Why Read The Bible?/Whats the Point of Having a Bible? (Part 2)

-          Hard to Understand-

 

One of the most encouraging passages in the Bible is in 2 Peter 3:15-16. There Peter talks about Paul’s writings and admits that some of it is hard to understand. To be honest, sometimes I read something in the Bible and I am like huh? What was that?! Have you ever felt like that?

If so, its okay, so did Peter.

 

I read one author who looked at the story of the fall of Jericho in Joshua 6. He reacts in the same way most of us might react… with shock!

 

“They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it- men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.”

 

How could God have commanded that, how could a good God have commanded that?

 

God was with Joshua when he slaughtered men, women and children?

 

Is that God?

 

What does a person do with something like that?

 

The way I see it you have a couple of options:

1)     Deny that the Bible is God’s Word

2)     Humble yourself and try understand it, even though it may be difficult

3)     Say that the Bible is kind of God’s word except for the parts that I don’t like and are too hard to figure out

4)     Hide under your bed and recite the Greek alphabet

 

I remember years ago I had a third-person computer game called ‘Blade Runner’, in this game you are a detective and you have to try to figure out what is going on in the story, and as you figure stuff out and put it into action you move on. On day I got to a place where I just didn’t know what to do anymore… I must have spent three hours walking around the same place. I got so frustrated, I turned the game off to play a more mindless game, one where I just run and shoot (I wouldn’t have had to do this if some of my friends had finished it and could have told me what to do).

 

Many people are like that when it comes to their Bible, they read Joshua 6 and get a shock, cause all their life they have read bumper stickers that say ‘Jesus loves you’. Now God sends in armies to attack and destroy….  So they throw in the towel and jump to an easy out conclusion.

 

Ah, the folly of bumper sticker theology.

 

Reading the Bible is really important to understand it, I mean really reading, not just remembering flagellum. Before Joshua goes out In Leviticus 18:25 God speaks about the kind of people that live in the land the Israelites are about to invade, it seems from the rest of the chapter there was the worship of Molech, this involved sacrificing a child into the fiery arms of a steel idol, furthermore homosexuality and bestiality were rife. All these things being loathsome before God.

 

God was visiting judgment upon them!

 

This leads to a whole load of other questions, and that is not all there is to it, but the real question you have to stop and ask is, am I willing to keep looking and searching, or should  I cop out now?

 

In Peter chapter 3 Peter goes on, he says that because some of what Paul writes is hard to understand, other men who are untaught and unstable twist what he says as they do with the rest of Scripture.

 

A favorite one which is twisted is in 1 Corinthians 7:12. Here Paul says, “But to the rest I, not the Lord, says…”

 

Oh, so this is not inspired right, this is just Paul’s opinion!

 

Well if you read the few verses before (v10-11) and you have been reading widely in your Bible, maybe places like Mark 10:6-10, you would see that Paul had just been quoting Christ Himself. And so now, to end his quotation he uses the words ‘I, not the Lord, in case you are thinking I’m still quoting Mark’.

 

Anyway, wasn’t Paul’s opinion inspired when he wrote Scripture?

I though men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit? Oh, how the bumper-sticker theology has made so many unstable and untaught teachers.

 

Have you ever looked at Christianity and thought, wow, so many denominations?

 

I have, all the disunity is quiet a problem. Let’s boil it down a little…

 

Most of these denominations exist because of a difference in interpreting the Bible. What we want to know then is what influences how we interpret the Bible:

 

1)     What is the Bible

2)     Rules of interpretation

 

Those are the two major influences on how we interpret the Bible.

 

Islam, is relatively unified because they all see the Koran as being Allah’s word so they just obey it, Hindus, don’t really care, nor do Buddhists. Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses all see the Bible Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russel want them to, so that’s pretty unified. The average catholic doesn’t care, they just do what they got to do to get into heaven.

 

Let me say it like this, how much value you place on the Bible will determine how you understand it, and it will determine if it will bring you the life it is supposed to.

 

I believe that the Bible is God’s perfect revelation of Himself to man, that all of the Scripture is God-breathed, and flawless, and that it contains all things the man of God may need to be fully equipped for very good work.

 

Tell me, does democracy mean that I can say or do anything I want to?

 

Does freedom of expression mean that I can kill someone to express myself?

 

Have people done that before?

Does that mean that anytime someone argues a point from their democratic right and from their right to freedom of expression that they are being crazy?

 

Exactly, it doesn’t.

 

Now even though someone may try to use the Bible to defend something that’s wrong, and that the Bible doesn’t say, that doesn’t mean that whenever someone uses the Bible to defend a point, that they are wrong.

 

Peter points out that people can twist things, but God in His wisdom placed the Bible in a context, in actually history with actual words that have actual meanings.

