LACK of Doctrine Divides

Great post from Tim Challies...

Aileen and I were once members of a church that, after a few years of existence, began to de-emphasize doctrine. Some of the pastors seemed to reach the conclusion that “doctrine divides” and that the church really just needed to focus on evangelism and on “action.” They seemed to determine that a sound theological foundation held in common was unattainable and unrealistic. Therefore, doctrine should be laid aside and the church should rally around the things we had in common—a desire to reach others with the gospel and a desire to serve other people. It was a bit of a naive strategy, of course, and one that was bound to cause problems.

Soon the church began to fracture into camps—those with backgrounds in one Christian tradition began doing things in one way while people from a different Christian background began doing them a different way. For a time chaos reigned. In some small groups members of the church would serve the Lord’s Supper, in others they wouldn’t; in some small groups people were baptizing each other and serving Lord’s Supper to children. There was no standard and eventually the pastors had to step in and intervene. By then, though, it was too late and many of these small groups “defected.” Having created their own theological identity and one that was at odds with that of the pastors, some of these groups left en masse. It was an inevitable result, I think, and one that proved to me that critical importance of doctrine being held in common by members of a church. Though this happened many years ago, I still think about it quite often.

Recently I was flipping through Collin Hansen’s Young, Restless, Reformed. The book discusses some of the resurgence of Reformed theology in our day and does so, in large part, through interviews with some of the pivotal figures in this resurgence. The book contains a quote by Josh Harris that caught my attention: “Once you’re exposed to [doctrine], you see the richness in it for your own soul, and you’re ruined for anything else.”

Read the entire post HERE.

Splitting Hairs?

We live in a day of doctrinal compromise. Voices within evangelicalism tell us not to "split hairs" over doctrine. I recently read a brief article by a seminary president which asserts that Christians are dividing far too often over matters that are not essential. But this is not what I conclude as I observe the landscape of the contemporary church. I see biblical/doctrinal illiteracy. Oh for a few good truly doctrinal divisions! Instead, the church divides over music styles and personality conflicts.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not hoping for division within the body of Christ. But I do lament a kind of biblical ignorance that fails to build necessary boundaries. These boundaries over matters of truth are precisely what God's Word calls for.

From Martin Downes:

I want to offer some selective comments on a seminal New Testament passage concerning false teaching. That passage is 2 Corinthians 11:1-4 (ESV):

1. I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me!

2. For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

3. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

4. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Several things should grab our attention:

1. The goal of the false teachers is to sever the intimate relationship between the true Christ and his bride, and not merely to exchange one set of ideas about God for another. It is vital that we view what is really at stake from Paul's perspective.

The loss is not merely intellectual but affectional, they have been led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. This is the burden of verses 2 and 3.

2. Both the origin of doctrinal error and the modus operandi of its preachers can be traced to the deception in the garden. We may speak of the original deception and all actual deceptions that proceed from it. This is the burden of verse 3, and verses 13-15.

3. The form that doctrinal error takes is to retain the right theological language but to substitute its content with alternative meanings. This is the burden of verse 4.

If we listen without discernement, we will assume that preachers who speak of Jesus, the Spirit and the gospel, are to be considered orthodox. But which Jesus, which Spirit, which gospel are they speaking of? That is Paul's concern

4. But there is also in these verses a damaging assessment made of the spiritual condition of the Corinthians. Paul's heart as a pastor is grieved by their tolerance of heresy:

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Did they really not know the difference between truth and serious theological error, between orthodoxy and heresy? It is a terrible thing to knowingly tolerate serious theological error. It is a reprehensible breaking of the first commandment. It is a sign of real spiritual trouble.

Wherever this is repeated, any pastor who shares some measure of Paul's concern for the truth of the gospel and for the good of souls cannot but feel great sadness and indignation at such a state of affairs.

He who has ears to hear, let him not listen to what the serpent is saying to the churches.

Check out Martin's excellent book Risking the Truth.

When our unity is challenged...

Great stuff on how to treat each other from John Piper:

Six Biblical Guidelines for Loving Each Other Amid Differences
1. Let’s avoid gossiping.

2. Let’s identify evidences of grace in each other and speak them to each other and about each other.

3. Let’s speak criticism directly to each other if we feel the need to speak to others about it.

4. Let’s look for, and assume, the best motive in the other’s viewpoint, especially when we disagree.

5. Think often of the magnificent things we hold in common.

6. Let’s be more amazed that we are forgiven than that we are right. And in that way, let’s shape our relationships by the gospel.

