Bible – Page 37

On Church, Part 4: Doing What You Can

March 7, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

I’ve suggested that you ought to be part of a local church assembly, and that you ought to be active, not passive, in your membership there. So what does that look like?

I’ll tell you what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like feeling obligated to “be there every time the doors are open” and feeling guilty if you aren’t. For starters, not every church activity is your business; obviously, I don’t go to the ladies’ Bible studies or the practice sessions for the children’s choir. In my previous post I noted, almost in passing, that all of us are gifted by the Spirit with particular aptitudes that he intends for us to use for the benefit of others in the body. We can start with that, and focus on the activities of the church for which we seem suitably fitted.

But before we start, let’s be sure we’re understanding what the Bible actually teaches about the gifts, and not the mythology that seems to have accumulated around them over the last few decades. I’ve posted on that before, and I’d encourage you to read that post now, before we proceed.

OK. If you’ve read the linked post, you know that you have one or more spiritual gifts, but that you might not know for sure what they are, and that you might not even be able to know for sure what they are. You also have natural abilities, latent or obvious; and your spiritual gifts might tie in nicely with those, or they might be distinct.

So how to proceed?

I’d suggest that you ask yourself a few simple questions:

What do I like?
What am I good at?
What have other people said I’m good at?

Sure, scan down the list of spiritual gifts linked in the earlier post, but don’t limit your thinking to those terms. Lay everything out on the table.

I like people.
I don’t like people—or at least, they make me really uncomfortable.
I like to stay out of the spotlight.
I like to solve problems.
I like to hug people who are crying.
I like old people.
I like one-on-one relationships more than speaking in public.
My best subject in school was math.
I like to fix things. Physical, mechanical things.

Keep writing things down. Take inventory. Be honest with yourself.

Now, go down the list, one item at a time, and ask yourself, “How can I use this for the kingdom?” And since it’s typically easier to start small, ask, “How can I use this for the benefit of someone in my local assembly?”

You like old people? Visit the old people in your church, especially the ones whose physical health may limit them in some way. Just sit and talk. Or take them grocery shopping. Or bring them to church, if they can get out but would rather not drive and don’t want to sit alone. Ask them what they need, and pick the things you can help with.

You like to fix things? Ask the pastor, or the facilities manager, what needs fixing, and help out with something—something you can actually fix. I know a church that had several members who were good at working on cars. One Saturday they gathered at the church, and the widows brought their cars in for a free inspection and recommendations from people they could trust.

You’re good at math? Help tutor the kids in your church who are struggling with it. Ask the homeschoolers in your church if they could use some help teaching math to their middle- or high-schooler. Especially calculus.

Like babies? Work in the nursery. Please.

Not queasy? Get certified in CPR, or get EMT certification.

And beyond all these things, just interact. Talk to others. Listen to them. Share their joys, their sorrows, their struggles. Pray for them. And with them. Meet them for coffee. Be there.

You don’t have to “be there every time the doors are open” to have a really active part in the body life of your church.

And it doesn’t have to be limited to church. You can use the gifts and abilities God has given you to advance the kingdom outside the walls of your church as well.

Like radio-controlled airplanes? Join a local club, make friends, and live out grace, mercy, and peace before them. Be a friend. One of these days one of them is going to need help, and if you’ve done that, chances are he’ll come to you.

Gospel. Grace. Life.

For the Kingdom.

Next time, one more thought on how we relate in the body.

Part 5 Part 6

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On Church, Part 3: What’s the Point?

March 2, 2019 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

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I’ve suggested in the earlier posts in this series that you ought to be part of a local church, an assembly of (admittedly broken) believers—that reasons for not doing that are invalid, and that those same reasons actually call for serious commitment, for becoming an active, registered member.

OK, now that you’re a member, what’s next? What’s the point of belonging to a church?

I’ve written on that question in a stand-alone post a couple of years ago. Go read that post; it’s The Point. When you get back, I’ll tell you a story.

Welcome back.

Let me tell you how I applied this concept in my own thinking.

I think my spiritual gift is teaching. (Might be wrong. My students, I suppose, sometimes wonder. And more on the whole spiritual gifts thing in the next post.) For most of my church life, I’ve taught in Sunday school or something similar, usually adults, with whom I’m far more comfortable than the Little Ones.