 

So, guess what, people can not make the Bible say whatever they want it to say.

 

There is only one interpretation of every verse, one. But people twist what it says to make it mean what it does not say…. Why? Two reasons

 

1)     They have a low view of the Bible

2)     They don’t know who to interpret the Bible

 

Times are crazy. When I go out to share the gospel, I often encourage people to find a good ‘bible-preaching’ church.

 

What does that mean?

 

Does that mean that the pastor must quote verses?

Must the preacher have verses to back up his point?

Should the preacher only say stuff I can imagine God would say?

 

Lets compare this to a professor of medicine who is about to graduate and next month will be doing his first open heart surgery…. On you!

 

Does that mean the professor must quote parts of the textbook?

Must the professor recite sentences from the textbook to back up his point?

Should the professor only say stuff that you would imagine could help during open heart surgery?

 

No, I want him to teach medicine, what does the textbook say, line by line, tell him how to do everything properly.

“Oh, yes, I remember the professor saying I should use a scalpel, then he spoke about the nice patterns one can make with it, hmmm yes”

 

What really helped me to grasp this was to see how Jesus interpreted and used the Old Testament. Jesus Himself said that he did not come to do away with the Law or the Prophets, but rather to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).

 

Lev 19:18 tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, that’s pretty simple, but the Pharisees had messed it up by Jesus’ time so he simply restates it for the people in Matthew 5:43-44 and corrects the wrong rabbinical interpretation, that’s why Jesus says, ‘you have heard it said’ so often, they had heard it from rabbias who were making their own self-serving interpretations on God’s word.

 

The Bible is the best interpreter of itself, why do I say that?

 

Well, who is my Neighbor? In Luke 10:30-37 Jesus answered that exact questions when he told the story of the good Samaritan.

 

Well, how do I put this into action day to day? If you read the book of Leviticus there are hundreds of day to day principles for loving your neighbor, from keeping him safe when he is in your house to making him feel welcome and giving him refreshments (lets not forget 6 of the Ten Commandments)

 

Well, what kind of love should I have, who defines that love? Jesus did in the rest of Matthew 5:43-48.

 

The Bible is a closed book, and its perfect. Yes we need to interpret it, but we are not alone, we have most importantly the Holy Spirit, and we have common sense.

 

Words have meaning, contexts give color, and surroundings writings give added and deeper meaning.

 

Did you understand what I just wrote? Did the words mean something? Did you know I was talking about the Bible not a Superman comic cause of context? When you read the next chapter I hope you will have some added meaning to have I have just written.

 

Guess what? I mean everything I just said, and there is only one way to understand what I said, you may make a mistake and miss-read me, I hope not though. In the same way the Bile has meaning, and if one is fair to it, one can see it, it will be meaningful and applicable to life.

 

 

Is Doctrine that Important/ The Distaste of Doctrine (Part 4)

- FOUNDATIONS – (I suggest you read Part 1,2 and 3 before this for it all to make sense)

I recently brought a book, and the author was a rather popular guy in ‘Christian’ circles these days. At one point in his book he says, that he believes Jesus was born of a virgin, but if that was not true, he could keep being a Christian! Apparently Jesus being born of a virgin or not being born of a virgin doesn’t impact on His saving work on the cross. That’s a bizarre leap of reasoning don’t you think.

I realized while I was reading that for this guy doctrine won’t save yourself and others, so you don’t have to watch it closely. His faith is kind of blind, detached from reality, a reality where a ship needs certain parts to make a journey.

What if someone could prove today that Jesus really had an earthly father? What if there was irrefutable evidence and there was a DNA test to prove it. What if the gospel writers made up “cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”? What if it was some ploy to appeal to secular Mithra cults at the time, whose gods also had supposed virgin births?

What if that part of our ship was left out?

Could a person still sail? Could a person still love God? Could a one still be a Christian?

Would you still want to travel the distance Jesus traveled?

Or does everything just shatter?

But it is so amazing if you consider the following:

Jer 36:30 says, “ Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of David” right, but now look who is in Jesus’ genealogy in Mat 1:11 “ and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. “ Fortunatly, this is the family line of Joseph who was Jesus adoptive father, but not blood father.

As we read on in matthew we see the wonder of the whole thing, Mat 1:20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Mat 1:21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Mat 1:22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

Mat 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

When the angel points out that this is fulfilling a prophecy he does it on purpose, because this baby has got to be able to pay for peoples sins, what man could do that, except the God-man, God with us.

So without the virgin born Jesus, we are lost in our sins, not saved from them.

