Even our Catholic friends see through much of the marketed, profit-driven nonsense that drives so much of Evangelicalism now, which is now a far cry from the faith recovered during the Reformation:
Category: Philosophy of Ministry Page 2 of 3
(Original): http://www.challies.com/archives/articl … ting-a.php
(Archived): http://www.westerfunk.net/archives/chri … en%20Life/
A friend of mine posted this link under an item I posted recently on Facebook and so I thought it was pertinent to read in itself. It seems secular marketers have moved more and more into the Christian publishing market, and as a result, we are receiving what we “want” to read based on statistical analysis, not necessarily what we need to be reading as believers. We need to take it back for the glory of God, not the glory of profit. www.monergismbooks.com is a great place to start.
It’s not wrong to make money off of a venture in the Christian publishing industry. However, is that the driving motivation for your business? Or is it getting good literature into people’s hands so they will grow in the faith? Pyromarketing techniques in evangelicalism are watering down the Gospel to where there is really no Gospel left at all that resembles anything of what the Scriptures say, or at the very least a three deep reiteration.
I would also like to add as a disclaimer that I do not believe Warren’s book has done no good at all, because it is very likely some people read it who never would have read anything even remotely Christian who then later had a better explanation of the Gospel than Warren’s at their local church (hopefully). So we have no idea what individuals may have been affected. To presume to know so is nonsense.
Now I would also say, along with Paul Washer, that those who say, “But I was saved through that method,” that you weren’t saved through it but probably in spite of it, because many of these methods have so butchered and skewed the Gospel that is beyond recognition of what the Scriptures actually say.
Regardless, this article exposes an area in our Christian culture that possesses an increasingly worldly modus operandi that really is anything but Christian if the Christian publishing companies are all about profit instead of growing people in Christ.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:10
I have had a couple of conversations recently in which I noticed a certain idea being articulated as it related to the person’s life circumstances and God’s role in it all: that is that God, after we believe in Him, trusts us to build His Kingdom. And from the relationship perspective, that God trusts us to go through trials. Most people might brush aside such a thought as a simple notion that gives no weight to what one savingly believes concerning God; or bringing it down to a practical level, how that idea affects everyday life and practice. However, I personally believe it is quite a revealing notion about the way in which many are beginning to view God’s role in bringing us to Himself and making us more like Christ.
I have a hunch I know where this idea is coming from, an idea that I believe to be quite injurious to the Church; if not immediately, maybe on down the line as people pick up on it more and more, particularly in youth groups around the nation, whose members then grow up to be adults a decade from now.
There was an article written by Dale Van Dyke a few years ago that reviews Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. In it, Van Dyke points out a particular quote from Bell’s book on pg. 134 where Bell states (in no uncertain terms I might add, which I find ironic at a belief system level … but I digress), “[Jesus] 1/4 left the future of the movement (the church) in [the disciples] hands. And he doesn’t stick around to make sure they don’t screw it up. He’s gone. He trusts that they can actually do it.”
Now before continuing, I would like to quote Van Dyke’s own preface to his review that I think is appropriate here as well: “I believe that Rob Bell is well intentioned. He is passionate about helping Christians break out of the drudgery of a tired, traditional religion into a vibrant, culture-transforming relationship with Christ. He earnestly desires to help people live out the commands of Christ. This is commendable and explains in large part his appeal to the largely churched Grand Rapids community.” I totally agree and have seen some of the good that Bell has done locally, through a few videos, coupled with some leaders who shared the Gospel, in (at the very least) helping a few people come to believe in Christ and are now off at college and vibrant in their faith.
However, even small ideas that may seem minute at the moment can have eventual catastrophic effects down the road, maybe not within the immediate generation (though I believe we’re already seeing the effects in some ways), but what about 10, 20, 30 years from now when our youth groups are all grown up, taking these ideas we’re giving them, that we’ll be held accountable for on judgment day?
