well worth the wrestle.
If God's Word is Truth, I've concluded that a proper understanding of any issue will not be inconsistent with all the assertions of Scripture concerning it. The truth is found in how everything fits. To find the Truth, look for the fit, the consistency. And you're right; that often takes years.
God can be unwilling to let anyone perish, but I'm not sure one can necessarily conclude from that that everyone will, in fact, be saved. That flies in the face of lots of face-value assertions in Scripture. The logic for that is similar to that required in dealing with "[God] wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth" (I Timothy 2:4). God clearly wants all men to be saved -- he wouldn't be a loving God (or have sent Christ) if he didn't -- but the kingdom parables clearly suggest that all men (and women) will not be saved. Look up Matthew 7:21-23, 13:18-23 and consider where the phrase "gnashing of teeth" takes you. The whole concept of Hell mediates against the notion that everyone will be saved in the end.
The deception of the elect: That's an interesting issue, and nothing comes immediately to mind except that God seems to have given us our heads (Note: Romans 1:18-32). That passage talks about God "giving over" people to their evil desires. Clearly God is not giving them over to stuff he endorses. Thus, I conclude, God allows believers to follow their own desires; and in that state, an unwary elect easily could be deceived. God gave us smarts (and the Spirit). He wants us to benefit from them.
Eternal Security: There's no question that from God's perspective, the believers he knows (the elect) are eternally secure (Ephesians 1:4-14); but from our perspectives, living as we are, trapped in time and lacking his eternal perspective, the issue is less clear. That's where faith and trust come in. However, we do know that if we persevere, that perseverance will pay off (Hebrews 10:19-39). That's a promise.
I guess that's why I'm a TheologyFreak. I find biblical investigation fascinating beyond all else because one is always going on the greatest adventure there is, discovering the Mind of God. When you persevere in study and begin thinking beyond theological tradition (WARNING: II John 9; I Corinthians 4:6), one can find reasonable answers to even the toughest questions. That doesn't necessarily make my answers right; but the more I study, the more the good ones seem to fit. When I find my conjectures inconsistent with the face-value assertions of Scripture, I change my conjectures. I never reinterpret Scripture to make things fit. I'm always in submission to Scripture rather than to my own conclusions. My own conclusions and questions like you pose are simply springboards for further study and in our case, perhaps, further fellowship.
Peace^
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Part I - Can You Know You're Among the Elect?
Keep in mind that no one verse of Scripture necessarily carries the total truth about any issue. The truth is found in how all the information asserted by the pertinent passages come together to produce a complete, non conflicting picture. You’ll find the truth there.
When I cite a passage, look it up and read it. Then consider my remarks.
Ephesians 1:3-14 key verses 4-5 say that before the creation of the world, God chose those who would be saved and he predestined them to be adopted as sons (saved).
As a result, some theologians conclude that God, by his authority as Creator, has chosen some of us to be saved and some of us not to be saved. The Big Question is this: who among us are included among the saved (the elect) and who are left to be among the others? More pointedly, did God overtly choose you (or me) to go to hell?
That’s a serious question for any thinking person, and that passage from Ephesians clearly seems to support that one’s salvation is entirely up to God; but here’s another passage to consider, Romans 8:28-30.
Except for one element, the same event before the beginning of time appears to be in view. The exception is the phrase, ”FOR THOSE GOD FOREKNEW he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (v29a).
That passage suggests that God’s sovereign choice was tempered by his foreknowledge of who would respond to his salvation message and who would not. It was not God overtly choosing without regard to other input, which he clearly had the power to do, but he was responding to the choices he knew would be made by men and women throughout the ages. In other words, the operative force in any individual’s salvation is not God alone but the mix of God’s offer and the person’s response.
God freely extends his offer of salvation, made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, through various means (the church, Christian radio and TV, believing friends, etc.); and he has blessed each person with the right to accept or refuse it (Matthew 13:19 Note: Romans 1:18-32). That opportunity for choice, I suspect, is the reason why God made this world rather than some other.
So, what does that mean for people today who are seeking God or trying to find out what’s going on in this world? We find the answer in Matthew 13:10-23. It explains why Christ taught in parables and Christ’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower.
Christ explains that he spoke in parables so that those with “ears to hear and eyes to see” would understand the secrets of the kingdom and those without “ears to hear” would not. The operative force is a person’s “ears to hear and eyes to see.” In other words, if the things of God interest you, and you’re willing to entertain that interest, God promises to respond (Matthew 7:7-12; James 4:7-8a).
Your genuine desire to explore the things of God is a sign that you have ears to hear and eyes to see. That is also a sign that suggests you might be one of God’s elect, God’s chosen.
More to come in Part II - Can You Know You’re Among the Elect?
Our goal at The Internet Church is to help you entertain your interest in godly things in an even-handed, intellectually honest way.
When I cite a passage, look it up and read it. Then consider my remarks.
Ephesians 1:3-14 key verses 4-5 say that before the creation of the world, God chose those who would be saved and he predestined them to be adopted as sons (saved).
As a result, some theologians conclude that God, by his authority as Creator, has chosen some of us to be saved and some of us not to be saved. The Big Question is this: who among us are included among the saved (the elect) and who are left to be among the others? More pointedly, did God overtly choose you (or me) to go to hell?
That’s a serious question for any thinking person, and that passage from Ephesians clearly seems to support that one’s salvation is entirely up to God; but here’s another passage to consider, Romans 8:28-30.
Except for one element, the same event before the beginning of time appears to be in view. The exception is the phrase, ”FOR THOSE GOD FOREKNEW he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (v29a).
That passage suggests that God’s sovereign choice was tempered by his foreknowledge of who would respond to his salvation message and who would not. It was not God overtly choosing without regard to other input, which he clearly had the power to do, but he was responding to the choices he knew would be made by men and women throughout the ages. In other words, the operative force in any individual’s salvation is not God alone but the mix of God’s offer and the person’s response.
God freely extends his offer of salvation, made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, through various means (the church, Christian radio and TV, believing friends, etc.); and he has blessed each person with the right to accept or refuse it (Matthew 13:19 Note: Romans 1:18-32). That opportunity for choice, I suspect, is the reason why God made this world rather than some other.
So, what does that mean for people today who are seeking God or trying to find out what’s going on in this world? We find the answer in Matthew 13:10-23. It explains why Christ taught in parables and Christ’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower.
Christ explains that he spoke in parables so that those with “ears to hear and eyes to see” would understand the secrets of the kingdom and those without “ears to hear” would not. The operative force is a person’s “ears to hear and eyes to see.” In other words, if the things of God interest you, and you’re willing to entertain that interest, God promises to respond (Matthew 7:7-12; James 4:7-8a).
Your genuine desire to explore the things of God is a sign that you have ears to hear and eyes to see. That is also a sign that suggests you might be one of God’s elect, God’s chosen.
More to come in Part II - Can You Know You’re Among the Elect?
Our goal at The Internet Church is to help you entertain your interest in godly things in an even-handed, intellectually honest way.
A response to "How are we to understand Scripture?"
The following is a response to my “How are we to understand Scripture?” post:
THE VISITOR'S POST:
“Truth in itself defies essential definition. There is no way give it a formula of itself except as an aspect of an idea it appears to relates to. Truth is absolute emptiness. It sends in its vehicle only as the warior to oppose falsehood.
“What is seen as a fact is a dead event. it connects to the trickery of the devil. It is an isolated wanna-be completed creation of something wanting to seem like a permanent piece of genuine reality... actually dying flesh decaying in the fallen world.
"To be of God, we give our minds back. What we know is everything that's wrong. The content of my thought is part of the outside world... unique in its being known only to me and to God.”