This is because truth is fixed in reality, it doesn’t flex or bend or change, gravity will always stop you from jumping of a building and going up, unless you have some kind of flying contraptions attached to you. Traffic will always be dangerous if you are standing in a freeway, there is just nothing but that reality. The natural laws God made to allow the universe to run and work, what an amazing God, a God is not a God of confusion (1 Cor 14:33).

This really made sense for me a while ago, in college I was doing a course in Pastoral counseling, and one of the issues I was looking into was how psychiatrists use medication, when I came across rather interesting information about a placebo (not to be confused with the band). What doctors do mostly with people who are hypochondriacs or psyco0semantically ill people, you know the kind that think they get healed at those ‘healing crusades’ on TV (people who think they are sick, but really aren’t) is give them something that looks like a drug, but really it is just sugar or some other harmless substance, and suddenly the people feel better and are able to get on with life. If man’s sickness of sin and brokedness was not real, then we wouldn’t need a real cure, one made up in my mind would b e just as good.

But in the real world death crushes families, people starve in poverty, countries make war, children are lost, women are raped, men are murdered. I see sin and its wages all around and it’s a problem in reality, and so whatever cure I’m going to grasp hold of has to come into this same reality and be different, not just some fancy idea made up in peoples heads.

I am far more concerned with what is true and right and can fix these problems, then with ignoring the cure in the name of false humility or anything else for that matter. You always defend the things you love, you delight in it and want to bring others to delight in it.

Imagine someone who came to a doctor with a deadly sickness, and the doctor gave them some lame placebo that does nothing, imagine the doctor said that the real cure is not that important, and it makes no different what ingredients are in you tablet. Would you fight that? Wouldn’t you complain to the superintendent of the hospital?

This is why Paul told Timothy to teach only what goes along with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1)

This is why God said that those who oversee and watch over the church “… must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” Rebuke those who contradict it? Sounds harsh, but its important, life and death important.

The gospel was called ‘good news’ by the early Christians, but if you change that message and tell people something that is not real, then its not good news… it’s a lie.

Jesus never lied, he told the truth to the barest of reality, but not reality as natural man sees it all the time. One time His teaching was so hard and difficult that his disciples said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” and later some of those who had been following him turned back and stopped following Him (John 6:60,66).

So people today want to make the gospel massage so wide, they want to change the drugs ingredients so much, maybe so more people feel comfortable taking it, I mean, who wants stuff loaded with all kinds of crazy chemicals.. unless it will save you! But Jesus said, they way to life is narrow and hard, and few will find it (Matt 7:14).

Is Doctrine that Important/ The Distaste of Doctrine (Part 3)

- PARTS OF A BOAT-

(if you have not read them, then reading part 1 and 2 will be helpful to follow the thoughts)

Not all the parts on my boat were essential, the boat could sail and get to where it going if it was missing a velvet couch, and maybe if I didn’t put the stickers on to distinguish between the guys and girls bathroom (although it make for some weird situations)

Take for example the piece of our boat called ‘baptism’. Some think we can baptism babies, and others think we can’t. I think if we all went honestly to the Scriptures and wrestled it out together we would come out with the same conclusion, but at the moment there are more important pieces to be sure about, so instead of fighting about that specific piece I link arms with someone who might not understand it like I do and fight to get the doctrine of the trinity on our boat.

Some guys make a piece that’s not important become important though… imagine if on a bot a guy put ‘no-entry signs’ with a toxic symbol over all the bathroom doors! That could cause all sorts of major problems and in the end even cause sicknesses and all crazy things on the ship… I’ll leave it to your imagination. That would be like people who say baptism is essential for salvation, they do not build the ship according to the manual, but their mistake in construction will jeopardize the whole voyage

Paul wrote to Titus and said one of the most amazing things about the connection with doctrine and living a righteous life… he said, “…showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” Paul was writing to slaves and telling them to be obedient and not to steal, before that he spoke to young men, young women, older men and older women, telling the Christians of all walks of life to live is such a way that adorns the Doctrine of God our Savior.

I think that’s so beautiful, its like how a husband would not look at other women and always speak highly of his wife, loving her by his actions all the time, and so he adorns the truth of the vows and marriage he is a part of.

The truth that he is married is important, its vital, if he wasn’t but was living like he was married that would be fornication. But if one has the truth as a ‘thing’ its made beautiful by the actions.

Paul when he was teaching Timothy showed the importance of doctrine, he said that Timothy should watch his life (the way he lives) and his doctrine closely, and by doing that he would save himself and those that heard him teach. (1 Tim 4:16)

Wow! The lights come on… Timothy, make sure you follow the instructions in that boat, that why lives will be saved. Paul could have said, “Timothy, the instructions are important, but the boat is a whole lot more then just a set of instructions, the boat is big and glorious and magnificent!” People die on big magnificent things…

But then comes the question…. And questions are vital….. What is the essentials? What pieces does our boat really need?

