‘I’ve Never Heard That Interpretation Before’

Three days ago, I looked at a detail of The Good Samaritan story that I had not noticed before. I am constantly amazed at the depth of the parables, how many different lessons there are to be gained from what is always just a few short verses.

But we need to be careful when we hear something new that it conforms to everything else we have been taught. Someone has said, “If it’s new it’s not true.” I am not comfortable with such a sweeping generalization, but obviously in the course of Christian history, there have been many people who have come along with new ideas; some helpful and instructive; others rather off base.

In 2 Corinthians 3-4 Paul writes,

I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ.  For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it way too easily.

Paul says this twice in the same paragraph in Galatians 1:7b-8

Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a divine curse! As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you embraced, let him be under a divine curse!

Years ago, I had the responsibility of coordinating two completely different Sunday morning services at our church. The first service was meant for believers, and I asked a friend, who specializes in cult research to do a message for which I gave him the title, “How Does a Rocket Go Off-Course?” In other words, I wanted him to share not so much how groups come along with something completely out of left field (i.e. The Book of Mormon) but rather how orthodox groups suddenly seem to take a turn down a road of questionable theology.

I suspect it starts out with one small particular point of doctrine. Perhaps it’s something a reader wishes was in the text. Perhaps it’s a word that has been less than perfectly rendered in one of our translations. Perhaps it’s a lack of attention to the context of a particular verse. Perhaps it’s just a lack of sleep the night before due to bad pizza!

The problem is once you start undoing a working systematic theology, because of the inter-relatedness of the parts, you can end up undermining its foundation as to the very nature of God, or the essential plan of salvation. Some may find the study of theology boring, but there is a real beauty in how the various doctrines can fit together, if the theology makes sense.

I also want to point out what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:2

By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.  (NIV)

It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you–unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. (NLT)

The second rendering, in the NLT suggests something that is true far too often, and that is many people have come into the faith family believing things that “were never true in the first place.” Again, using the analogy of a rocket that has gone off course, we need to apply what rocket scientists call “a mid-course correction.” We need to gently steer that person away from the false understanding which, left unchecked, will lead to other errors or perhaps lead to great frustration in their Christian growth and life.

However, in the case of The Good Samaritan story, the “new” insight added a greater depth of detail, or if you prefer, offered a slightly different way of seeing the cleric who stepped aside an opportunity to help the man injured on the road; a man who not only failed to help because of what he felt the law required, but one who in fact may have been going beyond what the law demanded of him.

But it doesn’t change the thrust of the story. It does not impinge on any major tenet of the church, any major doctrine, or any element of orthodox theology. Furthermore, the “new” teaching may simply represent an element of the narrative we’ve simply skipped over in the past.

If the premise makes sense to us, we can accept it, but if not, we can choose to dismiss it. The parable, and its applications to our lives, is unharmed.

With So Many Opinions About Jesus

Thinking Through 1st John 2:18-28

by Clarke Dixon

With so many opinions about Jesus, whom do we trust?

We live in days of opinions on everything. Masks, or no masks? Vaccines, or no vaccines? Jesus, or no Jesus? There is no shortage of opinions on politics, hockey, religion, the weather, anything and everything.

The internet has only made things worse, or better, depending on your perspective. It is said that thanks to the internet we live in the Information Age. It may be more correct to say that thanks to the internet, we live in the age of opinions.

Anyone can now share their opinion with the world, no matter how ridiculous the opinion may actually end up being. Nothing needs to be reasonable, or sensible, to be published.

This might be fine when the opinion does not matter much. Which hockey team will win the Stanley cup? I may have an opinion on that, in fact I do. You may not care. It may matter to some of us now, in fact there is a whole industry devoted to sharing opinions on sports. But will I care in 100 years? Will any of us?

There is something that matters now, that can make a big difference in our lives now, and will matter to each and every one of us 100 years from now; What, or better, who, is God?

What, or better, who is God? This is the most important question ever asked. This is the most important question ever avoided on a regular basis. When it is asked, there are so many opinions.

Even if we narrow it down to thinking about Jesus, asking, ‘is Jesus the best representation of God the world has ever seen?’, even then, there are so many opinions.

Some are of the opinion that Jesus is just a mythical figure. Some are of the opinion that Jesus was a man who lived, but the early devotees, or rather ‘inventors’, of Christianity, made him bigger than he is, turning the man Jesus into a God following his death. Some of us are of the opinion that Jesus rose from the dead and is, in fact, Lord and Saviour.

How do we ever find our way in a sea of opinions about Jesus?

John, in his letter known to us as 1st John, responds to an opinion some were promoting about Jesus. What John has to say in helping the early Christians navigate a different opinion about Jesus will help us navigate different opinions about Jesus in our day. So let’s take a look:

Dear children, the last hour is here. You have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and already many such antichrists have appeared. From this we know that the last hour has come. These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.