There are several presuppositions in this quote of Bell’s that are contrary to the text of Scripture, however, that may not be obvious on first glance. Something may not sound right to you, but your not quite sure what it is. Here are a few I noticed, if it helps at all, though by no means is it exhaustive of everything Bell would have to say; in addition, he may very well not be intending it though, I believe they are unavoidable in the language he uses:
1) that implicit in this idea of God trusting Kingdom work (or trials) to His disciples (even 1/4 of it), God is not directing the course of history sovereignly for His own glory and purposes which is so clear in the Old Testament quotes of God Himself;
2) that there are things that could potentially thwart God’s purposes if the Kingdom is left in the hands of sinners and God is hands-off even a 25%, to one degree or another;
3) that man is capable in himself of carrying out God’s eternal plans;
4) Jesus is not providing the constant power, ability and will (a gift purchased and secured at the cross) to carry out the very things in His people that He wills to come to pass in His Kingdom.
This is ultimately a denial of God’s over-arching sovereignty in creating and acting in the way that He does to bring glory to Himself, from beginning of creation, to redemption, to the end, the ultimate purpose of creation and even more specifically, salvation. Now I would not say Bell himself supscribes to an outright rejection of God’s sovereignty, but those listening to his teaching sure might.
All of this adds up to what I see as a misapprehension of the theology of the Kingdom of God. Who does what in the Kingdom? What is God’s role and our role? Is it something we build for God or that is God’s to build Himself, using us as His instruments? I would argue the latter.
Now I will confess that some believers can carry around these ideas while inconsistently believing at the same time that God is sovereign over their lives. At some level, we all inconsistently believe something that is amiss from the Gospel, which always inevitably results in sin, a turning away from the glory of God, as Paul defines it in Romans and other places. But that’s not to say that these beliefs do not go without their necessary and undesired effects in our lives and even relationships with God. This point is no different. However, missing this point can result in a dramatic shift from the overarching premises of the Bible, which ultimately affects our Gospel message that we are preaching to a dying world who does not know Him. All that to say, this is very important.
Dale Van Dyke has an excellent insight on Bell’s statement above as to what is wrong with this idea that I think further drives this home: “This is a profound and poisonous reinterpretation of the relationship between God and man. When the gospel becomes the message of God coming to earth and dying on a cross to help men realize how great they really are – something is horribly amiss. A teaching that claims that God trusts his glory and sovereign purposes to the abilities of sinful man has the stench of blasphemy.”
This is ultimately the presupposition that is subtly being subverted, if not explicitly then (maybe, without knowing it) implicitly, by adopting the postmodern ethos that we live and breathe in our culture on a constant basis: that man is in such desperate need of being saved because of the depravity and blindness of his soul, that Christ had to actually set aside His glory for a time, embody Himself as a man that could die (like any one of us), and do what we could not by living a life by God’s standards, in perfect obedience, on our behalf, which He then offers as a ransom for us sinners who could in no way lift a finger to save ourselves, by turning away the wrath of God and removing all hindrances from us through His atoning blood, rising from the dead in power, and then infallibly crediting our accounts with His excellent Gospel-work by raising us from among the spiritually dead in the unfolding of time, simply because He loved us and knew we were utterly helpless in our sin.
You are telling me Jesus did all of that simply to go back to heaven, leaving the future of His Kingdom in our sinfully marred, messed up hands, that without His grace, will run to shed innocent blood with the motives of our hearts every day in one way or another? I don’t think so. Rather, maybe it is that God Himself creates in us a faith that wasn’t there by the work of the cross, applied by the Spirit, who gives and then sustains that power in us to carry out all He has required and decreed from eternity (Ephesians 2:10)?
Maybe it’s not so much that God trusts us to get His work done without Him because we’re sufficient in ourselves for the task (which I thought the Christian life was all about humbly submitting ourselves to Him and relying on Him with and for our everything … well what does that actually entail?). But maybe it’s that God effectively and actively intervenes at every point in our lives, from the ground up, intimately and intricately involving Himself in all of it, in such a way that He receives all the glory, by granting us the ability, power, desire, and strength to carry out what He has sovereignly ordained would come to pass from the foundation of the world?