I may have opinions, you may have opinions, but what did God say?

Paul wrote down God’s out-breathed words and said, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ( 1 Cor 15:3-7)

Some people say that it doesn’t really matter if Jesus rose or not, some ‘christians’ say that they could continue to be a Christian if this were not true, if Jesus didn’t historically rise. Well.. Paul said, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins (1 Cor 15:17).

From those verses I see some stuff of first importance, do you?

It seems like Christ dying for our sins is rather important as well as His rising.

Because, he explains, both of those have to do with our salvation, that is, with how man is made right with God

So when someone says, you have to be baptized to be saved…. That’s adding a wrong piece to the boat, that’s going to cause people to suffer and never make it possibly

When someone says that you can get your sins forgiven by saying a prayer, or by eating a piece of bread, or doing good things, that’s not Christ dying for our sins. That’s taking things from other parts of the baot and putting it where its not supposed to be.

We can pray to communicate with our heavenly father whom we love and fear

We can eat bread in remembrance of Christ at communion

We can do good things because that’s why God made us His children, to do good works (Eph 2:10)

But if we take those things and put them where they don’t belong, we can make a very dangerous ship, on that can even make shipwreck of peoples faith (1 Tim 1:19)

In history a man named Martin Luther was on a really messed up ship, but he got hold of a manual and saw how wonderful it was meant to be! He tried to get the people who ran the ship to put the right pieces in the right place, but they wouldn’t. They didn’t understand the things of the Spirit and so they treated Luther like Jesus was treated, the rejected him and even tried to kill him.

This was called the reformation, it wasn’t a time of coming up with new pieces for the ship, it was a discovery that things when they are put in their right place, when the doctrines are understood correctly, leads to having a cruise the way Jesus intended it, the way God revealed it, the most glorious and life giving exciting way. Many people, called ;’reformers’ saw how beautiful this was saw how things were meant to be, and they were so amazed at the beauty of how God revealed Himself in His word that many many many of them died painful deaths, trying to show a so called ‘church’ how the boat was supposed to look.

I’m trying to convey a message to you through these blogs, but I’m limited, my vocabulary, the length of the blogs, my background, but there is a good chance that this blog will not convey all that I intend for you to know. Let me ask you a question:

Do you think God is limited by all of the things that limit me and you?

Is Doctrine that Important/ The Distaste for Doctrine (Part 2)

-THE DISTANCE TO BE TRAVERSED- (Reading part 1 will help)

As a Jesus follower I am a person who is just trying to live the way Jesus lived, to follow Him as he walked, to travel the same distance he did. I know that the path He walked is the absolute best way to walk.

This isn’t a blind faith, anti-intellectual way of living. It’s simply living the way the Creator who proved himself with signs and purity, that He is the best path to follow. Jesus surpasses every other person in all of history in purity, in righteousness, in compassion, in holiness, in wisdom, in Life.

I’m persuaded that loving what Jesus loved is the right distance to travel

I’m persuaded that hating what Jesus hated is the right distance to travel

I’m persuaded that pursuing God’s glory in every situation is the greatest distance to travel

I’m persuaded that being holy is the best distance to travel

I’m persuaded that having the wisdom of God is the best way to travel any distance.

This isn’t ignorant blind following of a random historical person, it’s looking into reality with a strong desire for truth and seeing a man who came back to life, who forgave those who killed him, who overturned tables at a temple, you called religious leaders ‘children of the devil’, who showed compassion on a hungry crowd, who lifted up a crushed adulterous.

When you start traveling the distance Jesus traveled you notice that people start treating you like they treated Jesus, your family might think you are out of your mind (Mark 3:20), others think you are to harsh or hard and leave you, your friends betray you, the majority of people want to kill you.

Not to say that there are not other ways to get people to treat you like that.

Jesus purpose was to show people who God really was… Often people say, ‘If God is real, why doesn’t He just show Himself?’

But God did!

Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30)

The Light that came from God is God and the world couldn’t see it - He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him ( John 1:10). Why didn’t and doesn’t the world see the Light that is Christ?

Is it because science has disproved God?

Is it because The Bible is too narrow-minded?

Is it because the church doesn’t reflect God accurately?

Or is it because ‘people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)

Jesus once claimed to be ‘the way, the truth and the life’ what Jesus was saying is rather plain for anyone to see, the way of Jesus is the only way, the truth of Jesus is the only truth, and the life of Jesus is the only real life. I look in a world and I see catholics and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and Mormons and unnumbered others trying to tell me there way is the right way… And I’d be lost if I had to sift through all those millions of views to find truth, but Christ came into the reality He created and gave me the right to be a child of God (John 1:12).