11 John 2:18-19 (NLT)

With our fascination with the end of the world, we may want to know more about the Antichrist. However, John here is not wanting to talk about one figure, but rather some people who were sharing opinions about Jesus that were new and different. They are “anti,” meaning “instead of” Christ. They were promoting their own conception of Jesus instead of receiving the teaching about Jesus already given by the apostles. John is careful to point out that these people may have hung out with the Christian community, but they were never really Christians.

Who are these people?

In John’s day there was a way of looking at things which developed more fully into what is now called Gnosticism. There is much to say, but to keep it simple, anything “spiritual” and “otherworldly” was good, anything “material” and “this-wordly” was bad. Interestingly, many Christians today are somewhat gnostic in their thinking!

Given such a view, you can well imagine how certain teachings of Jesus would resonate, things like “I am the light of the world.” Since some of the teachings would resonate, they basically highjacked Jesus. They tried to change Jesus to fit their way of understanding instead of changing their understanding to fit Jesus.

They denied the humanity of Jesus, his death, and his bodily resurrection, and the logical conclusions from those facts. These things were all too “worldly” to fit with their way of thinking.

What is important for us to understand here is that the apostles, including John, were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life, death, and life after death. They were with Jesus, heard his teaching, knew him to be a man like any other, yet a man unlike any other, saw him killed, and saw him alive again, not as some ghost, but as he was, in the body, yet different somehow. The disciples of Jesus adjusted their thinking to fit the facts before them. So when some people come along giving their opinions on how Jesus fits their way of thinking if you just think differently about Jesus, John is eager to set the record straight.

To this, John says,

But you are not like that, for the Holy One has given you his Spirit, and all of you know the truth. So I am writing to you not because you don’t know the truth but because you know the difference between truth and lies. And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist.

1 John 2:20-22 (NLT)

John is saying, you know the truth! And you know that these opinions from the false teachers are not it! You have heard about Jesus, his life, teaching, death, and resurrection, from the eyewitnesses. That’s it! Plus there is a presence through the Holy Spirit that brings you to a place of hearing about Jesus and saying “that’s it.” And “it” is the best news ever!

You know it and in fact you don’t need these false teachers to teach you anything anything extra:

I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.

1 John 2:26-27 (NLT)

Hearing the false teachers would be like being on a jury, hearing all the evidence that has been carefully collected and presented, then picking up a tabloid with the headline “the shocking truth” about the case you are working on. So John is saying, don’t trade facts for opinions!

So remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father. And in this fellowship we enjoy the eternal life he promised us.

1 John 2:24-25 (NLT)

So how does this help us navigate the many opinions being shared about Jesus today? Is Jesus just a mythical figure? Is Jesus just a mere man that other mere men conferred divinity upon later?

Just as the false teachers in John’s day were trying to change Jesus to fit their way of thinking instead of changing their thinking to fit the facts about Jesus, there are those today, who having already made up their minds that miracles do not happen, that the supernatural is not real, or that Christianity is a bad religion, try to change Jesus to fit their thinking rather than change their thinking to fit Jesus.

We do well to do as the early followers of Jesus did and follow the evidence.

The early Christians had heard about Jesus, his life, teaching, death, and resurrection from the eyewitnesses, the apostles who had experienced the reality of Jesus, his life, teaching, death, and resurrection. With the testimony of the Holy Spirit, the news rang true, that Jesus is Lord. And the news was the best news ever.

Today we still follow the evidence. We still have the testimony of those who knew Jesus, witnesses of his life, teaching, death and resurrection. It is found in the writings we now call the New Testament. The case for Jesus as Lord and Saviour is compelling. It is both beautiful and believable. (See my sermon series called “Compelling” which is summarized here.)

People can share their opinions about the lake I go windsurfing in. They might be of the opinion that the lake is teeming with great white sharks and that since I fall off a lot I had better not windsurf there. They would be correct about my falling off a lot, but what about the presence of great white sharks? I can do the research and look up what kinds of fish are found in Ontario’s lakes. I can do the research and find out what kind of water great white sharks live in. I can ask those who regularly swim in the lake. I can learn from my own experience of swimming in the lake.

Let us follow the evidence, then walk with Jesus:

And now, dear children, remain in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns, you will be full of courage and not shrink back from him in shame.

1 John 2:28 (NLT)

There are many opinions about Jesus, but it really matters that we get it right.

Sorting out the identity of Jesus affects life now, it matters now, it makes a big difference, not just for us, but for everyone around us.

Sorting out the identity of Jesus will still matter to us 100 years from now and beyond, when God’s grace, God’s gift of eternal life will matter more to us than anything.

