Why I Post the Things I Post

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.  

  

Why You Should Stop Singing Bethel Redding and Hillsong Songs in Your Church

At 34 years old, I’ve lived roughly half my life with the Internet and half without.  I’m old enough to remember a time when pornography wasn’t a mouse click away.  20 years ago Playboy was the most well-known name in porn.  I remember people joking about having Playboy or other pornographic magazines so they could read the articles.  It was absurd, of course.  No one who possessed a Playboy magazine was interested in reading the articles.

But can you imagine parents buying a Playboy magazine, cutting out all the pictures of naked women or any references to anything sexual and then giving their child a Playboy to read the articles?  No.  There are thousands of other books, magazines, or newspapers that a child could read.  Giving a child a Playboy, even with the nudity removed, would be exposing that child to something harmful to his or her soul while giving an endorsement that the magazine was okay.  

What do the preceding two paragraphs have to do with the title of this post, you ask?  My answer: singing the music of Bethel Redding or Hillsong in your church is akin to giving your child a Playboy magazine with the nudity removed.  

How?  Let me explain.

Bethel Redding is a cult.  By any definition of a cult, Bethel Redding qualifies.  Bill Johnson, lead pastor of Bethel Redding, teaches that Jesus was not God when he performed miracles, teaches that Jesus was born again, and teaches that anyone who interprets Paul’s thorn in the flesh as a sickness or illness is guilty of preaching a different gospel.  It is, in fact, Bill Johnson who is preaching a different Jesus and a different gospel.  That is not a charge I make recklessly.  It is also not a charge I make alone.    

Tony Miano has recently started a blog to catalogue some of the false teaching that is coming out of Bethel Redding.  You can read and see more here if you’d like to.

Bethel Redding is dangerous, and thousands of people from around the world are traveling to Bethel to be a part of what is taking place there.  

Hillsong is a little more difficult to pin down, but I believe Hillsong should also be classified as a cult.  Discernment with Hillsong is a little more difficult than with Bethel Redding because the leaders of Hillsong don’t really teach anything doctrinal.  Every time I listen to a sermon by Brian Houston, Carl Lentz, Christine Caine, or anyone else associated with Hillsong, the phrase that comes to mind is “empty words.”  A lot of words are being spoken, but they are empty words, devoid of any real Biblical truth.  

You will not hear anyone from Hillsong confront people with the reality of their sinfulness.  You will not hear anyone from Hillsong call people to repentance and belief in the gospel, the very message that Jesus preached.  

Hillsong absolutely teaches a form of the prosperity gospel.  The Hillsong teaching is that Jesus will make every aspect of your temporal, earthly life better, if only you’ll let him.  

If you read the words of Jesus and the Apostles recorded in the New Testament, if you read the earliest writings of the church fathers, and then listen to or read what Bill Johnson and the leadership of Bethel Redding are teaching, and listen to or read what Brian Houston and other leaders of Hillsong are teaching, it should be obvious that Bethel Redding and Hillsong are both in their own ways teaching an entirely different religion than the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

And here’s the thing, both Bethel Redding, through their music team Jesus Culture, and Hillsong have intentionally used their music teams to build their global empires.  It is through their music that most people are first exposed to Bethel Redding and Hillsong. 

When we sing their songs in our churches, and give credit to Bethel or Hillsong for the song, we are giving our people a silent though full endorsement of those churches and their teachings.  Though the songs themselves may be theologically sound, we are exposing our people to spiritual poison, and telling them to drink it down.  

Once we’ve given that endorsement, how do you think our people are going to respond when a Bill Johnson video or article shows up on their social media feeds?  How do you think they’re going to respond when Hillsong or Jesus Culture come to your town for a money-making concert worship experience? 

When I bring up these thoughts in conversation I’m often met with resistance.  I hear things like, “Chew the meat and spit out the bones,” or, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Those cliches don’t mesh with the Biblical teaching.  

The Biblical teaching is to avoid such men as Bill Johnson and Brian Houston (2 Timothy 3:5).  The Biblical teaching is that an elder (pastor) in a church must both teach sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it, to silence them (Titus 1:9-11).  