MY RESPONSE:
If “truth in itself defies essential definition,” and definition is essential to discussion, then truth doesn’t exist, at least it can’t be defined and thus we can’t discuss it. But the assertion that it can’t be defined doesn’t prove Truth doesn’t exist. It just makes it a challenge to discuss.
The concept of Truth is fundamental to life. If truth doesn’t exist then the laws of nature don’t exist. (Call me when you can float a rock in midair.) If Truth doesn’t exist, God doesn’t exist either. Worse yet, none of us exist. But the last time I got out of my bathtub the water level went down, so something was taking a bath. When I pinch myself, that’s me with the pain. So, here we are, functioning in whatever this place is (“A rose by any other name. . .”). One of our challenges is to make sense of it. The other is to survive in it. (The Bible calls that survival “salvation.”)
Consider the sentence, “It [truth] sends out its vehicle only as the warior to oppose falsehood.” If falsehood exists then Truth has to exist because falsehood can't exist unless a standard of truth exists against which we can measure it.
“What we know is everything that’s wrong.” That’s accurate in the sense that world is under the influence of the devil, and he’s a prevaricator and a counterfeiter. According to the Bible, the worldly approach to things is not the best. The best way to get a handle on the world is to see it through the “eyes of God” or Scripture. Only then do things make sense; and, believe me, they do make sense. (That’s what this blog is about.) Since the Bible claims to be Truth—and the Bible exists—Truth must also exist, at least it exists objectively enough for believers to comprehend what God wants. That is, how he wants us to operate his plan for our survival.
Truth is the fulcrum on which all of life balances. If Truth doesn't actually exist, nothing else makes sense.
THE VISITOR'S POST:
“Truth in itself defies essential definition. There is no way give it a formula of itself except as an aspect of an idea it appears to relates to. Truth is absolute emptiness. It sends in its vehicle only as the warior to oppose falsehood.
“What is seen as a fact is a dead event. it connects to the trickery of the devil. It is an isolated wanna-be completed creation of something wanting to seem like a permanent piece of genuine reality... actually dying flesh decaying in the fallen world.
"To be of God, we give our minds back. What we know is everything that's wrong. The content of my thought is part of the outside world... unique in its being known only to me and to God.”
MY RESPONSE:
If “truth in itself defies essential definition,” and definition is essential to discussion, then truth doesn’t exist, at least it can’t be defined and thus we can’t discuss it. But the assertion that it can’t be defined doesn’t prove Truth doesn’t exist. It just makes it a challenge to discuss.
The concept of Truth is fundamental to life. If truth doesn’t exist then the laws of nature don’t exist. (Call me when you can float a rock in midair.) If Truth doesn’t exist, God doesn’t exist either. Worse yet, none of us exist. But the last time I got out of my bathtub the water level went down, so something was taking a bath. When I pinch myself, that’s me with the pain. So, here we are, functioning in whatever this place is (“A rose by any other name. . .”). One of our challenges is to make sense of it. The other is to survive in it. (The Bible calls that survival “salvation.”)
Consider the sentence, “It [truth] sends out its vehicle only as the warior to oppose falsehood.” If falsehood exists then Truth has to exist because falsehood can't exist unless a standard of truth exists against which we can measure it.
“What we know is everything that’s wrong.” That’s accurate in the sense that world is under the influence of the devil, and he’s a prevaricator and a counterfeiter. According to the Bible, the worldly approach to things is not the best. The best way to get a handle on the world is to see it through the “eyes of God” or Scripture. Only then do things make sense; and, believe me, they do make sense. (That’s what this blog is about.) Since the Bible claims to be Truth—and the Bible exists—Truth must also exist, at least it exists objectively enough for believers to comprehend what God wants. That is, how he wants us to operate his plan for our survival.
Truth is the fulcrum on which all of life balances. If Truth doesn't actually exist, nothing else makes sense.
Doctrinal Discussion
In reviewing what I've posted so far, the time has come to begin. This doctrinal discussion doubles as a doctrinal statement; but, as you will see, it's not like the traditional ones. (I wrote it for my coming website ChristianBasicTraining.com.) In the days to come on this blog, I'll be wrestling with developing what I've found in my studies into "bite-sized" presentations. For the time being, they will be the "sermons." However, TheInternetChurch to come will emerge through the interactions and reactions of those visiting the site. For now, the guide is pretty much just me. Sound doctrine is vital. Here's my take and the springboard from which I'm jumping:
Doctrinal Discussion
The New Testament stresses the need for sound doctrine. It plays an important role in our lives. Sound doctrine lights the way to God, and it lights the path he wants those seeking him to take through this life. That path is itself an expression of God’s love for us because it guides us away from those things he knows will harm us and towards those things he knows will build us up.
Most Christian organizations provide statements of belief that summarize their conclusions concerning the biblical message. But not everyone agrees on the details, so much so, that there are now over 200 different Christian sects and denominations in the United States alone. That division exists even in spite of Christ’s prayer for unity in John 17:20-26. He prays there for a visible unity, one that the world will see, showing that God loves all the people in the world with the same fervor with which he loves Christ.
Years ago when I began my serious investigations into the New Testament, this was the first passage that hit home with me, and it launched the first of my Big Questions: If God’s Son prayed for Christian unity, why hasn’t his Father answered that prayer?
So, where’s the unity?
In spite of Christ’s desire for unity, serious believers have divided themselves, mostly over what they think the Bible says, or doctrine. From a human perspective, that division is reasonable because like-minded believers want to worship with others just like them. Who wants to continually argue? What kind of a firm foundation is that? But the results have produced bad public relations for God and a picture of Christianity that ministers to division rather than unity. The unsaved aren’t stupid. They know what truth looks like. They look at the church’s witness and say, “Well, if the experts can’t figure it out — if they can’t live in agreement — what the hell. I’ll go my own way.”
So, Christian division has become an unfortunate fact of life.
What can believers do?
What should we do?
The Common Denominator
The common denominators that underscore orthodox Christianity are Christ and Scripture. Therefore as far as I’m concerned, if Christ is your Lord and the Bible is your book, we’re on the same page. We are children of God and heirs with Christ. Our lack of agreement, to the extent that it exists, is one for us to work through together—and in love. That’s one of the roles for this website:
I have a lot to learn from you, and maybe you have something to learn from me. But we will never come together in a productive spirit if we refuse to listen to each other.
Let’s be clear about my goal.
My goal is not that we all finally agree on doctrine, although that would be lovely because the Truth is One, which suggests Scripture has a single overall meaning. My goal is (1) to discover God’s Truth, (2) to accurately understand and apply it, and then (3) to convey it to others. Since no one person knows it all, this can only take place when believers reason together and learn from each other.
This is a worthy quest because it is one of the tasks God has placed before us. After all, the Bible says each of us will stand a personal judgment before God (Romans 14:9-12; Hebrews 9:27). Wouldn’t it be nice if we passed the test?
Based on the Bible and the conditions I’ve found in this world, I have concluded that God wants us to dialog and seek his truth in the light of each others scholarship, experience, and insights, realizing that the closer we all come to Christ, the closer we will all come to each other. Therein, I believe, lies the answer to Christ’s prayer and the practical witness God wants his children to offer to the world.
Approaches to Interpretation
For centuries well-meaning theologians have impressed their conclusions on Scripture. For the most part, their goals have been to better understand the Scriptures themselves and to make the truths of Scripture more accessible to the average reader. Those are worthy goals, indeed, but by the extent to which each theologian is inaccurate — and none of us know it all — their students, who see Scripture through their theologian’s conclusions, will be inaccurate as well.
By the same token, it’s important to recognize that the Christian teacher is mandated to teach what he believes to be true. To willfully teach anything else is unconscionable (Note: I Corinthians 3:10-15).