1Co 2:10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

1Co 2:12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

And then Paul climaxes his chapter with this great statement “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Jesus brought life to dead corpses in sin and at enmity with God

So the distance of Jesus is not about pretty thoughts, its about who He is and what he taught

It about traveling the road as He lived and taught it should be traveled

What we need to ask ourselves is not what sounds cool and noble, but who lives and teaches what Jesus lived and taught

Being right and living righteously are not separable: If a murder has some mental understanding of what is right, that doesn’t change who he is… If someone who gave their life for dying people on the streets of India does it to earn or merit something for them self and not out of a love for God, that is no more vitreous.

John brought right belief and right action together in chapter 5 of his first epistle, he said, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

Notice how he says, those who believe something.. are born again

And then goes on to say those who love other Christians…are born again

The only way to know the truth about reality is to know the truth of God, the truth Christ came to bring us.

Is Doctrine that Important?/ The Distaste of Doctrine (Part1)

A number of years ago, I enjoyed building model airplanes a whole lot, I thought fighter jets were the best (which kid doesn’t?). I remember when my older brother had gone overseas and he sent back this huge birthday present for me the one year, it was bigger then anything I had ever gotten and I couldn’t wait to open it up. To my amazement my brother had sent me a aircraft carrier with like 12 jets on and everything….

I couldn’t wait to get at it and build this huge, dream come true - ship…

I was so into it, I remember waking up real early in the morning to get it done, and I wanted to get it done in the same way my dog wants to eat all his food with one bite, I wanted it done quick cause it was just so cool.

As I got near the end and started putting all the big last pieces on, I noticed that I had a whole lot of pieces left over… Now, to be honest, in my haste I may have skipped over some parts of the instructions. And I wondered if this was going to mess it up after I had spent so much time on it

I realized that as I was building some parts looked so obviously like they would fit here or there and it just made sense that I skipped over parts in the instructions. In the end I had still built a killer ship, it was great and I was satisfied. Looking back I’m glad it was not a real ship or I might have been in a little trouble.

When I say a little I actually mean a whole lot, because its fine to make mistakes and skip things over when it doesn’t effect anyone, but like if that ship was real and I built it, it would have gone no where, maybe only down, with the crew and all. Thankfully 14 year olds are not allowed to build real ships.

As I think back about those fun filled moments with the ship I keep down in the garage, I’m reminded of some of the things Jesus said. I remember he spoke about a guy who is wise and how he should build his house, and then I remembered Jesus explained the story and said, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock”

It really made sense, I could build a little model ship, but without following the carefully made manual by the designers I would get it wrong, even if it looked right.

People often question and ask, ‘What is Christianity supposed to look like?’ or ‘What did Jesus want us to do?’

The world are filled with people who claim to know, and try make communities and groups that are supposed to be the real deal, and I wonder sometimes, did these guys read the manual properly, or are they just building obvious parts of the ship?

Its funny, but when people start talking like this. other people seem to get their back up. Like if I was a ship inspector and came in and checked out the ship, I noticed that the connection to the rudder was missing and the radio had no aerial. Imagine how insane it would be if when I was pointing this out to the guys who built the ship they got all upset and said something like, “Cant you just appreciate it’s ship-ness? Are you saying you are the only one who knows what the ship needs? I mean, if I look at that ship out there on the harbor and look at this one, they look the same, ours even looks a bit better! You are so close-minded about ship construction!”

That would be a totally mad situation, not the kind I expect to find. If they ignored my recommendations they would be in real danger if the ship ever sailed out.

What is so fascinating to me as a Christian is that at the center of Christian Faith is the fact that God exists outside of everything we know as well as in it. Paul spoke about this, he said that a natural man doesn’t understand the things of the Spirit, and that the things of the Spirit are foolishness to him. Apart from Christ no one can really know anything spiritually beneficial to them, sure they might build something that looks like a ship, it might even have everything but the little connector to the rudder, but that’s not good enough. I’m not saying that everything is as important as every other thing, but we can agree that some things are essential.

We all have some kind of belief, even if we believe in nothing

The question is not what are you believing, but what are you basing your belief on

A Conservative Critique of Rob Bell’s ‘Velvet Elvis’

Well again with a book review. Let me say from the outset that i am not convinced that the best way to approach the emerging church movement is by discrediting and trashing their claims (see my blog series ‘emergent detergent’), however, for those who are interested, and some of those emergents who are open to conversation with anyone and not just other emergents who say what they want to hear, maybe this can be useful for you (forgive my viscousness there).

I would prefer someone to read the ‘book of shadows’ (Wiccan Bible) or the ‘Koran’ or listen to a Marylin Manson cd then read this book. Why? Well, at least those others let you know that they are bad, at least you know what you are in for, but this book, is so shneaky, so deceitful, it is way more evil (please don’t let that comment put you off from reading further).