Read the whole thing HERE.

Our Unity in Christ

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
- John 17: 20-21a

Jesus makes it very clear that He is praying for all those who do and will believe in Him. This is important to remember because there is within evangelicalism a movement to downplay the importance of belief. What matters, we are told, is not doctrine or belief but ethics and action. I know of no one who disputes the importance of action. Faith without works, after all, is a dead faith. However, it is by grace through the means of faith (belief) that God saves His people. So belief is of supreme importance in the matter of our salvation. Jesus said in John 3, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

So, Jesus is not praying for those who will merely find his ethics appealing or think highly of him as a teacher. He is praying for those who believe. Specifically, He is praying for those who will believe “their message” the message of the disciples – the Gospel. The ground of our unity, the only ground of true spiritual unity is faith in Christ; belief in Gospel.

I can and should be a friend and a good neighbor to a Buddhist or Muslim. I should work to be a blessing to them and make efforts to share with them to the Gospel of Christ. However, I cannot have spiritual fellowship with them in any way. We live in two different kingdoms. We have two entirely different allegiances. We follow different Lords.

Referring to the unity for which Jesus prayed, D.A. Carson writes, “It is a unity predicated on adherence to the revelation the Father mediated to the first disciples through His Son, the revelation they accepted and then passed on” (p. 568). The unity for which Jesus is praying is not achieved by our hunting around for the lowest common theological denominator. It comes about only after we have fully embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is revealed in the Scriptures.

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am…” (v. 24). Jesus prays to the Father specifically for those that “You have given me.” In verses 2, 6, and 9 Jesus refers to those who are saved as those whom the Father has given Him. Everyone who believes is a gift from the Father to the Son. Jesus makes reference to this reality in John 6 when he says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me. And whoever comes to Me I will never cast out” (v. 37). In chapter 10 Jesus is referring to His own sheep when he says, “No one is able to snatch them from out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them from out of My Father’s hand” (vv. 28-29).

Four times in John 17 Jesus makes it clear that he is praying only for those that His Father has given Him. He is not praying for the world. He is not praying for the mass of humanity. He is praying for His own which, incidentally are those who will come to believe through the instrumentality of the disciples. Some way or another we have all come to know Christ through the means of another believer in Christ. Salvation is entirely God’s doing but He uses the means of people just like you and me. What a humbling thought that the Father gives to the Son His precious people through the instrumentality of you and me. What a privilege. God will use our faithful witness as the primary means by which He brings the lost to faith in Christ.

Segregated in Christ?

This Sunday I am preaching on Acts 6:1-7. It is the account of the first real challenge to the church's unity. The incident that Luke recounts exposed an ugly division within the body of Christ in Jerusalem. The division, which was along cultural lines, was a greater threat to the young church than active persecution from Roman and Jewish authorities had been. At Metro East we have made some deliberate choices not to segregate along lines of culture, musical preference, etc. There is little doubt that dividing in these areas "works" in that people often prefer everything to be disigned around what makes them most comfortable. But doesn't the Gospel lead us toward putting down the impulses? Doesn't the Gospel move us out of our comfort zones that we might take hold of the unity that Christ has already given us? (Ephesians 2).

Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham's grandson) has written a very helpful post on this issue. Among his observations, he writes:

"Most churches would agree that racial or economic segregation runs contrary to the very nature of the Gospel. Most would also acknowledge that any sort of class bigotry is antithetical to the Gospel and should therefore not be tolerated. But there’s another, perhaps more subtle, type of segregation that many churches today have actually adopted and embraced. Following the lead of the advertising world, many churches today (and more specifically worship services) are targeting specific age groups to the exclusion of others. For years now churches have been organizing themselves around generational distinctives: busters, boomers, Generations X, Y, and Z. Many churches offer a “traditional service” for the tribe who prefers old music and a “contemporary service” for the tribe who prefers new music. I understand the good intentions behind some of these efforts but something as seemingly harmless as this evidences a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the Gospel. When we offer, for instance, a contemporary worship service for the younger people and a traditional worship service for the older people, we are not only feeding tribalism (which is a toxic form of racism) but we are saying that the Gospel can’t successfully bring these two different groups together. It is a declaration of doubt in the reconciling power of God’s Gospel. Generational appeal in worship is an unintentional admission that the Gospel is powerless to “join together” what man has separated. Plainly stated, building the church on age appeal (whether old or young) or stylistic preferences is as contrary to the reconciling effect of the Gospel as building it on class, race, or gender distinctions. Negatively, when the church segregates people according to generation, race, style, or socio-economic status, we exhibit our disbelief in the reconciling power of the Gospel. Positively, one of the prime evidences of God’s power to our segregated world is a congregation which transcends cultural barriers, including age."

