Most have probably heard the saying “if, insert name here, jumped off a bridge would you follow?” The context meaning just because someone else does it, be it popular, or not real smart, would you follow simply for that reason? The point being, a lot of people, do and believe a lot of, well let’s just say strange things. So what does this have to do with strengthening the believer? I am glad you ask!
In Dr. William Lane Craig’s book On Guard, he writes “the purpose of apologetics is to reach the lost, strengthen the believer and to change culture.” I spend, and know God has led me to this point, most of my time attempting to strengthen the believer. Unfortunately, apologetics receives some of its strongest opposition from this group of people. I find this very confusing and extremely frustrating. I mean, after all, apologetics is Biblical, part of the first and greatest commandment, and Jesus used it, as did Paul. But that is not the point. How can professing believers reach the lost, or change culture if they do not know what and why they believe? It has been written about many times before, they cannot. In fact, the majority of professing followers do not know what or why they believe. I was ask recently to back that statement up. Herein lies the point.
As an apologist I felt it to be pretty obvious, (the shallowness of professing believers). I mean, I do this for a living. And a simple conversation with many other professing believers seemed like sufficient evidence. So when ask to provide evidence of my claim I was, honestly, taken by surprise. After all, it has been written about extensively, statistics show the church is declining, as do they show our 18 to 20 something’s leaving in mass numbers, (50-80%). So I thought about what would seem to be a good indicator of, or considered acceptable evidence for, most believers not knowing what or why they believe. Are you ready? Brace yourself, or sit down if you are standing. This could be earth-shattering. But in reality, probably not. Remember when I stated God is using me, through apologetics, to strengthen the believer? Previous paragraph…well, that is a tough “row to hoe” as they say in southern West Virginia. Okay, okay, I will get to the point, or my evidence.
False teachers! Pretty simplistic huh? Why would one use false teachers as evidence for a shallow church? Are you serious? One of the fastest growing “denominations” is the Word of Faith movement. Joel Osteen packs in 45,000 every Sunday. Ken Hagin, Joyce Meyer, Beth Moore, TBN, GodTV, Creflo, TD Jakes are all the most popular people and most watched and listened to “Christians.” That is just to name a few. There was a recent Facebook post with Jessi Duplantis and one of his cohorts discussing why they needed private jets. The top selling “Christian” books continuously are written by these people. And one would question the shallowness of professing followers?
What about all of the misquoted scripture one is faced with on a daily basis? We have all heard it from Jeremiah 29:11 to Philippians 4:13. The teaching how to reach the lost by sharing our testimony. By thinking witnessing to someone is inviting them to church. I could go on and on. The evidence is strong. The church NEEDS apologetics. The church NEEDS sound doctrine. The church NEEDS to make disciples. All of which a Biblical commands. Sadly, it would appear the church is in denial!
Please, don’t get me wrong. There are many solid teachers/preachers out there. But if professing followers don’t know what they believe, or why they believe it, how can they possibly distinguish the false teachers from sound theology. Remember, people actually followed Jim Jones to the jungle and killed themselves. And he was extremely popular.
Boys and girls, Christianity is not relevant or popular in today’s society. In fact, it has never been popular. The gospel is offensive. The promise of trails and tribulation does not sound fun. Or happy, blessed, or favored as so often quoted.
I often tell my students that we need to get the majority of professing followers lost so that we can get them saved. Please consider the first and greatest commandment, Matthew 22:37, the next time you consider an apologist that is attempting to strengthen believers too harsh, or not speaking with gentleness and respect. Please read 2 Corinthians 10:5, Jude 3, Titus 1:9, and 1 Peter 3:15.
I pray for the maturity of every professing follower. I ask God that each of you to stop watching, reading and listening to false teaching. Would you at least admit the problem? Would you please commit to figure out what you believe and why?
Matthew 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Hebrews 5:13-14 ““For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the Word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
This article replaces another which appears previously in this space.
Without a thorough indoctrination into the publishing industry, it’s easy for people shopping for a Christian resource to find something through a search engine, or scrolling categories at Amazon which appears to fit the bill but does not actually line up with scripture as they have always understood it and as their church teaches.
We wrote about this in August, 2017 in an article titled, Shopping for Church Resources on Google and Amazon Involves Risk.
…[T]the group leader, capitulating to an internet shopping world goes online and discovers a particular resource for their small group that seems to fit the bill.
- It’s on the book of Philippians, which is exactly what they want.
- It’s a fill-in-the-blanks format, which is exactly what they want.
- It runs ten weeks, which is exactly what they want.
- It’s under $10 US per book, which is exactly what they want.
What could possibly go wrong?
We then offered a number of things that could blow up, the last of which was,
The search process lands someone on a website not realizing it belongs to a marginal or fringe group such as LDS/Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness and is impressed enough to delve further into their writings, never returning to their place of origin.
Heck, if you’re ordering quantities of things, let’s face it, many people could be deceived.