Let us not settle for opinions about Jesus, Let us pursue Jesus.

With so many opinions about Jesus being shared in our day, whom do we trust? Let us trust Jesus!

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The full sermon on video can also be seen as part of this “online worship expression”

A Different Gospel

In yesterday’s Sunday Worship column, I commented on a detail of The Good Samaritan story that I had not noticed before. I am constantly amazed at the depth of the parables, how many different lessons there are to be gained from what is always just a few short verses.

But we need to be careful when he hear something new that it conforms to everything else we have been taught. Someone has said, “If it’s new it’s not true.” I am not comfortable with such a sweeping generalization, but obviously in the course of Christian history, there have been many people who have come along with new ideas; some helpful and instructive; others rather off base.

In 2 Corinthians 3-4 Paul writes,

I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ.  For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it way too easily.

Paul says this twice in the same paragraph in Galatians 1:7b-8

Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a divine curse! As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you embraced, let him be under a divine curse!

Years ago, I had the responsibility of coordinating two completely different Sunday morning services at our church. The first service was meant for believers, and I asked a friend, who specializes in cult research to do a message for which I gave him the title, “How Does a Rocket Go Off-Course?” In other words, I wanted him to share not so much how groups come along with something completely out of left field (i.e. The Book of Mormon) but rather how orthodox groups suddenly seem to take a turn down a road of questionable theology.

I suspect it starts out with one small particular point of doctrine. Perhaps it’s something a reader wishes was in the text. Perhaps it’s a word that has been less than perfectly rendered in one of our translations. Perhaps it’s a lack of attention to the context of a particular verse. Perhaps it’s just a lack of sleep the night before due to bad pizza!

The problem is once you start undoing a working systematic theology, because of the inter-relatedness of the parts, you can end up undermining the very nature of God, or the essential plan of salvation. Some may find the study of theology boring, but there is a real beauty in how the various doctrines can fit together, if the theology makes sense.

I also want to point out what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:2

By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.  (NIV)

It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you–unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. (NLT)

The second rendering, in the NLT suggests something that is true far too often, and that is many people have come into the faith family believing things that “were never true in the first place.” Again, using the analogy of a rocket that has gone off course, we need to apply what rocket scientists call “a mid-course correction.” We need to gently steer that person away from the false understanding which, left unchecked, will lead to other errors or perhaps lead to great frustration in their Christian growth and life.

The Perils of Faux-Freedom

Today we are paying a return visit to Mike Leake at the blog Borrowed Light. Click the title below to read at source.

The False Freedom Which Leads to Bondage

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. –Proverbs 16:25

There is a path that I see more and more people in my generation going down. It’s an appealing path in our post-Christian context. It allows us to capitulate and take the posture of humble question-askers—all the while, denying thousands of years of orthodoxy. Such a posture will keep us from the label of ‘bigot’ and will allow us—at least in the eyes of the world—to continue down the path of love.

It doesn’t really matter what doctrine is denied this path has the same trail-head. I suppose you could call it the man-centeredness. But what it really is, is that instead of the heralding the biblical gospel of a holy God redeeming unworthy sinners the church has tried to Christianize our cultural narcissism. In our culture the good news of Jesus is that God primarily exists to make me happy. God has a wonderful and prosperous plan for my life, every thing He does is aimed at accomplishing this goal.(See here and here). Our culture is radically obsessed with self. Preach a “gospel” which affirms the self at the center and you won’t have a problem getting an ear.

I understand the appeal to this path. Everything we read in our Bibles tells us that people saw Jesus as loving. Love—whatever that might mean—seems to be the ultimate ethic. As the apostle said, if we don’t have love we “have nothing and “are nothing”. As near as I can tell few in the New Testament accused Jesus of being bigoted. (Though, I’ve often wondered if the rich young ruler muttered a few choice words as he walked away from the narrow gospel of Jesus). As followers of Jesus we know we are to be loving, so it throws us for a loop when the world views us as narrow, bigoted, and supremely unloving. Combine this with the fact that many in my generation have been absolutely burned by church people who actually are unloving, and it makes the path of “affirming our inherent goodness” and “affirming gay marriage” a rather attractive option.

But I’m convinced it is a path void of the gospel.

Imagine with me a styrofoam buoy anchored somewhere out in the sea. We all know that the only way the styrofoam is able to stand firm in one position is because it is attached to an anchor far stronger than the waves. Now what if this little piece of styrofoam desires to pursue freedom and detaches himself from the anchor. What’s going to happen to that piece of styrofoam? Is it going to be free?