Bell’s statement, while I have no doubt is well-intentioned, subtly negates the all-sufficiency, omnipotence, sovereignty, and eternally effective love of Christ to build His Kingdom, something that in all reality we’re not doing really in the first place. We are merely recipients of His working and doing. It’s His work to build His Kingdom, not ours. Now we are active participants yes, only by God’s decree, yet God does the supernatural work of raising souls from the dead among us. We are merely instruments in the Redeemer’s hands, created to be used by Him in humble submission to His will, not ours and our various flawed, man-centered agendas that would surely hinder the Kingdom if left up to us.
David Well’s puts it so eloquently in His book The Courage to Be Protestant on pg. 196: “God’s inbreaking, saving, vanquishing rule is his from first to last. It has no human analogues, no duplicates, no parallels, and no surrogates. It allows of no human synergism. The inbreaking of the ‘age to come’ into our world is accomplished by God alone. This is all about the spirituality that is from ‘above’ and not at all about that which is from ‘below.’ It is about God reaching down in grace and doing for sinners what they cannot do for themselves. For if this is God’s kingdom, his rule, the sphere of his sovereignty, then it is not for us to take or to establish. We receive, we do not take; we enter, but we do not seize. We come as subjects in his kingdom, not as sovereigns in our own.”
Well’s, on the same page, also says, “We can search for the kingdom of God, pray for it, and look for it, for example, but only God can bring it about (Luke 12:31; 23:51; Matt. 6:10, 33). The kingdom is God’s to give and take away. It is ours only to enter and accept (Matt. 21:43; Luke 12:32). We can inherit it, possess it, or refuse to enter it, but it is not ours to build and we can never destroy it (Matt 25:34: Luke 10:11). We can work for the kingdom, but we can never act upon it. We can preach it, but it is God’s to establish (Matt 10:7; Luke 10:9; 12:32).”
And this right here is a case in point of why in no way can we make the Gospel more attractive to the culture by stripping certain doctrines because they are offensive. What you are left with is not the Gospel, but another religion, which again, is ironic for a movement that hates religion. Atonement, the sinfulness of man (you know, the actual doctrine, not the stripped down version), grace, predestination, the reality of hell. If you strip these from Scripture, what you wind up with is not authentic Christianity, but rather a man-made appearance of something that looks like Christianity, using the same lingo, but falls infinitely short of the Biblical Gospel and is in fact a false gospel, according to Paul.
This message of the cross is an offense to the Jew and the Greek, remember? Well, this Western postmodern culture is of Grecian philosophical descent. Greeks think the Gospel is nonsensical foolishness, based on Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2. Just ask any number of the new atheists like Hitchens or Dawkins and they will fill you in. You cannot strip the doctrines and demands for faith and repentance in the Gospel, for you will be left with no Gospel at all in the end.
In one of the particular conversations I mentioned earlier, the person had gone through some very difficult circumstances recently, none of which I am unsympathetic to by the way. In no way do I question the person seeing and experiencing God at work in it or their own personal beliefs concerning the Gospel. I would say based on that conversation they love Christ even more as a result. However, the person made the statement that it was cool to see that God would “trust us enough that He would let us go through trials.” And as I thought on that statement later, I couldn’t help but think that in no way does God trust me to go through a trial. Is that not the reason God interposed His blood for me and sustains me with His grace, namely because I couldn’t do it at all myself without Him?
Rather, God sovereignly let’s me go through trials and in the midst of it stokes and sustains my faith by His power alone, in such a way that He gets all the glory for all of the working and I get changed into the image of Christ in the process. If God trusted me with my trials, to uphold my faith, without His sustaining power in me, knowing just an inkling of the deceit of my own heart (and based on Scriptures diagnosis of my own heart in Isaiah 64:6), I would walk away from Christ for sure and betray the Kingdom. I love Him because He first loved me and it is that very reality that keeps me attached to Him and it is He that sustains that reality in me.