I suspect that much of the division among Christians stems from the disagreement that arises from the different interpretations that orbit the popular theological views. Such views embrace the Doctrine of the Trinity, Dispensationalism, the Calvinist/Arminean controversy, Covenant Theology, Legalism, Charismatic Theology, the Prosperity Gospel, the Social Gospel, and the like. Scripture doesn’t directly teach any of those by name. They are the names theologians have given them, and they are all conclusions reasonable investigators can draw from the assertions of Scripture. So, which view enjoys God’s blessing?
As always, our goal as Christians is to understand the Scriptures as God wants us to and to apply them in that same manner. But so far those results have led to the aforementioned division.
How can we soften this outcome without softening the doctrines from which it comes?
Truth, the Key that Unlocks Scripture
I believe the answer is to see Scripture as God seems to want us to see it, that is, through the lens of truth. God claims to be Truth itself. He claims his Word is Truth, so it seems to me that truth is the key God wants us to use to unlock Scripture.
The truth is what is.
Truth is consistent with itself and fits the known facts. In my opinion, searching the Scriptures for that consistency is the most promising way to discover God’s truth and his plan for our lives.
From our normal reading experience, we’ve learned that no one sentence contains all the information we need to know about any given subject — often no one book contains it all. The same is true for Scripture. Every doctrinal assertion in Scripture is true, but no one passage says everything we need to know about the topic. That means our first step to clear comprehension is to gather together all the New Testament assertions that appear to relate to the topic we’re investigating.
Interestingly, a concordance search of a specific word that identifies a topic does not give us all the passages pertinent to it. Many passages exist that refer to the topic’s concept and yet do not contain the word itself. So, our search needs to be for the concepts as well as for the words.
The next step is to examine the assertions. Compare and contrast. Ask the reporter’s questions: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? Since the nature of truth is not to contradict itself, like in good science or in any good crime investigation, the truth emerges when all the facts fit together into a single, harmonious big picture.
Having done that in Scripture to the best of my ability, here are some of my conclusions to date:
Scripture
God claims that his Word is without error. That was no doubt true for the original manuscripts, but modern scholarship tells us that the copies we have today are filled with small errors and inconsistencies. While that may be true, the goal of orthodox Christian scholarship has been to recover the originals using the reliable tools of rhetoric. While that is an interpretive process that has its own problems, its application over the centuries has made a remarkable case for the efficacy of the Scriptures we have today and their complete authority and authenticity. Any serious student of the Word will soon — even on his own — find what they found: The Holy Bible is totally unique among all the books ever written, and its message changes lives in ways nothing else does.
The Bible claims to be the Word of God; and reasonable people, faced with all the evidence we have, accept that notion on faith. The One True God intended the Bible to be the Christian’s primary guide for faith and practice. Its underlying truths are without error, and our understanding of them will be accurate by the degree to which the information we understand behaves like truth, easily fitting together into a single, non conflicting story.
God guided the production of the Scriptures to provide us with information he wants us to have. He is not hiding himself from anyone seeking him (Matthew 7:7-12). He is revealing himself through Scripture (John 20:30-31). That’s its purpose! Therefore it is possible for anyone to understand it, certainly to the extent God wants them to. If you can read and understand this presentation, you can read and understand Scripture. The same rhetorical rules apply.
Keep in mind that God is on our side.
He’s rooting for us.
He wants us to understand.
If you’re a seeker, go to the blog (meaning the blog on the coming website). We’ll dialog together. The mere fact that you have an interest in God could be a sign that you are among God’s elect. If you are a believer, we have a lot of work to do together. Welcome aboard.
The Divisions in Scripture
Scripture teaches specific divisions: Good and evil, truth and falsehood, Jew and Gentile, saved and unsaved, and the Old and New Covenants, the New Covenant being the body of spiritual laws under which we now live. While one can argue for other divisions and draw different doctrinal interpretations from them, they are subsets of these five, and the Bible does not teach any other divisions by name.
Paul advises Timothy to “rightly divide the word of truth” (II Timothy 2:18, KJV). We are safe adopting the divisions the Bible teaches. We are less safe adopting the divisions that others’ conclusions have impressed upon it, especially when they lead to opposing conclusions about what the Bible teaches. Not that other conclusions are necessarily wrong. We just need to be good Bereans (Acts 17:11), and test any such conclusions against the face-value assertions of Scripture. Scripture means what it says.
Salvation
God is God, and he can — and will — save anyone he wants (Note: Romans 2:12-16); but he has only staked his reputation on saving those who do what he says (Note: Matthew 7:21-23), those who SEEK (Matthew 7:7-12), TRUST (Ephesians 2:8-10), and OBEY (I John 5:3-5). In the event God fails to save any one of them (John 6:37-40), he makes himself out to be a liar (Note: Titus 1:2), and that will destroy his reputation and, indeed, his very Being.
However, following this reasoning to its extreme opens the door to liberality which, I believe, is one reason God extends his grace to us. God knows the heart of each believer, and he honors the truth of that knowledge (Galatians 6:7-8). It is not our perfect understanding of doctrine that saves us, it is God’s perfect knowledge of our hearts. Concerning salvation, the ball is always in his court (Note: Matthew 20:1-16).
A person can know he or she is saved (1) by what Christ did for them, (2) by what they did in response to God’s offer of salvation, and (3) by what they are doing now in response to Christ’s lordship.
The Believer
We can see the believer in terms of his or her Position, Process, and Purpose.
Note: I am now doing in this section what I warned you about. The New Testament teaches what follows but it does not do so under these headings. What follows is a conclusion I’ve drawn from study, organized in a way that makes sense to me and is consistent with Scripture. This is what every theologian tends to do and why you need to check our work.
Consider the Trinity. It came from the same approach to Scripture. The Bible does not specifically teach the Trinity in any one unquestioned passage nor does it even use the word, but a diligent search of the New Testament clearly supports the fact that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are One. So be cautious. Be a Berean. Check the Scriptures to see if they actually support the assertions anyone makes.
Position – This concerns the believer’s legal position before God. It takes place through faith as a result of the believers accepting God’s offer of salvation and their legally bringing themselves under God’s New Covenant. By so doing, they become a brother of Christ and an heir with him to the kingdom (Galatians 4:1-7). They also become a temple of God (I Corinthians 3:16-17), as the Holy Spirit moves from being an outside influence to becoming an indwelling presence.
The steps to salvation concern (1) understanding the gospel message (ears to hear and eyes to see), (2) public confession (the believer confirming his or her desire as witnessed by others), (3) repentance (turning away from worldly desires towards godly desires), (4) baptism (As Christ established the New Covenant through his death, burial, and resurrection — “it is finished” — so each believer ratifies that Covenant through his or her own figurative death, burial, and resurrection in baptism), and finally (5) perseverance in the faith (the believer playing his or her part maintaining Christ’s lordship for the rest of life).
Process – The New Testament calls this growth process “sanctification,” the process of growing from what a person has been into the person God wants the believer to become. It is a life-long process underscored by the believer’s perseverance in it.
As a Christian, the believer becomes a steward of his own life (Note: Matthew 7:24-27, 21-23, 25:14-30, 1-13). At the moment of belief, the believer gives his or her life to the Lord, turning it over to him, all the good stuff and all the bad; but then, just as quickly, Christ gives it back; but something has changed. The believer is no longer legally in charge of his life, Christ is; and thereafter God appears to see the believer’s life through the blood of Christ, that is, Christ’s personal sacrifice for the believer. God promises to extend unlimited grace to the believer (Note: Matthew 18:21-22) so long as the believer remains faithful (Galatians 6:7-8; Colossians 1:15-23 key verse 23). Thus, salvation appears to be a mutual agreement between God and each believer. God makes the offer; the believer accepts it.