Well, several years ago the principle in the linked post (You did go read it, didn’t you? No? Well, go read it. I’ll still be here when you get back.) hit me like a ton of bricks. Church isn’t about getting blessed; it’s about giving, ministering to others by actively exercising the gifts God has given you for that purpose. There are no bleachers, and there are no spectators. Quit sittin’ around, and carry your end of the log.

So I thought about that.

I can teach. And I’m teaching Sunday school, so I guess I’m good, right? There. Pangs of conscience go away.

Wait a minute. Maybe I’m overthinking this here, but it seems to me that just showing up and teaching every week isn’t really the same thing as interacting substantively with individual fellow believers. The assembly is about interaction, not just action.

So I decided I’d see if I could step it up a notch. Look for personal interaction based on teaching.

There are lots of ways to do that—accountability partners, one-on-one Bible studies, and so on. In those days, I decided to make just a simple, incremental change: I’d talk to a lot of people between Sunday school and church, and probe a little to see whether they had any questions about the Bible. So during those few minutes I’d walk around where the people were, trying to make myself as visible as an absurdly short person can, and just greet people and look for openings.

And it worked. Pretty much every week somebody would say, “Hey, Dan! Got a question for you!”

Awesome.

One time someone asked me, “What’s a dugong?”

“What?!”

“A dugong. It’s in the Bible.”

“No, it’s not. I’ve read the Bible, and I’ve never heard of it.”

“Sure it is. Right here.” And he showed me Exodus 25.5 (he was apparently using the Revised English Bible, or a more common version that had the word in the marginal notes; I don’t recall), and there it was. Dugong hides in the tabernacle. I was carrying a KJV at the time, and mine said “badgers’ skins.”

Well, whaddaya know. I have some studying to do.

“I don’t know,” I told him, “but I’ll chase that down this afternoon. You going to be here tonight?”

“Yup.”

“OK, I’ll tell you then.”

And that afternoon I learned that a dugong is something like a manatee, and that it lives, among other places, in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba, right next to the Sinai Peninsula.

Wouldn’t it make sense for God to specify a local marine mammal to provide the outer covering of the Holy Place in the Tabernacle?

And so I learned something, and my friend learned something, and I’ve never forgotten that something since.

I was hooked.

So every Sunday, I’m on a mission. Walk around, greet everybody I see, talk for as long as they want. Maybe they’ll have a question that I can answer. Maybe they’ll have one that I can’t answer, and I can get back to them. Maybe they’ll tell me something I don’t know, and I can check it out and then use it to teach other people. So many opportunities, so little time.

Oh! Is it time for lunch already? Hate to leave church so soon. So much good stuff to do.

Try it. It’ll change your church life—and probably the rest of it too.

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On Church, Part 2: What’s in It for You

February 28, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

We’ve noted that some people resist committing to a local church, and I think we’ve demonstrated that their reasons for doing so are short-sighted. Even in a broken world with broken institutions full of broken people, surrounding yourself with your fellow travelers—and committing to them—is not only worth it, but it’s a mark of personal and social health.

So why get involved? Several reasons.

First, social health. It really isn’t good for man—male or female—to be alone. Sure, there are introverts, and they’re not weird or antisocial or dangerous. But introversion and isolation are not the same thing, and we all need healthy relationships with other people. It broadens our outlook, it imports a wealth of experiences and wisdom, and it keeps us normal.

But there are reasons beyond that. Any old social club can broaden your outlook. What else?

Committing to a local church connects you with other believers—fellow travelers, as I called them above—and those connections are part of God’s plan for your spiritual growth. When you were converted, you didn’t just find the fire escape from hell; you began a life-long process of spiritual growth, of increasing Christ-likeness, superintended by the Spirit of God himself (2Co 3.18). He uses various instruments to keep you climbing that mountain—the Scripture (Ac 20.32), prayer (Heb 4.18), and interaction with other believers (Eph 4.29). As your fellow believers interact with you and exercise their spiritual gifts on your behalf, you’re going to be helped, even propelled, on your trek up that mountain. I could use the help; couldn’t you?

If you won’t commit to a local assembly of believers, chances are that you’re losing battles in your mind and in your home because you’re trying to fight alone, and you’re getting outflanked every day. And chances are that you’re not that serious about studying your Bible—really getting into it up to your eyeballs, and applying every day the things that you’re learning there. And chances are further that prayer isn’t that a big a deal to you—or that it doesn’t seem to be making a genuine connection.

