Bad Theology In the Church

In today’s contemporary professing church, a diluted image of God has been crafted in the minds of men—one that’s all mercy, patience, and tolerance, stripped of His righteous wrath, justice, and even His holy hatred for sin. This cancerous “love wins” ideology portrays a God who is endlessly permissive, neglecting the severity of His judgments and the reality of His ultimate authority.

The Dissenter, God’s Judgment: He Sends a Strong Delusion so People Will Believe Lies?

Random Things for Edification

More About the Supposed “Pagan” Origin of Christmas:

Did the date for Christmas come from the date of Sol Invictus?

Did the story about Jesus come from the story of the Egyptian god Horus? Or Mithras? Or another god?

Christmas is Christmas Because Jesus is God

Who wrote the book of Hebrews?

Discernment Rules

The priesthood of the believer.

Christ’s supremacy.

We need to sanitize false doctrine.

Seven Reasons We Cannot Ignore Theology

False vs Sound Doctrine

40 Questions for Christians Now Waving the Rainbow Flag.

I’m a complementarian, and I agree with Tim Challies  here.

I hope you find these articles as interesting and useful as I did.

Time for Some Good Stuff

It’s again time to look not at cults and false teachings to avoid, but to look at good instruction.  

Let’s first start with a series posted at “Grace to You” concerning discernment and how to be better “Bereans.”

Meet the Bereans
Your Berean Battle Plan:  Remember
Your Berean Battle Plan:  Remain
Your Berean Battle Plan:  Reach
Your Berean Battle Plan:  Rescue

An excellent sermon by John MacArthur was also posted on Grace to You.   Titled, “We Will Not Bow,” it was given in July in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to rebel against God’s design for marriage.

There are many viewpoints about what the Bible says is allowable for divorce and remarriage.  My personal view is that divorce is permitted for marital unfaithfulness (adultery - either actual physical, or mental by indulgence in pornography, etc), abuse and abandonment.  I also maintain that biblical divorce allows for remarriage.  This article asks the question of whether there is biblical grounds for divorcing an abuser.

Do all infants go to heaven?  I believe they do, and I wrote justifying my position back in April 2011.  This article from The Gospel Coalition agrees with my assessment.

Have you even been confused about the differences in the genealogies of Jesus as presented in Matthew and Luke?  Marie has a good article to help you with your struggle.

Finally, Joe has some good thoughts about the Lord’s Supper.

We Need A Savior

Thus also we who in our lives are ill of shameful lusts and reprehensible excesses, and other inflammatory effects of the passions, need the Saviour. And He administers not only mild, but also stringent medicines. The bitter roots of fear then arrest the eating sores of our sins. Wherefore also fear is salutary, if bitter. Sick, we truly stand in need of the Saviour; having wandered, of one to guide us; blind, of one to lead us to the light; thirsty, “of the fountain of life, of which whosoever partakes, shall no longer thirst;” dead, we need life; sheep, we need a shepherd; we who are children need a tutor, while universal humanity stands in need of Jesus; so that we may not continue intractable and sinners to the end, and thus fall into condemnation, but may be separated from the chaff, and stored up in the paternal garner.

Clement of Alexandria, “The Instructor, Book 1”

Exhortation from Clement

And now the more benevolent God is, the more impious men are; for He desires us from slaves to become sons, while they scorn to become sons. O the prodigious folly of being ashamed of the Lord! He offers freedom, you flee into bondage; He bestows salvation, you sink down into destruction; He confers everlasting life, you wait for punishment, and prefer the fire which the Lord “has prepared for the devil and his angels.”Wherefore the blessed apostle says: “I testify in the Lord, that ye walk no longer as the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind; having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart: who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness and concupiscence.” After the accusation of such a witness, and his invocation of God, what else remains for the unbelieving than judgment and condemnation?

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen.

What Kind of God?

Sometimes I have been asked why theism - the idea of one God - is true and other ideas of a god aren’t.  After all, there are only three theistic religions in the world (Jewish, Christian, Islam) and myriads of other types, so why should theism be the correct view?

This can be answered using logic and philosophy to first show that other types of religions have problems with being true, and that, to start with, only a theistic religion can be true - a religion that has a God beyond and within the world, a God that is both creator and sustainer.  Other religions are consider to be “theistic” in that they believe in some sort of god or gods.  Theistic religions can be classified as deism, pantheism, panentheism and, of course, theism.  I will only highlight some of the problems that disprove these first three viewpoints.

Deism:   Says that there is a God who alone is eternal, and who created the world and then walked away from it so that the world operates by natural and self-sustaining laws that He put into existence.  A deist says that the supernatural does not exist, that miracles do not occur.  This position is inadequate and illogical.  If they admit to the miracle of creation, then they have to accept the possibility of other miracles.  And if God was concerned enough to create man, it would follow that He would be concerned enough about man as to intervene personally.