What feels like freedom at first will inevitably lead to bondage. At first that little piece of styrofoam would have felt quiet free. No longer anchored to the buoy, no longer confined by the anchors desires and demands, it rejoices in its new found freedom. But after awhile, when the waves toss it to and fro that freedom won’t feel so free. That little piece of styrofoam is a slave to the purposeless will of the waves. The waves of freedom will take it wherever they want to go and not ultimately where the detached styrofoam was hoping to land.

Of course it isn’t of much consequence if a piece of styrofoam detaches while on the safety of the shore. If there aren’t waves then I suppose detaching from the anchor might be a bit safer. But buoys aren’t meant for land. They are meant for the sea. And detaching from the anchor is deadly.

In the same way the humble question-asker and the guy who is perpetually “on a journey” might be able to get away with such things if he wasn’t out to sea and in the midst of a torrent of waves. But such question asking is never neutral. There is a real spiritual enemy who wants to shipwreck our souls. Detach from the anchor of biblical truth and you are at his mercy. The freedom that you so desire won’t end in freedom.

What is needed in this day and age…when scores of people are tossed to and fro by the waves…and beaten to death by the mock freedom of our hyper-sexualized and humanity destroying culture…are men and women bold enough and brave enough to believe God has already spoken. There are some questions that don’t need to be asked and some conversations that really don’t need to take place. As Spurgeon so aptly said, “We do not deliberate, for we have decided. To be for ever holding the truth of God, as though it might yet turn out to be a lie, were to lose all the comfort of it.”

God saves sinners.

When you place yourself in that statement it is the most glorious and offensive statement of all. And though it doesn’t appear to be so, those who are walking down any of the uber appealing man-centered paths of our culture are robbing people of this hope. They are promoting a freedom which is slavery, a life which is death, and a pleasure which is only temporary.

The narrow path is so much sweeter.

Yeah? Well Your Church is a Cult

So there.

That shut him up, right?

Unfortunately, we play the word “cult” like a trump card when in fact the word doesn’t always mean what we think. Jarod Hinton guest posted here back in February and returns today with a post that he titled, A Generic Weapon. (Click the link to read on his blog.)

“With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;” (Eph. 4:2)

My mentor in college, Mike Davis, used to emphasize the importance of defining terms. “Define your terms” he would say multiple times a week. There is a term used often among Christendom which I think is being improperly, or at the very least generically, defined. This is important because when a word is used improperly on a broad scale it can be very dangerous and is usually damaging to the body of Christ.

The word is “cult”.

That word seems to be applied to groups so quickly these days. Even ministries as solidly evangelical as “Answers in Genesis” have been refered to as cults. Why? It seems that we Christians throw that accusation out against any group or teaching with which we disagree if a) we can’t think of anything substantive to say, or b) we want to cause our listeners to know we are serious.

So I looked up the definition, just so I could understand what it really means. Here you go, with my commentary in red:

“Cult”

1. a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.  (Particular…like…..all Christianity?)
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.  (Yeah, or Jesus. How many of you admire Jesus? Congratulations! You are now a cult member.)
3. the object of such devotion.
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5. 5. Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.  (So far, we are extremely generic. These things could describe anyone from Branch Davidians to Baptists.)
6.  a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.  (Ok, this one seems a little more specific, but “considered to be false” by whom? Who is it that decides what is “false”, “unorthodox”, or “extremist”? This is again a very subjective statement. It strikes me that the Yankees would have considered the Confederates a cult by this definition, complete with charismatic leader in Robert E. Lee!)
7. the members of such a religion or sect.
8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific. (Yeah, this would be weird. That is the best one so far. And see how much more specific this one is?)

These definitions are so general and unspecific that the accusation “cult” can be used in almost any imaginable disagreement. Those that admire Larry Bird dislike the “cult” of Michael Jordan. People who like wheat bread never let their children read the cultish propaganda on the white bread labels. “That is cult bread honey. Put it down.”

So then, should we be so free to use this accusation against fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? Should we throw it around so lightly? Doesn’t it bring damage to those we should be loving, even if we disagree with them, that is neither helpful nor correct? This behavior does not comply with the instruction of Eph. 4:2 (referenced above) and a miriad of other passages that exhort us to “forbear” and show love to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

If correction or revelation of error is required for the overall health of the body of Christ, it should be done more specifically. Mention the error or false doctrine precisely, but don’t throw out generalizations like “They are a cult.” Why? Why are they a cult? Because they disagree with you? Nope. Try again Skippy.

Finish this sentence: A group becomes a cult when…

Or this one: “Cult” is an accusation that should be used when…

~Jarod Hinton

Looking for more?  Last week, due to a glitch there was a double post on June 7th.  Be sure to read Redemptive Non Conformity (how to stand out in the world) and God Keeps on Putting Up With Us(about God’s patience).   …Want to write a guest post here at C201? Click the page link marked “submissions.”