The means of grace matter. And the assembly is one of them.

One more benefit of committing—and here I mean committing specifically by becoming an official member.

You ought to join your church because if you don’t, you can’t get kicked out.

Well, that was blunt. Perhaps I should explain.

An important part of your soul care, endorsed and even commanded by Jesus himself, is accountability to the fellow believers who know you best—your local assembly. When you’re headed for trouble, God’s plan is that you’ll be surrounded by people who know God and who love you and who are willing to invest the time necessary to see to the care of your soul. I’m not talking here about busybodies or snoops or gossips; I’m talking about people who genuinely love you and are ready to sacrifice their time, their money, their prayers, and their energy for your good. Maybe they’ll do that by helping you move, or cooking you a meal or three, or watching your kids when you have to go to the doctor. But one of the ways they’ll do that is by lovingly encouraging you to walk with them on the road to Christ-likeness. They’ll tell you, lovingly and graciously, when you’ve said or done something you shouldn’t. They’ll forgive you when you apologize; they’ll pray with you even if you’re crying and the whole thing is really awkward. And they’ll love you through it all.

Jesus said that if the church does that, and the sinning person (you, in this instance) will not repent, they slowly ratchet up the pressure until you do the right thing and have peace restored to your soul. And if you still resist, they are to remove you from the church as a way of increasing pressure on you to repent—even as they long and pray that you will repent and be restored to fellowship.

But if you’re not a member, they can’t kick you out. By not joining, you’re depriving God of one of the instruments he uses for your eternal spiritual good.

You’ve left the front door unlocked, and you’re in serious danger.

Don’t do that. Join.

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On Church, Part 1: At Arm’s Length

February 25, 2019 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

I’d like to begin a brief series on what our relationship should be with our local church. Like any culture, our culture—early 21^st-century American conservative evangelicalism—has its strengths and its weaknesses, its sore spots and its blind spots. I think there are some elements in our church culture that have greatly improved on the way things used to be done—improved in the sense of becoming more in line with biblical teaching—but I think there are also some important elements that we tend to de-emphasize.

So a few posts on some of those.

To begin with, I’d like to talk about the importance of church membership.

There are those who do emphasize it—I very much like the idea behind Josh Harris’s Stop Dating the Church, published 15 years ago now*—but I’ve noticed that a lot of believers—and they are believers—seem to want to attend church but not join. And there are others who make much of being “spiritual” but distrustful of “institutional Christianity.”

Let’s start with the obvious. People are busted, badly so, by their congenital and pervasive sinfulness (Rom 3.9-18). That means that all associations of people—governments, businesses, Facebook, and, yes, churches—are busted as well. They don’t work perfectly, or even almost perfectly, and it’s a constant struggle to keep them out of the ditches on both sides of their obsessive rush toward complete collapse.

Whatever church you associate with is going to disappoint you, for actual reasons. Busted organizations do that.

But we don’t give up on our family and friends when they disappoint us, and we shouldn’t give up on our churches when they disappoint us. There’s a reason churches exist, and those reasons don’t disappear when their fallenness shows up.

Why might some people want to hang around them but still hold them at arm’s length?

Maybe an earlier hurtful experience—a real one, not to be minimized or dismissed.
A fear of commitment, a fear that if we get involved too intimately, we’ll be asked to do stuff, some of which we might not enjoy and all of which will crowd our already busy schedules.
A fear of accountability. We don’t want people poking around in our business. We’re up to something that we like a lot, but we’re afraid that we might be found out, and who knows what would happen then? I have a family; I have a career. I have to think about these things.
I ride alone, cowboy.

So let’s think about those reasons.

Sometimes people do get hurt by others, maybe others who are really trying to help them, but are just clumsy or ignorant, or maybe others who are not trying to help them, but seek to exploit them for some personal benefit, whether money or power or sexual satisfaction or something else. Those things are wrong—deeply, ungodly wrong. But they don’t change the fact that the victim arrived looking for help, and he still needs that help. There’s still a reason to seek a church that isn’t pathological. But they’re all pathological. My experience, and the experience of hundreds of others, proves it. Oh, my friend, now you’re another kind of victim. You’ve fallen victim to the logical fallacy called “hasty generalization,” or “insufficient data sample.” There are good churches, and there are good people, in the sense of people who are redeemed and well intentioned and competent. So as brutalizing and painful and real as the hurt is, it doesn’t constitute a reason to keep all churches at a distance.
It’s true that committing to a church will call for some of your time. (More on that later in the series.) But here’s the thing. You’re going to be spending your time on something—you can’t save it up—so why not spend it on something that benefits both you and others? Why not make a difference? Why not change the world, one image of God at a time? Isn’t that more important than Netflix, or basketball, or radio-controlled airplanes? And who said you’d have to give those things up anyway?
It’s also true that a good church will add a level of accountability to your life. (More on that, too, later.) But why fear cleaning up areas of your life that are distancing you from God, family, and friends? Why fear joy? If cleaning out a physical closet can spark joy, why not clean out the closets of your heart? And why not accept help from people who love you and are committed to your eternal good?