People will often say we just need to trust our people to exercise discernment.  In a sense that’s true.  Spiritual maturity is like physical maturity, we raise a person from newborn to maturity and trust them to make the right decisions.  In any church there are going to be mature, theologically sound saints, and there are going to be baby saints who don’t yet have a grasp of sound doctrine.  Do you want to tell your new believers that Bethel Redding and Hillsong are okay, and then have them believe Bill Johnson when he teaches that Jesus was not God when he performed miracles?  Do you want to tell them that Bethel Redding and Hillsong are okay, and then have that believer thinking it’s their own fault or their own lack of faith when they find out they have cancer and healing doesn’t come?

No.  

Pastors are called to shepherd their sheep, which involves feeding their sheep the nutrition they need and protecting them from danger.  Singing songs by Bethel Redding and Hillsong in your church is opening your sheep pen to the wolves and offering them a buffet.  You’re essentially handing your children a pornographic magazine with the pornographic images removed, and trusting that he or she will grow up to recognize pornography as something evil and soul-destroying.

What Andy Stanley is Teaching This Month and Why it Matters

I’ve listened to Andy Stanley’s most recent Sunday sermon three times now.  I watched the 9:00 AM service live online.  I listened to the download made available by North Point Community Church, which came from the second service and contains a few minor differences compared to the sermon I watched live.  Finally, I listened to Chris Rosebrough’s review of the sermon in the February 16 edition of Fighting for the Faith.

Why? I think what’s happening at North Point this month is going to have long-lasting effects on American, and even global, Christianity.

Andy Stanley is easily one of the top five most influential pastors in America, and maybe top 2-3.  It’s impossible to quantify such things of course, but it is easily seen if you pay attention to the broad landscape of American Evangelicalism.  It’s no secret that pastors around the country duplicate Stanley’s sermons and series, and there have been documented cases of pastors plagiarizing Stanley word-for-word.  Thousands and thousands of pastors around America and around the world look to Stanley as a leader and follow his teaching and methods.

Stanley is currently teaching a five week series titled Brand: New.  Stanley’s assumption is that Christianity has been corrupted by “Temple Model” thinking since the days of Constantine.  He defines the Temple Model as being controlled by sacred places, sacred texts, sacred men, and sincere followers.  

His definition of the true Jesus religion comes from half a verse in Galatians.  In the ESV, Galatians 5:6 in its entirety reads, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”  In his sermon series, Stanley has repeatedly quoted the NIV’s translation of the second sentence of the verse which reads, “The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.” 

Stanley is attempting to build a doctrine of Christianity on half of one verse.  And his version of Christianity is one in which it doesn’t matter what a person believes or does, as long as they love their neighbors.  

In other words, Stanley is embracing theological liberalism.  Actually it might be better to say he’s no longer hiding his theological liberalism.

Three years ago Al Mohler asked, following an Andy Stanley sermon, if the megachurch is the new liberalism.  In that sermon, Stanley told the story of two men in his church involved in a homosexual relationship.  One man was divorced, the other still married.  Stanley told the congregation that the men were forbidden from serving in the church, not because they were in a homosexual relationship, but because one was still married and therefore committing adultery.  Many people questioned at the time if Stanley was signaling his approval of gay Christianity - the idea that a person can be actively involved in a homosexual relationship and a Christian.  

When I first read about what Stanley was teaching in the Brand: New series I thought he was going to come out as gay affirming.  After listening to the first and third sermons in the series I’m not convinced he’s going to make that explicit at this time, but I do believe he is laying the groundwork to do this in the future.  Based on comments made this past Sunday, it does seem likely that Stanley is going to endorse female leadership in the church in week five of the series.

All of this is significant because of Stanley’s influence.

If Stanley openly embraces liberalism in the name of bringing more people to Jesus, thousands of others will follow. It should be noted that liberals have been making the same argument for more than two centuries, and that every church that has embraced liberalism is now dead or dying, but the arguments keep being made and people keep buying into them. 