Strategically throughout the book Bell reconstructs Christianity in such a way that makes him believable, those of us who are evangelical, reformed, conservative (but however, not this new brand of blind fundamentalist) will half agree with parts of what he says, so for example on pg 21 Bell mentions the time that Christ said that He is the Way, truth and Life, then Bells says that ‘Jesus was not claiming one religion is better then another’. Thats a half truth, there is a negativity connected with religion, however, that does not mean that that is all religion is, James at the end of chapter 1 of his first epistle seems to be very pro religion. However, like the serpent in Eden, (I hope that is not unfair for me to say, just drawing a parallel, not saying Bell is the devil, although I am pretty sure he is inspired by the devil, there is a difference between being mistaken and not having everything right, and teaching outright apostasy)

His entire fist chapter bell uses the analogy of a spring, however, he then takes the analogy of truth and his connections with truth and thus says that doctrines doesn’t really matter, eventually saying that He could still be a Christian if Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin (although he claims he still believes that Jesus was). This is terrible, listen, if God did not invade the real world and be yet different, then there is no hope! If all Christainity is, is a bunch on pretty imaginations and good concepts, then we are doomed, because death and suffering and all other consequences of sin are real life things, not imaginations!

Then on page 27 he says things like God is bigger then the Christian faith. Well that is true, however, that is the only place He has revealed Himself specifically (for a further investigation on this I encourage you to do a study of Psalm 19, notice the change in thought that occurs in the second half of the Psalm).

Bell later talks about questions (pg28), says they are good and healthy, goes on to suggest that churches are generally against people asking them. I am not sure what churches he has been to… However, he stays at the question, he suggests that we relish the mystery of not knwoing things, instead of presenting peeople with the Word of God and godly Bible teachers who God has given as gifts to the Chruch to help us walk and find answers to what God has revealed. I am not saying all answers are easy, but if we stop at just asking qustions that is celebrating our ignorance, and people perish for lack of knowledge.

He misquotes and reinterprets most scriptures, there is not historical-grammatical method happening in his book. In his second chapter he suggest that when Jesus gave the command to bind and loose to the Church, Jesus was telling the church to interpret and reinterpret Scripture. This my friends is the problem, there is no way that is what Jesus meant, now I can go into a whole exegesis of the text with you, or I can just tell you to go and read 200 commentaries by godly men and find one that even hints at that. Actually no, wait, I think i will reinterpret that Scripture now, binding actually means giving a tattoo and loosing means to remove bracelets from people. 2000 years of Church history and this is still the kind of stuff that deceives the church, wow! This is a proof of the doctrine of ‘total depravity’.

on page 67, Bells attacks the teaching of Sola Scriptura, that Scripture alone is our guide, that really tells us where he stands, and I say this respectfully, how he misunderstands Church history. The serpent in Eden also said, did God actually say….

There is much more I could write about this book, however, there are many good crits on it available for those who want to take a deeper look. For me the main point was Bells stance on Scripture, and since thats out, so is anything he writes really. If you have questions or would like me to expand on anything I have written here or elsewhere, just drop a line.

let me close by quoting the Westminster Confession on Scripture:

4. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

6. The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word; and [PCUS that] there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

Emergent Detergent (Part 1)

I would like to set apart a few blogs to deal with the emergent Church, however, this is more for guys who are in the established Church of Christ- like, remember the one He built on the foundation of the apostles… And so I am not writing to emergents, although you are welcome to read

In today’s blog I would just like to look at how we got where we are, the idea I have is that attacking the emergent church’s teaching and or leaders may not be the best approach, but I shall show you what I mean as we go along, consider this progressive Revelation (in the Bible God revealed Himself progressively from Genesis and culminated with Christ- just throwing that in there in case someone was left out of the joke)

There is a huge gap between generations (although its diminishing as the later generation dies out), and really it centers around a change in the concept of truth.
What is Truth?

No matter where you look, arts, news, magazines, literature, everywhere one look you see the stranglehold of this new methodology… this new approach to truth.

Its suffocating, like when you smell rotten eggs… my friends and I used to drive about an hour every Monday to play indoor soccer, and whenever we went through this one area there was this rotten eggs smell (apparently sulphuric gas, or something like that). We would all rush to close our windows, five to six guys squashed in a golf in the middle of summer, that’s right, we closed our windows (maybe that’s why it smelled?). Alas the steel doors that protect us from the elements were not match for the stench, and soon the car was polluted… In the same way this stench has come in, and we could not prevent it, it suffocates and fills everywhere, and we hardly ever realized it was happening.