That transaction makes Christ the Lord over the believer’s life and the believer becomes its steward under that lordship. In obedience to the Lord, the believer then becomes a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1-2). This sacrifice has two components:
1. The first concerns the believer’s sacrifice of his secular thinking on the altar of God’s truth, moving from thinking like the world to thinking like Christ. You are what you think, and God wants us to think like Christ (Philippians 4:8).
2. The second component concerns the believer’s sacrifice of his desires for himself on the altar of that which will benefit those within his sphere of influence. Christian love seeks the best for the other person (Note: Romans 13:10, 14:19; Galatians 6:9-10). Christians are in fellowship to serve one another, following Christ’s model of service to us (Note: Matthew 23:8-11). This does not mean to do harm to one’s self in the process. It does mean to build yourself up so that you may be increasingly effective in service to others (Galatians 6:10).
Purpose – Christians also have a purpose in life, and God has gifted each believer with an assortment of spiritual gifts and talents that he wants them to use in service to others in the church and also in service to themselves and their families.
In that regard, here’s my most current “heresy:”
For a long time I’ve suspected that we are living in the 6th day of Creation not the 7th. I suspect that for a variety of reasons. One of them is that most serious Christians report that God is far from at rest in their lives. Indeed, the Bible itself says that God was still at work in the first century (John 5:17), and I see him still at work today.
Here's another reason: The 6th day story that begins in Genesis 2:4 never ends. The biblical writers never draw that 6th day to a close. It’s reasonable to conclude that the 6th day comes to an end as a part of the consummation of the ages in Revelation, but not before then. There is no other place in Scripture where the biblical writers conclude the 6th day, at least I haven’t found it.
If that’s so, we are still in the 6th day. That means that, like Adam naming the animals, modern believers are playing an active role in God’s Creation. I find that exciting! We are working with God in his Creation! Our work is summarized in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Like Adam, God has blessed us with a role to play and carrying the gospel of Christ is at its core.
Peter calls Christians a “priesthood of believers” (I Peter 2:9-10, 3:15). As such, they carry the message of Christ as ambassadors (II Corinthians 5:17-21) and fragrance (II Corinthians 2:14-16). That means each believer needs to be comfortable in their faith. They need to understand it, certainly the basics; and then they need to actively apply it in their own lives. In addition, they need to be able to share it with others. They share two things, (1) the facts of Christianity which are the same for everyone and (2) what Christ’s lordship has done in their lives, their witness, which is unique to each individual.
By the way, sharing Christ is not like making a secular sales call. The believer initiates the discussion or the prospect asks a question. The believer explains and answers questions, but God makes the sale. We are not here to attempt to change minds. We are here to share what we know to the best of our abilities, and the Holy Spirit does the rest (Note: I Corinthians 1:18-2:16).
By operating in service to others, God promises that a person’s life will, in fact, get better, that is, more productive, rewarding, and satisfying (God’s plan for your success). By doing God’s will, believers enjoy more happiness at home, more success at work, and more purpose in life.
The Church
We can see the first gathering of believers in Acts 2:42-47. That first church is important to us because we see it in its purest form.
The twelve apostles were the “paid staff.” They had just gotten their training from Christ himself (Luke 24:45; John 20:30-31; Acts 1:3b). This is the only time in the New Testament in which all twelve ministered together.
Peter was presumably their leader (John 21:15-19; Acts 2:14 ). We can sense his view of the church from I Peter 2:4-10 in which he speaks of a “priesthood of believers” and a church comprised of “living stones.” The living stones remark is consistent with Romans 12:1-8, Ephesians 4:1-16, I Corinthians 12 and 13 where Paul speaks of the grace (gifts and talents) with which God blesses each believer for service in both the church body and in the individual’s personal life.
Acts 2:42 describes the church’s primary focus on teaching, fellowship, and prayer.
Teaching - I surmise that the teaching was designed to create a priesthood of believers. The foundation on which they built was the Old Testament, showing that it was the prophetic preparation for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. This is exactly the information on which Peter called when he explained the pentecostal uproar to the crowd. The Old Testament was the foundation. It established the law and prophesied that a Messiah was to come. Jesus Christ, the man many in the crowd had seen or certainly knew about, was that Messiah. His resurrection proved it! The twelve then taught how God wants believers to respond to that event, what God wants us all to do in living out God’s truth in our lives today.
Fellowship - The second emphasis in that first church was fellowship, fellowship with God and fellowship with each other.
Acts 2:43-46 describes that fellowship which looks strangely like Christian Communism. The difference is that the control was not centralized. The ministries came into being from each new believer as each saw fit (or as they were being led by the Lord). The apostle Paul elaborates on the guiding principles in Romans 12:1-15:33. (They are Christian love and personal transformation.)
The “breaking of bread” remark concerns, I believe, the Lord’s Supper as Paul will later come to explain it in I Corinthians 11:23-32: The Lord’s Supper is a time in which believers remember Christ’s personal sacrifice for them that enabled their salvation. It is also a time in which believers measure how well they are doing in response to Christ’s lordship.
If the first church was anything, it was pertinent in the lives of its participants.
Prayer - The third emphasis in that first church was prayer. Effective prayer requires that believers sort out in their own minds what’s going on in their lives. They compare their desires with what the Bible says about God’s desires for them (God’s will). They meditate on Scripture. They prioritize. By their requests, they establish where in their lives they will be looking for God to act. Through prayer, an active attentiveness to God’s will, the believer continues to honor and respond to Christ’s lordship in their lives.
Christian fellowships do this same thing with respect to the life of the church and what they are coming to recognize as Christ’s vision for it. It begins in Acts 2:42-47 and blossoms throughout the rest of the New Testament, especially Romans 12:1-15:33.
Like the early churches, the modern church engages in many ministries, but at its core are teaching, fellowship, and prayer with the goal of nurturing the priesthood of believers and encouraging them to recognize and act in the gifts with which God has blessed them, gifted people serving in the areas of their giftedness.
Conclusion
Most doctrinal statements are short. They employ technical terms that are obscure to many and generally black and white in nature. As a result, they often draw battle lines between believers.
This discussion focuses on what I believe the Bible teaches about the results that come from engaging in sound doctrine. Christians will never agree on the underlying details because Scripture leaves ample room for debate. The Bible leaves much of Christian doctrine — exactly how it works — in God’s hands, where it belongs. After all, it’s his doctrine, his Master Plan for the Creation; but the Bible is considerably more clear on what God wants us to do as a result (Note: Romans 12:1-15:33; Ephesians 4:17-6:20; Colossians 3:1-4:1; Titus 2:1-3:11; Hebrews 10:19-12:29; James 1:2-5:20; I Peter 2:1-5:11; I John 1:1-5:21). Practically speaking and while I have opinions on doctrine, I choose to focus on God’s will for us. God promises to do his stuff, and he has left us plenty of room in which to do ours. This life is about that: The Great Commission. Reach ‘em and teach ‘em, doing God’s will for the Day is near.
Peace^
Doctrinal Discussion
The New Testament stresses the need for sound doctrine. It plays an important role in our lives. Sound doctrine lights the way to God, and it lights the path he wants those seeking him to take through this life. That path is itself an expression of God’s love for us because it guides us away from those things he knows will harm us and towards those things he knows will build us up.
Most Christian organizations provide statements of belief that summarize their conclusions concerning the biblical message. But not everyone agrees on the details, so much so, that there are now over 200 different Christian sects and denominations in the United States alone. That division exists even in spite of Christ’s prayer for unity in John 17:20-26. He prays there for a visible unity, one that the world will see, showing that God loves all the people in the world with the same fervor with which he loves Christ.
Years ago when I began my serious investigations into the New Testament, this was the first passage that hit home with me, and it launched the first of my Big Questions: If God’s Son prayed for Christian unity, why hasn’t his Father answered that prayer?