Liberalism has always denied essential doctrines of the Christian faith in order to make the faith more palatable to unbelievers.  The problem is that if people don’t believe in the God who has revealed in Himself in Scripture, if they don’t believe in the Jesus revealed in Scripture, they are not in Christ, no matter what they call themselves.  

The seeker-sensitive movement, in which Stanley is a major player, seeks to make Christianity as accessible as possible to the largest number of people possible.  Up to now, most seeker-sensitive churches have remained theologically sound on paper while functioning as liberal churches.  They’ve managed to keep their feet in both worlds.  

I think that’s about to change.

Stanley has been always been zeroed in on what’s happening in the culture.  Twenty years ago when he started North Point in the heart of the Bible Belt, he could not have survived by openly embracing liberalism.  The Bible Belt culture simply would not have tolerated a pastor who openly endorsed homosexual Christianity, female pastors, a denial of the Biblical account of creation, or any of the other hot-button issues of our day.

Things have changed.  Even among professing Christians today, very few still hold to those positions.  Stanley now sees that it is more costly to deny that a homosexual can be involved in homosexual sin and be a Christian than it is to embrace gay Christianity.  Even in the Bible Belt, it will be more costly to deny evolution than embrace it.  

So, he will say that it doesn’t matter what a person believes as long as they love.  

It was very telling, and honestly shocking, that it in this past Sunday’s sermon he indicated that it didn’t matter that Arius believed Jesus wasn’t eternal.  For 1700 years virtually every branch of religion that calls itself Christian; Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestantism has agreed that Arius was a heretic who was outside the Christian faith.  Stanley said Sunday that it was no big deal.  It doesn’t matter what a person believes, as long as they love.

The problem is that Jesus and the Apostles repeatedly warned against those who would proclaim a different gospel or a different Jesus.  A Jesus who is not eternally God, as Arius taught, is most certainly a different Jesus than the one revealed in Scripture.  The blood of a different Jesus can not atone for our sins.

I do believe that God’s grace is such that those who are unknowingly caught up in a false system can be saved in spite of what they’re being taught if they recognize their sinfulness and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.  But woe to those who preach a different gospel.  It’s ironic that Stanley is using a verse from Galatians as the foundation for his series.  In Galatians 1:6-9 Paul wrote:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 

The immediate context of Paul’s letter to the Galatians was the Judaizers attempting to make circumcision a requirement for salvation.  Stanley is clearly not doing that.  But, in saying that the only thing that matters at the end of the day is how well we’ve loved our neighbors, he is coming dangerously close to preaching a different gospel and putting people back under the yoke of the Law, if he hasn’t crossed the line.  

The summary of the Law and the Prophets, according to Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40, is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  

Loving your neighbor as you love yourself is Law, and the Law cannot save you unless you keep it perfectly from the day you’re born until the day you die.  The problem?  We’re all born dead in trespasses and sins and cannot keep the Law.  We’re all guilty.  So telling people it doesn’t matter what they believe as long as they love others is actually putting people back under the yoke of the Law.

Should we love God? Absolutely! Should we love our neighbors? Absolutely!  But if we try to do so without being given new life by God’s grace through faith in the Jesus revealed to us in Scripture, we remain dead in our trespasses and sins and children of God’s wrath.  There is no salvation without repentance and faith in the true Jesus. 

I don’t yet know what Stanley is going to say in the final two sermons of this series.  I think we all need to be paying attention though.  Stanley’s influence is such that if he goes off the rails of orthodoxy and into apostasy, American Christianity as we know it will change forever.  I don’t think I’m exaggerating.  

Three Reasons I'm Calling on Lifeway to Reform

Over the last week a movement has come together on Twitter known as #the15. I won't go into all the details of what the group is or how it came together, but if you're interested you can read this Baptist News Global article that does a good job of explaining the origin.

The name #the15 came about due to a comment by Ed Stetzer, head of LifeWay Research. The primary objective of #the15 at this point is, at a very minimum, hearing an answer from Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, and the LifeWay trustees on why LifeWay sells books and materials that are not just outside of Southern Baptist beliefs, but clearly outside Christian orthodoxy.  For years phone calls, e-mails, and Twitter questions have gone unanswered.