Pantheism:   Says that all is God and God is all; that God is the world, is us, etc.  Hinduism and other Eastern and so-called New Age religions profess this, and this idea is promoted as the “Force“ in Star Wars.  There are actually several types of pantheism, some of which devolve into polytheism.  He is not a personal god and is more “it” than “him.”  

The very quick way to demonstrate the self-defeating aspect of this system is that  if God is unknowable and inexpressible by language or thought, then how do they know and express this about God? 

Another way to demonstrate that it is self-defeating is to point out that, in this view “God is and I am not,” that is, God is all that is.  But one must exist in order to claim they don’t exist!  And if all there is, is God, then there is no I-thou relationships because there is only one entity.  Religious experience then becomes impossible.

This view also claims evil is only an illusion, but if that is the case, what is the source of the illusion?  This makes God the source of evil.

Pantheism’s god is dependent on creation; without creation the god doesn’t exist.  But then they have to explain where the creation came from.

Another problem is, by saying God is all, he must include opposites.  This then says nothing meaningful about him because he is and he isn’t.

Finally, there is a contradiction of God’s nature.  If he is infinite yet shares his being with creation then part of him is finite, which now makes him infinite and finite which is a logical impossibility.  This gets involved in philosophical arguments about contingent and necessary beings, which pantheism tries to make both at the same time.

Panentheism.  This is similar to Pantheism.  God is in the world the way a soul or mind is in a body.  A lot of New Age teachers promote this.  God is finite and limited.  There are two poles of God: an actual temporal pole and a potential eternal pole.  A form of this is also known as process theology because God is in a continual process of change.

A primary proof of falsehood is that the concept of God as an “eternal potential seeking temporal actualization” is self-defeating.  No potential can actualize itself.  And then there is the problem of evil: a finite god cannot guarantee the defeat of evil.

Theism.  Proving the other theistic belief systems false leaves us with theism.  It becomes the only adequate world view.  So once we determine theism is true, how do we prove that Christianity is true instead of Judaism and Islam?  If the Christian faith is true, then no other faith can be valid because Christ said that only through him can we get to the Father (John 14:6) and we are told that there is salvation in no one else (Acts 4:12).

Theism is the only logical system of believing in a god of any sort!

(Note:  I wrote this back in 2005 for use in our book-table ministry.  I used more than one book for reference, but the only one I remember is, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist,” by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek.  Because this was for personal use, I didn’t note what were quotations and what was my own writing and I know there were some quotations.  I have spent some time in a some books and can’t find where I got the information from, so if there are quotations without credit given, it is purely unintentional.)

Let Us Emulate Paul's Teaching

So many of our modern “pastors” in the seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, Word-of-Faith, and even Emergent churches do a lot of preaching from various psychological theories instead of Scripture. They want to entertain or soft-soap the message so as not to offend. Then there are those like Mark Driscoll who seem to be trying to shock people with crude, offensive and even blasphemous language. Of course many of these are very arrogant in their whole approach, especially if you dare question their teaching; “touch not the Lord’s anointed!”

This week I began reading 1 Corinthians for my morning studies, and I came across this passage, which I think EVERY pastor should review:

“When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and power, so that your faith might not be based on men’s wisdom but on God’s power." 1 Cor. 2:1-5, HCSB.

In the course of my Bible reading, I have been using William MacDonald’s “Believer’s Bible Commentary.” MacDonald has some good stuff to say about this passage:

2:1 The apostle now reminds the saints of his ministry among them and how he sought to glorify God and not himself. He came to them proclaiming the testimony of God, not with excellence of speech or of wisdom. He was not at all interested in showing himself off as an orator or philosopher. This shows that the Apostle Paul recognized the difference between ministry that is soulish and that which is spiritual. By soulish ministry, we mean that which amuses, entertains, or generally appeals to man’s emotions. Spiritual ministry, on the other hand, presents the truth of God’s word in such a way as to glorify Christ and to reach the heart and conscience of the hearers.

2:2 The content of Paul’s message was Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Jesus Christ refers to His Person, while Him crucified refers to His work. The Person and work of the Lord Jesus form the substance of the Christian evangel.

2:3 Paul further emphasizes that his personal demeanor was neither impressive nor attractive. He was with the Corinthians in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. The treasure of the gospel was contained in an earthen vessel that the excellence of the power might be of God and not of Paul. He himself was an example of how God uses weak things to confound the mighty.

2:4 Neither Paul’s speech nor his preaching were in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Some suggest that his speech refers to the material he presented and his preaching to the manner of its presentation. Others define his speech as his witness to individuals and his preaching as his messages to groups. According to the standards of this world, the apostle might never have won an oratorical contest. In spite of this, the Spirit of God used the message to produce conviction of sin and conversion to God.

2:5 Paul knew that there was the utmost danger that his hearers might be interested in himself or in his own personality rather than in the living Lord. Conscious of his own inability to bless or to save, he determined that he would lead men to trust in God alone rather than in the wisdom of men. All who proclaim the gospel message or teach the word of God should make this their constant aim.

Can you imagine the church today if all of our pastors emulated Paul in their preaching? What a difference it would make!