So, where’s the unity?
In spite of Christ’s desire for unity, serious believers have divided themselves, mostly over what they think the Bible says, or doctrine. From a human perspective, that division is reasonable because like-minded believers want to worship with others just like them. Who wants to continually argue? What kind of a firm foundation is that? But the results have produced bad public relations for God and a picture of Christianity that ministers to division rather than unity. The unsaved aren’t stupid. They know what truth looks like. They look at the church’s witness and say, “Well, if the experts can’t figure it out — if they can’t live in agreement — what the hell. I’ll go my own way.”
So, Christian division has become an unfortunate fact of life.
What can believers do?
What should we do?
The Common Denominator
The common denominators that underscore orthodox Christianity are Christ and Scripture. Therefore as far as I’m concerned, if Christ is your Lord and the Bible is your book, we’re on the same page. We are children of God and heirs with Christ. Our lack of agreement, to the extent that it exists, is one for us to work through together—and in love. That’s one of the roles for this website:
I have a lot to learn from you, and maybe you have something to learn from me. But we will never come together in a productive spirit if we refuse to listen to each other.
Let’s be clear about my goal.
My goal is not that we all finally agree on doctrine, although that would be lovely because the Truth is One, which suggests Scripture has a single overall meaning. My goal is (1) to discover God’s Truth, (2) to accurately understand and apply it, and then (3) to convey it to others. Since no one person knows it all, this can only take place when believers reason together and learn from each other.
This is a worthy quest because it is one of the tasks God has placed before us. After all, the Bible says each of us will stand a personal judgment before God (Romans 14:9-12; Hebrews 9:27). Wouldn’t it be nice if we passed the test?
Based on the Bible and the conditions I’ve found in this world, I have concluded that God wants us to dialog and seek his truth in the light of each others scholarship, experience, and insights, realizing that the closer we all come to Christ, the closer we will all come to each other. Therein, I believe, lies the answer to Christ’s prayer and the practical witness God wants his children to offer to the world.
Approaches to Interpretation
For centuries well-meaning theologians have impressed their conclusions on Scripture. For the most part, their goals have been to better understand the Scriptures themselves and to make the truths of Scripture more accessible to the average reader. Those are worthy goals, indeed, but by the extent to which each theologian is inaccurate — and none of us know it all — their students, who see Scripture through their theologian’s conclusions, will be inaccurate as well.
By the same token, it’s important to recognize that the Christian teacher is mandated to teach what he believes to be true. To willfully teach anything else is unconscionable (Note: I Corinthians 3:10-15).
I suspect that much of the division among Christians stems from the disagreement that arises from the different interpretations that orbit the popular theological views. Such views embrace the Doctrine of the Trinity, Dispensationalism, the Calvinist/Arminean controversy, Covenant Theology, Legalism, Charismatic Theology, the Prosperity Gospel, the Social Gospel, and the like. Scripture doesn’t directly teach any of those by name. They are the names theologians have given them, and they are all conclusions reasonable investigators can draw from the assertions of Scripture. So, which view enjoys God’s blessing?
As always, our goal as Christians is to understand the Scriptures as God wants us to and to apply them in that same manner. But so far those results have led to the aforementioned division.
How can we soften this outcome without softening the doctrines from which it comes?
Truth, the Key that Unlocks Scripture
I believe the answer is to see Scripture as God seems to want us to see it, that is, through the lens of truth. God claims to be Truth itself. He claims his Word is Truth, so it seems to me that truth is the key God wants us to use to unlock Scripture.
The truth is what is.
Truth is consistent with itself and fits the known facts. In my opinion, searching the Scriptures for that consistency is the most promising way to discover God’s truth and his plan for our lives.
From our normal reading experience, we’ve learned that no one sentence contains all the information we need to know about any given subject — often no one book contains it all. The same is true for Scripture. Every doctrinal assertion in Scripture is true, but no one passage says everything we need to know about the topic. That means our first step to clear comprehension is to gather together all the New Testament assertions that appear to relate to the topic we’re investigating.
Interestingly, a concordance search of a specific word that identifies a topic does not give us all the passages pertinent to it. Many passages exist that refer to the topic’s concept and yet do not contain the word itself. So, our search needs to be for the concepts as well as for the words.
The next step is to examine the assertions. Compare and contrast. Ask the reporter’s questions: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? Since the nature of truth is not to contradict itself, like in good science or in any good crime investigation, the truth emerges when all the facts fit together into a single, harmonious big picture.
Having done that in Scripture to the best of my ability, here are some of my conclusions to date:
Scripture
God claims that his Word is without error. That was no doubt true for the original manuscripts, but modern scholarship tells us that the copies we have today are filled with small errors and inconsistencies. While that may be true, the goal of orthodox Christian scholarship has been to recover the originals using the reliable tools of rhetoric. While that is an interpretive process that has its own problems, its application over the centuries has made a remarkable case for the efficacy of the Scriptures we have today and their complete authority and authenticity. Any serious student of the Word will soon — even on his own — find what they found: The Holy Bible is totally unique among all the books ever written, and its message changes lives in ways nothing else does.
The Bible claims to be the Word of God; and reasonable people, faced with all the evidence we have, accept that notion on faith. The One True God intended the Bible to be the Christian’s primary guide for faith and practice. Its underlying truths are without error, and our understanding of them will be accurate by the degree to which the information we understand behaves like truth, easily fitting together into a single, non conflicting story.
God guided the production of the Scriptures to provide us with information he wants us to have. He is not hiding himself from anyone seeking him (Matthew 7:7-12). He is revealing himself through Scripture (John 20:30-31). That’s its purpose! Therefore it is possible for anyone to understand it, certainly to the extent God wants them to. If you can read and understand this presentation, you can read and understand Scripture. The same rhetorical rules apply.
Keep in mind that God is on our side.
He’s rooting for us.
He wants us to understand.
If you’re a seeker, go to the blog (meaning the blog on the coming website). We’ll dialog together. The mere fact that you have an interest in God could be a sign that you are among God’s elect. If you are a believer, we have a lot of work to do together. Welcome aboard.
The Divisions in Scripture
Scripture teaches specific divisions: Good and evil, truth and falsehood, Jew and Gentile, saved and unsaved, and the Old and New Covenants, the New Covenant being the body of spiritual laws under which we now live. While one can argue for other divisions and draw different doctrinal interpretations from them, they are subsets of these five, and the Bible does not teach any other divisions by name.
Paul advises Timothy to “rightly divide the word of truth” (II Timothy 2:18, KJV). We are safe adopting the divisions the Bible teaches. We are less safe adopting the divisions that others’ conclusions have impressed upon it, especially when they lead to opposing conclusions about what the Bible teaches. Not that other conclusions are necessarily wrong. We just need to be good Bereans (Acts 17:11), and test any such conclusions against the face-value assertions of Scripture. Scripture means what it says.
Salvation
God is God, and he can — and will — save anyone he wants (Note: Romans 2:12-16); but he has only staked his reputation on saving those who do what he says (Note: Matthew 7:21-23), those who SEEK (Matthew 7:7-12), TRUST (Ephesians 2:8-10), and OBEY (I John 5:3-5). In the event God fails to save any one of them (John 6:37-40), he makes himself out to be a liar (Note: Titus 1:2), and that will destroy his reputation and, indeed, his very Being.
However, following this reasoning to its extreme opens the door to liberality which, I believe, is one reason God extends his grace to us. God knows the heart of each believer, and he honors the truth of that knowledge (Galatians 6:7-8). It is not our perfect understanding of doctrine that saves us, it is God’s perfect knowledge of our hearts. Concerning salvation, the ball is always in his court (Note: Matthew 20:1-16).