Bell’s assessment simply misapprehends the depravity of man, the sovereignty of God and the power of Christ’s saving work. And ultimately it eclipses the glory of God, which is the whole point of all creation and the work of salvation to start with. If this is not plain to you, I ask that you think through why God does what He does in anything, from creating, to permitting sin and evil and trials (without being complicit in it of course, a mystery indeed), to redemption. Is it because His modus operandi is to make much of us, or Himself, the most valuable One in all the universe that demands to be praised, because to do less is to dishonor Him? We would all do well to pay attention to what we have seen and heard lest we too become deceived by the working of Satan in attempting to derail the Church. What we need to see and hear more of is the Gospel. And the place we see it is in Scripture, prayer and fellowship. Error always starts out small and then grows, like a festering wound that will ultimately poison your blood and kill you off.
And Willow Creek’s own assessment seems to fall right in line with R.C. and Al’s comments … http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outof … ek_re.html
From the way many teachers teach and many pastors preach nowadays, you would think the Gospel was something that just makes sense to people, that it’s like a lay up explanation that will solve all of people’s various urgent problems. “First, all you have to do (as if the demands of the Gospel were in our own power to achieve, namely faith and repentance that only come from God to begin with) is 1, then 2, and then 3, and bingo! You’re saved and all your problems will be fixed because God wants you to live life to your fullest potential!” If we can boil the Gospel down into this nice little package, maybe people will more easily accept it, at least so the thinking goes.
Yet, the Scriptures indicate that to the natural person, the Gospel, and the cross in particular, is an utterly foolish message, or a stumbling block. Why is this? Well, for one, we are dead in sins. It is a foolish message to a spiritually dead man until God creates light and faith in the heart of the unbeliever. The Gospel is the opposite of what the world expects. Our culture looks for what’s practically relevant for their problems in the here and now, something they can do. “How can I overcome my stress?” “How do I get a better marriage?” And so on. Preachers like Joel Osteen address this message loud and clear that God’s main goal for your life is to live it to the fullest now, all you have to do is A, B, and C, because God helps those who help themselves, so they say.
The Gospel message is counter to this though. Whereas the world’s gospel is do 1, 2, and 3, and then God will accept you or bless you or whatever, the Gospel message comes in and states that you were so bad off in your sin and innate rebellion against God that He had to do the work Himself in the Person of Christ to redeem you. And He did this not out of compulsion, but out of pure, divine, premeditated love for His people.
Yet many teachers nowadays seem to think that the former message, that God just wants A, B, and C from you before he’ll accept you, is the Gospel of Christianity, when that is actually antithetical to the message! Even the obedience of faith, if not seen as the work of God itself, lends us to the conclusion that we must achieve something apart from the work of God in us, that we must dig ourselves out of the hole we find ourselves in before God will lift a finger. But in ourselves, we can’t see Christ, can’t believe the Gospel unless God reveals Christ to us, creating in us that which was not there: belief. This is the new birth. And it is necessary not only to see the kingdom of God, but also to enter it (John 3).
I was reading through my daily Scripture reading today, that is simultaneously going through the latter part of the Psalms and 1 Corinthians at the moment, and came to the passages where Paul speaks about this very thing.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18
“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (Particularly through the Gospel?)” – 1 Corinthians 1:20
“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach (the Gospel) to save those who believe.” – 1 Corinthians 1:21
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified (the Gospel), a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:22-24
“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
Summed up: the Gospel is foolishness, utter nonsense, the antithesis, the opposite of what the world, by default, expects to hear. And therefore, the world regards the Gospel as foolishness. Most in the world assume they know what we’re going to say as it pertains to the Gospel. “Jesus is a great teacher and if you emulate His example of perfection, you will be saved, because God helps those who help themselves.” Yet this is not the Gospel! And how unfortunate it is that teachers in the evangelical church now preach this very thing as Gospel-truth. This is a flat out lie. The Gospel is God’s power through Christ to save us because it was impossible for us to save ourselves. And He achieved our salvation through weakness, temptation, submission, and ultimately, He intentionally gave Himself to destruction on our behalf, in order to raise us to new life through the power of His resurrection.