An acknowledgement that rank and file Southern Baptists have questions isn't really enough though.  LifeWay needs to remove all books, music, and other materials coming from false teachers and false churches.  Furthermore, they need to not offer to order books by Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and gay "Christians" that they don't carry in the store on the basis of doctrinal differences when those books are requested.  The Biblical standard is to rebuke and have nothing to do with those who teach false doctrine, not sell their materials for profit.

Unsurprisingly, #the15 has gained critics.  Some are criticizing things we haven't said. Some have a personal ax to grind with some of the more well known people who have joined the15. One common objection has been that reforming LifeWay won't prevent people from buying bad books. That's true. Unbelievers masquerading as Christians will find teachers who will tickle their itching ears and feed their carnal desires. Paul told us so in 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

Still, I am among those who will continue to call for LifeWay to reform.  Here are three reasons why.

As a Southern Baptist I have both a right and a responsibility to demand doctrinal purity in Southern Baptist entities.  I have an obligation to warn against false teaching wherever I see it, but I don't really have any right to appeal to Rome or cults like Bethel in Redding, CA to change what they sell in their bookstores. I'm an outsider.  I do have a right to demand the leaders of my own denomination adhere to Biblical doctrine.  I can't force them to change, but if I make my concerns known I can sleep at night knowing my hands are clean.

Weak and Immature believers are easily led astray.  Imagine there's a woman named Becky.  She's the typical Southern Baptist wife and mother.  She faithfully attends her church with her family and serves where needed.  She hears a steady diet of topical, a-doctrinal sermons with an emphasis on what she needs to do rather than hearing what Christ has done.  One day she goes to LifeWay and sees a big display highlighting the book Jesus Calling.  She reads that a woman heard from Jesus every day for a year! How exciting!  Becky buys the book and begins reading every day.  She feels so loved and encouraged by the words Sarah Young heard from "Jesus." She has no idea that she's probably reading the words of a demon.  The Jesus of Jesus Calling is not the Jesus of the Bible, but Becky is clueless because she hasn't actually been taught the Bible.  She begins to tell her friends about the wonderful book she discovered.  Soon half the church is listening to the voice of a false Jesus.

The same scenario could unfold with any of the dangerous books Lifeway sells.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  A little false doctrine in one church member opens the door to more false doctrine in that person's life and in the life of the whole church.  A person who wants to buy false teaching can find it, but when Lifeway sells false teaching they could inadvertently lead well-meaning people astray.  As the operator of a Christian bookstore, the burden is on LifeWay to ensure that they are selling Christian rather than pagan books to people who don't know better.

People who are caught up in false doctrine generally don't realize they're caught up in false doctrine.  In my home town LifeWay is the only Christian bookstore that I know of.  So they're not just serving Baptists.  People who are in Word of Faith/Prosperity churches will shop there alongside Roman Catholics next to hyper-legalistic Bible-belters.  Someone who comes in looking for a book by a certain false teacher may not realize the author is a false teacher.  As a supposedly mission-minded denomination, the Southern Baptist owned and operated LifeWay should not miss out on the opportunity to share the gospel with someone who has never actually heard it.  Yes, the person may storm out in anger, but they may just listen to what the person speaking to them has to say.  Either way, the LifeWay employees will have done what they're Biblicaly required to do rather than participating in the spiritual equivalent of selling crack to a junkie.

I don't know if #the15 will achieve anything in the end.  We will rest in Christ knowing we've done what our King has commanded us to do.  Please join with me in praying for LifeWay to reform, for the true gospel of Christ to be proclaimed and defended, and for the Southern Baptist Convention, and all denominations, to grow in purity and obedience to her Lord.

Southern Baptists Need to Stop Hating Thom Rainer

I don’t know who Tim Dukeman is, but he has written an excellent blog post titled Selling Crack for Jesus.  This post highlights a major problem in the Southern Baptist Convention.  It’s not too long, and I’d encourage you to read it before you continue reading this post.

Thom Rainer, President and CEO of Lifeway, seems like a nice guy.  He writes blogs that are helpful for some pastors and churches.  And he makes his living selling spiritual poison.  