A person can know he or she is saved (1) by what Christ did for them, (2) by what they did in response to God’s offer of salvation, and (3) by what they are doing now in response to Christ’s lordship.
The Believer
We can see the believer in terms of his or her Position, Process, and Purpose.
Note: I am now doing in this section what I warned you about. The New Testament teaches what follows but it does not do so under these headings. What follows is a conclusion I’ve drawn from study, organized in a way that makes sense to me and is consistent with Scripture. This is what every theologian tends to do and why you need to check our work.
Consider the Trinity. It came from the same approach to Scripture. The Bible does not specifically teach the Trinity in any one unquestioned passage nor does it even use the word, but a diligent search of the New Testament clearly supports the fact that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are One. So be cautious. Be a Berean. Check the Scriptures to see if they actually support the assertions anyone makes.
Position – This concerns the believer’s legal position before God. It takes place through faith as a result of the believers accepting God’s offer of salvation and their legally bringing themselves under God’s New Covenant. By so doing, they become a brother of Christ and an heir with him to the kingdom (Galatians 4:1-7). They also become a temple of God (I Corinthians 3:16-17), as the Holy Spirit moves from being an outside influence to becoming an indwelling presence.
The steps to salvation concern (1) understanding the gospel message (ears to hear and eyes to see), (2) public confession (the believer confirming his or her desire as witnessed by others), (3) repentance (turning away from worldly desires towards godly desires), (4) baptism (As Christ established the New Covenant through his death, burial, and resurrection — “it is finished” — so each believer ratifies that Covenant through his or her own figurative death, burial, and resurrection in baptism), and finally (5) perseverance in the faith (the believer playing his or her part maintaining Christ’s lordship for the rest of life).
Process – The New Testament calls this growth process “sanctification,” the process of growing from what a person has been into the person God wants the believer to become. It is a life-long process underscored by the believer’s perseverance in it.
As a Christian, the believer becomes a steward of his own life (Note: Matthew 7:24-27, 21-23, 25:14-30, 1-13). At the moment of belief, the believer gives his or her life to the Lord, turning it over to him, all the good stuff and all the bad; but then, just as quickly, Christ gives it back; but something has changed. The believer is no longer legally in charge of his life, Christ is; and thereafter God appears to see the believer’s life through the blood of Christ, that is, Christ’s personal sacrifice for the believer. God promises to extend unlimited grace to the believer (Note: Matthew 18:21-22) so long as the believer remains faithful (Galatians 6:7-8; Colossians 1:15-23 key verse 23). Thus, salvation appears to be a mutual agreement between God and each believer. God makes the offer; the believer accepts it.
That transaction makes Christ the Lord over the believer’s life and the believer becomes its steward under that lordship. In obedience to the Lord, the believer then becomes a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1-2). This sacrifice has two components:
1. The first concerns the believer’s sacrifice of his secular thinking on the altar of God’s truth, moving from thinking like the world to thinking like Christ. You are what you think, and God wants us to think like Christ (Philippians 4:8).
2. The second component concerns the believer’s sacrifice of his desires for himself on the altar of that which will benefit those within his sphere of influence. Christian love seeks the best for the other person (Note: Romans 13:10, 14:19; Galatians 6:9-10). Christians are in fellowship to serve one another, following Christ’s model of service to us (Note: Matthew 23:8-11). This does not mean to do harm to one’s self in the process. It does mean to build yourself up so that you may be increasingly effective in service to others (Galatians 6:10).
Purpose – Christians also have a purpose in life, and God has gifted each believer with an assortment of spiritual gifts and talents that he wants them to use in service to others in the church and also in service to themselves and their families.
In that regard, here’s my most current “heresy:”
For a long time I’ve suspected that we are living in the 6th day of Creation not the 7th. I suspect that for a variety of reasons. One of them is that most serious Christians report that God is far from at rest in their lives. Indeed, the Bible itself says that God was still at work in the first century (John 5:17), and I see him still at work today.
Here's another reason: The 6th day story that begins in Genesis 2:4 never ends. The biblical writers never draw that 6th day to a close. It’s reasonable to conclude that the 6th day comes to an end as a part of the consummation of the ages in Revelation, but not before then. There is no other place in Scripture where the biblical writers conclude the 6th day, at least I haven’t found it.
If that’s so, we are still in the 6th day. That means that, like Adam naming the animals, modern believers are playing an active role in God’s Creation. I find that exciting! We are working with God in his Creation! Our work is summarized in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Like Adam, God has blessed us with a role to play and carrying the gospel of Christ is at its core.
Peter calls Christians a “priesthood of believers” (I Peter 2:9-10, 3:15). As such, they carry the message of Christ as ambassadors (II Corinthians 5:17-21) and fragrance (II Corinthians 2:14-16). That means each believer needs to be comfortable in their faith. They need to understand it, certainly the basics; and then they need to actively apply it in their own lives. In addition, they need to be able to share it with others. They share two things, (1) the facts of Christianity which are the same for everyone and (2) what Christ’s lordship has done in their lives, their witness, which is unique to each individual.
By the way, sharing Christ is not like making a secular sales call. The believer initiates the discussion or the prospect asks a question. The believer explains and answers questions, but God makes the sale. We are not here to attempt to change minds. We are here to share what we know to the best of our abilities, and the Holy Spirit does the rest (Note: I Corinthians 1:18-2:16).
By operating in service to others, God promises that a person’s life will, in fact, get better, that is, more productive, rewarding, and satisfying (God’s plan for your success). By doing God’s will, believers enjoy more happiness at home, more success at work, and more purpose in life.
The Church
We can see the first gathering of believers in Acts 2:42-47. That first church is important to us because we see it in its purest form.
The twelve apostles were the “paid staff.” They had just gotten their training from Christ himself (Luke 24:45; John 20:30-31; Acts 1:3b). This is the only time in the New Testament in which all twelve ministered together.
Peter was presumably their leader (John 21:15-19; Acts 2:14 ). We can sense his view of the church from I Peter 2:4-10 in which he speaks of a “priesthood of believers” and a church comprised of “living stones.” The living stones remark is consistent with Romans 12:1-8, Ephesians 4:1-16, I Corinthians 12 and 13 where Paul speaks of the grace (gifts and talents) with which God blesses each believer for service in both the church body and in the individual’s personal life.
Acts 2:42 describes the church’s primary focus on teaching, fellowship, and prayer.
Teaching - I surmise that the teaching was designed to create a priesthood of believers. The foundation on which they built was the Old Testament, showing that it was the prophetic preparation for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. This is exactly the information on which Peter called when he explained the pentecostal uproar to the crowd. The Old Testament was the foundation. It established the law and prophesied that a Messiah was to come. Jesus Christ, the man many in the crowd had seen or certainly knew about, was that Messiah. His resurrection proved it! The twelve then taught how God wants believers to respond to that event, what God wants us all to do in living out God’s truth in our lives today.
Fellowship - The second emphasis in that first church was fellowship, fellowship with God and fellowship with each other.
Acts 2:43-46 describes that fellowship which looks strangely like Christian Communism. The difference is that the control was not centralized. The ministries came into being from each new believer as each saw fit (or as they were being led by the Lord). The apostle Paul elaborates on the guiding principles in Romans 12:1-15:33. (They are Christian love and personal transformation.)
The “breaking of bread” remark concerns, I believe, the Lord’s Supper as Paul will later come to explain it in I Corinthians 11:23-32: The Lord’s Supper is a time in which believers remember Christ’s personal sacrifice for them that enabled their salvation. It is also a time in which believers measure how well they are doing in response to Christ’s lordship.
If the first church was anything, it was pertinent in the lives of its participants.