The tragedy today is that men and women are being fundamentally affected by this new way of looking at truth, yet they never even saw the shift in thinking that took place. Young people from Christian homes are brought up in the old frame of truth, then they are subjected to the contemporary (current). After a little time they become confused because they do not understand the alternatives that are being shown to them… Like I use to think Strawberry was the only good milkshake, and then I heard about chocolate, now strawberry is the enemy, and that just trivial milkshake. Confusion becomes panic (Ahhh! but strawberry), and before long they are overwhelmed (anything but that strawberry). This is true, not only of young people, but pastors, teachers, evangelists…

Before the change occurred (we can argue date another day) we all thought along the same presuppositions (Pre- before; supposition-belief), which appeared to work with Christian’s presuppositions

What were these presuppositions… these assumptions of the way thinks worked?

Well the real basic one was that there are really such things as absolutes, the secular world accepted the idea of there being an absolute in the area of Being (knowledge) and in the area of morals. Thus, since they accepted the possibility of absolutes, though they might have disagreed on something, nevertheless they could reason together on the basis of antithesis (crazy word, I’m sorry, but bare with me J )… They took it for granted that if something was true the opposite was false… If Germany won the world cup in 1990, they did not lose it in 1990, get it?

In morality if one thing was right, it’s opposite was false. So we have the formula, “A is A and “If you have A it is not non-A” this is the first concept in classical logic… If you understand the extend to which this no longer holds sway, you will understand our present situation.

It was possible to discuss what was right and wrong. One could tell a non-Christian to “be a good dude” and while he/she might not have followed your advise, at least they would have understood what you were talking about. To say that to today’s dude would be like making a ‘nonsense’ statement.

And so then, back in the day, you could have spoke and people would know what you are talking about, but when one talks today about truth and right and wrong, it makes no sense to the average listener, it’s crazy talk, it would be like me telling you that addidas is the only brand in existence (notice the brand placement), now it may not be the only brand, my absolute statement was wrong. Today’s dudes see every truth statement as being like mine above

Ponder on these things, engage them…. wait fort the next edition as we progress. The goal here is not to win a debate on existentialism, it is to persuade men of the truth of Jesus Christ and to save those as from fire, who name Christ but are being led astray but the many false prophets we were promised.

Grace be with you all.

Isaiah 30:15

A Conservative Critique of ‘Irresistable Revolution’ by Shane Clairborne

Let me start by saying i don’t think i know everything and have everything together. I don’t think my opinion is infallible and so i hope that this can be a discussion on the book. I read it in two days (its written in a really easy reading style, I like the way he writes).

1. The Good

Well, my favorite part of the book is when Shane crits ‘the prayer of Jabez’ by Bruce Wilkinson on page 318. John Macarthur said much the same a while ago, and I think the more conservative and those who ae concerned with honoring God’s Word would figure that out, so props to Shane for nailing that.

I really like what is said about sweat shops, and how we just buy that stuff, we really should ask about things when we support such outright exploitation. I remember the days when Christians used to not by stuff cause it was in some way associated with Satanists, that makes no sense to me since those without Christ are in the same boat as Satanists, it boils down to who is exploiting and who is being fair

2. The Problems

I hate writing this because sometimes you feel like you are always fighting, but since over 80% of the New Testament was written to correct doctrinal errors and what not, i consider myself in good company I also hope you know, I am not writing this because I enjoy being contentious, but rather because I understand that this book is popular and so I think we need to temper popularity with wisdom and discernment (essentially I love you my friends and just want to share my thoughts on something that might be dangerous, note I said might)

When i read it, this book reminded me of when I read ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler (wait for the shock of the crowd). What I mean is, Hitler had a political agenda and as he wrote his trashy book of hate he used the Bible to justify it, most of you my friends live in a country where people used the Bible to defend their political views of apartheid. As i read Clairborne’s book he is pushing a political agenda, o matter what he says and tries to get out of it, he is pushing an agenda, and he is not writing as a theologian, nor as a Christian, he is writing as a politician, as a revolutionary.

Now we know he studied at a liberal College (check out what liberal theology is on the net if you don’t know what it is). he tries to avoid the label yet bears every liberal characteristic (communistic tendency, pacifist, green, etc). Honestly, if you read this book, honestly not one of the scriptures he uses is what was intended by the original author to be used how he used them, I encourage you, go back, read good commentaries by godly men, again. There are two ways to interpret the Bible (right and wrong haha- just joking, but seriously) there is exegesis: what did the author mean and how does that apply today, and isegeisis: what do i think, what would I like this Scripture to say. Claiborne uses the second. If you have questions, ask in the comment section

How do I see his liberalness in his use of Scripture, well he ignores parts, we need to read the whole counsel of God together. eg

1 Tim 5:8 says that those who don’t look after their own are worse then the infidel, even Christ told the disciples to buy a sword. I am sure Adolf Hitler would have loved the world to be anti-war, then we would all be speaking German today.