His decision to sell books by some of today’s most harmful false teachers is leading many further from Christ and hardening hearts to the truth of the gospel.  

If you don’t believe me, take a look at some of the books found by JD Hall and Justin Peters when they visited a Lifeway together a few months ago.

• T.D. Jakes teaches the prosperity gospel, which is an entirely different gospel than the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and no gospel at all.  He also comes from a Oneness Pentecostal background which denies that God is eternally Father, Son, and Spirit all at the same time.
• Rick Warren distorts the message of the book of Daniel into a diet plan in The Daniel Plan.  
• John Hagee is a false prophet.
• Sarah Young is a false prophet who blasphemously claims to write the very words of Jesus.  It should be noted that the tenth anniversary edition of her book Jesus Calling contains numerous revisions of the supposed words of Jesus.
• Mark Batterson’s The Circle Maker is supposedly a Christian book on prayer, yet his ideas are not drawn from Scripture but a Jewish myth.
• The various books about supposed visits to Heaven contradict Scripture and each other.

In Matthew 23:15, in the middle of a series of woes pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees, our Lord Jesus said this:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. 

The scribes and the Pharisees were the dominant false teachers in Jesus’ day.  Jesus tells us that it’s better for a person to be spiritually neutral than caught in false teaching, for the person caught up in a false religious system, even if it has a veneer of Christian truth, is doubly damned.

In 1 Timothy 4:1 Paul wrote to Timothy, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.”  The source of all false teaching, going all the way back to the serpent in the Garden, is demonic.  

False teaching is not something to be trifled with.  

I have no doubt Thom Rainer knows these verses.  Yet, he sells books by demonstrably false teachers and false prophets for profit.  He personally profits off of the selling of books that contradict the teaching of Scripture, that have their origin not in the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ, but rather are the doctrines of demons.

What does they say about Thom Rainer? About Lifeway?  About the Southern Baptist Convention?

I don’t know Thom Rainer’s heart.  I do know though, that if Thom Rainer’s fellow Southern Baptists actually loved him they would call him to repentance.  The fact that none of his peers among the SBC elite have done so indicates that they are not loving him as they should.

If those close to him truly loved Rainer they would warn him.  They would plead with him.  And if he wouldn’t stop selling the spiritual poison that is he is selling, they would seek to have him removed from his position.  By continuing to sell false teaching for profit he is putting his own soul and the souls of thousands at risk of eternal damnation.  

It is not loving to remain silent when this is the case.  It is not loving to gently ask him why he is selling these books and then drop the issue when he doesn’t respond.  

The way to love Thom Rainer and our neighbors right now is to keep calling on him to stop selling books by false teachers through whatever means are available.  

The way to love Thom Rainer and our neighbors right now is to stop shopping at Lifeway and hope they have to shut down operations if Rainer won’t stop selling the dangerous books he’s selling.

The way to love Thom Rainer and our neighbors right now is to call on influential Southern Baptists like David Platt and Al Mohler, who have spoken out against some of the very books pictured above, to use their influence to remove the books of false teachers and heretics from Lifeway.  

The way to love Thom Rainers and our neighbors right now is to not stop talking about this issue no matter how much smug condescension and bitter hate-speech the Southern Baptist elites like Ed Stetzer ( also employed by Lifeway) and Russell Moore send our way.  

Brothers and sisters, let us love Thom Rainer and our neighbors by not staying silent and not remaining inactive. 

What Makes a Gathering of Christians a Church? What is the Difference Between a True Church and False Church?

In a post last week I set out to establish that the church is defined as the community of all true believers for all time, but that the New Testament also refers to local bodies of believers as churches.  So the church is both universal and local, invisible and visible.  Today I want to explore what makes a local church a true church, and how to identify a false church.

In the early centuries there was only one visible church, comprised of many local congregations around the world.  There was later a split between the church in the west and the church in the east, with the two eventually becoming the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.  During the Reformation an important question arose: what is a true church and what is a false church?

The Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran statement of faith, defines the church as "the congregation of saints in which the gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered."

In Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin wrote, "Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ's institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists."