Living in fear isn’t anybody’s goal, and it isn’t a pattern for a delightful life. Why not walk away from all that?

Next time, the benefits of getting involved.

*Yeah, Josh Harris isn’t perfect, and he’s wisely repudiated his silly book I Kissed Dating Good-bye, but he’s had a good idea or two, and I think this is one of them.

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Sometimes We Fight, Part 6

January 24, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

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In my last post we worked through the Apostle Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2), looking for doctrinal content. Here’s what we came up with, in systematic theological terms:

Bibliology

The Hebrew scriptures are God’s Word (Ac 2.17) and therefore reliable (Ac 2.16).

Theology Proper

God directs history (Ac 2.23).
God does miracles; history includes some number of supernatural events (Ac 2.22).

Christology

Jesus did miracles (Ac 2.22).
Jesus died by crucifixion and rose again (Ac 2.23-24, 32).
Jesus continues his divine work from heaven (Ac 2.33-34).
Jesus is God (Ac 2.36).
Jesus is Christ, the fulfillment of the Hebrew messianic prophecies (Ac 2.36).

Pneumatology

There is a Holy Spirit (Ac 2.17).

Anthropology

People are sinful (Ac 2.40).

Soteriology

Salvation is available to all peoples (Ac 2.18, 21, 39).
Salvation is available freely (Ac 2.21) through repentance (Ac 2.38).

Eschatology

There is a coming “Day of Yahweh” (Ac 2.20).

When we put all this into our chart, we end up with something like this. (I’ve truncated our data slightly for simplicity’s sake.)

Where do we go from here? Well, we repeat this same process on the other apostolic sermons in Acts, filling in the other columns on our chart. A quick result might look something like this, though a more careful study—which you’ll do, right?—would yield more doctrines in the first column.

And then you see where the overlaps are—which doctrines are most emphasized in this database of sermons. For illustration purposes I’ve simply counted the number of sermons in which each doctrine appears and then sorted the list on that column, with the most common doctrines at the top. You can see that “quick and dirty” result here.

What are the biggest ideas?

The deity of Christ
Forgiveness of sins
The death and resurrection of Christ / witnesses
The reliability of Scripture
Repentance

It’s no surprise that our list includes “the gospel” as defined by Paul in 1Co 15.3-4.

Now, we’re not done yet. As I noted in a previous post in this series, we need to evaluate the other datasets that my friend Tom Wheeler identified in his dissertation, and then we need to compare all the lists we end up with to see if there are patterns there—which there are—as justification for producing a “meta-list,” which should serve as a pretty good indicator of What We’re Going to Fight About.

And then we need to decide where to draw the line. How far down the list do we decide this is a doctrine that isn’t “emphasized”? How far down the list do we go before we decide that we’re not going to fight about that one? I’d suggest that that’s a literary-analysis question: where do you draw the line at emphasis?

Tom’s dissertation has done a good job of that already. But you can do that work yourself, you know. You don’t have to be a scholar like Tom; with the Word and the illuminating work of the indwelling Holy Spirit, you have all the tools you need to do this study for yourself. Maybe you’ll notice something he didn’t. And even if you don’t, you’ll benefit immensely from the study, and you’ll approach doctrinal controversies in this polarized and freaked-out world with a calmness and a confidence that will communicate grace, mercy, and peace to all those around you.

That’s worth the effort, right?

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Sometimes We Fight, Part 5

January 21, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

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Last time I explained my thinking on why we should evaluate the doctrines taught in the apostles’ preaching as recorded in the book of Acts, as a step toward identifying the essential doctrines of the Christian faith—the things we ought to fight about. And I pause to remind my reader (all 1 of you) that we’re also determining, by their absence from this list, the doctrines that are not worth fighting about.