In verses 22 through 24, Paul distinguishes between how three different groups respond to the message of the Gospel.
First of all, the Jews, particularly in Paul’s time. When the Jews heard the message of Christ crucified for sinners, it was a stumbling block. Their Messiah was not supposed to give Himself unto destruction and punishment in our place. Rather, He was to be the triumphant King who would come into Jerusalem and wipe out the Romans. He was to be the One who would, through a mighty political arm, rescue His people and give those “pagans” what they deserved: the sword. He was not supposed to be a servant but a mighty ruler, a conqueror.
And yet, Jesus, their Messiah, came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. He came as a poor, humble servant, a carpenter. He came not to be honored, but to give that up in order that through His perfect work for us, He might reconcile us to God. This was the opposite of what the Jews thought. This is the Gospel. It is a stumbling block because at the cross, we see how bad our sin nature really is that we would crucify God Himself. We threw the worst we had at Christ on the cross. Yet He willingly did this to rescue us from utter destruction because not only did He suffer physically, but He took the wrath of God in Himself that was owed to us for our rebellion. This message was counter-intuitive to the Jewish culture who thought that righteousness (or a pure and right-standing with God) was obtained through adherence to the Mosaic and Levitcal law. Yet righteousness, as Paul clearly points out, is obtained through faith. This message is a stumbling block and a rock of offense to the Jews because it pulled the rug out from underneath their system of self-salvation.
Then there is another group, the Greeks, or the Gentiles, or in other words, the rest of us. This group considers the message of Christ crucified for sinners as foolishness, utter nonsense. Greeks are known for their many philosophies on life, salvation, man, a whole host of topics. And again, their message, much like the Jews, can be summed up like this: man has the capacity to achieve whatever the deity requires; or man in himself and his abilities can achieve greatness. This presupposed idea permeates Greek philosophy and really all worldly religious systems of understanding God outside of the Scriptures. It is the natural result of depraved minds incapacitated from the fall. As Paul says, it can all be summed up as, “the wisdom of the world.” The wisdom of the world is that man can achieve essentially whatever he wants, including any type of religious salvation through his own strength. So you can imagine that when they hear the message of the cross, that God became man, submitted Himself to humiliation, fulfilled all righteousness, gave Himself unto death on the cross on behalf of sinners, and rose from the grave, it makes absolutely no sense to them, for they want a message of what they can do, not what someone has done for them, especially God Himself. To them it is just silly talk, fantasies and fairy tales.
The message of the cross is counter-intuitive to both Jews and Greeks. Jews expected a political Savior. Greeks expect salvation to be anything other than God becoming one of us and giving Himself in our place. Both of their presuppositions about man are essentially the same though: man has the ability to achieve whatever is demanded of him. The cross of Christ begs to differ. The cross cries out: this is what was required to save your soul because of your own sinful incapacity to do it yourself! The cross shows us how bad off we really are, what was required of us as a result of our sin (the wrath of God), and at the same time this shows how great the love and mercy of God is toward us.
However, Paul then distinguishes a third group, labeling them in essence, “those who are called.” This group consists of both kinds of the aforementioned person, Jews and Greeks. This group regards the cross, not as a stumbling block and not as foolishness, but as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” But how? If this message makes no sense to the world, why do they differ from the other two groups? Was it something they did to make them see? No! They were called of God, born of God’s Spirit, that as a result of His work in them, they no longer regard the cross as utter nonsense like the Greeks, or as a stumbling block to their own self-salvation, but as the power of God for salvation. Now they see the cross as the wisdom of God and the greatest achievement in all the universe. Because of God’s work in their souls to see and hear the truth of the Gospel, piercing through the darkness of their own souls, they see the cross not as the largest defeat in the universe, but as the largest triumph over evil, through which their own salvation was procured and infallibly secured. But it was not their working and toiling and pleasing God that granted them the right and ability to see the cross as the wisdom, power, and genius work of God. Rather, it was God unconditionally granting them the ability to see the truth of what was purchased for them upon the cross. And even more than that, it was that very work on the cross that gained them this very ability to see. They have been born of the Spirit of God and as a result, they believe the message.