There are several ways this can happen:
- The product they followed up on when they typed their criteria into a search engine belonged to a commercial publisher or distributor who was paying for search engine optimization (SEO) or even a paid ad itself.
- The internet isn’t very discerning; it follows an algorithm to obtain results depending on what you type. But too many search terms can also send it off the rails.
- The person searching isn’t very discerning; they are not trained in terms of knowledge of who it is behind the website or the publisher.
From there the article discussed a number of issues all related to publishing.
But there is a much broader issue begging for discussion here, and that’s discernment, as in spiritual discernment. It’s more than just a “spidey sense” but sometimes it presents that way. Something just feels off, or not right.
Because we’ve covered discernment here already many, many times — it’s the spiritual gift I believe people desperately need in an internet age — I would encourage you to track some of those articles at this link.
What are we supposed to do?
Writing at Before the Cross, Erica Boutwell notes,
…Paul says in Romans 16 to “watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.”
Maybe you’re feeling some reservations about someone but you don’t think you have enough Biblical knowledge to really tell if what they’re teaching is legit. Ask your pastor or someone you believe knows the Word well. Trust that the stirring in your gut is not just that late night bowl of ice cream talking. There’s a good chance it’s the Holy Spirit prompting you to research something a little more – either to further your own knowledge of scripture or to help you point out false teaching.
I believe the biggest thing believers need to learn from the tricky spot we find ourselves in today is to never take something at face value. The enemy is cunning and he is patient enough to creep in just a little at a time, even through someone you feel like you’ve been able to trust up until now. We have to stop blindly following the teachings of 3rd party resources, and start holding up the information we’re being handed against the lens of scripture. When all is said and done, we don’t get to use the excuse of “but he said . . .” or “but she told me . . .” Rest assured, the day will come when they will be held accountable, but not for your choices.
As we continue growing in our faith, we are to become more and more responsible for who we let teach us and what teachings we trust. So as the different teachers in our faith increase in number and influence, especially outside of the church, let’s make it a priority to know the Word of God well enough to be aware when we are being fed real meat and when we are having the wool pulled over our eyes…
Click this link for other articles by Erica at Before the Cross.
Something a little different today!
Christianity 201 
Random Notes…
Tags: Bible book commentary, Bible commentary, Bible insights, Bible knowledge, Bible Study, daily Bible reading, deeper Christian life, devotional, devotional study, Warren Wiersbe
I’m really late posting tonight. Rather than a specific reading or theme, I thought I’d share some of my own nightly devotional process.
When my kids were young, we started something called “Hangin’ Out Time,” which included reading from The Beginner Bible, and other books of that ilk, and then moving on to Hurlburt’s Story of the Bible (the original, in-depth edition, not the simplified one you can purchase today.)
It was doing Hurlburt that I realized the potential for my own spiritual growth to come out of these times, and now that the “kids” are 17 and 19, we still do “Hangin’ Out Time,” though it’s more like a 20-30 minute theology study time.
We’ve read — out loud — every chapter of the New Testament in the Life Application Bible including reading — out loud — all of the study notes. Plus a number — more than half — of the Old Testament books including Leviticus.
We’ve done three books by Stuart Briscoe, are in the middle of an Andrew Murray, and alternate with occasional contemporary authors such as both books by Francis Chan.
But until tonight, I had never read a single word by Warren Wiersbe. I picked up a copy of Be Hopeful — our house is full of books in every room — which is Wiersbe’s commentary on I Peter. I had been told that some people regarded him as somewhat simplistic, but I didn’t get that from his first chapter, which talked about the writer, the recipients and the message of the book.
Wiersbe apparently doesn’t believe that “apostles” exist today. I’m not sure I agree with that. I believe that in some form, the fivefold gifts commonly called APTEP — apostle, pastor, teacher, evangelist, prophet — are still resident with members of your congregation and my congregation. Michael Frost boldly suggests that every one of us have degrees of that gifting, but that God has placed at least “one of each” in any body.
But it’s important that I don’t allow my difference with Wiersbe on this — and I’m sure there would be other things — to block me from receiving the other wonderful things he says in this opening chapter. His foundational chapter on I Peter gives the reader an appetite for the rest of the epistle.
Warren Wiersbe has a number of commentaries that all begin with the word “be.” The list below begins with the list from Wikipedia, the ones I’ve added at the end (without dates) are just a few I collected tonight. I offer it to you as good start if you’ve never read or purchased a commentary on an individual book of the Bible. You’ll see why these are called “The Bees” by some people:
That is quite a lifetime of work, isn’t it?
There are also other series, such as The Life Application Commentaries, and The Bible Speaks Today series, which don’t require you to know Greek or Hebrew; other series such as The Tyndale Commentaries contain some “textual criticism,” which gets into translation issues.
…Christianity 201’s motto is “Digging a little Deeper.” I hope tonight’s “random notes” have encouraged you to do just that.