If you’ve done your homework from the last post—you don’t expect to really learn anything worthwhile by just reading blog posts, do you?—you downloaded my little chart as a working template and read through at least some of the sermons in Acts to list what doctrines they asserted.

How about if I go through the first one, and we can see how your list compares to mine?

The first sermon is Peter’s famous discourse at Pentecost in Acts 2, where he refutes the observers’ initial observations and explains what’s really going on with the sound and the fire and the inexplicable speech.

Let’s scan the text to see what we find.

Ac 2.16—What you’re seeing is a fulfillment of a prophetic scripture from long ago. Peter’s initial statement implies—strongly—that we should expect ancient scriptural prophecies to be fulfilled. And this in turn implies the truthfulness of scripture, even in its predictions. Lest I be accused of bringing my bias to the research, I’ve avoided using the explosive term inerrancy, but I would observe that “truthfulness” means the same thing.
Ac 2.17—In citing his source, Peter includes its claim that Joel’s words are what “God says” (NASB), and he says nothing that would soften the blunt statement. Joel’s words are the words of God, accurately recorded.
Ac 2.17—God has a Spirit that can be “poured forth.” Maybe not enough here to support a distinct person of the Spirit, but wording that is certainly consistent with that concept.
Ac 2.18—God’s empowering work extends to “bondslaves, both men and women.” His work is not limited by our social constructs.
Ac 2.20—There is a coming “Day of Yahweh.” We can’t tell this from just Acts 2, but the prophets gave us a lot of information about this coming day, and again, Peter seems to take it at face value.
Ac 2.21—Salvation comes to those who “call on the name of Yahweh.” This verse alone doesn’t tell us whether “salvation” here is physical rescue from catastrophe or spiritual salvation in the theological sense, but further study can settle this question pretty conclusively in favor of the latter.
Ac 2.22—Jesus did miracles. This has implications about both Jesus and the fact of the supernatural, of miracles.
Ac 2.23—God’s doing what happens, even when it seems disastrous—as the recent execution of Jesus certainly had seemed to Peter and the other disciples.
Ac 2.23—Jesus died as a direct result of the crucifixion. Yes, he was really dead.
Ac 2.24—Jesus rose from the dead. Really.
Ac 2.25—Here’s another fulfilled prophecy. We should expect that.
Ac 2.27—The resurrection was specifically predicted.
Ac 2.30—Like Joel, David was accurately reporting words directly from God himself.
Ac 2.31—David was speaking not of himself (Ac 2.29), but of Christ.
Ac 2.32—The resurrection again, this time with witnesses.
Ac 2.33—The living Jesus is the agent behind what is happening at Pentecost—namely, the coming of the Spirit.
Ac 2.34—Jesus is alive and active in heaven, the presence of God.
Ac 2.36—Jesus is “Lord.” It’s true that the Greek word here (kurios) can mean simply “sir,” similar to Elizabethan English (“Good day, my lord”). But since it often cannot have that meaning (e.g. Jn 20.28), and since the Jews used it to translate the name Yahweh in their Greek scriptures, this statement is much more likely claiming deity for Jesus.
Ac 2.36—Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one—by implication prophet, priest, and king—the fulfillment of the entire Hebrew scriptures.
Ac 2.38—Forgiveness of sins comes from repentance and baptism and brings “the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Note that the presence of sin as part of the human condition is assumed. [Sidebar: here I’m simply listing what Peter is saying; this is what theologians call “biblical theology.” No, I don’t believe that baptism is necessary for the forgiveness of sins; that conviction comes from a comparison of this passage with others, which we call “systematic theology”—and which is not my purpose here.]
Ac 2.39—Again, God’s plan includes both Jews (“you and your children”) and Gentiles (“all who are far off”); God’s plan overwhelms our cultural and social barriers.
Ac 2.40—“This generation” is “perverse.”

How did you do? How did I do? Are there unfounded or biased assumptions in my list? How about yours?

Next time we’ll give some thought to what we’ve found so far and where we go from here.

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Sometimes We Fight, Part 4

January 17, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

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So when believers disagree about doctrine—about their interpretations of what the Scripture says—how do we decide whether these disagreements are worth making an issue about?