Prayer - The third emphasis in that first church was prayer. Effective prayer requires that believers sort out in their own minds what’s going on in their lives. They compare their desires with what the Bible says about God’s desires for them (God’s will). They meditate on Scripture. They prioritize. By their requests, they establish where in their lives they will be looking for God to act. Through prayer, an active attentiveness to God’s will, the believer continues to honor and respond to Christ’s lordship in their lives.
Christian fellowships do this same thing with respect to the life of the church and what they are coming to recognize as Christ’s vision for it. It begins in Acts 2:42-47 and blossoms throughout the rest of the New Testament, especially Romans 12:1-15:33.
Like the early churches, the modern church engages in many ministries, but at its core are teaching, fellowship, and prayer with the goal of nurturing the priesthood of believers and encouraging them to recognize and act in the gifts with which God has blessed them, gifted people serving in the areas of their giftedness.
Conclusion
Most doctrinal statements are short. They employ technical terms that are obscure to many and generally black and white in nature. As a result, they often draw battle lines between believers.
This discussion focuses on what I believe the Bible teaches about the results that come from engaging in sound doctrine. Christians will never agree on the underlying details because Scripture leaves ample room for debate. The Bible leaves much of Christian doctrine — exactly how it works — in God’s hands, where it belongs. After all, it’s his doctrine, his Master Plan for the Creation; but the Bible is considerably more clear on what God wants us to do as a result (Note: Romans 12:1-15:33; Ephesians 4:17-6:20; Colossians 3:1-4:1; Titus 2:1-3:11; Hebrews 10:19-12:29; James 1:2-5:20; I Peter 2:1-5:11; I John 1:1-5:21). Practically speaking and while I have opinions on doctrine, I choose to focus on God’s will for us. God promises to do his stuff, and he has left us plenty of room in which to do ours. This life is about that: The Great Commission. Reach ‘em and teach ‘em, doing God’s will for the Day is near.
Peace^
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Believers, What do they look like?
The first church in Jerusalem (Acts 2:42-47) concentrated on three issues: Teaching, Fellowship, and Prayer. That appears to be the biblical place to start for anyone establishing a Christian church. One question that comes to mind is what did that first church teach? The answer comes in looking at what they were trying to accomplish.
Their first assignment is the Great Commission first given to the apostles: “All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me [Christ]. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.”
That instruction endowed each apostle, individually, into Christian ministry. Each had a role to play. I’ve concluded that, by the same token, the Great Commission also endows each believer with the same responsibility for carrying the gospel message and teaching believers “to obey everything” Christ commanded.
With that individual perspective in mind, consider this promise from Christ: “For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them” (Matthew 18:20). That confirms that Christ himself is committed to even the smallest of relationships between people, intimate person-to-person ministries.
And then consider this remark from Peter: “But you [all Christians] are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light” (I Peter 2:9). Together with the Great Commission, this “royal priesthood” remark suggests that God has endowed each believer with priestly responsibilities. Again, we’re seeing a one-on-one, person-to-person calling.
And then consider this from Paul: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (II Corinthians 5:20a) and “For we are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life” (II Corinthians 2:15-16). Again, believers as individuals are in view.
From this it’s reasonable to conclude that one-on-one ministry lies at the core of Christ’s Great Commission. Christ intends each individual believer to minister to others, as an ambassador for him Christ and as fragrance, an example to be followed (Note: Philippians 3:17-4:1; II Thessalonians 3:6-10 key verse 7a; I Timothy 1:15-17; Titus 2:7-8; I Peter 2:21). I see all this as meaning the task of carrying the gospel is not the solely for those specially called to it. It is fundamental to every believer and the central part of their personal ministry.
Paul also advises new believers to remain in their present place in life (I Corinthians 7:17-24). This suggests that a new believer’s personal ministry is to those within the immediate sphere of influence within which he finds himself as a new Christian.
Thus, a fundamental goal in the educational program of the first church was to teach people to teach people, to teach people to duplicate their Christian faith. That suggests that all believers (1) need to understand the basics of their faith, (2) They need to be applying that faith to their own lives, and (3) they need to be comfortable sharing their faith with others.
Christ had already established the pattern. He taught the apostles and sent them out to teach others (Matthew 10:5-20). Following the ascension and Pentecost, the apostles presumably taught others, a group of some 120 (Acts 1:15b); and we can, in Paul’s ministry, see how that pattern spread to the extent that ultimately Christianity “overturned” the Roman world—one believer at a time.
So, what does this ministering believer look like?
I see him as operating in Position, Process, and Purpose.
Position (Justification)
Position concerns one’s legal rights before God. Initially, he’s saved or unsaved.
When a believer is saved, he has acknowledged the New Covenant and played his part in aligning himself with it. God promised to do things for the believer and the believer promised to do things for God.
One’s formal Christian walk begins with salvation which itself begins at the moment of belief (Note: Ephesians 1:13-14; II Corinthians 1:21-22).
Prior to salvation, it’s as if the individual was wearing a sweatshirt with the inscription “Property of Satan.” Following the moment of belief, God changed the inscription to “Property of God.” The biblical term for this is justification. A believer is an heir with Christ (Galatians 4:1-7) and a temple of God, a place in which God lives through his Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 3:16-17).
Process (Sanctification)
The New Testament also treats salvation as the process of “being saved” (I Corinthians 1:18; II Corinthians 2:15-16; I Peter 1:9; II Peter 1:10-11; Philippians 2:12-13). It marks the journey from thinking and behaving like the world to thinking and behaving like Christ.
Paul describes the process as a transformation. “Therefore, I urge you brothers, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1-2).
This process is a partnership between the believer and God’s Holy Spirit (Note: I Corinthians 1:18-2:16). The believer devotes himself to Scripture and the Holy Spirit reveals God’s will through the sense of it. As the believer acts under Christ’s lordship, he or she sees the difference that living in Christ makes in their life. Through that experience, the believer “tests and approves” that God’s way of doing things produces better results than man’s way of doing things (God’s plan for our success).
Purpose
Purpose concerns one reason for our existence. Believers are ambassadors and fragrance. As ambassadors they carry God’s message to the folks within their spheres of influence. As fragrance they illustrate the truths of God through how they live. (One’s fragrance is often more potent than the facts they carry as ambassadors.)
As ambassadors and fragrance they are among the priesthood of believers.
Believers are also living stones (I Peter 2:4-5). I believe this relates to the special callings and gifts God has placed on his kids (Note: Romans 12:1-8; Ephesians 4:1-16; I Corinthians 12 & 13). As a believer becomes attentive to his callings and gifts, he or she also begins to understand their purpose in life. Something is a calling or gift when (1) you love doing it, (2) you do it well, and (3) when others recognize that you do it well.
Every good church is filled with priests but God has also blessed each priest with unique burdens, callings, and gifts. Each church is different because of the nature of these callings and gifts, and yet each church is the same concerning its priestly message.
Thus, I have concluded that the key teaching role of the church is to duplicate believers, to encourage each participant (1) to understand the message, (2) to apply it to their lives, and (3) to comfortably share it with others. Based on the New Testament message, that appears to have been the focus of the first church and I believe that’s what Christ wants for our focus today.
Their first assignment is the Great Commission first given to the apostles: “All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me [Christ]. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.”
That instruction endowed each apostle, individually, into Christian ministry. Each had a role to play. I’ve concluded that, by the same token, the Great Commission also endows each believer with the same responsibility for carrying the gospel message and teaching believers “to obey everything” Christ commanded.
With that individual perspective in mind, consider this promise from Christ: “For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them” (Matthew 18:20). That confirms that Christ himself is committed to even the smallest of relationships between people, intimate person-to-person ministries.
