In late 2011 I went to church one Thursday for our weekly young adults meeting. Someone I knew was there already and watching a sermon on a computer. At this point my theological education was still in its infancy. I had done my Old Testament Surveys, Systematic Theology I and II, a preaching class, hermeneutics, and a couple of other non-Bible classes. Even then, watching just about 5-10 minutes of the sermon I could tell something was off.
The pastor could not stop talking about himself. The Bible verses he was yanking out of their contexts didn’t really even support the points he was trying to make.
It was a life-changing moment in a very real sense. I realized then, as an aspiring preacher and teacher in Christ’s church, that the local pastor’s voice is not the only voice that most Christians are going to hear. Social media and podcasts have made it easy for any gifted communicator to build a large audience. Some of those preachers are Biblically faithful preachers of the gospel, some are not.
A few months later I took Systematic Theology III, which had a primary focus on the church. As part of that class I began examining what was happening in the broader church world. Specifically, for my major paper I looked at the Charismatic movement.
In Acts 17 we’re told that as Paul saw all the idols in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him. While I don’t know exactly what that was like for Paul, I think I experienced something similar as I started surveying the global church.
I saw all kinds of nonsense taking place in Charismatic circles, and not only taking place but being attributed to the Holy Spirit of God.
I saw theological liberals denying the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, picking and choosing which parts of the Bible they want to keep based on nothing more than their own feelings about what is true.
I saw the seeker-sensitive megachurch movement engaging in all sorts of gimmicks to get people to attend church, where the pastors then deliver Christless sermons full of practical advice for life improvement.
Missing from all these movements, which combined together contain the majority of professing Christians in the world today, was Christ and him crucified. Missing from all of these movements was a clear articulation of the gospel - that all people were born dead in trespasses and sins, that God being holy and just cannot simply overlook our sins, that God being holy and just has righteous wrath towards sin and sinners, but that God being rich in mercy and because of his great love sent his Son Jesus to live a perfect life on our behalf, suffer God’s wrath in our place on the cross, and rise three days later proving that sin and death are defeated and guaranteeing our own resurrection to eternal life, provided we obey Christ’s command to repent and believe the gospel.
Seeing all of this, continuing to see all of this, I cannot stay silent.
I’ve ruffled a lot of feathers over the last few years with the things I’ve posted on social media and the blog posts I’ve written. I’ve been called judgmental, arrogant, divisive and worse.
It seems that some people think I look for fault in every famous Christian and attack every one I disagree with over any minor point of theology. That’s not the case at all. I could go down the list of all my favorite theologians and pastors and tell you where I differ with them on secondary and tertiary issues. I disagree with my Presbyterian and Lutheran friends over infant baptism. I disagree with John MacArthur’s eschatology (end times theology). I disagree with Matt Chandler and David Platt’s belief in the continued existence of the sign gifts of the Spirit. I think Wayne Grudem’s teaching on fallible prophecy has done great harm to the global church. Yet all of these men are rock solid on the truth of God’s word and the proclamation of the gospel.
Many other popular preachers, teachers, and authors either preach a distorted gospel, like the prosperity gospel adding temporal health and wealth to the gospel or the seeker-sensitive prosperity-lite promising better marriages, better kids, better sex, and better careers. Some, like Bill Johnson who I mentioned yesterday, are actually heretical in their teachings on the person and work of Christ.
None of this is surprising. Jesus warned about false teachers. Paul warned about false teachers. John warned about false teachers. Peter warned about false teachers. Jude warned about false teachers.
Almost all of the New Testament after the Gospels and Acts was written to correct false teaching or wrong practices in the early church. What’s baffling to me is that the very issues that the New Testament letters were written to correct are the same issues that concern me today! 2000 years and we still haven’t learned what God in his goodness had written down for us.
My heart is for the church. My heart is to warn people to flee from false teaching and false teachers. And here’s the truth - I don’t go looking for false teaching. I’m not a “heresy hunter”. Day after day after day I see my Facebook timeline and Twitter feed full of quotes from and links to some of the most dangerous false teachers on the planet today. I’m not hunting it; I can’t escape it.
I’ve used my social media accounts to fight back, in a sense. Why would I stay silent when I see error? Why should I let the false teachers use social media to build their audiences while I sit back and post nothing but happy, positive, encouraging thoughts? I can’t. I won’t.
This is personal. People I know and love, people whose souls I care for, are being led astray by wolves masquerading as pastors of Christ's sheep.
I cannot stay silent. I will not stay silent.
I do acknowledge that perhaps in my zeal to combat error I haven't made it clear enough why I'm so zealous. In trying to point out the counterfeit gospels I may not have not done a good enough job of articulating the true gospel. I started this blog in an attempt to develop thoughts beyond 140 character tweets or short Facebook posts. I can't say that I haven't had time to write over the last few months, but I haven't had the mental energy as the last few months were challenging on a number of fronts. Numerous times I sat down to write something and just couldn't get the words from my brain to the keyboard.
I want everyone to know that I'm always open for conversation about the things I post. If you think I'm wrong, let's talk about it. If you think I'm being unnecessarily offensive, let's talk about it. I only ask that you come prepared to talk about what God has actually said in His written word, so the discussion will be based on God's truth and not our personal feelings.
No comments:
Post a Comment