A friend of mine, Tom Wheeler, wrote his PhD
dissertation on that very question at the same time I was writing mine. For folks who are near Greenville, it’s available in the BJU library; for folks who aren’t, there’s interlibrary loan. :-) Tom looks at a number of ways we can discern which doctrines are most important, and better yet, he does so without killing you with boring dissertationish prose. It’s a valuable piece of work.

I won’t give away all his ideas, but here are a few—

We can look at what the apostles emphasized in
their sermons in the New Testament.
We can look at the context of NT references to
“the faith” or “doctrine” (e.g. 1Ti 6.3).
We can look at NT confessions of faith (e.g. Mt
16.13-16).

There are other places we can look as well. And then we can compare all the doctrines indicated by those different methods and see where the substantial overlaps are.

I’d like to look more closely at the first suggestion: NT apostolic preaching. This idea isn’t original to Tom; earlier in the 20^th century, C. H. Dodd nearly made a whole career out of the study of the NT “kerygma,” or preaching—though I would disagree with a whole bunch of his conclusions. And the concept was studied long before Dodd as well.

Why would the apostolic preaching help us answer the question? Several reasons—

Directed by the Spirit himself, the apostles
were ordained by Jesus himself to relay inerrantly the facts and significance
of his earthly ministry (Jn 14.25-26; Jn 15.26-27; 16.12-15). They’re going to
relate the most important stuff, and they’re going to get it right.
While several apostles—Matthew, John, Peter,
Paul—wrote portions of the New Testament, not everything they wrote was of
primary doctrinal importance, as Paul
himself said.
But there is a record of several sermons, almost
all of them preached to unbelievers with the purpose of defining this new
“religion.” If the sermon is definitional, it’s going to highlight the uniquely
identifying ideas.
All the apostolic sermons are contained in the
book of Acts.
- Peter preaches several—
  - The foundational explanation of Christianity at
    Pentecost (Acts 2.14-36)
  - The popular explanation of the healing of the
    lame man in the temple (Acts 3.12-26)
  - The official explanation before the Sanhedrin
    (Acts 4.8-12)
  - The Sanhedrin defense of the apostles’ continued
    preaching (Acts 5.29-32)
  - The introduction of Christianity to Cornelius,
    the first Gentile inquirer (Acts 10.34-43)
- As does Paul—
  - His first “synagogue homily” in Pisidian Antioch
    (Acts 13.16-41). This is likely very similar to all his later synagogue
    preaching, which is not recorded for us.
  - His sermon to a pagan audience at Mars Hill in
    Athens, which is rhetorically very different from his synagogue sermon but
    evidences similar doctrinal content (Acts 17.22-31).
  - His “farewell address” to the Ephesian elders
    (Acts 20.17-35). This is unique in that the audience consists of believers.
  - His defense of his ministry to the angry Jewish
    mob in Jerusalem (Acts 22.1-21)
  - His defense before Felix, the Judean governor
    (Acts 24.10-21)
  - His report to Festus, the new governor, and
    Agrippa, the figurehead king, after his appeal to Caesar (Acts 26.1-29).

The last two are different in that they are mostly personal reports of his conversion experience, but they do have doctrinal content as well.

There are other sermons in Acts, most notably Stephen’s defense before his execution (ch 7), but since Stephen is not an apostle, we’ll set him aside.

Now. What we can do is list the doctrinal content of each of these sermons and then compare the lists to see whether there’s a pattern. Do the apostles emphasize the same doctrines throughout their recorded preaching? If they do, then we can argue that these are the defining doctrines, without which Christianity is not Christianity at all—and that they are thus worth fighting for.

So here’s your homework. I’ve made a chart for you. Download it and fill it out by reading each of the sermons noted above. Next time we’ll talk about what we’ve found.

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Sometimes We Fight, Part 3

January 14, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

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As I noted in beginning this series, the Bible tells us to fight over doctrinal issues as well as sinful actions. But it also tells us to give other believers some slack as to how they interpret some biblical teachings. A significant issue in the early church was how much of Judaism ought to be retained in the Christian community. That’s at root a theological question. And in both Romans 14 and Colossians 2, Paul tells his readers to lighten up—in the latter passage, in the context of refuting a false teaching.

So when do we fight about doctrine? And when must we not fight?