And then consider this remark from Peter: “But you [all Christians] are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light” (I Peter 2:9). Together with the Great Commission, this “royal priesthood” remark suggests that God has endowed each believer with priestly responsibilities. Again, we’re seeing a one-on-one, person-to-person calling.
And then consider this from Paul: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (II Corinthians 5:20a) and “For we are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life” (II Corinthians 2:15-16). Again, believers as individuals are in view.
From this it’s reasonable to conclude that one-on-one ministry lies at the core of Christ’s Great Commission. Christ intends each individual believer to minister to others, as an ambassador for him Christ and as fragrance, an example to be followed (Note: Philippians 3:17-4:1; II Thessalonians 3:6-10 key verse 7a; I Timothy 1:15-17; Titus 2:7-8; I Peter 2:21). I see all this as meaning the task of carrying the gospel is not the solely for those specially called to it. It is fundamental to every believer and the central part of their personal ministry.
Paul also advises new believers to remain in their present place in life (I Corinthians 7:17-24). This suggests that a new believer’s personal ministry is to those within the immediate sphere of influence within which he finds himself as a new Christian.
Thus, a fundamental goal in the educational program of the first church was to teach people to teach people, to teach people to duplicate their Christian faith. That suggests that all believers (1) need to understand the basics of their faith, (2) They need to be applying that faith to their own lives, and (3) they need to be comfortable sharing their faith with others.
Christ had already established the pattern. He taught the apostles and sent them out to teach others (Matthew 10:5-20). Following the ascension and Pentecost, the apostles presumably taught others, a group of some 120 (Acts 1:15b); and we can, in Paul’s ministry, see how that pattern spread to the extent that ultimately Christianity “overturned” the Roman world—one believer at a time.
So, what does this ministering believer look like?
I see him as operating in Position, Process, and Purpose.
Position (Justification)
Position concerns one’s legal rights before God. Initially, he’s saved or unsaved.
When a believer is saved, he has acknowledged the New Covenant and played his part in aligning himself with it. God promised to do things for the believer and the believer promised to do things for God.
One’s formal Christian walk begins with salvation which itself begins at the moment of belief (Note: Ephesians 1:13-14; II Corinthians 1:21-22).
Prior to salvation, it’s as if the individual was wearing a sweatshirt with the inscription “Property of Satan.” Following the moment of belief, God changed the inscription to “Property of God.” The biblical term for this is justification. A believer is an heir with Christ (Galatians 4:1-7) and a temple of God, a place in which God lives through his Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 3:16-17).
Process (Sanctification)
The New Testament also treats salvation as the process of “being saved” (I Corinthians 1:18; II Corinthians 2:15-16; I Peter 1:9; II Peter 1:10-11; Philippians 2:12-13). It marks the journey from thinking and behaving like the world to thinking and behaving like Christ.
Paul describes the process as a transformation. “Therefore, I urge you brothers, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1-2).
This process is a partnership between the believer and God’s Holy Spirit (Note: I Corinthians 1:18-2:16). The believer devotes himself to Scripture and the Holy Spirit reveals God’s will through the sense of it. As the believer acts under Christ’s lordship, he or she sees the difference that living in Christ makes in their life. Through that experience, the believer “tests and approves” that God’s way of doing things produces better results than man’s way of doing things (God’s plan for our success).
Purpose
Purpose concerns one reason for our existence. Believers are ambassadors and fragrance. As ambassadors they carry God’s message to the folks within their spheres of influence. As fragrance they illustrate the truths of God through how they live. (One’s fragrance is often more potent than the facts they carry as ambassadors.)
As ambassadors and fragrance they are among the priesthood of believers.
Believers are also living stones (I Peter 2:4-5). I believe this relates to the special callings and gifts God has placed on his kids (Note: Romans 12:1-8; Ephesians 4:1-16; I Corinthians 12 & 13). As a believer becomes attentive to his callings and gifts, he or she also begins to understand their purpose in life. Something is a calling or gift when (1) you love doing it, (2) you do it well, and (3) when others recognize that you do it well.
Every good church is filled with priests but God has also blessed each priest with unique burdens, callings, and gifts. Each church is different because of the nature of these callings and gifts, and yet each church is the same concerning its priestly message.
Thus, I have concluded that the key teaching role of the church is to duplicate believers, to encourage each participant (1) to understand the message, (2) to apply it to their lives, and (3) to comfortably share it with others. Based on the New Testament message, that appears to have been the focus of the first church and I believe that’s what Christ wants for our focus today.
Friday, May 22, 2009
How To Find A Good Church
While I suspect it could be valid, I don’t suggest The Internet Church replace any brick-and-mortar church.
I see The Internet Church as an adjunct resource, a 24/7 source to build individuals and encourage their personal ministry and outreach. It will also minister to those seekers and believers who have been screwed over by the traditional church. Lots of believers have been soured by their church experience. Hopefully, The Internet Church can be a safe place for them to heal, reset, and launch again.
I think these are the qualities to look for in a church:
A church is not good because of its denomination, location (although closer is better than farther), size, the music it plays, the time of services, the garb of its clergy, or the character of its Sunday presentation. A church is good when...
When the Bible is its book and Christ is its Lord. When the Bible trumps every other document, the church is likely to be good.
When the church is transparent about the money. A good church will be openly accountable about where the money goes.
When the church is growing numerically. Numerical growth growth alone is not a determinant, but numerical growth along with the other qualities indicates that the church is actively connecting with people. By the way, that growth should be coming as much from new believers (maybe more) than it is from incorporating Christians from existing churches.
When you find a friendly, open atmosphere. Love is a sign of Christianity. Christian love seeks the best for others. You begin seeing it in the tone of the Sunday morning atmosphere.
When its leaders are accessible.
When the church offers you clear opportunities for spiritual growth beyond the Sunday services.
If you’re looking for the perfect church, you will never find it because while Christ is the head of good churches (the Holy Spirit speaking through Scripture to humble and gifted leaders), the people who carry out his wishes are human beings. They are called to the work but, like all of us, they are prone to failures of one kind or another. The leaders in good churches are doing their best. They correct themselves. They grow spiritually. They study. They listen to those around them. They are open to righteous change. They are concerned about your spiritual well-being, and they are actively reaching out to the lost.
I see The Internet Church as an adjunct resource, a 24/7 source to build individuals and encourage their personal ministry and outreach. It will also minister to those seekers and believers who have been screwed over by the traditional church. Lots of believers have been soured by their church experience. Hopefully, The Internet Church can be a safe place for them to heal, reset, and launch again.
I think these are the qualities to look for in a church:
A church is not good because of its denomination, location (although closer is better than farther), size, the music it plays, the time of services, the garb of its clergy, or the character of its Sunday presentation. A church is good when...
When the Bible is its book and Christ is its Lord. When the Bible trumps every other document, the church is likely to be good.
When the church is transparent about the money. A good church will be openly accountable about where the money goes.
When the church is growing numerically. Numerical growth growth alone is not a determinant, but numerical growth along with the other qualities indicates that the church is actively connecting with people. By the way, that growth should be coming as much from new believers (maybe more) than it is from incorporating Christians from existing churches.
When you find a friendly, open atmosphere. Love is a sign of Christianity. Christian love seeks the best for others. You begin seeing it in the tone of the Sunday morning atmosphere.
When its leaders are accessible.
When the church offers you clear opportunities for spiritual growth beyond the Sunday services.
If you’re looking for the perfect church, you will never find it because while Christ is the head of good churches (the Holy Spirit speaking through Scripture to humble and gifted leaders), the people who carry out his wishes are human beings. They are called to the work but, like all of us, they are prone to failures of one kind or another. The leaders in good churches are doing their best. They correct themselves. They grow spiritually. They study. They listen to those around them. They are open to righteous change. They are concerned about your spiritual well-being, and they are actively reaching out to the lost.
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