Love, Unity, & Doctrine

Nathan Pitchford has written some excellent thoughts on the relationship between unity and doctrinal precision (http://www.reformationtheology.com/2007/04/love_unity_and_doctrinal_preci.php).

How to Disagree

Here is a link to an excellent article by theologian Roger Nicole on how to deal with those with whom we differ (http://www.founders.org/library/nicole1.html).

I Still Must Protest (1)

I am a Protestant. There is no getting around it. And since “evangelical” has lost all meaning in the church today I find myself turning once again to that word birthed in the religious and political turmoil of the 16th century: Protestant. The Protestant Reformation was a movement of protest. It was a protest against the moral squalor and theological error that had come to characterize the Roman Catholic Church. The selling of indulgences to finance the new and extravagant St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, widespread immorality and biblical illiteracy among the highest levels of Church leadership, and of course the tragic departures from biblical doctrine were the sparks that ignited the fires of reformation.

From those early years of reformation was birthed the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Baptist denominations. It led to the founding of new institutions of higher learning, new political movements, fresh missionary zeal, and the colonizing of the New World. There were also an untold number of martyrs offered in the fires of the Roman Church. From England to France to Italy Protestant “heretics” were burned to death. The roots of resentment ran deep and the divide seemed insurmountable.

In recent years however there has been renewed interest among certain evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders to forge a new unity between the long divided churches. At the forefront of this movement is a group called Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT). Its leaders are serious heavyweights like Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship and Richard John Neuhaus a former Lutheran turned Roman Catholic priest. I respect both of these men a great deal. In fact, I am an enthusiastic reader of First Things, the magazine edited by Fr. Neuhaus. The purpose of ECT is to achieve as much unity as possible between Catholics and Protestants. They seek to maximize the emphasis on those points in which the two groups agree while not denying where differences persist. Their goals are, in my mind, noble. I support efforts to bridge whatever gaps are “bridgeable.” However, I believe the efforts to bring a deep and lasting unity between Protestants and the Roman Church are naïve.

Don’t misunderstand. I love unity. More importantly, our Lord loves the unity of His people and even prayed for it. “The glory that You have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one…” (John 17:22). The implications of this prayer extend far beyond local congregations. The unity of the church universal is a lasting concern of our Lord. In the Apostle’s Creed we rightly confess our belief in “one holy catholic church.” Evangelicals not raised in a confessional church are often made squeamish by those words. But the little “c” catholic in the creed is not a reference to Rome. “Catholic” means universal. To say that one believes in the one holy catholic church is to affirm that God has filled His world with worshipping communities of Christ-followers. It is to affirm that the church extends far beyond our own little local body of believers. This is a source of encouragement. God will not be without a witness. He will spread His church to the utter most parts of the world. For this reason, Christians are happy to recognize true churches wherever it pleases the Lord to raise them. It also grieves Christians when the church universal becomes divided.

The divide between Roman Catholics and evangelicals is lasting testimony to man’s fallen state. The proliferation of denominations among Protestants is almost mind boggling. In fact, Rome points to the number of different denominations as proof that the Protestant Reformation yielded nothing but division within Christ’s body. However, sentimental notions of unity should not keep thoughtful Christians from asking whether the existing divisions represent necessary doctrinal fences or are merely pointless quarrels. The fact is, doctrine divides at least as often as it unites. Even in the Roman Church there are deep divisions and various factions. There are liberal Catholics, charismatic Catholics, feminist Catholics, fundamentalist Catholics, “Vatican II” Catholics, and those Catholics that insist that the Latin Mass is the only legitimate mass. So for all Rome’s boasting in their unity, theirs is a house divided.

Please understand that I am not “anti-Catholic.” I have no doubt that there are many sincere Christians in the Roman Church. I also believe that we can and should cooperate with one another as much as possible. However, to do so without also acknowledging why we differ is to deny that such vital issues as the sole sufficiency and authority of Scripture, Justification by faith alone, and the imputed righteousness of Christ are not important.