The Bible itself indicates that there are different levels of doctrine. Some doctrines are more important than others. For example, Paul says, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1Co 1.17). The gospel is more central than the doctrine of baptism—or Paul’s words wouldn’t have made any sense. (Side note: that’s something you can mention to your friends who believe that you need to be baptized to be saved. If they’re right, then again Paul’s words make no sense–and may amount to malpractice.)

Further, some doctrines are more foundational than others: because you need to understand them in order to understand other things, you need to start your Christian life by learning first things first (Heb 6.1-2). It’s interesting to me that the doctrine of baptism, while less important to Paul, is still foundational, or elementary, according to Hebrews 6.

Over the centuries the church has recognized this distinction between less important, or central, and more important doctrines. The Reformers used the term adiaphora to refer to less important doctrinal matters, and as you can imagine, the Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Anglicans disagreed on specifically which doctrines and religious practices were central and which were not. Sometimes they even disagreed within their own denominations—and it seems that worship practices were the most common area of disagreement.

In the 20^th century the early fundamentalists were so named because of their emphasis on the distinction between the Important Stuff—“the fundamentals”—and the Less Important Stuff. In the succeeding years, a lot of fundamentalists lost sight of that, and it seemed that many who called themselves fundamentalists wanted to fight about pretty much everything; but the early emphasis was on bringing together theological conservatives from widely different denominations—Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, even Pentecostals—because they agreed more with one another than with the liberals in their own denominations. They could maintain their distinctives—with conviction—but still cooperate with others who agreed with them on the core doctrines of the Christian faith.

Early on, that group published a series of books called The Fundamentals, which argued for the centrality of certain key doctrines. Though to some extent that series reflected the hot issues of its day, it served as a valuable concrete statement about which doctrines are worth fighting for.

But for most of the century there was little noticeable work done on how you decide which doctrines are fundamental and which ones aren’t. In other words, when we fight, and when we don’t. (Scholars would call that a question of “epistemology.”)

So now some professed evangelicals think that hell is not eternal, or that God doesn’t really know the future, while others think that anybody witnessed to from any version other than the King James isn’t really saved.

Yikes.

We’ve never been more in need of a set of criteria for this issue.

When do we fight about doctrine, and when must we not?

What are the fundamentals, and what are the adiaphora?

I think the Scripture gives us considerable help on that question, of course. And with further help from an old friend of mine, we’ll take a look at some of that next time.

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Sometimes We Fight, Part 2

January 7, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

My previous post noted that sometimes the Bible tells us to fight over things—and sometimes it tells us to keep the peace for the sake of unity. Since both of those responses are directly commanded—and since, obviously, we can’t do both at the same time—we need to know which is which.

When do we fight? When must we not fight?

I mentioned in passing that there are actually two different areas in which we must make that decision: beliefs and behaviors. Sometimes we need to give fellow believers freedom to act in the way they choose, and other times we must seek to change their chosen way of acting. And sometimes we need to give them freedom to believe what they choose, and sometimes we must seek to change their chosen way of believing. And in both of those areas, if they will not change when they need to, then we must go to battle.

So it’s really important that we know when to fight, and when not to.

On the behavioral side, the distinction is pretty clear.

Sin.

If what our brother is doing is sinful, then we are obligated—because the body is one—to intervene and exhort him to stop sinning—to change his behavior. Jesus himself lays out the process for doing that in Matthew 18. It happens in stages, which are probably familiar to most of us. First you go alone and urge the brother to stop the sin. If he won’t listen, you take 2 or 3 witnesses. If he won’t listen to the group, you take it to the whole church.

A few comments about this process are in order.

First, we intervene not out of authoritarianism, but out of love. Whether he realizes it or not, our brother is being harmed by his sin; there’s nothing good down that road, and there’s nothing loving about letting him proceed unimpeded. We put warning signs on highways when there’s danger ahead, and nobody thinks that’s unloving; in fact, it would be unloving not to care enough to put up the signs.

But that’s not the only kind of love involved here. The body of believers can be harmed by his sin as well; sin hurts bystanders, whether by encouraging them to follow him down the road (1Co 5.6) or by damaging their reputation in the community (Rom 2.24). We intervene because we love the rest of the body as well.

Second, the process Jesus lays out is one of grace, not harshness. The steps in the process increase the pressure slowly over time, and each step occurs only if the previous step did not bring repentance. This means that you’re applying the minimum amount of pressure necessary to bring the brother to repentance. You’re not shooting a fly with a cannon; you’re not “lowering the boom” until less forceful measures have been insufficient.