If our Gospel message makes sense to the world, based upon the passages above, I cannot see how our message is faithful to the Scriptures. If they world nods their heads in agreement with our message, there must be something dreadfully wrong. If the world does not reject this message as a whole, I honestly think we need to reexamine what we personally believe that message to be. The Gospel is foolishness to the world, a stumbling block, because it tells people the opposite of what the world preaches: that man is basically good and can achieve salvation of himself, whenever he so pleases. The Gospel says you are more sinful, turned away from God, spiritually incapable than you can possibly imagine. But through Christ’s achievement, by God’s mercy alone, you can be reconciled to God by His work in your soul to believe this message. As Jonathan Edwards said, “We are dependent on God, not only for redemption itself but for our faith in the Redeemer; not only for the gift of His Son but for the Holy Ghost for our conversion.”
If you don’t see the message of Christ crucified for sinners as the wisdom of God and even now regard it as foolishness, beg of God to give you eyes to see, ears to hear Him, a new heart that can respond to Him in love, and a new divine sense that can at last taste and see that the Lord is good. Apart from Christ’s work in you, to show you your lost estate, to reveal your depravity, you will continue to regard this message of salvation as nonsense. Beg of God to create faith in your heart. He alone is your only hope of being able to do anything pleasing in His sight.
“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” – 1 Corinthians 15:19
In reading this verse tonight, I could not help but think about the Osteen’s of the American evangelical landscape and their version of the “gospel” which has been totally emptied of all Biblical content. As my dad said recently, and I agree, if you were to take out all of the Bible-words (church, Jesus, God, etc) of their message, you would basically be left with a corporate pep rally, where you have a motivational speaker who encourages unity, who at all times speaks in merely positive terms, uses entertainment for energizing the people, and gets employees fired up to go back into the workplace and do their best. No different is the message of these “preachers”. The only difference is the eternal Christ who became flesh and bore the full cup of the wrath of God on the tree is used as a means to an end, of showing people how they can have their “Best life now”. What about that is the Biblical Gospel by which we are saved, and by that alone?
Now, I realize this verse, in context, is speaking to a different issue Paul was dealing with in the Corinthian church. They were being told there will be no resurrection of the dead and thus many in the church body were being disrupted in their faith. Paul’s real point in this verse is to say that if in Christ, we have hope only in this life (if there is no resurrection), then we are of all people the most to be pitied.
With that said, the ultimate hope presented in the “Osteen’s” gospel is one of temporal opulence and ease in a society which possesses more than it could possibly know what to do with. So the Osteen message might as well be saying there is no resurrection of the dead, because your best life is now (or can be by his methodology, using God as your PEZ dispenser in the sky). The fact that so many people flock to such pastors under the guise of evangelical, orthodox Christianity for figuring out how to have their “Best life now” is very telling of where the movement (yes, evangelicalism) is headed quickly. If such preachers can even be allowed to be called evangelicals, the title has lost all meaning, and as David Wells says in his new book, The Courage to be Protestant, we need to think of a different title.
How does such a message square with the verse at the top? “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Now obviously the Osteen’s would say, “Well of course we have hope in the next life. You can just get it now because God wants you to have it.” Really? I thought Jesus said we would persecuted and hated by the world? So your best life now, in the form of materialism, mere mended relationships, mere moral uprightness in the world’s eyes, and no pain, all without true reconciliation to the One true God who is furiously, infinitely angry at man for his sin? My friends, Paul would have words with this, probably similar language used in the letter to the Galatian church.
When does Christ being our final, ultimate satisfaction forever, even now in this life, ever leave their lips when they “motivate”/preach? Is their message not merely about the here and now? What about this pesky problem called sin? Osteen himself, on Larry King, has admitted he never wants to speak on that because it is negative and would offend people. Then forget the next point … What about the deserved wrath for that sin the Scriptures (Jesus most of all!) speaks about so frequently? What about the (eternal) hope that Christ offers through faith in His blood, by taking that deserved wrath in Himself on the cross for His people? What about speaking on the coming white throne judgment of God at the end of time spoken of in Revelation where we will all have to stand before God and give an account?