John 6:68 tells us Christ turned a crowd away because they only followed him for food but they didn’t want His teaching

Romans 13:1-4 tells us that God puts governments in place and gives them a sword to being justice. Even bad governments are used for His purposes (this is a great topic on how God decrees evil but is not the author and uses it for His own purposes)

Luke 16:9 says we must make friends of ungodly mammon.

There is a ton more, but just to show you it is not as clear as he makes it.

Page 29 gives away what he is doing, he wants a new kind of Christianity. although he often tries to go and call for an early church, its interesting that he only picks the Jerusalem church, do you know that not one other church in the New Testament had a distribution! other churches had rich and poor and the rich were taught not to despise the poor but to be generous and help.

If you go and see what Christianity he claims to be converted to and become disenchanted with, you will soon see its not Christianity at all. (page 45; 64-65). I understand and feel with him when I see apathy, when the church does nothing I get angry, and James says faith that has not produces works is dead. But the right kind of works. Creation groaning is often mentioned, but if you read the Scriptures, it will only stop when Christ returns and rules with an iron fist.

yes we must care for the poor, but Clairborne makes two mistakes:

1. redefines who the Church is. In Scripture the Church are those, rich or poor who have been born of God into a new life, those saved by grace through faith resulting in works (Eph 2:8-10). However in Clairbornes book the Church are those who live in community and love each other, I think the world is able to love as well, its a common grace. What makes the church the church is not that we are a social society but that we have deeper answers then just earthly things.

if you read Scripture we are supposed to care for those in the Body of Christ, those who are saved, take care of them, not meaning we should not be involved in the world, but our primary job their is evangelism, or let us fill their bellies and send them to hell well fed?

2. He redefines salvation: This is not easy to see, but its typical of liberal theology. In his idea of coming into the church, do you ever see in this book the words sin; judgment; law; repentance? for sure he mentions some of them but not in the right context. Giving to the poor but swearing like a trooper is not a fine place to be, or who decides what sins we suddenly are allowed to do and those we are not?

There is so much more I could write, almost every page, but this is getting long already. so let me say two things

1st John the epistle was written to warn about false teachers. John gives two tests, one is righteousness and the other is faithfulness to sound Doctrine, not just one, but both. Now I readily admit that some Churches focus only on doctrine, and that is a sign of danger, even hypocrisy, but just having good works but bad doctrine is just as ugly before God. Oh how I pray for godly sound Holy Spirit filled young people who know their Bible and theology and can win the atheist and Mormon, but who can cry with the abused and share the truth of Christ and His forgiveness for even their sins.

Secondly, Clairborne quotes Boenhoffer, who was part of a group trying to assassinate Hitler, Boenhoffer once said that if you see a drunk man about to drive down a freeway you have the responsibility to arrest the wheel out of his hands, not exactly a pacifist.

furthermore Che Guevara was a mass murderer, not a hero of love, he was a communist killer like Stalin and Lenin and Moa and all such communists. I couldn’t believe he even mentioned him.

Lastly his use of mother Teresa is such a touchy subject, let me just say that Mother Teresa taught in her book, ‘the Simple way’ that her aim was to make a Muslim a better Muslim, a Hindu a better Hindu and what not, and you see this when Clairnorne says to the lepers, “I see God in you” (page 79) and the other guy says the same back, the Bible says without Christ you are a child of the devil, the Hindu idea of god in you is that you are actually a god. I recall God calling people’s good works ‘filthy rags’ before His eyes.

Really all Clairborne does is preach the same old liberal theology, this time from a perspective of communist rather then women or black. His liberalism is tinged with post-modernism. He redefines the Church to include all and thus says we need to reach out unconditionally on a social level to all, I see this as foreign to God’s intention. God did not come to set up an earthly kingdom, but one in men’s heart. As for Clairborne use of being persecuted, I think Christ made It clear as did the apostles, it only really counts if you are persecuted for righteousness sake, for preaching the gospel (that involves sin and repentance towards God, not listening to boring sermons). By the way he constantly miss uses the 2 or 3 are gathered quote, but then again so do most Christians.

In short, I think the book is dangerous because it steers us away from Christ the savior and points us towards a man-made revolutionary Christ. It steers us away from the teachings Christ came to bring and steers us towards a political worldview. It steers us away from the grace and mercy and soon coming judgment of God and our helplessness, towards a distant God, but wonderfully capable men who In fact seem like they could get along fine without Him. Please be careful, even if you don’t agree with all I have said (and I would love to discuss it, on the wall for comments after this being a good time). Thanks for taking the time to read this.