Third, you’re showing grace by keeping the circle of knowledge as narrow as possible. There’s no gossip here. Even bringing in a few witnesses is an act of grace; I know of cases where the witnesses listened to the “defendant’s” story and told the accuser he was out of his mind to initiate the confrontation—that what the brother was doing was something he had a perfect right to do. The witnesses help ensure against overzealous accusers.

So when the issue is behavior, when do we fight? We fight only when the behavior is sinful, and then as graciously and gently as possible to achieve repentance.

We don’t fight when the issue is not sin—for example, when the person is doing something we don’t like but the Word does not condemn. There are all kinds of things that irritate me—clothing styles, hairstyles, popular expressions, lack of situational awareness, slow drivers in the left lane, Yankees fans—but I can’t be in the business of imposing my personal preferences on others. Especially when I know that some things I do irritate them as well. :-) By showing grace in those situations, I’m demonstrating love, grace, and peace that must have been given to me by someone else, because it’s certainly not my nature.

Next time—what about beliefs? Here it gets a little more complicated.

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Sometimes We Fight, Part 1

January 3, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Tucked away in the tiny epistle of 2 John is a remarkable statement.

John is warning his readers (“the elect lady and her children,” 2J 1.1) about some false teachers in the region. He calls them “deceivers … who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh” (2J 1.7). These are harsh words, more reminiscent of the “Son of Thunder” (Mk 3.17) than the “apostle of love” who wrote John 3.16 and 1 John. Hmmm.

And it gets stronger. This is “the antichrist,” he says (2J 1.7), and the lady must “not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (2J 1.10-11).

Yikes. Harsh.

There’s an interpretational question over what “receive him into your house” means, but even setting that aside, John’s very dark view of these teachers is clear.

And John is not alone. Paul (Gal 1.6-9), and Peter (2P 3.1-7), and Jude (Jude 1.3-4) all warn against false teachers, and many of those warnings include specific orders to isolate the offenders (e.g. Rom 16.17; Ti 3.9-10). Some evangelicals argue that this kind of isolation is commanded only for immoral lifestyles, and not for doctrinal disagreements; in 1Cor 5, for example, the church member is expelled for “hav[ing] his father’s wife,” and in 2Th 3 another man is expelled for not working to support his family. But I find it interesting that both of those passages include references to doctrinal as well as moral issues; in 1Cor 5 Paul orders the believers “not to associate” with several kinds of people, including not only the sexually immoral, but also the “idolater” (1Co 5.11); and in 2Th 3 Paul broadens the group of offenders to all those who live “not in accord with the tradition that you received from us” (2Th 3.6; cf. 2Th 2.15).

So. Sometimes we fight about doctrinal matters, theological disagreements. Sometimes we gird up our loins and go into battle.

But sometimes we don’t—in fact, we must not. The early churches had all kinds of doctrinal disagreements, many of which led to differing beliefs about practice—in modern language, disagreements over what sorts of things Christians could do and what sorts of things they couldn’t do. And many of those disagreements were heated and severe.

Can Christians eat pork, or should we follow the Mosaic dietary restrictions?
Should we keep the Sabbath? How about the other Jewish holidays?
Can we eat meat that’s been offered in sacrifice to idols?

All of these issues had been addressed directly in the Hebrew Bible. God lays down all kinds of dietary restrictions on his people Israel. He tells them to keep the Sabbath—that’s in the Ten Commandments, for crying out loud—and sometimes he kills them when they don’t (Num 15.32-36). And pagan idolatry was absolutely verboten; the prophets wrote whole books against it.

You can imagine how difficult the early Christians—who thought of themselves as simply Jews, delighting in the arrival of their Messiah—would have found the suggestion that things like this didn’t matter anymore. Sounds like heresy to anyone who’s read his [Hebrew] Bible.

And so we find the apostles stepping in and calling for order. And here, surprisingly, they’re not calling for isolating the “heretics.” This time they say that we need to just get along, to agree to disagree, to treat one another with respect (e.g. Rom 14.1-13; 1Co 10.23-31; Col 2.16-17). Love and church unity trump a good many doctrinal disagreements.

Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we don’t.

Now this raises an obvious question.

Which is which? How do we know which to do? When do we fight, and when must we not fight? God clearly thinks both actions are very important, at the proper times.

What are those times?

Next time, we’ll start down the path toward answering these questions.

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