All of these Gospel truths are void from the Osteen message of temporal hope, happiness, financial gain, luxury, and comfort. This is the American way. And it is anti-Gospel. Yet sadly, our churches are filled, it seems, with people who believe Osteen is preaching the historic faith once for all delivered to the saints. And it seems also many youth in evangelical churches believe Christianity is all about feeling good in the here and now “God’s way” and then once they hit college, the voices of liberal scholars who hate the doctrine of substitutionary atonement corrupts their minds and Satan snatches what little seeds had possibly been planted, and they whither and die, having never been converted in the first place. Doctrine matters. Why? Because the Gospel itself consists in doctrinal, historical propositions.
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. – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Either these things happened or they did not. No wiggle room. And because they did happen, that means living in the here and now for Me is the antithetical effect of this very Gospel itself. Paul, Christ, all of Scripture, calls us to radical Christian sacrifice in glory to God and service to others in bringing those who are lost into eternity with us to bask in the beauty of His presence forever.
If the Osteen gospel is true, on the other hand, pandering to people’s narcissistic felt needs, that you can have your best life now in materialistic terms, then indeed Paul, “we are of all people most to be pitied.” May we return to the historic Gospel 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.”
According to Paul in verses one and two of the same chapter, not only is this Gospel how we came to faith in the first place, but it is also the very Gospel by which we are being sanctified and conformed to the image of Christ. “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you … by which you are being saved.” Notice the present-tense use by Paul of the word “being”. The Gospel is not merely an initial stepping stone to heaven (or material/relational prosperity in the here and now), but it is indeed the entirety of our faith. As Keller puts it, the Gospel is not merely the A-B-C’s but is the A-Z of Christianity. It is how we are saved but also how we are changed.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16) May we not be ashamed of it either, even in our churches, as hateful as people in our culture may be toward its doctrinal content concerning sin, wrath, hell, election, substitutionary atonement, faith, justification, sanctification, glorification, the whole thing. It is an offensive message and we must not shift on the Biblical statements concerning it.
This Gospel, that Christ appeased the wrath of God on our behalf by His blood, confirmed in His resurrection, was the message preached all the way through the Old Testament in pointing forward toward the final sacrifice of Christ for sinners, and the entirety of the New Testament is looking back upon the most magnificent work of art in the entire universe for all time, where we see the glory of God shining its brightest for all to see, where He saved sinners in great, infinite mercy, at great, infinite cost to Himself. May we meditate, ruminate, pray over, and massage into our hearts, this Gospel until the day we are finally conformed into the image of Christ and can finally behold His wonderful face. The Christian life consists in self-sacrificial love in joyful submission to the Lordship of Christ, not the obtaining of more possessions, wealth, ease, comfort, and mere moral uprightness in the world’s eyes.
Well I’m off to the T4G conference tomorrow. I may try and post a few points I find interesting at the conference, but there is apparently no wi-fi at the convention center in downtown Louisville, KY so updates maybe few and far between. In other words, I may wind up posting at night. So I won’t be doing any live-blogging. It should be an amazing conference about centering your ministry upon the Gospel. Check out the site @ http://www.t4g.org/ . There are mp3’s for free from the conference two years ago if you care to listen.
Nathan Pitchford, blogging over at www.reformationtheology.com, makes some very good observations as to why this phenomenon has occurred. To sum up what Pitchford says, Reformed Theology has surged among us mainly due to five things (though there very well could be other factors as well):
1) Dissatisfaction with the theology and religious environment of our parents.