The definitions are similar, and I think Luther and Calvin have it right.  A true church is a gathering of believers where the gospel and whole counsel of the word of God are rightly taught and the sacraments (or ordinances for some protestants) of baptism and the Lord's supper are administered.  

Let's look at the final words of Jesus recorded in Matthew's and Luke's gospels.

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Matthew 28:18-20

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

Luke 24:44-49

These are two separate sayings, not Matthew and Luke disagreeing on what was said.  There are some differences, but the general idea is the same.  The disciples were to go and make new disciples by proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, baptize those who believe, and disciple them by teaching them from the Scriptures and to obey all that Jesus commanded.  Jesus didn't mention the Lord's supper in either of these statements, but the words of Jesus at the last supper along with Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 10-11 make it clear that the observing the Lord's supper is an ongoing expectation in the church.  Throughout the history of the church, baptism has marked an individual's entrance into the church and the Lord's supper has marked the individual's remaining in the church.  

Right teaching, baptism and the Lord's supper are the marks of a true church.  It would, therefore, not be right to call a group of people who gather together for Bible study or fellowship a church if there is no baptism and observance of the Lord's Supper.  Although the people gathering, if they are true believers, may be the church, they do not constitute a New Testament church body.

A false church would be a church that teaches falsely concerning the gospel or the person and finished work of Jesus Christ.  A church that teaches salvation by works, denies the deity or humanity of Christ, denies the physical resurrection of Christ, or perverts any of the other essential doctrines of the faith once for all delivered to the saints is a false church.  

The Church of Jesus of Latter Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses are false churches because they both teach salvation by works and deny essential teachings concerning the nature of Christ.  While it is possible that some local Roman Catholic Churches are true churches, the Roman Catholic Church officially denies justification by faith apart from works, among a number of other errors, and is therefore a false church. Churches from the Church of Christ denomination who teach that baptism in a Church of Christ church is necessary for salvation are false churches.  Seventh Day Adventists who teach that observance of a Saturday sabbath is necessary for salvation are false churches.  Denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention (my own) may contain true or false churches.  With a denomination as diverse as the SBC each church must evaluated individually.

It should be noted here that a church that holds to an orthodox statement of faith but obscures or does not regularly teach the gospel should also be considered a false church.  Many of today's megachurches have orthodox statements of faith, but you will not hear the gospel preached or the word of God rightly taught.  An endless series of sermons on practical principles for a better, more enjoyable life without the gospel makes for a false church.  Many charismatic churches with their hyper-emphasis on healing and misplaced focus on the Holy Spirit rather than the person and work of Jesus Christ should be considered false churches.  (Please note: I have not said that every megachurch is a false church or that every charismatic church is a false church.) 

Paul told the church in Corinth he “decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).  In the same letter he later told them, “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. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”  Paul's singular message in the church was Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the Scriptures.  

In 2 Timothy Paul wrote to Timothy that the Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus; that the Scriptures are God-breathed; and that they are profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:15-17).  He then commands Timothy in the presence of God and Christ to preach the word in season and out of season.  This is immediately followed by a warning that there will be a day that people will not endure sound teaching but will accumulate teachers for themselves who will scratch their itching ears (2 Timothy 4:14).  In other words, there will be a day, and that time arrived long ago and continues today, when teachers will twist the Scriptures to make them say what people want to hear rather than what they actually say.  People will not tolerate the preaching of a crucified and risen Savior for the forgiveness of their sins, but will demand Christ-less sermons full of practical life advice or promises of health and wealth.

There is true teaching of the word and false teaching of the word.  Just because a man opens a Bible, reads a text, and proceeds to deliver a sermon in a Sunday morning gathering of professing Christians does not mean a true church exists.  The word must be rightly taught, and baptism and the Lord's supper must be administered, in order to have a true church.

Churches such as the LDS or Jehovah's Witnesses with their false doctrines concerning the person and work Jesus Christ and false gospels of works are easy to identify as false churches.  In other cases it's not as easy to identify a false church, not as black and white as we would like it to be.  

Further complicating our discernment of true and false churches is the fact that among true churches there are more pure and less pure churches.  That will be the subject of my next post on the church.