I believe this factor is one of the largest. Much of this discontentment has to do with a tiredness of the way things have been done in our parents generation. It’s old, worn out, and about 3 inches of spiritual depth. At the root of that is a discontentment with their particular brand of a Christian worldview, their presuppositions, theology, and philosophy of ministry, all of which seems to be more temporally focused rather than eternally focused on the Kingdom. We’re tired of the idolatry, materialism and consumerism that have invaded the church. It needs to stop. The Protestant Church needs a temple cleansing, so to speak. The Church is not the market place nor should it act like it. And that’s what we are reacting against is this blatant idolatry that has moved from worshiping Christ as the supreme King to idolizing self and using Christ to that end. Now of course, it is not a blanket statement to say all within my parents generation are involved in this, because, as noted below, John Piper has been one of the largest influences on this surge. There are many others as well who have made a difference and opposed this idolatry, calling for us to reclaim the faith once for all delivered.
2) Desire for a rootedness and connectedness with the historic faith.
In the latter part of the 20th century, most within the Protestant church were simply looking to the past 100-200 years (or only their present day pastors and teachers) for information concerning the exposition of Scripture. And yet there is a deep, rich, long history of men of the faith who have contributed greatly to the Church’s literature. Our parents generation, in general, seemed to ignore these voices. No more. We want to reclaim those voices. As Pitchford says, we indeed want to be reconnected with those who have gone before us and brought so much rich theology and thinking to the church. Looking to those in church history for their input concerning the Scriptures can really help us see our own blind spots within our culture. As Greg Love, a great friend of mine has said before, you can always go and stare at a wonderful work of art for hours and glean a lot of great perspective. In fact you must be doing that. But to hear an expert on that piece of art go into detail about things you had no idea were there, you can find some things you may never have seen by just observing it yourself. So it is with Church History.
3) The resurgence of Puritan literature.
There are some works out now that you simply could not have gotten a hold of just 20 years ago. This helps greatly for the cause. The publisher Banner of Truth Trust is one of the forerunners and largest distributors of Puritan works, though there are others that have contributed greatly as well.
4) John Piper.
This man is one of the single biggest influences on the shaping of my own personal theology. The first sermon I ever heard from him was this: http://www.desiringgod.org/download.php … 961027.mp3. It shocked me how much of eternal perspective he had. I soaked it up and continue to do so to this day. To me, John Piper is a modern day Jonathan Edwards/John Owen. He takes their theology and makes it accessible. He has been an incredibly vital influence to the surge.
5) The internet (and www.monergism.com in particular).
I can’t tell you how big of help websites like www.monergism.com and www.spurgeon.org, as well as other sites, have been to influencing my own personal theology. God has richly blessed us with these resources. Take advantage of them.
This video series is apparently sweeping the country in youth groups. And while I don’t doubt that there are a lot of good things that can be taken away from this series, we must pay very close attention to 1) how things are said (mainly the Gospel itself), and 2) what is not said (pertaining to the essential message of the Gospel). This series of reviews points out the high points of the series, but also the deficiencies when compared with the historic Christian faith message we have been entrusted with. Brothers and sisters, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” (Hebrews 2:1) Error always starts out small, like a ball slowly starting to roll from the top of a hill. Then the ball gains momentum, and by the time it reaches the bottom of the hill it is speeding so fast you can’t stop it, and the Gospel is lost and people are believing a lie craftily devised by Satan over time. One of the main ways Satan works to destroy the church is not so much persecution from without, but he comes and destroys the church from within by slowly (and sometimes rapidly) twisting the message just slightly. Church history proves this to be the case.
This is awesome … Tim Keller has the following sermons available that go along with his new book The Reason for God coming out this Thursday.
Exclusivity: How can there be just one true religion? (MP3)
Suffering: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world? (MP3)
Absolutism: Don’t we all have to find truth for ourselves? (MP3)
Injustice: Hasn’t Christianity been an instrument for oppression? (MP3)
Hell: Isn’t the God of Christianity an angry Judge? (MP3)
Doubt: What should I do with my doubts? (MP3)
Literalism: Isn’t the Bible historically unreliable and regressive? (MP3)
Links point to: http://sermons.redeemer.com/store/index … gory_id=29